Tag Archives: Israel

God Renews Us, February 8, 2021

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. I’m tired of politics. I’m tired of the pandemic. I’m tired of isolation and social distancing. I’m tired of biased news reporting. I’m tired of social media. I’m tired of the increase in violent crime. I’m tired of the growing disparity between classes. I’m tired of the constant bickering that never accomplishes anything. I’m just tired.

Do you feel that way sometimes? If you do, you’re not alone, and I’m not alone. I think we all experience it at some point. The Israelites experienced it during Isaiah’s prophecies. Judah and Israel crowned more bad kings than good ones during their histories. Few stood up to God’s standard as men after God’s heart. More carried the title “more wicked than his father.”

Most often, the prophets spoke out against the kings’ leadership because of two significant issues. First, they allowed and often participated in the worship of foreign gods, in contradiction to Yahweh’s first commandment to have no other gods before him and his second commandment to never make or bow to any image. Second, the kings failed to care for those who could not care for themselves in society, the widows and orphans who had no means of support. The kings made the poor poorer as they accumulated wealth for themselves.

Finally, God allowed his chosen people and the city where the Jews built his Temple to crumble. First. Assyria led Israel into exile, then Babylonia took all but Judah’s poorest and lowliest into exile. Jerusalem ground into broken stones and burnt timbers.

I look around at our country and see a lot of what Isaiah saw. Our nation seems to crumble around us. A few years ago, we heard about the infrastructure of Flint, Michigan. The lead in the water system poisoning its people because of the antiquated water system in disrepair. Then we heard about the bridges collapsing in several states under the weight of everyday traffic and discovered many of our interstate overpasses stood on the verge of collapse with no repair since erected in the 1950s and 60s. The overhead electric grid serving California sparked several wildfires that destroyed millions of acres of forest, hundreds of homes and killed dozens of people.

Our education system crumbles around us as we place near the bottom of the industrial world with students graduating from high school that can’t read or write above the sixth or seventh-grade level. Math skills among our graduates rank among the lowest in the civilized world, and few of our college graduates are problem solvers. They look for answers on the internet instead.

We saw our political system crumble in this last election cycle as both parties slung mud at each other instead of outlining plans for how they would fix the problems we face. The rhetoric on both sides of the aisle continues to divide us, create distrust among us, discourage meaningful debate, and resolve real issues. We have few statesmen left in either House of Congress as parties vote as a block on every piece of legislation.

And it seems faith has crumbled. Before COVID, attendance across most denominations in the US consistently fell. People didn’t pronounce God dead, but many acted like it. We became a society afraid of telling the truth because we might hurt someone’s feelings. And I agree that truth without grace is disastrous. But so is grace without truth. We must stand for something, and if we call ourselves Christians, we must stand firmly on the commands Jesus gave us. Love God and love others. But we must not only stand on them, but we must also act on them.

Today there are more than 5,000 cults in the United States. A cult is a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object. We think of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and others like them, but more than 5,000 small sects register as religious groups worshiping a person or object in this country alone. And collectively, they bring in billions of tax-free dollars. Our faith crumbles.

Israel whined and complained about their plight. I just whined and complained about our plight. Look at any social media outlet and you will see an incredible amount of whining and complaining. But God, through Isaiah has something to say about our complaints. We find these words in Chapter 40 beginning at verse 21.

Do you not know?

Were you not told long ago?

Have you not heard how the world began?

It was made by the one who sits on his throne

above the earth and beyond the sky;

the people below look as tiny as ants.

He stretched out the sky like a curtain,

like a tent in which to live.

He brings down powerful rulers

and reduces them to nothing.

They are like young plants,

just set out and barely rooted.

When the Lord sends a wind,

they dry up and blow away like straw.

To whom can the holy God be compared?

Is there anyone else like him?

Look up at the sky!

Who created the stars you see?

The one who leads them out like an army,

he knows how many there are

and calls each one by name!

His power is so great—

not one of them is ever missing!

Israel, why then do you complain

that the Lord doesn’t know your troubles

or care if you suffer injustice?

Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God;

he created all the world.

He never grows tired or weary.

No one understands his thoughts.

He strengthens those who are weak and tired.

Even those who are young grow weak;

young people can fall exhausted.

But those who trust in the Lord for help

will find their strength renewed.

They will rise on wings like eagles;

they will run and not get weary;

they will walk and not grow weak. (Isaiah 40:21-31 GNT)

Did you notice? God has this under control. He did for the Israelite and Judahites headed into exile. He did for the disciples and the early church as they faced indescribable persecution. And he does for us right now. God sees what happens to us. He knows what we need, how we feel, the anguish and burdens we carry. But God never gets tired. He never gets weary. His wisdom is beyond understanding. And he strengthens us.

Isaiah tells us the young with all their vitality may stumble and fall and grow tired in their journey. But those who trust in God, the creator of all things, will regain their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and never get winded or weary. They will walk and never tire or faint. Will all those things happen this side of eternity? My aging broken body says, probably not. But there will come a day when Jesus returns to renew and restore heaven and earth to its former glory. He will give us new bodies that never tire. We can enjoy that space with him forever when we give ourselves in faith to him.

This place may crumble around our heads, but we don’t fight against this visible place. It’s okay if it all tumbles down around us. We are citizens of a different kingdom. One that will last forever. We are children of the King and will enjoy the fruit of his renewed creation, a renewed heaven and earth, as part of his family. Our mission now is to introduce other to him through love, so his family can grow. So, do we whine and complain, or do we look at the reality of the spiritual warfare taking place around us a praise God for the hope within us as we love others into his kingdom?

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked GNT are taken from the Good News Translation®: Scriptures taken from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) Copyright © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.

Take care of the widows and orphans, July 22, 2019

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

I’m amazed at how the lectionary grabs today’s news even though the scriptures were chosen years ago. The readings yesterday could come from the newscast today without a problem. Listen to these words from the prophet Amos.

“Says the Eternal Lord.

⁴Listen to this, you who trample on the needy
    and bring the poor to ruin,
⁵Who ask, “When will the new moon festival be done
    so we can sell our grain?
And when will the Sabbath end
    so we can sell our wheat?
Then we can tamper with our scales
    and make the bushel measure smaller
And the counterweight heavier to cheat our customers.
⁶We can buy the needy for silver
    and the poor and their property for the price of a pair of sandals.
We can even sell the chaff we sweep up as grain.””

We hear every day about how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We hear about the middle class disappearing and it’s becoming more difficult to make ends meet for families.

The theme hasn’t changed in centuries. Even Jesus said the poor would always be with us. But we are also admonished as Christians to care for the poor. That’s where we need to be careful as we listen the words from Amos. Yes, we will always have poor among us. Societies that tried to live with redistribution of wealth failed. Marxism, communism, socialism, and other experiments that try to take from those that have and give to those that need consistently crumble over time. Those that have just get tired of those in power taking what they have and giving it away.

Does that mean we should not take care of the poor? No. We need to help. We need to try to lift those that cannot help themselves. In Jesus’ day, it was principally orphans and widows who needed the most assistance. Orphans, no family to care for them ended up on the streets begging for anything to eat. They worked for nothing in dangerous jobs, they hired themselves out in the most despicable ways, they stole food, they did anything and everything just to survive. And the widows did the same, but often with prostitution as their only means of survival.

Still many of those orphans and widows died. They couldn’t survive the harsh conditions in Israel along with the oppressive nature of the greedy who failed to help even though commanded by the Mosaic Law. God saw what was happening. He didn’t like it. And he commissioned Amos to let the leaders know just how he felt.

It was over. Israel would no longer hear the voice of God. He would pass by without stopping. God owned the earth, but this spot would be left alone to its own devices. The honeymoon between God and the people he set apart was over.

It wasn’t long before the nation went into exile and it was another 2500 years before Israel became an independent nation again. God means what he says.

So, what does that mean for us today? Are the commands God gave 2500 years ago still applicable today? Do we need to listen to those ancient rules? Doesn’t live and let live work today? Should we let the government take care of the poor, so we don’t have to deal with the mess it creates when we try to do it ourselves?

I think in this country we managed to pass off a lot of our responsibility as Christians when we started some of the social programs like Social Security all those years ago. We let others take care of what we used to do in the church, in our families. We assume taking care of the destitute is someone else’s responsibility, not ours. But that isn’t what God says.

Can we save the world from poverty? No. There will always be poor among us as Jesus says. There will always be those among us who mismanage money, who live without thought of preparing for tomorrow, who have catastrophic events happen that destroy their fortunes, who become physically unable to care for themselves. There will always be a segment of society that prospers beyond belief, that one percent that we all look at and ask why they need that much?

The question we must ask ourselves is what do we in the middle do with our funds? How do we manage what God has given us, so that we might help care for those that need assistance? As followers of Christ, what is our responsibility for relieving the suffering of those around us?

I’m not much of a fan of giving money to the crowd that bombards the cars at stoplights, but I do think it’s okay to give them a bottle of water or a sandwich if God lays it on your heart. I’m not a fan of doling out money to the homeless to watch it go into the brown sacks that feed their addictions, but I am in favor of helping families get back on their feet when dad abandon wives and young children with no means of support.

There are things we can do to be Jesus to those around us. What can you do to the helpless, the hurting, the suffering, the poor, the widows, and orphans you pass by every day? Israel fell into exile partly because they failed to take care of those who could not take care of themselves. I hope we are not falling into that same trap individually or as a nation.

As David recalled the massacre of the 85 priests at Nob as he fled from Saul, he thought of the plight of those who stood against God. Their reward is coming. David said it this way in Psalms 52:

You won’t be smiling
    when the True God brings His justice and destroys you forever.
    He will come into your home, snatch you away,
    and pull you from the land of the living.

[pause]

⁶Those who are just will see what happens to you and be afraid.
    And some of them will laugh and say,
⁷“Hey, look! Over there is the one who didn’t take
    shelter in the True God;
Instead, he trusted in his great wealth
    and got what he wanted by destroying others!”

⁸But my life is abundant—like a lush olive tree
    cared for at the house of the one True God.
I put my trust in His kind love
    forever and ever; it will never fail.
⁹Because of all You have done,
    I will humble myself and thank You forever.
With Your faithful people at my side,
    I will put my hope in Your good reputation.

I want to be part of the David crowd, not on the side of Saul and his sidekick Doeg who used their power to destroy others because of their jealous need for more power and wealth. I want to live the abundant life Jesus promised. Filled with his legacy of peace in a world blinded by chaos. But it only comes through knowing and following Jesus, the promised Messiah, the son of the living God.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Is that really what you want me to do? January 1, 2018

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Bible Reading Plan – www.Bible-Reading.com; The Story, Chapter 15; You Version Bible app Engaging God’s Story Reading Plan Days 99 through 105

Welcome back to our study of The Story, God’s plan to restore us to a face-to-face relationship with Him. If you’ll remember, we have been walking through His word looking at the four movements that permeate the Bible. His word opens with His face-to-face relationship with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as He walked with them in the cool of the day. They gave up the right to see Him face-to-face when they disobeyed His command to avoid eating from the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

From that day forward, God has put in place a plan to bring us back into fellowship with Him. He built a special nation, Israel, to point us to Him and show us how to live in community together and with Him. This is the second movement in God’s story. The nation failed to live up to their side of the covenant God made with them, though, and went into exile in 598 BC and became a vassal of Babylonia. It didn’t become a self-governing nation again until 1948 when Israel’s borders were recognized after World War II. During the intervening 2500 years it fell under the auspices of some other nation’s rule.

The third movement comes in the form of a baby born to a teenage girl in a little village called Bethlehem. He would be called the King of kings and Lord of lords because He is God incarnate. The very Son of God foretold by the prophets centuries earlier. He was part of the Father’s plan to bring us back into that face-to-face relationship God desperately desires to restore with us.

The fourth movement in the story heralds the beginning of the church, the instrument that continues to share the message that God so loved the world that anyone who believes in Jesus as the Son of God would be saved and have everlasting life with Him in His perfect garden. We are part of that fourth movement and have the responsibility of sharing that message. The kingdom has come and we are to share the message with those around us.

The final movement of God’s story tells us of a restored relationship. A new heaven and new earth. A place where the redeemed will live in harmony with God and with each other because there will be no death, no pain, no sickness, no sin, no evil. It will be a perfect place. The place Jesus talks about as the place He is preparing for us to take all those who believe in Him when He returns to take us to be with Him.

So that is the story and today we look at Chapter 15 and what a strange story this is if seen only from our lower story point of view. The book of Hosea would make a terrible B-rated movie. The prophet hears a voice tell him to go marry a prostitute named Gomer.

Well, the first thing I think of when I hear the name, I think of Gomer Pyle from the Andy Griffith show. A little dumber than dirt and always in trouble. Probably not far from the truth in this marriage making idea that comes to Hosea, you might be thinking. But Gomer is a girl, a prostitute. But Hosea hears the voice and heads to the local corner where the call girls hang out. He waits for Gomer to walk by and flutter her eyelids at him, but instead of asking how much, He asks her to marry him. Now that’s a proposition she probably hasn’t heard before. Surprisingly, Gomer marries the prophet.

Things don’t change for Gomer, though. Prophets don’t make much money and she missed the baubles and trinkets her clients gave her. So it isn’t long before she looks up her pimp and goes back to work.

A few months or a few years go by and God tells Hosea to go get Gomer back. Here is that upper story at work again that we just don’t understand. From the lower story, it just doesn’t make sense. We would tell Hosea to cut his losses and run as fast and far away from this prostitute as he can and find a sweet girl with a few morals if he wants to keep his reputation as a holy prophet intact. But God tells Hosea to go back to the red light district and get Gomer back.

Can you imagine the look on her face when she hears the knock on her door expecting another of her clients, opens the door, and sees Hosea on his knees begging her to come back home? She goes reluctantly but still plays the harlot even when she goes back home. Hosea pleads with her more to give up her life of prostitution.

The lower story seems crazy to us. We see a prophet ruining his life chasing after this promiscuous woman. He has two children with her and even their names teach us what a terrible tragedies their marriage held. Their names meant God-scattered and unpitied, Jezreel and Lo-Ruhamah. Kids often live up to their names. How would you like to be Hosea’s kids growing up in their suburb of Jerusalem?

We don’t know the final outcome of Hosea’s marriage. We don’t know if Gomer ever straightened her life out or not. From the tone of the story and the message Hosea gives Israel, it doesn’t sound like it. You see, God used this unlikely lower story to share His upper story with His chosen people and all the nations who would hear about Hosea from that day on. He used Hosea’s life as an example of His indescribable love for us. A love that wants to rescue us from the deepest darkest sins and bring us back into His loving arms. A love that even when we run away from Him, He works diligently to bring us back and restore our relationship with Him.

Too often, like Gomer, we turn our eyes back to the old life and run away from God. We just won’t let Him care for us and provide for us the way He desires. Instead we turn to the pimp of the world thinking that life that leads to our ultimate destruction is more attractive. But like Gomer’s life, filled with temporary glitter and one night stands, it only leads to heartache and death.

We see again in these unlikely characters a lower story that seems to lead to No-wheres-ville. How could God ever use this mess in His march to bring us back to Him. But then in His upper story, we see His plan of redemption unfolding as He seeks the restoration of Israel through the demonstration of this prophet’s unusual life story. God wants us back. God chases us to redeem us. But we still have the final choice to make.

Did Gomer stay with Hosea and live happily ever after? We are not told. I’d like to think so, but we don’t know for sure. She may have wandered back to her life of prostitution. Or she may have straightened out her life and been faithful to Hosea the rest of their lives together. I doubt if it was a happily ever after in either case. The consequences of Gomer’s lifestyle would have continued to follow her through her married life with the snide remarks, the whispered gossip, the sly glances. Life for them as a couple would never be normal.

But God can do something so much better for us. Like Gomer, we may still suffer some of the consequences of the sins we commit before we decide to follow God, but He promises us everlasting life in His perfect garden when we follow Him. He tells us as His followers we will one day live walk with again face-to-face. What a great time that will be.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more about The Story and our part in it. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Who you gonna call when you need advice? – December 4, 2017

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Bible Reading Plan – www.Bible-Reading.com; The Story, Chapter 14; You Version Bible app Engaging God’s Story Reading Plan Days 92 through 98

This week we read the story of Rehoboam. When we think about this young king, we think about what a tragic story and how God must have messed this one up. Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, took the throne after his father. Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s advisors and military leaders came to the new king and recommended the heavy tax burden and labor force Solomon had levied on the kingdom be lightened. The people were about to revolt because of all Solomon had demanded of them during his reign.

You see, Solomon lost sight of what he had promised God. Instead of God being the most important thing in Solomon’s life and service to his kingdom being his most important task, Solomon decided the kingdom belonged to him and was from his pleasure. He needed a lot of stuff to support those 1,000 wives and all those guests that kept coming to visit. Take a look at the list of what it took just to feed that crowd every day and you’ll begin to understand just why Jeroboam asked the new king to ease up.

Well, Rehoboam does a smart thing as a new king. He goes to his father’s council and asks their opinion of Jeroboam’s plan. The council agrees. They tell Rehoboam if he will do as Jeroboam asks, the people will honor him and follow him as king. The twelve tribes will remain loyal without question. But Rehoboam decides he will ask his friends that grew up with him in the palace. Remember those 1,000 wives? They had a lot of children. I can imagine Rehoboam and all his palace friends had just about anything they wanted with a father who knew no limits to his wealth. Solomon had anything he wanted. Silver was like stones on the ground it was so common in Jerusalem. Solomon owned tons of gold. Rehoboam was the spoiled king’s son and all his friends didn’t want that free ride to end.

Their advice…tell everyone if they thought his father was harsh and had heavy taxes, just wait until you see what he has in store for them. Rehoboam liked the rich kid syndrome and took the young friends’ advice. Jeroboam took his followers and revolted. Ten tribes left the kingdom. Only Judah and Benjamin remained under the reign of Solomon’s son. Rehoboam was partly paying for Solomon’s failures. Remember he failed to follow God’s laws by marrying all those foreign wives and allowing idol worship into the kingdom. He took his eyes off of what was important and began thinking riches were more important than God. So God took most of the kingdom away from Solomon’s son. Consequences of our sins never affect just us.

But just when you think God’s upper story has crashed, take a look again. Rehoboam gets the smallest portion of the kingdom because of Solomon’s failure. Rehoboam sees the rebellion and civil war rip apart a great nation because he took the wrong advice. Israel is divided. How can God’s upper story possibly survive such disastrous character flaws like we see in Solomon and Rehoboam? Well, we can only see the immediate. We can’t see around the bend. We’re limited in our view of reality because we aren’t God and don’t understand His view from His upper story.

But Rehoboam is one of those unlikely characters through whom God acts. The nation is split, but Judah stays loyal to the Rehoboam, a descendant of David. And guess who come from the line of David. Jesus. Judah’s tribe. Rehoboam’s bloodline. This rebellious young king who wouldn’t take good advice is one of those in the line of Mary and Joseph. Unlikely characters become part of God’s great plan.

So what does that tell you and me? First, it tells me we can’t stop God’s plan. He will make His ultimate will happen no matter what we might try to do to stop it. Second, we can choose to follow Him or not, but there are consequences that come with our choice. When we follow Him, we avoid the natural consequences that follow evil behavior. The law that we reap what we sow happens. Third, the consequences of our choices are not limited to just us. What I do affects my family and all those whose lives I touch. And again, I can’t influence the consequence, only the choices that I make. The consequences are natural results of the choices.

We will all make some choice we would like to redo. We have all probably take advice from someone that wasn’t as wise as we thought they were. We have probably all listened to the wrong group of friends at one time or another and now live with some of those consequences we wish we could redo.

God knows all about those. But He also made a way to forgive us and help us be a part of His plan. He made a way for we imperfect, mistake ridden, broken people to participate in His upper story so that we can join Him in His perfect garden one day. He wants us to have that face-to-face relationship we once enjoyed with Him in the Garden of Eden. He has put a plan in place to do that. It’s His upper story and in His time and in His way, He will bring all who follow Him together again into His paradise.

So here we are. We have choices to make every day and we often need to get advice from those around us. Can I suggest we look for the wise among us to find the best advice, not necessarily the popular or the smart or those filled with what the world thinks is knowledge. Rehoboam paid a high price for taking foolish advice that benefitted him instead of the kingdom. Take a hard look at the advice you get and who benefits from the advice you get. Remember we are to be servants not the served. That’s what Jesus taught us by example. Living with His philosophy of life makes those choices a lot less difficult to discern. Give it a try.

What do you wish for? – November 27, 2017

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Bible Reading Plan – www.Bible-Reading.com; The Story, Chapter 13; You Version Bible app Engaging God’s Story Reading Plan Days 85 through 91

Some of you might be old enough to remember getting the Sears and Roebuck catalog about this time of year growing up. We would eagerly await its arrival and mom and dad would try to point us to the clothing sections to get us to point out what we wanted for Christmas, our fingers would always turn to those dozens of pages in the back with all the toys. Board games, cowboy outfits and toy guns, bicycles and skateboards (the simple ones with metal roller skate wheels on the bottom of a flat board, back then. Pogo sticks. Basketballs and footballs. Or maybe it was the dolls and dollhouses, baby carriages and things the girls like to browse through. I’m not sure what those pages held because I always skipped over them to get to the adventure stuff.

We would circle what we wanted and earmark the pages hoping someone would get the hint of what we really wanted. Most of the time, it wasn’t practical and was too expensive, but it was fun to dream. We would spend hours looking through those catalogs every year. Kids today miss out a lot by not having catalogs. Yeah, they can find anything they want on the Internet, but it’s just not the same. You lose that tactile experience of flipping through the pages, circling that long awaited treasure, and leaving the breadcrumb trail for mom and dad to discover your deepest desire in the pages of the giant Sears book.

David’s son, Solomon didn’t have a Sears and Roebuck catalog, but not long after his coronation, God came to him in a dream and asked him what he wanted most of all. Just name it and it’s yours. If you were a young man in the prime of life and just given the keys to the kingdom, literally, what would you ask for? I bet most of us would at least ask for the bills to be paid off. Maybe a new car or a better job. Money would top most people’s most wanted list.

But Solomon didn’t ask for a big house or more friends or a better job or a lot of money. He didn’t ask for the things most of us would ask for if given a blank check to have anything we wanted. Solomon said these words: “Lord my God, you have now made me king. You have put me in the place of my father David. But I’m only a little child. I don’t know how to carry out my duties. I’m here among the people you have chosen. They are a great nation. They are more than anyone can count. So give me a heart that understands. Then I can rule over your people. I can tell the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Who can possibly rule over this great nation of yours?”

The Bible says, “God was pleased that Solomon had asked for that. So God said to him, ‘You have not asked to live for a long time. You have not asked to be wealthy. You have not even asked to have your enemies killed. Instead, you have asked for understanding. You want to do what is right and fair when you judge people. Because that is what you have asked for, I will give it to you. I will give you a wise and understanding heart. So here is what will be true of you. There has never been anyone like you. And there never will be.

“And that is not all. I will give you what you have not asked for. I will give you riches and honor. As long as you live, no other king will be as great as you are. Live the way I want you to. Obey my laws and commands, just as your father David did. Then I will let you live for a long time.”

Did God grant Solomon’s request? You bet. We have a sampling of his one line tools for successful living in the proverbs attributed to him. If we would live by those one-liners he gave us, we wouldn’t have near the trouble we cause ourselves in life. Our problem is we just don’t pay attention to all those good rules Solomon gives us. Simple things like: “Riches that are gained by sinning aren’t worth anything. But doing what is right saves you from death.” or “Hands that don’t want to work make you poor. But hands that work hard bring wealth to you.” or “A wise heart accepts commands. But foolish cattering destroys you.” Or one we really need to hear today, “Hate stirs up fights. But love erases all sins by forgiving them.”

No one was wiser than Solomon. Kings, queens, and leaders from all over the world came to sit at his feet and listen to him and were astounded by his wisdom. They showered him with tremendous gifts from their kingdoms to honor him and the wisdom he shared with them as they came to visit. Solomon became renowned throughout history for his understanding and the magnificence of his kingdom. Why did he receive all of this? Because he humbly asked for something greater than himself. He genuinely pleaded for a gift that would benefit others more than it would him. He asked for the wisdom to rule. As one of David’s youngest sons in a family filled with jealousy, turmoil, and internal rebellion to determine who would sit on the throne, Solomon would need all the wisdom he could get to keep the kingdom intact.

Solomon knew what was important. Unfortunately, he didn’t keep the commandments as he promised he would. He soon started marrying the daughters of some of those visiting kings to form treaties with neighboring kingdoms. God’s laws said don’t marry outsiders so they wouldn’t tempt the Israelites to worship their foreign gods. Solomon didn’t pay attention and it wasn’t long before those 1,000 wives brought their idols into the palace and the kingdom started following their example. If only…

Like many of those unlikely characters in the Bible, God still used Solomon. He also teaches us a thing or two by letting us see the good, the bad, and the ugly based on the decisions we make. Solomon didn’t live by his own proverbs later in life and watched his kingdom begin to crumble from the inside because the people in the kingdom failed to follow God the same way he failed to follow God. He let power and fame and riches and wealth become more important to him than living by the precepts his father David taught him.

Jesus reminds us of some of those same philosophies 1000 years later when he told those around him on the hillside during the Sermon on the Mount. “Put away riches for yourself in heaven. There, moths and rust do not destroy them. There, thieves do not break in a d steal them. Your heart will be where your riches are.” If we could grab hold of what Solomon and Jesus told us, really believe it, and live it from day to day, we would not buy into the lies the world tells us and live so much better off than we do in trying to grab that golden ring the world says we need.

Solomon was really smart man. Jesus was smarter. We can trust the pearls of wisdom they left behind for us. Just believe them and live them and you’ll be amazed at how much better you days go. You’ll be shocked at how the stress falls away and days seem to be filled with more joy and happiness. You see it’s not things that bring happiness. It’s the relationship with God and with people that make the difference in whether life is enjoyable or not. Give the ancient king’s words of wisdom a try. You’ll like them.

God builds a nation (Genesis 12-35), September 11, 2017

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Today’s Podcast

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Welcome back to our study of “The Story,” God story of His plan to bring us back to Him. Last week we talked about the Garden of Eden, why we are no longer in it, the curse of evil we all inherited because of Adam and Eve’s decision to disobey, and God’s working to redeem us – to bring us back into fellowship with Him. The story of the Garden is the first of five major movements in God’s word, His story. Today we begin the second movement, the birth of the nation of Israel.

Bible Reading Plan – www.Bible-Reading.com – or Genesis chapters 12-35

When I was a kid, I’ll have to admit I wasn’t the most athletic person in my community. I was always the geek. Loved reading and science and math. I enjoyed learning more than running around outside getting all hot and sweaty. So one of the things I remember about that time of my life are the games we had to play in school in which someone was made the captain of each side and those captains began to choose their team from all the kids around them. If I wasn’t the last person picked, I was next to last just about every time.

I just wasn’t very good at sports and so I never got picked early. I could write well, debate, take tests of all kinds and perform at the top of the class in those areas. But sports? Not so much.

A strange thing happened on one of those fields one day, though. One of the best players on the field was a friend. On this particular day, he was chosen as the captain of one of the teams. I was at the back of the crowd of kids trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.Trying not to be as embarrassed as usual. I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on at the front of the crowd because I knew I’d be one of the last one’s whose name was called.

But my friend, the captain that day, made the first pick and he called my name. He had to call it twice, though, because I was in shock. No one picked me first. The other captain called a name and then my friend called the name of the second least likely to be asked to play. Then when he called the third name for his team, it was another geek, least likely to play any kind of sport. And that’s how it went until everyone was picked.

I don’t even remember what the score was at the end of the softball game that day, but I remember being called first when teams were formed. I also remember we didn’t win the game, but all of us on that team played our hearts out for our captain. He broke the cultural traditions and put together the worst team you could imagine.

God’s story, beginning at Genesis 12, tells of the selection of two unlikely people. If we were trying to build a nation, we wouldn’t pick Abram and Sarai. We would probably find the son of some wealthy king and spark a new nation from him. We would probably look at the pedigree of those who applied and like the majority of the world, we would peruse all those resumes to pick the very best couple we could to form this new nation.

But God’s story is a little different. He chooses some of the most unlikely people to carry out His plan so there is no question about His intervention in the story. Abraham and Sarah (God changed their names along the way) were old. She was barren. They had no children. How was a great nation to start from an old couple with no children. He was already well past retirement age when his son Isaac was born. Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90.

Then about fifteen years later, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. The heir to his property. The one who was promised as the means of building a new nation that would bless all the other nations of the world.

These 20 plus chapters in Genesis tell the story of how God chooses the way my friend did that day on the field. There is one really important difference, though. On the softball field, that broken team didn’t play very well. We played hard, but we lost. But when God chooses someone to carry out His work, when we do what He asks, the plan never fails. The plan doesn’t fail because God doesn’t fail. He intends to use men and women like Abraham and Sarah to bless others.

Was Abraham perfect after God chose him? Not by a long shot. That’s one of the things that’s different about His Story. He tells us the good and the bad about the heroes in scripture. God’s story doesn’t hide the disappointment, the disobedience, the sin in the lives of those upon whom His kingdom is built. It’s one of those “tell all” kinds of stories. We see behind the curtain and see all the warts and wrongs and brokenness of those God chooses to do His work.

What that tells me, when I read stories of Abraham and his deceit with Pharaoh or the story of Jacob lying to his father and stealing his brother’s birthright or the story of Judah sleeping with his daughter-in-law, is that God can use all the people the world would never pick. He looks at the back of the crowd at those who are least likely to succeed. He finds those who the world would snub their nose and question why God would think to use “that person.”

God knows what He is doing, though. God works through some of the least likely for two reasons, I think. First, when those least likely carry out His plan and others around see the success of God’s work through the efforts of the least likely to succeed, there can be no question that God is part of the plan. There is just no other way to explain how things work because we cannot see around the bend in the road. We can’t see how everything will work because we live in the lower story of God’s word while He operates in the upper story.

God not only sees what’s ahead, but intervenes to make sure His plans happen as He intends. Second, when we read about people like Judah and Jacob and Abraham and the mistakes they made yet were honored by God when they returned and followed Him, we can understand that God can use you and me too. He can take us with all our warts, all our brokenness, all our failures and turn us into instruments of His love and part of His great plan.

The question is whether we will be part of His plan or fighting against His plan. The choice is ours to make. God won’t force us to follow Him or accept Him as our redeemer. He won’t push us to do something we refuse to do. He will let us choose our own path. But we also suffer the consequences of taking the wrong path. He tells us how best to live. His word gives us instruction on how to get along with others, how to succeed in life. How to treat our children and our spouse. How to find Him and His redemptive power in our lives. But still, God lets us choose. He knows the best path for us and if we will look up and follow Him, He will show us which path to take. But we still get to choose whether we will take it or not.

So here we are at the beginning of the nation of Israel. God made it possible for Abraham to bless the world through his offspring. Abraham decided to accept God’s offer and to follow Him. You can look at the first chapter of the New Testament and discover just how blessed the world is because of Abraham’s faithfulness. Jesus is his descendant. Both Mary and Joseph trace their heritage back to this man who decided to trust God and follow the path He laid out.

So what can you do? Can you change the world for God? No. Neither could Abraham. But God can change the world through you just as He changed the world through Abraham. An unlikely candidate for greatness, but God change that in Abraham. You might think you are an unlikely candidate for greatness. But God can use you to carry out His plans and make all things good as you carry out His purpose in your part of His creation.

So what will it be?