Whispers of Truth

Our women’s ministry team hosted a “blessings” fellowship tonight. Originally, we had asked one of the wonderful women from our church to share briefly how God had blessed her life. Two of God’s blessings in her life unexpectedly needed her more than we did tonight, so she was unable to share because she was out of town serving them. Instead, I shared the following thoughts with the women who came to our fellowship. We had a marvelous time—wish you could’ve been there to enjoy the laughter, fellowship, and the ice cream that followed, heaped with our favorite toppings to remind us that God truly does scoop on the blessings. 1. All blessings come from God. Ephesians 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (NASB). 2. Blessings come in assorted varieties and sizes. A one size fits for all occasions definition of a blessing just     won’t work because God works in ways that just are

I’m stuck on Joseph right now. I keep trying to envision myself in his shoes, and I keep coming to the dismal conclusion that I would more than likely fail miserably to bring any glory to God if I were in his situation. As if being sold into slavery by your own brothers was not enough, he was imprisoned for two years after his master’s wife accused him falsely. I’m thinking that at this point, I would be asking God if things could possibly get any worse than they already were. The cool part is that Joseph saw the kindness of the Lord to him in whatever situation he found himself, whereas I often struggle to get to the point where I can see God’s kindness toward me in far less trying situations. A great example of Joseph’s optimistic outlook (totally devoid of any Pollyannaishness) is found in Genesis 40:5-7. Important new prisoners arrive in the king’s jail, and they are really bummed, as would be expected. When Joseph sees them, the first thing he says is, “Why are your faces so sad t

Joseph is a wonderful example of a man after God’s own heart, and so much can be learned from his life. The thing that I find heartening about his story is that his life reflects what we would most like to deny—the simple fact that life is not easy or trouble-free simply because we serve a powerful God. You know the story: Joseph was betrayed by his jealous brothers who really wanted to murder him (Gen. 37:18). Fortunately for him (and ultimately them), the eldest brother convinced them not to kill him (Gen.37:21-22). Instead, while Rueben was away, the brothers sold Joseph for profit to a group of Midianites traveling to Egypt where he became a slave in the house of Potiphar (Gen. 39:1). For all intents and purposes, Joseph was dead to his family. That seems about as dire a situation imaginable—a seriously deep valley. While Joseph was in this situation, it probably felt hopeless and dark, BUT all the while, God was with Joseph, and He made everything he did to prosper (Gen. 39:3).

           In the Old Testament, God speaks a message of repentance through His prophet, Jeremiah. In Chapter 7, God has Jeremiah stand at the temple gate and call out to the ones entering to worship Him (vs. 1). He asks them to reform their ways if they truly want to dwell with Him and truly worship in His temple (vs. 3). One thing God asks them not to do is oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow—essentially, the ones without protectors (vs. 6). That caught my attention because I recently read an article in a Southern Baptist magazine that highlighted three pastors of three different ethnicities sharing and worshiping in the same facilities. The pastor of the Hispanic congregation mentioned that due to recent legislation in Alabama that seems hostile toward those who are Hispanic, he wouldn’t be going on any excursions with his flock any time soon because he felt he might be targeted because of his appearance. He really doesn’t have anything to fear for himself—he was born and ra

Knowing what to do and doing it are two different things entirely. For many years my temptation has been to perpetually study the Bible and never really “do” anything with what I know. Honestly, if I could, I would choose to be a perpetual student, but that’s just not practical at all. Apparently, this has been a struggle for more believers than just me. I say this because James addresses the issue of faith without works in James 2:14-26. He begins by saying, “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14, NASB). James goes on to give a tangible example of what he meant. He says that telling someone who is cold and hungry to keep warm and be full and at peace is worthless when what is really needed is clothing and food (vs. 15-16). James goes on to say that faith without works is dead (vs. 17) and Jesus says that we will be known by our fruits (Matt. 7:16 & 20). We have simply been given too much to not act upon

I really want to be like Peter. The Bible doesn’t hide the fact that he was human and fallible (like me). In fact, he was rather slow on the uptake about a lot of things (like me), but when he recognized the Truth, he went after it wholeheartedly. One example of this is the story related in John 21. After Jesus was resurrected and had appeared to the disciples, they seemed at loose ends, and Peter, always a man of action, decided to go back to what he knew: fishing. After a fruitless night, day broke on empty nets, and Jesus, unrecognized by the disciples at the time, called from the beach with the suggestion that they try casting their nets again on the right-hand side of the boat. When the nets came up full to bursting, John leaned over and told Peter that it was the Lord on the beach. As soon as he realized who was standing on the beach, he barely paused to put his robe back on and threw himself into the water in a frenzied effort to get to Him as quickly as possible. The other d

One of the hardest things to do is to be quiet and listen, and the older I have gotten, the more I have recognized my struggles with this particular concept. The problem stems from the fact that I’ve simply not lived this way for the majority of my life. I’ve lived the antithesis of this idea, and the reference found in Proverbs 17:28 could have been written for me: “Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is considered prudent” (NASB). A passage that God has recently used to speak to me is Proverbs 8:32-36. In this passage, Solomon said, “ Listen to me, for blessed are those who keep my ways. Heed instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts. For he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. But he who sins against me injures himself; all those who hate me love death.” This tells me that listening is the first step in the process of

          I’ve never really thought too much about the connection between disobedience and unbelief even though it should have been obvious. In Hebrews, the author makes this connection in chapter 3:18-19 as he speaks about the children of Israel who wandered about in the wilderness for forty years (or died of a plague) instead of enjoying the fruits of the Promised Land: “And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief” (NASB). The children of Israel were laid low in the desert for forty years because ten of the twelve representatives of the tribes who were sent into the Promised Land to spy it out came back with positive reports about the land and the negative suggestion to abort God’s plan for his people due to the size and number of their enemies. Their unbelief not only caused them to disobey what God had commanded of them, but it also multiplied their sorrows because God

I know that the last thing the world needs floating around is someone else’s treatise on love, but bear with me if you will because I need to review this. The world really would be a better place if we all lived out the I Cor. 13 definition of love, and in light of this Christians everywhere read, study and dissect this particular passage on a regular basis. You might be familiar with the proverb that states that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; similarly, we all have intentions of loving the people around us and the people we encounter daily, but the results are not always pretty. When the rubber meets the road of my intentions, how do I measure up? When love is hard, I find myself failing miserably, and I have no excuse. Christ loved me while I was still a sinner, and because of this great love for me he died in order to offer me salvation. When I mess up, he is patient with me (long suffering even) and his discipline is not harsh, but rather kind in that it draws me b

           We have so much to learn from the attitudes and actions of God’s people in the Old Testament. In the early books of Jeremiah, the tribes of Israel formerly rejected by God for their faithlessness look good in comparison to the tribes of Judah. Judah stubbornly refused to learn the intended lesson from God’s discipline of Israel; the attitude Judah should have reaped was one of sorrow that led to repentance and salvation. Instead, the Lord declared that Judah acted deceptively because they washed themselves without being truly clean before him (Jer. 2:22/3:10), and he accused the tribes of Judah of forsaking him and worshiping idols made with their own hands (Jer. 1:16, Jer. 2:13). Unfortunately, we, too, fail to learn from the attitudes and actions of those in the Old Testament. Our attitudes are haughty as if we have nothing to learn from lessons old enough to collect the dust of antiquity. Consequently, our actions follow the same patterns as Judah’s, which were so repugna

Years ago, I had the pleasure of hearing Ken Ham speak at a home school conference. I had seen videos produced through Answers in Genesis, of which Mr. Ham is the CEO and founder, and I had been impressed with his teaching on creationism and the passion of his message. In particular, I will never forget a video he used in his presentations and workbooks. There was a picture of a wall, which represented Christianity, and evolutionists were shooting cannons at its foundations while the people on the wall shot back weak volleys. Ham presented the idea that if we allow the teaching of the world to corrupt the foundations of our faith (here, Genesis and God’s work of creation) and the wall erodes, it will eventually crumble. I thought of this tonight as I read over the first chapter of Jeremiah again and noticed where the attack against Jerusalem was to begin: the walls. Jeremiah 1:15 relates the coming attack on Jerusalem from “all the families of the kingdoms of the north” (NASB) who w

Jeremiah is often referred to as “the weeping prophet” because of the sorrow he felt for the sins of his people. Just reading the first few chapters makes me want to weep, and I didn’t experience as Jeremiah did the call to speak God’s words to a people who had no desire to hear the message. Jeremiah was young and afraid, and for good reason—many of the prophets who came before him were treated cruelly because of the message they brought. Even so, God called Jeremiah as a prophet and told him that his youth was of no matter “because everywhere I send you, you shall go, and all that I command you, you shall speak” (Jer. 1:7, NASB). The words Jeremiah spoke revealed that God’s judgment came to his peculiar people because they forsook him, created idols with their own hands, and offered sacrifices to them (Jer. 1:16). In chapter two, God reminds the people of the devotion they formerly had for him and their particular status before the Lord as holy (vs. 1-3) and reminded them of his mi

       Today as I read the passage in Mark 10 about the rich young ruler, I was captured by the question he asked Jesus: “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (vs. 17, NASB). Usually I get caught by Jesus’ response to the young man’s question—that only God is good, not man—but today the part of the passage that caught my attention was the verb inherit . The notion that struck me was that most inheritances usually involve the death of a parent before any goods are distributed among the children. I can just picture the rich young ruler with his wealth that he possibly inherited not long before encountering Jesus. Jesus didn’t look at him and tell him to leave his father and mother as he told others, maybe because they were already dead or maybe because they were not the part of his heart that was holding out. Then again, like many of us who are given too much without much or any cost to ourselves, he might have wondered how to “inherit” eternal life to add to his other