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at Hudson Community Chapel
Week of September 6, 2009
Update
at Hudson Community Chapel
Week of September 6, 2009
Let's hold each other up in prayer as we move through our How to Study the Bible series, that we'll hold strong to Tony's weekly challenges and thirsting for the Word.
Life Answers' Values
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Sometime in the middle of the night, prompted by some recent events and encounters, I thought about how God so often works out good for those who aren't even seeking Him. Romans 8:28-29 comes to mind when thinking about people who love God, but I'm so glad (and amazed and humbled) that the LORD will literally seek out men and women who aren't interested in pursuing Him. I recalled the story of Jonah. Often the focus of this story is Jonah and the fish, but what ought to receive equal attention is that the LORD wanted to bring the people of Nineveh into relationship with Him. These thoughts came to mind as I was thinking of and praying for some folks in my circle who know about Jesus but have shown no desire to have a relationship with Him. But despite this indifference, or hostility, or call it what you will, God keeps on loving them. We serve and worship a God who loves us beyond imagination, even when we don't love Him in return. It is the story of Jonah that gives me hope for these, and all, non-believers! (rg)
How to Study the Bible The first very important point of the week: Guilt, with regard to missing a day (or more) of Bible-reading, is not from God. Satan uses guilt to drive us further from the Word.
Additionally, a God-honoring approach to the Word requires that we have a receptive attitude and that we be both productive with what we gain and re-productive, that we pass on what we gain to others. Making Bible-reading come alive, Tony encouraged us to follow a 3-Phase approach to the study of the Scriptures: Observe, Interpret and Apply. Building on a lesson in March of this year from Matt Koons, the importance of the first step was especially emphasized. How many times have you picked up your Bible and thought after the first couple of verses, "What is this passage saying?" That's skipping a step in the process. The first thing to do is Observe; ask ourselves: "What are the facts?" "Who is talking here?" "Who is the audience?" "Where is the speaker speaking?" "What are the key words?" "What is the grammatical structure of this passage?" "What is the literary genre of the section I'm reading." etc., etc. Putting Observation into practice, we ran overtime taking apart Acts 1:8, putting it into its greater context of Acts 1, and even expanding the context to bring in Luke 1:3. It was actually really neat to see the mental gears turing in Room 10! Two things we must never say at Life Answers ABF:
Is God Really in Control? Do you ever find yourself wondering, "Does God really have things in hand here, or is my life spinning out of control?" I have. Trusting in Jesus Christ at age 18, I soon concluded that if I simply did enough of the right things, my Christian life would be a steady climb toward maturity. Numerous setbacks and failures later, I still believed God was in control and had a purpose through it all. But as my career, ministry, relationships, and spiritual life hit a series of dead ends, I wasn't so sure. Maybe I had just been fooling myself. Instead of God being in control, maybe my life's course had no real purpose after all. Maybe my mistakes were more than God could handle. Haven't we all looked at our lives at times and thought, "Can anything be made of this mess?" On the outside, at least, life at times looks bleak and chaotic. It often looked that way to people in the Bible. Think of Joseph sitting unjustly in a prison cell, David on the run from a murderous Saul, or Hezekiah facing an overwhelming Assyrian army outside the gates of Jerusalem. How had things gone so wrong? Was God's plan still on course, or had He taken a vacation? One of the writers of Scripture addressed this issue in a most unusual way. The book of Esther never mentions God, yet it relates a part of Jewish history that has God's fingerprints all over it. It's as if the writer wanted to emphasize that God is active behind the scenes, even when things seem out of control. Things definitely seemed that way for the Jews living in Persian exile. Being dragged off to a cruel foreign land was bad enough. Now, the king's right hand man had talked him into signing a decree
This young woman - still a girl, really - had the inner fortitude to risk her life by approaching the king on behalf of her people. And the king just happened to have been reading the records of the kingdom, where he discovered that Mordecai had never been rewarded for uncovering a plot against the king's life. So when Esther pleaded for the lives of her people, the king, who loved her, was now favorably inclined toward the Jews. Thus, the Jews were miraculously saved and their enemy sentenced to be hanged. What a story of intrigue in the king's court! And what a story of a young woman whose faith caused her to trust in God's providence, even when God's plan for His people looked as though it would be permanently derailed. The New Testament writers assure us that our Father does indeed have everything under control in our lives. Paul wrote that believers in Christ have been "predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will" (Ephesians 1:11). In other words, God has a plan, and nothing is going to derail His plan as a whole and for us individually. The apostle acknowledged that life in this fallen world is a frustrating mess (Romans 8:20-23), but he says we can be assured that God is using even the smallest details and most insignificant events to accomplish His good purpose in our lives. That purpose is that we become like Jesus (Romans 8:28-29). However messy things look on the outside, God is at work behind the scenes in our lives to accomplish His eternal purpose. And He will accomplish it, for His own glory (Ephesians 1:12). Even our mistakes, many though they may be, won't thwart His plan. "Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass" (1 Thessalonians 5:24, italics added). Like Joseph, we may ultimately understand in this life why God allows events to transpire as they do (Genesis 50:20). Or like many Old Testament saints,
Currently, we see only the back side of our life's tapestry - a disorderly tangle of yarn. When we are tempted to doubt that a beautiful picture is actually being created on the other side, here are some things we can do. First, stay in God's Word. When things get really bad, flood yourself with God's Word. It's the only way to consistently see things from God's perspective instead of our earthly perspective. Second, don't try to read the tea leaves. Don't try to figure it all out. We're not very good at it, anyway. Besides, when we try to make sense of what appears to be senseless, we are choosing to trust what we can see rather than the God we cannot. Accept that we are incapable of comprehending the complexities of so vast a universe. Third, trust our heavenly Father. Trust that He is sovereign, that He does have everything under His control. And trust that He is good, that His heart is only a heart of love for us, and that He is weaving "an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison" for us (2 Corinthians 4:17). Enjoy your week. Send an encouraging e-mail to a friend. RG |
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