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Wednesday in the Word

The Revelation Beast Might Just Be Pride, Too

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Revelation 13:3
3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.

At the start of Revelation 13, John tells of a grotesque beast rising out of the sea–a seven-headed, ten-horned leopard with bear feet and the mouth of a lion. Biblical scholars believe this monster represents the Roman empire, or in general, the worship and glorification of secular power and authority. This creature echoes Daniel’s vision of four great beasts (Daniel 7:2-7).

In this quoted verse, the creature has taken what appears to be a fatal wound, only to completely recover, which astounds the world. What kind of beast could do this? No wonder the world follows such a beast of power. Yet this beast stands with the great dragon of Revelation 12 and Satan, all allied against God.

What Does the Beast Mean for Us?

How are we to interpret this envisioned creature for our modern times? Rich in symbolism, it is hard to analyze, but my educated guess is that the creature represents not only the glorification of the secular, but the glorification of all man’s efforts–including man’s pride-soaked efforts for the Church.

Why would I say “pride?” Well, pride, after all, is an attribute that seems able to take “fatal wounds” and recover quite easily. We get our chops busted, lick our wounds for a little while, and then go off toward something else, even something remotely Christian, searching for a way to gain more acclaim, more recognition, as if we didn’t learn last time. Any time we boast of “all we’ve done for the church” or “all we’ve given to so-and-so,” we are no longer doing these works for God’s glory, but for our own.

Man’s pride has many forms, too, just like the beast has many heads–for instance, any time we say to someone, “You need to get right with the Lord, like I have,” or “God told me to tell you your sin is an abomination,” we are making statements of self-righteousness, worshipping our own holiness instead of pointing others to God. There are many ways this beast can invade our churches, our families, and our personalities, and the attack does not always come from outside us; it may well come from within us. Speaking as one who has often courted acclaim and praise, it is a sobering thing indeed to realize that one’s own actions have been unChristian.

As humans, we are still prone to sin, even if we’ve been saved. Pride is but one of the sins we have to be careful of, since it can hide itself in even the most holy-looking actions. That’s why I think the beast of Revelation 13 is not only a vision, but a warning–we can too easily forget to worship God and start worshipping ourselves instead.

Wednesday in the Word

A Quick yet Faith-Based Prayer

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Psalm 71:12
12 Do not be far from me, my God;
come quickly, God, to help me.

This simple verse, couched within a psalm about trusting in God when old age comes and strength wanes, is a prayer that all Christians, new and established, young and old, can remember and repeat in times of trouble.

Ascribed to David because of the references to “enemies conspiring together” against the psalmist in verse 10, Psalm 71 is most especially about hope in God when the world has failed us. Though verse 12 seems desperate, as if the psalmist feels God is far away, the rest of the psalm expresses trust that no matter what happens, God will be there–God has been the “rock,” the “fortress,” the “hope” of the psalmist’s life before, and He will be again.

We, too, can call out to God with this same assurance, and God will be there. His rescue and help may not manifest in ways we expect, but it will always be perfectly timed, and the help we receive will always be enough to cover our needs. These were truths David knew firsthand from his earlier experiences, and they are truths we can still depend on today. Just ask anyone who has experienced God working in their lives!

Wednesday in the Word

Keep Making the Effort for God, Every Day

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Philippians 1:9-10
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.

Here, we see Paul encouraging the Philippian church to keep growing their love as one family of God, to keep strengthening the bonds of Christian fellowship and abiding by the Scriptures, so that they will be “pure and blameless” until the day of Judgment comes.

This seems pretty basic and understandable…until you start digging into what exactly “pure and blameless” means. Does it mean “without sin?” Well, yes. Does it mean “righteous living?” Yes, that too. But does it mean “going around telling others how perfect and sinless your life is, then telling them how wrong and sinful they are?”

In a word: NOPE.

Paul’s words here are not meant to encourage the Philippians to become SELF-righteous, i.e. conceited and haughty about their faith. True, Paul would love for the Philippians to never have a “bad day” in faith, to always be able to “discern what is best” and “be pure and blameless.” But he also encourages them to make their love “abound more and more”–to keep getting better at it every day, in other words. What he’s describing is a Christian life lived in love–lived with the understanding that sin happens to the best of us, and that we can bounce back from sin to serve God better by expending faith-based effort.

These two verses speak of a perfection of faith and love which we will never reach here on Earth–and Paul knows that all too well. But when the “day of Christ” comes, this faith-filled vision will be fulfilled in totality. While we wait for the day of Christ, however, we as Christians must strive to get as close as we can to that ideal, to love as God loves, to behave more like Jesus every day. And that doesn’t mean condemning others–it means demonstrating Christ’s love to others.

Wednesday in the Word

God Is Calling–Will We Answer?

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Isaiah 45:20-23
20 “Gather together and come;
assemble, you fugitives from the nations.
Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood,
who pray to gods that cannot save.
21 Declare what is to be, present it–
let them take counsel together.
Who foretold this long ago,
who declared it from the distant past?
Was it not I, the Lord?
And there is no God apart from me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none but me.

22 “Turn to me and be saved,
all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.
23 By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.

Reading this, it’s almost as if God has left this message on humanity’s answering machine and is just waiting for us to call Him back. He speaks directly (at least, directly through the prophet Isaiah), calling us to “gather together,” to “assemble, to “turn to [Him] and be saved.” This is God as authority figure, God as our Heavenly Father, firmly calling for us to come home where we belong.

Here, we see God referring to the rampant idolatry of Biblical days in no-nonsense words; He treats the many false prophecies about the future in the same way. There is “no God apart from [Him],” He also states–by Himself God swears, to doubly prove how dependable His Word is on these and all other issues. And, at the end of this passage, He promises that “every knee will bow” to Him and “every tongue will swear” by Him, likely on Judgment Day.

This can read as an “angry” statement by God, but I perceive it more as a resolute statement of facts. What is left for us to do is to “declare what is to be”–declare whether we are coming back to God or not. While we worship “gods that cannot save,” like mere “idols of wood,” God waits for us each to make the decision to come back home to Him. He’s laid His terms out there in plain language, which speaks to us just as He spoke to His people in ancient Israel. In fact, He speaks to each of our hearts today…but will we answer?

Wednesday in the Word

Money Shouldn’t Be Our Idol, Jesus Says

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Matthew 6:24
24 No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Whew! Jesus doesn’t pull any punches here! Here, in His first preaching on the mountainside, we see Him warning all in attendance about the dangers of putting too much importance on money and worldly treasure. (We see similar warnings in Luke 16:13 and James 4:4–this is important enough to be repeated in Scripture!)

Now, this Scripture does not mean that we as Christians are not allowed to make money at all; what it means is that we must be careful about the priority we place on any money God blesses us with. If we begin to seek money purely for its own sake, accumulating wealth just so we can have pride in it, we have indeed placed money above God as our “master.” As Jesus points out, the love of money necessarily means that God gets excluded from our lives, because more money means a greater feeling of personal power. The more powerful we see ourselves, the less we depend on God–it’s a slippery slope.

But just resolving to “keep God first in our lives” doesn’t mean that we won’t slip into a money-serving mindset over time. This is something we have to keep evaluating ourselves about, something we have to be constantly mindful of. Otherwise, we could end up drifting away from God and not even realizing it–this is why Jesus speaks so bluntly about this problem!

Wednesday in the Word

God’s Requirements in a Nutshell

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Jeremiah 7:1-8
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Stand at the gate of the Lord’s house and there proclaim this message: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. 3 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.”

God lays it out pretty straightforwardly here: “Straighten up, do as you’re told, and all will be well. Keep doing what you’re doing, disobeying Me and trying to deceive Me, and I will not refrain from reprimanding you.”

But The people of Judah, unfortunately, were too busy following other local deities, killing, and being cruel, all while paying only halfhearted lip service to God. They were even resorting to repeating useless phrases over and over, as if that alone could garner them righteousness. God could see straight through that deceptive behavior, and so He tells Jeremiah, one of His prophets, to literally lay down the Law with these people. All the people of Judah would have to do is follow what God said–it seems laughably easy!

These days, however, we modern folk find it just about as hard to follow what God says. What He says hasn’t changed any, but our drive to be “in charge of our own lives” hasn’t changed much either. We like to pick and choose what to follow and what to ignore out of convenience and self-serving motives, rather than sticking with God 100%. We all need Jeremiah’s message from God, even those of us who are in church every time the doors open–we all need to be reminded of what God requires of us and how He expects His people to behave.

Wednesday in the Word

This is Why Jesus Had to Be Our Savior

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Hebrews 10:1-4
10 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming–not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Here, the writer of Hebrews describes the process of presenting offerings to God for cleansing of sins as being an ineffectual process, never truly getting rid of the sins themselves, but only appeasing everyone’s conscience for a little while. After all, the people themselves didn’t stop sinning after giving an offering, so the process had to be repeated over and over again, whether annually or weekly. And, he notes lastly, “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins”–which undermines the meaning of the whole sin-offering sentiment anyway.

Yet this is the way sins were “cleansed” for hundreds of years in ancient Israel; it was the only way to even attempt living a pure lifestyle, because the Messiah had not come yet. But none of these sacrifices could make the sinners perfect in God’s eyes–even if they clung to the Law as tightly as they could, they still sinned. This period of time existed to prove that humans alone could not live a completely righteous, sinless life, nor could they atone for their own sins.

Contrast that with Jesus, the Messiah, who came to earth as God in human form, living a sinless life so that He would be a perfect sacrifice. His death on the cross WOULD cleanse all sin once for all those who believe. Instead of having to make “endless” sacrifices for their sins, now people could move on from past sins, starting fresh from the moment they professed faith in Jesus’ ability to save their souls and bring them back into a right relationship with God. Jesus did what the Law and humanity’s own efforts could never do: forge a spiritual bridge between God and humanity again.

Now, it’s important to note that believing Jesus is our personal Savior does not stop us from sinning entirely. But it does (or should) inspire us to lead Christlike lives, and it is the only way to go to Heaven. Because of Jesus and no one else, we have hope for heaven–not because of anything we did, but because God saw fit to give us a way back to Him.

Wednesday in the Word

Sinning Against God: Sometimes, We Do It Without Thinking

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1 Samuel 2:23-25
23 So he said to them, “Why do you do such things? I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours. 24 No, my sons; it is not a good report that I hear spreading among the Lord’s people. 25 If a man sins against another man, God may mediate for him; but if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him?”

Here, Eli the priest is admonishing his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, for unlawfully demanding to be given the portion of meat which was to be sacrificed to God. This was against God’s Law, and flew in the face of everything that the Israelites believed–and not only that, these were priest’s sons who were breaking the Law!

Eli is understandably horrified to learn what his sons have been doing. Yet neither of the young men has stopped to think about what they are doing, nor about the ramifications of their deeds. Thus, Eli speaks to them strongly, reminding them that if they sin against God by doing things that God has specifically outlawed, they will have little to no recourse.

To us, the sinful act committed by Eli’s sons might seem silly–why would they keep doing something so obviously wrong? After all, they were priest’s sons and should have known better than anyone not to take the sacrificial meat. But greed likely overtook their better judgment; perhaps they thought that since their father was a priest, they would not get in trouble for taking it.

We, too, can let desire of all sorts cloud our judgment, and we end up sinning without even thinking about it. After all, when we let temporary desires make our decisions, where is there room for prayer and God in our minds? Combine that with the fact that sinning against another person offends God as much as a sin against Himself, and a more complete picture of exactly how dangerous sin is begins to emerge. This is why we have to stay vigilant and truly think out our actions–otherwise, we could end up doing things that neither build nor reflect our faith.

Wednesday in the Word

The Gospel Comes from God, Not From Humans

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1 Thessalonians 2:13
13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.

A Little Bit of History Behind This Verse

To the fledgling church at Thessalonica, Paul writes 1 Thessalonians to encourage them in their newborn faith–he had had to leave the city very suddenly due to persecution, and so he had not gotten to stay with the church and really train them in their faith all that much. Paul did not want them to lose their way or get sucked back into secular thinking, so he sent this letter about six months after establishing the church, reaffirming the gospel as God’s Word.

How the Thessalonians are a Lot Like New Believers Today

In ways, the Thessalonians were in a situation quite like that of modern Christian converts. Very often, new converts get swept up in the fervor of new belief, with mature Christians urging them on and being supportive…that is, until the mature Christians forget about the new convert and move on to the next one who just got saved. Sadly, many not-so-new but not-established Christians get left behind, just treading water in this very new faith, with no one to show them the way to build their relationship with Jesus and begin to trust Him. All they’ve likely been told is that Jesus died for their sins and has washed them clean; all they’ve likely been given is a New Testament or a basic Bible, with very few text notes and historical details, if any.

In this fragile state, new believers can be pulled back into sin or other faith practices, which they had left behind to convert to Christianity. With so little to hold onto and very few people they feel they can talk to about this, they can start to drift into dangerous currents. Paul knew this could happen with the Thessalonians, so he reminds them here that the gospel they received was from God, not just from him. He was the messenger, but God had sent the message; they could trust in that message, and they could trust in God, who was “at work in [they] who believe.”

This affirmation, combined with the strong encouragement and basic explanations of the gospel contained in 1 Thessalonians, helped the new believers believe in the divine message and stay steadier in their faith (though they did need a second letter from Paul to help them further). Similarly, new believers today can use 1 Thessalonians to understand the basics of Christianity and to learn how to grow in their faith. (But a letter cannot take the place of a real human guide to Christianity–thus, why Paul longed to return to Thessalonica as soon as possible, to help them in person.)

Wednesday in the Word

How Great is Our God? REALLY Great!

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Psalm 40:5
Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.

Here, David is praising God for doing great things (“wonders”) for the Israelite nation, as well as humanity itself. This declaration, however, comes in the midst of David’s plea for help that forms most of Psalm 40–but this is not counter-intuitive. In fact, because David knows that God has done great works before, he knows he can trust God to work wonders in his life even now; he knows God is who He says He is, and will give comfort and aid to the faithful.

We, too, have reason to praise God even when we are going through trials, as David did. Though God may not feel nearby, rest assured He is there–often, our own whirls of emotion and dark, despairing thoughts keep us from feeling His presence. The existence of trials in our lives does not mean God does not exist; He is greater than all problems and supports us through each one we face. If we were to try to “speak and tell of God’s deeds” in our lives, all the little things He takes care of for us each day, we, like David, would find them “too many to declare.” Yet they, too, are wonders, inexplicable except by the grace of God.

David’s Psalm 40, and this verse in particular, reminds us that even when we are in trouble, we can praise God for His greatness and providence, because He has proven over and over that He is able and willing to take care of us.