Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Do Not Fear

Dan. 10:12 "Then he said to me, 'Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words.'"

Here it is. This is exactly what I wrote about in my last post...Daniel's heart. Verse 11 once again reminds Daniel that he is "greatly loved" and here we are again with the assurance that God heard Daniel right from the beginning - from the first day that Daniel "set his heart to understand", from the first day that he "humbled himself before God", from the first day that he declared His dependence on God in prayer: "at the beginning of your supplication". God paid attention. Why? Because Daniel was so great? Because he had authority in Babylon? Because he was a leader of his people? No. Because he prayed. Because he wanted to understand what was going on . Because he humbled himself...God paid attention - from the first day.

The cool thing is the first thing Gabriel said to him: "Do not fear".

Wow. Powerful words for today. Powerful words for the church. Powerful words for me. If we are praying and going to God with an honest heart, with a heart that wants to consider what is going on, with a humble attitude realizing that we do not have any answers, with a humble heart that realizes who we are and who He is...with a heart that wants to understand in humilty, then we do not have to fear. All kinds of garbage may be swirling around us, but we do not have to be afraid of it.

Right now, people are afraid of losing their savings, losing their 401K, losing their retirement, afraid of their bank failing, Wall Street crashing, our financial institutions going down the tubes and God says to us: "Do not fear." If I have a seeking, humble heart, I do not have to fear because I know who is in charge...and He is listening.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Greatly Loved

Daniel 9:23 "At the beginning of your supplications, the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved, therefore consider the matter and understand the vision."

Isn't this interesting that as soon as Daniel started to ask...at the beginning, from the first time he approached God with his request the command, actually speech went out. God's word came out, apparently telling Gabriel to go to Daniel and tell him something. Tell him the meaning of the vision, yes, but I think to tell him something even more significant, more personal: "you are greatly beloved.". Gabriel came to Daniel and told him that God delighted in him, that he was pleasant to God, that he was precious in God's sight. Why? I think because of his heart. Here is Daniel, pleading with God for the very soul of his people. Here is Daniel confessing his people's sin and begging God to hear, to listen, to forgive and to act, and God was doing just that. He was listening and He was acting. "As soon as you began to speak, God's word went out in a command and told me, Gabriel, to get moving, because you are greatly loved by God."

Can we see the hand of God move like that today? Can I see the hand of God move like that today? Yes. I believe we/I can, but it is going to take a genuine heart from me/us. If I genuinely go to God and pour out my heart for me, my family, my church, my country - God will act. But if, in my prayer life my heart is not moved, God's heart will not be moved. If our hearts are not genuinely affected, God will not act. We need to stop going through the motions and start pleading. We need to stop playing church and be the church. We need to come to God with our heartfelt needs and watch Him work. As soon as we do, He will give the command and we will see Him work. God greatly loves us. Let's cut Him loose.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

"O Lord Hear"

Daniel 9:19 - "O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for your own sake, my God, for Your city and your people are called by Your Name."

Daniel...what a heart! This guy probably was doing something that many in Israel should have been doing but weren't - praying, confessing, pleading. Look at verse 13 "we have not prayed". Daniel was putting an end to that. He was going to God and pleading for the life of his people. He wasn't just going to God by himself for himself. he was going to God for his people, his nation. Even though no one else was doing this, he was going to do it. He asked God to hear him. To pay attention. To forgive. I can hear him say: "Please Lord, give attention, please listen to me, please pardon us for the sin we have committed and then do something. Please act on our behalf but not just for our sake but for the sake of your reputation."

I was at lunch the other day watching the world go by and it hit me that we are all clueless. We are all living our lives as if God is not paying attention. As if God is not involved at all. The thing is, God is very involved. God is orchestrating the very events that are going to impact our nation. The problem is, few are pleading. Few are asking God to hear and listen and forgive. The scary thing is that while we can't expect the world to pray or respond with the realization that God is in charge, we in the church should be responding that way. We in the church should be praying and pleading...but we really aren't. That is what is scary. That people of faith are not praynig, not confessing, not pleading with God for the life of our nation. At any time in history we should be doing this. With the finanacial concerns we are facing, with a Presidential election coming up, with the huge decisions that need to be made in the immediate future.

I must confess. I am not praying as I should. That needs to change. "O Lord hear, O Lord forgive, please Lord listen and act...so that the world can see that you are God. So that the church can see that you are God."

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Financial Ruin (cont.)

Daniel 9:13 "As it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we minght turn from our iniquities and understand your truth."

Disaster. Bad word. Not a word that any of us want to hear. The Hebrew word actually means bad, evil, unpleasant, sad, unhappy, wicked. Who wants this? No one. Yet even in the middle of it, Israel did not pray. They did not grieve. They didn't beg God to intervene. And they did not not turn back - they did not repent, and they did not pay attention or understand the truth of God. Wow, this is so relevant.

Are we in a disaster in this country? Some would say yes. In fact the New York Times said that the country was: "...literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system." Many would say that this is a disaster.

Why? We have not followed God's word. We think we can play around with the truth. In fact, we think we can ignore the truth and get away with it. Now it is coming back to bite us. So how should we respond? With prayer, with repentance, with seeking the truth. Israel did not in Daniel's day and they paid the price. Are we going to be like that? Or are we going to finally realize that God is in control? His laws are immutable. Just like we cannot ignore God's law of gravity, we cannot ignore God's other law that pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. We are way too proud. We are way too haughty. We are way too self sufficient. We are way to self absorbed...and we have been way too self indulgent. We need to understand the truth and start living it. The end game is too important.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Financial Ruin

I know that I am getting away from 2 Corinthians, but I have been reading in Daniel lately and this is unbelievably timely. I wrote this in my journal yesterday. Look at this:

Dan. 9:8-10 "O Lord to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes and our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets."

Wow. How timely. I am preaching today. Weird...me preaching. I am talking about God's word and its importance in our lives and how we need to obey it and get to know Jesus through it. In the middle of all of this, we have this threat of financial collapse in the country. If the markets go, we go. If the banks go, we go. If the insurance companies go, we go. No longer the proud, pompous country we have been, but a humbled country, a shamed country, an embarassed country. Why? v 10 Because we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws...

This shame fo face, this embarassment extends to our president (kings), our congress (princes) and get this to our fathers - us. None of us are innocent. We have all screwed up. We have all gone after greed and selfish interests and now we are reaping what we have sown. Kind of depressing, but something we all have to deal with. We all have to look deep within and ask, "Am I a part of the problem?" How do I live my life? Selfishly? Greedily? Is it all about me? The problem is that this is sin. It is missing the mark that God has placed in front of us/me.

The cool thing is verse 9. To the Lord our God belng mercy and forgiveness even though we have rebelled against Him.

Plead for God's mercy, confess our sin, claim His forgiveness. Where am I?

More tomorrow.

Postscript: What I told people yesterday was that we love to blame other people for our problems. We love to throw it all on Washington or Wall Street. Sure, Washington and Wall Street operated with unbridled greed. The problem is, so did we. Buying houses we knew we could not afford, getting stuff that we do not need that we did not have the cash for so we put it on our credit cards, using home equity loans to get us deeper in debt. We are all greedy. We are all at fault and we all have to pay for our error. If only we had remembered the words of that wise man who wrote thousands of years ago: "The borrower is servant to the lender." Prov.22:7 Unfortunately, now, with a $700 billion bailout that we do not have the money for, we will all be serving someone...Maybe China. Something to think about: The decisions that you make in your house are more important than the decisions they make in the White House. We need to make sure they are decisions that are Biblically based.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Yoked Together

2 Cor.6:14 "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?"

As teenagers we used to hear this verse preached to us all the time in the church. You know, youth leaders and pastors would talk about sex, dating and marriage and this verse would inevitably surface. The main point: "Don't marry someone who is not a Christian." It was even taken one step further: "Don't date someone who is not a Christian." Why? Because "every date is a potential mate".

Frankly, all of this is solid advise. I have seen nothing but trouble when it comes to dating or marrying someone who does not share your faith. The priorities are different, the pressure to temptation can be different, the whole decision making process is different. How you raise your kids can cause problems. It is a huge mess. This verse is there not to take away our fun or freedom, it is there to protect us.

The idea of an unequal yoke is interesting. Take two cows with a yoke (harness) between them. That yoke better be even - equal. If it is not, you can be sure that those cows are not going to be comfortable. One cow will go one way and other will try to go another. They do not work together to accomplish a common task, instead they create opposing forces and nothing gets done effectively. The end result is discomfort, hurt and pain.

The picture in a marriage is clear. There is no fellowship, no sharing, no real communion, no true intimacy, no joint participation. Everything gets screwed up when a believer wants to live a consistent Christian life and the unbeliever could not give a rip. The only way it may work is when: 1. The Christian comes down to the level of not giving a rip; 2. The non-believer gets saved. The later is great and it happens many times. Unfortunately, there are still consequences that can hit later in our lives or even in our kid's lives.

The aspect that we don't commonly hear about is in business. Can I partner with an unbeliever? Can I work together as equals...being yoked together in my professional life? Scripture would guard against this. Business partnerships are a lot like marriage. Priorities and decision making all play a role. When you have two people who come from entirely different perspectives something has to give. Unfortunately, it can be the believer's integrity that takes the hit.

God wants to protect us so He says: "Don't be unequally yoked." It is our choice. We can either do what He says, or endure the pain when we don't.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Now

2 Cor. 6:2 "For He says, 'In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you'. Behold now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation."

These are two basic needs of the human heart...to be heard and to be helped. I know I really appreciate it when people listen to me. You know, when I feel like I am not just mouthing words but actaully have an audience that is interesed in what I have to say. (Hopefully what I have to say is worthwhile.) The cool thing is, God listens. At just the right time God gives us His ear. He listens to what we have to say. It is kind of interesting that this is at an accepted time, a proper time. In order for there to be an accepted time there must be an unacceptable time. So when is that right time that God will listen to me? (Something to ponder.)

The other need is that we all need to be helped. We are not self sufficient. We need help. We need someone to come to come to our aid and deliver us. We need to be saved. God wants to do that, but once again, it is only on the day of salvation - a specific day.

So, when is the day that God will listen? When is the day that He will deliver? If the verse just stopped here we would be left guessing, but it doesn't. It gives us an answer. The answer is NOW. Right now. God's ear is open right now. He wants to hear from me. Deliverance is available right now. He wants to help me. It isn't like: "The check is in the mail." It is: "Hey. Do you want to be heard? Do you want me to help you and deliver you? Then I am ready right now." We don't have to wait for God.

If anyone reading this wonders: "Does God want to hear me? Does God want to help me? Will God ever deliver me from this mess?" The answer is a clear: "Yes!" And He wants to do it immediately. All we have to do is come to Him and ask. He is always ready...right NOW.