Day 261: Worship 24/7

Revelation 4; Nehemiah 5:1-7:3; Psalm 99

So there are some crazy things that John sees in his visions in Revelation. Animals with eyes all over their body--weird. However, these strange creatures do something that is very important for us to notice: "Day and night they never stopped singing, 'Holy Holy Holy is The Lord, the all powerful God, who was and is and is coming!'" They never stopped! They worshipped constantly. You and I need to do that, too. But wait, don't we have jobs and lives? We can't sit in church 24/7. True, we can't. But if our worship is reserved for the hour we spend in church every week, then we are misunderstanding what God expects of us and what is truly worship. To praise or worship God means to give credit, give glory, give utmost respect and admiration to him, not a few well selected songs that go with the sermon. Praise and worship is an attitude of our hearts, not a time spent singing. These beasts in Revelation were constantly singing, yes, but what they are doing is worshipping The Lord, praising him. I think it would be naive to say that God wants us to sing 24/7; but an attitude of praise and worship is something that I do believe he wants from us. It's a powerful way to live.

Nehemiah reveals an important quality of good leadership: caring sacrificially for those beneath us. The leaders had been taking advantage of their position and again money and power through taxes, slavery, and rape. Previous governors had asked for an allowance and food paid by the people, requiring them to pay more than necessary. Nehemiah rebukes these people for their actions. His reason? "We must honor our God by the way we live, so the Gentiles can't find fault with us." How we live our lives shows what is most important to us, and God should be most important. We are to live holy lives, blameless, and without fault, so that others will see our lives and give glory to our God.

The story of Nehemiah and the wall gets even more interesting. Some dudes send for him to come and talk about stuff outside of the city. Nehemiah realizes that they just wanted to stop the work of rebuilding the wall. The wall represented strength and the fact that they were rebuilding something was going to show that God was on their side, so it was super important that they complete it. Slowing or stopping the work would give other nations a chance at overpowering them. I think there are people today who seek to intentionally or unintentionally hinder the work of The Lord. Christians sometimes get caught up in these distractions, thinking they need to appease everyone or explain themselves, when we should just keep going. Nehemiah, through this process asks God to give him strength and when the wall is finally finished, their enemies "felt helpless, because they knew that our God had helped us rebuild the wall." God got the glory in a powerful way because they stuck to their plan and didn't get side-tracked by distractions.

This psalm repeats the phrase, "Only you are God!" Sometimes we can get caught up in something else that we think is important and put it before The Lord in our lives. Anything that becomes more important than our relationship with God, has become a god. This psalm reminds us that the only one, the only thing, that is truly worthy of such a title is The Lord.

Day 260: Lukewarm

Revelation 3; Nehemiah 4; Psalm 98

A couple of the churches addressed in Revelation seem to be missing the point. They are dead, empty, lukewarm, asleep, and weak. These churches need to wake up and decide if they are going to be completely devoted to Jesus or not his followers at all. Before I read the book Radical and started reading by Bible, I was asleep, I was lukewarm. These messages could have been written just for me. I was in danger of being caught off guard and spit out of the mouth of God; I thought I was doing ok, and that ok was good enough, but I didn't realize just how far off from the truth I was. I needed to trade in my sin-stained, mediocre, ineffective Christian life for white garments. I needed to open my eyes, decide whether I was going to be hot or cold for Jesus and then hold firmly to that decision. I look around today and I do see a lot of lukewarm churches who are asleep. Revelations says that there will be a "time of testing that everyone in all the world must go through." If we don't trust in Jesus and if we don't know what we believe or how to stand firmly on it, we are not going to "win the victory" and be able to "sit with [Jesus] on his throne."

I love this part of the story in Nehemiah. The Jews are rebuilding the wall, but they don't get to do whistling while they work, smiling, and enjoying their project. There are people hurling insults and curses at them, threatening to attack and kill them. Not exactly a pleasant work environment. These are God's people, shouldn't he be saving them from their enemies? God does protect them, but it doesn't mean that they won't have enemies or have to deal with persecution. Nehemiah is wise and encourages them, reminding them that God will fight for them, and he has the workers build with one hand and carry a weapon in the other. God will fight for them, but they have to be prepared to step in to battle if The Lord calls them to. We will have enemies, people that hate us and insult us because of our beliefs and the work we do for God's kingdom. It is inevitable. But, we should be reminded by this story that if we trust and believe and prepare ourselves, God will fight on our side.

This psalm is a cry to worship. God deserves our worship in any way we can.

Day 259: Message to the Churches

Revelation 2; Nehemiah 3; Psalm 97

To each of these churches addressed in chapter 2, there is a warning that I believe is important for us today. We should make sure we live with love, we don't need to worry about how we will suffer, and we need to be careful of false teachings and immoral teachers. Some of these churches were doing things fairly well, they were remaining true to The Lord or were suffering with faith, perhaps they were serving with love, but The Lord wanted them to be even more devoted, more like his son. What is interesting, that I hadn't noticed before, is that to each of these churches, he says "whoever wins the victory" he will provide or present them with something. In order to have a victory, there must have been some type of struggle or battle. So living as a believer is a battle against our sinful nature and against the dark forces of this world. How do we do fight and what do we win? We fight by being faithful and hopeful, by loving and seeking the truth. God promises that we will have eternal life, we won't be hurt by the final judgment, and we will be given power. As a part of the Church of The Lord, we need to seek following these commands, to love, to endure, and to seek truth, so that on that day of judgment, God will be able to say that we won the victory.

In Nehemiah, each of the workers had a job, a section, to complete. Most of them did their job and so the wall gets built. This image works for us today. God has given us each a section of the wall to build, so to speak. He doesn't say, ok, you need to build it all, or you can just sit and watch. Each of us has a specific purpose and place we are to love and serve in. If we don't do that, God will still ensure that the work he has commissioned gets done--he's God. But we miss out on being a part of the process and blessings that come with being a part of the project of furthering God's kingdom.

I love the ending of this psalm: "Love The Lord and hate evil! God protects his loyal people and rescues them from violence. If you obey and do right, a light will show you the way and fill you with happiness." Such a wonderful promise!

Day 258: Fiery Jesus

Revelation 1; Nehemiah 1-2; Psalm 96

Revelation is a powerful book. Just in the first chapter, there is great tension between life and death, heaven and earth, fear and conquering. I love the picture of Jesus in this first chapter. He's not a wimpy, weak man, with soft hands, speaking softly and smiling gently. Instead, his hair is white, his eyes are like flames of a fire, his feet glow as if they are bronze in a furnace, his voice is the roar of a waterfall, and a double edged sword comes from his mouth. Whoa. Not the Jesus we learned about in Sunday school who is holding the little lamb. Jesus is that man too, but I also appreciate this picture of him that is bold, fiery, in charge. I think sometimes people struggle to trust Jesus because all they image is gentle Jesus. But Jesus was and is a fighter, he fought Hell and won! He loves us and has a purpose for us and we can have faith in our tough God.

Nehemiah shows us that God does indeed answer prayer. He was distraught over the ruins that Jerusalem had become and had a heart to rebuild it. Nehemiah had some obstacles he had to overcome though. First, he was working for a foreign king. He prayed and God allowed him to leave. He needed safe passage, God helped provide this. Nehemiah also needed supplies, amazingly, God helped with this too. When he finally got to Jerusalem and started the build, there were critics and God gave Nehemiah the strength and wisdom to face these men too. I need to be more like Nehemiah! Praying as a first response to any concern or problem. Offering my honest thoughts and fears to God and trusting that he will answer. Speaking and acting even when afraid, trusting that God will indeed provide. Pressing on through obstacles even when it seems impossible, because God can do all things.

Psalm 96 is an awesome song of praise to God. The Lord deserves our worship, our devotion, our praise. I also like that it tells us when and with who to share God: "Day after day...tell every nation on earth." In case there was any doubt as to how often I am to praise and worship God Almighty and who I'm supposed to share that with...welp, that's cleared up. What this psalm also goes on to say is that God is the only thing that is worthy of our worship. We don't worship a God who has issues, who is absent, who is deceptive or manipulative. He is the Creator, he is Good, he is Just. There is nothing in or about our Lord that would lessen how or why we serve and worship him. That's just plain awesome.

Day 257: No Sugar Coating

Jude; Ezra 9-10; Psalm 95

I love the book of Jude. He just spits it out, no sugar coating, just pure and simple truth. Primarily he talks about false teachers of God. He says that we must "defend the faith" because there have been people who have snuck in and been deceptive and misleading. I think there is something to this message: he doesn't say "attack others," we are not to be offensively powerful, but defensively strong. We are to defend, protect, remain strong for the Truth of God. Are we living our lives and willing to speak up for the Gospel, to protect the Truth? Do we even know what the Truth is? Jude tells us that there is judgment and eternal fire waiting for those who live foolishly, selfishly, against God's will. I pray that we do not get caught up in such things, but defend the holy Truth of God.

Another thing that I think is important about this book is that it doesn't deny the attack on God. It doesn't say that God is God and nobody messes with him. These people were there at the time this book is written, they came later, they are around today, and will be present in the future. These people will "start making fun of God. And now these people are already making you turn against each other. They think only about this life and they don't have God's Spirit." I believe that Satan uses whatever he can manipulate in order to turn faithful followers against God or one another. Distorting the truth of God is one way to cause dissension. Just look at the church! I don't even know how many different denominations of Christianity there are and many think that everyone else are idiots. The church divided is not as effective in growing the kingdom as a church united. Jude concludes his letter with these instructions in how to live and act: "keep building on the foundation of your most holy faith, as the Holy Spirit helps you to pray. And keep in step with God's love, as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to show how kind he is by giving you eternal life. Be helpful to all who may have doubts. Rescue any who need to be saved, as you would rescue someone from a fire. Then with fear in your own hearts, have mercy on everyone who needs it." Powerful. Urgent. Loving.

The Israelites, including the church leaders, were living just like the godless around them. This was BAD. So bad that Ezra tore his clothes and wept in sorrow for hours. So bad that drastic measures had to be taken. The Israelites were God's chosen and were supposed to live set apart, differently, following the instructions of The Lord. But they compromised and lived like those around them. I think this same epidemic is present in America today. Who is a Christian? It's sometimes hard to tell because they live exactly as their un-churched neighbors. As God's children we are called to live differently. How did the Israelites make right their wrong? Drastic measures. Let us look at our lives. Are we living according to God's word and truth, or do our lives look eerily similar to the godless around us?

This psalm simply reminds us to worship God, who is the Creator, who holds the ocean and mountains in his hands, who has been patient.