Battles

  The Joy of the Lord Isaiah 61:3 He has sent me to comfort all those who are sad and to help the sorrowing people of Jerusalem. I will give them a crown to replace their ashes, and the oil of gladness to replace their sorrow, and clothes of praise to replace their spirit of sadness. Then they will be called Trees of Goodness, trees planted by the Lord to show his greatness. A few days ago I was doing my daily Bible reading when a came across Matthew chapter thirteen verse fifty two which caused we to stop and think about how I see God. The verse talks about a teacher who understands the kingdom of God. The illustration speaks about a man who brings things out of his house both old and new. When I read that it struck me in a new way because of our raising of chickens and turkeys. We have a shed filled with equipment that we bring out and use over the course of a year. Some things are used only a few times a year but other things come and go out of the shed on a regular basis...

  God at Work Isaiah 61:2 He has sent me to announce the time when the Lord will show his kindness and the time when our God will punish evil people. My sister-in-law used to do makeup for the government. When government agencies would run disaster drills they would hire a group of people to come to make people look like they had suffered some kind of injury. From the pictures I have seen of these events they looked very real. Medical personal and doctors would have to come and assess what was wrong and then describe the process of dealing with the injury. Even though none of it was real, it did help people work through procedures and systems to prepare people for the real thing if it ever occurred. I like the idea that institutions understand that being prepared for bad things that can happen is a good idea. For people of faith this is something that we should know about because we have a God who is always at work helping us learn about and work through the problems and iss...

  A Work of God Isaiah 60:21 All of your people will do what is right. They will receive the earth forever. They are the plant I have planted, the work of my own hands to show my greatness. Few years ago I was having a conversation with a friend about technology and we began to talk about what people from the past would think about all the things we use every day. My friend believed that people from the past would think some of the things we use are magic but I disagreed. As a historian I am familiar with the level of technical knowledge and general understanding of mechanical skill that existed in history. Some people would be amazed but most people would see a car or a plane or anything mechanical and know the basic ideas behind it. A person from the past might be surprised by the materials used or the tools that it takes to make things but there are people in every age that would grasp what was going on. The reason I talk about this is two fold. First is a deep realizat...

Serving God Isaiah 60:12 The nation or kingdom that doesn’t serve you will be destroyed; it will be completely ruined. An interesting idea that most of us don’t think about is that we live at the bottom of an ocean of air. This fact effects everything we do from how cooking food works to the way cars run. Most of us just take these things as normal and don’t really appreciate how remarkable this ocean of air is and how it influences our lives but it has a real effect on how we live. This idea also has some merit when it comes to how the world works and our relationship with the living God. Very few humans really grasp the concept of grace that God gives us. The fact is that we live every day in the ocean of grace that God gives us and we should develop an understanding of what that means. When we hear the word grace, we often don’t know what it really means but it is so essential to whom God is and How God works that we should at least have a basic knowledge of it’s meaning and ...

Watching God Isaiah 60:4 “Look around you. People are gathering and coming to you. Your sons are coming from far away, and your daughters are coming with them. Growing up my dad was an excavator and during the summer his three sons helped in his work. We all learned how to use a shovel properly and became very proficient in the use of that tool. Building things takes a degree of precision and so we learned how to keep the hole we were working in on grade. Those days were filled with hard work but it was worth it because we learned things and we helped in the process of building something. To this day there are buildings that I pass by that I can say I had a part in building that place and it is a good feeling. When I think how I feel about being a part of the building process it makes me think of how God feels about creation and what it means to Him. Our God is a God who builds which is such powerful thing. Often we do not spend much time thinking about creating things but th...

  Shine Like a Light Isaiah 60:2 Darkness now covers the earth; deep darkness covers her people. But the Lord shines on you, and people see his glory around you. One of the things that God calls people to and be and I think that in popular culture the enemy has built a lie around is to be discriminating. We have a God who is discriminating and that means God looks at things and says yes this is good and that is bad. This is called judgement and having good judgement used to be a good thing. To be able to distinguish between what is healthy and what is unhealthy is not a bad thing but a very positive thing and we as believers in the living God hang our hope in a God who has good judgement. I do have to admit that I used to fear God’s judgement and it scared me to think that I was not what I should be but my mind has changed on the subject. God’s judgement is the greatest hope we have and we should embrace God’s discernment because we are lost people if we don’t. Thinking abo...