“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

19 If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
20 but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

A few thoughts:

To me it’s absolutely incredible that God would forgive our sins. They are like scarlet, red as crimson, yet He, through the work of Jesus Christ (if indeed we are trusting in Christ), has made us white as snow–brilliantly white. I know what’s in me and it’s not very pretty. The real me is pretty black. So it’s humbling and staggering and hard to believe, but God has loved us and lets us be made perfectly clean. It’s incredible.

The second thing I want to draw out of this passage is in the second two verses. God is telling Israel (and surely us, too) that if we’re willing and obedient, we will be blessed. If we refuse to obey, we will reap the consequences accordingly–there will be destruction.

This concept, for some reason, is so tough for me to practically grasp. I can intellectually preach it all day, but when push comes to shove it’s often so much easier to settle for immediate comfort/satisfaction than to wait for the long-term blessing.

See, I think it’s always easier to disobey. Because sin, most of the time if not all of the time, provides faster and/or easier “satisfaction”. Obedience, on the other hand, usually involves us making a hard decision now for a payoff later. It takes discipline, perspective, maturity, and faith to live for later and not now. But that’s the decision we have to make repeatedly to experience God’s best.

So, let’s live for later in faith that God will deliver on his promises, for He loves us.

I love this passage so much. It shows two things clearly: a right understanding of God’s law and a right heart-response to it.

In short: God’s law is infinitely good for us. It protects us, blesses us, makes us wise, and brings success. Therefore, the right response to God’s law (in light, too, of our inability to follow it on our own) is to simply say, “God please help.”

Father, I pray that you would burn a true understanding of your law on my heart and help me to seek righteousness out of love for you and faith in your goodness.

Delight in God’s goodness to you today.

Today’s question: Where do I need to start trusting God more?

Matthew 8:7-13

And [Jesus] said to [the centurion], “I will come and heal him.” 8But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 10When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel[d] have I found such faith. […] 13And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.

Matthew 9:2-7

And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” […] he then said to the paralytic—”Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” 7And he rose and went home.

Matthew 9:20-22

And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, 21for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.” 22Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.

Matthew 9:27-30a

And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” 28When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” 29 Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” 30And their eyes were opened.

James 1:6-8

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of my will whereby I deliberately commit myself.

Read the rest…

I’ve been wrestling with some issues of how do I practically, actually live a life of faith? This helps me a lot in thinking about it.

For reveryone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. ⁵ Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

The way that the Christian experiences victory in life (power over sin, peace in turmoil, hope in despair, etc) is by faith in God. Our mighty God is always ready and willing to provide for us, but often we don’t believe and therefore we don’t ask and we don’t receive.

So, the challenge we have is whether or not we will believe our God. Do you believe He is able to provide? Do you believe that in His love He is willing to provide? If so, they what are you waiting for before you trust Him?

Later on in the same chapter, John writes this:

¹⁴ And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Take courage, ask, and believe!

I guess that is a little bit of where I am and have been. In these moments my need for help—my desperation for grace and salvation—becomes so apparent that I often find myself crippled with anxiety or overjoyed at the fulfillment of my need. I find (and am finding) that my deepest moments of despair can be the greatest opportunities to learn to trust God and find peace and joy in Him.

Now, if you’re a Christian and especially if you’ve been one for any period of time, this will sound very cliché. The notion of crying to God when we’re at the end of our rope and finding His grace there is common. What I am finding, though, is that when I actually find myself at the end of my rope, I don’t know what to do. I haven’t been here that much and all the sermons, books, and teachings on trusting God through trials seem to be just vague shadows in my mind. I’m on that border of the lands of theory and reality. The land of theory where the solution is a cliché is comfortable and familiar to me; the land of reality where one must take each step by faith instead of by reciting a phrase to make things right is unfamiliar and scary to me.

But in this land where I must walk by faith and not rely on what my eyes tell me or my heart wants me to believe, I find there is overwhelming peace and joy. These not, though, because of the faith I’m expressing, but completely because of the one in whom I am expressing the faith.

Isaiah 30:18 (NASB) says,

Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you
For the LORD is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.

God wants to give us grace and he wants to show us compassion! How often we stumble in the dark instead of just reaching for His hand? We forfeit such grace in doing this.

Psalm 43:5 (ESV) says,

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my salvation and my God.

Again, why do we get down? Why do we fear? God is worth trusting! We must believe it!

And finally, Psalm 44:3 says,

They did not conquer the land with their swords;
   it was not their own strong arm that gave them victory.
It was your right hand and strong arm
   and the blinding light from your face that helped them,
   for you loved them.

The reality at the end of the day is that victory only comes at the hand of the Lord. Our success is totally up to Him. If we only would seek Him and look to Him when we’re in trouble, we would live lives that would be so much more peaceful and so much more full of joy.

Psalm 16:11 (ESV):

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Mark 6:5-6
«And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 And he was amazed at their unbelief.»­

There is something about when we don’t trust/believe God, that keeps him from really working powerfully in our lives. I am not completely sure why this is, but it is true. (I have a few ideas about this, but I’ll have to write about it later if you want…)

Mark 9:17-19, 22-24
«One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. 18 And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.”
19 Jesus said to them, “You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
[...]
22 The spirit often throws him into the fire or into water, trying to kill him. Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.
23 “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”
24 The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”»

There have been, I think, a lot of messages given on this passage, yet it doesn’t loose any power for me. The disciples didn’t have enough faith to drive out the evil spirit in the boy. To this Jesus seemed frustrated and almost annoyed, “How long must I put up with you?” He asked. Then, the boy’s father’s lack of faith shows through in how he asks Jesus to heal his child. He says, “Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.” (emphasis mine, of course). This too, it seems, frustrates Jesus. He replies, “What do you mean, ‘If I can’? Anything is possible if a person believes.” Jesus seems appalled at this comment; I almost read an implied “are you kidding me?” between the lines there.

The point of this passage, I believe, are in Jesus’ words as he says, “Anything is possible if a person believes.” Quick, a little gut check: do you believe that? I’m not talking intellectually—we probably all believe it intellectually—but practically, in your everyday life (everyday prayer life?), do you believe it? That anything is possible?

Okay, last one:

Mark 11:23-24
«I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. 24 I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.»

Again, a well-known passage. It’s pretty self-explanatory, so I won’t talk about it a lot, just again that question: do we really believe this? If faith is expressed in action, do you think you have faith in this promise? How does this promise change or inform you actions?

The final thing I want to write is I have become convicted about how much of God’s word I just simply don’t believe. I believe it in my head, but in my heart I fail to. I have heard verses that say “ask for anything in prayer and it will be yours”, I’ve tried without significant faith, and because of my lack of faith I’ve not seen the power of God. Instead of fighting for greater faith, I’VE SETTLED FOR A POWERLESS CHRISTIAN LIFE. I’ve learned to explain away the promises I don’t have faith to live by. I’ve developed a habit of adding conditions to God’s promises that ARE NOT THERE, to make myself feel better when I don’t enough faith to live by them.

I am so convicted that this is really wicked of me. In a real sense, as I don’t believe what God says is true about himself, it’s like making a false god. The sickening thing is the false god I often choose to believe in, is weak and uninvolved. Brothers and sisters, our God is not weak and he surely is not uninvolved in our lives. Let’s really work at believing what he says is true and experiencing Him in the full glory of his power by accepting all of His promises at face value and most importantly by really living by them.

Thanks for reading this, it’s a pretty significant lesson I’m learning and it blesses me greatly to be able to write it down and solidify it in my own mind. I hope you’re blessed by it too.

I was reading in Numbers. Toward the end of Numbers 9, it is talking about how the Israelites, while wandering in the desert after they left Egypt, would be led by God in the form of a pilar of cloud or a pilar of fire. Whenever the cloud or fire would move, they would move. Sometimes they would stay for a few days somewhere, sometimes a week, sometimes only overnight. But, they would always follow God where ever he had them go.

Verses 22-23 say, “Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. ²³At the LORD’s command they encamped, and at the LORD’s command they set out. They obeyed the LORD’s order, in accordance with his command through Moses.”

When I read this, it was somewhat convicting for me. It made me think, “Do I follow God like this–staying only at his command and moving only in order to follow him?” The reality, no doubt, is that I oftentimes do not.

As I thought further about it, I began to ask myself, why is it that I don’t follow God like this? I am convinced that the reason that I (and other Christians) do not follow God in this fully dependant manner is because it takes faith and faith makes us uncomfortable. See, faith is believing God when we aren’t sure of what will happen. I think all too often, I “obey” God by doing that things that I can understand and do on my own strength. Obeying God in this way doesn’t take faith at all–it just takes will. Obeying God when I don’t understand what he’s doing or why he’s asking me to do it requires me to really depend on God. This, friends, is real faith.

Someone once described it to me by saying, “Faith is putting yourself in a position, where if God didn’t come through for you, you would be screwed.” Now, that’s somewhat brash, but I think it is true. Am I willing to put myself out on the line to obey God and stop just doing what I already know I can do?