Am I the only one?

1 Kings 19

18Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.

Elijah, like many great men of the Bible, had moments of greatness and moments that were not so great.  One minute he was a brave warrior and prophet of the Lord and the next minute he was fearful.  In 1 Kings 18 Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal, a false god, then slaughters them after they failed to win the challenge.  Early in chapter 19, Ahab reports this to Jezebel and she threatens Elijah.  This sends him into hiding.  Verse 3 reads, “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.”

After being a fearless and victorious warrior, Elijah became fearful and ran from Jezebel.  His fear and apprehension were signs of his faith wavering.  This pattern is repeated by more than just Biblical figures.  Many of us have our moments of greatness when we walk in faith and witness the power of God at work in our lives.  We follow this with seasons of doubt, fear and hesitation.  Then comes guilt.  Then, sometimes, restoration and we’re back on mission.

Elijah retreated to the mountains and had an encounter with God.  God asked him on two occasions, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  Elijah explained his fear to the Lord.  He felt like he was the only one that was on mission and his life was threatened because of his faithfulness to God.  God’s answer, “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”

Did you ever think you were the only one that gets it?  Is everyone else slacking?  Are you the only one making the sacrifices while everyone else simply plays church but does nothing?

This is pure pride and arrogance.  God answered Elijah that there was a remnant of 7,000.  Likewise, when you feel you are the only one that gets it, there are 7,000 others that feel the same way.

What is at the root of these feelings?  It was already mentioned that it involves pride and arrogance.  It also is fueled by fear.  We want to retreat to where we were when we comfortable.  We want to get back into the boat.  We are thinking about how much we are doing and wondering what other people are doing.

Christianity is not a competitive sport.  If you feel compelled to compare yourself to others, compare yourself to Christ.  When you measure up to what He did, then you have a right to complain about the lack of effort by others.

Focus on your relationship with Jesus and what He wants you to do.  There just might be a remnant of 7,000 or more.  God might even introduce you to an Elisha that needs your mentoring in the faith.

Peace with God

Romans 5

1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Struggles, worries, anxiety and selfish desires; all these are distractions from our relationship with God.  The latter is probably the catalyst of the others.  Our sense of entitlement is often more powerful of a force within us then the knowledge that we have been justified by faith.  

Why is it so important that we have this kind of peace with God?  First and foremost, there is no other kind of peace.  God is just.  Any claim made against God that He is not fair is an unjust claim.  Being just, holy, perfect, God cannot and will not tolerate sin nor will He abide in the presence of sin.  With sin in our lives we remain estranged from God.  There are no human solutions.  You may claim that you have no quarrel with God but your sin says otherwise.

Then comes the cross of Calvary and the blood of Christ.  Because of what Jesus did, God’s wrath is satisfied.  Our complaints that God is unfair would be true if He did not deal with all sin, including our sin.  A penalty had to be paid and that penalty was paid with the blood of Christ.  Accepting this is what puts us at peace with God.

The formula truly makes perfect sense.  God is just and must deal with sin.  God takes on the form of a human in the person of Jesus Christ and then gives His life as the payment for sin.  He satisfies His own wrath and by doing this He remains just.  He did not ignore sin.  He then extended His grace to us having satisfied His own standard of justice and allows us to retain our free will.  This gives us the freedom to accept His offer of grace or to ignore His offer of grace.  Imagine that; the only freedom we have to reject His grace comes from the work on the cross.

It is both clear and confusing; clear if we accept it; confusing if we over think it.  Once accepted it puts us at peace with God.  It really is that simple.

This simplicity does not give us leave to remain ignorant.  This peace allows us to have fellowship with God.  We become friends of God and as friends we have the privilege of working with Him as He continues to redeem those who have yet to accept His offer of grace and join in the fellowship of all believers.

A Treasure Trove of God's Wrath

Romans 2

5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.

There’s a show on television called “I almost got away with it.”  The show documents true stories of criminals on the run and how they “almost” evaded escape.  Obviously, all the criminals featured in this documentary are caught.

This brings to light the age-old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  What is less frequently asked but implied in that question is this: Why do good things happen to bad people?  For most people, our sense of justice is why do bad things happen to just-us?  

When we think of good things happening to bad people, a name immediately comes to mind.  It could be an infamous person known by the world.  Names like Hitler, Stalin, Charles Manson, all come to mind.  Or it could be a neighbor or co-worker known only in smaller circles.  The latter are more personal and more offensive to us and they beg the question, why doesn’t God do something about them?

An honest and sober self-assessment will find that we are as deserving of God’s wrath as any other man or woman we know.  Judging others is prohibited by scripture.  During His sermon on the mount, Jesus admonished His listeners to remove the log from their own eye before pointing out the speck in someone else’s eye. (Mt 7:5)  Many interpret this to mean we should ignore what others are doing wrong.  This is an offense to God and His justice and a great disservice to another person.  The true teaching of his passage is that we should remove the log, not just ignore the speck so both of us continue to dwell in our sin.  By removing the log we are then in a position to help the other person remove the speck.

The failure to do this results in the key passage for today.  If all we do is ignore the speck in a brother’s eye so we can leave the log in our own eye, we store up God’s wrath the same way one stores up a treasure, saves for a rainy-day, or sets aside money for retirement.  We accumulate a great deal of God’s wrath that will be dealt out on the day of judgment.  (Rev 6:17)

There’s an old saying that some Christians are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.  This is true.  Equally true is the fact that we are so afraid of alienating people, or of appearing intolerant and judgmental, that we are of no heavenly value.  To allow others to wallow in their sin like a pig in slop is the cruelest thing we can do for another sinner.  Lovingly pointing them to the grace of God that we experienced by faith in Jesus Christ is an act of love.  

The Devil made me do it! Not!

1 Corinthians 10

13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

This a frequently misused section of scripture.  Well meaning people looking to comfort Christians struggling with besetting sin will use this as the verse that will get them out of trouble.  If anything, it adds to guilt that follows succumbing to temptation.  The struggling believer surmises, “Am I so bad a person that God withheld my ‘way out’ of this sin?”  Used by judgmental Christians it becomes a tool of discernment to question that status of someone’s salvation.  “He wouldn’t give in to such temptation if he were a true believer.”  This passage is a summary of chapter 10 in its entirety.  

Paul gave the church in Corinth a comparative history lesson of the exodus generation.  It was time that required extreme faith on the part of the Israelites as they left Egypt after living for generations as slaves to the Pharaoh.  Even in the face of miraculous events, the Israelites faltered and engaged in idolatry, sexual immorality and grumbling.  For example, shortly after crossing the Red Sea and seeing the miraculous power of God first hand, they faltered in their faith and constructed a golden calf and worshipped it.  A day later they held a feast that turned into an orgy.  And, they grumbled about a lack of food and grumbled more at the lack of diversity of food when God fed them from His own with manna from heaven.

Paul warns the church in Corinth that they also lived in perilous times.  He not only showed the disobedience of the Israelites in the wake of God’s miraculous deliverance, Paul also showed them the consequences for this disobedience.  The Lord allowed the Levites to slay 23,000 Israelites that day and later struck them with a plague.

Paul’s warning to the church in Corinth is applicable to the church today.  We live in perilous times.  Each day brings us closer to the return of Christ and closes the time for repentance, salvation and restoration.  The text does not provide an antidote for resisting temptation per se.  It reminds people of God’s faithfulness.  God is gracious and just but this chapter is about His faithfulness.  A reminder of His faithfulness with an expectation of our future glory based on the work of Christ should be enough of a reminder that steers us away from temptation and towards our Savior.  Quoting Joseph, “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” (Gen 39:9)