Thoughts on Scripture

Godly Sorrow

~ Heather Davis ~ 6 Comments

Ever since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, rumors of possible revival are simmering in various places. I admit I am cautiously excited. However, this excitement is tempered by an understanding of the abject depravity of my fellow humans, self included. We are beings easily led by our emotions, but when those feelings fade, often so does our loyalty, inspiration, and yes, even our faith. What we need is not impassioned sentiment but genuine godly sorrow.

“As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us” (2 Corinthians 7:9).

Sorrow and grief over our wicked propensities is not where God wants to leave us, but it is the beginning of the transformation we must undertake to be truly useful to him. And here it is where the Great Shepherd ends up sorting the sheep from the goats, because not all people who hear the good news of the Kingdom of God will experience true godly grief.

There is another kind of sorrow, a subtle but dangerous mimic: worldly grief.

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:9-10).

As we take a hard look into the darkness of our own hearts, do we truly see the perversion there? Do we grasp the vast gulf between our degenerate state and the perfection of a holy God? If we do, godly grief comes of its own accord, and although painful, it is good. Godly sorrow is the lancing of the infected wound so it can drain and heal. Freedom from the infection of sin comes through the agony of first excising the rotten portion of our hearts. It hurts, but it’s a pain bringing with it an incredible relief.

With true godly sorrow for our sin, we are driven to turn away from the darkness, repelled by it, rethinking our lives and motives and everything. Godly sorrow turns us completely around away from self-focus and sin-focus to face the Living God. And we are undone by His majesty and kindness, for in place of the hollowness sin leaves behind, He offers us forgiveness, total healing, and a sure hope for a future brimful of joy.

But worldly grief is a different thing. The sorrow of the world is either a false sorrow or it is a sorrow that feeds on itself.

False sorrow leads to false conversion, the seed sown on rocky or thorny ground, the “faith” springing up with joy at the good news but turning away because of persecution or being choked out by pleasures, worries, wealth, hardship, life. False, worldly grief is as temporary as it is shallow, quick to come and as quick to ebb; a feelings-based or even attention-based lip service to God that never reaches the heart or results in a changed person.

Besides this false grief, there is another worldly sorrow, one more closely resembling true godly grief and yet masking a fiendish self-focus. This type is the grief that turns inward, fixated on the horribleness of self and refusing to turn outward and gaze upon the glorious Savior with healing in His wings.

Worldly sorrow either lies and only pretends to accept the gift of salvation, or it gnaws itself endlessly until nothing is left, spurning the gift of forgiveness offered by the King.

Either way, death is the result, because only in the transformation brought about by turning to God and surrendering to His way of being is real life found. The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Life. Death holds sway everywhere else.

And there is only one Door into this Kingdom. The only way a wicked human being can enter is by turning to the Christ, the Son of God who was sent into the world to live a life with no need of sorrow over sin because He never sinned. The Door to the Kingdom is Jesus, and there is no other way in. We enter the Kingdom covered by the righteousness of the Christ or we do not enter it at all.

We who, in godly sorrow, turn our backs to our sin may now march right through the Door, frame soaked by the blood of a spotless Lamb, and enter into a Kingdom like no other. A Kingdom that is among us and yet is not yet fully realized; a Kingdom where tension between sin and holiness, life and death, will last a little while more but where ultimately sin, darkness, and death will be overthrown and swallowed up by joy, light, and life.

A Kingdom all are invited to enter, but only some will be willing to part with the sin they hold so dear.

Will you come? Will you abandon yourself to godly sorrow so you may be saved from certain death and given over to the promise of pleasures forevermore and abundant joy at the right hand of God? Friend, I hope you will. Godly sorrow may bring weeping during the night of this world, but joy is sure to come in the morning of the Great Day of the Lord.

Why Do We Still Suffer?

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

Wednesday night at my church, our pastor asked an interesting question regarding 1 Peter 1:5. The passage reads, “…who, by God’s power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Pastor John asked us how we would respond to someone asking why Christians still suffer if our God is guarding us through faith.

In other words, if God is so powerful and loving and if He truly guards His own, why do His people still deal with sickness, loss, grief, financial ruin, and the like?

My first thought was of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:1-2: “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling…”

I think of it as the tabernacle/temple/eternity paradigm.

Incredibly, God gave us an illustration of worship in temporary accommodations while in exile when He gave the budding nation of Israel the tabernacle (a specific type of tent) in which to worship Him during their journey between Egypt, the place of their captivity, and the Promised Land. You can read about it in the book of Exodus.

Once they were in the Promised Land and a kingdom was finally established, God gave the third king of Israel permission to build a more permanent worship site – the temple (see 1 Kings 6). However, because even the temple was built from corruptible materials in this sin-corrupted world, and because the people of the young nation were also sin-sick and twisted, the nation divided and eventually the first temple fell.

Yet even the temple is just a glimpse of our ultimate eternal worship place in the very presence of God. In the future city of the New Jerusalem, there will not even be a temple, “for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22). This will be our permanent home; this will be our permanent place of worship!

So what does this have to do with tents and suffering?

This body – this life – is all temporary. What’s more, it belongs to a reality in which everything has a contrasting opposite: up and down, good and evil, fast and slow, light and dark, and so forth. But when we are “born again,” as Peter mentions in 1 Peter 1:3 (see also John 3, et al), we die to this duality and are made into a new creation – one prepared to someday live in a reality without sin, darkness, death, and decay.

Yet until then, the new creatures we are still reside in these temporary, frail containers of meat and water. In this way, our physical bodies are like tents. And for those of us who are in Christ, our current bodies are temporary residences meant to be maintained long enough to function during our sojourn on earth, but they are not our permanent homes.

We are in essence camping in a foreign and often hostile territory on an ambassadorial mission for our King. We are sent here to represent Him to the world at large as well as to convince others the value of relinquishing their earthly citizenship and joining us in exile for the promise of a homecoming like no other.

Because we are not home, we will suffer the same homesickness, feelings of isolation, and sense of being misunderstood as any other stranger in a strange land. Also, because we are still housed in bodies inextricably tied to a planet broken by evil and sin, we will suffer just as all inhabitants of this world do. Sickness, death, and pain do not pass us by just because we are citizens of a different and eternal realm. We still live here, after all.

In addition to these general sufferings, there is the added complexity that we will suffer because of our choice to align ourselves with the King of kings, especially as we navigate in a world largely hostile to His message and dead-set (pun intended) on each individual being his or her own little god and calling the shots.

Suffering is part and parcel of the tent-dweller, and yet it is not all bad. Suffering strips us of self-reliance, of hubris, of many ignoble traits and daily reminds us we are not yet home. It also daily reminds us to rely on our God who is powerful and able to sustain us, even through suffering, until the day He calls us home.

Home.

It’s because of the promise of home we endure suffering. This homecoming will be unlike any earthly homecoming, because all of earth is still under the domination of sin. When our “tents” are destroyed and we clothe ourselves with our heavenly dwelling, all the bad things of the world will be destroyed along with them.

The new reality we were born into will finally be realized in its completeness. No more sorrow, no more shame, no more sin or death or pain or tears. All will be made new – even the heavens and the earth – and we will see the beauty of our King unveiled and in His splendor.

And THAT, my friends, is worth every ounce of suffering and more!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true” (Revelation 21:1-5).

Where Else

~ Heather Davis ~ 6 Comments

When a person’s best efforts to serve God faithfully fall short; when life feels lonely and purposeless, your back is raw from cross-carrying, and the ministries you poured your heart and soul and everything into crash and burn, it’s tempting to wonder if the Lord really does care. Do our efforts really matter? Is all the sacrifice really worth it? At such times, only one thing stops me from quitting: I know Jesus has the words of eternal life. Where else can I go?

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.  So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”  Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,  and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:66-69 ESV).

Even if I don’t always like the truth, it remains true.

But in all honesty, every season of trial and every dark valley I’ve walked through in life was followed by a new dawn. There are moments of rest, refreshing, and joy. Even so, the times of failure and heartache often cast long shadows.

The truth is, my call was never to make something of myself, nor indeed to make something of my children (although I desperately wanted to make them dedicated heart, mind, and soul to Christ). My call was never to comfort, convenience, or even what the world calls success. My call was – and is – to die to myself; to take up my cross daily and follow Jesus. No matter what the outcome.

Cold comfort, maybe, but comfort nonetheless because it is true.

But then, there’s the beautiful part of Truth – it IS true. Even when my hopes, dreams, and efforts have collapsed into ash and ruin, there is always a light breaking into the darkness of the tomb; a breath of hope amidst the stench of death: none of this is forever.

No pain, no failure, no sorrow or suffering will last forever. Even if the last lap of my life yields only more failure, so long as I have Christ, it is enough.

There will come a day when living no longer means pain, fruitless toil and wasted time, lonesome weariness and grief. The tiny speck of my earthly labors will be swallowed up by Life – eternity in the presence of the Glorious One.

Where else would I go? Nowhere.

Even when the way is hard and dark and full of sorrow, there is nowhere else I would rather be nor path I would rather take, because no other road leads Home.

By Any Other Name

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Several hundred years ago, young men from a war-ravaged city found themselves captives in a foreign nation. The conquering king ordered the very best of them to be brought into his service, specifically requesting youths who came from the noble classes of the subjugated nation. To prepare these young men to serve their new king, they would endure a three-year reset, receiving instruction in the culture and ideology of their captors as well has having their very names stripped from them. Instead, they would be given names to honor the gods of their conquerors in an effort to redefine them into true king’s men.

… Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego (Daniel 1:6-7).

Thus did Nebuchadnezzar attempt to utterly vanquish his captives. These four – Daniel, Mishael, Hananiah, and Azariah – were all named by their families in honor of the one true God. The suffixes -el and -yah (more notable in the original Hebrew) referred to Elohim or YHWH, two of the many names of the Living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

By the Babylonian king’s ordinance, the men were given names to identify them with various Babylonian deities. It was a deliberate move, which coupled with the three-year re-education, was meant to fully assimilate them into the Babylonian way of thinking.

But changing the name of a person does not change his identity, nor does it change his loyalty.

All four of these young men found ways to maintain both their core identity and their faithful obedience to the Living God in culture that did its utmost to reprogram them. What’s more, they did it with grace, gentleness, and respect – often in the face of grave danger.

From the outset, Daniel and friends convinced their guard to feed them vegetables and water to avoid breaking the Jewish dietary laws1. Later, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael refused to worship an idol even though they knew the punishment was a fiery death2. During another king’s reign, Daniel, knowing full well about a plot meant to destroy him for praying to God, continued to pray at his regular times anyway, just as he had always done3.

When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously (Daniel 6:10).

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our names have been changed, too.

We are no longer labeled respectable, moral, upright. Instead, we are called hateful, bigot, immoral, hypocrite, homophobe, and worse.

Make no mistake, friends. These are the gods of this age.

The question is not whether we will be hated for following the Lord. He promised us as much4. The question is: where does our true loyalty lie?

Will we bow to the pressure, allowing ourselves to not only be renamed after the gods of our age but to serve them as well? Or will we face intense pressure with gentleness and respect while quietly but firmly refusing to change who we are, continuing to pray and give thanks to God just as we have always done?

There are generations of Christ-followers who have blazed this very trail. Indeed, many of our eldest brothers and sisters were tortured and slaughtered for following Jesus. Someday, it may be so for us as well. It is for this very reason our Lord Himself cautioned all, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

We are not alone, no matter how isolated we may feel. Stand firm and set your eyes on the One who endured “such hostility against Himself so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Hebrews 12:3).

Continue in obedience, in faithfulness, and in humility, prayerfully striving against the pull of sin and apathy in your own heart. One day, the Lord Jesus will return, and He will give a new name to all His faithful, a name known by no one else5 – a name I believe will reflect glorious reality.

So, friends, think less of what the world calls you and concern yourself only with pleasing the One who deserves our fidelity. After all, changing a name does not alter the truth of reality. We serve the Truth. Stand firm in Him.

  1. Daniel 1:8-16 ↩︎
  2. Daniel 3 ↩︎
  3. Daniel 6 ↩︎
  4. John 15:8-25 ↩︎
  5. Revelation 2:13-17 ↩︎

40 Day Feast

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

I tried something new over Lent this year. Rather than fast from food, I fasted from social media, which is not novel in itself. The new part was adding in a Lenten feast. For forty days, I replaced any entertainment (fiction books, movies, shows, etc.) with reading God’s Word. All of it. I had a 40 day feast on the Word of Life.

The number 40 appears in several places throughout the Scriptures, often expressed as a period of 40 days and nights or 40 years. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but the following examples will demonstrate my point:

  • In Genesis 7, rain fell for 40 days and nights
  • The Israelites and Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness
  • Moses spent 40 years in Pharaoh’s household
  • Moses also spent 40 days and nights fasting on Mount Sinai and receiving the Torah. Twice.
  • Joshua, Caleb, and the spies explored Canaan for 40 days
  • Several of the judges were in charge for 40 years
  • Elijah walked 40 days and nights to the Mountain of God
  • Ezekiel bore Judah’s sin for 40 days
  • God gave Ninevah 40 days to repent
  • Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and being tempted by the accuser
  • After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to people over a 40 day period

Early in my walk with God, the idea of reading the Bible in 40 days morphed into a life goal. Early attempts when my kids were young fell prey to the reality of not even having “entertainment time” to sacrifice – the kids were my entertainment for many years. Then when they got a little older, chronic illness derailed me for a season.

Not to mention, I first tackled the task without any semblance of a plan or daily goals.

This year was different. Although I’m in school, my schedule is flexible. My kids are grown and either in college or beginning careers. My illness is under control and symptoms have stabilized. I actually have time to read for pleasure, so I just shifted that time to reading my Bible. I also prayed for a full week that the Lord would help me to not only do it, but pay attention as I read.

By His grace, I got through the entire Bible in 40 days, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Sunday, April 13.

The experience profoundly impacted my thinking on Bible reading. I realized how many connections I’ve overlooked because I read a chapter or two at a time rather than whole books. And I know of the few I noticed, there are several I missed.

Some of these threads, I documented on a slip of paper tucked between the pages for future reference. It’s a list I look forward to adding to and exploring.

I may or may not read through the Bible in 40 days again,  but I will absolutely carve out time to read larger sections – a quarter to half a book for the longer works; a complete epistle in one sitting (as they were meant to be read), ideally at least once a week in addition to my normal reading.

In between, I’m excited to pull those threads and follow them where they lead.

Now more than ever, I relish the astonishing fact that the Creator of all that is left this intricate, compelling, and beautiful Book so I can get to know Him here. The more time I spend in its pages, the more the Spirit helps me in “increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10).

Not only that, but also through His Living Word, God gradually restores in me the original design, transforming me from a wreckage of sin and sorrow, conforming me more and more to the image of His Son, and preparing me to spend all of eternity with Him.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in his work, Life Together, “The Holy Scriptures do not consist of individual sayings, but are a whole and can be used most effectively as such. The Scriptures are God’s revealed word as a whole. The full witness to Jesus Christ the Lord can be clearly heard only in its immeasurable inner relationships, in the connection of Old and New Testaments, of promise and fulfillment, sacrifice and law, Law and Gospel, cross and Resurrection, faith and obedience, having and hoping.”

Amen.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:10-11, ESV

Talk about Transformation: Jacob

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment
This one is for the sisters who are going through Warren W. Wiersbe’s devotional, Becoming New together.

Day 15 of Wiersbe’s book touches on the life of Jacob, but I would encourage each one of you to read the patriarch’s entire story from his birth recorded in Genesis 25 at least through the death of his father Isaac at the end of Genesis 35. You can read it all in less than half an hour, and in this season of focusing on transformation, there’s a lot to be learned about the power of our gracious God from the life of this hesitant father of our faith.

Living up to His Name

At birth, Jacob was holding his brother’s heel and so was named Jacob1, (Hebrew: יַעֲקֹב ; transliterated Ya’akov). It wasn’t a particularly flattering name to give to a baby. Most Bibles have a note stating the name means “supplanter,” which seems a little odd. However, a brief word study reveals why. The word picture here is of a person seizing another by the heel, literally tripping them up in order to restrain, deceive, outwit, or by other nefarious means take their place.

And indeed, the young man lived up to his name. He tripped up his elder brother Esau twice while they were young men. First, he took advantage of Esau’s exhaustion (and an apparently cavalier attitude toward the traditional birthrights given to the firstborn son) by withholding a bowl of stew until Esau promised to sell his birthright to his younger twin for food2.

But Jacob didn’t stop there. At his mother’s urging, he also stole his brother’s blessing from their father by listening to the voice of his mother (not the first time a man fell by obeying the voice of a woman – there’s a lesson in this for us, ladies). This time, Jacob lied to his father, posing as Esau and taking great measures to deceive the blind old man for the sake of taking Esau’s place of prominence in their father’s pronouncement of blessing3.

Skeptics R Us

As if his conniving and scheming to take his brother’s place wasn’t enough, the young Jacob also shows signs of being a skeptic. Rather than associating himself with the Almighty, for years he refers to God as “the Lord your God4” (when talking with his father) or “the God of my father.5”

Sadly, his skepticism isn’t based on anything but hubris. Jacob continued to avoid associating Himself too closely with God even after the Lord sent him a dream proclaiming Himself to He Who Supplants, even reiterating the covenant He made with Abraham and Isaac to the rascally Jacob6.

And did our antihero man up and submit to the Almighty who was promising him such astonishing mercy despite his life of lies? No! Instead, he set up the rock he’d used as a pillow (ouch) and made a provisional promise to the Most High God. “If God will do thus and so for me, then I will deign to call Him my God.7”

It’s all quite humorous until we look deeply at our own motives, isn’t it? When have we also laid conditions on our Creator, pledging our fidelity to Him in exchange for prosperity or something else we desire? As if we have anything to offer the One who holds all things together; as if He needed us at all! But I digress… back to Jacob.

Reaping What Was Sown

Jacob travels on and falls head-over-heels for the lovely Rachel, hiring himself out to her father Laban for seven years in exchange for her hand in marriage8. But the crafty Laban has other plans – in the dark of the wedding night, he veils his older and plainer daughter Leah and sends her into the marriage tent in place of her sister9. Because wine flowed freely at wedding banquets and the only light sources were the stars and fires, it isn’t until morning that Jacob realized he’d been deceived. Oh, what goes around comes around! And it keeps coming.

Jacob promises Laban another seven years of service in exchange for his beloved Rachel. Thus, his household is established on a sisterly rivalry that could not have been pleasant10.

Let me take an aside to point out a fact: many non-believers will use this example (and others) to say “biblical marriage” includes sister-wives and their maidservants; in short, polygamy. However, if one actually reads the words of the text, what we see is that God used the sin of Jacob for His greater plan while simultaneously meting out the consequences of Jacob’s sin. The rivalry and bitterness of Jacob’s wives did yield a household of peace and joy. God did not bless these choices, but He did redeem them. That’s what He does. Speaking of redemption, let’s go back to Jacob.

Even in this mess of being used and tricked by Laban, God speaks to Jacob and offers him guidance11 – even though we have yet to see Jacob call God anything other than the God of his ancestors or build a single altar to worship the Lord (I don’t think a single stone and a conditional pledge counts as worship). And Laban continues to trick Jacob by attempting to circumvent his request for the speckled and spotted flocks12.

But God’s plan cannot be circumvented. His purposes are bigger than Jacob and his bickering wives, bigger than the supplanter and his supplanter, and bigger even than all of their sin. God’s plan stretches through this debacle to establish the Nation of Isreal through whom the Messiah would one day come… but that is much later.

Becoming Broken

Jacob spent twenty years reaping the discord he sowed in his childhood home, and finally he was able to break free from Laban. On his journey to return to his homeland, the bald truth of what he did to Esau finally hits him. Fear of reprisal from the brother he tripped up and replaced seizes him, and the man finally shows a little humility.13

And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children (Genesis 32:9-11).

For the first time, we see Jacob in a posture of understanding that the blessings he schemed for are not blessings he deserves. His heart his humbled, even if it is humbled out of mere self-preservation.

And that night, he wrestles with God. It isn’t until after the wrestling match, which resulted in a permanent physical disability, that Jacob finally builds a proper alter and worships the Living God14. It took time, consequences, suffering, and fear, but Jacob finally worships the God who graciously allows him to become a part of the lineage of His Messiah, through whom God would offer redemption to the whole world.

There’s much more to Jacob’s story than this overview. His wife Rachel stole her father’s household gods, and Jacob doesn’t rid his own household of this abomination until after the rape of his daughter Dinah and his sons’ over-the-top revenge.

My point? Jacob was not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination. Yet he was a man transformed by God. What we see in Jacob is a solid reminder of the astonishing mercy and renewing power of our Living and Loving God. He uses our own bad choices to humble us, and yet there is no one out of reach of His redeeming grace.  

  1. Genesis 25:26 ↩︎
  2. Genesis 25:29-34 ↩︎
  3. Genesis 27 ↩︎
  4. Genesis 27:20 ↩︎
  5. Genesis 31:5, et al ↩︎
  6. Genesis 28:10-15 ↩︎
  7. Genesis 28:20-21 ↩︎
  8. Genesis 29:16-19 ↩︎
  9. Genesis 29:22-25 ↩︎
  10. Genesis 29-30 ↩︎
  11. Genesis 31:10-13 ↩︎
  12. Genesis 30:34-36 ↩︎
  13. Genesis 32:6-12 ↩︎
  14. Genesis 33:20 ↩︎

Less Popular Perspectives on God’s Call

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation…” (Genesis 15:13-16, ESV).

Besides the usual seasonal blahs I associate with Tennessee’s grey January weather, I’m coping with a (thus far, blessedly mild) return of a few ME symptoms, a rather barren season of life, and a dose of reality that led to the digital sulks permeating my last post. I feel it critical to state that my own lament, like most of the laments in the Psalms, does not reflect a turning away from God and His goodness, but a pressing into Him even in moments where I can’t see, feel, touch, taste, or otherwise sense His goodness. In my continued Scripture reading and prayer, He reminds me of the less popular truths behind His call.

Bleak seasons are a reminder that God is good because goodness is His nature, not because of what He does or does not do. His goodness has nothing to do with my subjective feelings about either Him or my circumstances.

As I’ve pondered my own understanding of God’s call to write about what He teaches me and His work in my life, it occurred to me how much of my own expectations I added to the call. My sense of failure isn’t God’s fault – it’s mine. He never promised anything; He just gave me a directive.

I embellished it. I see my Western background showing up clearly here.

You see, historical Middle Eastern peoples did not necessarily think of “God’s promises and call to me,” so much as “God’s promise and call to my house (my clan, my family, my people).” It’s a nuance most of us overlook in the hyper-individualistic West, but one worth examining.

When God calls us to do something, He doesn’t necessarily mean we will soon enjoy the fruits of our labors. Indeed, often our lives on earth may end before our cultivated areas bud, much less produces ripened fruit. His plan is much more far-reaching than our feeble little lives; a fact we easily overlook or forget.

We can see this in Abraham’s life. God promised Abraham many things – an heir, the land of Canaan, that all nations of the world would be blessed through him. Still, Abraham waited around 25 years1 between the promise of an heir and the birth of Isaac, the son of the covenant. The only land he owned in Canaan was the cave and field2 of Machpelah where he and Sarah were buried, and the Blessing for all the nations of the world would not come for another 2,000 years or so3.

Then there’s Moses, the lawgiver and the shepherd of Israel through the decades of wilderness wandering. Although his calling was incredible, like many of us, his obedience was less than perfect. His was the privilege of leading God’s people out of Egypt, yet while he was allowed to see the Promised Land from a mountain, he did not set a mortal foot inside its borders4.

There are many other examples – these are just the two that come most readily to mind. It’s not a popular view, but it is important to remember that God’s promises and call do not come with a guarantee of worldly success. They DO come with a promise of His presence, His glory, His purpose, and His goodness.

Sometimes I lose sight of the truth that He is my shield and my great reward. God Himself is the reward, not the fruit of my labors nor the gifts He gives. Just Him. Which is more than I deserve.

Even so, He blesses me in small ways to remind me that His love, while broader in scope than my tiny imagination can cope with, is also quite personal. Today, my King blessed my bird nerdiness with a beautiful surprise right in the middle of my communion with Him.

And I am reminded His ways are not my ways; His thoughts are not my thoughts. I am humbled, content, and grateful to play even a small, invisible part in the work of a Kingdom crossing all barriers of geography, ethnicity, and even time.

When I think of it in those terms, how silly it seems to imagine my part as anything more than a trifling contribution to a magnum opus far beyond any mortal scope.

  1. See Genesis 15:2-4; 16:15-17:1; 18:10; 21:1-5 ↩︎
  2. See Genesis 23:17-20; 25:9-10 ↩︎
  3. Matthew 1 ↩︎
  4. Exodus 34 ↩︎

Christmas Adam Ruminations

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Today is “Christmas Adam” (because Adam comes before Eve, as my offspring have informed me). It’s not a bad time to turn our thoughts from the first, humble advent of Christ as an infant to the future second advent when He will come in unassailable power and glory. Indeed, speaking for myself, most of my bad attitudes or wayward thoughts can be corrected by this very meditation on any day, be it Christmas Adam, Christmas Eve, or any of the bothersome Mondays the calendar holds.

When I was teaching, I liked to end the year or semester (depending on the class) by challenging my students to ponder the upcoming main event of world history. I would read a quote from C. S. Lewis followed by a passage from Revelation, then encourage them to think of all their todays in light of the unknown Day when there will be no more choice, exhorting them to choose their allegiance wisely.

Shall we do the same here? I think we shall, if you’ll humor me:

In his radio-series-turned-book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes:

Christians think [God] is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely.

I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world.

When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature.

It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.

A startling thought, but a necessary one. Though we may grow impatient, wishing Christ would hurry and return, wondering if He doesn’t notice the breadth and scope of evil in our world today, we ought not forget those we love – and even those we love less – who are yet on the wrong side of the thing. After all, He tarried long enough for us.

With this in mind, let’s take a peek at Revelation 19:11-16:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Wow. There’s no doubt His second coming will make an impression even on those who scoff at His first.

We are told in Philippians 2:10, “…at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow…” With an appearance like this, I have no doubt of it. Even confident knees, secure in assurance of the love of their King, will grow shaky and buckle under such a raw display of power and majesty.

So my friends, on Christmas Adam, tomorrow on Christmas Eve, and on through the rest of this year and as long as the Great Shepherd waits for His sheep to respond to His voice, I beg you to consider the Babe in the manger who will one day return as the bloodied, preeminent, unconquerable conquering King.

And because I love you as He loves me, though I little deserve it, I pray you will bow your knees quite willingly now before He returns and you have no choice left.

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
(Revelation 5:12)

Choosing Life

~ Heather Davis ~ Leave a comment

Moses was nearing the end of his substantial ministry, preparing to hand leadership off to Joshua, and getting the descendants of Israel ready to take possession of the land promised to Abraham many generations before. In light of his, Moses had just finished reiterating the entire covenant between God and His chosen people so they would go in with a clear understanding of what it looked like to keep their end of the promise. In short, Moses offered them a choice between life and death.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days…
(Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

Note: I highly recommend reading all of Deuteronomy 30, but this is the gist.

Today, of course, believers are under a new covenant promise; a covenant bought and sealed by the priceless blood of the Divine Lamb of God who lived out that perfect obedience to God’s covenant law, laid down His life to pay the penalty for our rebellion, and took His life up again so all who put their trust in the sufficiency of His sacrifice may be set free from slavery to sin.

Because of Jesus and His sacrifice, we are given an opportunity at a new life, being remade in Him. Further, His gift of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to choose life. Yet obedience is still necessary for us. Indeed, Jesus equates our love for Him with our obedience to His commands many times in John 14.

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
(John 14:21)

And while it is popular in some circles to say we are “free from the law,” it is more accurate to say we are free from certain specific constraints of the first covenant meant for Israel before the first advent of her Messiah. We are not free to do as we wish; certainly if we belong to Jesus, we are not free to sin but free to escape from sin.

We are still liable to a moral law, one which Jesus actually accentuates rather than diminishes. For example, Jesus not only says we should not commit adultery, but that we should not even look lustfully at another person. He doesn’t just say, “Don’t murder,” but instructs us not to be angry with our brother – in fact, to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. He calls us not to mere obedience but perfection (see Matthew 5:21-48).

This is what I want to hone in on. When it comes to a modern understanding of sin and obedience, I think we get a little confused. We look at a specific sin and think, “Well, at least it’s a small sin. It’s not something really bad, like murder.”

Or we hold our sin up against cultural norms and think it used to be sin but maybe it isn’t anymore. Perhaps God changed His mind, or maybe humans have progressed in our understanding of sin, or maybe it’s simply outdated to think of certain actions as sinful.

We think we’re comparing good and bad or better and best. But in reality, we are still comparing life and death.

Even though Moses was talking to an ancient people about a specific covenant between their nation and a holy God, the principle of what he says still remains. Brothers and sisters, when we weigh obedience to Christ’s holiness against conformity to our culture, we are still choosing between life and death, blessing and curse.

For the love of the One who gave all so we might have His righteousness, and also because I love and care about your eternal well being, my friends, I implore you: choose life.

Darkness, Light, and Subjective Morality

~ Heather Davis ~ 2 Comments

As our 8:45 p.m. flight took off, I watched the ground fall away through the airplane window. The ambient brightness of the city at ground level faded quickly. Night encroached. In my bird’s-eye view, large pools of light pushed back the darkness as we gained altitude, soaring over stadiums, shopping malls, office complexes, and street lights. The further from the city we journeyed, the more feeble the pools of light became and the more prominent the surrounding darkness grew. An apt visual metaphor for subjective morality.

We were heading home from a brief visit with family members who do not have (so far as I can tell) a thriving relationship with the living God. During the visit, I was told about the kids’ “religious classes,” and one of said kids informed me on Sunday, “We don’t have to go to church.” God’s name was invoked in the standard secular way along with a string of other words my husband and I have allowed the Holy Spirit to excise from our vocabularies.

But more telling was the fruit. The desperate striving to be a “good person” on a sliding scale of virtue. Anger when one has been hurt by the actions of another, but justifying similar actions in oneself.

I hate him because of what he did to me; when I did it, it was for a good reason. It was different.

Justice struggling to find footing on an unstable, convulsing foundation of right vs. wrong. A steady undercurrent of fear and uncertainty and thinly-veiled shame. Palpable darkness seeping in at the edges.

It’s a world I used to embrace, and the reminder left me both sorrowful and grateful.

I am deeply grieved for loved ones still imprisoned by the deceitfulness of sin. Yet I am grateful for the One who healed my spiritual blindness and shined the light of Yeshua (Jesus), opening my eyes to the singular Way of escape from my self-constructed cage of sin, guilt, and evil.

I glanced back out the window. Only pinpricks of light appeared below now, far-flung and lonely in the inky blackness of the night.

All our human effort to eradicate the darkness of sin – whether the poison within own rebellious hearts or the evil stalking us from without – are like those dwindling lights.

At ground-level in a large crowded city, all seems well. Our self-made righteousness blends in, and while we may be doing worse than some, at least we’re faring better than others. One can think of the darkness as somewhere out there, far away. OK, maybe I’ve been around the block more than once, but at least I’m not a murderer.

In the throng, it’s easy to fit in. Easy to hide.

But when we’re alone, the darkness looms and our good works flicker like a lit match in a drafty room. There’s no real warmth, little light to see by, and nowhere to run when the light is snuffed.

We can try to push back the darkness on our own, but we’ll never get far. A centimeter, a meter, maybe a little more, but our little circle of good works quivers as hungry shadows press in from all sides, waiting. Unrelenting. Inexorable.

No matter how good we try to be, we can never do enough good to erase the evil we’ve done. Instead, our good deeds only serve to highlight the murkiness of our motives and the taint upon our souls. The dim light we produce is shot through with shades of inadequacy.

On our own, we’re caught in a losing battle of push-and-shove against our very nature. We cannot rescue ourselves from this losing battle; we can only prolong the inevitable moment when the darkness forever swallows our faint gleam.

But there is hope. There is a true and effulgent Light of the World powerful enough to banish darkness; a Light that heals and cleanses and restores and renews. And He has a name.

Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. . . (Ephesians 5:7-11).

Friend, if you’re caught in the flickering and uncertain light of subjective morality, this is an invitation to you. There is a real Light, a true and powerful Light unconquerable by the darkness. His Name is Yeshua, commonly called Jesus in English. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the light of truth He brings is strong enough to scour the deepest and oldest stains from your very soul if you will turn your back on your sin and run into the light of His love and grace.

His morality is true Light, and while He knows we can never measure up to God’s standard of perfect holiness, He offers Himself as a bridge. Through His torn body, we can cross over from darkness to light, from death to life.

There, in the powerful Light of Truth from whence the Glory of God shines, the stains of our rebellion are scoured away. He’s given us the Word of Truth, and by its light we see Light. All our horrible secrets are laid bare, but in that pure light, they are exposed to be excised by the Healer of our souls.

But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:13-14).

In Yeshua, we are restored to what we ought to be and have no more need of fallible, artificial lights of our own making. In Him and through Him, the full radiance of righteousness shines.

He is the only way; humanity’s only hope. But we must make a choice. We must choose Him; His way of sacrifice, letting go what we once were to become what He created us to be.

Step into the Light, let Christ shine on you, and find joy and peace, healing and wholeness, and rest for your soul.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, 
but in order that the world might be saved through him.  
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, 
but whoever does not believe is condemned already, 
because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, 
and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God" (John 3:16–21).