Devotion.al

Tag: discipline

  • God of Boxes

    God of Boxes

    Psalm 85:8–13; Amos 4:6–13; Luke 1:57–80

    God speaks to his people [who follow him] and to his faithful [where he is the core] ones (a very loose paraphrase of Psalm 85:8)

    Salvation is close to those that honor God (Psalm 85:9).

    Then…we get Amos. When we first read Amos, we are tempted to think, “This is a loving God?” As with most prophetic , being too literal can be problematic. This is more of the arc of the story of Israel. In other words, it wasn’t one thing after another. It was one thing…time passed (even generations)…they didn’t …another thing, and so forth. When it’s all tied together seemingly in a short time span as we read it, it can leave us breathless and/or anxious.

    Which…it should.

    The symmetry of these issues goes along with Egypt, who would not “see” the of God as worth listening to until the death of the firstborn (see Exodus 4:8–12:33). Then there is the addition of Sodom and Gomorrah (still used today as a prophetic whip). This also builds on Moses’ warnings which promised that the curses on Egypt would be inflicted on Israel if they did not choose God (see Deuteronomy 28:15–61).

    This is where we who focus heavily on the love of God and the nature of God loving all need to pay attention ourselves. God is love. That doesn’t mean permissiveness. It often means .

    “Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the LORD your God disciplines you.” —Deuteronomy 8:5

    We don’t like this. The fact that our emotional to discipline is, “you don’t love me,” is one of the greatest struggles for our modern sensitivities. We struggle (and that’s fine) with the concept that God would discipline through pestilence, famine, war, etcetera. We will often use the language of “God allows”, or explain things as “an ‘old world’ understanding”. While this is understandable, there is a fundamental soteriological (theology dealing with the nature and means of salvation) flaw in it. When we diminish God’s acts to solely “natural” consequences, we remove God’s movement (including that of the Holy Spirit) in our lives, even the concept of prevenient grace (the grace that goes before us).

    Removing Godly discipline is removing God.

    Zechariah (the of John the Baptist) was muted (disciplined) by God (through an angel) when he questioned how he and Elizabeth in their advanced years could have a child. Want to see a preaching/teaching pastor freak out? Mute them. Zechariah’s duties may not have been preaching as we understand it, but in an oral culture (most people couldn’t read) not being able to speak was a severe handicap. Instead, when Zechariah confirmed that his son’s name was John and he was no longer mute, he praised God. After his discipline, he praised God. Being that was Zechariah’s first response (and praise not being, “thank you for healing me.”), it is quite probable that Zechariah was praising God even while mute. Praising God while being disciplined; that is hard.

    It isn’t impossible. Yet we want to put God in a box. The box of the God of love is often the one where God doesn’t punish or discipline. God doesn’t fit into our boxes.

    ※Reflection※

    • In your , what boxes have you put God into? How do these boxes deal with punishment, discipline, and/or love?
    • Why might a God of discipline also be a God of love? How do we often confuse these?
    • What do we lose when we remove discipline form the nature and/or character of God? Is that important?

    ※Prayer※

    Lord, there are things in life and in the we just don’t understand. Grant us your grace to see you in and through it all. Amen.

  • The Fruit We Yield

    The Fruit We Yield

    Psalm 52; Jeremiah 22:1–9; Luke 6:43–45

    Have you ever been somewhere with a beautiful bowl filled with fruit, then picked up a piece of fruit, and realized that it was fake? It looks pretty and improves the ambiance, but beyond that, it is useless for .

    Christians have a discrepancy (okay, we have many). We understand the “heart” of following . We also have a general understanding that we cannot earn our way into Heaven (i.e., “works righteousness).

    Yet, here we are stuck in words of actions. There is the reality that actions can form us. This is why the ancient church focused so much on disciplines of behavior (bible reading, confession, etc), not because they, in and of themselves, reformed us, but so that the pattern of lives became set. Through that setting, we are more and willing to let the transform us.

    Despite those intentions—we see this in Jewish and traditions—the rules intended to guide the heart became rules to follow. By following the rules, people were able to appear transformed, but their hearts were anything but.

    Jeremiah’s to live a just life continues from yesterday’s (Jeremiah 21:11–14). The battle being waged upon the hearts of Judah is about living life versus following rules. When we only follow rules, rather than live, we are only going to die unfulfilled (Romans 7:5, Romans 8:2). We also will be no better than the fake fruit in the bowl.

    When Jesus talks about “good” fruit—kalos—there is actually a play on words that our translations miss and thus we do not connect other phrasings. Kalos (the Anglicization of καλός) has a focus on the outward appearance, which is similar to Jesus’ accusation of the teachers and Pharisees about being whitewashed tombs (Matthew 23:27). At the same time, there is also the implied meaning that there is still some use for the fruit despite the focus on outward appearance. A lot of big supermarkets have buyers who view the outside of the fruit, because they know what will sell at the market, and it is pretty fruit. That doesn’t mean that the fruit is necessarily really tasty, nor does that mean that there are not hidden issues. You, too, may have experienced buying a “nice to look at” piece of fruit, and then found something less than appealing after a bite or two.

    We have to be careful when we draw too much on the good/bad dichotomy as (for example) good fruit goes rotten, too (thus becoming bad). The agricultural aspect of the “bad” fruit is more along the lines of being grown from a seedling (or volunteer) rather than controlled grafting.

    The fruit from such trees is often inedible and so good for nothing but fertilizer. These trees will always produce fruit that is not edible. There is nothing to be done about it. A good tree will not always produce good fruit. The bad tree will always produce bad fruit.

    Another way to think of this is ornamental fruit trees. They are beautiful. Their fruit is often beautiful to look at (weeping cherry comes to mind). The fruit, though, is not good, nor is there much fruit to go with the seed and skin. The tree is good as an ornament. It is not good for providing life-giving food.

    ※Reflection※

    • What challenges you regarding good fruit and good trees versus bad fruit and bad trees?
    • How is the appearance of good fruit similar to a whitewashed tomb? How is it different?
    • How does living a strictly law-abiding life lead to “” (as calls it)? On the other hand, how can it lead to life?

    ※Prayer※

    Holy Spirit, only you can transform us from bad trees to good. We give you permission and we for your aid to become good trees producing good fruit beyond measure. Amen.

  • All About Me

    All About Me

    Psalm 130: Genesis 3:8–15; 2 Corinthians 4:13–5:1; Mark 3:20–35

    Self-examination is probably one of the hardest practices. It is probably also the one most needed today. When we do our self-examination properly, we are better equipped to recognize some issues we have that inhibit our continued transformation into the likeness of Christ.

    First, the . Paraphrasing the psalmist, God forgives. God forgives a lot. In regard to God’s , that promise was ultimately by . Through Jesus, we are gifted a way to approach God that those before did not have. Through Jesus, we are graced with being able to approach God in ways that those around us (that don’t know Jesus) cannot understand.

    From the passage of Genesis, we can see a number of issues that we can also see in ourselves. Only the serpent didn’t point at someone else. You might that there was no one else to blame, except that there was. The serpent could have blamed God with blaming God for making the serpent. Humans use that argument all the time.

    While we often use and this particular aspect as blaming , there is also the aspect of the stance that the others’ sins being greater than our own. This is something of which we are all guilty and thus all the church as a whole. Self- allows us to see this in ourselves, and then bring Christ to the fore of our thoughts and reactions, rather than ourselves.

    The situation surrounding Jesus—where his called him crazy and the legal experts accused him of being possessed by or in league with Satan—seems to be (especially for the legal expert) more of a look at him (Jesus), don’t look at me, but look at me being all righteous and concerned. As we move about our daily lives, it is easy to be swept up in the emotions of the moment. Unless those emotions are truly of God, they can sweep us into places that lead us away from God. Often they come from a place of self-preservation. This is why establishing a practice of self-reflection is an important practice for us to develop.

    ※Reflection※

    • When was the last time you reviewed your responses through the lens of Christ?
    • Why do you the practice of self-reflection needs to be regular (even daily)?

    ※Prayer※

    Lord, help us to be shaped by you. Amen.

  • The Next

    The Next

    Psalm 47; Deuteronomy 34:1–9; John 16:4–11

    Who will come next is part of the “calculation” of many things. Psalm 78:4 speaks of telling the next generation about God. Proverbs 13:22 tells of leaving an inheritance for grandchildren. In 1 Timothy 1:2, Paul tells Timothy that he (Timothy) is his (Paul’s) true child in the .

    The last chapter of Deuteronomy reminds Moses (and the Israelites) that God did marvelous things from the beginning (before the Israelites became the Israelites), and that the next step is coming. It also reminds us that while God worked miracles through Moses, there was a consequence for certain behaviors, even though their seems not to have otherwise changed.

    The person to follow Moses (the “next”) was Joshua. While Joshua is often raised up almost to Moses’ level, Joshua missed the biggest lesson that Moses taught him, the next. This, of course, is inferred from the lack of Scriptural mention of a successor to Joshua, and the Scriptural mention that everyone forgets with the next generation. The next is really a form of individualized, focused, mentoring, and . Part of the whole process is further illustrated by . When we realize that all we have for him covers 3 years of his ministry (yes, plus a few childhood vignettes), he really did spend most of his time with the 12 that would train them to walk in his ways and footsteps. It is these words that we should pay particular attention to, as these were the words that struck his disciples as important.

    This is deeply illustrated by John 16:4. He flat out tells them that he didn’t tell them everything in the beginning. It may well have taken years to get the ground (the disciples) for the entirety of Jesus’ message. It was revolutionary, after all.

    We live in a world that wants everything now. We may not be looking for instantaneous, but certainly quickly. In comparison, the early would usually 3 YEARS to baptize a convert (this is after Paul). Yes, there was probably some filtering out of bad apples. There was also theology that was deeply placed on hearts.

    Our baptize them now thought process—and this is only one of many such things in general, not just Christianity—would not be able to withstand waiting. Truly, not only would the person being baptized likely not have the patience, but many of the leaders, elders, pastors don’t either.

    Perhaps being more like Jesus means leading 12 others for 3 years to a deeper with Christ.

    ※Reflection※

    • What do you think makes a discipling relationship?
    • Why might mentoring be different than ?
    • Who is discipling you?
    • Who are you discipling?

    ※Prayer※

    Lord, help us find those who will us, and help us find others to disciple. For we know that we must be purposeful in both to bring your here on earth. Amen.

  • Sharpening Together

    Sharpening Together

    Psalm 98; Deuteronomy 32:44–47; Mark 10:42–45

    What are your two pet sins? Or, what sin of sets you off (lying, adultery, etc.)? And, what sin of yours do you just try to brush off as not being that significant?

    Most of us have these. It may be severe, and it may be mild. Regardless, we rarely appreciate either our response to others’ sins or our own sins being confronted.

    The of Moses’ (the entire book of Deuteronomy) is all about a disciplined relationship with God. Yes, disciplined. All of our relationships have some sort of . Moses helped provide the guidelines of the discipline.

    Discipline, in this sense, means to control oneself. Control oneself so that one doesn’t walk away from God and toward all the things of the world that can pull us away.

    As hard as the law was to fulfill, it was also filled with grace and forgiveness when people failed. There were ways out.

    Yet, in Moses’ words, there is a foreboding sense that he knows that his words (and God’s) will be tested. From Moses’ and experience, following God is . For him, the Israelites choosing to follow God or not would determine whether all the trials were it.

    Moses didn’t have much in the discipline of the Israelites.

    In the Christian life, discipline is not a solo initiative. We need people around us, while they too need us. The real struggle, of course, is being willing to put ourselves in both the place of being held accountable and truly holding others accountable. Both places are uncomfortable.

    Jesus’ words to his disciples provide some limits—discipline—to what this relationship is supposed to look like. We are not to hold things over one another, for that is a relationship of . When we hold one another accountable, it is as a , meaning we look to the improvement or betterment of the other. Of course, there is a trick to this, which is also what Moses was addressing. The improvement and betterment is toward God not automatically “improving” ourselves. Theoretically, they should be the same, yet much of the world’s self-improvement is not toward becoming more Christ-like, but becoming what Jesus warned his disciples against.

    ※Reflection※

    Who are you helping to be disciplined, and who is helping you do be disciplined?

    ※Prayer※

    Lord, help our hearts to follow your words that we can build each other up. Amen.

  • Junk Food Fast

    Junk Food Fast

    Psalm 80; Isaiah 5:1–7; Galatians 5:16–26

    Both Psalm 80 and the passage from Isaiah 5 are not warmhearted Scriptures. They both address the reality that the Israelites have not been to God.

    Other places in the Scriptures note that the Israelites were faithful in their actions, or at least they attempted to complete the requirements of the Law. Those same places, however, observed that while the actions were “per the book”, their hearts were far away from the of the Law (true purpose). It could be said that they were further from the heart of the Law than they were from their to God, and that’s saying something.

    As I am looking to sending my last 2 kids to college this fall, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own college freshman year. One of the first things I thought of was the food (like any teenage male). Yes, it was cafeteria food, but like most male teenagers it was quantity, not quality. One of my favorite foods was corn dogs, which I still like. The quantity I would eat at one sitting hurts my stomach at this point. One or two corn dogs a month wouldn’t be horrible, but it wasn’t one or two, and it wasn’t once a month.

    Corn dogs are, bluntly, junk food. They’re tasty (to me, at least). Hot dogs can be okay for you (really, they’re just a sausage). Cornbread isn’t too bad (depending). The combination, especially deep-fried, is not healthy. On the other hand, if one were to only eat a particular food, no matter how healthy it might be on its own, our bodies would break down, as no food has all the nutrients that our bodies need.

    While misunderstanding God’s intent is one thing, but doing wrong is something different. ‘s message to Galatians talks about the spiritual “junk food” that they were consuming. What we have been taught to think of as sins (understandably) were the ways of the surrounding culture.

    They were part of the surrounding culture and thus were a norm. As these practices were part of the culture, learning to understand that they were not part of a God-honoring would require self- and discipline. If they were to continue their cultural practices, their spiritual bodies would become fatally obese.

    G.K. Chesterton wrote, “the ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

    For the Galatians, dieting from their cultural norms and expectations would have been found very difficult, and probably a little hard to explain to their friends and . For American Christians, so much of our culture has what we think are Christian trappings, but is actually the junk food of the American culture. Figuring out what is healthy and what is not in our culture for the Christian life is the obligation of the Christian community.

    Without question, though, there is a need for significant spiritual dietary changes.

    ※Reflection※

    • What is one thing you know is an American Christian “thing”, but isn’t present among Christians in other countries?
    • How are you evaluating the culture around you and its influence on your walk with Christ?
    • Are you rightly evaluating the cultural pieces you agree with and disagree with?

    ※Prayer※

    Lord, we need the Holy to our spiritual diet. Help us, in community, to work out what is and isn’t of you. Amen.

  • Depths of Lent

    Depths of Lent

    Psalm 119:9–16; Isaiah 44:1–8; Acts 2:14–24

    has various aspects. The first is our mortality (“from you came; to dust you ”). The second is sin. Mortality and sin are connected. Without the original sin, there would be no . Sin brought death to Creation.

    From there, to some degree, sin is broken into original sin (that which brought death into Creation), and personal sin. Personal sin is often what we confront when it comes to Lent. This that sin which personally maintains separation from ourselves and God. More importantly, it is us through our sin that maintains that gap. The known end of Lent is Good Friday, the commemoration of when God died to bridge the chasm of holiness between God and man. This makes our personal sin all the more tragic.

    Lent will often include some sort of spiritual that is usually a “ up” of something. There was a time when it was primarily meat (still is in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic communities). As that was in a time where meat was in short supply already, there is some question as to how “sacrificial” it was. Now we think in terms of news, social media, phones (that would nice), internet, alcohol (for those who drink), a meal (not just meat). All this with the intent, though rarely practices, to instead use that time to approach the throne of God.

    Lent is really a time of pretend. That’s not mean in a bad way. In many respects, we blessed so much that it is hard to lament or mourn because we know what’s on the other side of Good Friday. Many of us have such a life of ease, that we don’t understand just how important God’s words are to the broken.

    We are not just talking about the Christian-ese of the “lost” or the “wayward” or the “not-yet Christian” or the “cold to Christ”. We are talking about people abandoned and lost. As much as this may grate on you, this includes people fleeing to the US from their native country. While there are some who are truly not doing this to become a part of the US people, the majority are giving up (and gave up) everything for a sliver of a to become something new.

    That hope, as small as it often is, is that same sort of redemptive hope and life hope that God had promised to the Israelites for generations. That is the hope in the darkness that Lent exemplifies. Unless we have been in a dark place, any understanding of hope in the face of despair is an intellectual exercise lacking depth.

    To not take this as dismissive. This is coming from the depths of my own ‘s darkness these last few weeks. Certainly, not the darkest, but only by a few shades. As I look at that, I understand even then how much I cannot comprehend the depth and breadth and length of the despair of Israel, that was answered by the depth and breadth and length of God’s redemptive .

    ※Reflection※

    What life experience can you use to relate to the hope in despair of Israel?

    ※Prayer※

    Jesus, thank you for walking the road of the cross for us. May we pick up our cross and follow you. Amen.

  • Found and Find

    Found and Find

    Psalm 119:9–16; Isaiah 43:8–13; 2 Corinthians 3:4–11

    God said, “I announced, I saved, I proclaimed…”

    Paul says, “…our qualification is from God.”

    As much as the “world” tries to keep these two concepts in mind when out our lives, we really struggle with it. There is a constant desire to perform and prove. Many of those who gave in their general lives did so because they believed they could not perform and prove. It is often even more difficult in our spiritual lives.

    The tricky balance of a spiritual life is that it should pour out of us naturally. It is often hard (if not impossible) to determine if the life displayed of authentic pouring out or if it is by will and effort alone. We can be tricked into thinking that effort will produce spiritual life . We can also be tricked into thinking that our spiritual life is strictly an internal thing. A spiritual life will pour out something.

    ※Reflection※

    ※Does your spiritual life pour something positive into the lives of others, just lost amongst other lives, or does it hurt the lives of others? ※

    In our quest to not shame people (including ourselves) regarding our spiritual journey, we often disregard effort and work. This was often covered under the term, spiritual disciplines. Spiritual Disciplines weren’t (and aren’t) checkboxes to completed. They are ongoing forming, reforming, and reconciling actions. While the performance of them has been used unspiritually to abuse and shame people into outward conformance, the spiritual disciplines are no less important.

    Paul notes that the gives life. Spiritual disciplines are to be the same. There is a big caveat there, however. The spiritual life often goes against the life (i.e., “spirit of the flesh” or “worldly”). This means that the physical life is crying, “I’m ,” while the spiritual life is crying, “I’m gaining life.”

    ※Further ※
    • Have you experienced your physical/worldly life dying while your spiritual life was growing? What was that like?
    • Why do you think we often believe our spiritual life is supposed to be easier than the worldly life to ?
    • How do the opening words (from Isaiah and 2 Corinthians) affect or influence (or should) both worldly and spiritual lives?
    ※※

    Lord, often we make spiritual living too hard, but more often we think it should be easy, and thus it is all hard. Help us to submit our hearts and spirits to you, so that we may live lives fully committed to you. Amen.