My apologies for being a day late on this post. I’ll be posting today’s reading on Matthew 23-25 later this evening.

The text that resonated with me and that I will write on today, because it has been bouncing around in my mind and heart for several weeks now is,

“And now says the Lord, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant,
To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him
(For I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
And My God is My strength),
6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also make You a light of the nations
So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” -Isaiah 49:5, 6

Isaiah’s mission was to bring the people of Israel back from their wanderings away from God. Part of Isaiah’s mission was then to remind the people of their mission,

“It is too small a thing that you should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make you a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Israel had too small of vision. They thought they were only to be for their “own kind” but God reminds them that is too small, you are a nation for the purpose of the salvation of all other nations.

I have been thinking much about this and I’ve been wondering how many churches are satisfied with only reaching their own? Or reaching other Adventists. How many of our churches are growing, not based on actual growth in the truth and the love of Jesus, but simply through the transfer of other Adventists? I ask this question because if you look at the church I currently pastor over the last 10 years we would be considered a growing and strong church…

But…

I researched the numbers for my recent State of the Church address and while over the last 10 years our membership has grown by more than 300 members roughly a 2.10% growth rate (still below average in the North American Division), if we took out the transfers of other Adventists to our church then our growth rate would be -1.0% (just in case you didn’t see that line preceding the 1 that is a NEGATIVE 1 percent). We’re a church primarily for Adventists.

“It is too small a thing that you should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Adventists and to restore the preserved ones of Adventism; I will also make you a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

How many other churches are in our same situation?

Jesus give us hearts (make us churches) to be witnesses to the nations that we may play a role in reaching to the ends of the earth!

Oh how I wish I could pretend to be profound, but truly I am not. I am out of understanding within some of these chapters of the book of Job. I am grateful to know I am not the only that has struggled through them though. My wife, Christina, was reading through the Bible not long ago and she said Job was a struggle to get through.

It is scripture. It is God-breathed (inspired) but where I am at right now I do not find an opening.

So here is what I want to share with you. Since this is more than just an exercise in discipline, these are truly my daily devotionals and time with God, when I can’t get anything out of what I am reading, say I am in Job then I go to another place in the Bible. I don’t want to leave the Word without getting a word for my heart so to speak. I would encourage you to do the same. Don’t get frustrated or worn out, today I went back to what we read yesterday, Psalm 25 and agin it blessed me…it is truly one of those psalms that can be a daily blessing. There will be chapters in Chronicles & Numbers that we will read in the future…the genealogies…I know on those days I am going to have to go to another place in scripture to have the Lord speak to me. That is okay. And we should do that rather just again treating this as a dry exercise “we have to get through.”

Job 17 & 18 didn’t speak to me today, so I went somewhere else in the Word to allow God to still reach me. What about you? Did Job minister to you, or did you go elsewhere also?

Tomorrow’s Reading: Isaiah 45-50

All three Psalms today were wonderful, but the 25th Psalm especially ministered to my heart!

We may at times forget when we read the Psalms that they were in fact songs. I was reminded of this when I read Psalm 25 tonight. As I read I suddenly realized this Psalm began to minister to me when I was just a little kid and my dad would put on our soft Friday night Sabbath music, which often included the Maranatha Singers.

So rather than me writing today let us be blessed with the song of Psalm 25 and may the music help you commit it to memory that it may be a continual prayer of your life!

The final line of the book of Judges tells us all we need to know to understand the disturbing stories found throughout the book of Judges, but especially in these last 5 chapters,

“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” -Judges 21:25

The truth about humanity is also revealed in this last verse of Judges, if we choose to do “what is right in our own eyes” not in God’s eyes, but in our own we will end-up in absolute moral decay.

Even in the first two chapters in the story of Micah with his idols, the Levite Priest, then the Danites that people can even say they are doing things in the name of the Lord, there can be religious trappings, or the semblance of worshiping God but that just because this is the case does not mean that God is truly being honored. In fact in verse 6 of chapter 17 we see the exact same sentence as we see at the end of the book of Judges,

“every man did what was right in his own eyes.”

Even as supposed worship of God is going on with a true “Levite” really it is that which goes according to man’s will and not according to God’s.

In the last days this will take place once again. There will be worship, supposedly even true worship (Revelation13), but ultimately it will be humanity,

“doing what is right in their own eyes.”

Judges gives us a glimpse of what truly happens when we do what is right in our own eyes.

May we each one surrender our wills to Jesus right now…today…so that we will not be fooled by the false worship in the last days and so that we will not be fooled into worshiping our ways and what humanity says is right.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Psalm 24-26

In today’s reading the treachery of Jacob’s sons (Gen. 34:1-31) I believe is an example of the “church” taking a good thing of God and using it for evil.

In the story found in today’s reading the sons of Jacob use circumcision to seek revenge. But at other times in church history, we’ve seen churches sell “forgiveness,” in fact this still happens. We know of churches that expect a financial offering when a prayer is prayed, in order for it to be “heard.”

But I also think of my own denominations history, we took and some still do take the beautiful doctrine of the sanctuary and turned into a tool to breed fear and thus encourage submission to a certain belief system.

We’ve maybe at times taken our knowledge of the Sabbath and rather than using it to teach the beauty of the character of Jesus we’ve taught it as, “see we’re right and you’re wrong.” So the Sabbath has been a tool of arrogance.

It is sad that we (collective church throughout history) repeat maybe not in such dramatic ways, but still repeat the sins of Jacob’s sons. Misusing God’s gift for our ultimate end!

This story can be read and we can be shocked and move quickly by it, or we can pause and ask, “have I done the same?” and if the answer is “yes” let us repent in our hearts and then thank Jesus for grace.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Judges 17-21

Human worship is not just a problem in Hollywood or Washington D.C. it is a problem in the church as well and this is one of the issues Paul addresses in these first couple chapters of his letter to the church in Corinth.

It seems division has arisen in the church based on which church members are connecting themselves to Paul, Apollos, or Cephas, and some were getting it right, “I am of Christ.”

Paul points out the foolishness of this argument with two quick rhetorical questions,

“Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? ” -1 Corinthians 1:13b,c

This should end such a silly debate.

Unfortunately this debate continues, it looks different, none of us anymore say, “I am of Doug Batchelor” or “I am of Dwight Nelson” or “I am of Ted Wilson” “Randy Roberts” or whomever, but it still continues.

But we show a similar internal reality as the church in Corinth when we buy hook-line-and-sinker whatever these individuals may say not because they are good teachers or because we have tested what they’ve said for ourselves, but simply because they agree with our “traditional” line of thinking.

We all have our favorites, including myself, but let us never be of anyone but Jesus!

Jesus who was crucified for us!

Jesus whose name we were baptized in!

Tomorrow’s Reading: Genesis 32-35