Joshua 2:11 6/27/2023*

“When we heard these reports, our hearts melted and no courage remained in anyone any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth below.”

Rahab was a prostitute who made this statement to the spies that Joshua had sent to check out Jericho. She risked her life to save them, and this verse explains why she did it.  

She had become a believer… she didn’t have a name for it, but she heard of the power of The Lord and proclaimed that God was God.  She believed in her heart, confessed with her mouth, and acted on her conviction. Her faith led her to hide the spies and misdirect the soldiers who came looking for them… She put her own life on the line to protect God’s people.

How does this young prostitute’s faith stack up to yours and mine?

My faith is more scripturally based, my theology more informed, but do my actions compare to hers? Do I declare my faith in God and then back up that statement with fearless action? Or is my faith an “add-on” to my life that I discuss when convenient and safe, but avoid when it involves risks?

How convicting it is to realize that after half a century of studying scripture, and personally seeing God’s hand at work in my life…  my faith is not as robust, as this young woman’s who had only heard of God’s power second hand. 

We have no excuse for being less courageous than Rahab. She has set the bar and there is no debate that God intends us to dangerously live out His word not just talk about it.  He expects us to be strong and courageous… not quiet and comfortable. 

What keeps our mouths shut in this culture?... Only one thing… fear… and according to scripture, Fear does not come from God. 

I believe Rahab’s faith was counted as righteousness and that she changed her life after God showed her mercy. This would make her the first recorded Gentile convert.  Some may debate that, but there’s evidence to support that belief. 

The reason God recorded her story though is less debatable… It was to illustrate that faith produces courageous action, and to challenge us to boldly live out the gospel we preach.

“Faith can move mountains - fear can create them.” - Anonymous 

Revelation 1:8 6/20/23*

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

The earth has spun off its axis and we live in frightening times, but this verse anchors our faith. God is the “Alpha and the Omega”. He is now… always has been… and always will be the King. And that should influence the way I react to “crises”.

God is different than us. The moment we arrive on this planet a countdown begins. We are allotted a predetermined number of minutes, and everything we do is influenced by the temporariness of our existence. Ironically, we spend much of our time in desperate attempts to get just one minute more. 

But God is immune to the taskmaster we refer to as time… There are no clocks in Heaven.  There is no pressure, no rush, no lateness… no anxiety about squandering time, because in Eternity there is no such thing. The Great I AM is always in the past, present, and future tense. 

Today, I pray that the future will be peaceful, but I rest in the fact that God has seen our tomorrows, and that the Bible has already recorded our triumphant final outcome.

No one is pacing the floor in Heaven. God is not anxious about America, or China, or Russia, or viruses, or AI, or anything else. God controls it all. So, I either need to trust Him, or I need to panic… but it is irrational to do both as they are mutually exclusive… so I need to choose.

In Revelation God tells the church at Laodicea that their lukewarmness nauseates Him. Their indifferent attitude, and superficial approach toward God make Him sick… I don’t want to do that.  I want to trust God so thoroughly that nothing disturbs my composure. I want to concentrate on what He has assigned me to accomplish today, and then tomorrow get up and do it again. That should be the pattern until one day my work is completed, and I go home. 

If I will just trust Him, God will produce a peaceful confidence that will transform my life… If I remember that the Navigator of my life is in complete control, I can sit back and enjoy the ride. 

“Sometimes heroism is nothing more than patience, curiosity, and a refusal to panic.” - Leif Enger

Isaiah 47: 8,10 6/13/23*

“Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure, lounging in your security”… “Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you….” 

These verses address the delusion of self-security and the distraction of pursuing pleasure… We desire to be self-sustainable, but we weren’t created to be alone; we were designed to have unbroken fellowship with our Heavenly Father, and nothing created will take the place of the Creator.  

When our soul is empty because fellowship with God is lacking, we tend to “self-medicate” in pursuit of pleasure. It may be drugs, alcohol, reckless behavior, or something as subtle as  the dopamine hit you get from ordering unneeded things online.  Whatever your go-to “medication” is, there is great danger in trying to fill the God shaped hole in your heart with anything other than God.  And the threat in our affluent society is that there is always another trinket available to try to fill that hole. 

We chase pleasure and security as a distraction from the voice that is yelling in our head that we are unfulfilled … It is dangerous to pursue wealth and finite objects to give you safety and purpose… because if you attain them, they will only disappoint… and you will never be in more danger than when you believe you are “lounging in your own security”. 

Our problem is that FedEx can’t deliver what we need. It can only deliver things that dull the pain we feel from lack of purpose.  Real meaning is not found in things. It is found in walking with God.  The only security that we can count on is being redeemed by the blood of Christ and filled with His Holy Spirit. And the goal of the enemy is to distract us from that fact. 

We must intentionally resist pursuing worldly pleasure and building our security on anything other than the loving mercy of God. 

2nd Timothy chapter 3 says there will be people in the end times who will be “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.  Have nothing to do with such people.”

Not only must I have nothing to do with falsely religious people who speak of God but pursue the world  … I must be sure I am not one of them. 

“Many of us pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that we hurry past it.” ― Søren Kierkegaard

Daniel 1:8-13 6/6/23*

“But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food or with the wine which he drank; so he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself.”

Daniel “made up his mind”- and that was the game changer.  

What he believed dictated what he did. His obedience wasn’t a test run to see if it was beneficial – he decided to completely follow God.  There is a difference between those two positions.  

As a coach, it’s easy to differentiate between athletes who make up their mind to commit to improvement … and those negotiating their effort based on risk and reward. In your peer group, it is not hard to distinguish between men who are committed to pursuing Jesus, and those who are just keeping God around in case they need Him.  Daniel “had made up his mind” to chase what matters. Total obedience was his Plan “A” … and there was no Plan “B”.

What is your Plan? When people look at you do they see a hearer of the Word, or a doer?  Do you just talk a good game … or are you someone who has made up their mind not to be defiled? 

Daniel’s faith made men want to learn more about his convictions … The guard who allowed Daniel to deviate from the king’s diet, risked as much as Daniel did… Daniel’s faith led this man to more than a dietary adjustment.  It prompted him to consider God, even at his own peril. 

Interestingly, Daniel doesn’t accomplish this by belligerently demanding compliance to his beliefs, he respectfully negotiates the opportunity for God to show His power… trusting God for the outcome. 

There is a lesson there for me. I don’t have to win the argument; I just have to win the opportunity to show what God has done in my life, and that opportunity is seldom won by words alone. 

I must make up my mind not to defile myself, to “walk what I talk”, so that my life can be a light in the darkness that leads others to God… It may be hard at times, but it is not complicated…I just have to make up my mind to do what He says.

“In the end, our worship is more about what we do than what we say.”

Louie Giglio