merittmusings

The Name

www.bible.com/1713/pro.18.10.csb

Note this says, ”The name of the Lord, ” not just, ”The Lord.” Do you know what kind of protection this is? Do you know what His name is? We often refer to God by this title, ”Lord, ” but does He ever tell us His Name?

Your first thought might be, ”Yes. I remember His name is Yahweh.” True. So what does that mean? How does this name offer protection? Take a look at this fuller explanation of His Name in Exodus 34. This is the name that He gave to Moses to tell the Israelites when He reaffirmed His covenant with them.

“Then the LORD passed in front of him and proclaimed: Yahweh—Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth,” (Exo 34:6)

“maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin. But He will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.” (Exo 34:7)

You see, if I am to take God at His word, the protection I can expect from God may be protection from His wrath. God can be very wroth when you sin against Him. But the righteous who obey Him and love Him can expect protection from His retaliation for wickedness and evil. It’s actually a very good thing. Do you see how long He remembers sin? Though God is gracious, and He forgives all who come to Him in repentance, God’s memory is also long against the wicked. And God does not change.

For the righteous, the name of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous run to it and are safe. Be like the righteous.

A Wise Architect

www.bible.com/1713/psa.127.1.csb

How are your plans going today? In this short Psalm, Solomon reminds how important it is to choose the right architect. An architect is the person who designs the house, lays out the plan for a building. Once the blueprint is in hand, the contractors can begin to build.

Solomon reminds us that only a premium set of blueprints and a wise architect will produce a building worth living in. Unless the Lord designs the house, those that build it are just wasting their time.

So who’s plan are you following? If you are planning for your own life, be prepared for failure. We can’t plan for every contingency, every possibility, every eventuality. Only God can do that. He can see the future. You can’t. You can’t conceived of every problem. Only God can do that.

But you are a laborer on this house. Would you rather build with plans made by an all-knowing God, or a man with limited knowledge?

Just something I want you to be thinking about this morning. Let God plan the work. You work the plan.

Fear

www.bible.com/1713/psa.56.3.csb

Ever been afraid? A few years ago when I was in college, I got stranded on the interstate for a bit because I ran out of gas. Of course it was night and it was raining. Which is actually the perfect time to run out of gas, really. After waiting with my flashers on for an hour or so, nobody stopped, so believing the next exit was just a little further, I got out to walk and get gas. I walked for a while until a trucker had pity on me and picked me up. After getting to the gas station, I got some gas and I got a ride back to the car. After my ride left, confident I was ok, I put the gas in and got in to turn the key. Nothing happened. Not a whimper or a sigh. That’s when the fear started to take hold. I started to pray. ”Dear God just let this car start!” Still nothing. Fear turned to anger. I got out and slammed the door and started walking again. This time, a state trooper pulled up behind me and asked me if I owned that car back there. I said I did and he offered me a ride to the next station. An hour later I was back in my car with a wrecker go jump start me. Once the motor turned over, I was able to make the rest of my way back to school. It was a journey I will never forget.

Did God send both the Trucker and the State Cop? Probably. In this situation that was out of my control, I prayed. I prayed when the gas ran out, praying for just a little bit more in the tank. I prayed as I sat by the side of the road and waited for someone to stop. But God didn’t answer my prayers by bending the laws of physics. He answered with simple, ordinary means.

Nowadays, I face work and financial pressures. That same fear still bothers me from time to time but then I remember all those times that God had already prepared the way, prepared the people I would see, and is preparing me for new challenges. When I am afraid, I trust God for the things I can’t see. Because I know He is always there for me.

I pray your Monday is a good day.

Quiet in His Love

www.bible.com/1713/zep.3.17.csb

This seems like a funny way for God to express His love. In fact, the scholars are a bit divided as to what this means. Some say what is here. God will express His love in quiet ways. Others look to the Greek Septuagint, where it says He will renew His love, or, make His love new again like it was before they had sinned against Him. A third path some suggest is that God’s love will be expressed in such a way that He will be quiet about past transgressions.

This text follows a diatribe about how Israel has sinned against Him and how He is angry with their wickedness. But He longs to restore them and care and nurture them as before. If they would only reach out to Him He would forgive and He would save.

Such a tale could be told today, couldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could turn from our sins and turn back to God? And then once He had taken us back in, He wouldn’t say a word about our transgressions. He would simply be quiet in His love. He would be a place of peace and solace where this world offers only hardship and chaos.

Could we consider His offer as we rise on this Sunday morning? Find that place to rest and find peace in Him today. God bless you.

Submit to Freedom

www.bible.com/1713/1pe.2.16.csb

No one is ever truly free. The only free Being is God because He is subject to no one. All of us however are subject to something. In this life, we are slaves to our needs for air, water, and food, however long we think we could hold our breath or go without. If you live in a society in which currency is a necessity, you are never far from obligations if work or bills. If you live in a family, there are surrendered obligations of raising children or meeting your spouse’s needs. Additionally, if you have older family members, you are never far from obligations to meet their needs.

So tell me where I am free? I am free to think, choose and believe. I am free to choose what beliefs govern my life, and how I choose to meet those obligations. I am free to determine the frame of my life, which motivates me to choose certain actions over others. I am free to choose my values. And in the context of this text, I am free to choose God’s values of the world’s values. But to whichever system I choose, I am subject to it and it’s consequences.

Praise God His consequences are joy and peace! His consequences are belonging and hope. With Him there no fear, no anxiety or worry. I am free from the bondage of sin and sorrow and have entered into His glorious presence! If I must be in chains, then let those chains be forged from His sacrifice for me; His love for me never ends. I would give my life for such a One who loves me as God does. Wouldn’t you? Happy is he for whom it is said, ”Well done my good and faithful servant! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!”

Narrow Gate

www.bible.com/1713/mat.7.13-14.csb

Warning here for those who think they’ve got it all together. If you are surrounded by lots of people who agree with you, you may be on the wrong road. If anything, Christianity is counter-cultural. Putting on the Lord Jesus means making few friends in this world. If you truly walked and talked as Jesus did, would you still have a job? Even if a preacher confronted people in the pews with the authentic but challenging love of Jesus, would American Christians tolerate him for long? Would Jesus tolerate the hypocrisy and the Pharisees living in your church, or would they tolerate Him?

Jesus calls us to a narrow gate, one that few find. It is a path of purity and holiness, one in which grace covers all, but much is expected. We cannot expect to land at the doorstep of the pearly gates with sin on our hands. We cannot ignore the call we’ve received to live as we wish, saying “I’m covered by the blood!” Holiness and purity are two words American Christians y’all about but rarely achieve, thinking we can mix a little worldly pleasure and entertainment in with our piety. Over he centuries, many have abandoned the world and went to live in the desert or the wilderness to escape the pleasures of the world for the sake of holiness. If we are to find the narrow gate, we must first turn off the wide path of the world.

I don’t know this means for you. But for me, it has caused me to reevaluate what I consider entertainment. Much of the soft core porn and glamorizing of sin I see flaunted anymore ought to sicken me. To see people abuse themselves who are children of God should turn my stomach. The fact that it doesn’t tells me I’ve gone down that path too far and need to turn back.

It may mean something else for you. I hope you find it. The narrow gate actually isn’t that hard to find when your eyes adjust to the light. I want to encourage your path to holiness and purity. God bless you today in the journey.

Wise as Fools

www.bible.com/1713/pro.27.17.csb

A fool believes he is wise when he goes unchallenged. There are plenty of fools in this world today. Most of them agree with each other. And I am not sure how that happened. I mean, how did we get so many fools that they outnumber the wise? What makes a person foolish?

As the Scripture says, “The fool says in his heart, there is no god.” If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then the fool abandoned that train early. The Bible affirms that the source of truth is God. Those who deny Him deny themselves immediately their one source of certainty. If truth is that which corresponds to reality, then the fool has denied himself the ability to see reality and has instead invented on of his own.

And this is the “reality” that most have bought into: no God, no absolute truth, choose your own adventure. When the fool and the wise cannot agree on what’s real, then there is no means of conversation. There’s no grounding for the meaning of words. Only when a mass shooting takes place do some lay claim to what evil is, but even then, it doesn’t last long. Evil is now redefined as that which does not agree with my opinion. The fool is the final arbiter of what is true.

This is maddening. And this will infuriate the wise. If you are wise, you need other wise men and women to sharpen you, because too much exposure to fools will make you dull that’s why you read this blog and study the Scriptures. You want to grow in your wisdom. That’s why I ask for comments to help sharpen me. I hope that today you will grow sharper. The right word at the right time can correct a fool.

God bless you today.

Called Forth

www.bible.com/1713/deu.31.6.csb

Taking on the mantle of leadership from Moses was a Herculean responsibility. It was going to take strength of will and spirit to tackle the Israelites and form them into a fighting force capable of conquering Canaan. It wasn’t going to be easy. But it was also Joshua’s mission. I cannot stress enough why context is so important. For example, if you positioned yourself on the east bank of the Jordan today and recited to yourself this passage, there is no guarantee God is going to empower you to conquer Canaan again. Seriously. Don’t try it.

Verses have meaning in the time and place they were given, and it is important for us to know what they meant in order for us to know what they mean 3000 years later. I mean, this text was a great encouragement to Joshua. But can we apply this same text to tying my shoes, or going for that job interview, or dealing with difficult people at work? Context is important.

So how do we determine if our circumstances match up? For Joshua, his mission was clear. Clear out Canaan so that Israel would have a place to live. What is our clear mandate from the Lord where He promised to empower us to accomplish it. Has God given us such a commission? He has not called us to go forth and conquer land. But He did call us to go forth and conquer souls. Do you want to experience the power of this text? Go read Matthew 28:18-20. There you will find exactly the same kind of commission that Joshua received on the banks of the Jordan. It possesses the same kind of spiritual empowerment. And every Christian is called to it.

Are you ready to answer the call?

The Foolish

www.bible.com/1713/pro.18.2.csb

Do you have much tolerance for foolish people? I tolerate them, but only as long as I have to. Some are fools that ignore history, or common sense, or even the facts before their eyes. I find it hard to follow someone who denies what their own eyes tell them. But that’s a fool.

The harder spot is the foolish thinking I’ve had myself. Sometimes I mistake my own opinions for facts, and it doesn’t feel good when someone calls me out on it. Granted if you are in leadership, sometimes you have to make choice without all the facts. Sometimes you are wrong, and others call you out. We don’t like criticism, but we need it like air. We are not as wise as we think we are. And someone spotting the fool in me is doing me a favor. Do you have friends who sometimes act like fools? Would you let them continue in their folly or would you offer helpful correction?

It’s painful to watch a fool, because you know they will come to a bitter end. Reality will catch up to their opinions, and they will suffer. But often fools resist correction, thinking their own opinions are paramount. At that point, only God will be able to correct them. But a kind word on our part doesn’t hurt either.

God bless you today and watch our for those falling in their pride. You might be able to catch them.

Monday Cure

www.bible.com/1713/jer.17.14.csb

As much as we hate Monday’s, this is one of those that’s not so bad. Today is Labor Day and it is a federal holiday, so anything that can be closed is closed. Which means I am on-call today instead of actually going in. Such is the life of a Chaplain.

Ironic then we have this text today. For all of Jeremiah’s pleas for salvation and safety, God’s response to Him seems odd. God tells him to go to the Kings’s gate and tell the people not to work on the Sabbath day by bringing in loads through the gate. Here, let me show you.

“This is what the LORD says: Watch yourselves; do not pick up a load and bring it in through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.” (Jer 17:21)

Now it seems ironic to me, since this is Labor Day, that God’s warning to Jeremiah and to Judah is about labor. They wanted to work so much (and make some extra money) that they wanted to work on a day God has set apart for rest. Later on, God appeals to this desire by saying He wOuld make them a great and powerful nation if they would just honor Him on this one day is the week, and not work on the Sabbath.

Labor Day is not a Sabbath, but it can be and often is a day if rest from our usual labor. Maybe we could go the extra step today, instead of celebrating ourselves, to actually use it to honor God. For Christians, every day is the Lord’s Day, for in Him we live and move and have our being. Everywhere we go is the church, because we are the church.

So if you are off today, make some time to rest in the Lord, have some prayer, do a devotion or two, but make today holy, for He has made you holy.