02.27.09
“HOLISTIC HEARING”
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HOLISTIC HEARING
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Deut 6:3-9 NIV
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3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
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Rev 2:28-29 NIV
29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
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Many in our day have hearing problems. Critical, life and death words spoken directly to the soul of a person goes ignored, time and time again. Not for lack of proper cochlear function, rather stemming from a defective heart. For the words may be cognitively registered, and maybe even semantically grasped. But there is no true hearing, in the biblical sense. For in both testaments, to hear is to obey.
Most early cultures did not separate the two realities; they were practically synonymous…two sides of the very same coin. If a child was to have heard their parent’s words, their obedience to said words were assumed. A sound person was understood to be one whose words and deeds were consistent; as a reflection of the holistic integrity of their person.
Our culture however reflects signs of pervasive and profound disintegration: fractured narratives, fractured communities…fractured souls. In this wasteland littered with disembodied truths and hearts, it is easy to hear and not obey. Ceaseless muttering of “yeah, yeah, I know” having the effect of verbal graffiti on pristine walls. A vicious cycle of broken promises as the wake of the refusal to couple the twin realities of hearing and obeying.
The people of God however were reminded repeatedly of their call to truly hear. For the LORD their God is one: unfactioned in community, unfractured in person, unfettered in purpose. This very same wholeness was to be their inheritance, as they loved and obeyed to mutual exclusion to all else.
It is Jesus, God’s Unique Son who shows us the way; and His Spirit who calls out for a new hearing. Repentance is God’s solution to our predicament. While all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again, our King has willingly endured the rending of body and soul; that we would be given ears once again to hear…and in the hearing made once again whole.
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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
- This morning will you reflect on the unfactioned Tri-unity of God; the unfractured personhood of, and the undistracted mind of Christ; who sees and hears with perfect perception. Will you bow before this King and ask Him to touch and restore you?
- Where do you see the wake of sin in and around you, i.e. fractured relationships with God, community, and self? Will you ask God to reveal both the specific sin, and the route of repentance and wholeness?
- Will you attend to God’s voice this morning? What is God asking you to hear & obey? Will you ask Him to give you ears to truly hear?
This devotional was written by Pastor Martin
02.25.09
“DUST AND ASHES”
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DUST AND ASHES
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Job 30:16-19 NIV
16 “And now my life ebbs away;
days of suffering grip me.
17 Night pierces my bones;
my gnawing pains never rest.
18 In his great power [God] becomes like clothing to me;
he binds me like the neck of my garment.
19 He throws me into the mud,
and I am reduced to dust and ashes.
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Job 42:1-6 NIV
42:1 Then Job replied to the LORD:
2 “I know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.
3[You asked,] ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
4["You said,] ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
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It’s funny how perspectives can change so dramatically. Ask a young boy about liking girls, and you’ll likely hear words like, “gross…cooties.” Follow up with that same boy later, and you’ll see a very different response. That which was abjectly rejected, is now passionately sought.
We something of that changing perspective with Job in these passages. In Job 30, we encounter a disgrunted Job; having lost seemingly everything: his wealth, reputation, family, and his very understanding of how the moral universe works. In bitterness and grief, Job indicts God of using His sovereign might against him rather than for him; hog tying his neck and thrusting him into the mud. Feeling forcibly reduced to the status of dust and ashes, he demands an accounting…”God, are you really good? Are you really loving? Are you really strong? If so, how could you let this happen to me?”
Fast forwarding to Job 42, Job’s heart and tone are dramatically shifted. Having encountered God in the theophanic whirlwind; having had his questions answered with God’s own set of questions (who are you? Did you create the universe? Are you God?), Job recants in abject humility. But this time, he gladly embraces the dust and ashes. His despising of himself refers to a complete recanting of all that he said of God earlier. The Hebrew word for repent, naham, refers to godly sorrow for sin; but also includes in its semantic field the notion of consolation and comfort. Job was dead wrong about God; and in his sorrow over his sin he is deeply comforted.
Job realizes that dust and ashes are not symbols of death forced upon him, rather symbols of life gladly chosen; godly sorrow which opens the door to godly comfort.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the day traditionally marking the start of the Lenten season. Forty six days in total (forty plus six Sundays) prior to Easter. It is a day, and a season set apart for repentance; a turning away from our idolatry and rebellion toward God. Not for the purposes of forced religious exercise, rather that of a chosen embrace of sorrow & comfort.
On Ash Wednesday, ashes from palm branches burned after the previous Palm Sunday are marked as a cross on the foreheads of those starting Lent. The cross reminds us that God has revealed Himself to us. He has answered our deepest questions; not via a whirlwind, rather through the Lamb of God crucified for our sins on a cross. He has demonstrated His power over death through cosmos shaking resurrection.
Will you now join us as we start Lent in dust and ashes?
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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
- This morning, will you reflect on the might and wisdom of sovereign God? He who made everything, and seen and unseen; who administers every molecule of the universe; will you humbly bow before Him in reverent worship?
- Imagine putting yourself in Job’s place. Having indicted God and asked for your day in court, you come face to face with the whirlwind. Will you hear the questions posed to you: “who do you think you are?” “did you make all this?” “who are you to judge, are you morally perfect?” “Are you God?” “Did you defeat sin and death through crucifixion and resurrection?” Will you respond as Job did, gladly repenting in dust and ashes?
- Will you dialogue with God, asking Him to untangle the knotted threads of your heart. Ask him to reveal your sin and give you godly sorrow. Ask Him for His promised comfort and renewal.
This devotional was written by Pastor Martin
12.12.08
“FRUIT OF REPENTANCE”
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Matt 23:23-24 NIV
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices-mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law-justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
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Micah 6:8 NIV
8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
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True repentance is not a matter of picking and choosing what aspects of God’s ways we prefer to obey, and what we’ll choose to ignore. Rather, it is a holistic embrace of God’s heart and character, as evident in His law. And yet it is possible to be an expert in the law, and still be guilty of spectacular hypocrisy.
In Matthew 23, Jesus levies seven woes against the legalistic spiritual leaders of the day, pointing out their utter failure in living out the crux of the law. The teachers of the law and Pharisees took pride in their anal dissemination of what ought to be tithed and how, but somehow turned a blind eye to matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
Though impossible to fully legislate (e.g. what law can enforce the love of mercy), a heart which truly seeks God develops these very fruits of repentance. The natural mind cannot figure out exactly how justice and mercy is supposed to work. But those whose hearts are tutored by the Spirit evidence a holistic faithfulness which echoes the interwoven integrity of God’s mercy and justice.
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REFLECTION /RESPONSE
- This morning, will you reflect on and worship the holy beauty of God’s character? He is both completely just, and somehow transcendently merciful. These aren’t mutually exclusive, rather inherent and integral in God.
- Will you imagine yourself at the scene where Jesus castigates the spiritual elite for their deadly legalism? Imagine him declaring that they were supposed to obey the crux of the law (i.e. justice, mercy, & faithfulness), without neglecting the former (e.g. careful scrutiny over their tithing etc.). Then imagine His eyes turning to you. How do you feel prompted to respond?
- Will you humble yourself, and invite God’s Spirit to fill you with His heart for justice and mercy? Is there anything specific God is convicting you about? Will you take practical steps in obedience?
12.11.08
“REFORMING DECEIT”
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Jer 17:9-10 NIV
9 The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
10 “I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve.”
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Ps 139:23-24 NIV
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
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As recent revelations of gubernatorial graft and executive fraud demonstrate, deceit is a commonplace fixture in our public corridors. As critical the Scriptures are about “corporate” corruption, the source is identified as personal; i.e. the degenerate heart.
The biblical indictment of deceit in the heart is universal and pervasive. For not only is every person’s heart stained with deceit, we are all rotten to the core. Jeremiah declares that “the heart is deceitful above all things.” It is incurable by human means, for stricken with debilitating self deceit, we are unable to even fully understand the dimensions of deceit in ourselves ,much less in others.
But God who is perfect in authenticity cannot abide in peace with deceit. He searches out and tests hearts; connecting deeds with and words with the undercurrent flowing from our hearts.
But his means of reform is not simply revealing the crooked paths of our hearts, for that would fall short. The crisis calls for draconian measures, even a full heart transplant. Offering his own heart for ours, he exchanges His authenticity for our duplicity; His life and death for ours.
All those who have received this “heart transplant,” are given the blessing of a pure heart which can and longs to see God. But for all those who refuse such severe mercy, there is but the doom of blind wandering in the deserts of deception.
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REFLECTION /RESPONSE
- This morning, will you bow before the God who is completely holy and authentic? There is no darkness, no flaw in His person or His intentions. Will you praise Him for the purity of His heart?
- Will you imagine coming to a spiritual surgery table. Your diagnosis is that of fatal heart failure, for it has bee infected with fatal deceit. But a donor has come forth with a new heart. God who is both donor and surgeon bids you come. Will you surrender your heart to Him; thanking Him and receiving a new heart by faith?
- Will you invite God’s Spirit to search your heart? Are there any specific thoughts or practices from which the Holy Spirit is convicting you to repent?
11.04.08
“REPENT FOR YOUR LIFE”
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2 Chron 7:14-15 NIV
14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
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Mark 1:15 NIV
15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
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To our minds, repentance feels like an ugly word, laden with guilt and shame. But when God calls us to repent, it is because His intention is to gift us with something far better than what we have been clutching onto for life, i.e. HIMSELF! The Greek word for repentance is a word picture referring to someone doing a 180 degree turn; turning away from the target that was being pursued, back to the source of life in God.
The pivotal motivation for why we are to repent in the Scriptures is not merely so that we can avoid God’s wrath, but that can receive His grace. Repentance is a necessary precursor to us receiving healing, restoration…the very Kingdom of God in our midst.
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REFLECTION/RESPONSE
- As you reflect this morning, first start with the unbridled, generous love of God. Grasp the truth firmly that God’s intention is to heal, restore, and give the fullness of His Kingdom.
- Ask God to search your heart. What things have you been clutching on to to give you a sense of security and significance besides God? Name them, and relinquish them; so as to make room for that which God will fill you with.
- Invite the Holy Spirit to rule and reign in your heart and mind. That the day would be spent in alive awareness, and holy expectation.
