She stood in the Health and Beauty aisle and was fixated upon the soap display when I encountered her.  She moved her cart and looked at me sheepishly.  “Sorry,” she said, “too many choices, I guess.”  I said, “I hear you.  Kind of makes you miss the good old days when there were fewer choices, huh?” She nodded in nostalgic agreement and returned to viewing soaps as I turned my gaze toward the myriad of hair sprays thinking about how too many choices is genuinely a “first world problem.”  And then because of the way my mind works, it instantly caused me to think about how God doesn’t give us “first world problems.”  We don’t have too many choices of gods.  We have a failure to distinguish between the one God who is God…and all the things that aren’t god at all.  There is No Other God—a distinction to remember as we consider our Three Words for Day-to-Day Christian Living.

So many analogies, so little time.  Isn’t it amazing what drives Americans to action?  A total solar eclipse today has prompted car trips and planning ahead with purchases of authorized, certified, total eclipse glasses for viewing it as many people go out of their way for what they believe is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.  A partial eclipse isn’t good enough.  There’s a point of distinction, a very narrow path the total solar eclipse will take.  So pack your glasses, fill up your car with gas, endure traffic jams for a moment you hope won’t be occluded by clouds to be present at the very narrowest of paths determined by scientists as the total, total eclipse.

And yet, people rarely plan ahead, travel great distance, endure traffic and headaches, or monitor weather reports to be in the presence of the One God about Whom we say, there is No Other God.  For a vast swath of American culture, they won’t even get out of bed or away from Netflix to attend a worship service to honor God, even though there is No Other God.

Don’t you find that amazing?  In our first world of soaps and hair sprays and eclipses, if it were all to fall away to 1 soap, 1 hair spray or 1 location to actually view the total eclipse, the choice would be simple. 

Why is it so difficult to worship when there’s only one?  It’s like, Hello? Pssst.  It’s not that hard.  There is No Other God.

Maybe we’re so busy creating choices for ourselves and finding other things to worship, adore, and binge-watch that we find ourselves unable to see the distinction that would be crystal clear in any other aspect of life.

“This is what the LORD says– Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.” (Isaiah 44:6)

The choices are gone.  There’s only one.  There is No Other God.

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This “three word” series is archived beginning July 22, 2017.  

Whose strength do you have?  Your own?  God’s?  Aw, come’on, Barb, how is it even possible to have God’s strength?  As we continue to look at 3 Words for Day-to-Day Christian Living, there are 3 words upon which we can rely: God Gives Strength.  In fact, He delights to give strength to the least, the wimpiest, and the weakest among us.  And why?  Because when we are strong beyond our own visible reserves, it’s obvious on Whom we rely.  Our reliance is upon God and He is visible in His strength on our behalf.

The Bible is replete with examples of people whose visible strength and courage could come from no one but God.  Consider as one case in point, poor hapless Gideon.  He was just hanging out in a winepress threshing wheat because he didn’t want his enemies to take it.  God didn’t want Israel to run and hide from the Midianites, He wanted them to have faith and to take them out.  And He wanted Gideon to do it with Him (Judges 6-7)

Judges 6:14 The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

Excuses.  Excuses.  But Lord….my clan is weak.  I am the least of the weakest.  He was pretty scared and his every response to the angel of the Lord begins with “But” until the Lord says, “I will be with you” (Judges 6:16).

When God assigns a huge task that requires more than human strength and wisdom, He takes a man or a woman whose heart is all-in for God and displays that God gives strength. 

Because in the end, it’s not about conquering Midianites or whatever enemy you might think you have.  In the end, it’s about Him, conquering hearts, reclaiming them from the valley of the shadow of our enemy Death, and from pointless self-reliance.  Sometimes, the battle is too big for us alone. May we be able to say along with King David,

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:26)

Are you the least of the weakest, weary from fighting a battle that’s bigger than yourself?  God gives strength!  Or as the prophet Isaiah put it:

“The LORD gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:29-31)

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This “three word” series is archived beginning July 22, 2017. 

Can you imagine never being tired?  I can’t.  I’m tired quite often and the older I get, the more easily tired I seem to feel.  The concept that God Never Tires actually amazes me.  He does all this work 24/7, 365 days a year, eternally… never retires or takes a vacation and never gets fatigued.  And He never tires of working!  Yikes, I can’t even nap because the minute I try, I think, “Barbara, you lazy bum, have you forgotten that you need to do this, that or the other things?”  God Never Tires.  Just think about it!

God Never Tires of loving us.  He never gets fed up with our shortcomings and failures.  He never gets bored with our prayers no matter how many times we’ve said them.  He never nods off when we’re running on the same old hamster wheel of ideas, or worse, complaining.  He never rolls His eyes when we just don’t get it.  He never throws up His hands in frustration at us or decides we’re just so-not-worth-this.

Always loving, always patient, always present, always working, always advocating, always caring, always ready and willing, always preparing for our next moves, always shepherding, always encouraging, always guiding, always informing, always comforting, always holding the entire universe in place, and always knowing the most intimate thoughts of our weary hearts.

As you re-read that list and come up with your own, consider among the Three Words for Day-to-Day Christian Living what an absolutely amazing God we serve!  God never tires.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. (Isaiah 40:28)

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This “three word” series for Day-to-Day Christian Living is archived beginning July 22, 2017. 

It might seem to you that I’ve dropped off the planet.  It’s been a while, that’s true.  But I should explain that God’s work continues, sometimes behind the scenes or completely underground, even in my “ministry of the sewers” of my hometown.  The work is kind of gross, really complicated, technical, and rather tedious.  It also polarizes a person in the public arena, I suppose.  There’s only so much of me to go around with time and energy.  Which is why I want to focus today on three words to celebrate: God is Good! 

As we continue our series of Three Words for Day-to-Day Christian Living, I’d like to share with you how God has been good to me every single day, and maybe you’ll see that no matter your daily circumstances, God is good to you too. 

God knows our frame.  He knows there’s only so much we can take so He brings friends and encouragement.  He brings information and understanding. 

God is good to give helpers because going it alone isn’t God’s way for us and it isn’t good for us. 

Even when the positions we must take to be faithful…to Him…and to the truth…make us unpopular with a few, God supplies what we need and friends to share our journey of pressing on.  Some friends fall away, but God brings new ones for the steps to come.

God offers His Word as encouragement.  Was it a coincidence that one person said “Keep up the good work!  You’re fighting the good fight!” and then I came home and opened my Bible and a little business card fell out?  On one side it said, “No Regrets” and on the other side it said 2 Timothy 4:7 NASB “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”  Surely God knows how tired I get and how ministering to people who’ve been devastated by flooding taps spiritual reservoirs of compassion until it’s pretty easy to feel empty.  But my heart is full.  God is good to fill us with His encouragement.

Little winks that it’s okay to get back to this work that I love, writing devotionals… instead of the work I find hard and sometimes unpleasant.  A new song this morning at church proclaimed how “God is good!” Wink. God loves me and gave me refreshment today in creating Scripture displays, things of beauty and spiritual truth, appealing to the aesthetic part of me that really doesn’t like sewers all that well.

Just look at all the communication and celebration from Psalm 145:4-7!  How much gratitude I can have!  A reminder today of 3 little words that can make any day a bigger, better one.  I know who I serve and I know He takes pleasure in reminding me that I’m special because He made me.  That I’m really nothing on my own.  It’s not who I am, but Whose I am.  That seal of ownership never changes no matter how many times I let Him down or fail at a task.  Or how much I complain or look at someone else’s race thinking, “What if…?” 

I am His.   For that reason, I celebrate all He has done…for me…for you…for mankind…for this earth.  We can celebrate all the wonderful ways He touches our lives.  And we celebrate who He is.  Because God is good.  All the time…

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This “Three Word” series is archived beginning July 22, 2017. 

You may have heard the old saying “Familiarity breeds contempt” (which is not today’s three-word phrase for daily Christian Living). But it conveys the idea that we tend to take things for granted, having little value for what we believe we can have at any time.  Oh, but if we were to lose it!  We’d be in such a world of hurt!  One of the most familiar phrases in Scripture is John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”  We see it so often on placards at sporting events, on tee-shirts, and hear it from evangelists and pastors that it becomes the religious version of Charlie Brown’s teacher (“Wahn, wahn, wahn, wahn, wahn”) whenever we hear the three words for day-to-day Christian living “God loves you.”

Now I move from the collective (we) to the personal (me), but what about you?  I take God’s love for granted.  In fact, I sometimes doubt it.  Life chews me up and spits me into bed at night to toss and turn only to repeat the process the next day. I sometimes wonder:

Is this God’s definition of love? 

Nope. 

John 3:16 defines how God loves you.  Stop and re-read it.  Let it sink in.

God loves you and He loves me, not just for today, but for eternity.  It’s just so familiar that I don’t value it the way I would if He were suddenly… capable… of withdrawing His love, and decided to because I’m such an ingrate. I’m so glad that everything is possible for God but denying who He is.

Whether times are good or bad; whether life is easy or hard; whether we’re experiencing success or failure, health or sickness; whether we remember or forget, God’s whole character is love (1 John 4:16) and He can do no other.  Let’s do our best to cherish those three words for day-to-day Christian living: God loves you!

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This “three word” series is archived beginning July 22, 2017. 

Do you ever feel like everything is falling to pieces all around you?  The flood waters are rising and it’s all you can do to bring your life to higher ground?  For those of us in Chicagoland, it has certainly felt that way.  We’ve been experiencing floods of not-quite-biblical proportions and have found ourselves clinging to the promises and character of God.  Our prayers perhaps limited in number to three words, but they’re three words of great power, three words of incredible promise, and three words of life-sustaining hope.  Today we begin a series of those three-word reminders to help us face life as Christians in a very fallen world.

• Do you need help?  Encouragement?  A reminder that you’ve not been forgotten?
• Do you need a friend?
• Do you need to know you’re not alone?
• Do you need to know your God is real, present, and powerful?

God has answers for your questions straight out of Scripture, and He reminds us today: He is able.

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8). 

Just look how expansive and all-inclusive that is!  All grace.  Abound.  All things.  All times.  All you need to abound.  Every good work!

When we feel unequal to the task, our task is no match for God.  Three little words as an excellent reminder:  He is able!

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This “three word” series is archived beginning July 22, 2017.  For further study on how God is able, read Mark 9:21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” 23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” 24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” 

Believe today that He is able.

The Christian life is filled with things that don’t seem consistent with God’s love and sovereignty.  How is a Christian to act when evil seems to win?  It looks so unjust.  We can feel like the prophet Jeremiah who complained to God:

You are always righteous, O LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? (Jeremiah 12:1)

Why isn’t it total cause-and-effect and completely predictable in this world? Do good, receive good.  Do evil, reap the bad fruit that you have sown.  Why instead does it seem the harder you try to follow God, the more bad stuff happens?  It can certainly feel that way sometimes.

God has some Do’s and Don’ts for the Christian facing that question.

Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. (Psalm 37:1-3)

God’s answer is remarkably simple: 

Don’t look at them.  Look to God. 

Don’t fret.  Don’t envy. 

Don’t adopt the short-term solution and join them, because time is fleeting.  Instead, take the long view when evil seems to win and realize it’s possible for evil to be winning the battle but losing the war. 

Evil has its day and its purpose is to show us God’s justice when it happens. 

For when it’s Game Over, those who have trusted in the LORD and continued to do good, they will dwell continually in God’s kingdom and enjoy His goodness forever.

The disciples asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:25-26)  What is impossible for man is possible for God.  What is immovable and carved in stone for humanity is no challenge for the power of the Almighty.  It’s the Mystery of the Immovable Object as we conclude our look at 1 Corinthians 15  and What it Means to be Resurrected.

1 Corinthians 15:48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. 50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

It’s impossible for us.  We are the immovable object.  Created in God’s Image, born into man’s image after Adam, we remain Adam’s offspring, and sinful ones at that…apart from the work of Christ. 

Our flesh and blood likeness to Adam isn’t enough to get us into heaven no matter how well we live as humans.  Only the actions of God can move us, change us, redeem us so that we’re fit for heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed– 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

Some will not “sleep” (that is, die) for some will be alive when Jesus returns.  It could be our generation, it could be tomorrow, or it could still be years in the future.  No one knows apart from God the Father.  But we’re told to be ready.  Not by having accumulated a Do-It-Yourself-Salvation portfolio of good works and good behavior, but by having acknowledged that apart from Christ we are immovable and dead as a doornail.  Christians will be changed.  God moves the immovable object of His love and saving grace.

1 Corinthians 15:53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

So Paul reminds us to be immovable, unshakeable, undeterred in our devotion to Christ.  Labor as if it all depends on us, believe as if it depends completely on Him, for it does.  We are the immovable object that only God can move from death to life as we experience what victory over death looks like and what it truly means to be resurrected.

Happy Independence Day!

To some of us, the Fourth of July is descriptive only of the date, after all we wouldn’t say “Happy February 14th,” December 25th, or even April 1st.  The meaning for us is Independence, grounded in American history (and patterned after the freedom in biblical history from Genesis to Revelation and its connection to life).

Therefore, the Fourth of July is less about the fireworks we love than what they celebrate: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Freedom and everything that Liberty makes beautiful. 

Not all nations are free, but those nations that aren’t still know what freedom means.  To oppressive governments, America and its freedoms pose a threat to their way of life and control.  To those being oppressed, freedom is a distant hope they desire to taste and see someday.

It means something wonderful to those who passed through Ellis Island or today take the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

People take this oath and obligation freely because the freedoms of the United States of America represent to them a fresh wind of opportunity and a blessing, particularly in contrast to the violence and persecution many have fled.

It is no surprise that in nations of tyranny the first things to go are often monuments to a prior history.  There is a reason why ISIS (and other regimes) destroy places of historical importance, especially religious significance. 

Erase a history, forget its meaning, and oppression will have no competition.  There is vulnerability in being a nation with no memory.

On this Independence Day, it is good to remember that to our founders, the Fourth of July wasn’t a date on a calendar for a picnic or a barbecue or a convenient document signing.  It was a day to remember as history because our founding fathers knew what it was to be in bondage and what it feels like to be free.

Happy Independence Day!