But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
2 Samuel 24:24 (NIV)

If you’re Resting at the River’s Edge with us, you read this story late last week.

• David sins
• God gives David his choice of judgments
• David chooses three days of plague
• Near the end of the third day, God instructs David “Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” (2 Samuel 24:18)
• When David arrives, Araunah makes him an offer: “Let my lord the king take whatever pleases him and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. O king, Araunah gives all this to the king.” (2 Samuel 24:22-23)
• David’s response ought to give us all pause:

“No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
(2 Samuel 24:24)

David was King and Araunah was happy to give him his land and everything he needed for the offering. But David was making an offering and a sacrifice to his King. Taking the free gift from Araunah would not have been much of an offering/sacrifice from David. It is to David’s great credit that he didn’t take the easy way out here.

Matthew Henry’s English is a bit dated, he hits the nail on the head. In his Commentary on the Old Testament, he says this about the passage:

Note, Those know not what religion is whose chief care it is to make it cheap and easy to themselves, and who are best pleased with that which costs them least pains or money. What have we our substance for but to honour God with it? and how can it be better bestowed?
Matthew Henry Commentary on the Old Testament, 2 Samuel 24:24

Or put in modern English, he’s saying something like this:

Those whose primary goal is making things as cheap and easy on themselves as possible aren’t seeking God with all their hearts. What is the purpose of all we have, if not to honor God? Can there be a better use for our possessions, energy and time but to use them to serve Him?

I was convicted by David’s statement and doubly challenged by Matthew Henry’s. I wonder – am I serving God sacrificially? Do my offerings cost me something or is He getting the leftovers? Is He getting service in my spare time and with my spare energy and money?

Let’s look at some examples.

Tithing: If giving 10% is easy – if your income is such that you can easily live on 90% – would God be honored by you giving more? And is there any better thing you can do with the “more” than give it to God?

Ministry/Service: Have you said “yes” to so many opportunities to serve that perhaps your service is costing you time, but you have no effort or “overflow” to minister out of? Or maybe it’s not so many opportunities to serve that takes your time, but all the other activities in your life. Is God getting the dregs, last minute, jump in the car and go, then wing it when you get there service? If so, I would contend that your service isn’t costing you what it ought. Maybe you need to be involved in less activities, and perhaps even less ministry activities, so that your offerings of service are complete offerings of all that you are.

Time with God: Is your time with God filled with constant distractions of this world, shortened by earthly demands, and less consistent than your other commitments? The enemy is a master at distracting us during our quiet time, and I’m not here to bring condemnation about it. But there are distractions that are brought on by the enemy and there are distractions that come up simply because of our own lack of discipline or planning. I’m talking about the latter here. My time with God ought to cost me something – it ought to be a sacrifice of all I am to focus on Him. Sadly, often it is not.

This is not a word meant to bring condemnation, but it is a word that is meant to encourage you and me to do better. I want my offerings to the Lord to have value – that means they must cost me something – because that’s how we value things here on earth – and if it’s not of value to me, I haven’t given an appropriate offering to God.

Lord, forgive me when I have taken You for granted! Help me to change. Help me to love you more, and to demonstrate that love by giving honestly of my time, money, talents, energy, and love to You.

From my last blog:

¹Then Hannah prayed and said:
“My heart rejoices in the LORD;
in the LORD my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
for I delight in your deliverance.

² “There is no one holy like the LORD;
there is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
1 Samuel 2, V1-2:

The first two verses of a ten verse song of worship and praise! After giving Samuel to the Lord, “then Hannah prayed and said: ‘My heart rejoices in the Lord.’” Wow!

OK – I know I wrote this two days ago. But I woke up this morning and what shouted in my brain was that Hannah prayed after giving her son to the Lord!

There is no record of a song of praise when Hannah became pregnant after being barren so many years. There is no record of her rejoicing when God gave her the desire of her heart. I don’t doubt that she did praise God when she became pregnant with Samuel, but I find it significant that we have no record in Scripture of that. Instead, what we have a record of is her ten-verse song of praise when she gives her son back to the Lord. That’s the nice way of saying it. The earthly reality is that she was giving her son, the one she had longed for, to someone else to raise – someone who had raised two sons who were acting wickedly before the Lord. From this point on, Hannah would see her son only once a year. And She praised God – she said “There is no one holy like the Lord, here is no one besides you, there is no Rock like our God.”

What an amazing perspective she had!

• She praised God that He had given her a son – instead of being angry that she had been given a son for such a short time.
• She praised God that He had enabled her to give Him an offering – instead of being angry that He accepted her offering.
• She praised God by faith for the future sons He would give her – instead of despairing that she may never have another son to hold in her arms.
• She praised God because He is sovereign – He is the God of all Gods and He is victorious over all.

Throughout this story of Hannah’s desire for a child, her promise to God that she would give her child back to Him, her making good on that promise and rejoicing while doing so has challenged me. I’ve reached an age when my parents’ generation is dying. Grieving is hard. And as the deaths pile up, it’s easy for there to be a drag on my spirit. I remember something my mother-in-law said as she lived into her eighties – that she knew more people who were dead than living. Hannah’s son wasn’t dead, but she was sacrificing the life she would have had with her son – that life was essentially dying as she gave Samuel to the Lord. And she sang her heart out in praise.

I am challenged that I hold too tightly to things of this world and I don’t trust (rest in) God’s sovereignty enough. Singing that praise doesn’t always come easily to me. Perhaps it didn’t come easily to Hannah, but there’s no indication of that.

Lord, Thank You for the people you’ve put in my life, whether for a short time or a long time. Help me to release all of them to You and rejoice at Your great power and goodness.

¹¹The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. ¹²When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”

¹³“But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”

¹⁴The 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?”

¹⁵“But Lord,” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

¹⁶The LORD answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.”

¹⁷Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me.
Judges 6:11-17

2 Lessons of Hope

Did you catch Gideon’s perspective and attitude?

He is living his life in the midst of a terrorist state. Verses 3 through 5 of the chapter paint the picture for us:

³Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. ⁴They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. ⁵They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.
Judges 6:3-5

Imagine living in a place where every time you are ready to receive your paycheck, terrorists invade your business and steal your check, then ruin all the equipment and set the building on fire. OK, so the first time that happens you’re pretty devastated, but you pick yourself up and you build again and you work and work until you’ve earned enough money to actually take some money out of the business. Or maybe you find someone else who has built again and you work for them and you are about to get your first paycheck in quite a long time. In either scenario, just as you’re about to receive your paycheck, terrorists strike again. They steal your paycheck and all money in the building, again demolish the property and set fire to the building. What do you do? How do you feel?

That’s where Gideon lived. He was doing the best he could for his family, but he was clearly not at the top of his game spiritually. He was secretly threshing wheat in a wine press to feed his family. I imagine as he sat there alone that he struggled to hold onto the faith of his fathers. I imagine that the voices in his head were leading him to despair instead of hope.

You can hardly blame him for his responses to the angel –

“If the Lord…why? Where are all His wonders…?” (v. 13)
“How can I…” (v. 15)
“If…give me a sign…” (v.17)

Yep! Gideon is at a very low point spiritually. I’ve been there. I’m guessing you have as well.

It’s fascinating that this is the person God chooses to use to save the Israelites.
Lesson #1: God can use us in the midst of our own personal crisis of faith!

Did you catch how the angel addressed Gideon?

Gideon – who is at an emotional and spiritual low point and who is hiding from the enemy in terror – is addressed by the angel of the Lord as “mighty warrior.” The word that is translated “warrior” is chayil and means “strength, might, efficiency, wealth and army.” It is often translated valor. (Tomorrow I’ll blog about more about this word – it’s pretty exciting.) The angel makes his point even stronger by adding an adjective (gibbor) that means “strong, mighty.”

I repeat – the angel of the Lord called Gideon “mighty warrior.” I imagine Gideon looked around to see who the angel was talking to. Given his current mindset and experience, I wouldn’t be surprised if a moment of terror seized his heart as he imagined that the angel was talking to someone about to steal his family’s food again.

Lesson #2: God sees us as the finished product, not as we are in the midst of our failures.
Yes, He sees our sins and our failures. But He sees BEYOND our sins and our failures to the person we truly are. Our sin and failure does not need to define us for all our life.

Perhaps my real-life example helps illustrate this: Yesterday, I was experiencing a moment of weak faith, wandering about mentally and emotionally and fighting against despair about my future (I’ll blog about this in a few days). But even in that moment, God knew that I would skirt the brink of despair and settle on the Rock of Hope. He would have been totally correct to address me as “Rock of Hope settler” had He spoken to me as I was resting at “Despair Place” because that is where I ended the day.

“Mighty warrior” is the person God saw in Gideon. “Rock of Hope settler” is the person He sees in me.

Where are you, friend? Are you hiding from the world, having been terrorized by the enemy? God can still use you. He sees beyond your weaknesses and failures and even beyond your sin. Be encouraged. Gideon went on, after a bit of coaxing by the Lord, to be that “mighty warrior” the angel found hiding in the wine press. You can too.

²⁸And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

³¹What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? …

³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8:28-37

The following question was asked in a Christian forum of a professional social network I’m a part of:

What do you think – Is every Christian in the workplace just there to work, or are they called/placed by God to be a full time missionary in that workplace?

That’s an easy question for me – I’ve always viewed myself as called to the workplace. For years it was the place where I was most effective and had the most significant influence. I am blessed that my ministry now rivals my secular job in the areas of effectiveness and influence, but I am still called to be a part of the workplace. And I believe that we are called as missionaries wherever God has placed us, no matter how permanent or temporary that place might be.

The question challenged me anew, though, as I realized that I had become lazy about thinking of myself as a full time missionary at work each day.

I participated in a missions trip to Mexico City a number of years ago. I remember the emphasis we put on something as simple as always smiling because we didn’t want to communicate anything but the love of Jesus while we were there. Throughout the trip we had a heightened sense that everything we did had an impact for Christ. We looked for opportunities to share Christ. We were careful how we interacted with people. We were conscious of not offending because of the difference in cultures.

We were always aware of our purpose during that trip – to represent and present Christ to those around us. If we have a missionary mindset (now often referred to as a missional mindset), we view that as our purpose in all that we do throughout our day. I’ve lost some of that purpose in recent years. I’m not saying that I haven’t felt called to the workplace or that I haven’t represented and presented Christ during that time. I’m saying that I’ve lost the “always aware” part of the formula. I was glad to be challenged by the question – challenged to re-orient my thinking back to that of a missionary in my world.

You, too, are a missionary in your world. It doesn’t matter if your world is the workplace, caring for children or your retirement community – if God has placed you there, it is to represent and present Christ to those around you.

Let’s begin to take our missionary responsibilities more seriously. Think about representing Christ to everyone you meet or talk with today. Ask Him who you should be more forthright about presenting Christ to.

Father, help us to begin each morning with praise and then a dedication to represent You throughout the day. Open doors for us to present Christ to those who are ready to meet Him.

³¹So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. ³²Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—³³even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.
1 Corinthians 10:31-33

¹¹In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. ¹⁸You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
Romans 6:11-18

We are blessed in America to no longer live in a place that accepts slavery as the norm. We don’t live with the consequences of owning other humans and controlling their lives to the extent that a slave master controls the lives of his or her slaves. Freedom is a wonderful thing. I appreciate that I have choices that eventually define my life – choices about where to live, with whom to live, what to do with my time, and even who to talk with. Slaves do not have those choices.

In this passage in Romans, Paul makes it clear that we have a choice to make about who we belong to – who our owner is. Will it be sin or righteousness?

As I get older, I’m becoming more and more aware the reality of this principle. The wonderful strength and optimism (and dare I say arrogance?) of youth is believing that you are in control of your own choices. And to a degree that is true. The reality, however, is that when those choices involve sin we become bound to that sin. The invisible cords that keep us attached to that sin are as real as any visible thing that places boundaries in your life. More real, actually. The more we sin, the more tightly those cords are bound.

When we choose Christ those cords are broken. We have the power to untangle them and walk in freedom. They have been cut and we can walk freely. Better yet, we can run and jump and play freely. Each time we choose righteousness, we step further and further away from the cords gaining more freedom.

Each time we choose to sin, however, we allow the enemy to tie knots in those cords that had been cut and begin to re-establish the bonds from which Christ freed us. Every step back into our old life, every obedience to our old self, is an obedience to our old slave master, sin. Every step toward our new life and in our new self are steps in obedience to our new master, Jesus who is righteousness.

Joshua gave the challenge well after the Israelites had entered the Promised Land and shortly before his death:

¹⁴“Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. ¹⁵Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
Joshua 24:14-15

Joshua was choosing righteousness and freedom. Paul was exhorting the Romans for choosing righteousness over sin. What sin easily besets you, friend? May I encourage you to choose righteousness in that area today? Walk away from the cords that Satan wants to bind you with. Jesus has cut them off and given you the power to choose to walk in freedom from sin – choose righteousness today.

The Israelites had the visible presence of the Lord to follow as they wandered in the wilderness. He appeared either as a pillar of cloud or fire. Those of us who trust Christ as our Savior have Him living in us and the Holy Spirit to lead us. Pillar of clouds or fire – visible and tangible; the Holy Spirit’s leading – invisible and usually intangible. How do you follow what you cannot see? How do you grasp what you cannot touch or feel? Let explore some answers to those questions.

Engage your faith.

¹Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. ²This is what the ancients were commended for… ⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Hebrews 11:1, 2a, 6

We grasp the movement of God first by faith – by believing that He is within us and that He wants to teach and lead us. That means approaching Him with confidence that He will teach and lead – He will respond when we pursue Him. It means beginning each interaction with the Lord – whether worship, prayer, Bible study or service – reminding ourselves that He wants to speak to us and will speak to us if we attune our ears to hear Him.

It’s very easy for me to begin to read the Bible in the morning and be halfway through a chapter (or further) when I realize that I’m just reading. I’m not approaching it with an expectation that God will speak to me. There is a world of difference in what I hear from God when I simply read as opposed to when I ask Him to speak to me and I expect to hear from Him. (Even so, I am always surprised when I do hear from Him – how antithetical is that?)

Be “in faith” – believe – that God will speak to you and lead you.

Be predisposed to follow wherever He leads.
Just as you have an expectation to hear from God, have an expectation that you will do whatever He says. A “wait and see” attitude is not only displeasing to God, it is a mask that covers the face of pride, a critical attitude and seeds of doubt.

A “wait and see” attitude pridefully says that you will decide if what God has told you to do is the right thing for you to do or not – if it is best for you. It puts you in the position of being critical of the plans God has for you. It casts doubt that He will enable you to do what He has called you to do. Pride, criticism and doubt are all problems that plagued Job and his friends. I believe God would say to those of us who nurture a “wait and see” attitude, the same thing He said to Job:

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.

⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶ On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—

⁷ while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

⁸ “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,

⁹ when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,

¹⁰ when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,

¹¹ when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
Job 38:4-11

Unquestionably, God is more knowledge and more power than you and I. Sometimes He needs to remind us about that.

If you want to find and follow the invisible, you must believe that He is and be determined to follow Him when He reveals Himself to you.

Friends, I have to pause here and say that as I write this, God is dealing with me so seriously about this issue. I can think of so many times when I have wondered “is this God?” and not been obedient, only to learn later that it was, indeed, God. I can think of so many situations where I have been afraid that others would think it wasn’t my “place” to do something, so I haven’t acted upon God’s leading. I can think of so many situations when I have kept silent when God was prompting me to speak.

Lord, forgive me. Change me – give me a predisposition to speak and act when I sense Your leading.

Readers, may I encourage you to pause and ask God to reveal if this is an area of weakness for you? If it is, repent (agree with God that you have failed Him) and ask Him to forgive you and change your heart and mind so that You are predisposed to follow Him.

Experience God’s presence regularly.

You will more likely be able to recognize God’s leading in your life if you regularly pursue God’s manifest presence. (See my blog “Recognizing the Invisible God” for more on the manifest presence of God.) Regularly do those things that most easily lead you into His presence. Attend church, have your own personal times of worship and Bible study, fellowship with other believers. I find that when I am regularly experiencing the manifest presence of God, I am more likely to see His presence in my life throughout the day. I am more likely to sense when He begins to move and when He settles in. Practice experiencing the presence of God so that you can recognize when He moves and when He stays. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of pursuing God apart from attending church weekly. Worship Him throughout the week, not just on Sundays.

I recommend the Christian classic The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was a French monk who purposed to find God in the everyday activities of His life. You will be challenged to do likewise by reading it. It’s a short book that packs a powerful punch. There are many versions of it available, so the one you purchase may not look like this, but you can click on the book title above to order it.

Get to know God’s nature and character through Bible study.
While he may act differently with different people because He has created each of us uniquely, He will never act contrary to His nature and character. For example, God’s ways are always loving. Even in discipline, He does so in love, always desiring a restored relationship. His heart is revealed in so many passages, but I like this one:

³⁴“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! ³⁵Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Luke 13:34-35

Set aside times to be still before the Lord.
Our culture is fast-moving and it is seldom silent. All that noise and movement makes it difficult to find and see the invisible. After a personal three day retreat with the Lord at a local monastery, my husband described his quiet time alone with the Lord like this:

It’s like every noise and every activity is drawn on our soul. The soul gets over-crowded with such things, so we take an eraser and erase what we don’t need anymore. But the eraser leaves a chalky film behind. When I spent time quietly with the Lord, it was as if He had totally washed the slate board of my soul clean. There were no traces of all the gunk of the previous week. With the noise of my soul quieted, I could more easily see God in the world around me and hear His voice in my ear.

Do what He has revealed to you to do.
Earlier I wrote that we ought to have a predisposition that says “yes, I will follow You.” That’s step one. Step two is actually doing it. Having the predisposition toward obedience doesn’t take us all the way – we must actually make the decision to be obedient and then we must act accordingly.

Be obedient. If you don’t do what you know to do, God is not likely to show you more of the plan! By not being obedient, you are limiting how much of Himself God will reveal to you. He’s typically not going to reveal the next thing until you’ve done the first thing. Perhaps this verse reveals why:

Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
James 4:17

We are actively sinning when we are not obedient to what God has revealed as His will for our lives. Deal with the sin if you want to hear more from God. Remove the veil that separates you from Him.

Well, that’s quite a list:

• Engage your faith.
• Be predisposed to follow wherever He leads.
• Experience God’s presence regularly.
• Get to know God’s nature and character through Bible study.
• Set aside times to be still before the Lord.
• Do what He has revealed to you to do.

Where are you weakest? May I encourage you to work in those areas, trusting that God is faithful and will meet you and reveal what you are to do? and may I encourage you to have a “full speed ahead” attitude toward following the leading of the Lord? He will reveal it when we are faithful to believe and pursue Him daily.

As I studied church history in grad school, I learned something that I hadn’t realized before. I suppose it’s pretty obvious, but it had escaped me – the early Church really were learning what God had in mind for the Church as they went along! Now I suppose that continues to be true for us today, but they were really just figuring it out – everything we take for granted today was birthday in that first century (well, at least everything that’s of God). It’s obvious as we read through the book of Acts.

Peter, the White Sheet & Cornelius
Yesterday, while Resting at the River’s Edge, we read about how Peter took the Gospel to the Gentiles for the first time. God gave him a vision of unclean animals being lowered from the sky on a sheet. When told to “Kill and eat,” Peter objected because the animals were those considered unclean by the Jews – they’re the very same animals we’ve read about as we’ve read through Leviticus this month. God’s response would surely have shocked Peter: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:15) Peter had learned all his life that these animals were unclean and now God was telling him they were clean!

As he considered what it might mean, three men came to the door asking for Peter to go to the home of a Gentile, something also against the Jewish laws. Peter made the connection between his dream and these visitors and goes to the home of Cornelius. Once there, he began to share the Gospel. Scripture records the result:

⁴⁴While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. ⁴⁵The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. ⁴⁶For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.
Acts 10:44-46

Praise God! As was His plan from the beginning of time, He has now opened the door to Gentiles coming to faith in Christ. Let’s celebrate, right?

Peter & the Jewish Believers
Well, not quite. As we read in Acts 11, Jewish believers who had not been with Peter when the Gentiles received the Holy Spirit became critical of Peter:

¹The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. ²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him ³and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”
Acts 11:1-3

Although it is clear from the beginning of Scripture that it was God’s plan to save the world through Abraham (“and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:3b), the Jews had gone off course a bit and believed that God only intended to be their Messiah, their Savior. God spoke to Peter and then demonstrated His expansion plan through Cornelius’ family…but those who were not present were skeptical. After hearing Peter’s discussion, the responded appropriately:

¹⁷So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?”

¹⁸When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”
Acts 11:17-18

Peter & You and Me
If you’re reading along with us, why am I telling you the story? Because I find a couple of things interesting about it.

1. It is fascinating to see how the Church came into being – it didn’t just spring up fully formed. The early believers were discovering what God intended as they went along. The Scriptural record we have demonstrates that. It’s easy for me to fall into the trap of reading Scripture – both the Old and the New Testaments – from a historical perspective instead of thinking about how it documents what was being lived out. When Acts chapter 10 occurred, Peter was doing a new thing, changing the way forever that the Gospel would be viewed – God had granted even the Gentiles repentance unto eternal life!
2. These chapters demonstrate that obeying God brings criticism, even from fellow believers. The believers in Jerusalem criticized Peter for associating with Gentiles. We should never fall into the trap of believing that following God’s will brings peace. We forget how radical a God we serve. His desire is that all should come to a knowledge of repentance, and sometimes that requires radical obedience when God lays out a radical game plan. As believers, at least as believers living in the United States, I think it’s often our tendency to talk people out of radical obedience. Lord, forgive us and give us a radical faith!
3. I love the way that Peter didn’t seem to get defensive when he was criticized by other believers. He simply “began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened” (Acts 11:4). It is difficult for me not to get defensive when I am criticized. I’m often not successful at it, but I think there are three primary components that help us not to become defensive: Being absolutely confident in God, walking in humility and loving those who are accusing you. Peter was absolutely confident that God had sent him to Cornelius’ home and he simply explained it to the other believers. He didn’t respond in an authoritarian way, although by rights he could have. After all, he was the apostle, they were not. But he chose to explain all that had happened so that they could also see the hand of God moving and shaping the new Church.
4. Look how quickly the criticizing believers were willing to change their minds. After hearing Peter’s story, they immediately rejoiced. They didn’t feel a need to be right, didn’t raise objection after objection, didn’t seek even the smallest concession to save their own dignity. They celebrated that they were wrong! They celebrated that God had opened the door to the Gentiles.

There are probably other lessons in the story, but these four strike me.

How about you?
Did you get the same things out of reading the two chapters? Which of the above four points is most significant for you?

Points two and three hit me the hardest. I want to obey God radically and I don’t want to ever discourage someone else from doing the same. And I’m still working on losing all my defensiveness when people criticize me.

How about you?

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17

¹And Saul was there, giving approval to his death….³But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.
Acts 7:1, 3

²⁰At once [Saul] began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. ²¹All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” ²²Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.
Acts 9:20-22

In searching for a headline, I originally had “God Changes People.” I decided that the word “changes” isn’t nearly strong enough. We are not simply changed, we are transformed by the overwhelming power and presence of God in our lives.

God transformed Saul from Christian-hater to lover-of-God.

He’s done the same for me.

He’d love to do the same for you!

They key? Humility & obedience. Sure, Saul didn’t have much humility at the beginning – God had to knock him off his horse and blind him to teach him humility. Don’t resist God as Saul did. Seek Him humbly, be obedient to what He reveals to you, and He will transform your life. You can count on it! No. You can count on Him.

I’m in Southern California this week with my husband. It’s the place I spent the first four years of my adult life. It’s the place where I spent the first four years of my marriage. It’s the place of my birth – my rebirth, that is – I came to know Christ and was baptized here. It’s the place where I stopped being an atheist.

This week, Phil and I have visited with friends from the first church I attended as a believer, the first small group I was a part of, the first friends I had after becoming a Christian. We’ve also visited with Phil’s aunt and uncle who “parented” us when we were 2400 miles from anything and anyone familiar. We’ve eaten at restaurants we ate at thirty years ago. On Sunday we’re visiting the church in which I was baptized. Well, it’s not quite the same church, but it has some of the same people in it and it meets in the same building. We’ve marveled at how different the world is now than it was thirty years ago. (When we left CA, no one had a PC or a VCR or a cell phone. WalMart and Starbucks didn’t exist. We drank Tab instead of Diet Coke.)

As Phil and I sat at dinner last night – El Torito’s on Redondo Beach Pier – I was overcome with emotions. Phil saw me struggling to hold back the tears and asked what I was thinking. When I told him it was hard to put into words, his response was “You’re a professional writer. Give it a try.” So this is me trying.

• God is so very good and I have been so very blessed. He has been so faithful during the past thirty years.
• As we live our lives, every difficult situation or challenge seems so urgent, so immediate, and so serious. And, of course, they are. Yet in hindsight, they really aren’t. As I looked back on all the situations that caused me grief over the years, I can’t help but see the hand of God in so many of them and the perfect timing of God resolving them. So today I hear God whispering in my ear, “Trust Me. You could have trusted Me at the very beginning of each situation and missed so much of the stress and heartache you experienced. So trust Me now.”
• I was so young thirty years ago! Yet I’m sure I didn’t think I was. What 23-year-old doesn’t think they know everything?
• Being a part of a local church is so very important. It grounds us. It provides a community of many generations that gives perspective and wisdom, if we’re willing to listen. I remember one example of this quite clearly. My husband’s vacation had been canceled unexpectedly, squelching the plans we had made to go to San Francisco for a couple of days. I was depressed. (Yes, it was one of those little challenges that grew out of proportion.) I remember an elderly member of the congregation listening to my tale of woe and saying simply, “You’re young. You’ll have many more opportunities to go to San Francisco.” My perspective was immediately changed. And I eventually made it to San Francisco.
• The only thing that lasts is the impact we’ve made in people’s lives. As introverts, Phil and I have to force ourselves to be social. We’re happy living our lives alone with one another. It’s not God’s best for us, though. God’s best is interacting with His children and those who are not yet His children, allowing them to help us become more like Christ and allowing God to use us to help them become more like Christ.
• God has changed me a lot in the past thirty years. I bet you’re like me: Sometimes it feels like we haven’t changed much and we carry around the same old problems and issues and insecurities and doubts. It seems that way because we’re always with ourselves – but when we have the opportunity to take the long view, we can see more clearly that God is, in fact, shaping and transforming us into the man or woman He wants us to be.
• If God can do this much in the first thirty years I’ve known Him, how much more can he do with the next thirty?

I’m a blessed woman.

But all of these things, with just a few of the details changed (all right, maybe lots of the details, but none of the principles) are true of you, too. God is so very good and you are so very blessed. I don’t know your current life situation, but I know that you are blessed by God. I know that Christ died for you and that God wants to bless you with eternal life and an intimate relationship with Him. Beyond that, He wants to walk beside you, helping you make right decisions, helping you get through wrong decisions, and helping you become the man or woman He created you to be. That’s the kind of God He is. And He is unchanging – that means He doesn’t change over time and He doesn’t change how He responds to different people. What He’s done for me, He will do for you.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)

Perpetua and Felicitas

She was 22 years old with a newborn baby, a son. A noblewoman by birth, educated and fluent in Latin and Greek, she was a young bride, a woman who had married honorably. She was her father’s favorite, his only daughter in a family of sons. She was also a criminal, by her own confession — a follower of Jesus Christ. The year was 203 and the emperor had declared it illegal to convert to Christianity. Her name was Perpetua.

Much of what we know about her comes from her own prison diary, which perhaps represents the oldest Christian writings from the hand of a woman.

Perpetua had a maidservant and friend named Felicitas. Felicitas was also a Christian. Like Perpetua, she was young, and she was 8 months pregnant. She was arrested with Perpetua along with three men. Felicitas gave birth in prison shortly before their execution.

Perpetua describes her initiation into prison life:

“After a few days we were taken into prison, and I was much afraid because I had never known such darkness. O bitter day! There was a great heat because of the press, there was cruel handling of the soldiers. Lastly I was tormented there by care for the child.”

Undoubtedly, Perpetua had never been in such a position.

In prison, her father came to her repeatedly, sometimes commanding, sometimes begging, sometimes angry — doing all in his power to convince her to simply renounce her faith and to save herself and her child. He pleaded for himself and Perpetua’s mother, that they might not lose their daughter. He pleaded on behalf of her son, that he might not lose his mother. He tore at her heartstrings to save her life. In one interchange, Perpetua tried to explain, in a way that He might understand, why she could not deny Christ:

“Father,” she answered, “do you see this vessel — waterpot or whatever it may be?…Can it be called by any other name than what it is?”

“No,” he replied.

“So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am — a Christian.”

Perpetua knew that to save her life, she must lose it. She wrote of her father after one visit:

“This he said fatherly in his love, kissing my hands and grovelling at my feet; and with tears he named me, not daughter, but lady. And I was grieved for my father’s case because he would not rejoice at my passion out of all my kin; and I comforted him, saying: That shall be done at this tribunal, whatsoever God shall please; for know that we are not established in our own power, but in God’s. And he went from me very sorrowful.”

Notice the phrase “he would not rejoice at my passion.” Perpetua had had a dream which convinced her and those around her that she and her friends would not be delivered out of the prison by the Lord, but would become martyrs. And their hope shifted from this world to the world to come. They rejoiced at the promise of suffering for her Lord.

At her trial, Perpetua watched her father be beaten because of her faith and her child taken from her, but she remained resolute. One biographer described Perpetua’s entrance to the amphitheater like this:

Now dawned the day of their victory, and they went forth from the prison into the amphitheatre as it were into heaven, cheerful and bright of countenance; if they trembled at all, it was for joy, not for fear. Perpetua followed behind, glorious of presence, as a true spouse of Christ and darling of God; at whose piercing look all cast down their eyes…Perpetua began to sing…

A wild, savage bull was let into the ring. Perpetua and Felicitas were wearing loose robes. Perpetua was thrown by the beast first. Upon landing hard, she sat up and arranged her robe “mindful rather of modesty than of pain.” She then asked for a hairpin to pin up her disheveled hair. In the culture, women wore their hair down when they were in mourning, and Perpetua wanted to be as one prepared to meet her groom with joy, not one mourning a loss. At one point, she encouraged believers around her saying “Stand fast in the faith, and love you all one another; and be not offended because of our passion.”

When the ladies were not killed by the bull, the crowd called for them to brought into the arena and killed with a sword, so that the people could witness their death. Perpetua and Felicitas, hearing the cries, rose without prompting, kissed one another as a sign of peace and came forward to be slain. The executioner was a novice, perhaps nervous in front of the large crowd. Perpetua took his hand and put the sword to her throat, demonstrating that she was giving her life of her own free will.

It is said that the adjutant of the jail where Perpetua and Felicitas were held became a believer, as did many in the crowd that day. Augustine noted two centuries later that joined together, “perpetua felicitas” means “everlasting happiness.” Most would not give that title to a martyr, but Augustine points out that it is exactly what the two women gained.

The next time you see a woman’s hair clip, let it remind you of the faithfulness of a young woman, her maidservant and their God.

Quotes taken from:

• Paul Halsall, editor, Internet Medieval Sourcebook: St.Perpetua: The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 203, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/perpetua.html
• Dave Kopel, http://www.pitt.edu/~eflst4/PerpetuaFelicity.html