FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture References: Joshua 21:43-45; Act 13:26-33

From Last Lesson: God had spoken through Jesus and intended to continue doing so. God had promised the Messiah . . . God made good on the promise.

We have the promise of God’s presence. Near the end of Luke’s Gospel, these words of Jesus are recorded:

“Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).

This promise was that after Jesus’ followers no longer had Him physically with them, they would not be alone. God would still be with them in the Holy Spirit who is the presence of God. We can claim that promise, too. We know it is fulfilled.

In Romans, Paul picks up that Old Testament promise of the promised land, and he says:

“For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. . . . Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (Romans 4:13, 16).

I certainly don’t think we should arm ourselves take over the land of Canaan as our promised land, much less the whole world as Paul had come to view it. Could it be that God has promised to faithful people a place where they can be faithful and we can be God’s people without interruption of government, culture, or those who are faithless? I most assuredly believe this is the promised land that God has for us, right here and now. Eternity with the Lord will be our final destination. However, properly understood, our place in the natural world is not a contradiction of the reality we have already faced, that Christianity stands in conflict with the world. We have a new understanding of the promised land, shaped by the Old Testament revelation and perspective of Jesus to help us see more clearly now what it is, and that God promises us a place to be the people of God. The promised land for which we long is not a utopian Christian society in this world in which things go well for us and the non-Christians have a rough go of it. Rather, it is a place within society; namely the community of faith, which is the Church universal, the true Body of Christ, with Jesus as the head. Though we continue to try and bring Jesus and His message to bear upon our world, even its negative response does not take away the reality that we, the people of God, have the promise of a way and place where we can be all that God wills for us to be.

Indeed, God is still making promises and keeping them. For those of us who are willing to enter into relationship with God, the Father through Jesus Christ, our Lord, promises are made which speak of meeting our needs and bringing us life, abundant life. Our God, whom we find to be absolutely trustworthy, makes good on every one of His promises.

Have you come to the place where you can rely on, and trust explicitly in the promises of God? If not, pray to the Lord for increased faith and as James writes, more wisdom (James 1:5) and the God of promises will most certainly meet that need.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References: Joshua 21:43-45; Act 13:26-33

I have been concerned (and that is being polite), as many of my fundamental peers are, for some time at how in contemporary American Protestant preaching and, in particular, the high-profile media preaching, that a relationship with God is increasingly tied to the promise of material blessing. The suggestion is made (sometimes it is much more than a suggestion) that if one will give his or her all to God, riches and all manner of success and safety in general will come to that person. Sadly, the preachers who make such promises are always filling their explanations with assurances such as: “God has shown me” and “God laid it on my heart to tell you.” The truth is that more of a case can be made for the person of God having a tough row to hoe since those who sell out to God will always be in conflict with the ways of the world. Christianity is not accommodation of religion to cultural norms or expectations. Christianity is radical obedience to God in the way Jesus showed us, it is shaking off the world in pursuit of holiness. Jesus died for each of us because of His commitment to God. Radical love as God defined it put Jesus in conflict with the political and religious establishment so much so that they did away with Him. There was no promise from God, His Heavenly Father, which prevented that. When we align ourselves with the way Jesus did things and what Jesus taught, our politics, economics, and personal relationships as well as our institutional commitments won’t be very much like what prevails in the world we live in; there can be any number of unpleasant reactions from those around us. God has certainly never promised that the world which largely opposes God’s way will make it particularly easy on God’s people; in fact He has lovingly warned us of just the opposite.

Let’s not forget, though, that God does speak to us. God does lead us. God makes promises to those who enter into covenant relationships with Him and we become keenly aware of them through the help and anointing of His Holy Spirit within us. We have almost an innate awareness of God’s promises because God’s promises are tied to helping us be the people He wants us to be. God’s promises, then, are tied to our needs, not our extravagances. We need leadership. We need God’s presence. We need a place to be God’s people. God promises all of these.

I want you to remember this important point, especially in reference to God speaking. If someone is saying, “God has shown me,” or, “God has told me to tell you,” just remember that if we belong to Christ Jesus, we have the same Holy Spirit and He is very capable of speaking to you directly without having to go through someone else. God may use someone else to confirm His promises to you, but He will always speak to you first.

We have the promise of a clear revelation of God through God’s self-revelation, the living Lord Jesus Christ. In our Lord Jesus Christ and through His Holy Spirit is our leadership for living. This is the concern of our New Testament lesson. Paul is preaching to some people in Antioch of Pisidia when he says that he and his commissionaires there have come to bring this good news:

“God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus” (Acts 13:33).

God had spoken through Jesus and intended to continue doing so. God had promised the Messiah, an instrument of salvation, and God’s raising Jesus from the dead was not only God’s strongest affirmation that Jesus was the one, but also the unmistakable evidence that God made good on the promise.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References: Joshua 21:43-45; Act 13:26-33

From Last Lesson: The Lord is speaking to Joshua with these instructions:

“Arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses” (Joshua 1:2-3).

Without any wavering, the Israelites believed that they had come to the land that was rightfully theirs. They had waited and waited. Generation after generation had passed on. There had been much suffering and death on the way to being where they believed God had led them, and now they were prepared to use whatever means necessary to claim the reward of their obedience.

Never did Israel claim to deserve it, nor even to own it. The land was Yahweh’s; only God doing battle on Israel’s behalf had assured her possession of the land. It was within God’s designs, so Israel reasoned, that her warfare was conducted.

Israel’s warfare was conducted in Canaan, and with success. The writer of Joshua reports, “As the LORD had commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did; and they divided the land” (Joshua 14:5). In their eyes, this was not a new plan at all.

In addition to the basic promise of the land, somewhere along the way (see Deuteronomy 3:20) God had also promised the ability to enjoy the promised land. As the writer of Joshua recalled:

“The LORD gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand” (Joshua 21:44).

On these bases, the writer comes to the answer to his question about whether or not God keeps promises. What we have here is a moving affirmation and confession of faith in God who is absolutely trustworthy. The writer looked back, having scrutinized the evidence, and said with assurance:

“Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass” (Joshua 21:45).

The Lord kept every one of the promises made to the people of Israel.

Let’s be clear about what God actually promises. To say, “God said,” before someone gives a word, lesson, or instruction appears to give more credence than it would otherwise have. It is not hard to see this principle at work in this time we’re living, and for all kinds of reasons it is very much abused. Man tries to put into God’s mouth what we want to hear, and the message we put there may range from promises of our own prosperity all the way to damnation of our enemies or people we just don’t happen to care much about. When we are not able to own up to our self-motivation for making a given decision or choosing a certain course of action, we, as people of God, often blame our choices on God; though we may express ourselves with much piety. We become all too careless in using phrases like “God told me” and “God led me.” We end up blaming all kinds of crazy things on God.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References: Joshua 21:43-45; Act 13:26-33

The issue is one of trust. Can we trust God? We live in a world that makes us ask that question, and asking it does not brand us as either disobedient or sinful. In fact, we probably ought to ask it now and then. In the asking, especially before God, we have our affirmation.

We are taught to put our lives into God’s hands, but there is much about God that even the most devout fail to understand. Infrequently we, many of us anyway, are driven to ask whether or not God is trustworthy. Our question may be silent, but we ask it nonetheless.

There are a variety of places to look for evidences of God’s trustworthiness. Our Old Testament writer preferred to look to God’s promises—to see if they had been kept. The result is a story of the promised land in retrospect.

The biblical books which we classify as the “Former Prophets” such as Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings, offer a theological/historical look at the Israelites in Palestine, from the death of Moses until the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. The Book of Joshua, the first in the set, tells the story of the Israelites under the leadership, obviously, of Joshua, Moses’ immediate successor. Focusing largely on the conquest of the people in the land of Canaan and how the land came to be divided among the Israelites, it is a “bloody” book, detailing battle after battle. Such war, however, is defended as the will of God. That is, there was war because the Israelites were trying to take the land God had promised them. Again, Israel’s view on the matter was grounded in what she took to be God’s promise and was tied in the idea of covenant relationship with God. Simply put, a covenant was an agreement in which two parties made certain commitments to each other and in so doing obligated themselves to specified actions.

It all went back to Abram’s call:

“Now the LORD had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you’ ” (Genesis 12:1).

Abram, later called Abraham, did just that. He took his wife, nephew, followers, and possessions and went to the land of Canaan. At a place called Shechem in Canaan, God appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7). God made a promise.

The promise was repeated on several occasions. For example, the free but frustrated Israelites who were delivered under the leadership of Moses out of Egypt in what turned out to be desert wanderings, God promised:

“Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ “ (Deuteronomy 11:8-9).

At the beginning of the Book of Joshua, we hear the promise again. The Lord is speaking to Joshua with these instructions:

“Arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses” (Joshua 1:2-3).

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.