Life Challenge

 

The God of Israel is no idol! He is the Creator of everything that exists, including His people, His own special possession. The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is His name! Jeremiah 51:19 (NLT)

Growing up, each child wants to be like someone. Some children want to be firefighters, police officers, or doctors. Others want to be the President or a teacher. Throughout the Bible, we read of people who want to be like others. Most often, we read about the Israelites wanting to be like the people of other nations and having what they have.

The Israelites descended from Abraham and Sarah. To Abram (Abram’s name before God changed it), a man who had no heir, God promised he would have as many descendants as the stars in the skies (Genesis 15:5). He continued this covenant with Abram, in Genesis 15:7-8,

I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you, and I will be their God. (NIV)

God made another promise to him saying He would make Abram’s descendants a “people.” He said in Genesis 17:4, “As for Me, this is My covenant with you; you will be the father of many nations.” Before God led Abraham’s descendants out of Egypt, these people were not a “people.” The word “people” means a group of individuals called by one name and made into a nation. God made Abraham’s descendants a nation when He rescued them from Egyptian slavery using Moses and Aaron.

In Genesis 26:3-5, God reiterated His promises to Abraham’s son, Isaac. Isaac passed God’s promises as a blessing on Jacob in Genesis 28:3-4. Yet, the descendants of Abraham were not a nation. They were a collection of people from the same area. These people, by God’s plan, became descendants (heirs) of His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In Exodus 6, when God spoke to Moses about the Israelites in Egypt, He told him Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew Him as Yahweh, “the existing One.” Yahweh God explained He had covenanted with these men. With His rescue of the Israelites from Egypt, He declared His relationship with the people of Abraham. God told Moses,

“I am the LORD (Yahweh, the existing One). I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by My name the LORD. I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. (Exodus 6:2-4)

God then commanded Moses to tell the Israelites, "I will take you (the Israelites) as My own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians." (Exodus 6:6-7, NIV)

God said His relationship with the descendants of Abraham is close. He called Abraham’s descendants His people. God did not call other people and make them His own. With God’s declaration about the Israelites, He made them into a nation, His nation. This nation was the inheritor of the promises God made with their founding fathers. He would be their God and they would be His people.

Consider Israel’s spiritual life. They followed God, then sinned repeatedly. These descendants of Abraham worshiped God in the tabernacle, then made a golden calf at the bottom of Mount Sinai. They promised to obey His commandments and decrees, then kept things from the villages and cities they attacked. These Israelites had a spiritual life of peaks and troughs. What caused them to stand strong for God then disobey Him? What would make a group of people called by Yahweh His nation turn their backs on Him? This God is the same One who redeemed them from slavery in Egypt. He made them to be a light for the nations (Isaiah 42:6).

What happened? The Israelites sinned against God because of temptation. The ways people lived in the surrounding nations enticed the people of God. They wanted the gold and silver. The Israelites wanted idols, false gods, like other nations had. They must have thought, “Surely, the land of those nations is thriving. Their gods are working for them, so let’s give offerings to their gods, too.” This desire for more things-more gold, fame, and glory-drew them away from their devotion to Yahweh, LORD. Their actions, words, and thoughts disobeyed God’s commandments and said to Him they were not content with what He, the Giver of all good things, gave them (James 1:17). The Israelites coveted, killed, took part in adultery, worshiped other gods, etc. They no longer distinguished themselves as the people of God, His nation. Abraham’s descendants were like other nations. They became like the nations who God allowed to defeat and rule over them. The Israelite nation, people God chose and made into a nation, became slaves and exiles. They were in bondage to other nations and to their sins. What about these other nations enticed the Israelites? For a while, these nations prospered, defeated other nations, and expanded their empires. In the end, other stronger nations defeated them.

Considering this again, we read about the Israelites and wonder how they ever could have wavered in their spiritual fervor. God was among them in by cloud, fire, amazing provision, in protection, and in power. How could they have left Yahweh to be like the other nations? Understand, they wanted what other nations had, while forgetting Who made them a nation and proved Himself faithful to His covenant with them. They wanted to be like Babylon, Edom, Amorites, and other nations.

If we look honestly at ourselves, we realize our spiritual lives are no better than the Israelites’ lives. We have had times of faithfully following God and growing in our relationship with Him, then gradually or suddenly, we stop. When we consider these dips in our spiritual journey, we realize we decided we wanted more than God was giving us. We were not content with the “good and perfect gifts” He has given us (James 1:17). Reflecting on this, we realize we are no better than the Israelites, who were no better than the Babylonians, Assyrians, and other nations around them. We each are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Of course, saying we fell away from God assumes we had a relationship with Him already.

Let’s think about this. God, through Abraham, covenanted with the Israelites. Yahweh promised to be Abraham’s, Isaac’s, and Jacob’s God. That was a personal covenant for them from Him. Only from Exodus 6 does God make this covenant with a group of people, the Israelites. He chose the Israelites to be His people, a nation. God chose them to draw other people and nations to a covenant relationship with Him. They could do that by their faithfulness to Him and His to them. They were to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6 & 60:3). The Babylonians, Assyrians, et al. had no covenant with Yahweh God. The people of these nations followed in other gods like Molech (child sacrifices required), Chemosh, Asherah (goddess of fertility who had temple prostitutes), and Baal. Each of their gods were false gods. These gods had no power. They were idols made by people from parts of God’s created world. They could not move themselves or cause any benefit or harm to people who bowed to them.

With this information, reflect on what this means for us. We are like Israel, who are like Babylon and the other nations. We sin and fall short of the righteous standard of God. The other nations had no god that could cleanse their sins from them. The nations’ gods could not help or save them. Their spiritual journey was a flat line in the trough. They had no hope of salvation from sin and no hope for eternal life with God. Still, they were like us, sinners separated from God.

The Israelites knew God and knew about Him. He chose them before they were a people, before each of them was born. God chose them when He covenanted with their ancestor, Abraham. These same Israelites had the prophets and priests of God who proclaimed what God required-to love Him with their whole being and to obey Him. The people who were not His people saw and heard about what God had done over the centuries. They understood from the Israelite lineage, God loved them, was gracious to them, and protected and provided for them. Still, the people of God had a spiritual journey of peaks and deep valleys. They had no steady upward growth in their spiritual journey with Yahweh God.

Consider this. God existed from before time began. He makes Himself evident in creation, provides testimony of Himself in personal accounts from people over these millions of years since He created people. The Bible, His word, tells us about Him-His attributes and works. Many of us have heard of the covenant God had with the Old Testament Israelites. This covenant was a covenant to lead the people to seek and follow Him. It carried His promise of always caring for them. Yet, God’s first covenant did not provide salvation, the cleansing from the stain and guilt of sins. God required by His laws that the Israelites twice daily offer animal sacrifices to atone for their sins. No created thing was perfect enough to cleanse people of their sins.

God had the perfect plan. He sent His Son, Jesus the Messiah, to be born as a man and live a sinless life as fully God and fully man. This Son, Jesus, died at the hands of humans. They crucified and laid Him in a tomb, which was then sealed. Yet, three days later, He rose from death to life as death’s conqueror. Forty days later, Jesus ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father in heaven to intercede for us. He was the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Jesus’ sacrifice cleanses the stain and guilty conscience from the sins of each person who believes in Him as the Son of God, the Messiah, and who confesses and repents of their sins. To be a Christian, a person must believe in Jesus the Messiah and confess and repent of his or her sins. From then, Jesus redeems the believing person. God declares him or her righteous. That makes her or him more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ. That person can know he or she will have eternal life with God in His kingdom. This is the second covenant God gave to all humanity. It surpasses the first covenant, which could not save a person from his or her sins nor give eternal life.

You must ponder on and decide for yourself whether you will believe, confess, repent, and surrender your life to Jesus. Honestly, consider your life beside the Israelites’ spiritual journey. Do you recognize you have spiritual troughs and peaks as the Israelites? God covenanted with them. This covenant was not a redeeming one. Of course, a few people of Israel showed their faith with their lives of obedience to God. God called each of them righteous. Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Elisha, and other great men and women of faith God declared righteous.

Are you like the Babylonians and other nations who had no spiritual journey and covenant with Yahweh God? They either did not know God personally or did not know about Him they had no covenant with Him. Are you like the Israelites who wanted to be like their neighbors? Whether you are like the Israelites or like their neighbors, you still need redemption-cleansing-from your sins. Jesus paid the redemption price for you to be freed from the debt of your sins. That debt of sin is an eternal death penalty, an eternal separation from God.

Perhaps you are like the second covenant people, who are in a faithful covenant relationship with God and are co-heirs with Jesus in God’s kingdom. Unlike the first covenant, the second covenant ushered in by Jesus provides salvation and cleansing from sins for all people. Jesus died so each person could be made righteous and so God would declare them righteous. The heirs of Abraham are people of faith. Remember, God declared Abraham righteous in Genesis 15:6. This means Abraham is the father of people who believe in Jesus and become righteous through Him. The Gospel is for each person. God loves each person and wants each one to be saved from his/her sins and death. He wants everyone to become His redeemed child and co-heir with Jesus Christ. He sent His Son to earth because of His great love for each person and His desire to have a righteous relationship with each one. John 3:16 testifies to that. In it, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Through the millennia, Many Christians have stood for Christ and endured persecution. These testimonies of His people and the Bible proclaim God’s love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness available to every person. Each person gets to make his or her decision about believing in Jesus as the Son of God. Be more than other people. Choose to be like Jesus. Jesus is the image of truth and perfection.

Be Imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:1 (ESV)

Who will you choose to be like?

Other people or Jesus?

Masked

 

Life’s masked encounters,

Ones who have no face,

Live on in the voices

As we make our way.

 

Whispers cloth and paper muffled,

Sweet indulgences now life muted,

Never failing, always trying,

Heart aims to be heard before “Goodbye.”

 

Sweet innocence event hidden,

Smiles never by encounter known,

Giggles, laughs must be the bearer

Of heartsong’s language to another.

 

Sparkling eyes, rise of chin,

Demurely bending when encounter perchance,

Cues most often overlooked

Become the clear parlance.

 

Life’s masked encounters,

Hide more than lost whispers

More than lost smiles,

Make no mistake.

 

For as time moves forward,

The more we are aware,

The more stays behind the mask

Secreted back in fear.

 

Each roaming mask

Seeks shelter, solace,

Though fear peeks through the shutter,

Heart, unseen, precious haven finds.

 

The intake of life,

Breath bends mask’s creases,

As depth of emotion,

Causes sighs and stuffs senses.

 

Stuffed tears,

Stuffed sadness

Stuffed distress,

Stuffed fear.

 

People walk behind creased masks

Waiting for crease marks someone to see,

Waiting through blur of tears,

Waiting for hurt to be beheld

 

Immune, none are we,

Walking this once new, now old, path.

Look, really see, behold the masked faces,

Hear the silent crying people hold back.

 

Fear of dying, fear of needing,

Fear of not knowing when,

Fear of gasping, fear of pleading,

Fear of ending the pain within.

 

Before it’s too late,

Take the chance, really see

People here, people there,

People the same as you and me.

 

Be seen without the masks we buy and make.

To be known deeper than a glance.

The fears, more common than before.

Reach out, share, hear, and care more.

The Substitute

 

I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20 (NIV)

Jesus said this in His Sermon on the Mount. He pointed out that the people the Israelites looked up to as righteous were not righteous enough to be with God in His kingdom. This must have concerned them. The hearers of Jesus that day must have wondered how they could be with God in eternity. I am sure Jesus realized what was in the hearts and minds of the people listening to Him that day. He already had the plan in place. God has had the plan in place since time began of how sinful people, people He loves, can be with Him. He knows holiness cannot exist together with sin. That is not a choice, but a fact. Where sin is, no holiness exists, just like where holiness is, no sin can exist. Other writers and speakers give this example. When one enters a completely sealed and dark room, no light exists, but as soon as a person strikes a match, darkness is shattered, and the light pushes it away.

With that idea, we should consider what Jesus offers so people could be with God. The people on the mountain that day realized He had been speaking about God and eternal life with Him. Jesus taught them the Beatitudes, about what is more important than gathering things for yourself in this life. He explained that what is in a person causes the sin and offered His listeners a glimpse at the new covenant. Jesus explained He fulfilled the Law and brought the new covenant based on God’s mercy and grace. Nothing people can do can earn it for them. The first covenant required the Israelites to obey the Ten Commandments, which the religious leaders expanded to 622 regulations. Jesus said He fulfilled those laws in the Sermon on the Mount. With His life and death, Jesus provided what was necessary for redemption from sins forever and for each believer to have eternal life.

This idea that one must be righteous is not new to the New Testament. From God’s laws, the Israelites knew He required twice daily sin sacrifices to atone for their sins, their wrongdoings. These animal sacrifices were never enough for the complete and permanent cleansing of the sins they committed. Nothing a person could do would make the stains from sins and the condemnation because of sins go away permanently. Yet, God declared righteous some people in the Old Testament. If we are familiar with the Old Testament, we remember of a few people from memory, like Elijah, Moses, David, and Abraham. There were others, too, who God stated were righteous. Consider Ezekiel 14:12-23. Four times, in His condemnation of Jerusalem, God compared Noah, Daniel, and Job as having a righteousness that exceeds any person in Jerusalem. He stated explicitly in verses 14, 16, 18, & 20, “Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were there, their righteousness would save no one but themselves, says the Sovereign LORD.” God declared Noah, Daniel, and Job righteous because of their faith. (Hebrews 11:7, Job 1:1. In the book of Daniel, Daniel told the king the interpretation from God of the dreams God had given the king. By doing this, he was a prophet of God. God called His prophets righteous in Hebrew 11:32, & 39-40) God, with the first covenant with the Israelites agreed upon at Mount Sinai, declared the Israelites His people, His nation. This first covenant was to lead them to Him and let other nations know they are His people, whom He will protect. It provided for their faithlessness to their covenant with Him by explaining what He would do to discipline/punish them. This first covenant to the Israelites, the Mosaic covenant, provided no means of eternal salvation by works or by offering animal, grain, and oil sacrifices. Some of the Israelites intentionally sought and believed God deeply. They changed their lives to follow how He led them. Each of these Israelites allowed God to be the Sovereign LORD of their lives, just as God stated in Ezekiel 14.

God declared several Old Testament people righteous because of their belief in Him that led them to revere, love, and follow Him with their lives. Understand, He did not love just a few people. God loves all people. He seeks to have a personal relationship with each person. God understood the first covenant was not one giving redemption. That’s why He planned from creation to give a second covenant. That second covenant occurred when Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified on the cross and buried, three days after which He rose from death. Jesus conquered sin and death with this Messianic covenant. No other sacrifice does a person need to offer for his or her sins. Belief in Jesus, with the individual’s profession of faith in Him, and a confession and repentance of his or her sins brings the person into a saving, cleansing, eternal relationship with God. Nothing else. No one’s faith can provide salvation for anyone else.

God told Ezekiel to tell the people of Jerusalem that having God-fearing and righteous people in their city would not keep them from God’s righteous judgment and wrath. His wrath came because of their repeated sins against Him, each other, and other nations. They could not rest on the righteousness of others-not priest, prophet, grandparent, parent, or siblings, etc. No one is righteous except through God declaring them so.

When a person believes in Jesus Christ and He washes the sins of that person from his or her record, then God declares the person clean and righteous, just like He declared Noah, Daniel, Job, Abraham, Moses, and others of the Bible righteous. God provided a way for each person to be declared clean and righteous with the sacrificial death of His sinless Son in substitution for each of us. We do not have to die an eternal death of separation from God. By our belief and because of His grace, God will declare a person righteous. Paul said this in Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

None of us knows where another person truly stands in his or her relationship with God, but we each realize where we ourselves stand. Do you have a saving faith in Jesus? Do you believe Jesus is God’s Son, who died the death you deserve because of your sins against God? God will apply the death of Jesus against your sin judgment. He will apply His resurrection from the dead to you so that you will live eternally with Him in His kingdom. Now is your chance to confess your sins to God and repent of them asking Him to give you the direction and strength to avoid temptation and live a righteous life? What keeps you from believing in Him and receiving His grace?

As it is written:

There is no one righteous, not even one;

there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away, they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good, not even one.

Their throats are open graves;

their tongues practice deceit.

The poison of vipers is on their lips.

Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood;

ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

²³ For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

(Romans 3:10-18 & 23 [NIV])