Contentment Is...

“You will be filled with shame and contempt instead of glory. Drink also and be like an uncircumcised heathen. The cup of wrath in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and foul shame shall be upon your own glory.” [Habakkuk 2:16]

This is us. When we read Habakkuk, we read about the Babylonians and the Judeans. God proclaimed who He would use to bring his judgment upon the Israelites. But, we need to look closer at this. We deserve God’s judgment, too.

I must be honest, I wanted to see God take the Chaldeans down. I mean, hey, they destroyed Judea and the whole area. They overthrew the most horrific army of the time, the Assyrians. In our minds, they deserve judgment, right? 

Yes, it’s true the Chaldeans deserved judgment. Still, when you read closer, you will find the Judeans did, too. In Habakkuk 2:5 & 8, the prophet records the sins of the Chaldeans. He said they were proud, restless, greedy, and they plundered nations. From historical records, we come to learn this plundering meant they utterly destroyed nations. They killed the people and animals, destroyed the farmlands, and took the resources of the people-gold, silver, wine, grain, oil, etc. Besides this, the Chaldeans took captives. These actions deserve punishment, yet God would use them to exact His judgment against the Judeans.

Why would God allow such a heinous and horrific army to invade and overthrow them? Consider the sins of the Judeans according to God’s judgment in verses 6-7 & 8b-19. The overarching sin of the Judeans according to God was their greed. He spoke of this in verses 6-7. God said their debtors will rise against them and they will taunt them with derision. They amassed wicked gain and lived on a higher plane of existence than people around them (vs 9). God further stated the Judeans shamed their own people and made them destitute without caring for them (vs 10). They worked for futility, falsity, and emptiness trying to satisfy their burning greed (vs 13). This futile work would end up destroying what they had done. Their work amounted to nothing. They worked for perishable things instead of things that mattered (vs 14). These Judeans even encouraged and made their people drunk to disgrace them and bring shame upon themselves (vs 15) to make themselves look better than the other Judeans.

When we compare the Chaldeans with the Judeans, not much difference exists between them. They each were greedy. Both people groups willingly destroyed other people to get what they wanted. The Chaldeans did it with physical violence and destruction. The Judeans did it by taking more money than necessary for services and loans to make themselves wealthy. If that wasn’t enough shame, they caused their fellow countrymen to get drunk. This made the rich seem more glorious and the drunkard, the one they made drunk, lose his or her glory and cause shame. Both nations caused people to be shamed because of their greed. Both people chose to step on people to make themselves appear bigger to other people and nations. They did not care about the physical and/or spiritual destruction they caused the people.

Surely, we don’t do that, do we? “We work hard for what we have; we deserve it,” you say. “That beggar on the corner can go get a job and work like I did,” you think. “I want to be able to go to the spa each week.” This attitude can go on and on. There is always something else you can buy or that you want. Advertising marketers hungrily gain your attention and help create a desire in you for something so you are never satisfied completely. The greed this breeds in your heart can lead you to be stingy with the money God gave you. It can make you have a “better than thou” attitude as you compare yourself to someone else. This attitude and desire to want more than you need comes from discontentment with what God has given you. You want what someone else has so you can be as good or better than them. Maybe you want to buy a flashier car than your frenemy across town. Possibly you want to move into “that” neighborhood because people consider you wealthy if you live there. You can’t help someone else by giving them a loan because you might need that money to fulfill one of these desires. Hoarding money for your own use and not considering the plight of someone else is greed and harmful. You do this to draw more attention to yourself as if you are a god. It is setting yourself up to be higher than someone else. This then puts the other person in their place, below yourself.

This grasping and hoarding of resources God calls covetousness. If you will remember, covetousness is a sin spoken against in the Ten Commandments. It makes you put your desires over God’s. You end up thinking of yourself as your own god, not caring that you don’t know everything, you’re not perfect, and you are mortal.  The things you buy or do with your hoarded money become your idols, your gods. They are more important to you than almighty, eternal God. In verses eighteen and nineteen, God proclaimed woe on the Judeans. He said the Judeans made an image from something God created. The Judeans trusted in these things to give them satisfaction and fulfillment, but forgot all manmade things fade away. They rust and are destructible. These idols cannot help their owners when God’s judgment comes upon them. There is not one breath in them. They are not alive, nor powerful.

We each hoard our possessions and won’t share at times in our lives. We get a promotion and an increase in pay. Instead of living with enough and having resources left over to help people, we move up the chain to a higher plane of living. This allows us to show other people we are wealthier than them, to gain notoriety, or it allows us to have a beach house. Possibly we can go on ocean cruises each year while we pass the same person on the street who wants a job we could afford to give them or help them get training to have a marketable skill. Perhaps with our hoarded money we buy a boat or plane or fourth car or motor home instead of asking God for what use did He give you the raise, bonus, or gift. Each of these and many unmentioned examples are like how the Judeans. They had enough. All good things come from God. He provides for our needs. Sometimes, God provides for someone else’s needs through the gifts He gives us.

For the Judeans who had received God’s mercy continually for their repeated sins over the centuries, the time of God’s judgment was upon them. Habakkuk wrote this prophecy sometime between 626 and 605 BC. The Chaldeans/Babylonians invaded and destroyed the Judeans in 586 BC, just 19-40 years later. God said in 2:3, though the prophesied judgment of God seemed to tarry, it would occur at the right time. “Wait for it because it will surely come,” God said.

God’s judgment against the Judeans and Chaldeans was right and due. We recognized that from the start, didn’t we, when we read they devoured whole nations, shamed the people, destroyed livelihoods, plundered people? Our using every cent of money we receive for ourselves also deserves God’s judgment. We have more than we need. God means for each person to be a channel of His blessing, not to hoard everything for him or herself. You say, “I only have two loaves of bread in my house. That is barely surviving.” Still, a person lives down the road or in another neighborhood with no loaf of bread. That person is not surviving. For others of us, we say, “Someone needs to take care of that.” It could be that “someone” who should be you taking care of it is you. God provides each person with skills, time, and His plan and purpose for his or her life. Seek God asking if He wants you to fill that need with your time or physical resources. Jesus told His followers in Matthew 7:7 to ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking for those who ask receive, those who seek find, and for those who knock the door will be opened. We take that to heart and do those three things for ourselves. God answers and provides physical, spiritual, and mental things. We love it when He answers our prayers. Other people ask, seek, and knock, but you are holding on to the things God wanted to use to answer that other person’s prayers. That is hoarding. That is greed. That is destroying other people just as the Chaldeans and Judeans did.

Just as God judged the Chaldeans and Judeans, He still judges today. We are the Judeans and Chaldeans of this age. When our neighbor goes hungry, homeless, thirsty, or naked, we did not show love to God (Matthew 25:35-40). But, when we feed, house, quench thirst, or clothe someone, we show God we love Him and our neighbor (the person in need). To these people, God will give rewards. To those who hoard and harm other people, God will judge just like He did the Judeans and Chaldeans. We should search our own heart to determine if we are hoarding and greedy, or helping and generous.

Lord, please show me where I have failed and sought my own will. Show me where I have harmed people by not helping and through that have not loved you. Forgive me of my selfishness and lead me to Your path again. Please lead me to know where and when to give or help someone else. Amen.

Cake Mix

When Jesus began His earthly ministry, He went to different places, sought different people, and told them to come and follow Him. He ate with people of difference occupations and beliefs, and to all of them He spoke about being in a relationship with the Father. For each of those people whom He met, Jesus explained the great love of God, that He wanted none of them to be lost forever, but to have an eternal relationship with Him. He explained this depth of relationship with the most astonishing verse ever written in the Bible. Jesus said, “God loved the people of the world so much, that He gave His only Son (Jesus), so that whoever believes in Him will not perish forever from a relationship with Him, but will have eternal life with Him” (John 3:16, my paraphrase). God wants no one to be lost to sin and death.

This being the case, that God loves us, you, so much that He sent Jesus to die for you, we realize Jesus’ earthly ministry was very important. Jesus didn’t go to a person and say God loves you, then go away. No, Jesus spent time with the people, especially His disciples. He taught them about having new life. Jesus taught the followers about having a relationship with God. He used His relationship as an example for the people. Jesus prayed the believers would be one, just as He and the Father are one. John recorded this prayer in John 17:21, but please read that whole chapter; it’s important. To be “one,” means to be in a relationship, but not just any kind of relationship. It means to be in a close, life-altering relationship. It requires work on your part. Let’s consider two examples to help us understand the degree of this closeness.

When you first met the person of your dreams, you didn’t go to them and say, “Let’s get married now.” No, you called the person, dated him or her. You spent time with the person and thought about that person often. You may have sent letters or emails, possibly left cards on his or her car or sent flowers. These were ways to deepen your relationship.

Let’s consider another example. When you crave cake, you think of the ingredients and decide which flavor you want to taste. You take the cocoa from the cabinet and put it in the bowl. You add flour, eggs, butter, baking soda, salt, and milk. Now, you have poured all these into the bowl and you step back. There’s still no cake. You might have the right ingredients for cake, but there was no personal effort to mix it so it can become (grow) into what you desire. That’s like going to church, hearing a sermon, listening to some songs, and giving a tithe, but not giving of yourself, putting no personal effort into it. Without applying what you know, like mixing the cake ingredients in the bowl which is adding yourself and effort, your ingredients won’t become a cake. This is the same as having a close relationship with God. You must apply yourself in the relationship-go to Him, read the Bible, worship Him at church, pray to Him regularly, take to heart the sermons and Bible studies you hear, and seek His will. Without your effort to seek God, your relationship with Him won’t grow. You would understand all the right things to do, but you wouldn’t have applied yourself to the effort. Your lack of effort to have a close relationship with God means you do not really love Him.

Jesus realized relationships required effort. He preached about it in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said in Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and keep on asking, and it will be given to you. Seek, and keep on seeking, and you will find. Knock, and keep on knocking, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks the door will be opened.” Jesus spoke about being in relationship with God while he walked with people on earth. Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. It requires personal effort; it requires drive to want to have a relationship with God. If you just want to taste the individual ingredients, you are missing the party. The cake is so much better when you mix it and invite some friends. Mix the ingredients of your cake and taste the fruit of your rewards. The fruit of putting in the effort with God is a vital, personal relationship with Him.

Lord, please help us realize having a relationship with You is not about checking the boxes as if faith is a task. It is about being with You, seeking You, and talking to You. Help us add to our faith, hope and love, and with those a desire to be with You.

Conception: Empowering to Serve Refugees

We each have heard about or know at least one person who is a refugee. News media report of nations upset by corruption, war, greed, and natural disaster. The United Nations High Council on Refugees (UNHCR) defines a refugee as, “A person who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. That refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. These refugees most likely cannot return home or fear to do so” [https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/what-is-a-refugee]. Another thing to understand is refugees do not come only from Middle-eastern countries. They come from the Far East, Europe, east Europe, Africa, and North and South America. People from first-world countries even seek asylum.

With the 20+ million refugees and asylum seekers on earth, how does one help? Where do they start? What should they do? With the first article in this series, we remembered everyone, not just Christians, is to help their neighbor. God made each person with the innate capacity to empathize, love, and care for others. As Christians, we know we are to love our neighbors, those who find themselves in need whether they are family, friend, or foe. This article will help each of us as we seek God’s wisdom on how to serve refugees in our communities. The best place to begin is with God.

Conception

As with the beginning of any program, task, or organization, before it can start, an idea for the program must occur. For a faith-based refugee program, the beginning is no different. A conception of the idea must come from God. If a person wants to help someone, she could buy clothes and take them to the person in need. What if the person was a different size than the clothes, or the person no longer lived in that place because he didn’t have rent money? Perhaps the person was starving, instead of shivering. When you give the person unneeded clothes, are you helping or just appeasing your conscience? For this reason, conception must come from God. Prayer, inspiration, determination, and further prayer should occur during the conception stage of ministry.

Prayer

If we truly want to follow God, we should seek His will. Just because a vacancy exists for a person to work in a ministry doesn’t mean God wants you used there. Pray and keep praying until God tells you where to work (Matthew 7:7). From personal experience, when at term’s end on the mission field, the ministry in which I worked was completed. Determined from that point not to do just anything, I waited on God. I spent November and December seeking God’s will. I returned to the field not knowing, but continued praying through January and February. Eventually, God told me to look around and asked what I saw. I saw refugees, no longer just people from another country. (Funnily, I qualified for that title). I saw people who fled for their lives, needed help, and hurt from trauma. This example of waiting for God with expectant prayer emphasizes determined and expectant praying must come before inception (Habakkuk 2:3).

Vision

When you’ve prayed and God has shown you the work He wants to do through you, you don’t jump right in and work. You begin by understanding the situation in which God wants to use you. A worker must be educated before he goes to work. He must receive the vision as God ordains it. This worker must recognize the people being touched by the ministry. He must understand what work needs to be done and how. This inspiration, this vision, comes from God.

Determination

A very important part of conception is for the worker to have the determination to follow God’s leading. Whether it costs him nothing or costs him his all, his calling by God should sustain him in the work. When the worker’s heart grows heavy from the suffering, and when the needs of the work require his money, time, and mind to be “all in” to make a difference and stay the course, he must be determined to stay where God called him, following God’s leading. Praying until God tells you in what ministry to work, no matter how long it takes, is of great importance.

Prayer

Conception is incomplete until prayer enwraps the whole program. Prayer should lead you to seek God’s will, His vision for you now, and to keep you determined-steadfast-in the task He gives you. It should be included at the end of conception, too. Without prayer enwrapping conception, the boat has wind and goal, but no rudder to direct it. If Paul had not sought God’s guidance, he might have gone to Rome too soon and the Emperor may not have heard the gospel. God must be the One who steers the ship. Having His vision and determination to do as He called you is invigorating, but do not set sail without God. He guides the direction in which you are to go and minister.

Conclusion

You may have refugee friends or know of refugees, and their plight breaks your heart. To begin work, you must seek God for His vision. This requires prayer. You must be emboldened to remain steadfast and determined in the work, not wavering when days are difficult and require more than you think you can give. This conception of God’s will for your life must be draped with prayer from start to finish. Without prayer at the end of this stage, the vision has no aim, no direction.

To begin work for the Lord in aid of refugees, God must call one to the task. With that calling comes His vision, the strength to remain steadfast, and the drive to do whatever it takes to complete the task. With the conception God gives, an inception-a start-can occur. Inception takes a person from envisioning and empowering (conception) by God through three phases of preparing and doing ministry to help refugees.

Joining God

Isaiah 55:8-13

Vv. 8-9

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.  

Vv.10-13

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up, and instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up, and it will be a memorial to the LORD, for an everlasting sign which will not be cut off." [NASB]

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How many of us have jumped in to fill the gap? We have heard the phrase “standing in the gap” and have made that our life’s stand. We may feel that if we do not do it, no one will. We may have even waited for a day or two or a week or two and no one filled the gap, so we jumped in and saved the day. Have you considered that God may have other plans for you? Maybe God was preparing another person and that person was wrestling with the call to obedience. If we jump in the gap too soon, possibly the plan of God, who is grooming someone for just that spot, could be delayed. The other person will not fill the position, will not grow, and you did not intend to thwart God’s plan. Verses 8 and 9 above must be remembered. 

Let us consider this passage. Verse 8 tells us that God’s plans are not our plans and our paths are not His paths. Surely, we say, “We must know God.” We have been His follower, His child, for 1, 5, 10, 20, 30 years. We say, “We know the voice of God and we obey.” Are we saying that we know what God is saying then or that we know Him so well that we know what He would want in the situation? I think we need to be careful here. We must exercise caution and being the “mind of God.” We will never have the mind of God. We strive, if we are listening and growing in Christ, to have a mind like Christ, like what Paul speaks of in Philippians 2:5-11. We strive for this. We run the race toward this goal, using the metaphor of Paul. We never have the mind of Christ. 

Point taken now. So, if we are not to stand in the gap and do the work of God, what are we supposed to do? Are we to let that ministry fall by the wayside? Well, if that is God’s plan, yes. Oh, I know how hard that is to stand, wait, and watch a ministry work die. The alternative though is God has another plan. His ways, His paths, are higher that our ways. Not only is Isaiah saying that since God is greater so His plans must be better, Isaiah is saying since they are majestic God’s plans, His plans are exalted. This should grab out attention now. Can we say that we have ever had exalted plans. That is what the Hebrew word, which we translate as “higher,” means. It means “exalted.” Isaiah goes further and reminds the Israelites that it is God who brings the rains and snows, which after they have watered the seed, animals, and man, somehow, majestically return to the heavens. God makes the seed sprout and provide bread for man. If God’s plans are so exalted that it is He who takes care of us, how do we think that our plans can even measure up to the majestic, exalted plans of God. Not only did Isaiah speak of this, but Paul spoke of it time and again as he bore witness to Christ. Read Acts 14:1-20 and specifically note verse 17. Read Acts 13:18 about God’s provision for the Israelites. Consider further Deuteronomy 1:31 where Moses recalls to them what God has done for them. Finally, read Matthew 6:25-34. God’s plans are greater than any plan that a mere human can hatch. 

God’s plan for this gap may be to fill the vacuum with a person He has been preparing. This person may not have realized it yesterday, but God’s plan has been active since before time began was realized and counted. God’s plans were made before creation because He has been since before creation. He is and always will be. His plans are high/exalted. Ours are not. The person whom God has been preparing needs to have time to hear God calling him or her to take over and fill the gap that seems as if no one will fill it. This person needs time to obey God’s calling upon his or her life for this moment. It is for that moment that God led him or her. We recognize that because we have been in that place ourselves. We may have been at a store just when someone needed human compassion and assistance, possibly for us to give him or her food. We may have been at that meeting at just the right time to see the parent who is fighting desperation while keeping the family afloat financially or emotionally. We have all been in the time and place where we could say, “’For such a time as this’ (Esther 4:14 [NASB]) God has led me.” Stop, wait, listen, and see whom God wants to fill the gap. 

This is how we will know if we are to be the one to fill the vacant gap. This is how we have known in the past. If you have forgotten or never known, you must “ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking” (Matthew 7:7 [AMP]) where God would have you serve Him. Sometimes it will be a day before God gives you an answer and direction, sometimes a week, month, or months. God’s ways are higher than our ways remember. When we are persistent and He knows our hearts are in earnest in seeking His ways, He will direct our paths. He will shed light on the path we are to follow. It may be to that open gap or it may be to another very different path. Know, though, that God has His plans, which are higher and wiser than our thoughts or plans. If He says leave the gap open, He has bigger plans than we can see.  

I could give you a great example of this, but I do not want to appear seeking praise from humankind. Suffice it to say I waited 3-4 months for God’s guidance and almost three years later, there are results that are so much greater than I could even have imagined or conceived in my created human mind! God’s plans are greater than our plans and His ways are higher than our ways. His master plan is to bring all people to know Him so that He can guide them in the best way and so they can have salvation from their sins and live with Him forever even after human death. This is the Master’s plan and He has a master method, through the forgiveness of their sins by the blood that His Son, Jesus, shed as the sacrifice for our sins, our errors and evil ways. The big question remains: Will you seek God’s thoughts and higher ways to know Him and to know how He would like you to be of service in His master plan? Where will God call you to “lay down your life” (John 15:13 [AMP]) because of your love for Him, which came from His ultimate love for you, the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus Christ?

Stop…Pray…Ask…Seek…Knock.

He will direct your path in His love for you and the people of the world.

His ways and thoughts are higher.