February 29, 2024

Nehemiah 4.9 (NIV)
But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.

[Do not] pray about . . . strategies, but . . . make prayer the strategy.*

It was nearly 100 years since the Jews returned to Jerusalem from exile and still the city had no walls. While a walled city is a foreign concept to us, it had cultural and political significance in the Middle East of the Old Testament. There was resistance from some local officials but the biggest obstacle to rebuilding the walls was lack of leadership. And along comes Nehemiah – a man on a mission from God.

The project was coming along nicely when their progress came to the attention of some of their most avid adversaries who began to plot a strategy to fight and “stir up trouble” (verse 8). How did the Jews respond to this threat? Nehemiah says they prayed and then posted a guard. 

There are a couple of ways to misinterpret Nehemiah’s actions. We could think that this is an example of the adage that many people mistakenly think is found in the Bible: God helps those who help themselves. But that would be wrong. We could also see it as a sign that they didn’t trust God. They prayed, after all, so why did they need to post a guard?

When they had finished their prayer, they did not have the luxury of time to weigh their options. Prayer plus responsible action is not a sign of lack of trust – it is a step of faith. Posting a guard would have been useless if God hadn’t been consulted first. As it says in Psalm 127.1, “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.” And without action, their prayers would have been faithless.

We must be careful to ask for God’s direction before taking action. Pray and be led by his Spirit into action.

The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. . . . He does not anoint plans, but men – men of prayer.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 28, 2024

Nehemiah 2.4, 5 (NIV)
The king said to me, “What is it you want?” Then I prayed to the God of heaven and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.”

There is no way to learn to pray except by praying.*

I used to have a job in which every telephone call was a potential land-mine. Every time my phone rang, as I placed my hand on the receiver, I would say, “Please help me, God,” before I answered. I have heard this kind of prayer referred to as an “arrow prayer.” You “shoot an arrow” to God, silently asking for help in a critical situation. We don’t always have time to present God with an itemized list of our needs before we must make an important decision.

Like soldiers who drill and drill until the maneuver is as natural as breathing, Nehemiah had been praying and preparing for this meeting with the king, even though he didn’t know that the king was going to ask him what he wanted and he certainly wasn’t expecting the king to grant his request. We don’t know the exact words of his prayer, but like Nehemiah, we should have that arrow ready to go.

Nehemiah also sets an example of praying audaciously. Would he have had the nerve to make such a bold request of the king if he hadn’t already appealed to the higher power? How daring is your prayer life? Have you practiced praying until it is your automatic response? Do you approach the throne boldly and dare to ask for really big favors? 

To the spirit of prayer every place is a praying place.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 27, 2024

Ezra 10.1 (NIV)

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites – men, women and children – gathered around him. They too wept bitterly.

Good leaders know how to balance transparency with being an example. Good leaders feel secure enough to be vulnerable.*

If you are going to make a spectacle of yourself in the expression of your anguish, it might be gratifying if the spectators are moved to join you in your weeping. As expressed by another writer: “Ezra’s grief over Israel’s spiritual compromise was similar to that of many prophets. But the people’s response to Ezra was unprecedented.”*

When I see someone else crying, I usually get a little teary along with them. But these people, who had probably gathered more out of curiosity than genuine concern, were moved by more than mere sympathy. In the words of another writer: “[W]e see Ezra demonstrate the number one management principle in the world: People do what people see.”* Ezra the leader modeled the proper behavior and attitude for the circumstances.

Clichés exist because there is truth in them. “Actions speak louder than words” is especially true for those who follow Christ. The world watches to see if we are consistent and authentic. Any good public speaker can deliver a powerful-sounding sermon but a Spirit-filled life is a powerful sermon.

Listeners filter every message through the messenger who delivers it. You cannot separate the leader from the cause he promotes.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 26, 2024

II Chronicles 15.2-4 (NIV)
“The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach and without the law. But in their distress they turned to the Lord . . . and sought him, and he was found by them.”

Despite the technological changes from ancient civilization to our present time, the human condition has not changed.* 

“It goes without saying . . .” is always followed by saying what should go without saying. It seems unnecessary to point out that God is with you when you are with him and he’s not when you’re not. But the Israelites had a history of needing to hear the obvious. We see here a condensed version of Israel’s story – one that was repeated over and over. They turned their backs on God; they got into trouble; they turned back to God – and he took them back. For them, “it goes without saying,” is just a saying.

Living in right-relationship to God requires some circular reasoning: we must have a relationship with God in order to have a relationship with him, for without that relationship, we do not have the means to maintain a relationship with him.

In this passage, we see a picture of our loving Father. He doesn't hold grudges, and he never reminds us that we are not worthy of his trust. When we are with him, he is with us. One-hundred percent.   

The call to remain faithful to God challenges [us] to make [our] relationship with God [our] priority in life.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 25, 2024

I Chronicles 22.8 (NIV)
“But this word of the Lord came to me: ‘You have shed much blood and have fought many wars! You are not to build a house for my Name.’”

God always writes the last chapter.*

Life doesn’t always turn out the way we think it will. I graduated from Bible college and thought I would spend my life in “full-time Christian ministry.” Didn’t happen. I took some wrong turns along the way but most of my life has been lived under God’s direction. I have been blessed beyond anything I could have dreamed up on my own - but it wasn’t the life I expected.  

David probably didn’t expect to be a man of war. He was a shepherd, a poet, and a musician. But life (and God) took him down a different path. He shed so much blood in his day that God would not allow him to build the temple. He had blood on his hands – and some of it was innocent blood - but David was following God’s direction when he led Israel into battle. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely meant as punishment when God told David that the building of the temple would be his son’s responsibility. Is it possible that God was allowing David to “retire?” After all, he had fought many battles in the name of the Lord and surely deserved to rest. 

God called David, “a man after my own heart.” Wouldn’t we like to hear that as our reward for our years of faithful service, even if our lives don’t turn out the way we planned?

It’s wrong to idealize biblical characters or to excuse their faults. . . . But it is just as wrong to fail to recognize the fact that in forgiveness, God faces our sin, deals with it, and sends it to oblivion.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 24, 2024

I Chronicles 12.23, 32  (NIV)

These are the numbers of the men armed for battle who came to David at Hebron to turn Saul’s kingdom over to him, as the Lord had said . . . men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do – 200 chiefs, with all their relatives under their command.

The leaders God appoints are not necessarily those seeking power.*

The twelfth chapter of I Chronicles lists the number of men from each tribe who were prepared to fight with David against Saul. There is editorial comment about most of them: “carrying shield and spear,” “brave warriors,” “ready for battle.” Good stuff. But I would like to have been counted among the tribe of Issachar – “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.”

The men of Issachar’s understanding of current events and the essence of their nation helped them to know that it was time to change allegiances from Saul to David. It is worthy of note that these savvy tribesmen were the fewest in number. People with this kind of wisdom are rare.

God needs leaders in the political arena - men and women who can maintain their integrity in a world that seldom values integrity; people whose gifts and abilities lie in understanding government and world affairs. When these people rise to leadership positions, they are part of God’s army, armed for battle with their understanding of the times.

In I Timothy 2.1 and 2, Paul urges that we pray for "kings and all those in authority." We should also pray for God to raise up men and women like the tribe of Issachar who understand the times and who are willing to take a righteous stand in positions of government and leadership.

A leader must stand among the people with a transcendent perspective.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 23, 2024

II Kings 17.15 (NIV)
They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. 

What a man devotes himself to, he becomes.*

These are harsh words! We like to believe that everyone has value. After all, we are all children of God, aren’t we?

 

The Israelites were God’s chosen people but they are the specific targets of this severe criticism, as well as the perpetrators of the list of offenses preceding this pronouncement. It is probable that the Jews had never met anyone else who worshipped only one God. Perhaps they didn’t like being so different from their neighbors. Were they guilty of thinking that all religions had a little bit of truth in them? That the more religion you got, the better?* Is that so different from the philosophies of the modern church-goer? 

“I don’t worship idols!” you say in your defense. Even if you don’t pray to an image of a god, you could still be guilty of idolatry. If your version of God is less than the perfect God of the Bible, you are worshipping a false god. Man was created in God’s image; when we create a god in our own image, we become less than what God intended for us to be.

The worshipper can rise no higher than the god he worships.*

EXTRA SPLASH:  “syncretism” – the blending of religions

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 22, 2024

I Kings 15.5 (NIV)
For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not failed to keep any of the Lord’s commands all the days of his life – except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.

God has a habit of choosing flawed people to achieve great good.*

Have you ever been told not to “throw out the baby with the bathwater”? Do you even know what that means? I have some friends who perfectly illustrate this adage. (In order to “protect the innocent,” I can’t be specific about how.) Each of them has some very good and valuable qualities; each one loves and serves the Lord with those qualities; and each one has some personality flaws which cause others to dislike them. I have had the occasional bad experience with each of these friends but I have chosen to continue to value them for what they have to offer to me personally and to the Kingdom as a whole. Tossing out the clean baby with the dirty bathwater is fruitless.

In the life of David, we see God's perspective on babies and bathwater. The Bible makes no attempt to hide David's sin and, as another writer observes: “For all times to come, both his sin and his return to the Lord became part of the Scriptures which would be read publicly.”* To spell it out: The dirty bathwater = David’s sins – including the big two, adultery and murder. The clean baby = David loved God; he never worshipped other gods; he repented and paid the earthly consequences of his sins; God forgave him. 

Most of us go through life committing sins that will never be made public – or become an object lesson through the ages. We should all hope not to be identified and remembered by our failures and weaknesses. At the end of your life, your sin can be the exception, like it was for David.

The Lord brought his Son to earth through unlikely characters – the humble, the troubled, the flawed.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 21, 2024

I Kings 11.4 (NIV)
As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts.*

Shame on Solomon! He had everything God could give him but still he turned to idol worship. His wisdom and wealth made him famous throughout the world and down through history. He warned others of the dangers of “strange” women but he didn’t heed his own advice. He worshipped God with his whole heart – until he didn’t. Tragically, he “failed to guard his heart.”*

Shame on us! We let prosperity get in our way, too. We may not fall down before graven images but we worship other gods in other ways. When God gives good things and we start to love them, that is idolatry.

 Another writer describes Solomon as one who stands as an example of a man “who chose a road on which he remained in constant need of forgiveness!”* And so, like us, he is also an example of a man who has been forgiven. 

Let us fear . . . lest, having run well, we seem to come short.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 20, 2024

II Samuel 24.24 (NIV)
“I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

He who has a religion that costs him nothing, has a religion that is worth nothing.*

David wanted to buy Araunah’s threshing floor so he could build an altar on which to offer sacrifices to God. Araunah wanted to donate it to him but David insisted on paying for it. If Araunah’s offer had been accepted, it would have been his sacrifice, not David’s. It was David who had sinned, therefore it was David who must offer the sacrifice and at his own expense.*

We begin to see in this story why David was called a man after God’s own heart. We think of David as a big sinner because he committed some of the “big” sins and because his position made his sins more public. But for David, repentance was more than just being sorry that he got caught in sin. It was more than just doing and saying the right things. It was more than being “good enough.” For most people, it would have been enough to offer a sacrifice on some altar somewhere. That would have been enough to fulfill the requirements of the law, but David’s devotion to God went much deeper than rituals and the law.

I know people who give and give of their time and their limited financial resources. They love the Lord and they love his people. To them, what they do is not sacrifice because they know they can’t out-give God. But for many of us, it is enough to (in the words of another) “thank God for our blessings . . . throw some surplus God’s direction before doing what we please with the rest, to cover our greed with a generosity that does not require sacrifice.”^* The ability to write a bigger check than someone else doesn’t make us a more generous or more sacrificial giver.

What does your religion cost you? 

He doesn’t look at just what we give. He also looks at what we keep.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 19, 2024

II Samuel 7.18, 19  (NIV)
Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said: “Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, O Sovereign Lord, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant. Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign Lord?”

David was a sinner, but he didn’t allow himself to be defined by sin but by faithfulness.* 

As in David’s case, it is possible to be both confident and humble at once. On his own, David would likely have remained a shepherd for the rest of his life, but David was no ordinary man. God chose him when he was just a boy who had no aspirations of greatness. God knew his potential – for good and for bad.

 

At the peak of his power, David reminds himself here of two things: his humble beginnings, and God’s hand in raising him up. While acknowledging that God is the one who has brought him this far, he doesn’t question his own capacity to fulfill God’s purpose for his life. David did not become a man after God’s own heart by indulging in insecurity or false modesty, or by becoming self-centered and proud.

“Is this the way God treats everyone?” he asks. Not everyone. Only those who have a heart for God get the “royal” treatment (pun intended!). Jesus said, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6.33) If you’re thinking, “That sounds like a good deal, where do I sign up?” think again. Yes, God made David rich and powerful but not without David’s commitment and sacrifice. Remember, Jesus also said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  (Mark 8.34) 

Do we want a crown? The crown is ours – but not without a cross.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 18, 2024

I Samuel 18.14 (NIV)(
In everything he [David] did he had great success, because the Lord was with him.

Let the songs I sing bring joy to you. Let the words I say profess my love. Let the notes I choose be your favorite tune. Father let my heart be after you.*

Are you surprised to read that David had great success? Saul pursued his death relentlessly. He lived in caves. He had wife problems. He had rebellious children. His best friend died at the hands of the enemy. By whose standards could David’s life have been called a success?

By God’s standards, of course!

 

God called David “a man after my own heart.” The Bible doesn’t spare David in the telling of his story – we see him in all his sinful and flawed glory. God could see David’s outward imperfections as well, but David’s heart must have been full of his love for the Father. God looks at the heart of each of us and he knows our intentions. He knows what is important to us. He knows if we have repented or if we’re just sorry that we got caught.

 

God chose David for the job and David was successful because he turned to God for direction.* David did not march into battle alone. He did not rule a nation without God by his side. Without God by his side, David would not have been successful by anyone’s standards.

We value what men do. God values what men are.*

*Quote sources available upon request.

February 17, 2024

I Samuel 17.32, 40, 48, 50  (NIV)
David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” . . . Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. . . . As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. . . . So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone.

Great acts of faith are seldom born out of calm calculation.*

Here is David, a shepherd boy sent on an errand to the front lines of battle - and he’s trying to cheer everyone up. “Come on, guys. Don’t be so glum. I’ll take care of this for you.” Can’t you just see the budding psalmist in this scene? David is an encourager as well as a very brave young man.

 

Just how brave is he? First, let’s examine his preparations for battle. Why did he take five stones? If the first one missed, did he think he would get another try? There is speculation that he took five stones because he knew that Goliath had four brothers. What! He wasn’t just bravely going into battle against one giant? He thought he was going to have to deal with five of them? Did I say that David was brave?

So what did David do after he armed himself? He “ran quickly . . . to meet him.” He didn’t just wait for the giant to come to him – he was proactive. As I was reading this story, I couldn’t help but think of the scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where Indiana Jones meets up with an assassin in an alley. The guy is armed to the teeth with sabers and knives. He is all flash and dash and intimidation as he swishes his blades in the air. Instead of being alarmed, Indy just rolls his eyes, pulls out his gun and shoots. As delusional as that assassin, the Philistines thought their armor and weapons, giants and taunting, were going to save them from a young man who knew who his Deliverer was.

If we, like David, know and trust our Deliverer, we can be brave and ready for battle, too.

The hero pedestal is a precarious place on which to stand. . . [but] God has used heroic men and women throughout history to lead his people and serve his purposes.*

*Quote sources available upon request.