Faith

Confession from the heart – Monday, 2nd Week of Lent – Daniel 9:4b-10/ Luke 6:36-38

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/six-pack-coming-soon-2/ based on the Gospel of today.

When this text of scripture was proclaimed, the Babylonian Empire had fallen, just as Daniel predicted in the vision of the multi-metallic statue. The Persians had taken control of the Chaldean (Babylonian) Empire. Persia had donned the mantle of global supremacy and this was a dual kingship for while Cyrus was the King of the Empire (6:28) Darius ruled Babylon and the area connected with it. (6:6)

Daniel, meditating on the word of God as spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, realized that the seventy years of exile as prophesied by Jeremiah had come to an end. Daniel turns to the Lord in prayer confessing the guilt of the entire nation imploring his mercy for the people.

Time and time again the people of Israel had broken the covenant that God made with them both in Exodus and in Deuteronomy 26:16-19. Daniel knew the problem was not with God. Daniel did not make the slightest excuse for Israel’s sin. He knew the fault belonged to Israel and Israel alone. When we look into our lives we realise that we are prone to make excuses for our sin and often even make excuses in our “confessions.” Sin must be confessed in its totality with no strings attached.

With the most sincere heart Daniel confesses the sins of the people. “We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly, we have rebelled, we have turned aside from your commandments and ordinances, we have not listened to your servants the prophets.” (Dt 9:4-6)

Using a phrase that could only be translated as ‘shame on us’ he confesses the everlasting and great God who is merciful and forgiving. Daniel does not hold back the sin of the nation and nor should we. The season of Lent is that period when we recognize our wicked ways in the face of an every loving God. We remember our promises to repent and change, to be devoted to God, to serve him; yet when our ‘work is done’, He, God almighty, is forgotten and we go back to our wicked ways.

Genuine confession must be sincere, specific, and thorough. At a revival meeting in Brazil a woman in a crowded church confessed, “Please pray for me, I need to love people more.” The leader told her gently, “That is not a confession, sister. Anyone could have said it.” Later in the service the lady stood again and said, “Please pray for me. What I should have said is that my sharp tongue has caused a lot of trouble in this congregation.” The pastor smiling said, “Now she is talking!”

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Lent – not for a season but for all and every reason – Saturday, 1st Week of Lent – Deuteronomy 26:16-19/ Matthew 5:43-48

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/hell-is-not-my-neighbour/ based on the Gospel

The people of Israel were on the threshold of entering the promised land having wandered in the desert for forty years. Moses gathered the people so that they may learn and obey carefully what God wanted to say to them (5:1). This very lengthy exposition ends in 26:15, a verse before the text of today’s first reading.

In this lengthy exposition, Moses recounts God’s faithfulness and the unfaithfulness of the people of Israel. He sets forth His expectations for their life in Canaan. Now the time has come for Israel to ‘own’ the covenant for herself. ‘Owning’ the covenant requires Israel to pledge her loyalty to the One who, in a very real sense, created her.

Moses clearly functions as a mediator between the LORD and Israel. In a style consistent with covenant agreements, he summarizes in the presence of both parties what Israel has acknowledged as one partner to the covenant and what the LORD has declared as the other partner. There appears a striking mutuality of covenant partnership and obligation. Like wife and husband, Israel and the LORD are speaking vows to each other.

Moses reminds the people of the solemn agreement that has been made between God and them. “You have obtained this agreement from Yahweh.” And the agreement is that he will be their God only as long as they “follow his ways, keep his statutes, his commandments, his customs, and listen to his voice”. It is a mutually binding contract. He will be their God on condition that they observe his laws and customs with all their heart and soul. If they do that, they will stand out among all peoples as a people consecrated to their God and outstanding in their virtue.

Several things here are exceedingly interesting. Here is the ratification, on the part of both parties, God and Israel; a ratification equivalent in every way with the solemn acceptance of God’s covenant in Exodus 24:7. This additional ratification was necessary for several reasons. First, a new generation was at hand. Secondly, Moses would die within a few days of this speech, and a new leader in the person of Joshua would be in charge of Israel’s affairs

But there is infinite tragedy here also one that will unfold over the pages of the Bible. When one considers the high and marvelous things that God promised this nation of Israel, on condition, of course, that they would indeed do what they had so solemnly sworn to do, and then when one considers the shame that ultimately overwhelmed this once glorious people, it brings a catch in the throat and tears to the eyes.

What really happened, afterward? Israel refused to exterminate the Canaanites, and to destroy their idols, their pillars, their groves, and all the false paraphernalia of their evil gods. They rejected God’s role over them, demanding a king like the surrounding nations. Their kings quickly led them into paganism. The nation was divided, and Ephraim usurped the place of God as the lawgiver for God’s people. The whole northern Israel became “joined to his idols.” Israel became merely another Canaanite (Hosea 12:7), just as crooked and evil as its earlier residents. God judged Israel and delivered them to the Assyrians, and northern Israel became the “Ten Lost Tribes.”

Lent has often become for us a time for ‘agreements’ with the Lord. Yet it is a covenant that the Lord desires with us not a contract. For many, Lent is a period of ‘good behaviour’ yet the Lord is looking for goodness in who we are. Let us continue to honour the love of the Lord not just for a season but for all and every reason.

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Faith

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/prayer-list-or-hit-list/ based on the Gospel

The prophet Ezekiel today makes a double point. On the one hand if the man who has done evil genuinely repents of what he has done he will be totally forgiven. All the sins he committed will be forgotten from then on; he shall live because of the integrity he has practiced. God promised not a probationary restoration to the wicked man who turns, but full restoration. It is God’s desire that we should live rather than die. On the other hand, if the formerly good man turns to a life of sin, he will die in his sin. Some may object that that is not fair. Why should he be punished when he did so much good in the past?

There was a tendency among the people of the Old Testament to believe that people were not only guilty of their past sins, but even of the sins of their parents. We remember in John’s gospel, how Jesus was asked whether the man born blind was that way because of his own sin or the sin of his parents. Chronic disabilities – blindness, paralysis, deafness and the like, were often seen as punishment for sin. When the paralysed man let down through the roof came to the feet of Jesus, the first thing Jesus said to him was: “Your sins are forgiven.” And his subsequent healing was taken as proof that indeed his sins were really forgiven, because the cause had also been removed.

But here, Ezekiel is affirming that sin is something that belongs to the individual. And that it is a person’s present dispositions, and only these, that determine God’s judgement. God’s heart is for the wicked man to repent, to turn from his ways and live. God is not sadistic and cruel, making repentance impossible because He loves to see humanity suffer.

One thing that comes out clearly in the Scriptures, especially the New Testament, is that God has a very short memory. Far from being a defect, it is a quality that very much favours us. The person God sees is the person that I am now. What matters are my relationships with him now. The past, good or bad, is forgotten. There is not a divine account book with credits and debits that have to be balanced out at the end of the day.

The fact that God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked does not mean that it will not happen. God’s general desire for all humanity is that they would repent, turn to Him and be saved; yet He will not spare the requirements of justice and holiness for those who refuse to turn to Him. Judas, a chosen apostle was lost because of the final choice he made in life. Yet the murderous brigand on the cross with Jesus repents, and goes with Jesus to heaven. Some may complain that “what the Lord does is unjust”. But the reading makes the situation clear:

When the upright abandons uprightness and does wrong and dies, he dies because of the wrong which he himself has done. Similarly, when the wicked abandons wickedness to become law-abiding and upright, he saves his own life. It is not God who condemns us. It is we who make the choice to be with God or to alienate ourselves from him. And God recognises our choice.

So, we too need not be anxious about our past. The door of repentance and restoration is open to any man or woman who repents. All that matters is how I relate to God today, and each day forward. And the choice to be with God, or away from him, is all ours. If today I reject God, directly or through the way I relate with those around me, then, however virtuous I have been in the past, I have put him out of my life. If, on the other hand, today I choose God, then I have nothing to fear, whatever I may have been guilty of in the past.

– Sacred Space

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When God cries out, he also cries within – Wednesday, 1st week of Lent – Jonah 3:1-10, Luke 11:29-32

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/voice-of-his-word-versus-vices-in-my-heart/ based on the Gospel of today.

Jonah has learned a lesson between chapter 1:1 and 3:1. This time scripture tells us “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.” The word of the Lord had to come to Jonah a second time because this reluctant prophet was on his ‘on trip’ and not ‘the trip’ to Nineveh, as God desired.

The people of Nineveh were the traditional enemies of the people of Israel. Jonah was sent by God to a hated nation to preach against their “wicked ways.” Jonah knew God all too well. If God cried out against Nineveh’s wickedness, then God was also crying within; hoping their hearts would change. At the heart of God is the desire to save and give life and if Jonah was sent to cry out on God’s behalf it meant only one thing; God desired to save and redeem even this wicked nation.

Chapter one and two tells us of Jonah’s shenanigans. From deliberately taking the wrong boat, heading in the wrong direction, begging to be thrown into the stormy sea; this ‘prophet’ did not want Nineveh to profit from God’s mercy. He would rather die than see them live. Yet Jonah foolishly took on God who had taken on the cudgels for Nineveh. Jonah’s tantrums now set aside; he finds himself swept right up the shores of Nineveh, having spent three days in the belly of a large fish.

Imagine a stinking, smelly Israelite prophet washed up on enemy shores with a five-word message (in Hebrew it is all of five words)” Forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Eight in English). It is difficult to imagine that Jonah preached his short sermon with any conviction, that he put any force into it, that he made eye contact and attempted to persuade the people. Jonah had to go to Nineveh and he had to deliver his little sermon but he certainly did not like it.

Jonah must have expected a battering for what would seem his impudence. Yet the unimaginable happens. From king to cow a fast in proclaimed, sackcloth and ashes cover a “great city” (3:3). More than one hundred and twenty thousand persons lived in Nineveh (4:11). The cry of repentance is heard from the lips of prince and pauper; and Yahweh relented. He did not destroy Nineveh.

“Forty days.” These words hint that God is not determined to destroy the city. If he were so determined, why wait forty days? Why not overthrow the city immediately? Why give these people any warning? Forty days is a grace period, an opportunity to repent, an opportunity for these people to change their behaviour, a chance for them to save themselves.

We have forty-six days this Lent, if you add the Sundays… God desires to save us, not destroy us. Go look for sack cloth and ashes……

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Power, Purpose, Promise –  Tuesday, 1st week of Lent – Isaiah 55:10-11/Matthew 6:7-15

Words are powerful. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble. It is the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us that changed our lives as believers in Christ Jesus.

The scripture text for today, taken from the prophet Isaiah forms part of the last chapter of the second book of Isaiah also known as Second Isaiah (chaps 40-55) or the ‘Book of Consolation.’ It is so called because it speaks with hope and encouragement of the approaching end of the Jewish exile in Babylon, in contrast to earlier prophecies which rather emphasized the punishments which Israel had merited by her infidelities. Now God sends his word to his people through the prophet. God’s word has power, God’s word has purpose, God’s word is promised and God’s word is accomplished.

God’s word has power; God does not do things in half measure. He sends the rain and the snow from heaven and he ensures that not only does it rain and water the earth but that life is brought forth by his actions. Now the sower has seed and the hungry have bread to eat.

God’s word has purpose: God does not act randomly. His actions are oriented towards a goal. He sends the rain and snow and ensures that they do not return till they have accomplished his purpose. In the book of Genesis, he sent rain for forty days and forty nights with a clear purpose to destroy the earth.

God’s word has a promise. We are told that the rain will not return till it has watered the earth and made it bring forth life. God wills that we have life and life in abundance. This means that God is not just “talk.” When He talks, His words accomplish His intended purpose. The word of the LORD has power, and it never fails in His intended purpose.

God’s word is accomplished. God’s word does not return to him empty. God’s promise is that his word will be accomplished and not just accomplished but it will succeed precisely, keeping in mind the intention of God. This success is not some game of chance or luck. God has set his mind on a task and he will bring it to fulfilment.

It is clear that God’s word brings life. If that be so then we too must be responsible for the words that come from our mouth. Our words must be life giving. In Matthew 12:36-37 Jesus says, “I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

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