What Now? Going Forwrd.

 How do you feel about the past months? There are few places where the events of CoVid19 has not had an impact and if you are in the USA you can add the joy of a national election. Much of life has been disrupted. The question for all of us, and especially believers, is, "What now?" How do we move forward from where we are to where we need to be. For some it is a time of great distress. It seems the powers of darkness have gained more than a foothold and the future is uncertain in the midst of a growing darkness. Should the USA, indeed, be guided by a new administration things are likely to change. 

For some it is a time of rejoicing with the potential removal of an arrogant and un-presidential tyrant. Then there is the promise of free healthcare, free education, forgiven student loans, a guaranteed income with the government taking care of them. The government only wants what is best for us. We just need to be compliant. 

For others it will be the codification of the "right" to kill babies and to progressively move toward the elimination of those who lack the quality of life that would prove to be a drain on society. They see an expansion of government control that tells us religious practice is "nonessential" and religious conviction is disallowed as "hate speech". The pandemic has been an effective tool to limit worship meetings and penalize people of faith. Numerous governors has become lush with new powers that control the lives of the masses. All in the name of keeping us safe. The proposed plan is to regulate what you drive, where you live, how much energy you can use and how to protect yourself and your family. A false security with the price tag being your freedom and liberty. Either view leaves you wondering what to do from here.

It occurred to me that we, as followers of Messiah Jesus, have been given a plan, a guideline, to follow from the Word of God. That should not be unexpected. However, the truth that most of us have already memorized the directions might come as a surprise. In this, and a followup post or two, I want to give a possible answer that God impressed upon my heart in the quiet of the night while I recovered from some mild food poisoning. Yes, sometimes the LORD has to put me on the recliner looking up to see what He has for me. This is not a vision wrought from indigestion but just some thoughts that rolled over me when the silence outweighed the usual conflagration of my overactive midnight brain. Matthew and Luke give variations of the direction from the Lord. It is a simple answer given by the Lord as a response to a simple "How" question brought by His disciples. We will use Matthew's account but either gives us an answer to give us hope and remind us that. perhaps, nothing has really changed.

Mathew gives us this message in Matthew 6:9-13. I invite you to give voice to these familiar verses with me, "Our Father, Who art in heaven, holy is Your name, Your kingdom come Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen" (a slightly modified version of the NKJV). These verses can serve both as a reminder and a map to follow as we continue our journey with the God of all creation and His Son, Messiah Jesus, empowered by His Holy Spirit. It helps keep my mind straight and it helps that I learned this through simple repetition as a child never thinking, "Oh, this comes from Matthew 6". Childhood memories to the rescue.

"Our Father, Who art in heaven". Turning our attention to our heavenly Father in times of foggy reality is never a bad place to begin. He is the personal God and Father Who invites us to call Him, Abba. The intimate name from a child to their daddy. He is the Father Who hears and understands. He is the Father that has a heavenly perspective. One Who sees beyond our limited existence and experience. He has worked in the past, through every difficulty we can imagine. He is not unaware of our situation or the thoughts that may bring unrest and discomfort to our thoughts and emotions. He is not bound by politics or elections. He was not absent through four hundred years of slavery or the forty years of wilderness wanderings. He did not forsake David as he cowered in the caves or Daniel as he stood, in faith, among the lions. He was not absent at the cross nor did He abandon the women at the empty tomb. I can trust my Heavenly Father to be with me today. Perhaps, I just need to hear His words to David and "Be still and know He is God" (Psalm 46:10). Like Elijah, I wait for the mighty wind, or earthquake, or roaring fire, and miss the "still small voice" (1 Kings 19). No matter what the day brings I can rest in Him.

"Holy is Your name". The name above all names. The unspoken name among His Hebrew children as they show deference and respect to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is our loving Father. He is also the awesome God of all creation. He is not to be taken lightly or for granted. He name is separated from every other name. Our God shares this nobility with His Son, "Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth" (Philippians 2:9-10). Ephesians 1:21 offers a similar truth, That His Son Messiah is "far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come." No matter how the enemy works to turn God's name or the name of His Son into a meaningless profanity it does not change the reality of the holiness of His name. In time all of mankind will recognize that truth and bow before Him. We should not allow the turmoil of this present age to overshadow the wonder of His name or the power of His presence.

We have a more to consider from this familiar prayer given to us by the Lord Himself. Those will find their way to Torah Paranoia in the weeks to come. However, perhaps this will give you a few things to reflect upon and ponder. Perhaps it is a prayer you can revive as you enter each day and maybe, just maybe this prayer was given to us for such a time as this.   

Death of the Spirit

There was a time when humanity saw a correlation between the natural and the supernatural. A time when events that surrounded us had a spiritual connection. People believed that the gods and goddesses were at work in helping, punishing, or toying with mankind. Today we live in a rational world with a rational culture. When people act on an emotional level we proclaim them to be irrational. The supernatural is replaced with the natural so we may wander about with the illusion of control. This illusion has its foibles, however, for there are times when the rational has its limitations. Yet, we continue to find ways to avoid the uncomfortable possibility that we do not have the ability to solve everything. The supernatural will simply not go away.

In those old primitive days humanity was concerned with keeping the local deities happy. Drought, fire, storms, pandemics among other "natural" disasters were a warning that the gods or goddesses were not happy. Somehow they had been offended and now must be appeased. Often times the people were clueless as to what they had done. In Acts 17 Paul addresses the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill. Paul had seen many altars to the "Unknown God" around the city and uses this as a way to introduce the Lord God and His Son, Messiah Jesus. The background of the altars came from a pandemic that swept through the city. No one knew which god or goddess they had offended so they released sheep to wander around and whatever temple they went near they were offered up to that deity to appease them and ask them to stop the plague. However, some sheep never found a temple, so the people of Athens built an altar to the "unknown god" and made a sacrifice just in case there was a god they were not aware of. The point is, plague equals angry god. We have grown far beyond those foolish days of superstition and ignorance. Now we can explain troubling events and natural occurrences with logic and science. When we do not have an explanation we just blame things on poor management, global warming or manmade climate change. There is no need to revert to the unsophisticated days of the supernatural. 

For those who are believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the supernatural is not, at least in theory and rhetoric, unreasonable or foreign. We speak of the power of God and the power of His Spirit. God is a supernatural being who is worthy of our worship, praise and obedience. He is also a God Whom we have come to contain and surround by our theological fences. He is a God of love and compassion Who demonstrated that through the birth of His Divine Son who lived, was crucified, died, was buried and rose again, conquering death. This God offers forgiveness and life eternal to those who accept and believe in His Son, Messiah, Jesus. These are all truths to be accepted, except for the theological box thing. We, as believers, tend to struggle to keep things in balance. We spring from one doctrinal belief to another and find Scripture  to support our position. We also tend to ignore the texts that bring an opposing point of view. Sometimes we are a bit like those in Athens, not sure what to do with God or what to do with the natural events that surround us.

It is clear from God's Word that there were and will be natural events of a tragic nature that touch our lives. Floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and plagues that exterminate lives have been with humanity from the earliest times, Some are a simple result of living on a fallen planet that is touched by sin and, like us, "creation groans" (Romans 8:22) under the weight and corruption caused by man's rebellion against the Creator. These are the natural consequences of events in Genesis 3 that are with us every day. However, God also makes it clear that such events may be of His design to alert His people, or to bring judgement on those who reject His call to believe and follow Him. The question might be, "How can you tell?" Is this a message from the Lord wrapped in an earthquake or a pandemic? The follow up question could be, "Does it matter?"

In our rational, despiritualized culture such natural events are passed over or excused. The people of God used to understand that such situations were a call to introspection and prayer. Is every tragic occurrence the judgement of God? Probably not. However, there are indeed times when the Lord does bring such discipline upon His people. In 2 Samuel 21:1 we read. "Now there was a famine in the land in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord." The famine was indeed a message from the Lord, a judgement due to the brutality of Saul upon the Gibeonites. Out in the wilderness the Israelites rebel against Moses and Arron and we read of this result, "So Moses said to Aaron, “Take a censer and put fire in it from the altar, put incense on it, and take it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them; for wrath has gone out from the LORD. The plague has begun.” Drought, famine, plague, and you can add the earthquake when Korah rebels and the drought called by Elijah in the days of Ahab (See 1 Kings 17-18). Famine was predicted in Acts 11 and famine, death, and fire will come by God's hand in Revelation 18.

In addition to "natural" disasters, God will sometimes use the unrighteous to discipline or challenge His own to repent. It is a call to wake up and rekindle their devotion to Him. God used the oppression of the Philistines, Babylonians and Romans, to name a few. Within the past year we have seen fires, earthquakes, a few volcanic eruptions, a world wide pandemic, and leaders desiring power who flaunt the truth and righteousness of God. Are these God's judgements? Is the Apocalypses upon us? Are we under the wrath of God? Is this the end of life as we know it? An end to the USA? (Which, by the way, does not seem to be a power worth mentioning in any Biblical prophecy.) What do we do with all of this? It seems believers either find little prompting toward confession and repentance in the face of such things or find a spiritual battle hidden in everything, So believers I have known stressed over which cereal to buy, "Does this company have ties to some godless regime?" Where is the balance?

It seems that we do, indeed, need to pay attention to the world and the calamities that surround us. They certainly should be a reminder to walk with purity and humility before the God we say we follow. Introspection is not a  bad thing. Neither is confession and repentance. As the years go by we may well find that our devotion to God and to the principles of His word are less and less acceptable to the world around us. It would be naïve to think that the Lord does not notice the growing depravity of our society or the gradual acceptance of evil by His own. Things that were appalling or unacceptable have quietly invaded the Body of Christ. Profanity and sexual impropriety are woven into what we see as entertainment. The push for acceptance of perversion and the killing of the unborn as an acceptable a social norm is a daily assault on God's holy standards. How would this not invite some divine repercussions? 

The question for today is simple. Has rationality brought about the death of the Spirit? Do we explain away the actions of a Holy God or do they draw us to repentance and a call to holy living. It is much easier to ignore or explain away the disasters that surround us. The natural answer is less disturbing than falling into the hands of an angry God. Just how rational have we become? Just what would God have to do to capture our attention? Famine, fire, plagues, godless people coming to power, an assault on our religious liberties and freedoms. Is this a warning sign or just a sign of the times. Is it God's hand upon us or just the course of nature randomly unfolding? If nothing else, maybe it is something to think about when you see God's creation convulsing around you.