9/5/2023

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 2. 5-6)

“So Balak son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time, sent messengers to summon Balaam son of Beor, who was at Pethor, near the Euphrates River, in Balak’s native land. Balak said: “A people has come out of Egypt;  they cover the face of the land and have settled next to me. Now come and put a curse on these people as they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that whoever you bless is blessed, and whoever you curse is cursed.’” (Numbers 22.4b-6)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

What does Balak know? As we read the story found in Numbers 22, we must ask ourselves “What is really going on?” Yesterday, I reflected on the the truth that God is strait with us. It behooves us to be strait with God. The first “strait” attitude we ought to have is grasping the truth. The word which God gives to us is truth. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “I tell you the truth; the day is coming when we will not worship on this mountain or that mountain. Rather, we will worship God in spirit and in truth.” What is that first truth? It is nothing less and cannot be anything more than “I AM the Lord God, there is only One and you shall have no other gods before Me.” We hear of the jealousy of God. Such jealousy is not presumptuous and self-serving. Such jealousy is not bound by ego but ergo. You know what ergo is, right? It is an adverb which means “therefore, as a result, because of the consequence is.” Such jealousy is an environment and identity of singularity which refines reason and logic to a simple truth. Such truth is what Jesus announced to the disciples in the Upper Room in the hours before Judas Kerioth would lead the Temple Guard to arrest Jesus. Between the moment when Jesus announced “I AM the way, the truth and the life by which one can only gain access to the very presence of God the Father, Abba” and Judas greeted Jesus with a kiss as a testimony of truth in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see the diversity and incongruity of God’s truth and humanity’s truth. Only when humanity’s truth aligns with God’s truth are we able to see the strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life.

We should not be confused by the declaration “there is a wideness in God’s mercy.” Such wideness does not speak of what spreads out before us from left to right or right to left. We can see that in terms of geography or political affiliation. Yes, when Jesus took up His cross to follow God and found Himself on the crown of Golgotha’s Hill, He opened wide His arms to include us all without regard to race, religion, creed, gender, ideology, economy, politic or social identity. But, when He did that it was with the focal point of the cross as the centering of all attention. In that moment, whether everyone wanted to or not- Jesus was the “only way, only truth and only life” that was seen. How He died was matched by how He lived and vice versa. We hear the dialogue from right to left and left to right and from those who were centered below Him. He spoke with the affirmation of truth from above as that of the Only True God. He relayed God’s truth to the whole of humanity. So, if “the wideness of God’s mercy” is not really about the spectrum or continuum of our thought identity according to the “truth” of humanity, then what is it? The “truth” of God is that there was a wideness between God and humanity which had been carved out by the erosion caused by sin. Yet, God’s truth, His love and mercy and grace, is able to bridge that wideness not by building a bridge but by filling the gap. Jesus showed, in His obedience to the will and way of God, that there is but a step of faith between us and God. Humanity makes it hard for us to grasp this truth. It is bound by works and self-intent to promote one’s own person which clouds the truth and widens the gap. Without such faith in the will and way of God it seems impossible. We know what is said about that, don’t we? Jesus declared, “What is impossible for people is made possible by God!” Jesus shares this with Pilate in John 18, “In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Pilate responds flatly, “What is truth?” And then Pilate demonstrates His understanding of truth as the will of “the people.” Yet, we know the people whose will was consulted as being loyalists to those who declared “they were the truth.” Who were “those” people? They were the rulers of the land of Israel. They were not of Rome nor of any distant country. They were of the community of Sanhedrinist, Pharisees and “teachers of ‘the Law’” as interpreted by a local school of thought. They were like Balak and the leaders of Midian who knew of God but did not believe in God. They believed that that “God” could be manipulated just as their own gods were easily manipulated by the twists of fate which they themselves would render. Except, Balaam could not be manipulated nor bought with a price. He could only do, as he had learned, what God would tell him to do. Imperfect as he was, he still knew the truth just as Balak had declared, “Those whom you bless are blessed. Those whom you curse are cursed.” Out of his own mouth, just as it had been out of Pharaoh’s mouth in Egypt before the Hebrews were liberated, came the deciding truth. Remember what Jesus said, “If you are My disciples, then you will know the truth and that truth will set you free.” Oh, the power of being believed in by the One who is the “way, the truth and the life.” There can be nothing more freeing than such truth!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN LIGHT OF GOD’S WORD:

Father, You have revealed to us best in Jesus the Christ. By Him and Him alone shall we gain the eternal life and our place in eternal rest, living for You always. Show us more and by Your Holy Spirit instruct us in the way we should go, the truth we should reveal and the life we shall live with you forever. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.