September 17, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Ask the Lord for rain in the springtime as it is the Lord who sends the thunderstorms. He gives showers of rain to all people and plants of the field to everyone.” (Zechariah 10.1)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Consider our own thoughts and actions in this, mighty ones of God. For what do we give thanks to God? Another way of asking this question may be For what do we believe God is responsible? I was reminded of the faithfulness of Job in my devotional reading today. His story is one of great tragedy, turmoil and triumph. His faithfulness made him the victim of circumstance. It was not by accident that a great storm arose while his children were feasting and took their lives. This was after marauders from neighboring lands came and stole or killed all his livestock and a bolt of lightning fell from Heaven and burned up his flocks. All was lost but his wife, four servants and Job. We will not the final verse of Job, chapter 1, “Job did not sin by laying the blame on God.” What we will also notice is that, by default, Job did not sin by laying the blame on anything or anyone else. Those who are hearing of the story know that behind the scenes it is the Fallen Angel, Lucifer, the Accuser named Satan, who is acting with the dark works. He is doing so with God’s permission which sounds rather odd. Why would God allow bad things to happen to a good person? What we know is that God’s faith in Job is intended to be the undoing of Satan’s lack of faith in Job. Satan boasts that Job only has faith and prosperity because of God’s covering of protection. Notice some critical elements in these beginning verses of Job’s tale of truth, justice and faithfulness. In them you will hear elements from the Word of God to Zechariah, such as: Satan has been roaming across the kingdom on earth and even Satan’s confession that God is responsible for all that happens.

“Taking the world by storm.” Jesus understood this thinking just as surely as He understood the lessons taught by those before Him such as are revealed in Job and Zechariah. When Jesus was speaking to the crowd gathered on the hillside near Capernaum, He said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemies; but I say to you ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’ in order that you may become children of God. He is the One who causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good. He is the One who sends the rainstorms on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5.43-45) I have no doubt that teaching was a head turner. Even the disciples who have been fiercely instructed in the ways of righteousness from the “Jesus perspective” may have turned their heads with a snap. Hating one’s enemies was a means of bringing a community together to insure survival. Everyone had enemies including their neighbors. Even within their own families there may have been conflicts which arose like storms off the hillsides of Galilee which troubled the waters of Lake Genneserat. Those same storms would put the disciples to the test more than once in their days of training. Let’s be honest, there were other enemies among them as well such as the Scribes, Pharisees and Rabbis whose motives were always under question. We haven’t even considered the Romans, the Greeks, the Babylonians and other nations who bordered Israel from north to south, east to west. And strangely enough, the choice of friends was too easily guided by “convenient words, gifts of favor and free food.” Look at those who continued to gather to Jesus with the hope of another miracle accompanied by “food and favor.” How many organizations, including the church, hope to gather a crowd in such a manner as is the gospel is insufficient? And when the storms of doubt and tough decisions rise up on the waters of our lives as the winds sweep down the hillsides around us what happens but fear and scattering for cover. What is too easily forgotten is the One who sends the rain, the wind, the harvest and provision of live from the inside out?

But wait? In Job, didn’t Satan manipulate the nations around Job and his family to steal, kill and destroy? That certainly wasn’t of God! Yet, it was God who had set the parameters by Satan’s own words. Satan questioned Job’s faith and God’s protection of him in favorable circumstances. Satan said things would not be the same for Job if God sent calamity into his life. (Job 1.11) At that, God accepted the challenge and released power and authority over the physical manifestations of Job in his property and family to Satan. Satan didn’t create anything. He didn’t make the storms. He used them. He didn’t create enemies of thieves and dens of robbers. He used them. He didn’t create death and loss. He used them. In some fashion, Satan was “acting like God” but in a self-serving and capricious manner which is nothing like God. There was a caveat, however. Satan could use God’s creation to try and prove a point of Job’s faux faith but he could not harm Job himself. (Job 1.12) Understand that even then God was exerting His sovereign authority in defining who Satan was and what he could do. Satan was never and could never be God. He had no authority over the heart and soul of humanity. It could be surrendered to him by human beings, as did those angels who joined in the rebellion in heaven. It was and will always be an existence of free will. The trial given to Satan was based on the assumption that Job’s faith was based on the possession of things favorable and profitable. How many in the world today see it the same way?

So, in the new kingdom of understanding in the days of Zechariah, showers of blessing were going to fall. It was a word speaking to the mindset of restoration and reconciliation. Everything was as it had always been- in the hands of God. What changed? What needed to change? It was the heart, mind and soul of humankind that needed to change. It was about realigning their thinking to put God first in all things and keep Him first in all things. We see this perfectly in the presence of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ of God. This is a vital lesson the modern Church and her theologians must re-embrace. Jesus did not seek to promote Himself. Jesus was all about God and God’s will. His love for us was so great that He was willing to put His life on the line to show us “the way, the truth and the life.” He does not withhold His blessings but offers them to all who will receive them as they are given…for the good provision of a good life. This is also the measure of His mercy, grace and justice as evidenced through Jesus Christ on His way to the stone-enclosed tomb. We cannot lose sight that “resurrection” is the hope we have as Christ followers and God-fearers for each day to come. If there is no resurrection then we are left with good works as our daily bread and this world only as our home. Such is not the case and such is not the message of God to His people for their return to the Promised Land. We need to consider well this message for us and our nation today!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit in order that others be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind so we would know we are Your people and You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.