Spoooooky

When I read through this bible passage, the very first thing that came to my mind was, "How appropriate for Halloween!" I mean you have to admit, it really is pretty "spooky". A hand (and just the hand, no body is mentioned) begins writing on the wall at a big party. I mean this almost sounds like a scooby doo special, can't you just picture the cheesy cartoon and creepy music. Then we read that the king calls in all kinds of "specialists" to solve the mystery, and surprise surprise, they can't! And as usual, it's the queen who has any good sense about her. She suggests calling in the real expert Daniel Doo (Note: doo was added for effect!).

Now this story just leaves you hanging! No conclusion is offered and honestly, I was too into the mystery to be content to stop there. So I got out the handy dandy bible and finished the story. I'll bet you'd like to know what happens wouldn't you? Well I could be mean and tell you to go out and read your own bible, but then, I don't want to assume everyone reading this has a bible, so I will be nice and sum up the ending for you.

Essentially the king, Belshazzar, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, has been a naughty man and is following in his father's footsteps. Daniel reminds Belshazzar that his old man forgot to humble himself before the Lord God. God didn't take kindly to this attitude and offered Nebuchadnezzar an attitude adjustment (basically he went insane, ate grass, and hung out with wild donkeys - go figure!) Now you'd think that would make an impression on a son, you know, seeing his father go mad, eat grass, and lay down with wild animals, but apparently not! For Belshazzar is desecrating holy equipment and again, not humbling himself before the Lord Almighty. (to consecrate is to dedicate something to God thus making it Holy, to desecrate is the exact opposite!). So the hand of God (perhaps the Holy Spirit?) writes this message on the wall:

"Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin"

Now that probably means about as much to you as it did for me, and apparently as much it meant to the king. Fortunately we have Daniel to explain.

Mene: God has numbered the days of the king's reign and brought it to an end.
Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
Peres: The kingdom is to be divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.

And to quote vs. 30-31 "That very night Belshazzar king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of 62."

So quite literally the writing was on the wall.

So what does all this mean for our lives? I think there are many pearls of wisdom in this story. I think however the most applicable element is that we always need to remember our place. When we as individuals, or as a community, achieve great and wonderful things, it's easy to over inflate our worth and value. I am certainly guilty of this! There have been retreats and events that I have coordinated that went even better than I had hoped for and it's easy for me to say, well I guess I really know what I am doing, instead of saying wow I am so much in awe of how God worked through me and used me to bring Him the glory! I think we can all fall into the trap that Belshazzar fell into. His life was good, very good in fact. He was living the life, wives, concubines, parties, wine, riches, etc. He was living the rock star lifestyle. He was all about his own glory and his own success and importance, to the point where he has no respect for things considered holy.

When we elevate ourselves above God it's a long fall back to earth! In Belshazzar's fall, it cost him his life. And before you go saying that God killed Belshazzar that night, wouldn't it also be fair to think that perhaps his own actions and decisions got him there. Consider this, he had a HUGE party with over 1000 guests. When someone throws a party that is that big the word is going to get out. And like many parties, a lot of alcohol is being served. So isn't it possible that Darius 1) heard about this huge party and 2) concluded that the king may get a little impaired which would make taking the castle by storm a little easier? So is God to blame or are Belshazzar's decisions to be blamed?

So in conclusion, always remember that blessings in our lives, the talents and abilities we possess, are in fact God's gifts to us! God has given us these gifts and blessings because he loves us and hopes that we might use them to give glory back to God. It's pretty simple, when you get an amazing gift that is very important and special to you, most likely you will enjoy the gift and thank the giver. God wants us to enjoy the gifts he gives, but I think he would appreciate a thank you as well. Give glory and honor where glory and honor are due!

And so we pray...
Dear Father in Heaven, you have given me blessings that I can't even count. Abilities I can't even understand, and love that I don't deserve. I thank you God from the bottom of my heart for the gifts you have showered on me. Give me the faith and wisdom of Daniel that I might read the writing on the wall, and always remember to give you the credit, and the glory! In your son's name I pray.
Amen.

I wish our politicians would read this!

I read this bible passage, and it really struck a chord in my heart and I felt it would be good to share my thoughts and feelings on this passage. First let me say that I think there is just a ton of awesome wisdom in this passage. We could all benefit from this kind of wisdom and I think it applies to all of us!

I read the passage and first what strikes me is the wisdom on communication. I took a communications course at Drexel University from a young woman whom, I think in her opinion, was an expert on good communication and how to use this tool well. In my opinion, the text book for the course offered more insight than she did, but that is neither here, nor there. The point is communication is so important to us, that we have classes, books, webinars, experts, and entire companies, based on teaching us how to communicate. Now there are two huge influences on American culture right now, and they are grounded on first and foremost, communication; these two influences are TV and the internet. Both tools breed for the pure purpose of mass communication.

The passage from Timithoy references some element of communication, at least by my count, 12 times. (I love looking at Biblical numbers, and 12 is often an important one, 12 disciples...12 months... and finally ultra nerdy, but if you look at the verses 14-26 and turn it into 26-14=12 oh well!) Now the words or phrases I see relating to communcation are:

1. avoid wrangling over words
2. those who are listening
3. rightly explaining
4. the word of Truth
5. avoid profane chatter
6. and their talk will spread
7. swerved from the truth
8. calls on the name
9. pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace
   
10. nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies
11. must not be quarrelsome
12. correcting opponents with gentleness

Wow! What a truly great list of communication guidelines. I wish we would have covered some of these things in communication class at college! Now getting back to those two major communication revolutions; internet and TV.

TV is an easy one right now. It's the middle of October and that can mean only one thing on the old boob tube; political campaign commercials. In these devotions I try not to get too personal or too emotional, but I'm sorry those things are just a total waste of money, and make me depressed after the airing of each one. It seems that as each day passes, the ads get worse and worse. And then if you compare it on a yearly basis, each year you wonder, can they get worse next year?... yup. They can! I don't think I need to go into detail, but honestly, and I am not even kidding (sadly) I think political ads, violate all 12 of those ways of communicating. Really, think of the most recent ad you have seen, read the list, and how many of the list above is completely disregarded in your ad? Can you imagine what a nation we would have, if our politicians read Timothy's words and took them to heart?!?

Then the other, internet. I am of an age where I can remember pre google, twitter, facebook, youtube, myspace (wait what's that), blogs, linkedin and the list goes on. I think the internet is a good thing, I really do, BUT (and it's a big one) the internet has some real garbage on it as well. We won't even cover in this post about the pure profane, and totally obscene content on the net, but instead the every day and average person content. Consider the FML website which while provide a small amount of amusement, certainly contains it's share of posts that go against so much of what we believe. The commentary I see posted by people on facebook, youtube, blog responses, and the like, is so full of anger and hurt. Often silly squabbles, hurtful language, pointless controversiers, blatant rage, lies, half truths, and everything that is against our list. It's just bad sometimes. And then twitter...do I have an account? Yes, but I only post a bible verse here and there, I'm certainly not on there all the time, and some of the stuff I do see on there is just rubbish, plain and simple.

Now to the big picture. I think these two communication monsters really demonstrate the need this world has for the wisdom, love, and life given by our Lord, Jesus Christ. Ours is a broken desperate world that so needs Christ to put it all back together. And all Christ asks for in return is that we simply let him into our hearts and lives. So the next time you see a campaign ad, or read a post on the net that brings you down, consider the words of Timothy, and the words of Christ, which promise us he will be with us even until the end of the age.

And so we pray:

Dear Christ, you teach us your ways and your wisdom. You give it to us free of charge, seeking only our love as a response. Lord, we try to love you, but the world so often gets in the way. We see, hear, feel, and read the negativity and hostility out there everywhere we are. Let us remember though that you are right there with us, loving us and tending to us. Please be with those who need your love so much right now. Be with our leaders and guide them to your wisdom. We pray in your precious name, Amen.

Faith Snapshot

I like this story about Paul and how he interacts with the people of Athens. I actually chuckled a bit when I read the quote from Paul referring to an altar he had seen dedicated to a "unknown god". The bible contains snapshots of everyday life, not every passage, book, and chapter are flowing with glorious descriptions of our Lord, immense wisdom, or miraculous signs. Sometimes the passages are just simple and every day. We don't often see a lot humor per se in the bible, there aren't stories of Jesus telling a good joke, or one of the disciples sharing a good limerick. But reading the first part of this story, I have to wonder if perhaps Paul was able find some humor in the situation.

Of course it's not a good thing that the Athenians were worshiping everything and anything literally, but there is some humor here, at least to me. I mean some Athenian spent time, money, and energy, creating this altar to the unknown god. It's like they thought to themselves, well just in case I missed any god, it's better to be safe than sorry. It's like when I go to a grocery store and they are offering free samples and I take one no matter what it is just because I wouldn't want to miss out on something free! The Athenian better make an altar just because he doesn't want to miss one! It's at least a little amusing right?!

But this brings about a good point which Paul addresses to the crowd. We in fact do have a god that wants to be in relationship with us, and to be in relationship is to be known. So, God wants to be known to us. God has given us his word, his laws, his poetry, his wisdom, and then finally his Son, all in an attempt that we might know God. And so I would ask you, how well do you really know God? If someone who knew nothing about our Lord, could you give a succinct description? Paul can and does. Really look at how well he describes God.

Allow my humble attempt to simplify Paul's statements about God.

• God makes everything in this world
• He is not only the Lord of earth, but the Lord of the heavens
• God is not contained in a shrine or anything made by human hands
• God doesn't need anything from us to be God. God is God, with or without us.
  
• ALL life comes only from God. This includes our lives.
• Life began with God. Human life began with one common ancestor (Adam)
  
• God is in control, and while we won't be able to find God on Earth, God is always with us!
• In him is life as we know it
• We are made in the image of God
• A mortal mind at its best can't create the correct image of God
• God has made his laws known to us for milenia, and now we need to repent for breaking them
• God sent Christ to be the judge over creation.
• The authority of Christ is demonstrated through his own death and resurrection
• We have the hope of resurrection through Christ.

Paul establishes all these, in a brief conversation. As we look over the descriptions of God, we find them to be surely accurate, but as I read through them, I found there to be something missing. Where was the talk of the Trinity, or at the very least, identifying Christ as God's own son? As I got to thinking about it further, I thought, would it really be fair to attempt to describe the Trinity and that God and Christ are one, AND Christ is the Son of God to a group of people who have made a "just in case" altar?! I should think not. And remember too this is a casual conversation he's having with a mixed group of people, that evolved on the spot. But I find hope at the very end, where some of the Athenians became believers, or at the very least, interested in hearing more. I think that the conversations that followed with these would have gone into more depth about the identity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Both Spirit and Christ were eluded to in his overview, but not given much depth.

So if you get into a conversation with a person or a group, and God comes up, are you prepared to talk about the god that you know, love and serve? The Lord of Lords, and the King of Kings?

We pray:

Dear Heavenly Father, Loving Son, and Holy Spirit,
You want to be known. You want to be in relationship with us, and for this we are so very grateful. God we do repent of our sins which you have identified for us in your word. We ask that you grant us forgiveness, and wisdom to know you well enough to tell strangers all about you. In your love we hope and pray,
Amen.

What's the deal with prosperity anyway...

This text from 2nd Kings is challenging for me. I mean when I first read it, I thought to myself, well good that greedy Gehazi got what he deserved, reaped what he had sown, etc. But then as I thought, wait the good news is that we don't get what we deserve, we get what we NEED! (Salvation aka eternal life through Christ!). Because in truth we deserve hell (separation from God) but we get Christ which as I said is exactly what we need! So I see some traits in Gehazi that are so representative of all of us!

First he thinks he knows best. Forget what God wants, forget what Elisha wants, he knows best. His feelings are made clear when he thinks "My master has let that Aramean Naaman off too lightly by not accepting from him what he offered. As the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something out of him." See he is deciding what is best. He speaks of his master, but clearly, his only true master is himself. And so here is a trait I see in myself and others around me, we each decide that we are our own masters. The people we have relationships with, and the relationship we have with God may influence our decisions, but ultimately we are our own masters we make our own destiny. Certainly dangerous thinking at best!

And then the other trait so clearly expressed by our friend Gehazi...GREED. When I first read this passage, I kind of booed G-man in my head. But then I got to thinking about it...wait a second, would I be so very different in the situation?! I'd like to think so, and I'm sure you would too. I mean think about it for a second, Naaman has already offered gifts to Elisha for the healing of his leprosy, but Elisha refused them. So it's not like Naaman is being robbed here. Gehazi is just cashing in on something that was already offered. If a gift was offered in our midst, would we be quick to say no thanks, glorifying God and healing someone was gift enough? It's a gift being offered completely freely! So while I'd like to seperate myself from Gehazi, I'm not so sure I could...sadly. Perhpas you'll come up better than I.

So we have these two shall we say vices, thinking of ourselves as master, and greed. These seem like on the scale of things not that bad of sins...but wait there we go again ranking sins when we know that really sin is sin. It's like saying I only drowned a little.

This brings me around to greed. Greed is a dangerous thing because there's so much invovled. It's trying to get what we want (not what we need) and it usually brings about coveting. We want what we don't have. And it brings to my mind a few chain letter emails I have recently recieved. Now both emails were from people who are very faithful and great people and the chain letters were religious in nature and actually pretty tolerable as far as chain letters go. But then they both included the same prayer and it went like this:

Father, God bless all my friends in whatever it is that You know they may need this day! And may their life be full of your peace, prosperity, and power as he/she seeks to have a closer relationship with you.
Amen.

Now that prayer is a pretty good one I think except one part, the "be full of your ... prosperity". Now that sounds good but I wanted the official definition for prosperity so I looked it up. And according to merriamwebster.com prosperity is the condition of being successful or thriving; especially : economic well-being. I thought it usually had an economic implication attached to it. And really if I am praying for someone to have God's prosperity wouldn't that be realisitcally unlimited wealth. Now here's the thing. I know God has given us unlimited wealth, the wealth of himself, Jesus Christ his son, but that has nothing to do with money or ecnomic wealth. I certainly don't want my friends to be poor, or anyone for that matter, we have the word of Christ which tells us we will have the poor always. We as humans won't ever be able to eliminate all of poverty, not when Christ tells us in black and white we will have the poor always. I mean I look at my salary sometimes and think, man that has to be close to poverty and I could sure use some of that prosperity, but then it's a relative thing. When I compare my salary to those who make a dollar a day (over a billion people) I have prosperity to share!

I digress. Back to the Bible ( a great place to return). Our poor friend Gehazi. He is a reminder to us of the message that Jesus bears in every gospel. You see Gehazi was the embodyment of Christ's message that blessed are the poor because their reward is heaven, but the rich already have thier reward on earth. Gehazi had gotten his instant reward and was rich in earthly terms but was instantly stricken with leprosy which would prevent him from ever fully enjoying his new found wealth as he would be surely outcast from his community and not allowed to enter the gates or be around his friends and family. So he was very poor internally. In a sense he had his reward but couldn't take it with him since he couldn't spend it wherever he went. If we use our brains to calculate how we can store up earthly treasure, but ignore our hearts and don't love Jesus we can't take that earthly treasure after we leave this earth.

So let Gehazi be a lesson to all of us. It is easy to think of ourselves as own master, (and even in this story it seems that Gehazi is not his own master, but that greed is the one he serves) and it is easy to let greed into our lives and take over, but if we allow these things, we forget our one true Master, Jesus Christ, who by his example gave his everything for everyone.

And so we pray,

Dear Jesus, come into our hearts so that there might be love of only you and our neighbors. Keep us in our humility and know that we serve you. You bless us with not with all that we want, but all that we need, which is your precious blood. Stay with us this day and always, walk with us on our path and keep us steady. In your Holy name we pray,
Amen.

PS-for another great devotion of this reading be sure to check out this site:

http://sites.google.com/site/familyofgodpa/PastorKelly/daily-devotion