Category Archives: Bible Insights

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A Frivolous Miracle Or An Extravagant God

He Is Lord For Your Ordinary Needs

SYNOPSIS: Jesus gladly turned water into wine for a wedding reception—such a “frivolous” miracle—to reveal the Father’s extravagant generosity for our ordinary wants and needs.

Moments With God // John 2:11 (NLT)

This miracle at Cana in Galilee —turning water into wine at a wedding—was Jesus’ first public demonstration of his heaven-sent power. And his disciples believed that he really was the Messiah.

Turning water into wine! Really? For your first miracle, you choose to keep the party guests happy by miraculously making sure there is a free flow of adult beverages? Wouldn’t it have been more impressive in announcing to the world that you, the Messiah, have arrived by raising a dead person back to life or by performing some other more worthy miracle—like supplying a starving family with food or creating money for a destitute widow or by healing a young child dying with leukemia?

Doesn’t running out of wine at a wedding seem like a first-world problem? And doesn’t God stooping to supply the new, improved wine seem a bit frivolous? So why this frivolous miracle as Jesus’s inaugural miracle?

Well, only God knows the answer to that question, but here’s what I think: what might seem like a frivolous miracle is really the introduction of an extravagant God.

You see, many of us have been conditioned to believe that God doesn’t intervene in relatively unimportant human affairs when more pressing concerns are on His plate, like war, global warming, human trafficking, or widespread injustice. We have trouble believing that the Almighty intervenes in our ordinary, unimportant, trivial affairs.

But does he? Well, sometimes! Can I expect that of Him? Does He care about my wedding reception or my favorite sports teaming winning a match or my missing iPhone? Should I really be bothering Him with my ordinary, unimportant stuff?

I don’t mean to be irreverent, but it doesn’t hurt to ask! Jesus helped His mom, who was likely coordinating this wedding, out of a jam by changing ceremonial water, which theologically, may very well represent the limits of human fallenness, into party wine, which represents the liberality of divine grace. Jesus didn’t have to. It wasn’t on His agenda. He wasn’t responding to a life and death need. But He did it anyway.

What that shows us is something pretty cool: The extravagant nature of this God revealed in a miracle you and I probably wouldn’t have dared to ask for.

That’s the God I want and need every day of my life. And that’s the God we’re offered in Jesus!

This “frivolous” miracle brings a distant, unreachable God out of the heavenly realms and right into our humble realities. It’s not only interesting; it’s purposeful that verse 11 says the very first place Jesus chose to “reveal his glory” was somewhere very ordinary. He chose a home for His first miracle. He went public at a wedding in a wide spot in the road called Cana.

So, what does that tell us? Simply this: Jesus desires to be real—and to reveal God—in your daily ordinariness, too. He wants to reveal glory—God’s manifest presence—in the nitty-gritty reality of your life: your marriage, family, work, school, and private world. It also means that He cares about what you do in your ordinary days—your marriage, job, school, private times—your life outside the sacredness of church. God doesn’t want to just show up for you at church on Sunday mornings. He wants to be real, and powerful and close, even in your unexciting, uneventful moment-by-moment world.

Nothing about your life is too insignificant to qualify for God’s extravagant grace—apparently not even the beverages on the menu at your party!

That’s the God you and I want and need every day of our lives. And that’s the God we’re offered in Jesus!

Take A Moment: Make a list of your wants—not your needs—and take them before God in your prayer time. As you do, reflect on this verse: “You can ask Him for anything, using my name, and I will do it, for this will bring praise to the Father because of what I, the Son, will do for you. Yes, ask anything, using my name, and I will do it!” (John 14:13-14)

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Two-Faced People

They Talk Peace To Your Face, Then Moonlight for The Devil

SYNOPSIS: Hypocrisy is not a crime, rarely is there any kind of sanction for duplicity, and for certain, being two-faced carries no real social stigma. Yet there is One who doesn’t keep quiet about the nasty ways of the one who says one thing to your face and another behind your back. God’s righteous gaze cuts through the syrupy surface of their lives with utter moral clarity and labels the wickedness of their hypocritical hearts, calling them what they truly are: workers of iniquity. The Bible’s advice about two-faced people: avoid them…and don’t be them!

New Article: Two-Faced People

Moments With God // Claim Psalm 28:3

Do not drag me away with the wicked—with those who do evil—those who speak friendly words to their neighbors while planning evil in their hearts.

There is a category of people whose behavior for some reason we seem to excuse—but God doesn’t. He doesn’t find them acceptable; they and the unseen attitudes of their hearts he finds deplorable. Who are they? They are the kind of people who will say one thing to your face, then another behind your back. Even worse to God than what they say about you is what they think about you in their hearts. The psalmist says they speak peace when they are in front of you, but even before you are gone, their minds are flooded with ill will toward you.

We call them two-faced; the Bible calls them hypocrites. And while two-faced people are unpleasant, our culture pretty much excuses their behavior and accepts their ways. Hypocrisy is not a crime, rarely is there any kind of sanction for duplicity, and for certain, being two-faced carries no real social stigma. Yet there is One who doesn’t keep quiet about their nasty ways. God’s righteous gaze cuts through the syrupy surface of their lives with utter moral clarity and labels the wickedness of their hypocritical hearts, calling them what they truly are: Workers of iniquity.

Now I realize that at this point in your reading you might be thinking this is anything but an encouraging little devotional thought for the day. And truthfully, it is not. Rather, this is an exhortation. And the exhortation I have for you is twofold:

One, it is most likely that you will rub shoulders today with the kinds of people David describes in this psalm. As the Message puts it, they “moonlight for the Devil.” Be cautious around them. Discern their hypocritical hearts and don’t be tainted by their iniquitous ways. If you allow them into your inner circle, watch out: they will ensnare you. So be careful, be very careful!

And two, don’t be one of them. It is so easy to fall into this kind of two-faced living. Ask God to keep you from hypocrisy. Don’t fall into the trap of saying one thing but thinking another in your heart. Ask God for integrity of word and thought.

That’s what David prayed: Keep me from them and keep me from being one of them. I hope you will pray that too!

Take A Moment: Try praying another prayer of David found in Psalm 139:23-24 with the specific motive of cleansing your life of hypocrisy: Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts. Point out anything you find in me that makes you sad, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

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God Will Perfect That Which Concerns Me

There’s No Stopping The Almighty

SYNOPSIS: As we passionately pursue God’s purposes, God has passionately committed himself to fulfill His purposes in us. No matter what things may look like—horrible circumstances and hateful people notwithstanding—God will never abandon the work that He has lovingly and painstakingly invested in us, and He will ultimately bring that work to perfect completion. No way—you can’t stop God from doing what God does!

Moments With God // Psalm 138:8

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever—do not abandon the works of your hands.

“God will perfect everything that concerns you.” (Psalm 138:8, NKJV) I have heard my wife use King David’s phrase many times in her public prayers. I like that promise, don’t you? Nothing will stop God from fulfilling His purpose for my life—nothing!

That was the essence of David’s thinking in this psalm. Nothing could get in the way of what God had in mind—God’s perfect will for his life—not even David’s own fleshly desires. That’s the caveat to this truth: the perfecting is of that which is according to God’s will, which of course, is what ought to concern us more than anything else in this life.

The New Testament writer Jude capture the essence of this truth in his benedictory prayer when he wrote, “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.” (Jude 1:24-25) Likewise, the Apostle Paul wrote similar words in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

How comforting and empowering to know that if we are passionately pursuing God’s purposes, God has passionately committed Himself to fulfill His purposes in us. No matter what things may look like—horrible circumstances and hateful people notwithstanding (Psalm 138:7)—God will never abandon the work that He has lovingly and painstakingly invested in us, and He will ultimately bring that work to perfect completion.

What David had discovered was that when we are for God, and when God is for us, we cannot lose! 2 Chronicles 16:9 reminds us this profound truth,

For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

Wow! God so desires to fulfill His purposes in this world that He is actually scouring the earth looking for fully devoted people in order to release His enabling power in their lives. Is your heart fully committed to Him? If it is, then God will find you, and sooner or later you will come into the greatest joy that anyone can ever experience in this life: God fulfilling His purposes for you and through you.

Yes, God will perfect that which concerns you! In other words, There’s no stopping God!

Take A Moment: What are the obstacles standing in your path to pursuing God? According to Psalm 138:8, God will repurpose those stumbling blocks into building blocks. Try praying a thanksgiving prayer for everything that seems to impede your progress. Then ask God to empower you to work with Him to use those very things to perfect you. Pray this risky prayer: “God use this to shape me.”

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Love Is Kind

Love Is Action, Not Abstraction

SYNOPSIS: More than anything else right now, this world needs to be infused with massive doses of kindness, and no other group of people is more equipped to lead the way in flooding Planet Earth with kindness than Christ’s followers. In fact, just about the only currency the Christian community has these days to impact culture is acts of compassion wrapped in genuine kindness. Transforming our culture will not happen by Christians gaining political power or imposing their collective will; neither by cursing the darkness nor by leveraging enormous resources, but by modeling love dressed as simple acts of kindness in the common spaces of life—offering an encouraging word to a friend, humbly serving the poor, giving undivided attention to the marginalized, and last but certainly not least, unconditionally forgiving those who have offended. If we started a revolution of kindness we could change the world!

Making Love Work // 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Among the many expressions the Apostle Paul uses to describe and define agape—that is, the kind of love that characterizes God himself—one of the most profound of his descriptions is that love is kind. I will say it again: love is kind.

Think for a moment where kindness begins: God’s loving-kindness to you. And that is precisely where your kindness toward others is rooted—in God’s kindness. Romans 3:23-24 tells us,

All of us have sinned…yet now God declares us ‘not guilty’ of offending Him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in His kindness freely takes away all our sins. (LB)

Simply because He is kind, God has wiped clean your record. There’s no condemnation if you put your faith in Christ. That is good news! Consider this: Even before you were born, God already knew every evil, mean and nasty thing you would say and do. Yet He still made you and He still loves you, and He still sent Jesus to die in your place.

That is the kindness of God, and that is precisely why Paul said in Ephesians 4:32,

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

You can take a giant step toward a harvest of the kindness fruit in your life (after all, kindness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit) by forgiving people who have offended you. And that is precisely your assignment today—mine, too: Go down the list of offended, estranged, or strained relationships, and simply, unconditionally, fully and personally forgive them—even if they don’t deserve it! Jesus said in Luke 6:35,

Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

There is simply no more compelling witness than God’s kindness on display through you. Romans 2:4 asks, “Can’t you see that God’s kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?” God’s kindness toward you, even though you have sinned against Him, draws you back to Him. And so it is that the kindness you demonstrate by forgiving those who have sinned against you will be the very thing that draws them back into a restored relationship with you—and perhaps even God if they have wandered from Him.

Love is the most powerful force for good in the universe. When you are kind, you transform love the noun into a verb—love becomes an action, not an abstraction. Arguably, love clothed as kindness is the most powerful force on earth, precisely because most people know very little about genuine kindness.

More than anything else right now, our world needs massive doses of kindness, and Christ-followers ought to lead the way modeling it. We have the power to change a life, a community, a nation—not by gaining political power, not by imposing our will, not by cursing the darkness, not by giving away enormous resources—but by love dressed as simple acts of kindness, again, not the least of which is through forgiveness.

Let’s start a revolution of kindness—let’s change the world!

Take A Moment: With whom do you need to demonstrate kindness today? And what expression of kindness will be most meaningful to them—forgiveness, an encouraging word, an act of service, giving them your undivided attention? Give them a gift of kindness and so show yourself to be a true child of your infinitely kind Father in Heaven.

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Every Breath You Take

Each One Is A Gift From God

SYNOPSIS: I take 23,040 breaths each day and will breathe in and breathe out the breath of life 8,409,600 this coming year. God willing, that will be over 8 million gifts of life from my Creator in 2022, who will have graciously and mercifully supplied every single one. If I have no other cause to offer thanks to God this year, I will still have at least 8,409,600 reasons. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

New Beginnings // Claim: Genesis 2:7

Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.

If you have begun a “Through the Bible in One Year” program, you likely started in Genesis 1. And in the midst of many extraordinary aspects of the creation account, as you come into chapter 2, you find this amazing verse in Genesis 2:7,

Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.

Interestingly, the phrase “breath of life” is used twenty-four times in the Old Testament and it not found in other ancient literary creation accounts. In the Book of Job, this phrase is plainly connected to the Spirit of God:

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (Job 33:4)

Into every human being, God deposits something of Himself. While all living creatures have breath, which gives them life, they do not have the living Spirit of God as do humans. Among other things, this makes human life sacred above all the different life forms. What a special gift: God has implanted His very breath, His Spirit, in you and me.

Now I don’t know how you react to that, but for me, it causes gratitude for the Creator’s gift of life to well up and overflow from within me. God didn’t have to form man out of the dust of the ground as the highest, most treasured work of creation, but He did. O, how he must love us! And again, I am simply undone with thanks for the amazing gift of life.

Fundamental to a life of gratitude is the recognition that even my very breath is a gift from my Creator.

I take 23,040 breaths each day and will breathe in and breathe out the breath of life 8,409,600 this coming year. If I live to be 80 years of age, I will have taken about 672,768,000 gifts of life from God, who has graciously, mercifully supplied every single one.

If I had no other cause to offer thanks to God today, I would still have 23,040 reasons. Tomorrow is a whole different matter!

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

Of course, authentic gratitude requires that I demonstrate it in how I live. It is not truly thanksgiving unless it becomes “thanksliving.” I love how Philip James Bailey puts it:

Let each man think himself an act of God,
His mind a thought, his life a breath of God;
And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds,
To show the most of Heaven he hath in him.

That is my glad assignment for this day through every 23,040 breaths that I will take: to show the most of Heaven that I have in me.

I hope you will join me.

Take A Moment: 23,040 breaths today—23,040 reasons for gratitude. How many offerings of praise can you offer up to the Breath of Life over the next twenty-four hours?

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A Call to Agape-Driven Relationships in 2022

A Friendship That Enters The Soul

SYNOPSIS: “A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” (Arnold Glasgow) That was Jonathan’s relationship with David, and it was arguably the most life-enriching friendship ever. Jonathan’s love bracketed and contained his father Saul’s evil, and entered David’s soul in a way Saul’s hatred never did. That’s the power of a Jonathan-like friend—and it’s the kind of friendship you are called to offer another in this era of Covid/Culture Wars/Political Strife where friendships are far too quickly and easily discarded like yesterday’s trash. If you are to offer another a Jonathan/David friendship—which is simply what the New Testament calls  “agape love” — you don’t ghost or cancel or vent outrage on a friend. You don’t demand that they believe like you, vote like you, or live their life to please you. Listen: a friend is born for relational adversity; a friend loves at all times (even when there is disagreement over mandates or candidates); for the sake of Christ, a friend doesn’t allow temporal earthly concerns to corrode the relationship; the love of a friend never, ever demands its own way. On this day, and from here on out, be a true friend!

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 23:16-17

And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God. “Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this.”

Though Jonathan was King Saul’s son and heir to the throne, he stripped himself of every symbol of royalty to show favor and friendship to one who was his rival—David. Instead of jealousy, which would have been the natural response, he gave David strength. Instead of protecting his own interests, Jonathan promoted David’s welfare. Instead of siding with his father, he defended David, even risking his own life. Instead of minimizing the damage his father was trying to inflict upon David, Jonathan openly and honestly admitted the king’s wrong. Instead of abandoning David, Jonathan became a source of encouragement.

David was at the point of breaking. I’m sure he thought about giving up. If he had, he would have ceased to be Jonathan’s rival, and Jonathan knew that. Yet Jonathan went to him and strengthened him in the Lord anyway. Jonathan was content to be second fiddle if he could help advance David to first chair. Was that because Jonathon viewed himself as unworthy? Is there some self-loathing at play here? Not at all; he is simply responding to what he saw God doing in David’s life.

How rare does a friend put himself or herself in the background for the sake of another’s God-ordained advancement! Jonathan’s relationship with David was truly an altruistic friendship. It was not based on what he could get from his friend, but what he could give. That is truly a sacrificial friendship—and it is what God values, expects, and blesses.

This leads to a very important, and challenging application: Normally at this point, we would think about how we might acquire a Jonathan-type friend in our lives. Perhaps the more important thing would be to ask ourselves how we could be a Jonathan-like friend to someone in our relational sphere.

The truth is, if you want to have the kind friendship Jonathan offered David, you need to be that kind of friend. The best vitamin for that kind of loyal, life-giving friendship: B-1! Each of us desires someone like Jonathan in our lives—and it’s appropriate to pray that way.

More than that, each of us should pray that God will make us a Jonathan to some David. That is the kind of friendship you are called to offer another in this era of Covid/Culture Wars/Political Strife where friendships are far too quickly and easily discarded like yesterday’s trash. If you are to offer another a Jonathan/David friendship—which is simply what the New Testament calls  “agape love” — you don’t ghost or cancel or vent outrage on a friend. You don’t demand that they believe like you, vote like you, or live their life to please you. Listen: a friend is born for relational adversity; a friend loves at all times (even when there is disagreement over mandates or candidates); for the sake of Christ, a friend doesn’t allow temporal earthly concerns to corrode the relationship; the love of a friend never, ever demands its own way.

On this day, and from here on out, be a true friend!

Going Deeper With God: Someone has said that Jonathan’s friendship bracketed and contained Saul’s evil, and his friendship entered David’s soul in a way Saul’s hatred never did. That’s the power of a Jonathan-like friendship. To whom can you offer that level of friendship? Why not start today!

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Bible Reading 2022: The One-Year Chronological Bible

Read the Bible in Community - It's Better That Way

SYNOPSIS: There’s no greater practice for going deep with God than through the daily practice of Bible study—reading, meditating, journaling, memorizing, and praying the Scriptures — and doing it in community with other believers. That spiritual practice will contribute to your growth as a believer and your entrance into the deep things of God like nothing else. It’s as simple as that. Here’s what regularly reading and applying God’s Word will do for you: mature your faith, morph you into greater Christlikeness, deepen your knowledge of God, insulate your life from sin, enlarge your Kingdom effectiveness, increase your spiritual power, develop life skills for the daily challenges you face, and allow you to live in the blessing zone of God’s favor. I hope you’ll join me in daily reading “The One Year Chronological Bible” in 2022 as we “go deep” with God .

Go Deep// 2 Timothy 3:14-17

But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Let’s go deep with God this year! When I was growing up in a small Southern Oregon town, the kids in my neighborhood would regularly gather in the street in front of my house. There we would play some of the best football games on the planet—even better than even the Super Bowl! Street football—skinned knees, bruised elbows, bragging rights (at least for that day), and tons of fun! Man, there was nothing like it!

The favorite play called in the huddle, was, of course, “go deep! Forget about short-yardage running plays or screen passes, we wanted the glory, paydirt, “tud!”, our name for a touchdown So just about every play was “go deep!” I’m telling you, that’s the way football at every level ought to be played.

I want to go deep this year in God, don’t you? I don’t want to splash around in the shallows or wade around in the wimpy water near the shore, I want to get into the depths of God like never before. Do you want to join me?

If you do, then I know of no greater practice for going deep with God than through the daily practice of Bible study—reading, meditating, journaling, memorizing, and praying the Scriptures. That spiritual practice will contribute to your growth as a believer and your entrance into the deep things of God like nothing else. It’s as simple as that. Here’s what regularly reading and ruthlessly obeying God’s Word will do for you:

  • Mature your faith
  • Morph you into greater Christlikeness
  • Deepen your knowledge of God
  • Insulate your life from sin
  • Enlarge your Kingdom effectiveness
  • Increase your spiritual power
  • Develop life skills for the daily challenges you face
  • Allow you to live in the blessing zone of God’s favor

I hope you’ll join me in 2022 as we “go deep” in God through the daily reading of his Word. To help us along the way, I invite you to sign up for the free creative Bible reading plan called the “The One Year® Chronological Bible” (once you download it, go to the Bible Reading Plans and make sure to select The One Year® Chronological Bible). Or, you can purchase a hard or electronic copy of your preferred Bible version from your favorite bookseller. Of course, you can choose your own Bible reading plan, but no matter what you do, choose to read God’s Word in 2022 and, if at all possible, read it with others.

By the way, there is no greater act of faith, obedience and yes, even worship, than to devote yourself to “rightly dividing the Word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Let’s go deep in God’s Word this year!