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How God Gets Our Attention

His Judgments Are Always Instructive

SYNOPSIS: With God’s punishment, those who are punished will also know why they are being punished. Sometimes our parents punished us out of their frustration, and they didn’t offer clear communication for why they unleashed their displeasure upon us. We knew they were mad, but we didn’t learn a whole lot about it. It might have relieved their irritation, but it was not instructive. God’s judgments are always instructive.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 6:1-6

The Ark of the Lord remained in Philistine territory seven months in all. Then the Philistines called in their priests and diviners and asked them, “What should we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us how to return it to its own country.” They told them, “Send the Ark of the God of Israel back with a gift. Send a guilt offering so the plague will stop. Then, if you are healed, you will know it was his hand that caused the plague.” They asked, “What sort of guilt offering should we send?” And they were told, “Since the plague has struck both you and your five rulers, make five gold tumors and five gold rats, just like those that have ravaged your land. Make these things to show honor to the God of Israel. Perhaps then he will stop afflicting you, your gods, and your land. Don’t be stubborn and rebellious as Pharaoh and the Egyptians were. By the time God was finished with them, they were eager to let Israel go.”

Here is the thing about God’s punishment: those who are punished will also know why they are being punished. Sometimes our parents punished us out of their frustration, and they didn’t offer clear communication for why they unleashed their displeasure upon us. We knew they were mad, but we didn’t learn a whole lot about it. It might have relieved their irritation, but it was not instructive.

God’s judgments are always instructive. That is why he specifically struck the Philistines with a plague of rats and tumors, and that is why he unleashed ten very specific plagues upon Egypt—both of which were referenced in this story. These were not random acts of anger, the plagues were actually the grace of God to show the lost that 1) their gods were nothing, and 2) Yahweh was the one true God.

So why did God use rats and tumors? How was that instructive? Well, the Philistines worshiped an idol-god known as Dagon. This was a god who supposedly personified natural forces that were believed to produce all things necessary to the good life. Specifically, Dagon was believed to be the provider of grain—the basic stuff for the sustenance of life. The Philistines relied on Dagon to protect them and provide for their needs.

Not so fast! The God of Israel deliberately allowed the representation of his presence, the Ark of the Covenant, to be kidnapped and placed in the Philistine temple of Dagon. This was the perfect setup for God to show who was boss. And boy did he!

The plague of rats destroyed the crops that Dagon was supposed to protect. Furthermore, the rats brought the bubonic plague upon Dagon’s people—he couldn’t protect them after all. As this judgment fell upon the land, the Philistines were quite clear what was going on: Yahweh was greater than Dagon, and therefore his anger had to be appeased. Now of course, how God dealt with the Philistines and their god was not setting precedence—we don’t pray for rats and tumors upon the lost today—but a principle was at work here: God leaves no one in the dark when he brings consequences for their sin. That is why he will turn the very thing people have replaced him with, that is, what gives worshipful dependence to, back upon themselves.

Don’t be surprised if God meets your persistent rebellion with specific punishment. He loves you too much to allow you to destroy yourself and forfeit his blessing by continuing in your destructive ways. Furthermore, don’t be surprised that he will use the very things you are idolizing to teach you a lesson: if money has become your god, he may take it away; if it is fame, he may sit you on the sidelines for a season; if it is power, he may send you the gift of weakness. But make no mistake, you will know that God alone is powerful and worthy of your worship.

Better yet, surrender those idols now in repentant worship so you don’t have to learn the lessons of the Philistines. I hope you—nor I—ever have to say, “rats, should have learned my lesson the easy way.”

Now you may squirm at the idea of a punishing God—our culture has certainly conditioned us to believe in a deity who brings no one to account for anything—but that is not the loving God of the Bible. Precisely because of his love, he disciplines his children—not punitively but to conform them to his very own image; not out of irritation, but in a way that will be clearly instructive. And that is a grace!

So if God is trying to get your attention through discipline, listen up and respond.

Going Deeper With God: Has God put his hand of discipline on you in an area that you have elevated above him? Surrender it today—completely and gratefully. He has better things for you.

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The Vindication of God

That Day Will Come!

SYNOPSIS: Yes, we love our enemies, as Jesus said we should. But our love is balanced by our longing for the day that will God step in to vindicate his name and avenge his people. That is why when believers throughout the ages and around the world read stories in scripture where God actually executes justice, they say, “yes!” While we don’t see that every day, and while we patiently wait for God’s sovereign timing in bringing righteous judgment upon the nations, it is right and fitting that we long for the day when God arises and his enemies are scattered—permanently!

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 5:1-3,6

After the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they took it from the battleground at Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod. They carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon and placed it beside an idol of Dagon. But when the citizens of Ashdod went to see it the next morning, Dagon had fallen with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord! … Then the Lord’s heavy hand struck the people of Ashdod and the nearby villages with a plague of tumors.

The world that God so loves is a world that doesn’t love him back. It is ruled in this present age by a god who has blinded people’s eyes to the truth so they won’t believe. Thus they reject God, they go their own way and stubbornly persist in a way of living that is contrary to the call of their Creator. Yet the Creator stubbornly persists in loving what he has created—a love demonstrated at its greatest when he sent his Son into this hostile world to redeem it:

Jesus came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. (John 1:10-11)

Not only did the world miss him, and dismiss him, they killed the Son of God. But of course, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit knew in advance that the world would reject his love and crucify Jesus on the cross, yet God entered the world anyway. Such is the persistent, stubborn love of God for his world.

And of course, as followers of the Son, we know that this is the hostile condition of the world to which we have been sent as Christ’s ambassadors. It is a world that by and large continues to miss and dismiss him—and often becomes hostile and hateful toward those of us who represent Christ. We understand and accept that this is the brutal way they play the game. Yet we too, persist in the love of God for a world we are trying to reclaim for God’s glory.

At the same time, we long for the day when God vindicates his name. We hope for the time when God steps in and calls those who have mocked him, reviled his Word, flaunted their sin, and abused his people to account. While we patiently surrender the right to defend ourselves and fight back, our sense of a just God provides us moments when we dream for the vindication of God and his people. Of course, we do not long for anyone to come under the terrible and eternal judgment of God, but we also do not want the horrible things that have been inflicted upon the saints over the ages to go unpunished. And so we cry out,

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? (Psalm 13:2)

How long, O Lord? How long will the wicked be allowed to gloat? (Psalm 94:3)

O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us? (Revelation 6:10)

Yes, we love our enemies, as Jesus said. But we also long for the day that God vindicates his name and avenges his people. And when we read a story like the one in 1 Samuel 5 when the god of the evil Philistines actually falls before the Ark of the Covenant, we say, “yes!” And while we don’t see that every day, and while we patiently wait for God’s sovereign timing in bringing judgment upon the nations, it is right and fitting that we long for the day when God arises and his enemies are scattered—permanently!

Nonetheless, in whatever evil days we may happen to find ourselves in, let us remember that the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, speaks of the blood of the righteous crying out to God for vengeance. It speaks of the innocent blood polluting the ground on which that blood is shed, and it speaks of a God who promises to repay the blood of the innocent on the hands of the murderers, even to hold the jurisdiction of murderers responsible if they do not atone for the righteous blood found in their territory. Since God cares so much about atoning for the righteous blood of innocent victims, we ought to care greatly about the issue as well. For there is much in this world that needs to be avenged, and no one is better at vengeance than one who is all knowing, all-powerful, and knowledgeable of what goes on everywhere, rather than relying on our own weak arms to avenge us. (Nathan Albright)

Yes!

Going Deeper With God: As an act of worship today, read Psalm 68 aloud.

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What I Want – What I Need

Learn to Differentiate Between True Needs and Fleshly Wants

SYNOPSIS: Contentment ought to be a no-brainer for the believer! Why? Because you understand that an infinitely wise, supernaturally resourceful, incredibly generous, intimately involved, all-knowing, all-powerful God will never leave you or forsake you and will see to it that you have what you need. Contentment is a character trait that reveals great confidence in God. It is a spiritual discipline that demonstrates great obedience to God. It is an act of worship that greatly glorifies God. And it is a step of faith that releases the provision and results in the peace of God. So practice contentment!

Project 52—Memorize:
Philippians 4:19

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

I love this verse and quote it in my prayers for others, and myself, all the time. What a guarantee: God will meet all my needs! Not some of them, but all of them out of the unlimited treasury of heaven that has been made possible for me by the glorious death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Such a deal!

Ah, but wait a minute. Look at the preceding verses. As much as we love to quote this fantastic verse guaranteeing God’s provision, notice how Paul qualifies it with some other thoughts. In verses 11-12, Paul says,

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

That doesn’t sound like a guy who is getting everything he wants—an unlimited supply of stuff to make his life comfortable, successful and pain-free. No, this is a guy who has learned one of the most important disciplines for happiness, one of the essential attitudes for Christian living: Contentment. When you learn the secret of contentment, you will understand how to differentiate between true needs and fleshly wants.

The word translated “content” appears five times in the New Testament—and they all suggest a perfect condition of life in which no aid or support is needed. In extra-biblical Greek, one ancient writer used it to describe a country that supplied itself and had no need for imports. Biblically, contentment means to be satisfied with what God has supplied and confident that he will supply what is needed in the future.  That is why Paul can say in I Timothy 6:6, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.”

The Bible not only identifies contentment as a virtue to attain but also as a command to obey.  We’re commanded to be content in every area of life:

  • Hebrews 13:5 warns us to resist obsession with material things, “Be content with whatever you have, for God has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’”
  • You are to be content with your food and clothing—I Timothy 6:8 says, “And having food and clothing, let us be content.”
  • You are to be content with your job and wages—John the Baptist said in Luke 3:14, “be content with your pay.”
  • You’re to be content with your marriage—Proverbs 5:18 says, “be satisfied with the wife you married when you were young.”

Contentment ought to be a no-brainer for the believer! Why? Because you understand that an infinitely wise, supernaturally resourceful, incredibly generous, intimately involved, all-knowing, all-powerful God will never leave you or forsake you and will see to it that you have what you need.

Contentment is a character trait that reveals great confidence in God. It is a spiritual discipline that demonstrates great obedience to God. It is an act of worship that greatly glorifies God. And it is a step of faith that releases the provision and results in the peace of God.

So practice contentment!

“Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.” ~Jeremiah Burroughs 

Reflect and Apply: Arthur Pink states, “Instead of complaining at his lot, a contented man is thankful that his condition and circumstances are no worse than they are. Instead of greedily desiring something more than the supply of his present need, he rejoices that God still cares for him. Such a one is ‘content’ with such as he has.” (Hebrews 13:5) Offer a session of praise and thanksgiving this morning—and every morning—and see if contentment doesn’t grow in your life.

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Lucky Charm Christianity

It Makes No Sense to Take the Name of Christian and Not Cling to Christ

SYNOPSIS: Having God’s favor—his presence, power, and protection—is not a matter of what we receive in a certain moment of desperate need, it is the result of walking with him in a life-sustaining relationship over time. It is also the result of his sovereign hand that keeps us from danger or leads us into and through it, according to his will. We don’t have to twist God’s arm by chanting certain phrases, or unthinkingly repeating his name, or having perfect attendance in church, or praying three times a day, or giving to the poor, or whatever. Some of those activities might be good and fitting, but we don’t do them to get God’s favor. We do them because we have been ridiculously blessed by God’s favor.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 4:3

After the battle was over, the troops retreated to their camp, and the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the Lord allow us to be defeated by the Philistines?” Then they said, “Let’s bring the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from Shiloh. If we carry it into battle with us, it will save us from our enemies.”

Way too many believers have what I call a “lucky charm” Christianity. They believe that if they robotically go through certain motions, or if they repeat certain spiritual phrase by rote, then God’s favor and protection will be guaranteed. For instance, that is what our friend does who makes the sign of the cross before stepping to the plate to take a swing at a high fastball with the bases loaded in the ninth with two outs and his team three runs down is using God as his lucky rabbit’s foot. But that is also what our friend is doing who mindlessly “pleads the blood” of Jesus to relieve a suddenly crisis.

I don’t meant to step on your toes if any of those things are precious to you, but having God’s favor—his presence, power and protection—is not a matter of what you do in a certain moment of desperate need, it is the result of walking with him in life-sustaining relationship over time. It is also the result of his sovereign hand that keeps us from danger or leads us into and through it, according to his will. We don’t have to twist God’s arm by chanting certain phrases, or unthinkingly repeating his name a billion times in prayer, or having perfect attendance in church, or praying three times a day, or giving to the poor, or whatever….

Though some of those activities are good and fitting, we don’t do them to get God’s favor; we do them because we have been ridiculously blessed by God’s favor. Some of the aforementioned things—like mindless repetition of his name—are simply learned behaviors. But they don’t make you more lovable to God. He loves you anyway—if you don’t do them, and yes, even if you do. While I might get irritated with your “rituals”, God’s love for you is not diminished.

Yet the truth remains that God wants an intimate, moment-by-moment, love relationship with you instead of rote ritualism. He doesn’t want it to be fear-based, routine, or works oriented. He wants you to be connected deeply with him so that his life can constantly flow to you. Jesus said it this way in John 15:5-9,

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

The Israelites didn’t get that. They didn’t abide in God’s love. In fact, they had removed themselves far from him. And as a consequence, godless enemies continually harassed them—in this case, the nasty, old Philistines. When the Philistines went to war against them, Israel mistakenly assumed they got walloped simply because they didn’t have the Ark of the Covenant with them in battle—their lucky charm. How wrong they were, for when they took it into the ark into the next battle, they found out that the it did not force God to show up and win the game for them.

God wanted a relationship with his people, but he treated him like a good luck charm. That never works. Just remember that.

God wants to be in relationship with you as a loving Father to a loving child. That is where the favor flows!

Going Deeper With God: Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you where perhaps you are exercising faith in a luck charm sort of way. If he doe, repent of it and simply ask him to reconnect you to the Vine!

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Hanging Around The Holy But Never Hearing The Holy Spirit

Get Hungry For God—He's Great!

SYNOPSIS: You and I live in a glorious time when the presence of the Holy Spirit is continual. We don’t need a priest to mediate the Lord’s presence or a tabernacle to be the place where God’s voice can be heard. Through our daily times with God and in the gatherings of our faith community, we should expect to receive the voice of God. God desires to speak to us, and that should be the ongoing experience of both our personal and our corporate Christianity. If we are not hearing from God; worse, if we are not even expecting God to speak, then something is amiss in our spirituality. If our kids are clueless about the voice of God, then we—and they—are missing a vital piece of what it means to be part of New Testament Christianity. Dallas Willard said, “Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes.” Get hungry for God—He longs to speak to you!

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 3:1

Meanwhile, the boy Samuel served the Lord by assisting Eli. Now in those days messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.

I Samuel 3 introduces the Bible reader to Samuel. It is also the introduction to what will be one of the greatest periods of spiritual awakening in Israel under Samuel’s leadership. He will be the last and arguably the greatest of Israel’s judges. We actually met Samuel in the first chapter of this book that bears his name when the Lord granted his previously barren mother Hannah’s request for a son.

In fulfillment of a vow that Hannah made that dedicated Samuel to the Lord’s service, when the boy was weaned she took him to Eli the high priest so that he could serve as an assistant in the tabernacle. Samuel would grow up hanging around the holy. Our story today occurs most likely when Samuel is around twelve, and Eli is well into his nineties.

While the time of Samuel’s leadership will bring Israel back to God, it begins because of very dark conditions in Israel. Not only had the nation drifted from its spiritual moorings, Eli was a bad High Priest, and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were thoroughly wicked. Eli was lazy, and he had neither controlled his sons nor held them accountable for their immoral behavior. And the sons were so corrupt that the Lord has determined to slay them.

All of what I have just described will unfold in intriguing detail over the next few chapters. Samuel will be uniquely dialed into the voice of God. But in this chapter, he wasn’t. We could excuse his initial spiritual dullness because he was so young. And throughout his life, he would regularly experience the voice of God like few ever have. Yet on this occasion when God spoke, Samuel didn’t have a clue it was God.

So let’s focus on that very thing, and extract an application from it. We are told in the very first verse that Samuel was serving the Lord in the daily duties of the tabernacle. He was the high priest’s assistant. We are also told that any word from God was rare in those days. People were not receiving revelations—the prophetic voice calling Israel to repentance had been silenced. So rare was it that God spoke that when he finally did, Samuel was clueless that it was God. He actually thought it was Eli messing with him.

How sad. That anyone could hang around the holiness of God, administering his holy things, yet never hear the voice of the Holy Spirit—and in fact, not even be aware of the Spirit or crying out for a word from the Lord or expecting God to speak—that itself is a spiritual indictment of the worst order.

You and I live in a glorious time when the presence of the Holy Spirit is continual. We don’t need a priest to mediate the Lord’s presence or a tabernacle to be the place where God’s voice can be heard. Through our daily times with God and in the gatherings of our faith community, we should expect to receive the voice of God. God desires to speak to us, and that should be the ongoing experience of both our personal and our corporate Christianity. If we are not hearing from God; worse, if we are not even expecting God to speak, then something is amiss in our spirituality. If our kids are clueless about the voice of God, then we—and they—are missing a vital piece of what it means to be part of New Testament Christianity.

Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes or toast and eggs. (Dallas Willard)

God wants to speak. If he isn’t, that is not his fault, it is ours. We have moved away from him. We have put distance between the Almighty and us. We have programmed the Spirit right out of our daily lives and our weekend gatherings. We are hanging around the holy yet never hearing from the Holy Spirit. When you think about it, how terribly sad is that!

If you are not hearing from God, the good news is, he wants to speak. So come before him with a repentant heart, realign your life to give time to hear his voice, get into his Word, begin to ask him to talk to you and then listen on a consistent basis, and he will speak.

You and I need a word from God, and he longs to give it. May God grant us a hearing of his voice!

Going Deeper With God: If you are not hearing from God, come before him with a repentant heart, realign your life to give prime time to hear his voice, get into his Word, begin to ask him to talk to you and then listen. Do that on a consistent basis, and God will speak to you.

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Made For Another World

"I Will Come Back For You!" ~Jesus

SYNOPSIS: Jesus’s revelation of his Second Coming and the planned retrieval of his followers to a newly constructed eternal dwelling in John 14:3 – “When everything is ready, then I will come and get you, so that you can always be with me” – is the most comforting and motivating promise that he ever made. Allow his promise to both soothe and strengthen you today because it is yet another reminder that you were “made for another world.” This world is not your home; a better one is coming – and soon! And until that great day comes, your longing for the next world is to energize you for tireless kingdom work in this present world.

Project 52—Memorize:
John 14:2-3

“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

Jesus knew that what he was about to say would upset his disciples; perhaps even cause them to panic. They had left everything to follow him, and now that public opinion had turned against his messianic ministry, their very lives were in danger along with his. Yet this small band of men had still thrown in with Jesus. And now he was telling them that he was about to leave them for another world.

But Jesus made two incredible promises to his disciples in John 14 as he revealed his exit plan that would shore up their courage and give them the confidence to carry on with his plans to transform the world through their witness. First, he revealed that the Holy Spirit would take his place and come alongside them, and unlike him, actually take up residence within them. (John 14:16-17) It would be the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit who would comfort, guide, and empower the disciples to accomplish even greater results than Jesus himself had achieved.

The second promise was that just as surely as he was going away, and just as surely as he had come a first time, he would come back a second time and get them. The next time, he would not come to live with them, he would come to take them to a place that he was now leaving to prepare especially for them.  He would be constructing a new home in a new place in another world just for them—that was his promise. And he asked them, as tough as the news of his departure was on them, to trust him on this and to not be troubled by his absence. (John 14:1).

It was this revelation of his Second Coming and the planned retrieval of his followers to a newly constructed eternal dwelling that was and still is to be the most comforting and motivating promise that Jesus made. It is to comfort because, as C.S. Lewis said, it is a powerful and ongoing reminder that we “made for another world”. This world is not your home; a better one is coming!

But Jesus’ promise was more than just wishful hoping for an escape hatch from this world to the next, it was also to be a powerful motivator that much was needed to be done before his return. Just as he would be working on our new dwellings while he is away, we are to be working to spread his fame in this world before he returns. It was precisely our longing for the next world that is to energize us for tireless kingdom work in this present world.

Jesus’ promise to return and retrieve us is still in effect. Just as it was to comfort his disciples then, it is to comfort us today. Just as it was to energize them for kingdom work back then, the fact that he could return at any moment, perhaps even the next moment, is to motivate us to tirelessly represent his cause today.

If you belong to Christ, you were made for another world. Don’t ever forget that. It will keep your heart strong and your hands active—which is exactly how I want him to find me when he comes to get me.

“If we really believe that home is elsewhere and that this life is a ‘wandering to find home,’ why should we not look forward to the arrival?” ~C.S. Lewis

Reflect and Apply: Spend some time today thinking about your eternal home. That is not a waste of time, by the way, it is what you were meant to do. In history, “you will find out that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.” (C.S. Lewis)

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Intentional Parenting or Unintentional Consequences

Train Up a Child in the Way They Should Go

SYNOPSIS: The ultimate parental dereliction of duty is to allow the children to parent themselves. Your children need a dad and a mom who will give them definite direction in the way they should go. And the promise of scripture is that when they are old, they will not depart from it. That is quite a risky promise, but it is God’s, not mine.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 2:12-13, 22

Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels who had no respect for the Lord or for their duties as priests…. Now Eli was very old, but he was aware of what his sons were doing to the people of Israel.

Eli was the high priest of Israel as the period of the Judges was coming to a close. Arguably, there was no higher public role than his. Yet there was a job more important than being the Chief Spiritual Officer of Israel, and that was being a dad to his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas.

Now while these two were grown men and Eli was very old at the time of this story, it is obvious that many years had passed where Eli had been derelict in his parental duties. Hophni and Phinehas were very wicked men, even though they were priests of the Lord like their father.

The story of this family doesn’t give any details of their upbringing, except that as we have already seen, this was a time in Israel’s spiritual journey that God had been moved to the margins and people were doing whatever they thought best. (Judges 22:25) We don’t know what had happened, or what had not happened. We don’t know if Eli had been off shepherding Israel but not shepherding his own home. We don’t know if Eli was simply lazy as a dad, or if he had a pushover personality, or if his sons were just bad apples, or all of the above.

What we do know is that when we get to these early chapters in 1 Samuel, Hophni and Phinehas were abusing their spiritual authority. They were cheating people out of sacrifices that were meant to the Lord, they were seducing women who came to worship, and were using their role to benefit themselves, and they had deeply offended the Lord, who was now ready to end not just their ministry as priests, but their very lives:

Eli said, “You must stop, my sons! The reports I hear among the Lord’s people are not good. If someone sins against another person, God can mediate for the guilty party. But if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede?” But Eli’s sons wouldn’t listen to their father, for the Lord was already planning to put them to death. (1 Samuel 2:24-35

Now like many parents, Eli had a heartfelt concern for his sons’ wicked behavior. But unfortunately, like many parents, his concern was not matched by action. And his dereliction of duty only allowed their evil to grow worse, until it reached the point where God had determined to slay them. Keep in mind that God didn’t predetermine that these two would be evil—that is not what the writer is telling us when he says, “they wouldn’t listen to their dad, for God was planning to kill them.” What he is saying is that because of their deliberately evil actions, the Lord allowed their hearts to grow beyond repentance. In other words, God had given them what they were determined to have, and now they would harvest the wild oats they had sowed.

Of course, the overarching purpose of this story is to connect the increasingly lawless times of the judges with the arrival of Israel’s monarchy. Interestingly, scripture takes quite a bit of space to do that, using Judges, Ruth, and the early part of 1 Samuel to make sure we know how awful society will get when God is not at the center. The account of Eli and his evil spawn is yet one more story that adds to this indictment.

Yet while that is the general theme, we can still extract some very important life applications from these accounts—including this one. One of those applications for me is the recognition that my highest call and chief mission in life is to honor Christ by being an effective father. Furthermore, the fruit of my mission will be seen in my kid’s and grandkids’ lives as they reach adulthood—it will be reflected in their own reverence for the Lord and the values of godliness they choose to live by. As they follow God of their own accord, that is the greatest tribute to what kind of dad I have been

Now that won’t happen just by virtue of being a parent to your children. It will be the result of intentional parenting and a determination to be the kind of mom or dad that honors God—especially the kind that honors God by insisting that your children give him the respect that is due.

Eli didn’t. He let his boys parent themselves until it was too late. The good news is, you can be different, especially if your children are still young. And if they are not, then start with where you are and exert the godliest influence you can. And with God’s help, your sincere efforts will have an effect.

The ultimate parental dereliction of duty is to allow the children to parent themselves. Your children need a dad and a mom who will give them definite direction in the way they should go. And the promise of scripture is that when they are old, they will not depart from it. That is quite a risky promise, but it is God’s, not mine.

Going Deeper With God: Have you ever shared your spiritual values with your children or grandchildren? If you haven’t, look for an opportune time to tell them what you believe and why you believe it. Believe me, it will leave an impression.