Day 56 of 90 Devotion

Dearest e-votees-

Day fifty-six of our cover to cover voyage through the Bible. If you want to see the readings for our trip through the Bible you can follow this link:

www.christthegoodshep.org/biblein90days.html

Peace,
Karl

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Day 56 Readings: Jeremiah 23:9-33:22

The flavor of today's texts is one of a reluctant warning with a deep, abiding promise attached.

God is clearly intending to send the people into Babylonian exile. There is talk of 70 years of being uprooted and living in a foreign land. But in the midst of those words:

Jeremiah 29:11-13 talks about God knowing the plans for the people, plans to prosper them and not to harm them, plans to give them a hope and a future

Jeremiah 31 has God putting the law in peoples minds and writing it on their hearts establishing a new covenant

Jeremiah 32 has Jeremiah buying a field as a symbol that the exiles will return and will buy and sell property again

Jeremiah 33 has the promise of the covenant with David being unbreakable and that his descendants (like those of Abraham) will be as countless as the beach sands and nighttime stars

Some call Jeremiah a prophet of gloom and doom but these chapters are full of hope and life. Even when God punishes or allows consequences to happen it is with the hope or healing and restoration. God's parenting is like ours on a good day. We want healing and life for our children even when we have to bring to bear something hard for them.


God, help us endure what you allow to happen in your parental wisdom. Help us trust and lean into all of your good and abiding promises. Amen.

Day 55 of 90 Devotion

Dearest e-votees-

Day fifty-five of our cover to cover voyage through the Bible. If you want to see the readings for our trip through the Bible you can follow this link:

www.christthegoodshep.org/biblein90days.html

Peace,
Karl

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Day 55 Readings: Jeremiah 10:14-23:8

I was in Denver at a Youth Specialties youth workers' conference. One of the speakers was talking about us being clay in the potter's hands (much like Jeremiah 18). I remember vividly listening to him talk as he spun pottery on a wheel. At one point one of the pots became off center and unbalanced. He threw it aside as useless. It made a vivid point about how God might or might not be able to work in and through our lives. I like the image in Jeremiah better in which the "marred" pot was reshaped and repurposed. God doesn't cast us aside recklessly but longs and desires to shape and reshape us into a healthy and helpful vessel.

Our appointed text for today has much to say about people worshipping God in form or with lips but not with heart. God will not be fooled. God is not to be trifled with. The people have grieved God deeply and harsh punishments are coming. It is hard to get past Jeremiah 15:2 inviting those destined for death, the sword, starvation or captivity to follow their destinies. God says these people won't be spared even if Moses and Samuel were to make intercessory gestures--much less Jeremiah. God promises that some will come back but in the mean time things look grim indeed.

In the midst of the bad news God promises in chapter 23 that a righteous branch is coming. He will be a King in the line of David who will reign wisely and do what is just. He will bring salvation. He will be called "the Lord our Righteousness" aka Jesus. May we trust deeply in the "good news" aka "gospel" of Jesus and allow ourselves to be shaped by the master potter in healthy and helpful vessels.


God, help us learn from those who aren't so very different from us. Help us not trifle with you but trust you and deeply abide in you. Have your way with us, your clay, Potter. Amen.

Day 54 of 90 Devotion

Dearest e-votees-

Day fifty-four of our cover to cover voyage through the Bible. We have finished Isaiah (23 books down, 43 to go). If you want to see the readings for our trip through the Bible you can follow this link:

www.christthegoodshep.org/biblein90days.html

Peace,
Karl

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Day 54 Readings: Isaiah 66:19-Jeremiah 10:13

Apparently God has had enough with the unfaithful ways of the people. They are likened to adulteresses. They have given themselves far and wide to other gods and idols. God has chosen to bring destruction upon them from the north. Jeremiah is given the task to warn the people but also told that the people won't listen. He goes about his futile task that is certainly a thankless one as well. Nobody puts much in the tip jar of a prophet of doom. The people have abandoned God and God is about to abandon them into exile.

How about us? How faithful are we to God? Do we keep our eyes and hearts focused on God? Or do we allow ourselves to be wooed by what our world has to offer. Do we seek God first when things come our way or do we rely on our own know-how and ingenuity? Is God our first and best resort or just the fallback plan when nothing we can figure out works? Do we bring offerings of our devotion, our time and our hearts or do we neglect our first love? Do we look more like the world or more like one in the world but not of it? Would Jeremiah have something to say to us? If so, would we listen?

God has something to say to us. "I love you." God said it most clearly in Jesus in his life, ministry, death and resurrection. God has something to say to us as Jesus did to the woman taken in adultery: "Where are those that accused you?" God has liberated us from the ultimate consequences of sin. God has something to say to us as Jesus said to the woman taken in adultery: "Go and sin no more." God has set us free and loved us back from death to life. We get to respond through the stirrings of the Holy Spirit. Will we?


God, help us hear what you would say to us and do what would please you. Forgive our wandering eyes and ways. Make us new again. Amen.

Day 53 of 90 Devotion

Dearest e-votees-

Day fifty-three of our cover to cover voyage through the Bible. If you want to see the readings for our trip through the Bible you can follow this link:

www.christthegoodshep.org/biblein90days.html

Peace,
Karl

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Day 53 Readings: Isaiah 52:13-66:18

There are some powerful promises about God's words and the Word in our portion of scripture assigned for today:

Isaiah 55 invites those who are hungry and those who are thirsty to come and eat and drink. That God will provide for God's people. There is a deep and abiding promises that just as snow and rain do not go through their cycles without accomplishing their intended purpose so, too, with God's words. Scripture does not enter us without accomplishing what God has intended. There are not passive or ineffectual encounters with scripture. The reason we are embarking on "The Bible in 90 Days" is that we hold it to be true that we will be different come July 12 as compared to April 14.

Isaiah 52 and 53 give us a powerful picture of Jesus' suffering and passion as well as his motivations for enduring it. He was "pierced for our transgressions" and "crushed for our iniquities" because "we all, like sheep, have gone astray" and are in need of what only he can provide. So Jesus was disfigured and marred. He went willingly to the slaughter. He who created all life entered into a gruesome death on our behalf. He died among the wicked and was put into a rich man's place. Through those things and through all he endured in his life, ministry, death and resurrection Jesus has secured a right place with God for us.

Isaiah 61 is where we find the text that Jesus quoted regarding himself at the synagogue in Nazareth in Luke 4:14-21. It is early in Luke. Jesus was baptized by John, tempted in the desert and now makes he presence publicly known upon his return. He connects the beginning of his public ministry with the year of the Lord's favor. He will indeed preach the good news to the poor. He will bind up the brokenhearted. He will free the captives. Prisoners (of sin, of demons, of false understanding, of legalism, etc., etc.) with find release from the darkness.

The promises penned by Isaiah about God's words (scripture) and the Word (Jesus) are finding their fulfillment in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. They are finding their fulfillment in our own lives as well. The snows are rains are not returning empty.


God, help us to steep ourselves in your words and your Word. Thank you that every promise of yours is "Yes" and "Amen" in Jesus. (2 Corinthians 1:20) Amen.

Day 52 of 90 Devotion

Dearest e-votees-

Day fifty-two of our cover to cover voyage through the Bible. If you want to see the readings for our trip through the Bible you can follow this link:

www.christthegoodshep.org/biblein90days.html

Peace,
Karl

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Day 52 Readings: Isaiah 41:19-52:12

Our readings today have God making a case between God and idols.

There is a contrast between the servant (whom in retrospect we understand to be Jesus) in 42:1-9 and the other choices which reflect a lack of sense (thought) and senses (observation) from God's people.

The text begins, in earnest, to juxtapose the Lord and idols. Idols are made out of wood and metals. Some might fix a meal over half a log of wood and fashion a "god" out of the other half. The "god" might need to be nailed down lest it topple. One might bring petitions to the "god" but it cannot hear through the non-functional form of its carved ears. One might bring offerings to the "god" but it cannot see through carved eyes or sense the aroma through its carved nostrils. The "god" is literally senseless. And thinking that such a carving could bring about change or hope or deliverance is rather senseless too.

God, in contrast, is the one who made all wood and all metals (and all else that you could ever find). God is not fashioned by us out of anything but rather fashioned us out of nothing. We don't bring meals to God but receive every morsel of food, every sip of drink and every other gift from the hand of a gracious God. God cannot be toppled but rather steadies our feet and keeps us from stumbling. We bring petitions to God, at God's request, and God hears and responds. Offerings of materials, and more importantly our lives, are received by God--not so much for God's need but rather our need to give. God is the most sensitive being there is and seeking after the ways of that God is the most sensible way to live.

God intervenes in our lives in a saving way because that is the nature of our loving God. Our missteps are not so large as to remove us from the grace and mercy of a God bent on relationship. We may, on occasion, flee God and seek idols. God, however, seeks us harder and longs to bring us back.


God, so many things of our own imagination and creation take your rightful place. We turn from you and give glory to idols. Please forgive us. Turn our hearts back to you. Amen.

Day 51 of 90 Devotion

Dearest e-votees-

Day fifty-one of our cover to cover voyage through the Bible. If you want to see the readings for our trip through the Bible you can follow this link:

www.christthegoodshep.org/biblein90days.html

Peace,
Karl

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Day 51 Readings: Isaiah 29:1-41:18

Part of our readings have a familiar ring to them as they are recounting things we read about in 2 Chronicles 32 and following. We have the account of Sennacherib threatening Hezekiah, God's deliverance, Hezekiah's illness, God's healing, etc., etc. There is more than the size of the foe or the extent of the illness when God is involved. The threats of a tyrant are no match for the promises of a gracious God.

Part of our readings have a familiar ring to them as they are source material for Handel's Messiah as well as predictions of the ministry and testimony of John the Baptist. Great and glorious promises are made and delivered upon in the life and testimony of John which points unflinchingly to the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, his cousin and Lord. Threats of a tyrant and even a beheading are no match for the promises of life and resurrection from a gracious God.

Part of our readings have a familiar ring to them because we know what it is to be parched and forsaken. We know what it is to be so desperate that we try to prop up solutions of our own making with hastily pounded nails trying to keep our idols from toppling. We know what it is to run and get weary. We know the fear of enemies and threats that overshadow us. But God makes promises to slake our deep thirst. God makes promises to forgive our idolatry and be the only means of salvation we need. God promises to give us rest. God promises to vanquish our enemies up to and including death. Threats of a tyrannical world may frighten us but they are no match for the power, grace, joy and sufficiency to be found in our gracious God.


God, thank you for your healing and deliverance. Thank you for the life and testimony of John the Baptist. Thank you for the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. Thank you for caring about and tending our needs. Help us lean hard into your grace. Amen.

Day 50 of 90 Devotion

Dearest e-votees-

Day fifty of our cover to cover voyage through the Bible. If you want to see the readings for our trip through the Bible you can follow this link:

www.christthegoodshep.org/biblein90days.html

Peace,
Karl

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Day 50 Readings: Isaiah 14:1-28:29

These 15 chapters detail all sorts of destruction and judgment coming down upon all sorts of places that at one time or another were helping keep Israel down. It is rather bleak and depressing to read about the hard fates of these various countries. Perhaps these words were ones of consolation to the people of Israel but most of the joy and comfort they brought are lost on our modern ears.

Towards the end of today's reading, however, is found:

See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who trusts will never be dismayed.
Isaiah 28:16b

The study notes in my Bible link this text to:
Psalm 118:22, Isaiah 8:14-15, Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:11, Ephesians 2:20, Romans 9:33, Romans 10:11 and 1 Peter 2:6.

In the midst of these harsh verses about judgment and destruction is hints about the one to come who brings salvation and freedom.

Truth be told, we are no less deserving of judgment than Tyre, Sidon, Moab, Damascus, etc., etc. God has chosen to deal differently with sin through the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. We are made right and made safe and made secure not through our own doing but by pure gift from Jesus. When we build our lives upon that precious cornerstone and sure foundation we are saved.

Thanks be to God.


God, thank you for sending Jesus. Help us to build on that cornerstone. Help us to invite others to do the same. Amen.