In Love with the Bible

Learning to love God's Word

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Meditation

Romans 12:1

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Romans 12:1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, through the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” I memorized this verse a long time ago and have included it in Bible study several times. Today it really struck me that it’s not clear if Paul means he is appealing through God’s mercies or if he is saying that through God’s mercies we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. (The ancient Greek texts have no punctuation to give clues.) Both views are worth pondering.

An appeal through God’s mercies is a call to remember God’s mercy. I should be willing to present my body to him as a living sacrifice because God is merciful; He is far kinder to me than I am to myself. (He has no mistaken views about how “good” I am, and never says, “I can’t believe you said/did that!”) He knows what my future holds and how best to prepare me for it. Placing my life at his disposal is not contrary to my own self-interest—he actually has a better understanding of what’s best for me than I do.

An appeal to present my body to God through his mercy is a call to remember that I do not do this as an act of my will, but as an act of God’s grace working in me. In reality, without God’s grace I cannot give my life to him as a living sacrifice—and will have no desire to stay on the altar as one. Without God’s grace my life will not be a sacrifice that is “holy and acceptable” to him.

God’s mercy, shown by his grace and the gift of Jesus, motivates me to live for him and is essential to my being able to do so.

1 John 3:1

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The first part of 1 John 3:1 says: “See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are.” I was reviewing this scripture today, as part of a regular rotation of scripture I like to ponder, and was struck by how appropriate it is to the Christmas season. God’s love is made visible in the Incarnation: The Son of God taking on human form and going to the cross to take on the guilt of our sin. This price was required if we were to be God’s children. He is holy; we are not.

Life’s circumstances may cause me to question God’s love, but he calls me to look to the places where his love is made visible—Jesus in a manger instead of in glory, on a cross instead of on a throne. If I look to life’s circumstances to decide whether or not God loves me, I can be like someone picking petals off a daisy…he loves me…he loves me not.  When I look at Jesus, I can instead see the extravagance of his love. What a high price he has paid that I might call him, “Dad.”

Thoughts from Jeremiah 2:19 and Hosea 14:9

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Jeremiah 2:19 says, “Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts.” While there are places where scripture tells us that God raises up enemies to chastise his people, this verse also says choices have natural outcomes that can discipline us. Hosea 14:9 agrees, “For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.” God’s ways do not change to please us or to accommodate our desires. Reality doesn’t change based on whether or not we like it.

I find the last part of the Jeremiah passage to be particularly cautionary. I doubt the Israelites to whom this verse was addressed woke up one morning and said, “I think I’d like to be evil and apostate,” and went to work on developing those qualities in their lives. My guess is that because they lacked a fear of God, they made small compromises that led them by degrees further and further away from God’s desired path for them. This is a danger for me, too. Little choices can seem insignificant, but added together they can result in a great deviation. God calls for us to be faithful in the small things, and this may be part of the reason why.

What hinders being faithful in small things? I think one hindrance is a lack of clarity about what God has said. When the serpent was tempting Eve, he said, “Has the Lord really said…?” Both his question and Eve’s answer contained things that God had not said. (This looks intentional on the part of the serpent, who went on to tell her that God lied. We, too, can encounter people who intend to deceive.) Being familiar with Scripture, and believing its truth, can help us recognize God’s voice better and be less susceptible to the deception of others. Writing down what we think God is asking us to do is probably wise if it’s a long-term project.

Prompt obedience to God can also help us to be faithful. I remember one time when the idea popped into my mind that I should say something to someone who was beside me. So I did—and immediately felt like an idiot. Why did I say that? And then later the person told me she really needed to hear what I had said. If I had delayed obedience, I would likely have convinced myself that it was an idiotic thing to say and never have said it at all. Abraham acted promptly when God told him to sacrifice Isaac. I think if he had delayed it would have gotten harder and harder to obey.

Another hindrance to faithfulness is trying to do the tasks in my own strength. God asks us to do things that are beyond what we can do on our own. In 2 Corinthians 9:8 we are told that God gives an an abundance of grace so we can abound in good works. If we are not relying on that grace, we may decide a task is too hard, which could easily lead to questioning the task or being satisfied with doing less than God really desired us to do.

I think an aid to faithfulness is to spend time focused on God’s glory, majesty, and power. This helps me remember who he is—and who I am not. It leads to the kind of fear of God that Proverbs 14:27 talks about: a life-giving fountain that turns us from the snares of death.

Psalm 69:30

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In reviewing scriptures on joy, I was struck by these words, “I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.” My thanksgiving magnifies God. It is more than an expression of gratitude; it honors God for who he is and what he has done. In John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life, he says, “Magnify has two distinct meanings…When you magnify like a microscope, you make something tiny look bigger than it is…But when you magnify like a telescope, you make something unimaginably great look like what it really is.” Thanksgiving lets me see God through a telescope. In giving thanks, I can glory in his care for me, expressed through favors, large or small. I can be reminded of his sovereignty in the way he has worked in circumstances or the lives of people. I can relish the goodness of a God who works all things for my good (Romans 8:28). This verse is an invitation to focus on who God is when giving him thanks for what he has done.

Gaining a New Perspective from Isaiah 26:3 and Mark 14:32-42

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The Isaiah passage says, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” One of the things I have learned from past meditation on this verse is that if my mind is not at peace, and if being focused on the Lord is hard, it’s a trust issue. That means if I’m facing a problem that seems to ensnare my thinking, the first order of business is to remind myself of why I can trust the Lord. I was reviewing this verse today. Afterwards I also did some word studies on Mark 14:32-42. This portion of Mark is about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is a passage that describes Jesus’ great mental anguish because of what he was about to face.

“My soul is very sorrowful (literally, grieved all around),” he told his disciples. This passage also describes him as greatly distressed and anguished. These are not the feelings I expect to have when my mind is stayed on God because I trust in him. Yet, Jesus did have those feelings and I do not believe he had a trust issue. His mind was acutely aware of what he was about to face and how hard it would be. And in the face of his intense sorrow, he submitted his will to the Father’s and he “endured the cross for the joy that was set before him.” (Hebrews 12:2)

I’m having to rethink my understanding of what it means to have a mind that is stayed on God because I trust in him. I don’t want to be like one of Job’s friends, making assumptions about people because their response to life’s pressures doesn’t match my preconceived notions of what it looks like to trust in God.

A Look at 1 Chronicles 29:14

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I am currently reading through the Bible, and just recently finished reading 1 Chronicles. Chapter 29:14 is a verse I’m familiar with—in fact I know a song based on it—but it spoke to me in a new way. Here’s the verse: “But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this. For all things come from Thee, and from Thy hand we have given Thee” (NASB). David is in the process of collecting materials for Solomon to build a temple for God. He is not proud of the generosity of the people, he is awed by God’s goodness that made the generosity possible. And that is the truth that really struck me this time. “We give Thee but Thine own,” says the hymn, and for me it has been an intellectual understanding that we give back to God what he has first given us. But this time the phrase, “and from Thy hand we have given to Thee,” was more than a concept, and it applies to more than my finances.

There is nothing I can do and nothing that I can give without God first giving to me—gifts, skills, and resources are all things that come from him. I take from his hand to serve him and to serve those around me. When what I do blesses or benefits another, it is appropriate to be pleased. It is, however, a pleasure that should be expressed as gratitude toward God. My own natural tendency is to feel pride, which easily leads to me taking more credit than is due to me. I want to rejoice in being a blessing to others, but I need to know I am not the source of the blessing. God is the true giver. I want my joy to be in him and what he has been able to do in and through me. I want a joy-filled gratitude, not a joy-filled pride.