Joel 1
1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel.
An Invasion of Locusts 2 Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers?
3 Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.
4 What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts [a] have eaten.
5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips.
6 A nation has invaded my land, powerful and without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness.
7 It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white.
8 Mourn like a virgin [b] in sackcloth grieving for the husband [c] of her youth.
9 Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD.
10 The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up [d] ; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails.
11 Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
12 The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree— all the trees of the field—are dried up. Surely the joy of mankind is withered away.
A Call to Repentance 13 Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.
15 Alas for that day! For the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. [e]
16 Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes— joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17 The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. [f] The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up.
18 How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering.
19 To you, O LORD, I call, for fire has devoured the open pastures and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
20 Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the open pastures.
Micah 6The LORD's Case Against Israel 1 Listen to what the LORD says: "Stand up, plead your case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. 2 Hear, O mountains, the LORD's accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth. For the LORD has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel.
3 "My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me.
4 I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam.
5 My people, remember what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD."
6 With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
December 22, 2007
Where’s The Leash?READ: Micah 6:1-8
What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? —Micah 6:8 About this cover Recently, while out for Chinese food with friends, I noticed a man walking his dog past the restaurant. Normally I wouldn’t have looked twice. But the dog’s owner had taken the leash, put it in a figure-eight configuration, and placed it firmly in the dog’s mouth.
My friends explained that it’s against the law in their town to walk a dog without a leash. This clever dog owner had found a loophole—the law didn’t stipulate that you actually have to hold the leash! The amazing part is not the loophole, but that the dog was walking in obedient step with his owner, even though he could have bolted away to chase a nearby squirrel.
Our walk with God needs to be like that. While God in His mercy gives us a long leash and rarely gives us spiritual whiplash by yanking on it, He doesn’t delight in the struggle to keep us in line. He delights when we walk in a surrendered way with Him.
When Israel whined to the prophet Micah about how hard they thought it was to please God, He replied with a straightforward, simple way to please Him. Being just and loving mercy while we walk humbly with Him brings God great pleasure (Mic. 6:8). You’ll know He is pleased when He doesn’t have to hold your leash anymore. —Joe Stowell
All to Jesus I surrender,All to Him I freely give;I will ever love and trust Him,In His presence daily live. —Van de Venter
Find true freedom by walking obediently with God.
December 22, 2007
The Drawing of the FatherLISTEN: READ:
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him . . . —John 6:44 About this cover When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately. Will I react positively to the truth that God has revealed? Will I come to Him? To discuss or deliberate over spiritual matters when God calls is inappropriate and disrespectful to Him. When God speaks, never discuss it with anyone as if to decide what your response may be (see Galatians 1:15-16 ). Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of my will whereby I deliberately commit myself. But will I commit, placing myself completely and absolutely on God, and be willing to act solely on what He says? If I will, I will find that I am grounded on reality as certain as God’s throne.
In preaching the gospel, always focus on the matter of the will. Belief must come from the will to believe. There must be a surrender of the will, not a surrender to a persuasive or powerful argument. I must deliberately step out, placing my faith in God and in His truth. And I must place no confidence in my own works, but only in God. Trusting in my own mental understanding becomes a hindrance to complete trust in God. I must be willing to ignore and leave my feelings behind. I must will to believe. But this can never be accomplished without my forceful, determined effort to separate myself from my old ways of looking at things. I must surrender myself completely to God.
Everyone has been created with the ability to reach out beyond his own grasp. But it is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is an inner, personal one, not an intellectual one. I come into the relationship through the miracle of God and through my own will to believe. Then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transformation in my life.
Betrayals
by Os Hillman
If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were raising himself against me, I could hide from him. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend. - Psalm 55:12-13
"You will always be attacked in the place of your inheritance," said the man sitting across the breakfast table. "God has called you to bring people together and to impact other people's lives as a result of this anointing in your life. You must make sure that you seek to maintain righteousness in all of your relationships." Those words came from someone who had the wisdom and authority to speak them to me.
I have had a number of close relationships that ended in betrayal. I am very loyal to my friends and those with whom I have covenant relationships. Yet there are times that no matter how righteous you are, when someone means to betray you, he will do it. Loving those who betray you is "graduate-level Christianity." The religious community and one of His closest friends betrayed Jesus. Those who were closest to David betrayed him. Joseph's own family betrayed him. Loving our enemies cannot be accomplished by mustering it up. It can only happen when we have come to a death in ourselves so that Christ can love through us. It is truly one of those acts of identifying with the cross.
If you are a leader, you can be sure God will allow you to experience betrayal. It is one of those courses in the Kingdom that may not be required until God has seen that you have successfully passed other tests. It is the most difficult and most gut wrenching of all tests. A godly response goes against all that is in us. Our natural response is to protect, retaliate, and retain unforgiveness and bitterness. Our natural response is satan's most powerful weapon; to overcome it requires much grace from God. Ask God to build His nature in you now so that when such attacks come, you will be aware that it is a test and you will respond in righteousness.
