Category: Trust

The Power of Praise

2/28/2024

Many of you probably remember the week of Labor Day, 2020. A haze of smoke covered our valley. Fires sprang up all around the state. An eerie, yellow-orange light saturated the air, causing the indoor lights to seem blue in contrast. Ash rained continuously and many suffered from the poor air quality.
Like many, we had to be evacuated from our home up in Gates because the wildfires surrounded it, burning down many homes and leaving everything temporarily uninhabitable. While we were safely evacuated with our family, our home suffered damage.
Our kitchen was destroyed and the smoke entering in from left-open windows covered every square inch. The mattresses, clothing and furniture were permeated with the stench. Thankfully, unlike some, we have homeowners’ insurance. Unfortunately, like many, our insurance didn’t want to pay for all that we believe are the damages. They delayed, made excuses and finally just fell far short of the cost of repair, in our opinion. Finally, after much wasted negotiation, we found an attorney who specializes in bringing insurance companies to court and started the next part of the process.
We have finished the arduous process of compiling evidence and are now waiting in queue to bring our evidence to the judge.
We hope he will see things the way we see them. We hope that he will hear us out and be a fair and experienced judge, able to discern and distinguish between arguments and evidence.
We hope that he is impartial, not showing favoritism to anyone, and above reproach and corruption.
It is how our story today starts as well. In 2 Chronicles 19, we find that King Jehoshaphat very righteously has been about the business of setting up judges to sort through every case, civil and criminal, to judge in the fear of the Lord. They were to carefully examine the evidence, only giving out consequences to those who had committed a crime against another, and in civil cases to make sure that property continued to be disbursed to those to whom it belonged.
After remonstrating with the newly appointed judges, King Jehoshaphat exhorts them:

“Behave courageously, and the Lord will be with the good.” v. 11

Little did he know how those words would portend his future and the future of his country!
Immediately after those days, as the enemy is wont to do when they find that order and righteousness are being restored to God’s people, the enemy joined forces to descend upon all of Judah under King Jehoshaphat:

It happened after this that the people of Moab with the people of Ammon, and others with them besides the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat. Then some came and told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea, from Syria; and they are in Hazazon Tamar” (which is En Gedi). And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord; and from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.
Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said: “O Lord God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You? Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever? And they dwell in it, and have built You a sanctuary in it for Your name, saying, ‘If disaster comes upon us—sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine—we will stand before this temple and in Your presence (for Your name is in this temple), and cry out to You in our affliction, and You will hear and save.’ And now, here are the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir—whom You would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and did not destroy them— here they are, rewarding us by coming to throw us out of Your possession which You have given us to inherit. O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.”

The Ammonites and Moabites, those nations descended from Lot, Abraham’s nephew, came against them en masse. Now God had strictly forbidden the Israelites from messing with their relatives’ land as they came to the Promised Land: God had apportioned the Moabites their country, and the Ammonites their country. It was their allotment from God just as the Promised Land was the Israelites’ allotment. So, on their way from Egypt, the Israelites were not allowed to fight with their neighbors because they were their fellow relatives descended from Lot.
At this juncture, however, it is the Ammonites and Moabites who are coming to try to remove the Israelites from their land, repaying evil for good.
The only time someone could legitimately be removed from their land and property was 1) if they had illegally taken possession of it or 2) it could be temporarily given away as consequence to pay off a debt or sin of the people for a specified period of time.
So, in effect, the Moabites and Ammonites were making a claim that the people of the land of Judah had violated God’s law so much that they would have to be removed as consequence of their sin just as the Canaanites had been removed. This would, in fact, happen eventually. God often used other nations to bring judgment upon one another for their national sin. Eventually, Judah’s sin would increase so much that they would be exiled for a time.
So, just as the people were to gather in the previous chapter to seek the judgment of the judges for any disputes, now Jehoshaphat and all of Judah, small and great, were called to come to the judgment of God in order to plead their case and defense against this accusation and hostile trespass. (v. 9)

We must act in justice as a community: loving God and people.

Sometimes the enemy threatens what God has given us to steward.
Satan’s first tactic is to try to get us to worship idols, to worship what people have; to be obedient to what we have created with our own hands.
But Jehoshaphat, in chapter 17, had removed the idols from the land and caused the people to worship God alone. They were loving the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.
In chapter 19, we found King Jehoshaphat establishing justice and morality throughout the land, making sure that people were held accountable for treating one another right. They were loving their neighbors as themselves.
They were walking in obedience to the two greatest commands of God!
The Bible tells us that we are not unaware of the enemy’s schemes (1 Cor. 2:11). While he has several, he reuses them. They are identifiable and repetitive.
When the enemy cannot get us to worship our own desires and works, his next scheme is to accuse us falsely as if we have.
He comes against us, our constant legal adversary to the Father, as the Accuser which accuses us night and day before our God (Rev. 12:10). However, if we have been walking in righteousness, he has no legal right or authority because we have done nothing wrong.
Now, if we have been unfaithful to God, if we have allowed other things to be first in our heart and life, if we have wronged our brother or sister, then the enemy has a legal standing to take issue with us before our Judge. In such a case, if we find that we have sin in our hearts, 1 John 2:1 tells us, we have an advocate, an attorney who pleads our case for us: Jesus Christ, The Righteous who always lives to make intercession for us. If we repent from sins and cry out to Jesus for forgiveness, we have peace with God and the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin so that we can once again come boldly to the throne of grace and find help in time of need.
If, when examining our hearts with the help of the Holy Spirit, we find that we have kept faithfully to walk in obedience to the Spirit, then, in our legal system, the case becomes what is called a “frivolous lawsuit,” one intended to distract and use up our resources and attention in order to deplete us in an attempt to wear us out and keep us from being successful.
These kinds of earthly lawsuits can be demoralizing, because even if we know that, given a good Judge, we should ultimately win, the case will be so costly that it could bankrupt us.
In Jehoshaphat’s case, this was a class action lawsuit. It involved the entire nation being dispossessed.
We saw from Jonathan’s story that if we act in righteousness and boldly walk in the Lord’s victory, there will be a victory accomplished for us. But if we want not only victory for ourselves, for our families—if we want victory for our communities and our nation and our world, then there must be a turning back to God corporately by God’s people.
1 Peter 4:17 tells us that “the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.” If the enemy were to come against our nation, could we as believers, declare boldly to the Lord that His Church here in America has been faithful? Could we say with confidence that we have turned away from sin, that we have worshiped him above everything and that we have treated all alike with the love of Jesus Christ?

We must send the call out.

Here in America our land is under siege. Our children, our neighbors, our communities are being threatened. There is so much coming against our nation from the enemy that it is countless. A couple of weeks ago we talked about what we should be personally doing, in our own lives about spiritual battles.
I want to bring us to this corporate battle. It is the whole church of God around the world, in our nation, against the enemy who wants to dispossess us from being God’s people.
King Jehoshaphat called everyone: rich, poor, slave, free, men, women and children. There was no one who was not necessary to come seek the Lord together. Every, single person from every walk and class of life was essential and valuable in the commission.
God declares in 2 Chron 7:14 that: “If my people will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked way, then I will hear from heaven and heal their land.”
We, the people of God, must call all to humble repentance. We, the people of God, must call all to come to seek the Lord with us: small and great, men, women, children and families.
We do this by setting an example in front of them of holy, loving lifestyles and by repeatedly inviting and calling out to them to follow us as we follow Christ. At school, at work, in our neighborhoods, in our families: it’s not a private thing. It’s not enough to just go into our closets and work out our private, personal salvation. Yes, that is first. Yes, that it right. But if we want to see revival, if we care enough and love our neighbors enough, we will reach out to them to call them back to seek God.

We must humble ourselves in unity.

King Jehoshaphat calls all of Judah out to fast. This is a humbling thing. To fast and to present themselves in worship to the Lord makes a clear statement: God is over them as Judge and they are pleading for His mercy. They are not assuming that they are good enough to be heard for what they have done. They are throwing themselves at His feet in humble petition, and the King is the one leading this!
In a court, what happens if you do not show up to the case? You automatically lose your case. Whoever shows up and stays there for the duration can be heard out.
Fasting puts us in a vulnerable, weak state. It declares our subsistence, not on physical bread, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of our God, the Judge of all. When we fast, we deny our own appetites, our own desires, and fully focus every part of ourselves, spirit, soul and body, for a season so that nothing distracts us from waiting on God for His answer.
We don’t allow anything to prevent us from coming boldly to the throne room to petition our God. We don't allow our case to be thrown out by our failure to appear before the Judge.
Corporately, fasting together creates a unity of purpose that focuses our prayer powerfully and effectively.

Now all Judah, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, stood before the Lord.
Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, in the midst of the assembly. And he said, “Listen, all you of Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat! Thus says the Lord to you: ‘Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s. Tomorrow go down against them. They will surely come up by the Ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the brook before the Wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you.”

God answered with a musical prophet. These musicians, both men and women, the Bible tells us, would “prophesy” with their instruments and voices in corporate, temple worship (1 Chron 25:1). It is one of these musical prophets that God comes upon to give them their word from the Lord.
The wilderness of Yeruel is where God would fight this battle with them. Yeruel comes from the Hebrew word, “yara,” and means to be unified together and established based upon many, many small substances being brought together in unification. It has the idea of raindrops converging together to form one substance of a mighty body of water all focused in one direction together.

Yara-El: Founded by God in Unity.

Their corporate fasting and worship had created a unity among them that was powerful and effective before the throne and would soon lead them to a powerful victory through praise!

We must praise the beauty of God’s holiness--Rejoice!

And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem bowed before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. Then the Levites of the children of the Kohathites and of the children of the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with voices loud and high.
So they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.” And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the Lord, and who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army and were saying:
“Praise the Lord,
For His mercy endures forever.”
Now when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated. For the people of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir to utterly kill and destroy them. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another.
So when Judah came to a place overlooking the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude; and there were their dead bodies, fallen on the earth. No one had escaped.

A lot of times we think of worship as music and praise. While it really incorporates the entirety of ourselves as a living sacrifice walking in obedience to the Spirit, there is a huge element of worship including fasting, prayer, psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord, both personally and corporately.
King Jehoshaphat did a noteworthy thing: He consulted with all the people. They helped to choose who would bravely go before them: those who were unafraid and courageously walking in faith by God's command. They put the musicians before the soldiers. These worshipping musicians must have walked in a mighty act of faith, voluntarily weaponless except for the Almighty God who went before them!
The word, “Rejoice” is built on the word for grace, for the favor that God gives a humble petitioner, already thanking and rejoicing that they know that they will be given what they need before they even ask. It is a huge act of faith and such an honor to God that His people would rejoice in His goodness to them in front of the world!
They rejoiced before they won as an act of faith because they fully believed that God’s promise was true. They rejoiced as if it had already happened.
Jehoshaphat knew that he could appeal to God in this way, because he understood God’s nature as a just and holy Judge. You see, Jehoshaphat’s name means: the Lord is Judge. He meditated in this concept of righteous judgment and trusted fully in His vindication of judgment from God alone.
Jehoshaphat knew personally the importance of a judge being just and holy in his judgments. If a judge was corrupt, then corruption would spread through the land.
Meeting together in the Valley of Tekoa, or the Valley of the Trumpet, they praised God for His holiness, high and loud, lifting up their voice and sounding out the proclamation —God is Holy! God is not a corruptible Judge. He cannot be bribed. He will not err in judgment. God will be faithful to His promise unwaveringly. He is both absolutely, stunningly holy and as well as abounding in love and mercy.
It is this kind of wholehearted, unified abandonment to praise that touches the heart of God.
In Ephesians we are told that the weapons of our warfare are mighty in God. We are told that after we have armed ourselves, having done all, to “Stand”, positioning ourselves, praising God for the mighty work He has already completed on our behalf.
We often get discouraged when we see the enemy mount up against us. We think it will only bring pain and at the most- at best- we will just survive it.
The reality is, that God is intending to use these things for our good. In Romans 8:28, Paul explains to us as believers that “God uses all things for the good of those who love him, who are called according to His purpose.” A good judge throws out any frivolous lawsuits and penalizes the offending party for wasting the court’s time and for trying to harm another person vindictively.
Even more, a good, just judge will also award compensation to those in the right—or as King Jehoshaphat told his judges, “the Lord will be with the good!”
Once again, we see God positioning Himself to fight for His people. It is His battle. He will cause our enemies to destroy themselves. You see, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Satan’s house never has unity, because he is the author of confusion, selfish ambition, jealousy, covetousness and dissension. His own house cannot stay united because true unity comes from God alone. All the enemy can do is create a semblance of fake unity—one focused on a common enemy, while they themselves are also one another’s enemies. In the end they will be routed by the unity of the Church.

We must gather and bless the Lord.

When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away their spoil, they found among them an abundance of valuables on the dead bodies, and precious jewelry, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away; and they were three days gathering the spoil because there was so much. And on the fourth day they assembled in the Valley of Berachah, for there they blessed the Lord; therefore the name of that place was called The Valley of Berachah until this day. Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, with Jehoshaphat in front of them, to go back to Jerusalem with joy, for the Lord had made them rejoice over their enemies. So they came to Jerusalem, with stringed instruments and harps and trumpets, to the house of the Lord. And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries when they heard that the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel. Then the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his God gave him rest all around.

When we are victorious over our enemy, there are the spoils of war. In a large army camp, they would have had huge flocks of animals to feed the soldiers. They would carry with them other foods, oils, dried fruits, spices. These all carried a significant value. They would carry with them all kinds of jewels and gold and treasures that they had raided or brought from home. They would have massive amounts of weapons and armor and horses and chariots.
Sometimes we think that when the enemy mounts up his forces against us, it is really a lose-lose. Either way, even if we survive, there will be no benefit. We approach these battles with dread, wishing we were never required to go through them. But God intends these things to bring us greater blessing than we could ever imagine!
Jesus echoes this concept in Matthew 5:12: "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
Instead of just surviving, the provision and blessing of God is multiplied for God’s people as a result of these battles.
The people of Judah gathered together in the Valley of Blessing to gather home all that God had just provided for them and to bless His Name together, gratefully acknowledging what God had overabundantly supplied for them.
When we are victorious in spiritual battle, there is provision for our communities. There is provision for our weapons and protection.
Most importantly, the slaves they would have brought as captives to serve them are set free.
If we want to see our communities set free, the Church must walk in love first to God, then in love and justice toward one another. We must send out the call and invite all to seek God in humility with us.
Finally, let’s rejoice together in the beauty of God’s holiness, because He will only render a good verdict for His people as the Judge of all the earth. Let’s praise the Lord as if God’s word is really true! Let’s walk in front, boldly marching ahead, confident in His holiness.

Bless His holy name!

0 Comments

I Have Seen My Redeemer!

12/18/2022

2 Comments

There was also a prophetess named Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, who was well along in years. She had been married for seven years, and then was a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming forward at that moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the Child to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. Luke 2:36-38

“Daddy’s home!” the high-pitched, jubilant cry of my little sister rent through the air of our larger, middle-class home. Pulling her nose and hands off the panes of the bay window overlooking our driveway, her cry was echoed by less than jubilation. The repeated phrase bore more the sound of a panic-stricken, pubescent middle-school boy. While the fun began with the advent of my father, so did the ensuing scramble of “pick-up time.” It was a time that Mom had tried to instill in us, and was supposed to initiate at 4pm so that my dad could come home to a clean house, a warm dinner, and an excited family waiting to welcome him, grateful for the long hours he had put in at the office. Quite honestly, it was a time that rarely began until we heard the familiar sound of his car in the driveway.
Beth reached as high as she could with her chubby fingers and swung the door open toward herself, backing up with it until the opening was wide enough to run through. She rushed out to greet him, heedless of the door standing open, the cold air springing to take advantage of osmosis, or the rush of adrenaline and activity behind her to make preparations. Legs and duplos must we swept off the floor, laundry and toys on the stairs taken up to the rooms, schoolbooks stuffed haphazardly into shelves, sometimes never to be found again, and a multitude of small items that no one knew where they belonged and would find their home in any stray crack or cranny, couch cushion or basket. If the item was too large, it would find its way to the basement ping-pong table, which was conveniently large enough to hold a massive amount of confused items. It is not always beneficial when kids are “helping” to clean, after all.
The fun would begin when Dad was home and all the boring work of the day was over. Perhaps he would play games with us, hide and seek in the dark, cards, or wrestle in a tickle battle on the floor. Surely he would read us a missionary story and a chapter from a fiction novel, using all the right voices and sound effects. Undoubtedly, he would pick out his stack of books to read and try to eat his cheerios in peace before bed. That was my favorite time. When everyone was else was gone, it was my turn to find any questions I could come up with to spark a conversation and gain one-on-one attention.
My mom used to say that she loved it when Dad would come home, because he would chase the demons away. All the frustration of dealing with us, all the mess and the work, the bad attitudes and the arguments—Dad would come home and make it all better. Every day we waited. Every day we listened for the sounds that meant life would be great again.
I imagine that in a very small way, this is a bit of the expectancy of the time in which Anna lived. While our difficulties were vastly more bearable with the love we experienced in our family, the darkness of the oppression that Anna lived under with the Roman occupation and extreme abuse of her rights she likely suffered because of her gender, her social status and her ethnicity would have greatly intensified the longing she and her fellow Israelites would have felt for the coming Redeemer.
Here we see a repeat of a name that we may be familiar with from the Old Testament—that of Hannah, the mother of Samuel. In Hebrew, her name is “Channah,” and in Greek it is “Anna.” Her name means to be favored by grace. A more literal picture of the Hebrew word is that of a benefactor leaning toward someone who is coming with a humble request in order to bless and give to them their needs.
Anna’s name is meant to bring to mind the story of her namesake, Hannah, in 1 Samuel 1, who was bereft of children. In her grief, she fasted, prayed, and shed tears with loud groanings “to the one who could rescue” her in her situation, and she “was heard because of her obedience (Heb. 5:7).” Asking for a child, she vowed to dedicated him for a lifetime service as a Nazirite if the Lord would hear her request. Together with her husband, Elkanah, “God is Redeemer,” they kept their vow and dedicated their young son, Samuel, “Heard of God,” for a lifetime of Nazir, or sacred and set apart service to the Lord.
Luke tells us that Anna was the daughter of Phanuel, and does not list her husband. Phanuel’s (Peniel) name means “the face of God,” and is meant to bring to mind the story of Jacob wrestling all night with the angel of the Lord in order to blessed by God. At daybreak, Jacob is blessed and given a new name. Realizing at once that he had in fact been wrestling with the Lord Himself, Jacob “called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared. The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel....(Gen. 32:30-31).”
Anna came from the tribe of Asher, which means “happy/blessed,” and “level/straight,” which refers us back to the story of Leah and her wrestling (Gen. 30:8) with her sister for her husband’s love and the favor of God. After giving birth to Asher, Leah named him “happy” or “blessed” because she believed that her happiness would be guaranteed now because she had been given children.
Luke informs us further that Anna was “χήρα,” which is to be bereft, sterile, barren, or stripped of inhabitants or riches. While she was a widow in our common vernacular, this word was also used of those who had no provision or protection for themselves, but relied solely on God’s provision for them. It also included women who were single and without family support, or those who had been set apart under a Nazir vow and were, therefore, bereft and dependent upon God for their needs (Ex. 38:8, 1 Sam 2:22).
Anna very well may also have served in the same capacity as a ministering woman at the tent of meeting, which likely included Nazirites as well as Kohathite Levitical women serving and ministering (Ezra 2:65-70, Neh. 7:66-73, 1 Chron. 25:5-6). This group of ministering women would have depicted an early form of what would later become the ministering women serving in the church in the order of the “χήρα,” mentioned in Acts 6 and 1 Timothy 5 with its lists of qualifications that rival that of the presbyteroi just mentioned in the book, as well as concluding with the payment given to them, or to those ministering in the word of God, that of double payment. Acts 6 men who were appointed to be sure to wait on tables were likely given the responsibility of administering the payments of currency to these ministering women, since the word for table also carried the idea of banking, and since the Hebraic law and current culture of the day dictated that those who served were to be paid daily.
Anna was married for seven years, the Biblical number of completeness. Since she was married a complete amount of time, one would assume that it was surely enough time to have had children of her own. The text, however, shares nothing with us of any children, but rather of her day and night living and ministering in the temple. This indicates that she was childless—bereft in more ways than one. Though the Luke’s account in chapters 1 and 2 show us two other bereft and childless women whom God impossibly blesses with children, one in her old age (Elizabeth) and the other in her youthful virginity (Mary), Anna, whose name would have constantly reminded her of her own hope for children, remained childless.
Additionally, being bereft of children after her husband’s death likely would have qualified her for the Levirate law (Deut. 25:5-10), where her deceased spouse’s brother would have been required to redeem her monetarily and then taken her and raised up children for her husband by her. This would ensure that both the widow and the deceased husband would maintain a portion in the land of the Promise. Their name would not be cut off from their people. We find an example of this law as Boaz acted in this capacity as a kinsman-redeemer in the story of Ruth. If Anna had consented to this Levirate arrangement, she would not have remained a widow or bereft, and it may be that though that was available, she instead devoted herself as a Nazirite to wait for her redemption from God, instead.

We must prepare the way for our Redeemer!

Anna must have thought of the children her namesake had asked for and been given by God. Hannah was “heard of God.” No doubt Anna’s own lifestyle of fasting and prayer included not a few tears for her own lack. She may not have felt “heard,” and given the fact that she remained single until old age, she likely had no more hope for being “heard of God” in this capacity. So where was God’s favor? Where was His grace on her life? Without children and as a widow, she would have been presumed by others to be cursed for sin of which perhaps only God knew. And yet Luke makes it plain that she is a godly woman, ministering in the same way we see the apostles “ministering before the Lord” in Acts 13:2 in a liturgical sense.
However, just as her predecessor Hannah did not drown herself in sinful pleasures or addictions, but rather poured out her soul in faithful service and ministry to the Lord, we see Anna so doing. We don’t see her remain idle in her sorrow.
Instead, we see her invest in others and allow herself to be so filled with God that she regularly prophesied. We see her dedicating herself to the ministry, and spending her days and nights fasting and praying and proclaiming God’s Word. It is highly likely that the very people to whom she had prophesied regularly were many of the very ones whose hearts were waiting expectantly for the “redemption” to come. Just as her descendance from Asher suggests, we see her “preparing the way for the Lord, and making “straight paths for Him.
We may find ourselves in a situation similar to Anna. Do you find a lack somewhere, a bereftness? A removal or stripping of your resources? Does this cause you pain and grief?
What do we do when our resources are removed? Do we spend our energies out in self-pity, “look anxiously about” us, or desperately search for ourselves the resources we think we must have in order to find ourselves rescued? Or do we start waiting upon the Lord as his servants, with praise, worship, fasting and prophesying the divine message of expectancy to a dark and waiting world?

We must wait expectantly on the Lord!

Familiar with her own need and lack of a redeemer for her bereft state, attuned and practiced to the voice of the Holy Spirit, Anna was ready to recognize the Redeemer when she saw Him through the power of the Holy Spirit. Anna knew that God gives his people a more lasting portion eternally, and she was happy to trade physical redemption for spiritual redemption by her Redeemer. In the midst of Anna’s day-to-day service, she experienced a favor far greater than that for which she may have longed—that of seeing the face of her God and living to tell of it!
While this was true of Anna, it is also true of us. As we go about our daily ministry in our homes, our churches and our communities and most especially in our day and night ministry to the Lord Himself, He meets us in our day-to-day with His Living Presence. As we practice listening to the voice of the Spirit and walking in obedience, we become more and more attuned to the words that direct us into the situations He wants to use to bring us favor:

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore, he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:18-21

Through His Word, His Spirit, the spiritual understanding He imparts to us and our situations, He enables us to “see Him” and live to tell about our experiences of His presence! He reveals Himself to us, and gives us the opportunity to participate with Anna in preparing the way of the Lord, of making straight paths for Him!
We are never too late, and never too old. As long as we are serving God right where we are, the Divine appointments and opportunities for sharing the good news of the Light of the World will be brought to us.
What about us? How can we practice listening and obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives? How have you noticed the encounters becoming sweet and divinely appointed in your day-to-day?

We must tell the good news!

After a lifetime of “wrestling” with God night and day, as her father’s name suggests, Anna receives the blessing that showed the favor and grace God had extended to her—that of seeing her Redeemer with her own eyes and living to tell the story! Just as Hannah was enabled to prophesy of the future Messiah’s redemption (1 Sam 2) because she came to the Lord in her bereftness and ministered to the Lord in it, so Anna was enabled to prophesy of her present Messiah’s redemption because she came to the Lord in her bereftness, emptiness, and lack, and ministered to the Lord in it. In the process of their emptiness, God filled them with His Spirit. God, who is rich in mercy, gave Anna the joyous opportunity to tell all who were waiting for their Redeemer that she had seen Him, and their long wait was over!
As we anticipate Christmas morning, we have a red Farmer’s truck with the numbers 1-25 on it. There is a little magnetic snowflake that marks off the days til Christmas has arrived. Above it are filled their stockings, the curvature of candy canes spilling out of the edges and mysterious and some no-so-mysterious bulges sticking out begging to be squeezed and guessed at. A little distance away, misshapen packages lay under our tree. Although the kids are not allowed to handle them, they do seem to keep realigning in strange and different piles. While they each are understandably excited to receive the unknown gifts, their anticipation is greatly increased by the fact that they each also earn and purchase gifts for one another, and they love to watch their siblings open the gifts they themselves have given. They are not only anticipating their own joy, but the joy that comes from bringing joy to people they love.
Anna shared the good news of the Redeemer to “all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” In the Greek, the word for waiting is most often used in the “middle” voice, meaning the subject is doing the action herself as well as receiving the benefit of the action. It carries the strong idea of waiting actively, expectantly, “ready and willing to receive all that is hoped for....” Those to whom Anna shared the good news of their redemption were anticipating in an active and eager readiness His long-awaited arrival.
While Anna spoke to those actively waiting for their Redeemer to come at the beginning of Luke, Jesus our Redeemer speaks to us at the end of the book, telling us to actively and eagerly wait for His return!

Are we waiting for redemption? What can we be doing today that increases our anticipation and joy? What can we do for others that changes their outlook on what their tomorrow may hold for them? How can we find ways to share the unfailing hope and joy that we have with those who have none?
As you anticipate the joy and the sorrows of this Christmas season, with its good and painful memories, its bereavements and its abundance, I pray that you will find joy and delight in the grace and favor that God has given to you through the gift of His Son, Jesus. As you learn to see the many ways in which He leans toward you in order to bless and give you every "good and perfect gift," may you overflow with a joy that radiates that goodness to the lives you touch!

2 Comments

Backward and Forward--God is Faithful!

4/25/2022

0 Comments

אַֽעַלְךָ֣
’a-‘al-ḵā
Verb: Imperfect Hiphil
"I myself will continuously bring you up"

Have you ever felt yourself to be in a place of confusion, where it seems like the way that God is leading you and your family is backward or contrary to the purpose He has for you? When perhaps where you are being led now is the direct opposite of where you know God has promised you that He wants for you—and yet His leading is undeniable in your circumstances. Maybe you have prayed, been in the Word, and the two opposites of the direction in God’s leading just seem like they could never combine to make a positive in your life.
When God calls us to follow Him, sometimes we find ourselves going backward to go forward. We can trust God’s faithfulness! He has promised to continuously be working to bring us up to where He has His plan and purpose for us!

Let’s Trust God with our Backward Steps.

So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. And they told him, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.” And his heart became numb, for he did not believe them. But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.” Genesis 45:25-28 ESV

So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.”
Genesis 46:1-4 ESV

In Jacob’s story, we find ourselves stepping into an intricately played out drama between jealous and now repentant and forgiven brothers who had sold Joseph away as a slave into Egypt and that of a heartbroken father who had just learned that his favored son was still alive after many years of mourning.
In God’s omniscient foreknowledge, He had known that there would be a seven-year, worldwide famine in Joseph’s time. Using the jealousies of Joseph’s brothers, God had arranged for Joseph to arrive in Egypt in time to plan a massive food storage event and to save many from the impending death caused by the famine.
After years in the pharaoh’s dungeon, Joseph was miraculously raised to power, takes the opportunity God provides him to confront his brothers about their hurtful actions, and walks through a powerful repentance and reconciliation with them.
It is at this point that we find ourselves back with Jacob: Joseph had just sent his brothers back to tell Jacob the good news that He was alive as if from the dead, and that Jacob and his family would all be able to stay in Egypt in the best of the Egyptian agricultural land.
But Jacob, though happy to hear of his son’s prosperity, is afraid to go to down to Egypt. He was living in the land of the Promise—the area of Canaan that God would one day give to Abraham’s descendants. And Jacob knew there was more to that prophesy. It was “more” that filled him with dread:

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Genesis 15:12-16

Could Jacob trust God’s promise, that even if their family went into slavery, God would bring them back to Promised Land? Could God take care of their family through many harsh years of slavery? These are the questions that Jacob must have had as he contemplated such a drastic move back to Egypt.
What about you? Have you ever wondered if God could possibly have a good plan when it seems like He's leading through back into something scary or away from the final goal and purpose that He has for you?
I know these things are difficult for me at times. In these times, God's promise to Jacob brings me peace. He will go down with us into these places and seasons. He will never leave us alone: He will not abandon us. As surely as He himself will go down with us, He also promises to continuously be bringing us back up!

Let’s multiply while we wait.

In Exodus chapter 1 we find the story zooms back in on a greatly multiplied Israel under a new pharaoh—one who did not know of Joseph. This pharaoh found himself greatly afraid of such a massive amount of a mighty group of people, and—just as God had foretold—he began to enslave and even kill their children in order to prevent their imagined revolt. Rather than reduce their population, all of Pharaoh’s efforts to prevent the blessing and multiplication of the people resulted in greater blessings and multiplication!
Do you find yourself in a place of waiting, when you cannot move yet into what you know God has for you? You may find that you cannot make the changes you need to step out into freedom in a physical sense. In these moments of waiting for God to work for us, there is something we can do: we can trust God to do His work, and we can share the good news of Jesus to everyone around us!
We don’t need to passively wait on God, we may actively wait! In doing this, we are standing on the promise of His faithfulness to us. God’s blessing and favor rest on us when we produce fruit in these seasons of waiting on God to do the work that only He can accomplish.

Let’s watch God bring us Home.

It was during this time in the book of Exodus that God raised up Moses to deliver the people out of slavery, through the wilderness, and back into the Promised Land. At the very moment that their time in the place of preservation was over, God brought them out. On the very day that fulfilled the end of the prophecy, the Israelites were delivered to freedom by the sovereign God on whose promises they could place their absolute trust:

The time that the people of Israel
lived in Egypt was 430 years.
At the end of 430 years, on that very day,
all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
It was a night of watching by the LORD,
to bring them out of the land of Egypt….
Exodus 12:40-42a

We can watch peacefully through the night in which God works because of this: He Himself is watching out, keeping vigil, all the night while He works to accomplish this work for us.
One thing that brings me comfort in the backward seasons is knowing that when it’s time for God to work, it is His power alone that does the job. When we are walking in the will of God, there is nothing and no one on earth that can prevent God’s plan from being accomplished in our lives.

In that moment, all that we need to do is stand in peace...
and watch.

0 Comments

The Power of Praise

I Have Seen My Redeemer!

We must prepare the way for our Redeemer!

We must wait expectantly on the Lord!

We must tell the good news!

Backward and Forward--God is Faithful!

אַֽעַלְךָ֣
’a-‘al-ḵā
Verb: Imperfect Hiphil
"I myself will continuously bring you up"

The time that the people of Israel
lived in Egypt was 430 years.
At the end of 430 years, on that very day,
all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
It was a night of watching by the LORD,
to bring them out of the land of Egypt….
Exodus 12:40-42a

Author

Archives

Categories

The Power of Praise

I Have Seen My Redeemer!

We must prepare the way for our Redeemer! ​

We must wait expectantly on the Lord! ​

We must tell the good news! ​

Backward and Forward--God is Faithful!

אַֽעַלְךָ֣ ’a-‘al-ḵā Verb: Imperfect Hiphil"​I myself will continuously bring you up"​

The time that the people of Israellived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day,​all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. ​It was a night of watching by the LORD,to bring them out of the land of Egypt…. Exodus 12:40-42a​

Author

Archives

Categories

We must prepare the way for our Redeemer!

We must wait expectantly on the Lord!

We must tell the good news!

אַֽעַלְךָ֣
’a-‘al-ḵā
Verb: Imperfect Hiphil
"I myself will continuously bring you up"

The time that the people of Israel
lived in Egypt was 430 years.
At the end of 430 years, on that very day,
all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
It was a night of watching by the LORD,
to bring them out of the land of Egypt….
Exodus 12:40-42a