GodSprings - April, 29, 2016

Nobody from Nowhere but Am I Willing to Contribute?

The words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa—the vision he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash[a] was king of Israel. Amos 1:1 (NIV)

In the movie Emperor's Club Kevin Cline portrays an instructor of Western civilization in a prestigious private school. It is the first day of class, and about 30 high school boys, dressed in matching red jackets, settle into a room adorned with maps and busts of Caesar, Plato, and Socrates.

The professor asks one student to read a plaque above the door. The student is clearly nervous as he leaves his seat and walks to the door. The plaque itself appears to be an ancient artifact.

The student delivers an uncertain reading of an inscription that makes little sense to him:

 I am Shutruk Nahunte, King of Ashand and Susa, Sovereign of the Land of Elam. By the Command of Inshushinak, I destroyed Sippar, took the Stele of Nirah-Sin, and brought it back to Elam, where I erected it as an offering to my God, Inshushinak. Shutruk Nahunte 1158 B.C.

The teacher then asks the class, "Is anyone familiar with this fellow? Texts are permissible, but you won't find him there. Shutruk Nahunte. King. Sovereign of Elam. Destroyer of Sippar. But behold his accomplishments cannot be found in any history book. Why? Because great ambition and conquest without contribution are without significance."

He ends by posing this question: "What will your contribution be?"

Have you ever felt that God couldn’t use you to serve Him because you were just too ordinary? When I was in seminary, I heard a parade of gifted, dynamic, successful priests and Christian leaders. Sometimes I would think, “I’ll never be where they’re at, because I’m not that gifted.” Feeling small and insignificant in such a big world is easy. But more than that I feel no matter who we are, how ordinary our life is, the important question God will be asking us is, what has been our contribution?

Amos was a nobody from nowhere, yet God saw in him a somebody whom He could do something with. Amos was not a religious leader, he did not have a formal education, and he was not well-to-do. He lived in the boondocks of Tekoa, five mile southeast of Bethlehem, where, according to his own account he said, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’” (Amos 7:14–15). God saw in this ordinary little person some big potential, and He decided to do the unexpected with an unlikely person. God turned this simple sheepherder into His sanctified spokesman.

What kind of qualities is God looking for in the man or woman whom He uses? Is He looking for the person with the longest list of credentials after his or her name? Is He looking for the natural born leaders? Is He seeking a superstar? Not usually.

Willingness is more important to God than influence, and weakness goes much further than strength in God’s economy. Often, the faithfulness to do that which appears insignificant displays immeasurable significance in the eyes of God. The gateway to usefulness is not whether you are able, but whether you are available. Your usefulness is not determined by whether you are talented, but whether you are teachable. It is not whether you are “with it,” but whether you are willing.

GodSprings - April 23, 2016

Is My Heart Required in Worship?

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6 (NIV)

There was a story that appeared in Readers Digest a number of years ago. There was a man who was a very devout Christian. He believed in getting up early every morning and having a time of devotions. He would spend an hour every morning between his prayer time and his time reading the Bible. Well, he had a cat. And whenever it became quiet, his cat would come and rub up against him – purring and demanding attention. Normally this was a pleasant thing for him, but he did find it distracting when he was trying to worship and read the Bible. So, after much thought he came up with a solution. He put a collar on the cat, and attached a leash to the color, and then attached the leash to one of the posters on his bed. The cat seemed to enjoy being able to sleep on the bed during this time, so all were happy with this solution. A few years later the man’s son moved out on his own. He wanted to continue in the family rituals. But times had become a little more hurried, and he just didn’t have the kind of time that his father had had. So every morning he would get up – tie the cat to the poster on the bed, and sped ten or 15 minutes reading the Bible, or another good book. This way he knew that his family rituals were kept, and he also showed that the kind of piety that his father had. He was very pleased with this arrangement. When this man’s son grew up, he also wanted to keep the rituals of the family going. But again, times had gotten a little tighter, and he didn’t feel he had enough time to read the Bible – or any other book in the morning, and prayer was not something that interested him. But he did have a cat. So, every morning he got up, tied the cat to the poster of the bed while he got his morning shower and shave. Usually he remembered to let it go when it was time to leave the house for work. But the rituals of the family were continued.

We live in an era that has been labeled “the information age” where, within minutes and often even seconds we can have information delivered to our fingertips. Yet, despite the rapid speed and wide-ranging variety of information that is readily available, many of us are still uninformed about God. We do not know who He is, what He is like, why we were created, or what He expects from us. This problem I don’t think is new. In the book of Hosea, we see the children of Israel struggling with knowing how to truly know God. As Christians, we can go through life believing that we know God. After all, we go to church, we read Christian books, we listen to Christian music, and we have emotional experiences with God. But do we really know God?

The children of Israel thought they knew God, but they allowed rote ritual to take the place of a real relationship with God. The significance of today’s verse in Hosea, a verse that Jesus Himself quoted (Matthew 9:13), is not that God was refusing the sacrificial system or burnt offerings that had been an integral part of their religion. God wanted more from His people than merely formal observances or lifeless religious activity; He wanted their worship and their service to come out of a genuine love for Him, and a sincere love for others. The people focused on ceremony, when God was looking for communion, they focused on tradition, when God wanted inward transformation, and they focused on an institutionalized religiosity, when God wanted intimate relationship.

Does God want our service and sacrifice? Yes! But He also requires that these cannot be done out of some legalistic sense of duty. Our service needs to stem from compassion, kindness, and a consideration for others, and our sacrifice must come from a personal, intimate, and internalized relationship with God that comes from a devotion to His Word.

God said, “For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). God must have our hearts if our service is to count for anything. Religious activity apart from a personal relationship with God is worthless. If we want to offer the sacrifice of service to God, we must begin with knowing Him personally.

GodSprings - April 22, 2016

Is It Possible to Tame My Tongue?

but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. James 3:8 (NIV)

Yesterday I received two riddles in one of our school WatsApp group. It took me some time to find the answer. Here’s the riddle – What lives in a cage, is surrounded by a jagged fence, and is walled in on all sides? What is often held but never touched, always wet but never rusts, often bites but is seldom bit, and to use it well, you must have wit? For the answer to each of these riddles, just open your mouth and stick out the answer. That’s right: the tongue!

God, in His creative diversity, has fashioned many different kinds of tongues in his living creatures. Take, for instance, the anteater’s tongue, which is a two-foot long tongue which can extend and retract up to one hundred fifty times per minute and can catch up to thirty thousand ants in a single day.

I just googled different types of tongue in the Bible and was surprised at the list I got. The different kinds of tongues that are found in us: the flattering tongue (Psalm 5:9); the proud tongue (Psalm 12:3; 73:9); the lying tongue (Psalm 109:2; Proverbs 6:17); the deceitful tongue (Psalm 120:2); the perverted tongue (Proverbs 10:31; 17:20); the soothing tongue (Proverbs 15:4); the healing tongue (Proverbs 12:18); the destructive tongue (Proverbs 17:4); the wicked tongue (Psalm 10:7); the soft tongue (Proverbs 25:15); and the backbiting tongue (Proverbs 25:23). Which tongue best describes the way we speak?

James emphasized the importance of not only watching what we do as Christians, but also watching what we say as Christians. James believed that if Jesus is Lord of our lives, then naturally, Jesus also should be Lord over our language. How many times have we said something we wish we could take back? We may have said an unkind or unloving word or told a joke that was unbecoming of a Christian. The simple truth is; we are all guilty of saying things that we should not have said. We have all seen where a careless word caused conflict, a hurtful word caused heartache, or complaining words caused discontent.

So how can a person tame the tongue or control his or her conversation? According to James, this control is impossible to exercise on our own. But we need not worry for the answer is found in God’s Word. First of all, no man can tame the tongue (James 3:8), but God can (Mark 10:27). Second, the real problem with the tongue starts in the heart: “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).

We speak words that come from our hearts. Therefore, taming the tongue begins by taming our hearts and filling them with God’s Word. If our hearts are abundantly filled with God’s Word, then our mouths will speak from the overflow, and our words will be words of edification, exhortation, and encouragement. We will speak kind words, gentle words, loving words, and words of blessing. Therefore, taming the tongue begins by taming our hearts.