The Shepherd's Apprentice

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April 18

He held fast to the Lord.
2 Kings 18:6

The "he" in this passage is the good king, Hezekiah. In the midst of a series of kings in Judah who ranged from awful to mediocre-at-best, Hezekiah "3 did what was right in the sight of the Lord. 5 He trusted in the Lord the God of Israel; so that there was no one like him ... before ... or ... after ... him."

The "he" in this passage was Hezekiah. But believe with me that the "he" can also be you and me!

For Hezekiah, "holding fast" meant, 1) "6 ke[eping] the commandments [of] the Lord" and "3 d[oing] what was right in [God's] sight, 2) "6 following" so close that he was "not departing," and also 3) "5 trusting in the Lord." If we want to "hold fast," that's not a bad pattern for us either!

1) Becoming Christ-like begins by behaving like Christ. Indeed, OBEDIENCE is the first step in the Christian adventure.

2) The second step in the Christian journey involves FOLLOWING, and in order to follow, we have to draw close enough to him to know where he is going. (This begs the question: what are you doing to know and draw close to God.)

3) Holding fast also implies TRUSTING God. Trust often seems to come naturally in good times. But do you feel like you're nurturing a faith that can hold you fast in times of trail? Indeed, are you a through-thick-and-thin fan of God's or simply a fair-weather-fan? Trust!

In Christ's Love,
a guy who wants to be like velcro
(the kind that God can't get rid of even when life shakes)

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April 17

When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you ...
Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.
Jonah 2:7-8

I'd be willing to bet that you haven't sacrificed a bull before a golden calf recently. Am I right?!!

We can, therefore, feel good about not breaking the commandment against "graven images" ... or can we?

The most common graven images we make are not statues of metal or stone, but pictures in our mind of what we want God to look like -- or not look like. We say things like, "Well, I can't believe in a God who ..." and then we reject a story, a truth, or a calling in the scripture. It's the human condition to continually reject the teachings of the Bible and pick and choose and re-create God in our own image. It's not a golden calf we bow down to but to our own imaginations -- indeed do you see the word "graven IMAGE" in the word "my own IMAGINation"?

Jonah reminds us that "those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." He suggests instead that with a "with a song of thanksgiving [we] sacrifice to" the real God. Not the God or our own imagination, but the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Peter, Paul, and James -- i.e. the God of Scripture.

In Christ's Love,
an imaginative guy
... who therefore needs to be careful
to trust God rather than my imagines

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April 16

And Joseph's master took him,
and put him into a prison ...
But Jehovah was with Joseph ...
and that which he did,
Jehovah made it to prosper
Genesis 39:20-23

Life goes up and down. Good days and bad days. Health and illness.

In Joseph's case -- our lesson for today -- it was freedom vs. jail time. It was prison vs. prosper. With that in mind, I loved the title of the segment from which I pulled today's "random" verse -- "Joy in Prison."

This phrase, reminded me of a conversation I had last night. I was in a Bible Study and the up and down nature of life came up. The first "joy in prison" verse that popped up for us was James 1:2-4 -- "Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Therefore, let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing."

Count it all joy! I love that phrase! But the verses I really wanted to pull up -- but my brain was too sluggish last night -- was 2 Corinthians 6:3-11. The Apostle Paul's joy-in-prison-testimony proclaims ...

We try to live in such a way that no one
will be hindered from finding the Lord
by the way we act ...
[Therefore,] we patiently endure troubles
and hardships and calamities of every kind.
We have been beaten, been put in jail,
faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion,
endured sleepless nights, and gone without food ...
We have faithfully preached the truth [and]
God's power has been working in us.
We have righteousness as our weapon ...
We serve God whether people honor us or despise us,
whether they slander us or praise us.
We are honest, but they call us impostors.
We live close to death, but here we are, still alive.
Our hearts ache, but we always have joy.
We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others.
We own nothing, and yet we have everything.

In Christ's Love,
a guy who needs to go to prison
... so he can find greater joy

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