When we receive God’s comfort, He not only wipes away our tears, He strengthens our weak knees and sagging spirits, so that our “mourning is turned into dancing.” This comfort flows to us in such abundance as to produce an overflow, a surplus that we can share with others. Imagine the drastic transformation of the disciples on Easter morn and you get a sense of this comfort that moved them from discouragement to delight.
Has the gospel yet been preached in the “whole world?” Not yet. But surely, the time is coming soon. According to Wycliffe, there are 6,900 languages spoken in the world today, as the world’s population approaches seven billion. Of those, 180 million people (who speak about 1900 different languages) do not have a Bible in their heart language, nor anyone that is currently working on one. All the major languages have been translated. The ones remaining are small population groups. Of course, Bible translation is only part of the equation. Someone still needs to preach the gospel so that they can hear and understand.
This was the response of the Israelites when God spoke the ten commandments to them from the mountain amidst thunder, lightning, smoke and the sound of a ram’s horn. They were terrified and requested that Moses be their mediator. So, Moses went up on the mountain and brought down the Word of God written on stone tablets. When Jesus came, He became our Mediator, so we can boldly approach God. He has removed the separation of the law and written God’s Word not on stone tablets, but on our hearts.
As long as Moses held his arms up, the Israelite army was winning, but when he tired and began to lower his arms, the battle went against them. This is the spiritual influence that God invests in a key leader, yet they remain human, subject to fatigue and discouragement like everyone else. Many churches today replace their tired leaders with fresh ones, thinking that will turn the battle their way. It usually doesn’t. The new leaders eventually wear out too. Aaron and Hur thought of a better solution. Why not help hold up their leader Moses’ arms? Why not give him some help without trying to steal his leadership? Humbly moving to help their leader turned the tide. There are at least a couple of leadership lessons here: 1) Leaders need to be humble enough to ask/allow others to help hold up their leadership arms. 2) Followers need to support their leaders through times of difficulty because when their leader succeeds, so do they.
The day, the month and the year are all times determined by man’s observations of the heavenly bodies. But the Sabbath is a gift from God given by revelation. The 7-day week is not determined by the sun and moon, but by God’s Word. In it He reminds us that He created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh. He wants us to rest one day out of seven to remind us of His creation and care, showing our ultimate dependence on Him. The Sabbath not only points to God’s past creation, and His care for His people in the wilderness; it also points to Christ’s fulfillment. For Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. He was crucified on the sixth day, rested on the seventh and rose again on the first day of the new week. Now those who place their faith in Christ may enter His Sabbath rest. He has finished the work of salvation and there is nothing left for us to do, except to rest by faith in it.
The Lord’s emotions are both infinite and pure. There is no “shadow of turning” in Him. He loves and He hates. Both passionate extremes are red hot and wild in Him, yet always under His righteous control. Our emotions are mere muddy rivulets compared to the raging torrent of His zeal. Do not make the mistake of limiting God’s love to a narrow band of syrupy sentimentality. When we speak of God’s love, we must include the terrifying whole of His passion. His love covers the entire spectrum of feeling that produces both a heaven and a hell. Do not think to mute God’s full register of feeling by removing hate from its range. When we receive Christ as Lord and Savior, God’s love flows to and through us, so that we begin to love what He loves and hate what He hates. There is no inconsistency in this, for both extremes of feeling are present in Him.
God instructed the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and to put its blood over their door frames, so that the angel of death would “pass over” them. This became an annual festival of remembrance that was fulfilled in Christ, who became our Passover Lamb. Those who have received Him have His blood spread over their heart’s door, so that they have been forgiven of sin and will never die.
Jesus described the new Kingdom economy to His disciples. He modeled the new servant-leader paradigm by washing His disciples feet and then dying on the cross for our sins. To James and John, who aspired to leadership, He didn’t rebuke them, He showed them a better way. Jesus radically changed the leadership model. He descended to greatness.
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat children. If they are patient and fun with little ones, it reveals something about their heart. If they are nervous and frustrated, this too shows. Jesus loved little children. He always made time for them. I’ve observed that most people who come to Christ, do so before adulthood. The older we get, the more our hearts harden. Yet, it’s never too late to see Jesus with childlike eyes and receive Him with a childlike faith.
This Davidic psalm is so well known in the KJV that it’s difficult to read it any other version (“…I shall not want.”). Yet, as comforting as the familiar KJV verse is, sometimes it’s helpful to read it in another version to help unpack its meaning. Here, the NLT reading caused me to focus on the Lord as my shepherd more than my wants/needs. In other words, all my true and deepest needs are satisfied in the Lord Himself. I still prefer the beautiful KJV for most of my memorization work, but occasionally another version causes me to see Scripture afresh. Here’s my paraphrase as a result of today’s reading: “I have the Lord as my shepherd, so what else could I possibly need?”