HALF-BAKED Hosea 7

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How exciting to have a machine that bakes bread.  Like magic.  All it takes is adding a few ingredients, push a few buttons and out pops homemade bread in a couple of  hours.  The machine’s ringer signals that it’s time to chomp down on some delicious staff of life.  Make sure butter and jam’s ready to go.

I open the lid.  Can’t believe what I’m seeing.  Instead of a nice toasty loaf, I’m looking at a pile of gloppy goo that defies description.  Disgusting.  Disappointing.  Dreadful.  What’s happened?  Bad yeast?  Salt lost its saltiness?  No.

Plain and simply stupid–I didn’t pay attention to the order of ingredients going into the machine.  Didn’t think it mattered.  Why should it?  Legalists.  Party poopers.  Couldn’t be little old me, could it?  Then my wife tells me that I didn’t lock the bread gadget into place causing the blade, or whatever it’s called, to roll around aimlessly!  You can tell how high-tech I am.

Hosea, the Old Testament prophet knows how to grab your attention.  He’s told to take back his wife, who has the unenviable name of Gomer (no last name of Pyle, however!), who’s wandered off in sexual escapades.  There’s even more to it than that.  In chapter 7, Hosea brings God’s urgent message to ancient Israel, which should have turned a few heads, ushering in repentance, falling down at God’s feet, begging Him to set them straight.  But no.  They pay no attention.  Could care less.  Thumb their noses His way.

Hosea 7:8–‘Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned.’   This largest family group of Northern Israel mixes itself together with those who worship all kinds of gods.  False gods, like a mishmosh goulash, with God’s people giving Him only a passing nod.  Sadly, this spiritual hanky-panky catches on among His own like some current-day nasty pandemic virus. Only thing they can’t resist is adding more and more bogus gods to their worship.  Screwball hobby, collecting phony deities which aren’t kosher.  Mixed in and mixed up.  Soon to be nixed by God Almighty, the One and Only.

Like a cake not turned or a half-baked loaf of bread, burned on one side, soggy mess on the other.  Compromisers.  Mixing and matching the wrong ingredients.  Not following the Lord’s instructions.  Sound familiar?  Like our culture?  Maybe your life to a degree?  Rings in my ears.

Isn’t it time to stand up for Jesus?  For Him alone?  To mean what you say, and say what you mean?  Unashamed?  True we’re all failures and hypocrites.  Wishy-washy sweet-talkers.  This time I’m staring in the mirror.  Do I like this about me?  A people pleaser?  Not really.  Hopeless?  No.  We know who turns failure into forgiveness.  Don’t we?

So get up.  Stand up for Jesus.  No better time than right now.  Maybe no one expects it of you or me.  But shouldn’t I do what He wants?  For a change?  Not such a half-baked idea!

Lord Jesus, we want to be unashamedly yours.  Thank you.  Amen.

THOSE BEASTLY MOTHS Hosea 5

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How could we not love cruising the Danube and Rhine rivers in Eastern and Central Europe?  It’s like going back in time to a simpler way of life.  All on a floating first-class hotel with a five-star restaurant amply meeting all our needs!  We upgrade to a balcony, which is barely usable as we traverse literally dozens of dark-inducing navigation-locks all along those fabled waterways.

One night we couldn’t believe our eyes.  Looking out onto our balcony we see cloud-like white flapping wings of myriad thousands of moths.  Foolishly, I open our sliding-glass door to shoo them away only to welcome in those flying buggers.  Now they take over our stateroom.  So I grab a magazine and start swatting, flailing and whacking away with determined ferocity.  And what a bloody mess I make!  Took the staff quite awhile cleaning and disinfecting our walls and furniture.  I did a good job.  Maybe a little too good?  Should never have given those winged beasties an opening.

A lesson here?  Don’t give a fighting chance to sin.  Try not to open that window or door even a smidgen.  Hosea 5 spills the beans on God’s people who overflow with wickedness.  They’re warned, in no uncertain terms, that consequences will usher in unanticipated troubles.  If the Lord’s people don’t turn around and run to God for His help and healing, He’ll be to them like those little varmints were to us in our stateroom.  Hosea 5: 12–‘But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah.’  Moths and dry rot–what God’s judgement looks like to the unrepentant.  Make a sharp U-turn.  Do a one-eighty.  For sin leads to a double-whammy chain reaction.

Before we sell our 70-year old home, inspectors check high-and-low for structural issues.  At the top of their list is dry rot.  After all, we live in a rainy climate, making rot a real problem, especially for an older property.  Decaying wood leads to moogoo bucks in repair bills.  No wonder they check so thoroughly.  The results?  We pass but not without a whole bunch of stress and worry.

That lesson again?  Let go of sin.  Don’t allow those pesky, unglodly ‘moths’ in.  Treat spiritual foundation and siding with care and protection.  Keep the ‘doors’ and ‘windows’ closed tight as hard-nosed sin sniffs out nonstop for even the tiniest break.

Know your Bible.  Spend quality and quantity time daily in its pages.  Get closer to Jesus.  Never shy away from Him.  Even cuddle up a little closer.  He’s waiting!

Thank you, Jesus, for loving me so much.  Amen.

MY END TIME PREDICTIONS Daniel 12

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I’m now going to disclose my on-target, nailed-down prognostications of the end times.  The meat and potatoes, ins-and-outs of the millennium and the tribulation.  Their ABCs with i’s dotted and t’s crossed.  My predictions?  Actually zero, zippo within a bucket of goose eggs!  Except for this– I know that Jesus is coming back again.  So get ready and be on the alert.  When?  No idea.  The bulls-eye specifics?  Not from me.  After all, I find it difficult to make predictions, especially about the future!!

When a Bible school student, I develop an aversion to all the end times guesswork.  Wrangling, verbal wrestling and arguing, which I figure may be mere student-things in Bible school.  Wrong.

Over the years I’ve run across quite a few who know, or so they imagine, all that’s going to happen when Jesus returns.  And I mean ‘all’.   Goings on before He comes back, in the middle and at the end.  Theories, hobby horses, charts and graphs.  I flee from them straight to Scripture, which makes more sense than guesses and guesstimates from all those final-event pundits put together.

The book of Daniel is fodder for these speculators.  So take a gander at the last chapter.  Daniel covers the main points.  The archangel Michael helps him understand ‘…the time of the end’ (Dan. 12: 4).  What’s happening?  Terrible traumas will plague the world.  Shock and misery like never before.  But God’s people experience deliverance.  Those whose names are in His book, the wise and those who share their faith, receive everlasting life (vs. 1-3).  The ungodly share none of the Lord’s eternal bounty.  Sadly, none.

Then Daniel’s told to seal away, lock up his prophecy for a later time.  When?  Later–‘…until the time of the end’ (v. 9).  Again, when?  Only God knows.  What’s revealed is that troubles will be for a time, some more time, and then a tad bit longer (v. 7).  The point?  Difficulties don’t last forever for God’s people.

Daniel wants more info.  He has a yen for added end time details (v.8).  This is what he’s told by an angelic messenger–‘…Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.  Many shall purify themselves…’ (Dan. 12: 9-10).

Bottom line–go about your life, living well for Jesus, knowing that whatever happens, whenever it does, we’re to be ready and wide awake, while remaining in the best hands ever.  The very best.  That much I guarantee!

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for standing with me through all times.  Amen.  

AN OLD CAMPFIRE SONG Daniel 4

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When I’m a college freshman, my pastor asks me to help counsel for a summer week at church camp.  Only problem is that I’ve never camped out before in my life.  Have little idea what it’s all about.  So I gingerly go out into the wilderness toting a mussed up suitcase containing my clothes and Bible.  Can you imagine?  A suitcase dragged into the forest primeval!  Well, I didn’t volunteer and their vetting process proves rather bogus!

About the only thing I remember, apart from being a pathetic and pitiful counselor, is an old campfire song.  ‘All night, all day, angels watching over me, my Lord.  All night, all day, angels watching over me.’

Twice in Daniel 4 (vs. 13, 17) ‘watchers’ are mentioned.  Wakeful ones, heavenly and holy ones, who keep constant vigil.  When life advertises how puny we are, how insignificant and unloved, it’s then we need to know something.  What?  That God has angels watching over us.  And He cares.

Watchers–all night, all day.  Angels watching over us.  The word ‘angel’ is the same as ‘messenger’.  The messenger’s source is our Lord.  He’s keeping an eye out for you and me.  Keeping tabs on everything.  Checking out troubles before they happen.  Helping us when facing fear and failure.  Like Daniel’s three friends (Dan. 3: 8ff), I’d rather be with Jesus in the fire, than outside without Him.  You too?

Daniel interprets the king’s scary dreams, reassuring the royal mind (Dan. 4).  Remember that in Christ we’re royalty–‘But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people’ (1 Peter 2: 9-10).

May seem like we’ve been abandoned in life.  No one giving a flying fig.  All alone on our own.  Not so.  The Lord has watchers all over.  We’re never out of their reach or sight.  Just like the old campfire song sings– ‘All night, all day, angels watching over me…’

Even a novice camper toting a bedraggled suitcase!

Thank you, Jesus, for never letting us out of your sight.  Amen.

SUCH A LITTLE ROCK Daniel 2

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My sister was the first to sign up for these weekly devotionals over 7 years ago.  Thanks, Barbara!  From the beginning, I’ve had a certain number goal in mind.  Something to aim at.  Takes 6 years to hit that target.  I now have a vibrant ‘congregation’ to encourage week by week!  All of the Lord’s doing.  Coupled with help from my tech-savvy wife Sue.

Let me admit my number goal is most modest.  Pastors would not be impressed.  Too little.  Too insignificant.  Too bad, so sad…for them!

This is between the Lord and me.  I’m to forget the naysayers.  Put your fingers to the loom, your hands to the wheel.  Off you go.  For Jesus, the Master Weaver.

May require lots of hard work, producing a rather teensy-weensy outcome… in some minds.  But with Jesus, first and foremost, the results are His anyway.  Aren’t they?  Rag on Him?  Better not!

Look back at Daniel chapter 2.  A bad dream nauseates bloviating King Nebuchadnezzar.  A colossal statue, made of gold, silver, bronze, iron and clay, topples over crashing and smashing to the ground.  Destruction complete.

What demolishes this hotdogger, grandstander statue?  Some ancient earthquake?  Could be.  Shoddy construction?  Possibly.  Enemy sabotage?  Perhaps.  But what exactly?  Daniel 2: 34–‘As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.’

A little rock, not from Arkansas but from God, gets hurled at that big-shot, phoney baloney bunkum.  The miniscule shatters the mighty.  Down it comes with brute force as the earth shakes and shudders.

When God calls you to do something, nothing could be better.  If we grab hold of it.  If.  May seem small change, but little is much when God is in it, as the old song says.  So, get busy with what He places in your hands.  To do for Him.  For others.  Something come to mind?

What a privilege, Lord, to serve you.  In Jesus’ name and for His sake.  Amen.

A PSALM FOR ALL Psalm 71

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Here’s a psalm for all of us.  Begins when life does.  Even before–‘Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother’s womb’ (Ps. 71:6).  Then the poet continually praises the Lord regardless of age–‘My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all the day’ (v.8).

Finally, he gets to me, an old goat!  A bit long-in-the-tooth.  Please don’t say as good as you-know-what with one foot you-know-where!  Psalm 71: 18– ‘So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.’

Ferver to pass it on to the next generation.  Unselfish and generous.  Not hogging forgiveness and eternal life, but eager to share.  Giving to missionaries who carry the word of God to where we can or dare not go.  Since I became a believer in Jesus listening to Christian radio, monies are gladly designated to groups who beam the Gospel message around the world.

But what grabs your heart will be different.  Maybe you love to help children’s ministries for that’s when and how you came to know the Savior.  Or the local Gospel mission reaching those we have a hard time relating to.  That Christian school you attended, that made such an impact on your life, which still needs financial donations to keep going for others.  How about all of the above?  And then some.

No matter your age, you can pray for those younger than yourself.  Can’t you?  Digging deeper, giving a tad more?  After all, this is no dress rehearsal.  When life calls it a day, all comes to a screeching, grinding, shuddering halt.

What’s on your ‘to do’ list?  For Jesus.  For others.

Thank you, Father, for life worth living.  All because of Jesus.  Amen.

MOVE IT! Psalm 70

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Here’s a psalm fit for impatient types like me.  Hardly a procrastinator, I dislike putting things off.  I’m a planner.  A list maker.  That’s why I’m drawn this psalm’s cry for help.  As if telling God to move it!  Psalm 70:1–‘Make haste, O God, to deliver me!  O Lord, make haste to help me!’  See what I mean?  And this from the last verse–‘O Lord, do not delay!’ (Ps. 70:5).

The Bible teaches that God’s ways are His alone, and that He rarely reveals any details to us.  Only that we need to trust Him.  But here’s the rub.  We know that life can be rather nasty.  No guarantees that all will be days of wine and roses.  Not at all.  Life often is a mish-mash of the helpful and the hurtful.  Trust Him?

As much as I don’t like admitting it, troubles do benefit me long-term.  The older I get, the clearer that becomes, though not an open-and-shut case.  So I shy away, getting antsy not knowing what’s coming…or going.   As if God has it in for me and not necessarily in a good way.

But that’s not this psalm’s mind-set.  Not at all–“May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you!  May those who love your salvation say evermore, ‘God is great!'” (Ps. 70:4).  In his impatience, David knows that seeking God is joyous.  Our Lord is dependable and loving.  Our promise-keeper through and through.

With that in mind, we can bear almost anything.  Give it a try?  What’s to lose?  I read about a man, climbing down into a darkened well, tightly holding onto a rope.  Soon his strength gives out.  Not knowing how far he’ll plummet to reach rock bottom, he fears death calling out to him.  His muscles fail.  He lets go, cascading and tumbling down all of three inches to the solid bottom.  Three inches.

The Lord wants me to let go more often to find His bedrock that’s usually less than a stone’s throw away.  You’re invited, too.  Ready?  Get set…

Thank you, Lord, for being our safe landing place.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

AN ACCEPTABLE TIME Psalm 69

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It’s hard to wait when you want things to happen right now.  As if held back in neutral when gears are raring to roar into drive.  When I pray, and it doesn’t happen, then I start to wonder if some sin hasn’t put the kibosh on it.  Okay, I’m forgiven, but what about my comeupance?  Those dreaded consequences. 

When you think about it, my mind’s image doesn’t sound like the God I know from the Bible.  More like me.  Tit for tat.  An eye for an eye.  As good as one gets.  Payback time.  Not so my Lord.  He loves me and thinks the world of me…and you.  What He wants is for us to untangle those looney thoughts, putting them more in line with what the Bible says.  Too much to ask?

Let’s check out Psalm 69: 13–‘But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.  At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.’  Prayer’s answer comes in an acceptable time.  Whose time?  Mine?  Probably not.  More like God’s plans.  His will.  His call.   Galatians 4: 4-5 announces God’s acceptable and impecable timing–‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of woman…to redeem…so that we might receive adoption as sons.’

Old Testament saints pray for millenia that Messiah will come and save them.  We also must wait for God’s ‘fullness of time’.  Whatever prayer we utter to God, step back, cool your heels, hold onto Jesus’ hands and never, ever let go until answers come of God’s own choosing and timing.  Not mine, not yours or anyone else’s.  We bow to Him alone.

Here’s more.  Psalm 31: 14-15–“But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’  My times are in your hands…”  That hits the nail on the head, doesn’t it?

Lord Jesus, help me to trust you more and more.  Amen. 

BIG Psalm 69

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Big categorizes what we buy anymore.  Quantities maximized.  Those humungous cubes of 24 soda cans literally destroy my wife’s shoulder when lifting those monsters up onto the checkout counter at the grocery store where she worked.  Big toilet paper packs get piled up sky high during the pandemic, making it almost impossible to get into your car.  We jam-pack all our available cabinet and closet space before hoarders squirel them all away!

Big personalities dominate the political landscape.  Poor old ‘Silent Cal’ Coolidge wouldn’t stand a chance today.  Honest Abe’s out.  Big names adorn marquees at mega-churches, drawing crowds for entertaining worship.  Big cars and trucks crowd our highways and bi-ways, guzzling gas like it’s going out of style.

Here are some big words and phrases from Psalm 69–‘save me’, ‘my prayer is to you’, ‘an acceptable time’, ‘abundance of steadfast love’, ‘answer me’, ‘your saving faithfulness’, ‘deliver me’, ‘hide not your face’, ‘draw near to my soul’, ‘redeem me’.  Lots more where those came from.  Check them out.

Know what grabs me?  How honest we can and should be with our God–‘I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.  My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God’ (Ps. 69:3).  See?  Be an open book.  Clear as a bell.  Not crafting our prayers, walking on eggshells, as if only magic, right words will force His hand.  Trying to manipulate Jesus into giving us what we want, as if we could.

Be yourself.  Like you’re talking with your best friend.  Isn’t He?  Be respectful.  He’s God.

Know that we have a big God, who has surprising answers to our prayers.  Come close.  Even closer.  There’s room.  Plenty of it.  Big, wide-open space in His heart for you and me.

Thank you, Jesus, for being my Lord and Savior.  I love you.  Amen.

GOOD NEWS FOR A CHANGE Psalm 65

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Psalm 65 is a favorite one of mine.  Read it and maybe it will become one of yours.  Especially when we need some good news.  The overload of internet and TV news outlets makes everything so in your face.  Too much horror, scandal and madness.  Hardly anything that smacks of godliness.  Know what I mean?

A friend says that it was probably better a century ago when it takes about a year to find out about some tragedy which hits somewhere to somebody else.  When news arrives it’s all over and done with.  Not sure I agree, but I see his point.  Shut out bad news, at least for the moment.

How about some good news like simple praise and thanksgiving to our great God?  Raving about Jesus.  Hats off to the Holy Spirit.  A gold star to the Father.  Shout out good news.  Then cozy up to this psalm.  What the doctor orders?  To overcome what eats away at us?  Could be.  Try it.

Notice in the psalm’s introduction that King David is the author who writes for his choirmaster and choirs.  This is joyous singing time.  Breathe deeply, fill your lungs with oxygen, and let fly melodious words to our God.

Here I’ve listed some stanzas and overtones from Psalm 65.  God hears our prayers (v.2).  Forgives our sins (v.3).  Chooses us to be close to Him, dwelling where He does (v.4).  Provides all we’ll ever need and then some (v.4).  He’s mighty (v.5).  Acts for His own (v.4).  Creates the most amazing planet (vs.5-8).  And sustains all creation with the mere utterance of a word (vs.9-13).

This week get an eyeful of the gifts God gives you.  Stopping in your tracks, thank Him.  Using your hand-sanitizer on bad news, distance yourself way more than six feet from worst-case scenarios, nail-biting anxiety and fidgety fear.  Giving them up for an early Lent.  Singing good news.

See if that doesn’t make for a better week.  Get snug as a bug in a rug with Psalm 65!

Thank you, Lord, for all your goodness.  We love you and praise you most of all.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.