I love all those characters that are not named in the Bible…just anonymous and unknown to us. As with this amazing widow in 1 Kings chapter 17. No name is mentioned. Just a widow in need. I have always appreciated believers who just haven’t needed their names to be up in lights,or on ‘Broadway’ or who get upset when not receiving their proper recognition or due. Just to do for the Lord. Just for Him…alone. I’ve tried real hard, and probably failed many times, not to get caught up in my own ego. I remember when speaking at a Lenten luncheon at a nearby church awhile back, and the bulletin had instead of homily, another word for sermon, it was printed homely…and with my name next to it. ‘And now preaching, the homely John Fischer’! Well, thanks, folks…for nothing! Actually, didn’t bother me at all and I’ve had a chuckle or two over it for years now. As long as the Lord knows who I am, who you are…that’s what really counts. And trust me, He does! Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are His children now and forever! This widow of Zarephath has encountered one of God’s most powerful prophets, Elijah, who as it turns out seems more like some needy person among so many hungry and thirsty and starving people in her city. All her food is almost gone. And the Bible says that God has commanded this woman to provide food and drink for Elijah. When did that happen? The commandment, I mean. Where does it say that she heard directly from the Lord? The Bible doesn’t say. As a matter of fact, we’re clueless at this point. She doesn’t tell the prophet that God has told her she must meet him and that she has to give him food or anything. No, in her quest to survive for yet one more meager meal for herself and her son, one last bite and drink; and now this stranger, this man of Yahweh when Zarephath is a city of their god Baal and the home area of the Queen Jezebel,who hates anyone worshiping Yahweh, she’s supposed to give him what she almost nothing of? Here’s where the story takes on yet deeper meaning for her. Little does she know that through encountering this strange foreigner she will have an opportunity to believe in the One True God, the God of Israel. Do you know what grabs me in this story? The truth behind the truth. We may not have any idea what God wants to do, but He will do it anyway. He is at work when we least can see it or feel it. So, my faith grows knowing that no matter what, God is working in and through me…and you. Don’t worry about it. Go about your life just as it is. Dream the dreams of your heart. Plan as much as you like. But know that the Lord will be meeting you along the way. And He will place you right where He wants you so you can reach someone else, who may not have the foggiest, to reach them for Him. That’s the Holy Spirit interceding with words we cannot even comprehend or Jesus drawing people to Himself through the funniest means and the weirdest people…using fold like me and you! I feel lighter now not worrying about what God will be doing, where or how or when; but knowing He is and will act in His time and in His way. Isn’t that neat? Get ready–surprises await!
THE SECRET THINGS OF GOD….Read 1 Kings 17 and 1 Corinthians 4:1
I’ve given you a bit to read today, but none more than I’ve read as well. Meditating on 1 Corinthians 4:1 I was struck by that phrase ‘the secret things of God.’ It reminded me of Deuteronomy 29:29 where Moses says that ‘the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.’ God has shown us in the Bible, from cover to cover, all that we need to know. And there are secrets known only to Him, which He will not reveal to us in this life. He’s given us all we need to know to lead a godly, born-again life. The rest is His alone. So, go with what you know and leave the rest to Him. He’s more than trustworthy. Did you enjoy the story of Elijah and the widow from Zarephath in 1 Kings 17? I love this story. Elijah has been cared for by God, fed by ravens bringing bread and meat to him by the Kerith Ravine until the river runs dry and God tells him to head up to Phoenicia, to a town named Zarephath where God has commanded a widow to provide food for him. Now, Phoenicia is the center of Baal worship, the home area of Jezebel, a place where flour and cooking oil are major exports and cash crops. But the god Baal must be angry or he’s impotent to provide for his worshipers. No food, no oil…time is running out and death is stalking at the gates of the city. This poor widow has a few sticks for a fire and one last bit of flour and oil to bake some bread for her son and herself–and then it’s over. They’re done for. Elijah sees her at the town gate and asks her for a drink of water. And then, seems to me a bit nervy, Elijah asks her for some bread, to bake some for him before she does the same for her son and herself! And he tells her that the Lord, the God of Israel, the true God, the One and Only, will provide for her a never-ending supply of food and oil until the drought and famine have lifted. Elijah tells her not to be afraid. She has a big choice to make. Take a chance on faith? Trust the true God or walk away and have one last meal before they die. She considers…she thinks…she decides to trust in God. And He provides, unlike Baal who can do nothing for he is nothing but human and demonic invention. Every day bread and oil are provided by Yahweh God. Every day. God provides. I’m wondering if there’s not something in your life that you need to trust God to take care of, to provide for? Seems like you’ve reached the end of some road. One last gasp of breath. And then someone or something comes along to remind you that the Lord will provide. He will take care of you. Sure it’s scary to trust the Lord, to toss your hat in His ring and not take it back. And you don’t have to have perfect faith either. Just faith the size of a tiny mustard seed, Jesus said. Give Him whatever faith you can muster. He’ll take whatever you bring to the altar… in humility and need. He loves you and me. He promises to provide for us…I think there’s more about this next time. There’s more…there’s always more with our Lord!
YOU’VE GOT TO BE OUT OF YOUR MIND!…….Read 1 Corinthians 2:16-3:3
The summer of 1972 I was accepted for an internship at the Princeton Medical Center in Princeton, New Jersey as a hospital chaplain, part of my certification in Clinical Pastoral Education. My concentration for my masters program at the Seminary was pastoral counseling, and this summer program would add practical training to the academic course work required during the year. I enjoyed visiting patients and families, praying with them and talking about spiritual matters. What interested me at the very beginning was finding out that Albert Einstein had been in this hospital… and had died here. No, not after a visit from me! I would have been an 8 year old chaplain if that were possible! But maybe, just maybe, some of those brain-power germs were lurking in those hallways, and I might catch some of them. Any chance? Not on your life! I escaped totally unscathed by the great mind of Albert Einstein! Too bad, so sad! I remember reading somewhere that Einstein (who lived with his daughter just a few houses down from the Seminary)had said that we humans only use a small percentage of our brain. Maybe 10 or 15 percent. Something like that–just a small portion of all its great potential. My father used to mimic what his German father would love to say: ‘smart like your father, you dope you'(say it in broken English with that thick German accent like my Aunt Bertha!). I just roar every time I think of what Adam Fischer used to say. Funny, really. But not so humorous when I read Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Have you read those few verses in chapters 2 and 3 yet? If not, take a moment and read them now. The Apostle Paul says something just earth-shattering to me, mind-boggling and amazing–‘But we have the mind of Christ'(1 Corinthians 2:16). Think about that for a moment or maybe a lot longer. Forget Einstein. We have the mind of Christ, the Son of God, the Creator and Sustainer of all, everywhere, for all time. His mind, available to little old me and you! How much do we use it? How much time do we spend with Him absorbing His mind, His will, His ways, His take on this world; and, of course, our personal lives as well. We have the mind of Christ. Well, how about using it? Thinking the way He thinks. Doing what he would do, to the best of our understanding as feeble as we are. He knows we’re made of clay, but He’s given us so much more to work with. Work that mind of Christ in you, exercise that muscle of the Lord given to you and me. As the Apostle said in his 2nd letter to those Corinthians–‘we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’ Every thought? You’ve got to be out of your mind! No, in your right mind, the mind of Christ! Smart like your Savior, you saint, you!
FROM MY YEARBOOK SO MANY YEARS AGO NOW!….Read 2 Timothy 3:16-17
In 1970, so many years ago now, I graduated from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Our yearbook was called the Arch, because the main entrance to the inner-city campus was through a brick archway. A tradition had been established years before that each graduating senior would choose a favorite Bible verse as a life goal, and that passage would be printed near their names in the yearbook. I chose 2 Timothy 3:16 for my life verse–‘all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…’ That’s a wonderful verse, wouldn’t you agree? Elevates the Bible to its proper place as the inspired Word of God. But I have a question– why this for my life verse? I wonder now why I chose that verse hoping that it wasn’t just to put something down on paper to get my graduation work over with, and move on to something more pleasant. Another thing off my to-do list. Knowing me.. I more than wonder. Now, don’t get me wrong. 2 Timothy 3:16 is the foundation of my life and ministry…from the time of my conversion to this day, I know that the Bible is where truth with a capital ‘T’ can be found. The ultimate Truth… reliable, available, universal, for all time and times for any who seek Him and His way. I believe that more-and-more–and I’ve been exposed to so many arguments and people who disagree and feel the Bible is just myth or fable or unscientific, outdated, bigoted antiquity. Those in churches who have just cast the Bible aside when it is no longer convenient for them. I know because I was educated at a seminary that decades before had marginalized the Bible, I was ordained in a denomination that to this day keeps inching and inching away from the clear teachings of the Bible, I’ve been to Bible studies with local pastors who would stomp out in anger if any of us just dared, and I dared, to challenge their disbelief in the Bible as the inspired and inerrant Word of God. I’ve been there. I’ve heard it. I can sniff it out from miles away. I’m glad I chose 2 Timothy 3:16 as my life verse. It’s been the anchor in my boat of life that Jesus pilots. The constant in an evermore slippery world. I’ve heard it calling me back when I had drifted far away myself. My only regret is not adding verse 17 to my life verse. Other classmates had chosen more than one verse. Don’t think we had to choose just one. I should have added the next verse. The one about being a man of God, a man thoroughly equipped, a man serving God in His good ways. As I look back on my life I sense a disconnect between knowing and living. Between my head and my heart. And now as a bit more mature believer, it’s very hard to break old habits, to connect those dots,to connect those 2 verses, praying that the Holy Spirit would give me a faith that works…for Him and for others. I can’t change what’s in that 1970 yearbook. You can’t find a time-machine to go back and redo your life and choices. But you can live for Him today. You and I can stand on the Word of God… AND live His way ‘equipped for every good work.’ I’m learning, little by little, to let Him connect the dots. How about you?
SUCH A VERY STRANGE STORY……..Read 1 Kings 13
Talk about a very strange story. This is it! I really had to pause and think about this chapter from the Bible for quite awhile. I wondered what the lesson was for me, for us, today. What do you think? Any ideas? The more I thought about it, the more I could sense a message from the Lord for today. A very important lesson, critical really. Whose authoritative voice will we listen to in life? Whose word counts? But first the story and what happened. The Lord sends one of His prophets, one whose name is never mentioned. Anonymous and unknown. And He sends him to Jeroboam, King of the rebellious Northern Kingdom of Israel. To keep his people from worshiping in Jerusalem and possibly aligning themselves with the rival king Rehoboam, son of Solomon of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Jeroboam sets up his own worship centers, chooses his own priests, establishes his own holy days and worst of all creates man-made idols, golden calves, for the people to worship. So, this prophet gives due warning to Jeroboam, a chance to repent and turn back to the Lord. No way, says Jeroboam! So, God allows him a traumatic seizure of his hand, and then the altar at the false temple to just turn to dust. Help, cries Jeroboam! The prophet prays and God responds. A healing occurs. Jeroboam then asks the prophet to stay with him, to be his religious leader. But,no, he couldn’t do that. After all, “For I was commanded by the word of the Lord,’You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came'”(verse 9). The Lord is very direct with His prophet…clear as clear can be. The instructions are not in a foreign language! Here enters another strange character, also unnamed, but identified as ‘a certain old prophet’. And somehow he gets our first prophet to stay with him for a meal and some liquid refreshment in total disobedience to what the Lord has commanded him. Not a good choice. And the results are pretty bad too…he heads down a dead-end street, if you know what I mean! What tipped him over the edge? That cagey, old-goat prophet just lied through his teeth, which were probably as false as his words. Told the other prophet that the Lord had given him a message through an angel to stay with him and have some food and drink. Too bad our first prophet didn’t listen to what he knew was the Word of the Lord. Not just him. How about you and me? Too bad when we hear the voice of society more than the Word of the Lord. Too bad denominations speak and cease hearing from the Word of the Lord. Too bad when pastors tickle ears more than hear and heed the Word of the Lord. Too bad when the tide turns on some moral issue and we just float off to sea drowning in the foam of current opinion, rather than standing on the solid ground of the Word of God, the Bible. Too bad indeed. Think about it for awhile. Who do we listen to? Whose word counts…for you?
HEARTFELT WORDS…..Read Hosea 14
Hosea chapter 14 is one of the most beautiful chapters in all the Bible. Please take a moment now to read all 9 magnificent verses just basking in its exquisiteness. Hosea is included in what’s called the Minor Prophets, but certainly no minor message here. Not at all. This chapter begins with Hosea calling out to God’s people, who have wandered far, far away from Him, calling to them to ‘return, O Israel, to the Lord your God’. He urges them to bring words of confession, of penitence, of sorrow…’take words with you’. Not just any words. But heartfelt ones. From the bottom of their hearts. Mean what you say and say what you mean. When I look at my life, there is so much that I just have to shake my head at…at myself. And I too, like God’s people thousands of years ago, must come to the Lord in honesty, openness, humility and confession. Am I the only one? Asking forgiveness…depending on His grace and mercy, offering to Him not the blood of animals but ‘the fruit of our lips.’ The good fruit that are words of praise and prayer. And look at the promised blessings that come our way from our loving and forgiving Lord…verses 4 through 7. Amazing blessings and gifts from above. Just for uttering heartfelt words; offering the fruit of our lips. Blessings come like healing our sinful ways, turning us around to His way and ways; and loving us with a flood of divine affection that never dries up. Like dew on the ground in a dry land causing flowers to bloom, our roots will keep getting deeper and deeper into our Lord like the roots of the cedars of Lebanon. When I was growing up, my mother had a cedar chest in the attic at home, and when I would open that wooden box did that aroma ever please–that will be us to Him! We’ll be in His shade when life just gets too hot to tolerate on our own. We’ll flourish like grain and blossom like grapes on a vine. The Lord says that ‘I am like a green pine tree…'(verse 8)–two of my aunts had a cabin, a rather primitive one on a lake in rural New Jersey. The whole lake was surrounded by pine trees. Though I never liked that place, yet I’ll never forget that pervasive aroma of pine in the air when visiting them. Not the cabin, not the lake, not the long trip to get there, but the air that was crisp and clear and clean and pleasant. Pine was in the air. The end of verse 8 God reminds us that all of this, all these blessings, all of it come from Him. ‘Your fruitfulness comes from me’. Today, we offer to the Lord our heartfelt thanks for all He’s given us. Heartfelt words. And especially for His only Son Jesus who made our life and makes our life worth living!
SO LITTLE TO ASK OF US……Read Hosea 13:4-6
It’s really so simple. Not complicated or mysterious. Not something puzzling or hidden requiring secret passwords or a locksmith. None of that really. So simple. So upfront. And on top of that, asks so little of us. Have you read those verses in Hosea yet? That Old Testament prophet whose ministry was mainly to the northern Kingdom of Israel right up to the time when Samaria fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC. That prophet with a wayward wife symbolizing God’s wayward people. Hosea means ‘salvation’ in Hebrew, and here in chapter 13 he records the anguished heart of God the Savior. He states unequivocably that He alone is the Lord, Yahweh your God, who liberates them from slavery in Egypt. Since He is God alone, His people are simply to acknowledge Him and no other God. That should be easy since there is no other God but Yahweh, the God of Israel. Get it? No mystery here. No secret, silly codes to decipher. Then He says that He alone saved them, and cared for them in the desert, that steaming hot desert. I remember 2 years ago being in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt where King Tut had his tomb, where the temperature was 120 degrees. You read it correctly! They said it was a dry heat but so is an oven and I’m not getting in there either! Never so hot in all my life–it was oppressive, claustrophobic, clawing at my throat with thirst. The coolest place was down in those ancient tombs! Hosea 13:5 records that there, even there, under those boiling conditions God took care of His people. He goes on to say that He fed them not just a few morsels to shut them up and stop their infernal grumbling and complaining; no, He fed them until they were satisfied, pushing back from their tables just so full and happy without a care in the world. ‘Man, aren’t we lucky!’ But that’s when things took a turn and not a good one. In their satisfaction they started thanking each other, feeling better than others less lucky than them, feeling not just full but puffed up and preening with pride. For all they had accomplished, all the hard work they had done which was now paying off–a proud people but way-down-deep a forgetful one, an unthankful one, a nation of ingrates. They forgot who made it all, who provided it all, who had blessed them through thick-and-thin, who stayed with them when no one else had, who saved them like no one else could. How about you and me? Talk and think more about luck than blessed? Today…thank God all day long. And then let it spill over into tomorrow…and don’t stop there! Never forget Him and all His benefits. ‘Count your many blessings…see what God has done’. He asks so little of us, His children. Nothing difficult in thanking Him and giving credit where credit is due. Do it…begin now! And never stop!
OH, REALLY…Psalm 18:20-29
Oh, the wisdom of youth! If it were only true! How I wish I could take some of what I’ve learned in life, as little as it is, and play it back into decisions I made as a young man and certainly into my middle years. But as they say, no can do! Let me ask you a question. What did you think when you read Psalm 18 today? What was your reaction to what the psalmist David had written as a song of his heart? Some of the phrases just hit me the wrong way: ‘according to my righteousness’, ‘the cleanness of my hands’, ‘I have not turned away from His decrees’, ‘I have been blameless’, ‘I have kept myself from sin’…Oh, really! Like he’s singing off-key here. Now we know lots and lots about David’s life, his successes and then his struggles. Hardly one of the Ten Commandments that he didn’t break at least once and sometimes many times more. Lying, adultery, murder…you name it. So, what’s he talking about–blameless, righteous, clean? Oh, really! Let’s go back a moment and read what’s right before the body of this psalm, underneath where it says ‘Psalm 18’ (at least in most Bible’s today). Called by Bible scholars the ‘superscription’, it is from tradition identifying where a psalm comes from in the life of the author, in this case David. This is a musical psalm, as most are. It calls him ‘the servant of the Lord’, and tells us that the occasion for this psalm is God’s deliverance of David from all of his enemies and especially Israel’s jealous first king, Saul. We don’t know David’s age here, except that he is a young man, early in his life. He’s got a lot of living ahead of him, good times and bad. Good decisions and lots of not so good ones as well. Sound familiar? Certainly is my experience. When I look back I had such good intentions. Then I got in the way; me, I and myself. Am I alone in this? Hope so, but I doubt it! What I do know is that David’s exuberance quickly was deflated by his own sinful nature, and so has mine in so many ways, at so many times in my life. Let people down, said what shouldn’t have been said, done what shouldn’t have been done, selfish and thoughtless. The list is just beginning. And that is why I look to Psalm 143 for a more mature word and song from David; later in his life, looking farther back over the decades of decadence and defeat. Now he says, ‘O Lord…listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief…Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you…(Psalm 143:1, 8). David sounds a bit different here, doesn’t he? He’s been eating that humble-pie after looking carefully and honestly in the mirror of his long life. That’s why he cries for mercy, for God’s love and forgiveness, exhibiting trust not in himself but in the One who is always righteous, always good, always clean and just. It’s not about me, but about Him. God’s grace is getting what I don’t deserve. His mercy is not receiving what I do deserve. The longer I live the more I depend not on me but on the One whose grace and mercy is new every morning…both now and forever. That’s good news, right? You agree, right?
BLEACHED AS BRIGHT AND WHITE CAN BE! Read Mark 9: 2-13
My great-grandmother’s name was Eliza Jane Gibson. She emigrated from Derry Hale, Portadown, County Antrim, Ireland to the United States in 1888. She was my mother’s favorite relative and my mother always spoke so fondly of her grandmother. Didn’t she have just the loveliest of names, Eliza Jane? In 1891 she married another expatriate Irishman, James Gibson. They had 5 children;however, only 2 lived to adulthood. One died of rheumatic fever at 14 months, another died of smallpox at age 4 and yet another of some kind of tumor at age 15. After celebrating just 10 years of marriage, her husband James also dies of smallpox. Life must have been so full of challenges for Eliza Jane. In a matter of 20 short years she had left forever her family and home country, and then endured a string of unrelenting death of her husband and most of her children. I can hardly imagine the griefs she bore. Her eldest child, the only one I ever knew, was Margaret Gibson, my great-Aunt Margaret, who ironically never married, never had children and lived to a great age, just a few weeks short of her 103rd birthday! When my Aunt Margaret spoke of her mother there was always one thing she proudly mentioned over-and-over about her mother; that she washed clothes for a living, was a house-keeper for wealthy families in Jersey City, New Jersey, and that the sheets and linens she washed and bleached were brighter and whiter than what anyone else could ever do! They were so white you could hardly stand to look at them for more than a moment! I think of Eliza Jane when I read Mark’s Gospel, the 9th chapter. It’s the story of Jesus being transfigured, changed in appearance as He’s talking with Moses and Elijah, and then hearing the voice of God the Father affirming His love for His only Son, this same Jesus. Mark records that Jesus’ ‘clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.’ Brighter and whiter, dazzling with light itself, more than the brightest anything that we have ever seen! Jesus, the light of the world, lights our lives, lights our way, lightens our load of guilt and shame and sin. Some say that angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly. In Jesus, through faith in Him alone, we become light and lighter in this dark and soiled world so in need of cleansing,and washing,and bleaching and direction. ‘You (and I) are the light of the world’, Jesus said (Matthew 5:14). How about that? Time to shine? ‘This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!’ How about you? It’s time…
HEARING THE SHEPHERD’S VOICE……..Read John 10:1
One of my most vivid childhood memories is of a trip to the Bronx in New York City to attend a night game at the old Yankee Stadium, the one I thought Babe Ruth had built all by himself! I remember travelling the Cross-Bronx Expressway following the signs to the Stadium (you must know that Yankee Stadium is called ‘the Stadium’ to us back in the greater New York area as if there really is no other stadium or certainly no other of any consequence!), my father carefully parking his 1956 Lincoln Capri in one of the huge parking lots at the Stadium. Then hand-in-hand walking together along with thousands of other people up to and through the turn-stiles to have our tickets checked, then buy a program for that day’s game (who they were playing against meant nothing to this 9 year old as long as the Yankees were here in their Stadium!), inching our way up those concrete ramps to the right level squeezing through the musty, cavernous tunnels leading right out to the brightest, greenest grass I had ever seen. There was the playing field of the New York Yankees! I could hardly believe my eyes. The stadium lights were so brilliant that daytime surely could never be brighter. The smells of hot dogs and roasted peanuts and cotton candy flouted in the air. The sounds of a baseball cracking off those white bats, and of mitts slapping in reaction to a hardball going so fast and being caught so well. And then…oh yes, and then came the voice of the Yankees announcer, the man who announced their games for over 56 years. The voice of Bob Sheppard. I can still hear his euphonious voice announcing, ‘and now batting for the Yankees, number 7, Mickey Mantle, number 7’. Still sends shivers up my spine. And then Yogi and Phil and Whitey and Gil and Billy…and more shivers and thrills with each Yankee player named by Bob Sheppard. That 10th chapter of John’s Gospel tells us about sheep and the shepherd whose voice the sheep always know and follow. It’s the very voice of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. “…the sheep listen to his voice, He calls his own sheep by name and leads them…I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me…they too will listen to my voice…” (John 10:3,14,16). Just as Bob Sheppard called out each Yankee player by name, so Jesus knows us, each one of His very own, and calls us into His service…by name. Your name, my name. What’s more, He goes before us and leads us. We follow because we know His voice. As you read the Bible more and more, you’ll hear the voice of our Lord Jesus. Read it…hear it…pause over phrases that just grab you. Listen…to the Voice of the Shepherd! Do you hear Him calling, calling your name?
Reflections out of time 