As a dad of two young children I have had the opportunity to see some of the deepest longings of the human heart reveal themselves in a shockingly depraved way. Maybe we wouldn’t all put it that way but most of us dads have experienced this. This is what it looks like in my family…

My four-year-old daughter is happily focused on coloring with her markers when my one-year-old decides that he also would like to color with markers. Rather than choosing a marker from the box he decides that he wants the marker in my daughter's hand. What ensues are ear-splitting shrieks declaring, “I am in the right and I have been wronged here!”

I suggest that my daughter’s strong sense of justice is a Godly attribute. God himself declared, “the soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20). Una would phrase it, “the soul who stole my marker shall return the marker or pay.” Why then would God’s command to Una be not to seek vengeance but to overcome evil with good and live peaceably with her brother? (c.f. Romans 12:18-21). More to the point, how can we as adults obey this command in Romans from the heart when we are slandered, burned in a business deal, or taken advantage of, or are made to look foolish in front of our peers? I believe part of the answer lies in Genesis 50:21 and Matthew 26:50.

In Genesis 37 and following Joseph is thrown into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, and wrongfully accused of sexual impropriety. You know the story. In Matthew 26 Jesus is betrayed by Judas, setting into motion the events leading up to his death. It is safe to say that both Joseph and Jesus had every right to demand justice on their behalf. The shocking thing is that they did not. Joseph says to his brothers who conspired against him, “‘...do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones.’ Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them” (Gen. 50:21). Similarly, Jesus, face to face with his betrayer said, “Friend, do what you came to do” (Matt. 26:50). How is this possible? I present to you that both Jesus and Joseph had a robust understanding of God’s sovereignty over human evil.

Joseph said, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for Good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20). Jesus likewise knew that “it was the will of the Lord to crush him” (Is. 53:10) so that his people may have life.

In those moments when the proverbial marker is snatched from our hands, do we believe that God is powerful enough to use the culprit, the situation, and the injustice to bring about his good purposes? If we truly believe that even the most evil (or even just inconvenient) people are instruments in the hand of our sovereign creator, then what else can we do but love and pray for them?

This is true in overt persecution and heinous acts of evil. But it is also true in the little day to day things that can slowly embitter us and cause us to be unfruitful in the Christian life. I’m talking about the old fella on the road in front of us who is riding the brakes when we have somewhere important to be. Can God use that for our sanctification? Genesis 50 would have us remember it is not an accident! Or on the rare occasion when I am totally right and my wife is totally wrong. Can that serve as an opportunity to lay down my rights, serve my wife, and keep the peace in the house? Matthew 26:50 would have us know that even if she was as wrong as Judas, she is still my closest friend.

God is in control of the details of our lives. Do we act like it by loving our enemies, our brothers and sisters, and our spouses? 

“For thus says the LORD. the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth.’” - 1 King 17:14

There are times in every Christian’s life that the spiritual waters that nourish and give life to the soul seem to dry up, or at least reduce down to a mere trickle. In these seasons of spiritual drought, we often feel as if we should just give up on traveling to the stream of Bible study because each time we visit there it feels like a dry river bed. We read the words of God, and still believe they are power and life, but our reading seems to produce nothing and we return day after day from the rivers of living water with an empty vessel. We often feel as if we should give up on visiting the pools of prayer because every time we lower our head in prayer it feels as if we are lowing a bucket into an empty well.

In these seasons of spiritual drought, we lose strength and drive in living for the Lord. We, like the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:8–16), feel as if we are gathering sticks for our last meal before our zeal for ministry and living for Christ dies. But it is in these moments that we must hear the Word of the Lord through the prophet Elijah.

First, we must hear that the Lord still calls us to service in seasons of drought. The widow was headed out to bake her last meal and die, but the Lord meets her in that moment and commands her to feed Elijah (1 Kings 17:9). Even in our season of drought, the Lord does not say, “Don’t worry, just think about yourself.” No, the Lord still calls us to service. Now, there are seasons where we must get alone and allow the Lord to minister to us because we have burned out, but those times go beyond seasons of spiritual drought. So in the times that I feel as if I am not hearing the Lord, my study has grown cold, my prayers wanting, I need not only be looking down to pick up sticks to feed my hunger, I also need to open my eyes to see who the Lord is calling me to serve.

Now, you should be thinking, “How will I serve if I feel as if I have nothing to give?” Perfect! This is exactly where we need to be because we have reached the truth of the matter; we never actually had anything to give anyways. Perhaps all your service for the Lord up to this point has been by your own strength! You felt strong, confident, capable, put together, and out of that you served others. But now, you are weak, hungering and thirsting for righteousness and having nothing to return to but a jar to make someone else a meal where you are only able to trust that the Lord will provide. Understanding that it is the Lord who provides what we need to serve is the second thing we need to learn from this passage in 1 Kings.

This then flows into the third idea; we must be willing to give out last piece of spiritual strength for the growth of someone else with complete faith that the Lord will feed us too! Notice that Elijah tells the widow, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son.” Then listen to the promise, “For thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth.’”
In our seasons of spiritual drought, we are called to continue on with the work of the Lord with complete faith that He will provide moment by moment. And we can continue serving in the strength of the Lord and in the hope that He will once again send rain upon our parched souls and we will enjoy the sweet fellowship with the Lord.

Believer, trust that in your season of spiritual drought the Lord has not abandoned you or that you will forever be struck in drought. Know and believe what Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
1 Peter 3:18-22

This passage in 1 Peter is a traditionally difficult text to understand. In the last week or so I have been considering this passage in tandem with 1 Samuel 28. This is the account of Saul’s consultation with the medium who reluctantly calls Samuel up from the dead in order that Saul may obtain direction for battle against the Philistines. Below are some thoughts that I hope encourage some who read this.

In context, Peter’s righteous readers were reviled by the unrighteous that surrounded them. Similarly, Noah suffered as a righteous man amidst a world of unrighteousness and was delivered safely through the waters of the flood because of his faithful obedience. At that time, Noah and his family were vindicated and his enemies were put to shame (1 Pet. 3:16) because what they believed by faith came to pass and God’s judgment came upon the unbelieving world. In the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, we see that that judgment was not only temporal in nature but eternal. Jesus' proclamation to the spirits imprisoned at the time of Noah made it abundantly clear that their condemnation is final and just. As new covenant believers who endure the persecutions of an unbelieving world we can have the same hope. That is, if we remain faithful like Noah, we will be vindicated through the resurrection of Christ and our enemies will be put to shame.

What does this have to do with 1 Samuel 28 and the medium of En-dor? As I wrestle with this text (also a difficult passage), It is hard to reconcile it with Paul’s New Testament teaching that, if he were to die, he would have then gone to “be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23) or with Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross in Luke 23:43 that “today [he would] be with him in paradise. The author of 1 Samuel recorded Samuel as “coming up out of the earth” (1 Sam. 28:13) following his death in chapter 25! This does not sound to me like the paradise Jesus was speaking of.

It seems to me that one could reconcile it in one of two ways. Either Samuel, a faithful believer, was in the presence of God when he was called up from the earth or something changed (as far as where people go when they die) between Samuel’s time in Biblical history and Paul’s. It is difficult to imagine that Jesus would have made his dwelling in Sheol since Job describes it as “the land of darkness and deep shadow, the land of gloom like thick darkness, like deep shadow without any order, where light is as thick darkness” (Job 10:21-22). Also, Samuel’s words to Saul when he was called up from the dead in 1 Samuel 28:19 were, “tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me.” This implies that Saul (unfaithful) and Samuel (faithful) join together in the same place. Therefore, it seems better to take the second of the two options. That is, the resurrection fundamentally changed something in the realm of the dead. So, what changed then?

I think this is where 1 Peter 3:18-22 is key in understanding this change. If the condemnation was deemed eternal for those spirits in prison at the time of Noah then the vindication was deemed eternal for the faithful pre-resurrection saints of the old testament as well. This is the sort of two-fold judgment typical of God throughout scripture (c.f. Ex. 6:6). This would also help make sense of Ephesians 4:8-10 making Samuel one of the captives led by Jesus as he ascended on high (Eph. 4:8). To put it plainly, at the time of the resurrection, Old Testament saints could have gone from the place of the dead to the presence of Christ where they presently await their resurrection bodies and the completion of God’s cosmic plan of redemption through his son.

I would be sorry not to make some sort of application from all this talk of dead people. When we consider the resurrection do we do so as an addendum to the doctrine of the atonement? This shouldn’t be! In considering these passages I think that it is evident that the resurrection has effects that span across millennia of human history and even transcends various realms of existence. This is just the tip of the iceberg! I would love to see the church spend more time meditating on the far reaching effects of Jesus’ defeat of the grave.

“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev. 1:17-18).

“Those who walk with the wise will themselves become wise.” Proverbs 13:20

“Let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” Revelation 22:17

“Let your light so shine before men that they see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven.” Matthew 5:16

So often I think of discipleship only as the time that we are explicitly speaking about the things of the Lord together. Because this opportunity does not always present itself this can lead to a feeling of guilt that says “the time that you spend with others is not valuable because it was spent either discussing trivial matters or discussing nothing at all.”

This morning, as I prayed, I enjoyed the picture that comes from Revelation 22:17 (above) that presents a river of living water that we get to freely enjoy every time we come to God through Christ. It is through the enjoyment of this water that we are transformed into the image of Jesus himself. As we spend time with him the natural consequence is that we look more like him. You see couples who, after decades of marriage, begin to physically look like each other, share the same facial expressions, and carry themselves in similar ways. Maybe discipleship with Jesus is not so different.

What does this mean for discipleship with others? This question brings to mind Proverbs 13:20 (above). As a believer, quality time spent with other believers brings natural growth as we adopt the same Godly habits, delights, and mindsets as our brothers and sisters. This means that no moment is wasted when the Holy Spirit indwells two friends as they talk about football, pick up takeout, or move furniture. These things, when done to the glory of God, have a transformative effect that comes as a consequence of merely being together.

What about evangelism then? Does evangelism only happen when we tell others of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ? In no way do I want to detract from the importance of explicitly sharing the message of the gospel because, as so, I would be detracting from God’s very word (Romans 10:17). However, when we are simply living out the truth of the gospel and not shying away from the opportunities that God provides for such things I think that we are approaching evangelism in a more holistic fashion. In light of Matthew 5:16 I picture it like this…

If a man with a lantern were to walk through a dark cave there would be two effects. The moths would flock to the light and the cockroaches would flee (c.f. 2 Corinthians 2:16). If we direct our steps by the light of the lamp (as Psalm 119:105 instructs) it will change how we navigate work relationships, check out in the grocery line, drive our cars, wait in the drop-off line at our kids’ school, interact with our unbelieving neighbors, etc. As we do so, we wait patiently for the God-provided opportunities to tell the moths who lit the lamp that we hold in our hearts (1 Peter 3:15).

My hope is that a reminder of this perspective on discipleship and evangelism will help us to separate Satanic guilt from Godly conviction. For some of us, maybe we are hiding our lamp under a basket and denying our Lord because we are too sheepish to boldly live out the gospel and too afraid to give an account for the hope within us. When that is me, I need to hear the Holy Spirit tell me to repent. However, if we are daily setting our minds on Jesus, growing in his image in every area of our lives and not shrinking back from the opportunities he provides to share in word then I hope that this post can give us the confidence to cast off condemnation and press on in a holistic understanding of discipleship and evangelism.

For the longest time I have prayed for humility, but I never really knew what that meant. I mean, simply because I own a dictionary, I knew the definition but never understood how that fit into my life. I have heard it preached in the pulpits and taught in Sunday schools, but I always missed the application in my life. Recently I ran across this verse in a book and it really struck me, bringing me back to my quest for humility, and I believe it is good for me to share it here. Before I get started, however, I am not claiming that this covers all aspects of humility, but our humble response to God. I believe that if we can begin to understand our humble standing before God, then we can begin to understand how we should respond to man with humility.

We all want to be humble, following in the footsteps of Christ, but are we aware of what that means for our daily lives? First Peter 5:6-7 sums it up quite nicely for us: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” What is Peter telling us? Simply this, to give our every anxiety over to Him. Now, handing over every anxiety does not mean every large, massive problem in our lives that conveniently drives us to prayer, but every aspect of our lives.

Now letʼs think on this a minute. What gives me anxiety (i.e., a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome - Oxford American Dictionary)? Worrying that I am a good husband? A good father? A good student? Nervous that my income is not sufficient for the bills coming up and the food for tomorrow? Uneasy about putting my son on the school bus on the first day of kindergarden? Wondering if my sermon was pleasing to the congregationʼs ears? How about being uncertain about death?

Humility is defined as “a modest or low view of oneʼs own importance.” God does not want us to think lowly of ourselves, but to understand that He alone is our hope and our salvation. Humility is knowing that it is only by the strength of the Holy Spirit that we can weather the storms of life, knowing that God cares for us and at the proper time he will exalt us. Humility is knowing that we can never work our way into Godʼs presence, but it is only by the blood of Christ that we are saved.

John the Baptist is the epitome of humility, just read what we said in John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” By our human standards, John had every right to scream out, “I am the forerunner! I am the one that pointed Christ out! I preached repentance!” Instead, he just bowed and backed away, knowing that his purpose was to glorify God, not himself.

Humility is at the heart of all, for our very next breath of air is an event with an uncertain outcome. Our six figure paychecks (or a few less zeros) and stylish cars (maybe drop stylish) and trucks could be gone in an instant. Our very children could be stripped from our hands (Job 1) and our health could diminish before we know it (Job 2). What is humility? It is a response to Godʼs grace.

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:6-7