Gleanings From The Word: March 2020

Saturday, March 28, 2020

The Two Great Commandments

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39 NLT)

We are commanded in this portion of Scripture to love God and our neighbor. The second commandment may be the more difficult of the two to keep. What’s not to love about God, yet concerning our neighbor, most of us can think of a few things.

We are told that the first commandment, loving God, is the greatest, yet, loving our neighbor is equally important. Is this a contradiction in terms? Not really. Verse 40 tells us, “All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” They are equal in that you have to obey both to fulfill the law. Conversely, you cannot truly love your neighbor without first loving God. What you have here is an equality of the function of love, but a priority of how it applies to our lives, God first, and then our neighbor second.

If we love others more than we love God, we have started to descend into humanism. Meeting the needs of man should not be our primary motivation, but fulfilling the will of God. Trying to love God without loving our neighbor, God’s creation, is missing part of the equation for satisfying the law.

The love shown for our neighbors needs to be driven by our love for God.

Our love for God is always demonstrated by how much we love our neighbors. Though there is a definite hierarchy of our love, God first and then man, one does not exist without the other.

The image used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes, the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places” YWAM Publishing
Email: kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

God is Still on the Throne

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (Romans 8:28 NLT)

Human nature craves certainty and predictability, but Covid-19 has the world anxious because we are uncertain and unable to predict the future. God is the only one with whom we can have absolute certainty that he holds the future. In times of global crisis, there is a God in heaven who is still on the throne.

Human beings like to have control. We avoid situations and circumstances where we cannot dictate the outcomes. At times God allows events to come upon us that are beyond our ability to constrain or avoid. It seems to me that people in times like these, even Christians, tend to over-react or under-react. We try to do everything or nothing. We should do the possible and allow God to do the impossible. The possible as trying to implement good health practices such as washing our hands, social distancing, etc.. These are necessary and good, yet we must realize God is our only safety and protects us as He sees fit.

Remember we are told not to fear those who can kill the body but not the soul (Matthew 10:28). Whether we are infected or not, God will never leave us nor forsake us. When we try to do the impossible, we lose our peace and fear starts to take over. Do what you can and trust God to do what you can’t.

God is not in Heaven wringing His hands over Covid-19 nor is he unconcerned. God has a sovereign plan that sometimes does not look so pre-determined. Yet, God is still good and in control. When the infections rise, the deaths increase, there are dire predictions about the longevity of the virus, remember, that God is still on the throne.

Image used with permission by Google.

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

The God Who Provides

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions.

(Exodus 16:4 NLT)

Manna from Heaven

Reasonable demand is always met by God’s supply.

Corvid-19 is upon us, and stores everywhere have empty shelves. People are seeking wipes and disinfectant sprays like they are precious jewels. The problem is not about supply but demand. We can learn a lot from the Bible in how God taught his people to deal with supply and demand.

My daughter and son-in-law live in New York City. Last week my son-in-law went to Costco to pick a few things. One of the items was some toilet paper. He left his cart with his toilet paper in it for a few moments, and when he returned, his toilet paper was gone. Whoever took it must have believed that the demand would exceed the supply, and because of the panic over the coronavirus, he or she was probably right.

Then Moses told them, “Do not keep any of it until morning.” But some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. But by then, it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. Moses was very angry with them (Exodus 16:19-20 NLT). The people’s disobedience came from two sources. First, they did not believe God. They had to take more than they needed just in case God couldn’t or wouldn’t provide daily. Second, was their self-centeredness. They believed they deserved more than their fair share, which always breeds resentment.

In times of national distress, people start to stockpile, which brings about an imbalance between supply and demand, where some have too much and others too little. God has a better plan, which is to trust Him. We cannot speak for the world, but as Christians, we should call it what it is. This panic mentality is unbelief in the faithfulness of God. Jehovah-Jireh, the God who provides, always supplies our reasonable demands.

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

Friday, March 13, 2020

Our Spiritual Equation

But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased himto reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. (Galatians 1:15-16a)

A common mission statement among many churches and Christian organizations is to know God and make him known. You can’t make God known if you don’t know him.

Likewise, you cannot fully know him without making him known.

A chemical formula is equal on both sides of the equation. For instance, the chemical formula for water is H2O. The chemical equation is H2+O=H2O. Both sides of the equation need to be equal to form water. It is much the same with our relationship with God. We have to know him to make him known. You cannot give away what you don’t have. In a balanced Christian life, there is a dynamic tension between the knowledge of God and endeavoring to reveal him to a sick and dying world. My observation of my own experience and many others is that we often struggle to balance our spiritual equation.

Our relationship with God tends to tip in one direction or the other. We spend all or most of our time studying or praying with very little time for practical manifestations of our faith. Or we spend an excessive amount of our waking hours doing for God with little effort expended on knowing him. The answer is not either, or, but and, both.

Striking a balance between doing and being is critical. Doing for God and resting in Him need to be in equilibrium. Maintaining a dynamic tension between knowing God and making Him known balances our spiritual equation.

Image used with permission by Microsoft.