Therefore, behold, I will allure her [Israel] and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart. There I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor [troubling] to be for her a door of hope and expectation. And she shall sing there and respond as in the days of her youth and as at the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt. (Hosea 2:14-15 AMPC)
This “therefore” seems out of place. God has just finished listing the sins of the people (vv. 1-13), so I would expect Him to say something like, “Therefore, behold, I will punish you.” God would be just in this judgment.
But even when we are faithless, God remains faithful! “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).
So He says He will speak tenderly and turn your trouble into blessing. How amazing and undeserved is the love that our God lavishes on us!
(1) God allows the humble to know Him more intimately. For though the Lord is high, yet has He respect to the lowly—bringing them into fellowship with Him—but the proud and haughty He knows and recognizes only at a distance (Psalm 138:6).
(2) God gives the humble help to overcome evil. But He gives us more and more grace—power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others fully. That is why He says, “God sets Himself against the proud and haughty, but gives grace continually to the lowly (those who are humble enough to receive it)” (James 4:6).
(3) God gives His favor to the humble. …Clothe (apron) yourselves, all of you, with humility—as the garb of a servant, so that its covering cannot possibly be stripped from you…. For God sets Himself against the proud—the insolent, the overbearing, the disdainful, the presumptuous, the boastful—and He opposes, frustrates, and defeats them, but gives grace (favor, blessing) to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).
The bottom line—God mocks proud mockers but shows favor to the humble and oppressed (Proverbs 3:34).
Don’t judge your creative efforts by the world’s likes (or even by its silence). If you did your best with the talents that God gave you, the applause from nail-scarred hands is all that really matters.
“It will be vain for me to stock my library, or organize societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of myself; for books, and agencies, and systems, are only remotely instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner life, are my battle axe and weapons of war.” —Charles Spurgeon
“A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool.” —G.K. Chesterton
The paleontological evidence of dinosaur fossils is most easily explained by the Flood described in the Bible. ICR reports, “Virtually every dinosaur fossil ever found is ensconced in sedimentary or (rarely) volcanic sediments, indicating a sudden and catastrophic deposition. … So why would paleontologists entertain bizarre extinction explanations such as slipped discs, sunspots, or magnetic reversals? Because if a scientist dismisses the global Flood out of hand, then anything goes when trying to explain the dinosaur demise.”
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Esther was unsure if Xerxes would extend favor to her, but God is already extending His favor to you even before you approach Him. He wants to turn your grief into joy.
Let your grief be a time you press into God’s presence. Like Esther taking her grief and her petition into the king’s presence, take your grief into the presence of King of kings.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
None of us are strangers to grief—we’ve all experienced this dark place.
The dictionary defines grief three ways: (1) keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; (2) sharp sorrow; (3) painful regret. We sometimes define it with terms like at the end of my rope, down for the count, nothing but gray skies all around, or unable to see any light at the end of the long tunnel.
One psychologist recently asked, “Can you die of a broken heart?” And she meant it literally. She wondered if a person’s grief—what we sometimes call an emotionally broken heart—could lead to a physically broken heart. The answer was, quite simply, yes. Those who cannot get relief from their grief are more susceptible to heart disease, autoimmune disorders, and breakdowns in their immune system.
We need some good news to pull us out of our grief. The good news is that God specializes not just in removing grief, but in turning grief into joy. In the hymn O Holy Night, one of the lines says, “In all our trials, born to be our Friend. He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger.” Isaiah calls Jesus, “A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
Grief tends to wash over us in waves. When the waves hit, they often cause us to forget what God has done for us in the past. The apostle Paul said we should learn lessons from the history of the Israelites in the Old Testament. Let me zoom in on one particular story. Notice the waves of grief that follow one after another.
Israel was complacent about their sin (Amos 6:1, 4-7) and eventually was taken into captivity in Assyria. Soon after that, the Assyrians then defeated by the Babylonians. Meanwhile, instead of learning the lessons from Israel’s captivity, Judah had more evil kings than God-fearing kings and they were eventually defeated by the Babylonians (Psalm 137:1-4). Babylon was then defeated by the Medes and Persians.
Somewhere in this time of exile, a young Israelite girl named Hadassah becomes orphaned. She is adopted by Mordecai, who changes her name into the Persian name Esther. Queen Vashti is divorced and banished by King Xerxes, and as a result Esther is chosen from all of the eligible bachelorettes in Persia to become queen in Vashti’s place.
Mordecai is an attendant at the gate to the castle, giving him a good vantage point to stay in touch with Esther. It also puts him in a place to overhear an assassination plot against King Xerxes, which Mordecai relayed to Esther to tell the king. Sadly, Mordecai’s good deed, which saved King Xerxes’ life, is overlooked. Instead, Mordecai’s faith is attacked by Haman, the prime minister, and all of the Jews in Persia are targeted by Haman for destruction. Once again, Mordecai gets word to Esther to have her appeal to the king. Esther is put in a no-win situation here: to approach the king without an invitation could be fatal, but to do nothing would mean the death of all of the Jews.
How did all of this come to be?
Let me take you back to Deuteronomy 8:3. God allowed His people to be humbled and hungry so that they would learn that He is their only source. In the following verses we are told twice to “beware”: beware of forgetting that God is our Provider, and beware of thinking we are our own provider. If we do either of these, God will discipline us (Deuteronomy 8:5).
God isn’t mentioned at all in the Book of Esther, but He is so obviously at work. God said, “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isaiah 46:10). Before the Israelites went into captivity, God promised that His people would not be annihilated there but would return to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 31:10-17).
Esther did interceded before King Xerxes. Because of this, Haman was hanged, Mordecai was exalted to Haman’s place, and the Jews were saved (Esther 7:1-6; 8:1-2, 15-17; 9:20-22; 10:3).
God turned overwhelming grief into unspeakable joy!
Dick Brogden wrote, “Are you overwhelmed, out of strength, nowhere to go, out of resources, at a most critical time in your family, ministry, job, or life? Great! God allowed it so that all the earth may know that He is God alone. Don’t waste the crisis. It’s a great opportunity for missions, a great opportunity for God’s glory to be known in all the earth.”
Let your grief be a time you press into God’s presence. Like Esther taking her grief and her petition into the king’s presence, take your grief into the presence of King of kings.
Esther was unsure if Xerxes would extend favor to her, but God is already extending His favor to you even before you approach Him. He wants to turn your grief into joy.
God doesn’t want to simply remove your grief, but He wants you to be testimony for Him because of the way He moves on your behalf.
Follow along with all of the messages in our series Grief Into Joy by clicking here.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
We’ve made it to the top step after a long climb. We’ve arrived! But arrived for what? Not for taking it easy, but for serving.
Jesus was at the top, and consider what He did with that position:
He laid aside His prerogatives as God to serve us—Philippians 2:6-8
He demonstrated this by becoming a servant of the servants—John 13:3-5
He said, “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as One who serves.” (Luke 22:27)
We strive for the top not to be served, but to serve. This is why the final Song of Ascent addresses those at the top as “servants of the Lord” (Psalm 134:1).
The first duty of the servants is to praise (2x in vv. 1, 2). The KJV actually renders this word “bless,” which I believe is a good way for us to think about this. The word means:
praise God with a reverential mind and
celebrate God on bended knee
In other words, both our heart and our body need to be in a posture of a praising servant. In the Septuagint, the word used for praise / bless is eulogeo, which means to say good words. In putting the two parts of the definition together, it mean we aren’t grumbling about our service (like “I have to do this”), but we are thankfully and worshipfully serving (as in “I get to do this!”).
These servants are called to “minister…in the house of the Lord [and] in the sanctuary” (134:1-2), just as the priests in the tabernacle (1 Chronicles 9:33; Leviticus 6:13; 24:2, 4).
This blessing and serving is itself a blessing which unlocks even more blessing. The final words of the final Song of Ascent is a prayer request (notice the word “may” in v. 3).
The word bless in this final is the same word translated praise in vv. 1-2, except here the form of the verb means “to be shown divine favor”!
We don’t get blessed by God because we have blessed God, but we bless God because He has already blessed us. I don’t command His blessing, but I bless Him in recognition of the blessing that continually flows from Him to me.
To word minister as in v. 1 means to:
endure all hardships
continue until the task is done
cause or help others to stand too
God loves to bless people who love to bless people!
As long as we’re here, keep blessing and serving others as your act of worship to God. Say good words to people about God and say good words to God about people. Lift up your hands, fall on your knees, sing out loud, or worship quietly in your heart. But keep on serving like Jesus. All of this blesses God.
Your final and eternal reward in the Heavenly Zion is coming and it is beyond compare—
It will be good for those servants whose Master finds them watching when He comes. Truly I tell you, He will dress Himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose Master finds them ready, even if He comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. (Luke 12:37-38)
In blessing others, we are blessing the God who has already blessed us and who longs to bless us for all of eternity!
If you’ve missed any of the messages looking at the fifteen Songs of Ascent, you can find them all here.
Answer me when I call, God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; be gracious to me and hear my prayer. … But know that the Lord has set apart the godly person for Himself; the Lord hears when I call to Him. (Psalm 4:1, 3)
I can’t come into God’s presence in my own strength. But when I am clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, the distress of my sin is relieved and I am joyfully welcomed into the awesome presence of my Heavenly Father! He longs to hear my voice, and He loves to be gracious to me!
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Love should be blind. That is, we should be so enamored with the one we love that we are blind to all others. There are some sweet lyrics to a 1932 song called “I only have eyes for you”—
My love must be a kind of blind love
I can’t see anyone but you
and, dear, I wonder if you’ll find
love an optical illusion too
Are the stars out tonight?
I don’t know if it’s cloudy or bright
‘cause I only have eyes for you, dear
The moon may be high
But I can’t see a thing in the sky
‘cause I only have eyes for you
I don’t know if we’re in a garden
or on a crowded avenue
you are here and so am I
maybe millions of people go by
but they all disappear from view
‘cause I only have eyes for you
Instead of having dedicated eyes, what would you think of someone who was constantly “checking out” those other than their sweetheart? That’s what the song of ascent in Psalm 123 calls on us to contemplate.
Notice the use of the word “eyes” four times in just the opening two verses. The psalmist is asking us, “Do you only have eyes for God, or are you glancing elsewhere?”
The call throughout the Bible, from beginning to end, has always been for a steadfast, loving eye for our loving God. From Moses to Jesus, the call is to love God above all else—to only have eyes for Him (Deuteronomy 6:5; Mark 12:30). I think this is why Jesus taught us to pray for a daily look to our Father’s hand for each moment’s provision (Matthew 6:11).
This is not a begrudging “have to look” but an “I cannot help but continually look.” David said it this way, “Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits” (Psalm 68:19)!
When we continually keep our eyes on our loving Heavenly Father, we see more and more of His graceful favor toward us. It’s the proud and arrogant (in verses 3-4) that think they have to take care of themselves, or that they have to keep their eyes open to other possibilities.
God loves to shower His favor on those who only have eyes for Him: “Out of His fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given” (John 1:16). This reminds me of the waves on the shore, where one wave of grace continually follows the previous wave of grace, which is quickly followed by yet another wave of grace. In fact, this idea is beautifully captured in the Amplified Bible’s rendering of this verse—
For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all received—all had a share and we were all supplied with—one grace after another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon favor and gift heaped upon gift.
God’s grace isunearned by our efforts, undeserved despite our sins, and unending for all of eternity!
This song of ascent assures us that the humble servant who only has eyes for God is:
grateful for past blessings
unashamed of his total dependence on God’s provision
So the questions we need to ask ourselves are simply, “Where are my eyes? Do I only have eyes for my God, or do I keep my options open? Do I humbly and confidently bring my petitions to God, or do I take matters into my own hands?”
Since this is a song of ascent, let’s make sure that our song to God is always, “I only have eyes for You!”
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
“Ezekiel will be a sign to you…” —God (Ezekiel 24:24).
How many times have I told God, “I am Your servant. Use me as You know best”?
But do I really want that?
Ezekiel is told by God in the ninth year of their captivity in Babylon, on the tenth day of the tenth month, that the siege of Jerusalem had begun that very day. Ezekiel is then instructed to share this news with his fellow exiles. God tells Ezekiel that after he shares this news, he will be unable to speak until a messenger arrives in Babylon to confirm the report.
That same day, God also tells Ezekiel that his wife will die, but that he is not to mourn over this loss. God had grieved for years over Judah’s slide away from Him, but He could no longer grieve because it was now time for Judah’s punishment. Perhaps just like Judah’s slow downward slide, Ezekiel’s wife had been in declining health too, but now Ezekiel was called to obey God in this second illustrated sermon.
About seven months later, Jerusalem’s walls were broken through, King Zedekiah was captured, and about three weeks later Nebuzaradan torched the city. On that day, Ezekiel lost his power to speak, just as God said he would, and Ezekiel remained mute for nearly two years (2 Kings 25:1-10; Ezekiel 24:1-2, 15-27; 33:21-22).
This is what it means to be used by God. He used Ezekiel as His illustrated sermons to vividly show the exiles the consequences of their sinful choices.
But we don’t read a single word of complaint or bargaining from Ezekiel—just complete obedience.
A mark of a godly leader is one who signs a blank check for God to fill in the amount.
The leader that serves God in this obedient way is one who is highly esteemed by both God and men. God said, “As for you, son of man, your people are talking together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, saying to each other, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the Lord.’ … When all this comes true—and it surely will—then they will know that a prophet has been among them” (Ezekiel 33:30, 33).
I want to believe that I am willing to serve God this way but am I truly willing? Perhaps my prayer should be, “Father I want to be able to be used by You. I want to say that I am ready for You to use me as You see best. But You alone truly know my heart. Holy Spirit, if I am not as committed as Ezekiel was, please do Your work in me so that I can truly say, ‘I am ready to be used.’”
This is part 63 in my series on godly leadership. You can check out all of my posts in this series by clicking here.
Therefore, behold, I will allure her [Israel] and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart. There I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor [troubling] to be for her a door of hope and expectation. And she shall sing there and respond as in the days of her youth and as at the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt. (Hosea 2:14-15 AMPC)
Craig T. Owens 