Self-sacrificing stars

 

Dan 12:3

Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

Daniel compares believers in the end-times to stars, shining brightly in the very dark world which will then surround them. Paul and Timothy do the same in Phil 2:15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky. Even in Revelation, John sees Jesus holding seven stars in His hand, and He explains to him in Rev 1:20 This is the meaning of the mystery of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands: The seven stars are the angels (messengers of God, i.e. pastors/leaders) of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

Who of us have not been fascinated when looking up at the night sky and seeing those millions of stars flickering there! Few of us realize how they get to shine. Deep inside the star, temperatures and pressures are so high that hydrogen atoms collide and fuse, releasing energy. The energy produced in the core travels outward through the star's layers, eventually emerging as heat and light. The problem is that hydrogen can be depleted, and stars may then burn heavier elements to keep shining, but as these are also used up, the star will eventually die. A star therefore lives by giving of itself until there is nothing left to give - a self-sacrificial life indeed!

We recently celebrated Purim, and in that narrative we find a perfect example of a self-sacrificing star. Hadassah was the orphan girl who was chosen to be the Queen of Persia. Hadassah is the Hebrew word for myrtle, and the flowers of the myrtle tree look like stars. She changed her name to Esther when she was taken into the King’s harem, and Esther means Star!

But it was only when she decided to sacrifice her own life to save her people that she became the star she was born to be.

The implication for us as end-time believers is clear - in order to live and shine as heavenly lights, we will have to become living sacrifices, existing only to do the will of our heavenly Father.

Pearls to ponder:

If we live to selfishly keep our lives, we will dwell in darkness. But if we live to give our lives to others, we will become lights that shine in that darkness – like the stars! So, choose each day to live as a living sacrifice, to die to self and follow God only. When God instructs us to do something, let us imitate Esther and say, “If I perish, I perish, but this I have to do!” Mordechai’s words echo down through the centuries, giving us hope and clarity: You were born for such a time as this. God planned for you to live at this exact time in history – you will not fail!

Born for this

When love rebukes

 Matthew 23:37

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.

We encounter a side of Jesus here in Matthew 23 that does not fit well into our modern theology of “Love all people into the Kingdom and do not judge”. Especially when you consider the fact that He is addressing the religious leaders of His day.

The issues Jesus points out here were not said in polite, soft-spoken words, intended not to offend. Oh no, we see many of His accusations given with exclamation marks, boldly pointing out that they were leading the flock astray with their own sinful and completely wrong applications of what the words of God intended.

We see Jesus accusing them of shutting the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces because they are pretenders (teaching one law and then not keeping it themselves). They are doing all their works only to be seen of men. He calls them blind fools because they make distinctions between different objects people swear by, giving them a corrupt way to opt out of keeping their word. They are blind guides, leading people to concentrate on keeping outward minor details of religious rituals instead of tending to their inside holiness. He even refers to them as serpents and children of vipers, to my mind referring to the fact that they were led by the Kundalini spirit (a curled up snake at the base of the spine imitating the Holy Spirit), which was empowered and given access to them through their dabbling into the occultic practices of the mystical teachings of Kabbalah. (These teachings were orally transmitted down through the centuries). This is why He said in John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.

 Finally, He accuses them of murdering all the prophets who came before and even those who would still come. Jesus ends off His emotional speech by declaring their righteous punishment in verse 36 - I assure you and most solemnly say to you, [the judgment for] all these things [these vile and murderous deeds] will come on this generation.

But Jesus has not finished speaking yet. In tears, He utters the words quoted above, about His desire to gather His people under His wings, showing that the reason for His rebuke against the leaders was because of His deep love for them, a love that wanted them to repent and turn back towards God!

Pearls to ponder:

Think about the picture of a hen gathering her chicks: They feel safe and happy; part of a blessed community. They know love and grow in a healthy way; all the while being taught the correct way to go about life. This is what Jesus wants to do for you – are you willing?

Jerusalem

Adam, where are you?

 Gen 3:9

Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”

As parents, we are often confronted with children who have transgressed in some way or other. And I use the word transgress deliberately, as it conveys the meaning that they knew the rules, and yet decided to disobey.

Our reaction normally depends on factors like the age of the child; the amount of sleep we have had; our stress levels on any given day! And I know through experience with my own children that there probably were a few instances in the past where our reaction was less than, shall we say, optimal? Maybe it came out as:

“What on earth have you done!”

“Did I not specifically tell you NOT to!”

“Where are your ears – why have you stopped using them?!”

But not God. We find our Heavenly Father - knowing full well how Adam and Eve have deliberately chosen to disobey His one and only negative command (not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil) - walking toward them and asking: “Where are you?” Choosing to repair the relationship rather than accusing them and meting out punishment.

We see that during this whole encounter God gave them ample time to acknowledge their wrongdoing and ask Him to forgive and restore. He keeps on asking questions, (although of course He knew exactly what had happened), hoping all the while that they would respond honestly and admit that they were in the wrong. Eventually He Himself had to mention the eating from the forbidden tree, and how did they then answer Him? Both of them made excuses and blamed others for their own wrong choices!

Imagine the hurt in our Abba Father’s heart when He saw them not responding to His gesture of love - the outstretched hand of forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration of relationships. His punishment of their sin was unavoidable, as He is a righteous God, but I am sure that He gave it with a very heavy heart!

Pearls to ponder:

Let us be quick to repent and truthfully own up to our transgressions, without making excuses or compromising. This is not to somehow earn God’s favour and love – we have that already – but for our own sakes, so that we can continue to abide in our love relationship with our Heavenly Father without hindrances of our own making!

God of all my days

When Abraham sinned

 

Gen 2:20

Abraham introduced his wife, Sarah, by saying, “She is my sister.” So King Abimelech of Gerar sent for Sarah and had her brought to him at his palace.

The background to this sorry state of affairs is that Abraham had just interceded for his nephew Lot and his family to be saved from the Lord’s intention to destroy Sodom; Lot subsequently fled to the mountains around Zoar; and Abraham then decided to journey away from the area to the Negeb where he settled temporarily in Gerar.

Abimelech was the Philistine king of Gerar. The taking of Sarah into his harem was most probably a political move, as Abraham was known as a very rich and important man, and alliances made through marriages were commonly arranged to ensure good will between rulers.

God came to this pagan king’s rescue by warning him in a dream about the truth of who Sarah really was – Abraham’s wife – and He then instructed Abimelech to return Sarah to Abraham, which he immediately did the very next morning. God had shown Abimelech mercy by preventing him from touching her. He brought sheep, oxen, and slaves to this meeting, with the generous offer that Abraham could live anywhere in his land. He also brought a thousand pieces of silver to vindicate Sarah’s honour before all men.

Abraham’s response to all these happenings was far from what we would expect from this godly man. We find that he had not learned his lesson from the first time when he lied about Sarah being his sister (which she of course was to an extent, she was his half-sister, but half a lie is just the same as a full lie) to Pharaoh in Gen 12:10-20. God scourged Pharaoh and his household with serious plagues on that occasion and repeated His judgement again on Abimelech and his household by afflicting them with an ailment that is not disclosed here. Abraham had not learned to trust God to protect him and repeated his own corrupt plans.

Even worse, Abraham tried to shift the blame for all these events on to God. In verse 13 he said And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother."’ The word he used for ‘wander’ is the worst word available he could choose, it is always translated negatively, to be used amongst others “of animals going astray, of a drunken man reeling, or staggering, of sinful seduction, of a prophet’s lies causing the people to err, of the path of a lying heart”.

And still, despite all this - God called Abraham a prophet (verse 7). God did not cancel His promises to him. God provided Isaac through him, and centuries later Jesus Christ was born from this family line.

Pearls to ponder:

When we think about all the wrong things we continue to do before God, it is only His mercy and grace that upholds us. Consider that Jesus sees everything about us - every hidden thought; every weakness; every failure. And still He died for us, so that we can be with Him for all eternity!

The goodness of God