Excuses, Excuses from Exodus 4:1-19

Today I am commenting on Exodus 4:1-19, which reads:    

Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.” Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous - it had become as white as snow.  “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh. Then the Lord said, “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.” Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.” Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.” Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.” Jethro said, “Go, and I wish you well.”

We often think that we can’t or won’t do certain things but then we find that we are wrong.  Jerry Clower once told a story about just such a time.

One of his cousins at Yazoo, MS was known to be a great fisherman, who always came home with a cooler full of fish.  The local game warden became suspicious of this cousin’s success and decided to go fishing with him to discover his secret.

After they got out on the lake, the cousin reached into his tackle box and pulled out a primed stick of dynamite.  He lit the fuse, tossed it in the water, and . . .  bam! The dynamite exploded.  Up boiled the water and dozens of stunned fish.  The cousin began to use his net to pull them in the boat.

About that time the game warden got his voice back and said, “Man, what are you doing?  Don’t you know you can’t fish like that?”

The cousin reached into the tackle box, lit the fuse on another stick of dynamite and stuck it in the game warden’s hand.  “Now,” he said, “are you gonna sit there and talk, or are you gonna fish?”

As we look at our Scripture passage for today, we find Moses in a similar situation as the game warden. 

EXCUSE ONE: THEY WON’T BELIEVE ME 

God was calling Moses to a huge task. He was to return to Egypt where he was wanted for murder and to confront Pharaoh, a despotic, murderous king. Then, he was to lead the Hebrews who scorned him to Canaan. Has God ever asked you to do such a thing? I know He has never asked me to do something so fear-inspiring.

Moses feared that no one would believe him. Often, our fears are not realistic but his was a real fear. From the standpoint of the Jews he was the failed adopted son of Pharaoh. Why trust him? From the standpoint of the Egyptians he was a nobody shepherd from the backside of the desert. Anyway, who ever heard of a burning bush?

In truth, many of his objections were the result of his own impetuousness. 

I remember the case of a young preacher who got ahead of God and his own congregation. He was initiating ministries out in the community without consulting the leaders of his church and without proper planning. A deacon got his attention one day by telling him, “Young man, if you want to go where no man has gone before, you are going by yourself!” The deacon was not opposed to the objectives of the ministries, but to the way the young minister was pursuing them autonomously and without developing a team effort.

In response to his objection, God gave Moses a reassuring promise. He gave him two signs, the snake and the leprosy, and He reminded Moses of His power and might. Moses needed to realize that God will take our lives and make a sign of them for Himself. As the hymn says, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” 

Likewise, we must never discount the power of personal testimony; as the blind man healed by Christ proclaimed, “I was blind, but now I see!”

EXCUSE TWO: I DON’T SPEAK VERY WELL  

Moses, in his fright, forgot some important facts when making this excuse. He forgot that God made his tongue. He forgot that God could make his tongue work. He forgot that God knew his problem and took it into account. Moses was having “I” trouble. He was focused on himself and had forgotten Who was conversing with him.

We too, are afraid to speak at times:

In witnessing situations.

In testimony situations.

When confronting sin.

When counseling and comforting. 

We often don’t know what to say in grief situations. Often the best thing is to say nothing and allow the comfort of our loving presence do the work. This is not applicable in every situation, however and we too, have “I” trouble and forget God’s promises.

We must remember that God promised He would give us the words we need. We only need to make ourselves available to God. As Luke 12:11-12 says: “Now when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer, or what you should say. ‘For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.’”

EXCUSE THREE: I DON’T WANT TO GO  

The central problem is the “I” trouble Moses was having. It really wasn’t his reputation and prior acts. It was not his ability to speak or preach. It was not his ability to do signs and wonders. It was that he just didn’t want to go!

He didn’t want to because he was afraid. Fear is a natural emotion and despite God’s demonstrations of power, Moses still feared. Of course, we get afraid, too but as an instructor at the US. Army Airborne School told us in Class 37-79: “It is OK to be afraid, but it is not OK to give into it.”

The best antidote for fear is knowledge, but knowledge of the correct subject. Moses may have been a shepherd from the backside of the desert, but he was actually a learned man. He was taught many things by Pharaoh in Egypt and by Jethro, his father-in-law, in Midian. Moses also learned much about survival and nature by following sheep in the desert but what he needed most was to know God. 

Some people say they can worship God on the riverbank just as well as in church.  Moses shows that they are wrong.

THE END OF EXCUSES  

God can only be pushed so far. He is the omnipotent creator and the sovereign king of the earth. His plan and will are righteous and best.

God is patient, but, in the end, He will be obeyed!

Yet, even though God would not be denied, He was gracious, and He equipped Moses. He gave him a mouthpiece, his brother Aaron.

In the same way, God equips us because God does not call the equipped, but He equips the called:

The Holy Spirit is our comforter and helper.

We have spiritual gifts, pastors, teachers, and deacons.

We have the whole counsel of the Word of God plus many Bible study and training resources.

At the end of all the excuses was Moses’ obedience. In the end he complied with God’s will and he returned to Egypt. He decided to be a tool of God to further God’s redemptive plan.

CONCLUSION:

The story is told of an Army Reserve Doctor who during Desert Shield tried to avoid being mobilized. He reported at the designated place and time but implored his commander to excuse him from the deployment because of his bustling medical practice. His commander just looked at him and said, “Grab your bag and get in line!” 

In the end, Moses grabbed his bag and got in line with God. What is it you can’t do that God asks of you? Nothing! All you have to do is grab your bag and get in line with God!

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt

A Living Sacrifice

Today I am commenting on Romans 12:1-3, which says,

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Paul taught us in the Book of Romans that God has reached down into our lives and has done something remarkable for us.  He has caused us to become righteous in our position before Him through our faith in the work of Christ.

This is called “imputed righteousness,” and it is given to us by the grace and mercy of God through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. We are made righteous, not by anything we do, but by what was done for us, what was done on our behalf on the first Easter Sunday. We are greatly blessed by this, because if we received what we really deserved it would be eternal punishment in Hell. Instead we have received abundant life in the here and now and in the hereafter.

Our response should be to become “A Living Sacrifice.”  The problem is, as one of my seminary professors used to say, that living sacrifices tend to crawl off the alter.  Let us look today at how we can be better living sacrifices.

First, We Must Present Our Bodies To God: 

Today, more than ever, we are conscious of our bodies: slim is in, plump is out! We work out, watch our cholesterol, try to eat right and exercise equipment and gym memberships are best-sellers.

Unfortunately, like all human endeavors, things can get out of balance. We have seen numerous scandals concerning performance enhancing drugs in almost all sports and popular “health” habits like tanning can cause melanoma. Dieting can become anorexia nervosa and liposuction can result in deadly infections. Some clothes makers have begun cutting clothes more generously so buyers can feel better about themselves fitting into “smaller sizes.”

So, what is the proper response? Commit our bodies to God and use them to glorify Him and not ourselves. 

When new owners buy out a business, they often invest significant sums of money in rebranding it to show it is different than before and has new owners. The same should be true of people; their outward lives should reflect to whom they belong.  For Christians, of course, that is God and our bodies, and our lifestyle must honor Him

We Must Present our Minds to God:

What we believe is important because all events are filtered through what we believe. This is demonstrated with a common parlor trick: When shown two lines and told one is longer than the other, people “see” a difference in the lines. Our minds are powerful, and they can play tricks on us, and how we believe the world works affects all our thoughts.

How do people view God in the world today?

Some say there is no God (atheism & secularism).

Some believe in many gods (new age, animism, & polytheism).

Some believe in one impersonal god (deism).

We, of course, believe in one personal, powerful God: Our God!

We need to renew our mind-set in the information-saturated age in which we live. All kinds of ideas, and all kinds of “facts” flood into our lives daily from the news media, social media, entertainment, and other sources, both digital and analogue. We must learn to discern truth from fiction.

God gave us a wonderful brain, and we must use it! As one commentator on this passage noted, Paul talks about the renewal, not the removal, of our minds! 

We need to: read the Bible, pray, worship, attend Bible study, read Christian books, as well as reflect on the ideas present to us as we talk with others about them. We need to stretch ourselves and our minds. As the slogan of the United Negro College Fund goes, “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste.” This is equally true for Christians today.

We Must Present our Wills to God:

There are three basic areas of our lives: the physical, the mental and emotional, and the spirit and will. As 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

To be a complete sacrifice, all areas of our lives must be presented to God, including, and especially, our wills. 

If someone offered to give you a car, and said to you, “This car is beautiful, and the body is spotless. It has the best GPS system and best in-car entertainment system available. It has all-digital controls which you can change at the touch of a button. It is a great car, but, oh, by the way, it has no motor.” Would you be interested in it? Even as a gift, would it be useful to you?

If we don’t bow our knee and surrender our will to our Father, we are just like that car which is complete except for the motor. Knowing right from wrong is not enough; we must obey Him! We must be willing to do and think the right thing!

In addition, obedience in the wrong spirit is not enough either! 

I know a fellow who, back in the 1970’s was something of a hippie. He dressed the part, from his long hair down to wearing sandals on his feet, but at the same time he was an excellent mathematician. He went to college and graduated with a degree in mathematics and became a business executive. A friend from school saw him one day and said, “I never thought I’d see you wearing a suit and tie!” The fellow replied, “Yes, but inside I am still wearing sandals!”

Let me say, that I included that story not to criticize someone who has to dress for business but not enjoy it. It is a different thing with God, however.

Like a saddle-broke horse, we must allow our stubborn wills to be broken for the Lord! We must have the same internal attitude of obedience and submission as we do an external appearance of obedience and submission. Our lives must be congruent in private as well as in public; in our hearts as well as in our actions.

Conclusion:

As we consider the redeeming work of Christ on our behalf on the cross, let us commit ourselves to be living sacrifices for Him.  Let us present our bodies, our minds, and our wills to Him today! May He be sovereign over all components of our lives, all of the time!

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt

God's People: Unified, Gathered, and Reconciled

Today I want to comment on some Scripture passages which point us toward the  ministry of reconciliation.

Sometimes, even the nicest of people can become irritable. I am reminded of a bad, old, joke about a group of monks who had taken a vow of silence. However, each year on a monk’s birthday he could say one sentence at breakfast time. 

When one monk’s birthday came, he looked at his breakfast and said, “I don’t like oatmeal.”

When the next monk with a birthday got to say his sentence, he looked at the first monk and said, “I like oatmeal.”

Finally, a third monk got to say a sentence on his birthday, and looking at the other two said, “I’m tired of all this bickering over oatmeal!”

I said it was a bad joke. 

Sadly, the state of relationships in our country today is no joke. Divisions exist between people of different cultures, genders, faiths, and generations. Even more sadly, divisions and conflicts are also common between people with common cultures, genders, faiths, and generations. In observing news programs and various social media outlets it seems as if no one agrees with any one about anything.

As might be imagined, God has a different idea. Our God is not a God of dissension and confusion. Let me present just three passages of Scripture to support that assertion.

God Unifies:

Instead of dividing people, God unifies them in a common faith, as we see in Psalm 133:1-3:

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the LORD ordained his blessing, life forevermore. 

We all know that bad family relationships are often intractable and end badly (like the way that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery), but we also all know that a harmonious family is one of the most nurturing and supportive relationships known to humanity. 

The Psalmist describes the joy of living in such unified relationships very vividly. We can’t understand the full meaning of these similes today, but they obviously implied a joyous and intensely satisfying experience in the eyes of the author.

Clearly, God wants people to live in unity as the family of humankind, supporting one another, and loving Him, the one who provided us both temporal and eternal life.

God Gathers:

Instead of excluding people, God gathers all people to Himself who seek His face and accept His Sovereignty as we see in Isaiah 56:6-8:

And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant--these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. 

The cultures of the Middle East have historically been known to be hospitable cultures. They have welcomed weary travelers from afar off, and offered them food, shelter, and rest. Sojourners would find the sustenance they needed to continue their journey from almost every household in the land. Isaiah, however, refers to a deeper, permanent reception on the part of God.

Our God not only helps sojourners on their way, He actually wants them to stay, and become a part of His kingdom, His household, His family. He receives their worship, hears their prayers, and makes them a part of His people. He accepts them, not as strangers to be fed and then sped away, but as integral members of His gathered flock. He is not only hospitable to them but also allows them to belong.

By its nature, ministry can be an itinerant calling. It is easy to become a “cut flower” without roots in the community where you reside and where you minister. This makes it all the sweeter when a church or a community embraces a pastor and his family and make them a true part of the fellowship and the fabric of local society. While most people can’t imagine how this feels, I can, because I have experienced it, and it is awesome. The thing is, our acceptance and embrace by God is so much more awesome, words are inadequate to describe the wonder of that blessing!

God Reconciles:

Instead of pushing people away, God reconciles them to Himself and to each other as we see in Ephesians 3:13-20:

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 

Even a cursory observation of human behavior will reveal that people offend one another with their behavior. A cursory review of the Scriptures will reveal that people also offend God with their behavior. Many have also observed that when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments about half of them teach us how to behave towards God and the other half teaches us about how to behave towards each other. I think this fact reveals God’s heart.

It seems obvious that humans in the 21st Century have become more, not less judgmental. They have become more critical and less accepting of one another, and they often reject any attempts at reconciliation. If anyone has ever said, done, wrote, or thought anything that offends another, or if anyone has ever had an attitude, opinion, or political position with which another disagrees, that person is cancelled. Not only is the “they are dead to me!” attitude a prevalent response to conflict or offense, now it seems as if being merely “dead” is not enough. The offending person and anything they love must be utterly and completely destroyed. Sadly, this tendency is not just seen in secular culture, but can be found in churches as well. 

God, however, is a reconciling God. He sent His Uniquely Begotten Son to lay down His life to become a bridge between God and people and also to unite people in His reconciling love for us. Instead of utterly destroying us, God worked to repair the breech between Him and us, and between each other as well. 

When someone repents and confesses their sin, through Christ, God will forgive them as 1 John 1:9 tells us, “When we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If the God of the universe is willing to forgive us, should we not also forgive those who repent and confess their sins against us?

Not only does God reconcile, He has also given His people a ministry of reconciliation. Far from “cancelling” one another, God wants us to enjoy the fruits of a ministry of bringing brothers and sisters together in harmony and peace.

Conclusion:

As fractious as our society and churches are today, I know for a fact that people with ruptured relationships can be reconciled. 

Long ago in a church far away from where I now live, I worked with two church leaders who had developed a strong contention with each other. As their pastor, I was trying to help this congregation revitalize itself, and this situation had become disruptive to that effort, and besides that, I liked both of these men and it saddened me to see them alienated.

I am glad to say that I was able to bring them together, at a neutral site, and gently speak to them about their need to reconcile for the sake of the church and reputation of Christ. The Holy Spirit moved in their hearts, and they repented of their contention and agreed to cooperate for the good of all concerned. To my knowledge, they never became fast friends, but they were amicable, in addition to being important leaders that helped our church move forward.

Would to God that our churches and our nation would seize the vision of reconciliation!

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt

Alone, Unarmed, and Afraid from 1 Kings 19

Today I am commenting on Elijah’s despair as seen in 1st Kings 19. The first four verses of that passage read:

Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”

From that passage of Scripture, we might get the impression that the prophet Elijah had been a failure and that he was running away because he had lost a battle. Nothing was further from the truth, however. Elijah had just orchestrated the show-down on Mount Carmel in which God showed up and God showed out. God demonstrated his mighty power and Baal was shown to be a fraud. The prophets of Baal were all killed, and righteousness had been restored in Israel. It was all good, right? Apparently, not so much . . . 

Humans have a strange but inescapable tendency to give into our fears.  On several occasions during WWII, admirals of the Imperial Japanese Navy won tactical victories over Allied warships, but then turned away from vulnerable groups of transport ships and retreated. In the same way, Admiral Nagumo won a stunning victory at Pearl Harbor, but he flinched at sending a third airstrike, which would have made the victory even greater and would have crippled the ability of the US Navy to strike back for months or years to come. Elijah showed us in this passage that he was not immune from this flaw in the human psyche.

The Source of Our Despair:

On the physical and psychological level, it seems obvious that Elijah was having a stress reaction. Hans Selye was a psychologist who studied stress and developed a theory that he called the General Adaptation Syndrome. He wrote that, in a crisis, people experience an alarm reaction, followed by resistance, which is followed by exhaustion. We can clearly see this pattern in the account of the showdown on Mount Carmel and then Elijah’s subsequent fear, despair, and flight.

While Selye provided the General Adaptation Syndrome as an explanation of what happens when we give into our stress and fears, he also gave us an explanation of how to be resilient in the face of stress.

In his book Stress Without Distress, Selye defined stress as any demand, good or bad, that was placed on our lives. 

Some stress is bad stress, which he called distress. Distress is seen in challenges like financial pressure, car wrecks, death of a loved one, a difficult assignment at work, raising children, caring for a sick elderly parent, or, in the case of Elijah, having a confrontation with the Prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel for all the world to see.

Along with distress, Selye also identified eustress. Eustress is the positive things that come into our lives, like pay raises, petting a puppy, hugging a loved one, enjoying a hobby, being recognized by your boss for doing a good job, or relaxing with friends on the weekend. As a Christian, I also believe worshipping God and prayer, along with any number of other spiritual activities, also provide us with eustress. 

Distress and eustress counteract each other. It is like our life is a stress bank account. We can pay into that account by gathering eustress. When we experience distress, we draw down that account. If we draw it down too far, we experience exhaustion, dismay, and depression.

And old joke in days gone by was that some young people would get into financial trouble after they opened their first bank account because they thought that just because they still had checks in their check books, they still had money in the bank. Of course, today people don’t use checks very much, but another old saying does apply in this situation, “Don’t let your ego write a check that your abilities can’t cash!”

Elijah had experienced a stressful, if successful, experience on Mount Carmel. He had gone through all the first two phases of alarm and resistance. Now he was exhausted. Elijah felt that day the same way many pastors feel on Monday morning; worn out, stressed, depressed, and afraid. The good news is that ways do exist to avoid the crushing despair that Elijah and so many pastors and other Christian leaders can experience from stress.

The Remedy for Our Despair:

First, before the struggle, build-up your eustress. Eustress levels take time, effort and intentionality to build and few people are good at managing these factors. Yet, like our financial bank accounts, we must pay eustress into our stress accounts before we can draw on it. We might be able to mortgage our future in financial terms, but we can’t borrow psychological and spiritual resiliency from another person. We have to build our eustress ourselves so that we have sufficient liquidity in our stress banks to face the challenge of the day.

We build eustress by eating well, getting sufficient sleep, exercising, and enjoying positive forms of recreation. We also build it through good interpersonal relationships and by pursuing a right relationship with God. We must do these things regularly because we also face distress regularly.

By the way, we can’t make up for the lack of eustress in time of crisis by self-medicating with drugs or alcohol, or by gluttony, or by unbridled sensuality. These habits may dull the painful symptoms of stress for a time, but they are actually the cause of more stress, resulting in a spiraling descent into destruction.

Second, during the struggle we must keep our feet on the ground. As many military commanders have discovered, the first reports of disaster in battle are usually exaggerated, if not totally wrong.  Elijah gave into catastrophic thinking; he exaggerated how bad things were and he gave into his fears. 

Jesus was right, of course, when he advised in Matthew 6:34, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  

Too often, instead of building ourselves up today, we borrow trouble from tomorrow. That is a recipe for emotional and spiritual bankruptcy! 

The truth was that thousands of righteous followers of God were still present in Israel. Elijah was not alone, although he did isolate himself, which leads to our next point.

When in a crisis we should not isolate ourselves from others. There is strength in numbers and mutual support from others is critical when facing adversity. Jesus, of course, knew this and he sent out the twelve to do ministry two-by-two, just as He did later with the seventy. 

It is instructive to note that, when Peter betrayed Jesus, he was alone, but, earlier in the evening, when Jesus was praying in the Garden before His arrest, He was surrounded by His closest companions. However, Jesus was alone on the Cross when He cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Elijah was alone during his crisis of stress and he had no friend or colleague to encourage him or to bring him back to the reality of his situation.

Finally, we need to remember who it is that we serve. Like God did with Elijah, He will reveal himself to us in our time of crisis:

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11-13).

What a great question! “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He was there in that dark place because he had forgotten who he was serving. When we confront crisis, we need to remember who it is that we serve. 

We don’t own our ministries, our families, or even our own lives. As a follower of Christ, we are the servants of the Most High God, and we are stewards of everything He has entrusted to us. While God expects us to be diligent, and to be obedient, He does not expect us to be the ones who bring success. He reserves that right and privilege to Himself. As Paul said to the church at Corinth, 

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Much stress is brought into our lives when we make ourselves responsible for matters which belong to someone else. The success and failure of our ministry efforts is best left in God’s hands!

As we remember whom we serve, we also need to remember that God knows our weakness and frailty. Jesus, himself, recognized that in humans, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Paul knew this also and encouraged the church at Rome by teaching them that, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” 

So, God not only brings the increase, but He also empowers us to serve Him! How can we go wrong when we access His power through maintaining a close relationship with Him! As we sing in the classic hymn, “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able, to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”

Conclusion:

Any soldier who goes into battle untrained, unprepared, ill-equipped, and alone is bound to suffer a defeat. Like the one who brings a knife to a gunfight, many Christians are overconfident and self-assured, until the reality of life sets in. As Mike Tyson has said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth!” And, life has a way of punching us in the mouth, even when we experience a success, and even more when we experience failure.

Like Elijah, we all will experience a dark day of the soul, sooner or later. Let’s prepare for that day of challenge in advance so that we can bring glory to the God who deserves our trust, loyalty, devotion, and our good witness in word, deed, and attitude.

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbitt