A Prayer For Today

¹ O God, we have heard it with our own ears - our ancestors have told us of all you did in other days, in days long ago:                                                                                                                          

² You drove out the pagan nations and gave all the land to our ancestors; you crushed their enemies, setting our ancestors free.                                                                                 

³ They did not conquer the land with their swords; it was not their own strength that gave them victory. It was by your mighty power that they succeeded; it was because you favored them and smiled on them.                        

⁴ You are my King and my God. You command victories for your people.                                                                         

⁵ Only by your power can we push back our enemies; only in your name can we trample our foes.                                                                         

⁶ I do not trust my bow; I do not count on my sword to save me.                                     

⁷ It is you who gives us victory over our enemies; it is you who humbles those who hate us.    

⁸ O God, we give glory to you all day long and constantly praise your name.                                                                                                                                     

                                                                             Interlude              

⁹ But now you have tossed us aside in dishonor. You no longer lead our armies to battle.                   

¹⁰ You make us retreat from our enemies and allow them to plunder our land.      

¹¹ You have treated us like sheep waiting to be slaughtered; you have scattered us among the nations.                                                

¹² You sold us – your precious people- for a pittance. You valued us at nothing at all.                          

¹³ You have caused all our neighbors to mock us. We are an object of scorn and derision to the nations around us.            

¹⁴ You have made us the butt of their jokes; we are scorned by the whole world.                           

¹⁵ We can’t escape the the constant humiliation; shame is written across our faces.                                       

¹⁶ All we hear are the taunts of our mockers. All we see are our vengeful enemies.         

¹⁷ All this has happened despite our loyalty to you. We have not violated your covenant.              

¹⁸ Our hearts have not deserted you. We have not strayed from your path.                             

¹⁹ Yet you have crushed us in the desert, You have covered us with darkness and death.                                                                      

²⁰ If we had turned away from worshipping our God or spread our hands in prayer to foreign gods,       

²¹ God would surely have known it, for he knows the secrets of every heart.                                                     

²² For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.                                                                     

²³ Wake up, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Get up! Do not reject us forever.                                      

²⁴ Why do you look the other way? Why do ignore our suffering and oppression?                                                 

 ²⁵ We collapse in the dust lying face down in the dirt.             

 ²⁶ Rise up! Come and help us! Save us because of your unfailing love.        

Psalm 44 (NLT)        

 

As I read this, I can’t help but see how perfectly this fits America. Like the Psalmist, we should likewise cry out to God before it’s too late. We are watching our nation crumble before us and many of us live in constant fear, but how many are truly crying out to God?

My prayer is that God would use these current events to lead many to Himself. Do I wish to see America healed, yes! But what is of most value? What is temporal and what is eternal?                                                       

                                                 

What Has That Got To Do With Forgiveness?

 

In the book, Every Man’s Battle, by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker, Arterburn writes in his foreword:

 

One of my favorite stories is of a husband who came because his wife demanded it. After the conference he confessed his affair. He was truly repentant and said he would do anything to make it up to her. She asked him to sign over all the property and assets to her – because the name on them wouldn’t matter if he was truly finished with his lust and adultery. She asked him to shave his chest, and she asked him to get braces on his teeth. He did all three because he realized his actions had humiliated her and he was willing to do anything to humble himself and win back her heart. I speak with them both regularly, and they are doing well (pg. xii).

 

Does GOD forgive like this?                                                                                                    If so, I am in serious trouble when I get to heaven.                                                                                      If I even make it…

Before I begin to explain why I have such an issue with this, let me start by saying, despite the respect I had for Arterburn in the past, I can no longer respect his opinions and I cannot recommend this book. I think his condoning of this kind of vindictiveness is just a sample of what is wrong in the church and destroying what Christ taught about forgiveness. I wonder if Arterburn would be so quick to applaud the man if he had treated his wife this way?

When I was studying family counseling, a couple of the therapist/instructors told of adultery within their own marriages. One case I remember in particular, the wife had been having an affair. When the husband found out, he described how hard it was to sleep in the same bed with her. He said he felt like she was filthy and the thought of her touching him made him physically sick. So why did he not sleep on the couch, or better still, kick her out? He said because he was her husband, it was his job to cover her with his love and protection, even after she had cheated. He said that is what Jesus does for us and he had to be obedient to God’s Word and his marriage vows. I wish Stephen Arterburn would talk to this man.

I think I see some tale-tale signs of why the man cheated in the first place. While I am not an expert in the fields of psychology or marital counseling, I have studied both, academically and personally, thus I do have my own opinions. Decide for yourself if I present a good argument or not.

The reason I say there may be signs of why he cheated, let me present the results of a study I read a few years ago. In the survey, when asked if the person they cheated with was smarter, more attractive, better educated, etc., both men and women said the person they had the affair with did not measure up to their spouse. When asked why they cheated, men said because they felt their wives did not respect them, but the other woman did. Women responded that they felt their husbands did not love them, but the other man did. (Unfortunately, I have lost many of the papers I wrote, and this is one I cannot locate).

As I stated in my paper (from memory), Paul instructed:

 

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, since we are members of His body (Ephesians 5:22-30, HCSB).

 

He concludes, “This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband” (Ephesians 5:32-33, HCSB).   

Again, Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, writes, “Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them” (Colossians 3:18-19, HCSB).

According to the study I mentioned above, men typically cheat because they do not feel respected by their wives. I think we clearly see from the text that this wife had serious issues and I believe she genuinely lacked respect for her husband. I would guess that the other woman was everything this man’s wife was not. While I do not condone his actions, he clearly demonstrates his love for his wife, his dedication to the marriage, and his repentance for the affair. I would even go so far and challenge believers to question if they demonstrate this kind of brokenness over their sins and devotion to God, or not.

I think about the parable Jesus told of the two men who went to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee was pompous and prideful, naming off all he did, even boasting how he was so much better than the tax collector. The tax collector made no excuses, not even looking up but beat his chest and confessed his sins. Jesus said the tax collector was the one who left justified (Luke 18:13-14, HCSB).

I’m not saying that every cheating spouse should be let off the hook. What I am saying is that we don’t know the details of why someone strays in the first place but when the repentant sinner returns, do they find grace and mercy?

Again, let’s return to the Scriptures one more time to see how God demonstrates forgiveness. Jesus told about a man who had two sons. The younger asked for his inheritance before his father was even dead. He took his money and went away to live a life of sin. When the money was gone and he found himself hungry, dirty, and cold, he returned a broken man, knowing he did not deserve his father’s forgiveness. He would merely ask to be a servant because they were treated better than he was with the life he had made for himself. The father was already looking for him and saw him off in the distance. He ran to meet this dirty, smelly, wretch of a man, and threw his arms around him, kissing him and crying for joy. Was his brother glad to see him? No, he sulked and would have sent him away. Knowing that this event had broken his father’s heart, he had no compassion, not even for his father (Luke 15:11-32, HCSB).

Is adultery a sin? Yes! Does it hurt the jilted spouse? Yes! Does it hurt children? Yes! Does it cause problems between the two families? Yes! Does it break GOD’s heart? Yes! Is it forgivable? You answer this one.

I hope this couple does not have children. Can you imagine the problems they will have in their marriages?

“But if you don’t forgive people, your Father will not forgive your wrongdoing” (Matthew 6:15, HCSB).

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Are You Afraid?

 

If you watch or listen to the news lately, what you will most likely hear is a myriad of angry voices hurling insults or decrying what someone else said, did, or is doing.

I was a child during the late sixties and remember the Vietnam War protests, the Civil Rights marches, and all of the anger from opposing sides, but what we are witnessing today seems far worse; to me anyway.

A few years ago, I was hearing TV gurus, like Oprah Winfrey, talking about trust your feelings, listen to your heart, and truth being relative, “What is true for you may not be true for me” and vice versa. If a dog bites your leg, the truth is, it hurts. That cannot be true for one and not true for another. Not unless one is dead, unconscious, or has no feeling in that leg. The same is true for death. A dead person is dead, physically anyway, no matter how you look at it. Now, whether the person’s soul lives on and where, might be debatable but the truth is, that person is not going to get up, walk around, and talk to you as in days before.

In all the years of my life, I have not seen the absolute hatred spewing forth as I have since the days leading up to the 2016 election, continuing up until today. I hate to think this is the new normal but I’m afraid it is. Now, before you go accusing me of being a pessimist, let me tell you why. I read my Bible every day and while I do not claim to be a Bible expert, I am not that stupid either. Okay, maybe that is disputable but just try to follow with me for a minute. Over and over in Scripture, we read about Israel and how they turned away from God. God “allowed” other, more un-Godly, nations to conquer them because they refused to listen to His spokesmen (prophets, priests, judges, etc.).

America was founded on God and His biblical principles. We were a Christian nation, not perfect, but look at us today! We murder our children, reject truth (and don’t even really know what the word means apparently), support unholy relationships, worship the creation rather than the Creator, and have allowed God to be removed from our schools, courthouses, other public institutions, and even many of our churches.

Maybe God is allowing all of the strife we are seeing today to get our attention and lead many to salvation. Should Christians be afraid though?

You may be asking yourself, where are you going with all of this?

Okay, here goes…

In his book, Be Amazed: Restoring an Attitude of Wonder and Worship, OT Commentary on Minor Prophets, Warren Wiersbe, in his section on Habakkuk, chapter 3, is discussing faith and writes, “Habakkuk has faced the frightening fact that his nation will be invaded by a merciless enemy. The prophet knows that many of the people will go into exile and many will be slain. The land will be ruined, and Jerusalem and the temple will be destroyed. Yet he tells God that he will trust Him no matter what happens!”  

“I will wait patiently on the Lord” (Habakkuk 3:16).

This is not the first time God has brought destruction on His people and their land, the land He gave them, and Habakkuk is well aware of how bad things were in the past.

Wiersbe continues, “If Habakkuk had depended on his feelings, he would never have made this great confession of faith. If Habakkuk looked ahead, he saw a nation heading for destruction, and that frightened him. When he looked within, he saw himself trembling with fear, and when he looked around, he saw everything in the economy about to fall apart. But when he looked up by faith, he saw God, and all his fears vanished. To walk by faith means to focus on the greatness and glory of God.”  

Let that sink in, “To walk by faith means to focus on the greatness and glory of God.”

He then makes what I consider to be another profound statement, “One of the marks of faith is a willingness to wait patiently for the Lord to work. ‘Whoever believes will not act hastily’ (Isa. 28:16 NKJV). When we run ahead of God, we get into trouble.”

These nuggets of wisdom just keep coming: “When you know God is working in your life, you can afford to wait quietly and let Him have His way. Furthermore, God had commanded him to wait (2:3) and ‘God’s commandments are God’s enablements.’ No matter what we see and no matter how we feel, we must depend on God’s promises and not allow ourselves to ‘fall apart. ‘Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him’ (Ps. 37:7).”

It appears that, in times such as these, we should, 1) Be still, 2) pray, and 3) wait on the Lord. No matter what is going on, God is still on His throne, and He is still, very much in charge. Instead of complaining about why God doesn’t do something, we would do well to see it rightly, He is doing something, and we need to reflect inwardly towards ourselves and ask what we are doing wrong, rather than outwardly at God and asking why He doesn’t do what we want Him too.   

I’ll let Wiersbe have the final word: “Whenever we find ourselves getting ‘churned up’ within, we can be sure that we need to stop, pray, and wait on the Lord before we do some stupid thing.”

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