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 2 Chronicles 29: 10-19

Hezekiah was ‘Mister Motivator’. He had credibility as a leader because of what he was. What the leader is in their character is so much more important than what he/she says. Words are not unimportant but they must be backed up by ‘works’. If there is a ‘credibility gap’ between our talk and our walk; if our lips are going one way while our lives are moving another, then lack of authenticity will tell against us. So, verse eleven follows not only numerically, but also logically and spiritually from verse ten. If you’re going to call for great commitment then you need to give it yourself. It’s not good enough to merely bark orders because you’re the leader. You must show yourself prepared to do what you’re asking other people to do.

I’m not surprised to read in (7): Then these Levites set to work… They did exactly what Hezekiah asked of them (5). They started with themselves (always the starting point). From there they got to work on the temple. (So you want to change the church? Begin with your own heart.

• They had heard God’s Word (Presumably from the king: verses 15b, 5);
• They had also heard his call to diligent service (11);
• But they had also seen his example (10)

Emotions do communicate powerfully. A business man wrote that people can smell commitment a mile off. These leaders must have realised that Hezekiah was serious about heading up a thorough-going reformation. To get anywhere near him was to catch a whiff of smoke! The man was so ‘on fire!!’It was no wonder that he was able to motivate good and capable people and hitch their gifts to the chariot of his godly cause. The Message tells us: The priests started from the inside and worked out; they emptied the place of the accumulation of defiling junk – pagan rubbish that had no business in that holy place – and the Levites hauled it off to the Kidron Valley. They began the Temple cleaning on the first day of the first month and by the eighth day they had worked their way out to the porch – eight days it took them to clean and consecrate The Temple itself, and in eight more days they had finished with the entire Temple complex. The Apostle Paul teaches that a Christian’s body is God’s Temple (1 Corinthians 6:19/20) and that, by inference, there are things that do not belong in it. There is a spiritual equivalent to this cleaning project, as we go to work on ourselves, with God’s help, and remove the stuff that really ought not to be there. It may not all be ‘defiling.’ Maybe some of it is just clutter. But it gets in the way.  From the moment of becoming a Christian you have to look at your life through new eyes. It is no longer yours but God’s. Anything incompatible with that must be hurled in the direction of the rubbish heap.

Cleaning up the temple took time. It can be so with us. A thoroughgoing repentance will be painful, and may not be the thing of a moment. Many years ago I had a friend whose Christianity began when he spent a week praying and weeping over the bad and wrong stuff in his life. He just felt terrible about who he was and how he’d been living. At the end of that week he had no categories to describe what had happened to him; no technical theological jargon to explain it. He just knew he felt clean and was right with His Maker. When someone told him he’d been ‘born again’ he accepted it, but he wouldn’t have used that unfamiliar Biblical language himself. What he did know was that he was forgiven and accepted. Life was far from easy for him, but his face lit up like the midday sun and in his eyes were deep pools of peace. Something real had happened. It took time, but there was a massive clean out.  Prayer: Help me Lord to ‘clean house’ and show me where to start.

Psalm 103: 6-12

This next section of David’s beautiful psalm brings us to the heart of the gospel, long before Jesus came into the world. But it expresses why Jesus did indeed travel to earth (8-12): He came to embody, to fully express, the compassion, the grace, the mercy, the abounding love of God, and to reveal its height (Eph.3:18). This is the One who genuinely wants to forgive and not judge us. This is His heart towards lost mankind. He so loved us that He sent His one and only Son to die for us. His great busting heart longs to restore us to Himself.

Verse 10 shows His mercy. Someone said that in His mercy God does not give us what we deserve (judgment) and in His grace He gives us what we do not deserve (Forgiveness and all that goes with this blessing.) His forgiveness is total (12). The verse refers to an immeasurable distance: as far as the east is from the west. We must never treat born again people like their sin is still on them when it has been removed from them. As far as the sunrise is from sunset, he has separated us from our sins. The Message

Someone said: ‘‘God buries our sins in the deepest sea and puts up a big sign, ‘No fishing!’’

It’s been said that this psalm ‘pivots’ on verse 11. The word great is translated flooded in Gen.7:24. Here is an overwhelming love. But the God of love is also righteous. He will never adjust His holiness or dilute His standards. His righteousness is stamped on everything He does. The cross of Jesus is the supreme example of this, revealing God’s great flooding love for people, but also His righteous and just hatred of sin. There sin was punished so that sinners can go free.

The seventh verse tells us that God made known his ways to Moses. Moses was a man of God. He walked with God. He stood in the counsel of God. He communed with God. He took the time to do this. There was a wonderfully inspiring television programme shown on Christmas day, about Sister Wendy, the nun who has shared such wonderful insights into works of art on Biblical themes. It was very evident from the programme that silence is vital to her walk with God. She said we have a big problem today in that our world is full of entertainment and we are constantly distracted by it. We need times of silence to honestly face who we are and in order to encounter God. Many years ago I worked on a youth camp in the Lake District each summer. One year, many of the children were carrying ‘ghetto-blasters’ on their shoulders wherever they went. Do you remember that era? The camp staff used to meet every morning for prayer, and I remember strong concerns being expressed about this trend. Someone said, ‘It’s like the devil is filling their lives with noise so they have no time and space to really think.’ Let’s be careful that we are not similarly diverted. In the hymn: ‘O Jesus I have promised’ you find the words: ‘I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear.’ ‘The world is ever near me, around me and within.’ We have to take great care with our time. Let’s draw near to God and He will draw near to us. If we would know his ways this is essential.

He showed Moses how he went about his work. The Message. I know I need similar tuition and I must be willing to pray the price for it.

Prayer: Lord, I am hungry for you. Please help me to translate my desire for you into earnest seeking of you and making time to just be ‘with’ you.

Daily Bible thoughts 517: 25^th/26^th December 2013: Matthew 2

The Lord of history stepped into a particular point in history. He was born in a messy place during an especially messy period in the history of mankind. Herod was a mean and nasty individual, and the birth of the new baby, who the King perceived as a rival (3-6), sparked off an explosion of violence (13-18). We are tipped off, then, that although the ‘Prince of peace’ has come, this will not mean universal peace and the end of all suffering yet! The Messiah, Jesus, brings peace to all who trust Him and submit to His rule. One day He will bring His shalom to the entire created order. But until that day His Kingdom will grow and spread amidst the terrible messes of this fallen world. We will see the most horrible and heart-wrenching tragedies (as in 13-18). But this chapter shouts that God is in control. He is the Director and Producer of the ‘Play’. He is also its Script-writer. No matter what happens on the ‘stage’ of the human drama in its successive acts, this story has a good ending. None of that venomous hatred of Christ by the devil, and expressed through willing human puppets, is going to have the final say. A simple man summed up the book of Revelation in these few words: ‘In the end, Jesus wins!’

When Jesus was born He came to a small and obscure town, and, in a new way, put it on the map. This was foretold by God hundreds of years earlier (6). When God turns the spotlight on a place He makes a good job of it. So, only this morning, on the BBC news, I saw television cameras trained on ‘Manger Square’ in the ‘little town of Bethlehem.’ God so often surprises us by what He does and where He does it. Preaching on ‘revival’ in Westminster Chapel in the 1950’s, Martyn Lloyd Jones highlighted the fact that God regularly does great works in unexpected places, and he commented that the next revival will probably break out in some remote hamlet. There is no place too small, unknown or out of the way for God to do a mighty work there.

It is interesting that it wasn’t Jews in this instance who came to see the one who has been born king of the Jews (2. See also 6b). Not only does the Lord do great works in surprising places, but He also draws unlikely people to Himself. (Unlikely in our eyes, that is.) If we perform our part in God’s ‘play’ (to be ‘stars’ : see Phil.2:14-16) then contemporary wise men (and women) will be drawn to Jesus. Some people will come a ‘long way’. They will travel a great distance along the scale from being far from God to drawing near and crossing the line of faith. It will happen as we shine like stars in the universe. They will see the light in our lives, but be drawn to worship Jesus (2, 9 -11; see also Mt.5:16). That’s how it should be. When they see us may they experience joy; when they go on to see Jesus, let them worship (10, 11) But let’s give them something to see. As stars we have to ‘appear’ (7) in the night sky. (Verse 2 can read: we saw his star when it rose). As I have prayerfully meditated on this wonderful chapter this Christmas time, I have been encouraged to believe that in this relatively obscure place where we live and serve, there are going to be genuine seekers who are going to come to Christ. We have already seen this happen, but there’s more to come. It may not necessarily be big numbers of people. (It can be, of course, but it might not be.) But those who are drawn will be genuine worshippers and highly significant in the story God is writing.

Remember, there’s a bigger picture. God is in control. He is directing movements. He will lead and protect. Ultimately, He’s the One who makes us bright and shiny, and He fills us with hope for the future.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, Son of God, Light of the world, shine in and through me.