On Eagles’ Wings

Isaiah 40:21-31 is a passage of hope.  It creates trust in God over and against any other source of help.  It draws a picture of the power of God’s movement in the midst of human history.  In order to do so, the writer draws sharp distinction between God and all these other sources that claim to have power or give life.  The writer clearly disputes the claims of these other sources and invites us as readers to do the wise thing by participating in God’s movement rather than trusting these other sources.  The “idols critique” is devastating:  princes come to naught and rulers are nothing (40:24); they wither and a whirlwind easily sweeps them away like chaff (40:25).  Nothing can compare with God (40:26).  He is the true Creator and the only One with power and strength (40:26).  We can trust Him.  He will not grow tired or weary (40:28).  Therefore, He is the only source of hope; the only One that can provide the weary and weak with wings like eagles (40:31).  Where do you and I put our hearts today?  Especially for those circumstances where we feel weakness and weariness?  Do we look somewhere else for help rather than getting on eagles’ wings?

Knowledge and Love

We may think that 1 Corinthians 8 is all about whether one should eat food sacrificed to idols or not.  But that is just an illustration of a more fundamental issue addressed in this passage, namely the impact of our actions on the lives of others and how such impact might be a good reason to restrict our own behavior.  The bottom line is this:  to have the correct knowledge about something or to be right about something is not the only consideration that matters.  Frank Crouch tries to explain the issue with a somewhat exaggerated modern analogy:  “Suppose that there is a covered-dish supper at your church.  Someone brings a platter of food saying, ‘The local Satan-worshippers had a table set up at the mall giving away this food.  It’s delicious!’  Would you eat it in front of everyone?  There would be no actual power of Satan in the food.  It would be fine to eat it.  But how might that be interpreted by others?  What impact might it have on a new convert or on someone who would take that to mean that there’s no real difference between things offered to Satan and things offered to God?  In a context where no one would have a problem with it, it would be fine.  In a context where someone might be led to ‘fall’ because of it, it would be wrong.”  Paul does not take sides in this debate.  He attacks both sides of the debate by showing that there is more at stake than winning an argument on who is right and who is wrong.  That is why he came up with this powerful formulation:  “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (8:1).  If you have to choose between being loving or being right, be loving.  People are at different points in their relationship with God, and even if we are right about what God wants, our first priority is always to love people and meet them where they are.  Actually, that is exactly how God chose to save us in Jesus Christ!  If it was about being right and perfect, we would all be condemned to hell.  But fortunately and thankfully God’s first posture is unconditional love and mercy!

Refuge in God

Even though Psalm 2 is about the anger and wrath of God against those who conspire against Him, it functions as an invitation to embrace Him and find refuge in Him.  The possibility of God’s wrath and the reality of God as refuge come together in the invitation of verse 11:  “Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.” The fear of the Lord refers to the respect that He deserves as the One upon whom ultimately everything depends.  God knows our temptation to run after all kinds of idols for our well-being.  We constantly live in the illusion that we can create our own happiness and determine our own destiny by choosing to invest in all kinds of treasures beside God.  But, as Hugh MacKay once said, “Although we love the idea of choice – our culture almost worships it – we seek refuge in the familiar and the comfortable.” In Psalm 2, God invites us to find Him the familiar and comfortable one.  Because, “blessed are all who take refuge in him” (2:12).  God will always be restless until our hearts find rest in Him.

Choose Life

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 suggest that at every moment in our lives we have a choice between life and death.  This possibility is something that God sets before us so that we can choose (30:15, 19).  But God also advises us to choose life, prosperity, blessings over death, destruction, curses:  “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.  For the Lord is your life…” (30:19-20).  This implies that life is a gift from God, set before us as a possibility to receive if we chooses to do so.  It is life in the Lord.  It is the kind of life that not even physical death can destroy.  And yet, it also implies that we have the ability to choose against God’s life-giving possibilities by embracing death, destruction, curse.  That happens when “your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them” (30:17).  Those are the kind of choices that can only lead to destruction (30:18).  This is not a once in a lifetime choice that we make.  It is a lifestyle of discernment between life and death.  What are the choices against life that you have to avoid in your life right now?  And what are the life-giving choices that you have to embrace today?

Receive His Blessings

It is Thanksgiving eve.  We count our many blessings and give thanks for them.  Psalm 24 suggests that for God’s people thanksgiving starts with the acknowledgement that “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (24:1).  If we truly acknowledge that, we learn to seek the Lord in every aspect of our lives, because everything belongs to Him anyway.  Then we reject the ability of any other “idols” to give blessings (24:4).  Thanksgiving is a time to be honest about naming the “contemporary idols” (especially the consumerist and material ones) that create the illusion that we are dependent on them for the blessings in our lives.  Those who are able to shift the focus of their lives from these other idols to the one and only true God “will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Saviour” (24:5).