Two good choices, right?

“Pleasing God” or “Trusting God”.  If you had to pick between these two where would you land?

That question was raised in material our accountability group was discussing not long ago.  Both seem good don’t they?

The catch comes if we seek to please God by self-effort.  You know what I mean, we work hard at saying the right things, we work hard at doing the right things, we work hard at stopping a bad habit, we work hard at…you fill in the rest.  We’re working hard but it isn’t quite enough we fear, in fact we begin to doubt whether we will ever be able to please God.

Trusting God is different.  It takes my focus off of what I am going to do for God and places it on what God is going to do in me.  Sure I still have the same hang-ups, the same hurts, the same sin issues; but instead of a bunch of self-effort to improve myself, I am looking to God to change me, from the inside out.  As he does that transformational work in me, I begin to live a life that is truly pleasing to him.

What pathway are you on right now?  Pleasing God?  Trusting God?

Fable or faith?

Yesterday I decided to try out my newly acquired winter running gear.  The stuff is to keep me warmer as I brave the brisk temperatures common to this time of year.  Water resilience is not a noted design feature of the gear I donned, although that would have been more appropriate, as I managed to time my run to coincide with one of the heavier downpours of yesterday’s freaky wet weather.

While I sloshed through melting and rain-drenched snow I listened to a Christmas sermon from All Souls Church in the UK which a friend had recommended.  One point stuck with me; the story of Christmas confronts us with a choice: to be gullible or to be culpable.

If we choose to believe the creator God donned human flesh and was born a helpless babe we are libeled as gullible by sophisticated society that knows better than to believe such fables to be true.  However, if we, for whatever reason, choose to reject that God became man and dwelt among us, then God declares us to culpable of our unbelief.

Gullible or culpable, what have you chosen?

4 challenges from an ancient foster dad

I spent some time this past week reading about Mordecai. He shows up in the Book of Esther; she is a young Jewish beauty living in exile, he is both her cousin and her guardian. Mordecai intrigues me. Just wait a minute. Let me shoot straighter than that, the guy challenges me. Let me mention a few things.

First, his heart is soft. He takes in his orphaned cousin and cares for her like one of his own (Esther 2:7). When Esther is chosen for the king’s harem, Mordecai checks every day to see how she is doing (Esther 2:11).

Second, his convictions were not negotiable. When the king ordered that homage be expressed to prince Haman, Mordecai chose not join the other servants in bowing down to the prince (Esther 4:1-5). His commitment to God would not permit him to so honour another.

Third, his faith in God was unshakeable. Because of Mordecai’s failure to pay homage, Haman was plotting not only his destruction, but the annihilation of the Jewish people. Mordecai urged Esther to exploit her royal position to intercede for her people, but if she proved unwilling, Mordecai was confident that God would deliver the Jewish nation some other way (Esther 4:14).

Fourth, he exercised power with compassion. Mordecai was eventually advanced to second in rank in the land. Although his power was great it did not corrupt him; he remained committed to the welfare of his people (Esther 10:3).