n0klu's Rants

  July 22, 2021 at 12:06 AM CST Topic: +DEV+     Seeing as God Sees Seeing as God Sees "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."       1 Corinthians 2:14 Scripture Focus: 1 Corinthians 2 We may never have the fantastic visions Ezekiel had. For that we can be grateful, as much of it was unpleasant. He saw the glory of God, but he was also shown the sin and wickedness of his own people. He even saw terrible corruption in the temple. Do we see sin in the church today? Of course we do. And we must be careful in our judgment of it since we are also sinners with our own faults and biases.   We may be tempted to hold others to a higher standard than that to which we hold ourselves. Struggling saints need the same grace that you and I need. While we should not turn a blind eye to sin, especially in the househol...

  July 20, 2021 at 12:46 AM CST Topic: +DEV+     God of Our Future God of Our Future “I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” Isaiah 46:9b-10 Scripture Focus: Isaiah 44:1-5 Isaiah reminds the people (and us also) that the Lord knew them since they were conceived. The Lord promised to pour out His Spirit on their offspring and His blessings on their descendants. And they will call upon His name. This is a multi-generational prophecy, isn’t it? The Lord is always blessing His people. Before the hearers were born, before they recognized the Lord, He knew them, loved them, and helped them. Then, in a startling prediction about children not yet even born, the Lord promised blessings and faith. But this should not surprise us. Because we know that the Lord is the author of all human history—the master of time itself!—we are not surpris...

July 19, 2021 at 12:26 AM CST Topic: +DEV+     The Lord’s Servant The Lord’s Servant “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” Matthew 17:5 Scripture Focus: Isaiah 42:1-4 The Lord first promised a Savior to Adam. He promised a son to Abraham and an everlasting kingdom to David. None of these knew that they were receiving part of one great and universal promise. When Isaiah wrote some 700 years before Christ about the Lord’s chosen Servant, a leader empowered by God’s Spirit, he also did not know that the promised Messiah would be the very Son of God who would live and die to save us. The Bible’s teaching on the Trinity—that God is one being in three persons—is a profound mystery. We struggle to understand it fully. But we can know from today’s reading that God, His Servant/Son, and His Spirit, are all together in unity of purpose. That purpose is to brin...

  July 17, 2021 at 12:28 AM CST Topic: +DEV+     More Than a Superhero More Than a Superhero “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9 Scripture Focus: Isaiah 40:12-14 Sometimes we think of the Lord as being a lot like a human, only with special powers. We figure He’s like a superhero with the ability to fly, or make Himself invisible, or read our minds. He may be bigger, faster, and stronger than we are, but our conception of Him is that He’s basically like us. Those notions are fundamentally not true. The Lord is entirely different from us! He is in a category by Himself. He is other. Because of Who He is, we cannot compare our abilities to God’s. He is not merely fast, or strong, or smart. He is speed, He is strength, He is knowledge. The prophet Isaiah asks who has known the Spirit of the Lord, or offered Him advice. The Lord made the universe and everything in it. He has orchestrat...

  July 15, 2021 at 12:01 AM CST Topic: +DEV+     Even Birds, by the Book Even Birds, by the Book “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Matthew 10:29-30 Scripture Focus: Galatians 5:22-26 Do you ever consider, as you sit in church on Sunday morning, that every individual who surrounds you was called there, personally and intentionally, by God? You were, too, you know. He did not call you audibly, but you would not be there—no one would be—if it were not His will. Pondering this reality can blow your mind. You drive home that afternoon and realize that every tree is growing by His design. Every bird perched on a telephone wire is there by God’s plan. Our passage today from the prophet Isaiah describes God calling owls, hawks, and birds of prey to inhabit Edom, a nation that was the enemy of the Jews. He calls attention to the fact that it...

  July 15, 2021 at 12:01 AM CST Topic: +DEV+     Holy Spirit and Blessings Holy Spirit and Blessings “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13 Scripture Focus: Isaiah 32:15-18 When we consider the Holy Spirit being poured out on God’s people (especially in the context of the prophets) we might imagine empowerment for some great spiritual task like telling a wicked king, “Thus saith the Lord,” or preaching to an angry mob, or writing to a far-away church a letter that eventually becomes part of the Bible. In today’s passage, though, we see that the effects of the Holy Spirit go beyond the spiritually dramatic. Even daily life gets better when lived in the light of God’s glory. There are images of natural bounty where formerly fruitless fields produce in abundance. Peace and righteousness replace anxiety and evil, and the people who live there know quietness, co...