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Happy Thanks – Giving!

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Haggai 1:4-8 Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house [of the Lord] lies in ruins? 5 Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways and set your mind on what has come to you. 6 You have sown much, but you have reaped little; you eat, but you do not have enough; you drink, but you do not have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages has earned them to put them in a bag with holes in it. 7 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways (your previous and present conduct) and how you have fared. 8 Go up to the hill country and bring lumber and rebuild [My] house, and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified, says the Lord [by accepting it as done for My glory and by displaying My glory in it].

Israel had returned from Persia (Babylon) and for sixteen years the Temple of the Lord lay in ruins. What was going on? Got Questions answers that question stating, “During his first year as king of Persia, in 538 B.C., Cyrus issued an edict allowing the Jews to return from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the temple (Ezra 1:1-4). The altar was repaired, and the foundation of the temple probably began sometime in 537 B.C. Then Samaritan opposition brought construction to a halt in 536 B.C. Ezra 4:24 notes, “Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped, and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.” The temple project languished for 16 years, until 520 B.C. Therefore, originally, the Jews stopped rebuilding the temple due to opposition from the neighboring Samaritans. But other reasons crept in. At the time of Haggai’s prophecies, some Jews simply said that the timing was not right. Yet the time was right for them to build their own homes. In fact, Haggai rebukes the people for their concern for their own houses while neglecting God’s house. Haggai taught that God was sending His judgment because of the Jews’ neglect of the temple of the Lord.”

“What does this have to do with Thanksgiving?” you may ask. Proverbs 18:21 states, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it [for death or life].” According to 1 Cor. 6:19-20 you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Corporately we are a Temple of the Holy Spirit. What happens in the temple? Well, if it’s God’s temple there are sacrifices of thanksgiving, worship, and praise. There are priests making intercession to the Lord. There are priests serving God and serving others. There is no praise, or worship in grumbling, complaining, or fault finding. God is not glorified when we are stingy with the “fruit of our lips” focused on death. Unfortunately, we end up eating the fruit of it.

The fruit of death tastes good – at first. Sweet to the tongue but then bitter in the stomach. It reminded me of our love for sugar. An article on the University of Michigan’s website cautions about sugar’s toxic effects: “Sugar is Killing Us. Here’s Everything You Need to Know.” Gretchen Voss writes, “You’d never willingly eat poison, right? Okay, maybe you snack on not-so-healthy treats every so often. Or scarf down non-nutritious junk at happy hour. But straight-up poison? Never. Or so you think. “Sugar can act like poison in high doses—and the amount in our diets has gone beyond toxic,” says Robert Lustig, M.D., a neuroendocrinologist at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine. The typical American now swallows the equivalent of 22 sugar cubes every 24 hours.”

Death and life are in the power of our tongue. Yet the “sugar” of complaining, fault finding, murmuring, gossiping, malice, scorn, profane speech, etc. – tastes sweet in the moment but is death to us spiritually – in the long run. Colossians 2:6-7 has the remedy to our overdosing on negative speech: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord; continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving.” Did you catch all of that? Someone who has received, trusted and relied upon Jesus to be their Savior, Baptizer, and Master – will seek to continue living in Him, being rooted and built up in Him, overflowing with what? THANKSGIVING!

During this holiday season when we are tempted to complain, nit pick, fault find, or criticize why not let that be the “dummy light” on the dashboard of your life that it’s time to build up the House of God, be His priest, offering up and overflowing sacrifice of daily thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving from Jackie, and me!

Fighting Fire With Fire

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Lamentations 1:12-13 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was dealt out to me, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger! 13 From above He has sent fire into my bones, and it prevailed against them. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back. He has made me hopelessly miserable and faint all the day long.

Jeremiah 20:9 But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. NIV

Jeremiah, was the prophet and author of both Biblical books, Jeremiah and Lamentations. In the above passages he mentions fire in two different contexts. In one context, fire is a source of sorrow, affliction, and misery, and the other is none other than the Word of the Lord.

Our culture has coined many familiar phrases related to fire: A baptism of fire; Fire and brimstone; Fire away!; On fire; Fired-up; Out of the frying pan into the fire; To add fuel to the fire; To breathe fire; To have fire in your belly; To get fired; To go through fire and water; Where there is smoke there is fire; To set the world on fire; and To play with fire. Yet the phrase which comes to mind as I contrast the writings of Jeremiah is: fight fire with fire. Idioms often find their origin in some obscure, long forgotten practice that at one time was well known. Fighting fire with fire is one of those idioms. Its humble origins are associated with none other than William Shakespeare who created the phrase in his play King John, 1595: Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire; threaten the threatener and outface the brow, of bragging horror….

Gary Martin, creator of Phrase Finder website added: The Bard may have been the first to put the notion on paper, but he didn’t coin the phrase ‘fight fire with fire’, that came much later. The source of this phrase was actual fire-fighting that was taken on by US settlers in the 19th century. They attempted to guard against grass or forest fires by deliberately raising small controllable fires, which they called ‘back-fires’, to remove any flammable material in advance of a larger fire and so deprive it of fuel. This literal ‘fighting fire with fire’ was often successful, although the settlers’ lack of effective fire control equipment meant that their own fires occasionally got out of control and made matters worse rather than better. One such failure was recorded in Caroline Kirkland’s novel, based on her experiences of frontier Michigan in the 1840s, A New Home – Who’ll Follow? Or, Glimpses of Western Life (written under the pseudonym of Mrs. Mary Clavers): The more experienced of the neighbours declared there was nothing now but to make a “back-fire!” So home-ward all ran, and set about kindling an opposing serpent which should “swallow up the rest;” but it proved too late. The flames only reached our stable and haystacks the sooner,…

Jeremiah laments, Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was dealt out to me…? How many of us can admit to connecting with that phrase? As a casual observer it would be fairly easy to criticize Jeremiah for having his monumental pity party. But following closer inspection one can quickly see he had good reason to make such a boast. For you see, not only had he prophesied the events that were to happen in Israel – to the people of Israel – he experienced them in real time as he wrote Lamentations. Can you imagine prophesying a future cataclysmic event only to have to experience it with the people; experiencing it with the people who caused the judgment of God? Yet, there is a lesson we can learn from Jeremiah’s suffering: Fight Fire with Fire. What do I mean? Hebrews 12:27-29 states: Now this expression, Yet once more, indicates the final removal and transformation of all [that can be] shaken—that is, of that which has been created—in order that what cannot be shaken may remain and continue.28 Let us therefore, receiving a kingdom that is firm and stable and cannot be shaken, offer to God pleasing service and acceptable worship, with modesty and pious care and godly fear and awe;29 For our God [is indeed] a consuming fire. Then Jeremiah 23:29 adds: Is not My word like fire [that consumes all that cannot endure the test]? says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks in pieces the rock [of most stubborn resistance]?

In what possible way could you apply all of this? Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. What does that word mean”everything” mean in Greek? Everything! Everything means everything. The only Rock that can’t be moved is Jesus and His Word. They are unshakable. They have had their challengers over the centuries but Jesus and His Word remains unmoved. Since everything is going to be shaken then we need to start a Fire that is far greater than the fires of sorrow, affliction, and misery. His fire is none other than Him and His Word. The disciples, who were followers of Jesus, can attest to the fact that at Pentecost they were baptized in and with the Holy Spirit and with Fire. Theologians, and Bible teachers have attempted to water down the meaning of that phrase by stating that it really means difficulties, or trials. But do not be mistaken. The FIRE is none other than God Almighty Himself. We fight the world’s fires with His Fire – His Presence and His Word. Our response-ability (we have the ability to respond) is to provide the wood for the sacrifice in order that the FIRE of His Presence and Word burns brighter than our circumstances. Can you say that is true in your life?