Category: Year C

Nehemiah 1:1-11

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Prayer is not a passive activity.  If done well, prayer takes time, a great deal of effort, and a sense of priority.  It is quite possible that biblical praying can be the most challenging, exhausting, laborious, and rewarding thing we do.  Through prayer we can become filled with the Holy Spirit, gain wisdom to make godly decisions, and access spiritual power that can melt the hardest of hearts and change the minds of the most stubborn of people.  In prayer we have the privilege of expressing our concerns and needs, as well as having God’s agenda revealed to us for what to do.  Our personal and corporate holiness is in direct proportion to the great task of prayer.
 
            When faced with the reality that Jerusalem was in trouble, Nehemiah prayed.  In prayer he owned the problems that Jerusalem faced.  He owned it through a prayer that emphasized and reminded God of his covenant with his people; he confessed the sins by which Israel violated that covenant; and held onto the promise that God would lift the curse on the city if the people would repent.
 
            Nehemiah had a compassionate heart that did not ignore what was going on in his native land, but wept, mourned, fasted and prayed.  He had a deep concern for and was profoundly disturbed by the news that Jerusalem was in trouble.  Rather than being preoccupied with himself, or turning his back on what was going on and focusing on his own new life in Babylon, he sought to do something about the security and spiritual health of his people.
 
            In his prayer to God, Nehemiah was genuine, persistent, confident, humble, and submissive to God.  He did not distance himself from the sins of the people, but clearly identified with them through a prayer of confession.  That confession was intense, honest, real, and urgent.  Sin always needs to be identified, acknowledged, and pardoned.  If it isn’t, there is no hope for things to be different.
 
            There is a season for everything.  Deer season may come and go, but it is always open season for prayer.  And Nehemiah’s prayer is a solid biblical model for us to emulate.  We all have our challenges to face.   Like Nehemiah, let’s own those challenges through prayer that is biblically focused, compassionately offered, and spiritually curious to know and do God’s agenda for our lives and for God’s people.
 

 

            Most merciful God, I confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.  We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.  I am truly sorry and I humbly repent.  For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Jonah 4:1-11

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Today in my home state of Iowa the presidential campaign gets its official start with the caucus, a time of conversation and interaction on candidates concluding with a vote.  It seems that this presidential cycle will be one of the most rancorous and cantankerous ones in American history (probably not to be outdone by the campaign of John Adams versus Thomas Jefferson, which was fearmongering at its highest).  There is, unfortunately, enough anger to go around on both sides of the Democrats and Republicans.  Fear and anger always go hand in hand.  The fear of which direction our nation is headed has led to vicious vitriol not only in public displays but in private conversations at workplaces and even churches.
 
            All this fear and anger is quite reminiscent of the Old Testament prophet, Jonah.  The powerful Assyrians were the terrorists of the ancient world.  They inspired fear wherever they went, which meant Jonah’s anger was not far behind.  In an incredible divine intervention, God used Jonah to preach against them which resulted in a national repentance.  Yet, instead of joy and gratitude for God’s mercy, Jonah wanted some payback.  He seemed to believe that the Assyrians needed judgment, not grace.  So, through an object lesson with a vine, God taught Jonah what was most important:  “Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left?”
 
            We ought to not be too quick to see the hate and discrimination in Jonah.  When our fears turn to anger and we believe that God should bomb Muslims off the face of the earth; when we think our neighbors might be harboring ill-intent just because they are of a different race, ethnicity, or religion; when we have become bitter because of real evil present in this world and want at least a little payback; then, we are no better than Jonah and look just as ridiculous sitting at the edge of the city pouting like a little child.
 
            Let us rise above the current rancor and be concerned for the billions of people on this earth who need divine intervention and the grace of repentance that leads to new life.  Let us reflect our Lord’s ways by praying for our enemies and doing good works to those who oppose us.  Let us gain the heart of God for the nations of the world and remember what is really important in life.  Any fool can rant against another; but the wise and gracious follower of God patiently and carefully prays and acts in ways that brings Jesus to others.
 

 

            Merciful God, your presence of love in this world is truly amazing.  Despite the real existence of evil on this earth, your grace cuts through it all and has the last word.  Work in my life in such a way that fear is done away with and sinful anger vanishes, to be replaced with the love of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

2 Chronicles 36:11-21

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            There are parts of the Bible’s Old Testament that are just plain sad.  Perhaps the most pitiful commentary of all is that God’s people acted like a spouse who was so distant and dissatisfied that they did not know how good they had it.  So, they looked for relationships with other gods, other lovers.  Despite God’s furious and longing love for his people, they spurned his advances and his appeals.  Judah’s King Zedekiah “did what was evil… He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD… He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD.”  What is more, Judah’s leadership was “exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations.”
 
            God was patient, he was persistent, and he was long on love for his people.  “The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.”  Finally, after centuries of chronic neglect of God and active pursuit of idolatry, Judah reached the point of no return, and they lost it all.  Yet, even in this abject stubbornness and lack of love from Judah, God had compassion and did not forget.  The Chronicles end with a note of grace, letting the reader know that God’s mercy always has the last word. 
 
            God’s wrath is the servant of God’s love.  His punishes so that he can pursue; levels natural consequences so that he can meet needs; and, rebukes so that he might bring rest.  The end game for God is always restoration, renewal, and revitalization – a reviving of relationship between himself and his people.  This ought always to be our purpose, as well, to persistently, patiently, and lovingly pursue lost people because God rescued us from the dominion of darkness and has brought us into the life of his Son, the Lord Jesus.
 

 

            Merciful God, your anger flares but lasts only a moment.  Yet, your love is eternal and everlasting.  Thank you for sniffing me out and saving me by your amazing grace.  May I demonstrate the love you have shown to me toward others, so that your purposes are accomplished in my life today and always through Jesus Christ, my Lord.  Amen.

Psalm 71:1-6

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment


            The biblical psalms do two wonderful services for us as God’s people:  first, a constant stream of reading, quoting, memorizing, and meditating on them actually shapes our faith into a full-orbed, mature, and robust belief; and, second, the psalms provide us with a healthy means of expressing the complete range of our human experience.  So, then, the psalms both reflect our feelings, and, at the same time, form those feelings in order to know God better, cope with situations, and relate appropriately with others.  The fourth-century Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, had it right about the psalms when he said:  “Whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you not merely hear and pass on, but learn the way to remedy your ill.”
             Today’s psalm is one of lament, the expression of a person getting along in years and discovering all the limitations and weaknesses that go along with aging.  It is a plea for help.  Whereas in younger days the psalmist had the vigor to engage problems and enemies, now he has the realization that he must more and more depend upon God.  
             I have personally encountered far too many people hitting the aging process that do not deal with it well.  The change to their bodies, even their minds, is so unwelcome that they do not cope quickly, or, sometimes, at all.  Based upon the psalms I would insist that lament is a powerful and necessary form of coming to grips with change.  God has not promised us life-long health and constant energy; rather, he has promised to be with us as our refuge and help through all the vicissitudes of changing health and altered situations.  Let praying the psalms, then, be a regimen as familiar and daily as your using your pill planner and taking your meds.
             Ever-watchful God, you are a rock of refuge, a never changing deity in a world of constant change.  You are my hope, Lord, and my faith has been in you all my life.  I lament all the difficult changes I encounter; I can never go back to the way things were.  So, please open to me a new reality where fresh hope and life can be found, through Jesus Christ my Savior.  Amen.