June 28--When God Does Something So Stunning, You Can't Help But Worship

There are everyday sorts of marvels that move you, but then there are the show-stopping kind that leave you breathless with wonder.  Today's passages contain the kind that left me gasping--2 Kings 14-15, 

Click here for the written post of today's episode.

Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

Click here for the FREE Yearly Bible Reading Plan she uses.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

June 28, when God does something so stunning you can't help but worship. I won't be reading the scripture references. For those, please check the written post. He had me at sunset. But first the backstory. A mysterious peacock has been sighted at various places around Lookout Mountain in the Rock City Gardens parking lot, on the playground at the town common, beside the new courthouse, in somebody's side yard. Where did it come from? And how does it get around? Nobody knows. Our prayer posse's been wanting Bob and Donna to move back to the mountain ever since they moved away years ago. Susie brings it up every now and then, but Donna shrugs it off. Though she laments not having the sunset she wants in the house where they live now, moving means making decisions and downsizing. It's easier to stay where they are. So when Susie found a mountain house on the market, Donna said she'd need some kind of sign from God to move. She'd need a sunset, plus something crazy to get her there. Well, like that peacock showing up in the yard when we look at the house. So they went for the showing and there was a beautiful sunset off the brow as expected, and would you believe it? A real live peacock in the backyard, free ranging and unexpected. What were the odds? What did it mean? Before we knew it the house had an offer and was gone, just like that. Donna loves quality and the details, but the house of sunset and peacock just didn't have them, so when it got scooped she wasn't as disappointed as I was. I'd hoped hard for that house to work out. A few days later she texted to tell me they put in an offer on another house just a few miles south. I couldn't feel excited for her this time. I was still sad about her losing the other house. How could this house be to sunset plus peacock? She sent me a link and it was then when I saw why she loved it. A stone entrance at the driveway, two big porches surrounding, an open floor plan, beautiful mill work throughout, even an air conditioned dog house for when Bob acts up, she joked. Bob is Donna's husband. This house checks all their boxes, but she didn't mention a sunset. Maybe she'd settled for loving just the house. I was afraid to ask on the phone, but when we hung up, I clicked the link she'd sent and saw the address twenty four twenty two sunset. This house is on the west brow of Lookout Mountain like the other house was, so my friend will finally have the sunset she's longed for since childhood. Can God be this intimate, this detailed, this generous? I see that he can, and even better, I see that he is. He gave Donna way more than she asked for, and he had me at sunset. Today's passages have me marveling over other things God does that are so wonderfully stunning I can't help but worship.

2 Kings 14-15

SPEAKER_00 2:58

The Old Testament chapters are Second Kings fourteen to fifteen When would God's people frequent sex shrines at high places and call it worship? When it became culturally acceptable behavior, which is exactly where we find the folks of Israel and Judah. Solomon had built these high places for his foreign wives who worshipped other gods. This son of David had begun well as a king who worshipped God alone, but he must have liked the idol worship his wives brought with them to Israel. It was worship that included sexual components, and as a man with one thousand women at his disposal, it had to have been appealing. Idol worship at the high places was also known to include self mutilation along with offering incense and sacrifices, some of which were human. The practice had been going on for so long nobody seemed to question it. Maybe it was something like the adult only bookstores we turn a blind eye to, only more mainstream. The wicked kings continued to follow the example of Jeroboam who adulterated worship by introducing bull calf idols, but the good kings described in these chapters failed to get rid of these sex stopping shops when they had the power to do it. Mention was made that kings like Amaziah, Azariah, Uziah, and Jotham, who got God's adaboy, quote, failed to get rid of the local sex and religion shrines, end quote. Apparently, no one thought it necessary to give them up in order to worship God only. Being sold out for God alone was rare, even his own people couldn't do it, and as a result, both Israel and Judah had trouble with enemies. This was exactly what God said would happen if they broke his covenant and disobeyed his commands. So God kept stirring things up with the Aramean and Assyrian armies to get their attention so they'd repent and turn back to him. It was no accident that, quote, you shall have no other gods before me, end quote, is the first commandment. Get this one down, and the other nine are easy by comparison. Honor God, fear him, worship him alone, love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. All these mean basically the same thing. It's a struggle to worship God and God alone. There's a constant temptation to grab hold of something you love more rather than to love God more and grab hold of him. That show you're stuck on, that health kick, that person, that promotion, that project, that new toy, that trophy, that trip, the list of potential God subs is endless. All of God's gifts are given to enjoy, but when they become our God of haves, our validation, our life hacks, they begin taking root in God's space inside us. We believe the lie that they give us a handle on things, a pat on the back, a sense of ourselves. We've got to ask for help to turn from them because we are weak, and they are not. At first sin doesn't come in as the mangy feral cat that it is. It comes in like the kitten you've adopted from the shelter, like a find, like a treat, like a treasure. But before you know it, Kitty Cat takes over the sofa and has you slaving in the kitchen while she hogs the remote. John knew the temptation of idolatry. He ended one of his books with, quote, dear children, keep yourselves from idols, end quote, because he knew their power to take over. If we can keep ourselves from idols, the rest of the Christian life is a slam dunk by comparison. But of course, we can't keep ourselves from idols. This is why we need a Savior. This is why Jesus came. It's for good reason that he said, quote, apart from me, you can do nothing, end quote. The secret for forsaking idols is handing them over to Jesus again and again. It's depending on him to do the saving. It's humbling ourselves, it's asking him for help. Only Jesus has the power to save us from ourselves and our idol making. I've got more idols than I know to confess, but the one that tempts me most often, I know very well, and it's this. I turn to food to make me feel good. Of course, food can never make me feel good unless I'm physically hungry, but this is what I'm hoping it can do when I take a handful of this and that when I'm not hungry. I'm hoping that food has taken on heart filling power since the last time it failed me. What to do? I repent. I tell Jesus I'm empty. I can't handle it. I need more of him, and I try to remember it's not my job to fix me anyway, it's his. And what happens next never stops amazing me. Joy and relief flood my achy place, and would you believe it? Food stops appealing. For this one small moment I totally know and believe that food can't meet me here. I don't even want it. I'm able to walk away. In the belly of the fish that swallowed him, Jonah suddenly saw things very clearly. He said, quote, those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs, end quote. When I'm swallowed alive by the eat it all idol that wants to take over my life, I clearly need more grace than I've currently got. I need all the grace I can get. And Jonah's words free me to let go of this food in front of me and look to the only one I can't live without. I ask him to meet me where I need him, which is where the ice cream can't go and the bread and butter won't find. I've been able to keep off the seventy five pounds I lost twenty five years ago by handing off this idol to my Savior daily and sometimes multiple times per day. I'll never get over needing Jesus who never shames, never gets tired of saving, never stops pouring grace in my achy place, because this is what a Savior does. He saves. This truth about Jesus is so absolutely stunning, I can't help but worship

Acts 19:1-20

SPEAKER_00 9:00

The New Testament passage is Acts nineteen, one to twenty. When Paul met up with believers in Ephesus, he asked if they'd been filled with the Holy Spirit. He explained that this was what would happen when they received Jesus. As soon as they heard of it, they asked to be baptized in Jesus' name and his Holy Spirit filled them. They were so full of joy they couldn't stop praising. This kind of joy is what we can expect when the Holy Spirit fills us too. If you haven't experienced the Holy Spirit like this, maybe you haven't really met Jesus. Maybe you're still depending on yourself and your own goodness and not his. But only Jesus saves, and when you yield to him, his spirit moves in and the party starts. Because you can't believe what saving really means and you can't thank him enough. What if you don't feel all that grateful? What if your party hasn't started? Ask the Spirit to show you how you need Jesus. When you see all the ways you failed and need forgiveness, you'll be overwhelmed with the grace he gives you in exchange. This is what it means to seek him. When the Holy Spirit fills you, the joy is so stunning you can't help but worship.

Psalm 146, Prayer, Proverbs 18:3-4

SPEAKER_00 10:16

From Psalm 146. Here's the psalmist rundown for how God saves. All God's ways of saving are astonishing, but giving sight to the blind jumps out for me this morning. Besides healing physical eyes, he heals the spiritual kind too. Today he's showing me my self reliance and going off on my own and not including him. God doesn't want me writing without him, parenting without him, or even trying to eat right without him. He wants me depending on him and working with him, writing, parenting, eating, as we share life together. This is a big piece of saving because I'm prone to feel lonely, but when he reminds me how he wants me, I'm filled to the brim. What's there left to do but praise with the psalmist who says a resounding hallelujah for the ways God saves? God draws me close, incites me, points things out to me, fills me with himself. My life with him is stunning, and I just can't help but worship prayer. God, thank you for the Father that you are, for the Son that you gave, for the Spirit that lives inside me. Thank you for so many things you do for me that keep blowing me away. All praise. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 18, 3 to 4. Wickedness goes hand in hand with contempt and shame. Too much talk is flooding. Real wisdom rises from inner springs. The rest of my story about losing weight and keeping it off is written and recorded in two parts. The ten truths I found to lose seventy-five pounds, part one is at the link at the end of this written post, and so is part two. Passages from Second Kings, Acts, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve de Bartalaban Roebuck.