Author: watchstandpray

50 – ‘Fence Laws’

About 600 BC, the Babylonian empire took Israel into captivity. God allowed this because Israel kept disobeying the Law He gave through Moses. That Mosaic Law had temple and sacrificial laws for spiritual strength, basic moral laws for a happy society, and other general government laws to help Israel survive in a world without soap.

(God did not teach Israel sciences, such as how to make soap, because we humans must learn science on our own. The fallen angels taught sciences before the Flood, which only empowered murder and made Earth such a terrible place to live that we could not imagine it today.)

One of these laws was the Sabbath. It comes up frequently throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, Israel often ignored it. In the New Testament, Israel enforced it too much…

…because of the rabbinic “fence laws”.

We don’t know God’s good reason for being so serious about the Sabbath in the Old Testament. It does prevent an oppressive, slave society.  Any dictator could easily slaughter Christians since he knows when and where they go every week. God could have some spectacular event planned to save Christians one day, yet it might only help Christians who rest on Saturday and plan to work on Sunday. That said, we only know that the Sabbath is important to God, that we remember the correct day, and have any one day of rest for ourselves.

Israel obeyed none of this.

By Jesus’s day, not wanting to repeat Babylonian captivity, Jewish rabbis had created extra laws—not from Moses—as a “fence” to keep far away from possibly breaking any Mosaic law. They behaved as if these were equally important to Moses’s Law, but God cared nothing for their “fence laws”.

Many of Jesus’s arguments with the Pharisees were about their fence laws.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says multiple times, “You have been told…” which reference these fence laws.

Jesus blatantly ignored these fence laws, especially about the Sabbath. Fence laws made it nearly impossible to do anything on the Sabbath, including heal people through miracles!

Jesus’s life teaches us many things, including the priority of Heaven’s morals over our own made-up rules.

Nehemiah 13:15-22, Ezekiel 20:10-13, Matthew 5:17-22, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43; 12:1-8, Mark 8:11-13, Luke 11:37-54, Romans 14:1-12, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

49 – How to Do

How do you do something? Seriously, don’t do anything half-baked. The only exception is a steak roasted to medium, but that’s a part of perfection.

There is no shortage in this world of things done badly. Many times, people’s problems were inherited from other people. Most of my own problems are from a domino effect of other people not doing their jobs correctly. Things break, those broken things break other things, the chain continues until it reaches my stuff.

At times, I think all of life is a swim through a river of problems from upstream. Don’t complain about the problems you get and don’t complain about other people’s problems unless you can explain that they are upstream from you.

There is a marketable demand for things finished not badly and not half-finished.

The need for excellence extends to thought itself. Many things would not be done so badly if the people doing those things would not only do a good job of what they were doing, but also do a good job of thinking about what they were doing.

God is the Master Craftsman because He makes stuff and He doesn’t make it badly—including you.

Your problems are a consortium of interferences from rebellious angels, your ancestors, and your own stupidity. As for God’s work to create and redeem you, just the fact that you’re alive is a miracle and testament to the fact that He’s not only awesome, that He’s not only ain’t finished with you yet, but that He’s only just gettin’ started.

You are God’s work in progress and, all things considered, you’re doing quite well—especially in light of your problems.

God likes nice things. He celebrates factory workers and hard laborers. Jesus himself was a carpenter. With nearly 2,000 years of work on New Jerusalem, that just makes sense.

The pastor, prophet, apostle, and theologian do not understand God more than the good, hard worker. Their studies away from craft can inhibit their ability to understand and identify with the Master Craftsman. Paul moonlighted as a tentmaker, not only for ethical and financial reasons, but also theological.

To understand our Most Excellent God, do a most excellent job.

Proverbs 22:29, Ecclesiastes 9:10, Colossians 3:23-24

In loving memory of “Uncle Dave” Eckman

48 – God the Redeemer

Since the Beginning, God has always been the Great Redeemer.

Adam and Eve were tempted by the Serpent—the rebellious angel, Satan, also known as the Dragon. When they ate the forbidden fruit, the very next event in the story was the sound of the Lord walking in the Garden of Eden. God was right there to deal with their situation and help them through the mess they made.

Through the Flood and Noah’s Ark, God saved all Humanity from the disaster caused by rebellious angels and wicked Men. God saved us again from an evil, worldwide empire when Babylon united in rebellion and God changed our languages. He brought Abraham out of the Chaldeans, then sent him to rescue Lot. He was with Jacob to save his relationship with his brother Esau, guided Israel to Egypt, then delivered Israel through Moses. He redeemed Ruth who became the great grandmother of King David. God protected Israel through judges, kings, and counselors in Babylon like Esther, Daniel, and Nehemiah. In the New Testament, God saved all of humanity through Jesus Christ.

In the End, humanity will judge and condemn the rebellious angels at the Great White Throne Judgment. This means that humans—before we were made—were always part of God’s plan to eradicate evil, not only from Earth, but from Heaven as well.

Whenever God saves people from a dark situation, He could just throw them away, but he doesn’t.

At the Flood, God did not merely punish evil—He redeemed humanity.

God brings people out of darkness and despair. He doesn’t leave us there and He doesn’t merely punish us for getting ourselves there. He rescues and restores us to a place of strength and importance.

We are and always have been treasured by God.

When we end up in dire straits—almost always from our own idiocy—God helps us, in a sense “salvaging” us, masterfully exploiting our trouble to refine and perfect us.

It is no oxymoronic mystery that God would save us. His redemption is amazing, undeserved, and unfathomable—but God does not contradict logic in redeeming us; logic dictates that His choice to redeem us demonstrates our value to Him.

Genesis 3:8, Deuteronomy 7:8, Job 19:25, Psalm 78:35, Isaiah 47:4, Zechariah 10:8, Luke 21:28, Ephesians 1:7, 1 Peter 1:18-19

47 – Have Power in Every Moment

Wherever you go, whatever you do, look for whatever power Heaven has for you in each moment.

Practicing any skill, art, or craft is infinitely more beneficial when you understand that Heaven wants to empower you. Focus on practice, especially when no one is looking and you won’t be recorded. Heaven sees you, offering you strength.

When you teach, tutor, coach, counsel, inform, help or advise, you just might be instructing the next prince, but you are surely helping a soul treasured by the entire Kingdom of Heaven.

When trouble comes and you appear powerless, that is when your greatest power can come through. Look for a concealed uniqueness in those moments of sudden disappointment, whatever makes disappointments unique is a clue to where to plug your power and turn on the lights. God schemes and orchestrates such times so all hope seems lost, then, through our weakness, He introduces a new power that no strategist could have invented or prepared for.

Maybe you only need to pray, keep your mouth shut, stay happy inside, simply smile at someone, or do a really good job of doing nothing at all.

Simply “being with” those around you carries a healing power that the world desperately needs. Too often we jump so soon that Winstonian advice works, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” If you need to do nothing, do nothing with Heaven’s excellence.

Among friends in the quiet as in celebration, on the battle field before, during, and after, with time prioritized for the “less easy” to love in your family or fold—every moment begs you to seek Heaven’s power to inject love and quality into the Earth.

Living with inner, personal power for each moment requires each moment. Don’t let a single second go by that you don’t tap into whatever God has for you, whether energy or rest. Love Him always. Carve out time to do nothing but be with God.

When you have power in the small, seemingly unimportant moments, you may be preparing others for big moments—or God might be preparing you for some big moment. But, the “bigness” of the moment doesn’t matter when you have power every moment.

Isaiah 40:29, Mark 12:30, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Ephesians 6:10, Philippians 4:13, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

46 – Moral Superstition

We cannot derive our morals from our comforts or definitions. They easily sneaks up on us, our own self-made morals.

The Pharisees of Jesus’s day had legitimate fear that God would punish them. Israel had already been punished because they didn’t care for the wisdom of the Old Testament laws, morals, and teaching, particularly about the Sabbath.

But, rather than loving the Spirit of the Mosaic Law, they took the approach of building “fence laws”. By following these extra, man-made lists of rules—so they thought—they would never come close to breaking God’s Laws. These were the rules they often debated with Jesus.

But, “fence laws” have one problem: God doesn’t need help. Perfection cannot be improved upon. Don’t “improve” Heaven’s morals.

As important as speed limits are, never craft any moral formula where speed limits on the highway end equate to “Biblical morals” on the other. Don’t let secular government define your moral code. God’s commands rotate on an axis of their own and, however useful, no government is in full alignment with the God-given morals that shape your Eternity.

Things by which God will judge each of us are laid out in the moral code He gave, the morals that came from above. Human rules aren’t always bad, but they can’t best God. If you can’t find a clear argument for a moral value in the Bible then at least tell yourself that it is a moral from humankind; don’t put that on God.

“Mess up” your thinking so that you take your P’s and Q’s from the Bible above all.

When you set your watch to Heaven’s rhythm, people around you won’t understand you anymore. Realigning yourself to their confused worldview won’t help them.

Stick to your guns, stay at your post, keep your watch. Stand.

Continue to inject yourself with a worldview that no human could have thought up. You’ll see the results in your life.

When people argue with you, brush it off, be friendly, and keep doing what you know is right. In time, your results will captivate and inspire others to join you. Nothing is as persuasive as loud results from morals far above our creative imaginations.

Joshua 1:7; 23:6, Proverbs 4:27, Romans 12:1-2

45 – Prayer of the Righteous

When a righteous man prays, Heaven listens. The balanced, just, standard-measure lifestyle that makes a person “righteous”, by that basic definition, is important to God, to the angels, and all of Heaven’s court. When a prayer rises to Heaven’s Throne from someone who does not live a double-standard life, that prayer will be taken seriously.

Prayer itself is a request for justice.

Praying for healing is prayer for justice. It’s not fair that someone should be sick all the time. Broken limbs or disabilities of any kind are a kind of injustice. Praying that God would heal people of such things is praying for God to, essentially, give that person justice by having a normally functioning physical body.

Praying for laws to be good is a prayer for justice in government. Praying for good weather—the rain, cold, sun, wind, and calm, all in proper time and season—is a prayer that nature give us justice to have a fair and normal life.

Even prayer that we might become better people in our hearts or to be stronger in our understanding of morals, God, virtue, the spiritual plane, respect for others, emotional temperance, joy, creativity, and to be all around good people—these are requests to have justice come into and through our hearts.

It is immature to even consider that “righteous” living will make us superior to other, “lesser” people, thereby giving us “VIP” status with God. All prayers go to God. Everyone adopted by God because they believe Jesus is God’s child. But, our actions demonstrate maturity, which reflects credibility.

Living a “righteous” life of fair treatment of others takes thought, practice, self-improvement, and increases with time. People who live a “righteous” life have these kinds of good and careful thoughts that go into choosing what they pray for. So, people with a “righteous” lifestyle will naturally prayer for things God is more likely to give.

But, prayer has a controversial side. Elijah was a righteous man who prayed for a drought upon Israel for allowing child sacrifices. That controversial prayer was also for justice because, ultimately, that drought saved innocent people.

Prayer and justice are equally complex, simple, and very much related.

1 Kings 17-18, Psalm 34:11-22 James 5:16-18

44 – God the Provider & Law Giver

As the Sustainer of Creation, God also provides for our needs. As part of providing for our needs, He gave us moral laws to live by. He gives us whatever we need—even many of our wants—all in a way designed to cooperate with our obedience to His moral laws.

Don’t divorce God’s provision of supply, food, and shelter from His instruction on how to find, enjoy, and even multiply what He provides.

Jesus’s command to love our neighbors as we also love ourselves was part of His provision.

You may need something, your neighbor has what you need, but you may never know unless you pay attention and find out what your neighbor needs.

Jesus may expect you to go to your neighbor’s house, knock on the door, explain that you are obeying the “golden rule” (no need to seem overly ‘Bible-ish’), and ask to communicate as friendly neighbors. After years of friendship, your neighbor might suddenly remember something in the cellar that is the very keystone you have been looking for to complete your work.

God’s gifts are well disguised, discoverable only by those who obey Him.

The need to survive another day isn’t that different from the need to meet a challenge. If you struggle to get through each day, perhaps you should set your eyes on a greater goal God might have for you. God not only meets our needs every day, He exceeds them every day. We just don’t always see it.

God does, indeed, provide all of our needs, including the instructions on how to receive His provision. But, when we act like we already understand more than the Creator who existed decillions of years before we were born, we might never recognize what He provides, even though it is right under our noses.

Jewel weed is a natural counter-agent for poison ivy’s oil and they usually grow within a few feet of each other. Many weeds that gardeners kill in their lawns are actually among the most nourishing vegetation on Earth. God reveals Himself through Creation, do you listen?

We can’t see what God gives us without learning how. So, our greatest need He meets is Scripture.

Genesis 22:8, Leviticus 26:46, Deuteronomy 31:26, Job 38:41, Psalm 65; 78:5-8; 145:16; 147:8-9, Matthew 4:4; 6:25-34, Luke 12:22-34, Philippians 4:19, 1 Peter 5:7