August 8-12, 2022
Reflections on Israel
God loves you to death.
August 12, 2022 • Kevin Beavon • John 3:16, Hebrews 13:20–21
I hope as you have read this week’s devotions that you have come to realize that the story of Israel is really the story of all of us. Many of God’s promises to Israel are promises to all who call him Lord. The history of Israel was filled with flawed, fallible leaders, yet God worked through them (and sometimes in spite of them) to accomplish his will for his people. Those same people in turn, often fell away from God, but each time they repented and turned their hearts toward him he forgave them and blessed them because he loved them deeply. And despite all their traditions, and prophecies, and teachings about the Messiah, most failed to recognize him when he came. Those who did still often struggled to understand and put into practice all that he was teaching. I hope you have seen yourself in these stories. I hope you have been able, even for a moment, to find comfort in God’s promises to strengthen you, to teach you, to give you rest. I hope you have seen how God can use you, in all your sinful weakness, to accomplish great things for his kingdom. I hope you have been encouraged to see that even when you fail and fall away, that God is seeking you out, calling you back to himself, and waiting with open arms to forgive and bless you. I hope you have been challenged to live life upside-down, even if it takes you places you didn’t expect to go. The story of Israel ends in redemption. Whether Jew or Gentile, that redemption is for all who believe and call on his name. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (NIV) God truly loves you to death. "Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." Hebrews 13:20-21
God's plan is crazy.
August 11, 2022 • Kevin Beavon
Nobody saw this coming. As all of Israel awaited the coming of the Messiah, nobody could predict the Savior that showed up. A nation whose history was in large part set in slavery and oppression longed for the day when their conquering king would arrive on the scene, rescuing them from nations that had for so long ruled over them, and putting them in their rightful promised place as conquerors and rulers. They expected royalty, a warrior, a rebellion. They got a baby, born to an unmarried couple of nobodies from nowhere special. They wanted a lion from a kingly line. They got a sacrificial lamb. Jesus did life upside down, and he calls us to do the same. He was gracious to sinners while challenging the religious. He said to have it all, you need to give it all away. He said we are blessed when we mourn, when we are meek, when we are merciful, when we make peace. He said that to be first you must be last, and to save your life you have to lose it. And he said to those expecting the salvation of Israel that his salvation was for everyone who believes. My father is a pastor. He spoke at my high school baccalaureate and told the students gathered there something that I have always remembered. “The sure sign of God’s leading is that you are going in a direction you had no intention to go.” I have found his words to be true more times than I can remember. In fact, now I start to get nervous when spiritual things start going the way that I think they will. It is hard to live in the upside down. God’s plan is crazy. It often doesn’t make sense to us. But if our goal as Christians is to be like Christ, we need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Following Jesus often means having different priorities, attitudes, and responses than the people and world around us. It means choosing a better way than pursuing our own desires. And quite frequently, it means going in a direction we had no intention to go. Quite the rebellion after all.
God's people are lousy examples of Christ.
August 10, 2022 • Kevin Beavon • Romans 3:22–24
Last week I watched the documentary film called “The Jesus Music.” It chronicles the history of Contemporary Christian Music. In the movie, gospel singer Kirk Franklin reflects on his experience with racism as he broke into the then mostly white Christian music industry. Franklin said, “if we (Christians) are the light of the world, no wonder the light is so dim.” God’s people have always been rather lousy examples of Christ. Made in the image of God, Adam and Eve’s sin corrupted that image for all the generations to follow. When God made Israel his chosen people, he was choosing people who would continuously rebel against him and the calling he had for their lives. The Old Testament is full of stories of God rescuing his people, those people repenting and praising God for his mercy, then those same people following their own plans and desires, only to need to be rescued again. The cycle repeats over and over. I often look at those Old Testament stories and wonder in hindsight why God would put up with such a rebellious, unreliable bunch of people. Then I put my Bible down and go about following my own plans and desires. I confess that there isn’t a lot of difference between those Old Testament characters and the rebellious, impulsive, self-reliant person I know myself to be. Today’s Christians are not much different than those Old Testament people of Israel. We mess up, cry out to God in repentance, and promise to “do better” only to fall away and need rescuing again. But what is also the same as those Bible stories is that our loving Father never grows tired of forgiving us and setting us back on the right path when we cry out in repentance. “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:22-24
God's leaders are faulty.
August 9, 2022 • Kevin Beavon • 2 Corinthians 12:9
My first job was in retail. One of the items our store sold was collectable figurines, and the very first hour of my very first day I ran into a shelf full of them and broke hundreds of dollars’ worth of merchandise. My manager joked that I was going to have to work for about twenty years to pay them off. I actually worked for that company for twenty-six years, and eventually was responsible for, among other things, training new managers and store teams. I often told that story to my trainees, saying that nobody was going to have a worse first week than I did. When we look at the people that God has chosen to write his story of redemption, we see time and again that God’s leaders were (and still are) faulty. That should not be a surprise to us, but it is. We look at how God was moving very directly and personally in the lives of our Old Testament heroes and wonder how in the world they could ever make some of the choices that they made. We look at the disciples who followed Jesus EVERY DAY and realize that for a good part of their time with him, they didn’t have any grasp of what he was teaching them. We look at some of our modern pastors, evangelists, and musicians and wonder why they fall to sinful temptations. We look at our Christian friends and family and wonder why they stumble. And we look at ourselves and wonder, “how can God use me?” For a very long time, I wasn’t very good at that retail job. And many, many times over the next twenty-six years, I made more mistakes. But my boss saw the value in me. She saw me learning and growing. She invested in me. She helped teach me. She gave me chances to succeed and corrected me when I didn’t. She was rooting for me. She genuinely loved me. And she helped me grow into the kind of leader she knew I could be. Always remember that, just as he was with those biblical heroes, God is with you, God is for you, God loves you, and he has plans “to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and future.”
God's promises don't seem real.
August 8, 2022 • Kevin Beavon • Genesis 15
Last summer my family vacationed to Great Basin National Park in Nevada. The highway that leads to the park has been dubbed “the loneliest road in America”, and the park itself is one of the least visited national parks in the country. Our reason for visiting this park is that our son Jacob is studying to be an astrophysicist, and Great Basin has been designated an International Dark Sky Park. It is literally one of the darkest places in the US to observe the night sky. Jacob has been interested in astronomy for as long as I can remember. As his parents, we have spent a lot of time looking up at the sky. I have NEVER seen a sky like I saw in Great Basin. The Milky Way stretched out before us, and with it more stars than I have ever imagined, five different visible planets, and shooting stars about every thirty seconds. And this is just a speck of what the universe has to offer. In Genesis 15, Abram is believed to be at least seventy years old, and his wife Sarai is just ten years younger. Abram is told by God, “’Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’” I don’t know how many stars Abram could see several thousand years ago, but I imagine it was a lot more than I could see at Great Basin. It is easy to see how Abram could be skeptical of God’s promise, but verse 6 says that “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited to him as righteousness.” I confess that as I look at my life, my circumstances, my world, I often find God’s promises to be unreal. Not necessarily untrue, but just unimaginable. I often have a hard time looking at a situation and even comprehending that God’s promises to me are even possible. “I will never leave you nor forsake you. I know the plans I have for you. I will strengthen you. I will teach you. I will give you rest. My grace is sufficient for you. I have overcome the world.” Lord, help us to truly believe the promises that you have for your people.