Bochim or Gilgal?

Well its Monday morning.  I love Monday's cause I stay home and right now Ann is at the gym and the kids are playing.  Controlled chaos for the moment.  I am even on the computer.  Judges 2:1-5  really hit me these last few days.  I had never seen this contrast between Gilgal and Bochim.  Gilgal was a place of triumph, blessing, memorial, victory, and joy.  Bochim on the other hand was indicative of a people doing it their own way in their own strength.  It was known for forgetfulness, deception, and sorrow.  Sadly, the people of Israel had moved from Gilgal and all it represented to this place called Bochim.  So often I find myself in a place in my life much like Bochim.  Just like Israel when I choose to do it my own way it will lead to forgetfulness, deception, and sorrow.  By God's grace it doesn't have to be this way.  All the people of Israel were called to do in this early section of the book was to take God at His Word and possess the land He had given them by faith.  While its different for us as New Covenant believers, the principle holds the same.  We haven't been given a land, but we have been given a life.  Ephesians 1.3 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ."  2 Peter 1:3  says that we have been given everything we need for life and godliness.  The key thing becomes realizing how God calls us to appropriate this life He has given to us.  Just like Israel we are called to appropriate it by faith.  This type of faith calls for a wholehearted yielded obedience to Christ and His Word.  It reminds me of Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3 when he prays, "that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."   This is really what it comes down to, although the comfort is that it is only by God's enabling grace we ever abide in Him.  God calls us to simply say yes to Him, a wholehearted response of submission.  By God's grace let's walk in Gilgal.

Daily Looking at the Gospel

Well it has been about three weeks since getting back from Israel. It was an amazing trip! One of my favorite parts of being in the land of the Bible is to see geographical connections from place to place. It really helps you get familiar with different locations. So it was very exciting to start the book of Judges this last Sunday. So many of the places that are mentioned were places we had a chance to visit or travel through. I have never taught through the book so I am excited to study it more in depth. The one thing you consistently see throughout the book is disobedience. Over and over there is the same cycle. One of sin, slavery, supplication, salvation, and silence. My dad once told me if you want to get a good picture of the flesh just look at the nation of Israel in their disobedience. It is easy to point the finger at Israel, yet we all relate don't we? Every day I am faced with my weakness, my inconsistencies, and my failures. If it turns to nothing more than a selfish introspection it can lead to overwhelming despair. This is where the gospel comes in. Two weeks ago on Easter it was such an encouragement in my own life being reminded of the truths of Romans 6. Daily we need to be reminded of the gospel. In that reminder we see that by the grace of God we are now identified with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. We are also enabled to even consider these wonderful truths to be true. These realities become the very foundation of how we are now called to live. The wonder of this new identification is that it is a full identification. I am fully identified with His death and with His life. It not only identifies me with the amazing benefits of His death, but it identifies me with the wonder of His resurrection. I don’t know about you, but I desperately need to be reminded of that daily. So as I relate with the people of the book of Judges in their weakness I pray it will give me even greater appreciation for the marvelous grace that is only found in Christ. At the core of the gospel is the wonderful truth, "Jesus for me". I pray by God's grace I will be reminded of that all through this Wednesday.

 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. (Rom 6:11-14 NAS)