Author: Dave Dishman (Page 239 of 458)

Lots of boasting in our world, feels like more than ever. The overwhelming flood of narcissism flows unabated—curious where it will end.

You see this behavior in the endless selfies we post, the drive to always look good on social media, and as we signal our virtues for the proper causes. Influencers go all out to increase their platform and thus their fame and wealth.

The Lord looks at it with a yawn. Generation after generation, don’t you wonder if he gets bored with our endless circling around ourselves?

In response, the Lord provides his perspective on boasting. This is what the Lord says:

Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.

If you followed your impressions to seek the Lord and not give up, then take pride. If you gain an inkling of understanding about the nature and ways of the Lord, then sit back and enjoy.

If you stay happy practicing kindness and living a honorable life and supporting justice, then let that be enough.

You’re on the right path—and you don’t even have to tweet about it.

Jeremiah 9 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Ben White

Years ago a kid biking down our street stopped to quiz me—you’re one of them church talkers, ain’t you? His grandparents told him I was a preacher to college students. Even if church talker sounded odd, I suppose it made more sense to the kid than preacher.

Over the years I’ve noticed that many writers I appreciate don’t necessarily make for great preachers. The Apostle Paul was accused of the same:

For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.”

Lousy preacher who droned on and on (think of Eutychus dozing off and falling out a window). Unimpressive in person. Scrawny? Ugly? High-pitched voice?

Paul’s detractors hit at his person hard—apparently an easy target. But his writings? Not so accommodating. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, the words we possess of Paul’s carry a dynamism that launched the world-wide church and led billions to the Savior.

Read those words. Take them to heart. Catch the same Spirit that propelled Paul and his entourage and billions since.

If the Lord spoke through the mouth of an ass (I’d pay good money to hear that sermon), and the Lord used the pen of a broken-down prophet, he can use you and me as well.

Even if neither one of us are good church talkers.

2 Corinthians 10 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez

In the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, a secret team of Nazis sets out to discover the ancient ark of the covenant and use the power within to make their armies invincible. If you’ve seen the movie, you know it didn’t work out so good for them (faces melting and all that). Those Nazis should have known better—no one manipulates the Lord.

Ancient Israelites held similar views. They felt as long as the temple stood in the middle of Jerusalem, God protected them. But the Lord clarified the situation:

Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come stand before me in this house, which bears my Name and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things?

Religion as talisman, of power or luck, appeals to our sense of control and safety. If God is in the house, I can run there when I need him. When I’m finished I close the door and leave. My therapeutic god available 24/7.

But does God live in a house made of stone? Does God reside in religious traditions or a cross around my neck? Does God salve my wounds while turning away from my heart of theft and murder and adultery and lying and chasing after the gods of today’s world?

Annie Dillard in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek describes God as a maniac. Unpredictable, far beyond any of our control, unknowable in so many ways. This is a better idea of the Lord to wrestle with than much I hear today. And it takes wrestling. No one goes deep in the Lord merely with surface beliefs in a benevolent god.

Go deeper. Seek the Lord. Maybe your face won’t get melted off when you do so—but it just might.

Jeremiah 7 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

I read an interesting combination of passages this morning. First, from Psalm 130:

If you Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

The Lord shows his generosity towards us by failing to record our sins for posterity.

Then I flipped to 2 Corinthians where Paul instructs the young church on giving:

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for the Lord loves a cheerful giver.

A cheerful giver. I know a number of people in this category and each delights those in the path of their generosity. The Lord is generous to us, allowing us to be generous to others. We mirror the Creator when we practice generosity.

What’s amazing is that if we give in this spirit, we won’t run out. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.

The old adage—you can’t outgive God—rings true. A virtuous cycle kicks in. God gives to us, we give to others (our time, talents, and resources), the Lord gives more, we give more.

Good after good after good in a world where good is hard to come by. Others notice and the gospel of Christ spreads.

Stay generous and the Lord stays with you.

Psalm 130 & 2 Corinthians 9 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Jovis Aloor