Month: September 2010

[bible passage=”2Chron 26:16-23″ version=”esv” heading=”h5″] The King paced the deepest corridors of the Temple’s outer court. Uzziah frequented this sacred place with a captive heart, held fast to the majesty that lay deeper, still, in the Holy Place. His earliest visits were those of a humble King; a true worshiper with a heart that was hard after God and deeply committed to a reign that would restore righteousness to the Kingdom. Yet his recent visits were accompanied by a foreign, gnawing ambition, which nibbled away both his integrity and humility. Anyone outside of the priestly order could never breach the threshold a few steps beyond his gait.

And you and your sons with you shall guard your priesthood for all that concerns the altar and that is within the veil; and you shall serve. I give your priesthood as a gift, and any outsider who comes near shall be put to death.” Numbers 18:7

“I am no ordinary man,” he thought to himself, “I am Judah’s King.” Uzziah rode the momentum of warranted popularity and the success of wisdom and hard work. Prosperity returned to the land with God-anointed, visionary leadership. He returned glory to the military with vigorous conquests of the Edomites and the Philistines. He strengthened the walls of Jerusalem with new and stronger watchtowers. “And here I stand, a King bound by an antiquated law.”

Surely he had merited some status that would allow him to enter the Holy Place and present some noble offering to a God, he had so well pleased with his excellent public service. Besides, who would forbid the King? No one was watching. With a racing heart, Uzziah defied the commandments and crossed the threshold as he carefully drew back the dividing curtain to behold the glory that lay inside.

Adjusting to the change in light, his eyes beheld such things that previously could only be seen with the eyes of his imagination as he listened to the books of Moses; the Table of Shewbread, the Altar of Incense. Then the thought occurred to Him. He was standing. He was breathing. God had allowed him to enter and not die! God must indeed be pleased with my entrance and my intention to worship.

The aroma of spiraling trails of smoke rising from the incense bowl atop the Altar, soon fastened his attention. It powered his steps closer and soon he stood before the altar. Cautiously, he added new incense to the flame, which accepted the aromatic fuel. As though it were breathing the fire inhaled the incense with a rising glow and then exhaled as the new smoke began to rise from the offering.

Uzziah’s exhilaration was interrupted by the clamor of armor and the sudden light from behind the curtain. High Priest Azariah, stepped beyond the flank of 8 temple guards, who also blocked the exits. With a quiet rage and deep regret, Azariah spoke boldly: “This is not your place, King Uzziah, to offer incense to the Lord. This is reserved for the appointed priests. You shall have no honor from the Lord! Escort the King from the premises!”

The King was furious. How dare this mere minister of the Temple speak to the King, such a man after the greatness of King David, with such insolence and dishonor. He prepared the censer to defiantly offer MORE incense. Suddenly, his angry, furrowed brow bore a new pain. The temple guards and the priests gasped in horror. Uzziah held the censer to before him to catch the reflection of a whitening blotches of skin – Leprosy!

The shame of leprosy would not depart Uzziah until his death. It isolated him from the public eye and it would eventually bring an end to his life. The blatant rejection of God’s commandments tainted the reign of a capable King, who had walked in both the favor and the anointing of the Lord. His pride created tragedy and subsequently ended his rule with disgrace.

True worship will never abandon, well, Truth.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24

Uzziah’s error was the loss of a humble heart, which made him a successful leader. What he reasoned in his heart and mind as worship could not have been further from the truth. King Uzziah had coupled spirited forms of worship with a rebellion agains truth and it essentially brought an end to his participation in God’s plans. A promising and successful reign was cut short.

Submission to God is the heart of true worship and it becomes a launching place into His promises and plans. When we begin to cast our crowns at His feet, when we begin to center our lives on Him, His kingdom begins to come into our lives. The Father seeks worship filled with an expectancy and an enjoyment of His presence with the weight of His Word filling us up from the inside out.

[bible passage=”2Cor 3:18″ version=”esv” heading=”h4″] At 15 years of age Jennifer Rothschild was diagnosed degenerative eye disease that would inevitably lead to blindness. In her DVD study Fingerprints of God, she retells to story of Susan, another woman coping with blindness, and a husband, who couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

It was a very crowded bus, and the passengers looked sympathetically as Susan made her way down the aisle. She fumbled with her cane, and as she nestled herself into her seat, the onlookers just watched with questions and concern. It had been only a year since Susan lost her sight.

Her world had crumbled, her sadness overtook her. The blindness was accompanied by depression. Not only was her heart crushed, but so was the heart of her husband, Mark. He so loved his wife and wanted to help her, and so he did. Inch by inch, he helped to pull her out of that pit of depression, helped give her skills and confidence, and to regain her sense of self. And that husband, so in love with his wife, did all that he could to help her in her new state of darkness.

After many months, she began to feel more confident because of Mark’s help, and she felt like she could return to her job again. And Mark promised that he would help her, of course, with that also. So every day, Mark would drive his wife to work, walk her into the office, make sure she was settled, and then leave and go to his base that was across town, because Mark was a military officer. Then, he would come back and get her from work. This went on for several weeks. And with every day, though Mark so wanted to help his wife, the burden was becoming heavier because it was becoming logistically impossible for him to make it to his base on time.

He dreaded having to announce to Susan that he wasn’t going to be able to drive her to work. But in the end, he had to. “I can’t ride the bus to work,” she replied. “I’m blind. How am I going to know how many stairs there are? How am I going to know what path to take? I feel like you are abandoning me.”

Mark’s heart was crushed. He promised her, like he had done from the very beginning, he would do whatever it took to help her until she felt confident and independent on the bus. He helped her with the routes. He helped her learn the stairs and learn the paths. And so, finally, after several weeks of doing such, Susan was confident. He went to his base; she went to her work.

Monday morning, she got on the bus. She went to work, she came home; it was flawless. Then Friday morning arrived. Susan made her way onto the bus, and as she went to pay her fare, the bus driver said, “Ma’am you sure are lucky.” Susan said, “Are you talking to me?” The bus driver said, “Yeah. It must feel good to be cared for as you are.” Susan replied, “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

The bus driver said: “Well, you know, every morning when I drop you off at your stop, as soon as those doors open, I can see that man standing over there at the corner. And he watches you. As soon as you step off the bus, his eyes are on you. I think he’s some kind of military officer because of his uniform. And his eyes follow you as you walk across that parking lot. And his eyes don’t leave you as you’re trying to walk up those stairs. And when your hand touches that door knob, his eyes are on you. Until you open that door and go inside, that man doesn’t take his eyes off you. And once that door closes, he stands straight and tall, like a sentinel, and he salutes you, and then he blows you a kiss.”

Susan burst into tears. She had no idea that her husband had been watching her the whole time. But the lover of her soul never took his eyes off of her.

We cannot take our eyes off of what we love. Love creates an energy of devotion that holds our gaze into lasting moments of adoration and affection. The defining motivation of worship, too, is loving Christ. And the more of Him we behold as the Lamb, who takes away our failures and mistakes and brokenness and sin, the more of us He will captivate to love Him in return.

To behold Christ is to stare, to gaze unhindered and unhurried, to linger, taking in His excellency, beauty, truth, and majesty. When you see something as true and beautiful and valuable, you can’t look away. You treasure Him. You cherish Him.

The renewal of our love for Christ will come as we dive into the depths of His love for us.

One of the most unsettling aspects of death is that man has no control over it. Woody Allen so cleverly observed this with his inimitable wit:

• “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying.”

The Old Testament figure, Job, shares a poetic insight into death in Job 18.14: He is torn from the tent in which he trusted and is brought to the king of terrors. The lesson in death is powerlessness. No person can ultimately prevent it or avoid it.

The late Tony Snow, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, battled cancer, off and on beginning in 2005. When asked what spiritual lessons he has learned from his battle, he replied: “We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road.”

A few days journey from the border of Bethany, Jesus receives the news that His friend, Lazarus, is sick. However, the news doesn’t cause Jesus to rush to his bedside. Not because He is too busy. Not because He is disloyal. Not because He doesn’t have compassion. Jesus delays coming to Lazarus because the next revelation of His glory does not require a sick man. It requires a dead man.

Lazarus’ sisters are left to experience the grief and mourning that accompany our mortal powerlessness. Tearful prayers for Lazarus’ healing return to them like unanswered echoes off of a canyon wall. The vigil for his deliverance is swallowed in an unpreventable death and the sorrow, that Jesus did not come soon enough.

Four days after their brother’s death, a mountain of grief stands before them. It is this fourth day. It might as well have been 4 weeks; 4 years. Death is so final. It is also on the fourth day that Jesus finally arrives.

When word reached Martha that Jesus was coming into the village she went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. The actions of the two sisters are in keeping with their personalities, revealed elsewhere in the Gospels. Martha was the bustling, active one, the “Type A.” She is melancholy. Mary was the quiet, contemplative one and, perhaps, the most deeply offended. According to Jewish custom, those who suffered the loss of a loved one remained seated while the other mourners consoled them. But Martha, in keeping with her forceful personality, left her house and went to meet Jesus as He approached.

When Martha reached Him, the disturbing thought that had been uppermost in her mind for the last few days came pouring out: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Although heartbroken, she is not assailing Jesus. Their is a deeper faith at work: “Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.”

Jesus responded by assuring her, “Your brother will rise again,” and He was not inferring an inevitable resurrection in a distant future. He meant that Lazarus was going to be resurrected immediately. Jesus challenged Martha to move beyond an abstract belief in the final resurrection to complete faith in Him, Jesus said to her, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

And Jesus proceeded to call Lazarus’ name forth from the tomb with an emphatic, forceful tone: “Lazarus! Here! Now!” Those powerful words raised a man, but what strikes me is a loud instruction to those attending to mourn.

• When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” (John 11:43–44)

The same voice that commands a dead man to rise again, compels us to loose them from garments that are incompatible with new life! It’s time to help lives made new to discard garments that once defined them and to help them begin to walk in the new life with a new identity.