LifeLink Devotional

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Oh the joys of grandparenting. I enjoy the privilege of having grandchildren over for a sleepover. Their arrival at our home is an instant boost. Their eyes gush with love and admiration, and it melts my heart. Their playfulness re-energizes me, even though I’m already old enough to be outrun by a three-year old.

One such sleepover was especially memorable. They arrived late, so it was off to bed right away. They were both tired and fast asleep within minutes. The oldest one rose at 6:40 am and we took some time to talk on the couch while grandma and his brother slept a little longer. When grandma got up and got dressed, it was my turn to go shower and shave and prepare for a day of ministry. I was a little sad that I wouldn’t be there to spend more time with them, but grandma had a great plan for their day.

When I finished dressing, I started to make the bed, knowing that grandma was busy with the boys in the kitchen. There was a flash of the flesh that said I was too busy to make the bed and I should get going to work. I quelled that thought immediately, and continued to get the bedroom in order. Then another thought came to my mind – This is the least I could do for her. I was overwhelmed at that moment with a total distaste for that statement. Why do we say it, and what makes us think that it’s a good thing to only do the least that we could for someone?

I started to think about that statement in relationship to what God does for me. What if He only did the least He could do? As I thought about it, I found myself doing a little bit extra straightening of the comforter and pillows on the bed. I looked around the room for anything else that needed to be picked up or put away. As I left the house, I moved the car seats from my vehicle to my wife’s with extra care and precision, buckling them firmly in place to protect those precious lives.

I started thinking about what God promises to do for His people in Isaiah 66.

Isaiah 66:12a  For this is what the LORD says: “I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream;

God said He would never do the least He could do, but will go beyond what is expected or even deserved. As I read verses 12 through 21 again, I saw so much more than the least God could do. I saw Him granting peace and wealth. I saw the people flourishing, not just surviving. I saw God extending Himself beyond anything He had ever done before to bring people who had never heard of Him to the place of eternal worship. I saw Him extending grace to “newbies” in the Kingdom by promoting them to positions of priesthood. He did far more than the least He could do.

Then I was reminded of one of my favorite words from the Bible – a word used in 1 John 3:1, where it says,

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

When God loved us it was not with the least love He could give – He LAVISHED His love on us. He didn’t just provide enough love to forgive us and grant us eternal life. Instead, He lavished His love on us so that we could be called His children, with full rights of inheritance of all things with His Son Jesus.

I choose to live my life that way. I will seek to not do the least I can for others. I choose to not allow my selfish desires to influence my expression of love to others. From this day forward, I want my life to be lived lavishly – not in a materialistic way to bring honor to self, but with the heart of a servant Savior who lavished His love on me. I will not settle for doing the least I could do. I will serve others to the full extent of God’s love that was lavished on me.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Monday, March 09, 2020

It’s not just because this is Monday. I know it’s not the Monday morning blues. It goes much deeper than that. It goes to the very core of my being as I stand before my awesome and holy God. My soul continues to be overwhelmed with a burden for the souls of people who are lost in their sin and are moving rapidly towards eternal death.

Again this morning I read the entire sixty-sixth chapter of Isaiah. In this concluding chapter, God is explaining the final separation of the righteous from the unrighteous – the righteous into His presence on the new earth that will endure forever (66:22), and the unrighteous into eternal punishment (66:24). The judgment of God on the unrighteous will be severe, beginning with the harsh treatment of verse 4, to His fury of verse 14, and His fire and sword of verse 16.

But what I am most burdened with is God’s statement in verse 17.

Isaiah 66:17 “Those who consecrate and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following the one in the midst of those who eat the flesh of pigs and rats and other abominable things–they will meet their end together,” declares the LORD.

I am burdened because it describes good-willed people with religious inclinations and spiritual values who are included in God’s judgment. These are people who have put on an outward appearance of spiritual life, and who participate in religious traditions and sacraments, but on the inside are still lost in their sin.

Every day I make connections with people who are trusting in the wrong things for their security. They trust their goodness, reminding others that they are a good person. They trust their success, displaying their abilities to the world around them. They trust their wealth, building bigger and bigger kingdoms to their own credit. They even trust their churches, seeking to find spiritual security in their obedience to the sacred duties declared by their leaders to be necessary to earn the approval of God.

But their hearts are unchanged from their innate condition of sin. As a result, in one of the most painful and heart-wrenching statements God ever makes, they will meet their end in the same way as those who absolutely rejected anything to do with God and His Son Jesus. The one who did their spiritual duty will be condemned right alongside of the one who did abominable things. That breaks my heart!

But it goes even deeper. I wonder how many there are in my own church, and in my own family, who are trusting in a man-made, man-honoring religious exterior, when in reality their heart has never been transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord? I am concerned that there are people sitting under my preaching every week who are going through the spiritual motions of faith but are walking through life following those who are doing abominable things.

My friends, there is only One Way to eternal life, and that is through Jesus Christ our Lord. His death and resurrection are the only qualifier for eternal life. And those who have repented of their sin and been forgiven by faith in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross must not go back to a life of sin and compromise with the world. The warnings of the Apostle John are clear:

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

And again the Holy Spirit speaks through John and says:

1 John 3:9  No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.

Oh dear people, we must declare boldly whom we will serve. Will we serve ourselves and seek acceptance with the world, or will we serve the Savior and forfeit the world for the eternal world that is coming? There can be no compromise. You cannot serve both because you cannot love both. Make your choice carefully. What you choose to love makes the choice for you, and it has eternal consequence.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Friday, March 6, 2020

Isaiah 66:3  They have chosen their own ways, and their souls delight in their abominations;

A line has been drawn in the sand. It is along that line that a chasm will soon be fixed for eternity. For the moment, while the line is still crossable, many people pass from one side to the other and back again as if there were no line at all. As they do, the line becomes obscured by sand being kicked on it. Feet that tread on the truth seeking self-fulfillment are wiping out the evidence of the line.

Back and forth across the line go millions and millions of people. They seem to have good intentions. Actually they are blind to the existence of the line. Their blindness to the line is their choice, having decided not to look at it because they have chosen to look only at their own lusts and take delight in their own desires.

In their blindness to the line they are convinced that they can have all the desires of the flesh and still earn favor with God and attain eternal life. They continually cross the line from religious duty to sinful pleasures and back again. Little do they realize that the line is still there, and one day, maybe very soon, that line will become an un-crossable chasm and they will be trapped for all eternity on the side of death and destruction with no hope of seeing the Creator.

There will be many on the eternal life side of the chasm. They are esteemed by God because of their humble hearts, their repentant spirits, and their awe of the Word of God. They will be the ones who continued to see the line no matter how obscured it became to the rest of culture.

God drew the line in the sand in the Garden of Eden. It has been there ever since. Then one day some 2000 years ago, His Son re-traced the line with His finger dipped in the blood of His own sacrifice.  He declared clearly and concisely that He was The Way, The Truth, and The Life. He stated truthfully that no one can ever get to eternal life with the Father except through His sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection to new life. He taught frequently that crossing back and forth over the line is unacceptable and inexcusable. The person who believes they can cross back and forth between surrender to Jesus and selfish sin is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.

As I read Isaiah 66:3 I am deeply moved by the blindness of people to the blood-stained line in the sand. Billions of people who are being misled and deceived by the enemy of God – our selfish pride – to believe that they can obey some spiritual law or sacrament and thereby earn the favor of God, all the while doing only those things that please themselves and fulfill their own desires. I grieve for their souls, knowing that there will be a day when the sand that has obscured the line falls into the eternal chasm of separation between eternal life and eternal death. Their sacrifices and spiritual rituals will mean nothing. They ignored the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. They will be separated from life forever.

God drew the line in the sand. There is no other way to God than through His Son Jesus. Many people are very sincere about their religions. However, God does not reward sincerity with eternity. He rewards humility – a broken and repentant heart that turns in faith from a life centered on self to a Savior who gives real life. Salvation is not available to the person who intends to keep kicking sand on God’s blood-stained line. Forgiveness is a one way bridge across the line from the side of sin to the side of salvation. Forgiveness is not to be a cheap and easy way for us to keep crossing the line back and forth between religious duty and personal gratification. That is a denial of the Gospel truth and intentionally ignores the reality of the coming chasm.

My friends, many are deceived. Many are doing spiritual duties to earn the favor of God while they continue to seek and serve self every day. Let us blow away the sand that has obscured the line in our own lives, so that it can be clearly seen by those around us. They need to see the line, and be drawn by the Holy Spirit to cross it into the arms of a loving Savior who drew the line with His blood.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Thursday, March 5, 2020

We have multiple ones in our house. There’s one in the bathroom for the grandkids to use. One is in the front closet so the grandkids can help in the kitchen. There’s another one in the laundry room. There’s one in the garage. Finally, are four in the living room attached to chairs and the sofa. Our house is filled with footstools.

Some are placed specifically to assist little children in accomplishing tasks. They raise the kids up to higher levels of functionality. Some are available to adults for the same purpose, like reaching the top shelves of kitchen cupboards. Still others are used primarily for rest and relaxation, lifting tired feet off the floor.

One thing is true of all footstools – they were designed and created to assist by lifting up. They never complain about the weight they must carry. They never argue with the user about how they are being used. They are kicked from one location to another so another task can be accomplished. They have cake batter and cookie dough spilled on them by less than careful grandkids that are learning to bake with grandma. They have dribbles of another kind on them from little boys being potty trained. They have absorbed the smell of stinky feet placed on them after a long day of work. Dirty, battered, and sometimes with covers that are wearing thin, they just keep doing what they were designed to do – lifting people up.

Isaiah 66:1 This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?

So, how are you doing today at lifting up your Designer and Creator? Or would you rather not be the footstool of the LORD God Almighty?

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Never say never.

We have been warned to be very careful how we use words that express absolutes – words like never and always. Sometimes these words are added to a statement as an emphatic expression of the truth. But for most of us, they are words that are used to try to make a point and convince others of something of which we ourselves may not be convinced.

For example, after being caught for the third time doing something wrong, little Johnny said to his father as the discipline is being enforced, “Daddy, I’m sorry. I’ll never do that again.”

Or how about the married couple that is in a heated argument, and neither one is staying on point. Soon one or both are saying, “You always…!”

The words never and always are valid words when used to express truth. In fact, the word never is used 315 times in the Bible, and the word always is used 129 times. In Deuteronomy 28:13 we read, “If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.”

God is the God of absolutes. Everything He speaks is absolute truth. Everything He does is absolutely perfect. He never uses never inappropriately. He always means what He says.

As we look ahead to the coming Kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth the prophet Isaiah is given insight into its conception and culture.

• Jerusalem will be a delight to all the nations of the world rather than an enemy. (66:18)
• The wailing wall will become obsolete as God promises that the sound of weeping and crying will never be heard again. (66:19)
• Never again will a baby die. (66:20)
• There will always be prosperity (66:21-23)
• There will be perfect fellowship with God. (66:24)
• There will be perfect peace on earth. (66:25)

What a glorious Kingdom that will be, and all of those who by faith in Jesus Christ have been washed of their sin and born of the Spirit into the eternal family of God will be a part of it.

As I ponder the splendor of our eternal glory in Christ, something has become clear to me that is especially meaningful at this stage of my life. It’s in verse 20.

Isaiah 65:20 “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.”

In the earthly Kingdom of Christ, an old man will live out his years, and anyone under 100 years of age is still a youth. So here’s the thought that is dominating my mind right now – from God’s perspective, I’m not getting older, I’m getting younger.

When Jesus returns, the Kingdom of God on earth will be like the first 2000 years of earth’s history when people lived to be over 900 years old. This is incredible. In eternity, we will ALWAYS be young.

So why not change your perspective on how old you really are and recognize that age doesn’t equate to value or usefulness. Come on, start thinking young again, and get busy for God.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

God is in control, and all things are working out exactly as He has planned for His glory and for our ultimate good. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to not be critical complainers but rather to be filled with hope.

Maybe you missed the preliminaries from Isaiah that led up to me making that statement. God spoke directly to the issue of our past and our present and gave us a vision of our future. He declared the past to be forgotten and hidden from His eyes (Isaiah 65:16). He declared that anything and everything about the past and the present will be wiped away in a new creation so that we will no longer remember the former things (vs. 17). Now, in place of complaining there can be rejoicing: in place of sadness there can be gladness (vs. 18).

Isaiah 65:18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create…

Eight years ago, while in the Philippines, I was introduced to the new Dean of Men at the Bible College that serves as the headquarters for the Evangelical Christian Outreach Foundation Incorporated (ECOFI), a ministry supported by missions giving to our church. His name is Christopher Bocboc. We talked for a few minutes, and then he helped me remember something from nine years earlier. I had been invited to an all-night prayer meeting with the students at the college, and he was one of them. I had spent an extended period of time counseling him about his spiritual life and God’s call on his life to full-time ministry. Now, nine years later, there he was as the Dean of Men at the Bible College.

One day on Facebook, Chris posted this, and I wanted to share it with you to encourage you to become people of praise.

Most of us give praise quite naturally. For example, we love watching our favorite sports heroes perform magnificent feats of athletic brilliance. Then we praise them to our friends as we share in their secret wish, just for a moment, that we could feel what it’s like to be in their spotlight! We also praise musical artists and bands when their music entertains or moves us.  Do you praise your friends? How about a boyfriend or a girlfriend? There’s nothing wrong with giving praise to others or even receiving some well earned praise. Yet the one we often forget to praise is the One who is the most deserving of it—God. No person is totally praiseworthy in the same sense that God is praiseworthy. We’re all human. We make mistakes. We let others down. We let ourselves down. But God is faithful. He is always true to Himself and to his word. When was the last time you paused to give praise to God? Is it something you do naturally?

THINK ABOUT IT! David recognized all God had done for Him and paused to praise Him for His faithfulness. Second Samuel 22:4 says” the Lord should be praised.” The next time you hear a great song, instead of praising the band, praise God, the creator of music. The next time you watch an exciting sporting event, praise God, the giver of all talent. Set aside each day to praise God for who He is and what He has done for you.

Be glad and rejoice in what God has created, and to Him alone be all the praise and glory.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Monday, March 2, 2020

Isaiah 65:18 “But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create”

Ah, the joys of a Monday morning. I love Mondays. I’m still invigorated with inspiration from yesterday’s worship of God in the company of people I love. I’m still basking in the blessing of spending quality time with my wife on Sunday. I’m rested and restored because I choose to use Sunday afternoon and evening as a Sabbath day. I’m energized with enthusiasm about the week’s ministry opportunities and waiting with wonder on the work God is going to do.

I know for most people Monday is a drag. But may I suggest that the reason for Mundane Monday is monocular: you know, looking only through one eye rather than two.

When I was first learning to shoot a rifle as a young boy, I was taught something very important by the man who was training me. When I put that .22 caliber rifle up to my shoulder for the first time and looked down the barrel at those open sights, I shut my left eye so I could focus completely on the target. Before I could pull the trigger, he stopped me. He told me to open my left eye and learn to focus on the target with both eyes open.

I had a lot of trouble with that at first. By nature our eyes are separated by space so we can see in stereo, making depth perception possible. In addition, one of our eyes is more dominant than the other, and when trying to line up two objects in a straight line we need to use the dominant eye. Lining up a rifle on a target is very difficult when both eyes are open.

But I did what he said, and kept practicing. Now, when I hunt, both eyes are always open. In that way, I never become so focused on one target that I miss another potential target that may be just left or right of the first one. On several occasions I have been looking through the scope of my rifle at a deer when out of the other eye I see the movement of a bigger deer to one side. Monocular vision limits potential.

One morning last spring, as I checked out all the latest news, weather, and sports, I noticed movement through the window on the other side of the house. I looked up and a bluebird had landed on the top of my birdfeeder. I had been trying to get bluebirds to nest at my house for years, yet they never seem interested in the houses I put up. But this was not about bluebirds nesting, it was about the Lord revealing Himself to me and reminding me not to get so monocular about life that I forget to see His presence around me.

Mundane Mondays are the result of monocular vision. We are so focused on the fun we had over the weekend, or the stresses of life in the week ahead, or the disappointments of life, or any other issue that exists, that we miss the blessings of the Lord’s presence. We have closed the eye that can see the movement of the Lord and we are seeing only the targets visible through the scope of self.  We are so intent on what we can create for ourselves that we are missing the splendor of what God is creating in and around us.

This is not a Mundane Monday – this is a Magnificent Monday. It is a Marvelous Monday. I rejoice that I enter this day and this week with both eyes wide open to see the splendor of God’s presence. I have already seen the bluebird of happiness.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Friday, February 28, 2020

May I begin this morning by asking how it went yesterday as you intentionally sought to conquer discouragement by forgetting the past? I trust you started to see some victory and a smile is returning to your soul.

It’s hard to forget, isn’t it? We have been created by God with incredible brains capable of storing countless pieces of information. The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. The neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes).

For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage. Now just think how long it would take to erase all those discs.

The process of forgetting is difficult. But every process has a starting point. Forgetting starts with a choice to trust God with the outcome of every event that is bothering us. The next step is to begin to act as if we don’t remember what happened, even though we do. Eventually the event will become so insignificant that it will be as if we don’t remember it unless we choose to resurrect it.

The fact that our brains are incapable of erasure is a reminder that we must trust God. We trust Him because He has promised to provide us with sufficient grace for each day’s trouble, and He has promised to one day wipe our memories away in His presence.

The other day I was doing some computer work for someone and they wanted the memory wiped clean. I got to thinking about that – clean memories. Actually, that’s an oxymoron. You cannot have a memory that doesn’t exist. But you can have clean memory capacity.

Have you ever wondered what it was like for Adam when God created him in the Garden of Eden? Did God create him with any memories, or was the storage capacity of his brain completely clean? Or how about this thought: God created the world yesterday with perfectly accurate archaeological records and created the human race with perfect recall memories of all facts. Can anyone prove that couldn’t be true?

Anyway, I wander from the point, which is this: everything that still haunts us in our minds will one day be wiped away when God reboots the entire system. This earth will be destroyed, along with everything in the universe. Once again there will be absolutely nothing apart from the spiritual reality of God and the souls of all human beings.

Then, in a grand and glorious event, God will create new heavens and a new earth. It will be inhabited by all those who were saved by the blood of Jesus Christ while on the old earth, while those who rejected Him will be sent to eternal punishment of conscious death and have nothing to do with life. In the new eternal bodies that we will possess, we will have clean memories. Nothing of the former things will be remembered. They will not pop into our head unexpectedly. There will be absolutely nothing to recall because God will wipe us clean.

Isaiah 65:17 “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.”

Sometimes I get asked if we will remember things from this life when the new world is created. The answer is no. For now there may be awareness of things from this life for the people who are already in the presence of the Lord – as is the case for all the martyred saints described in Revelation – but when the current heavens and earth are destroyed in God’s final act of judgment against sin, every single memory of the past will be gone.

What an incredible promise from our Great and Glorious God. In His presence, no earthly thing will matter. No earthly thing will ever be allowed to disrupt our perfect fellowship with Him.

Now here’s the application question for right now. Why are we working so hard to remember all that will someday be wiped clean? And how many of our current memories restrict our access to the fullness of the presence of God? I truly believe that God designed us to more easily forget the things of the past the older we get, so that in our last days of life in this sinful world we can more clearly see Him and enjoy His presence. I know that is true of me, and I’m not that old yet.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Discouragement happens. But what causes it? Our first impulse is to blame our circumstances. But our sin nature denies personal responsibility and transfers blame (check out Adam and Eve after they sinned in the Garden of Eden). If we could conquer that nature, we would see that our circumstances have no real power in and of themselves, and should have no power over us. They do not dictate or control our emotional responses – we do. We are responsible for our responses. We made the choice to be discouraged.

One choice that we make that leads to discouragement is to continually focus on our past, especially the failures. D. L. Moody once said, “Some people go back into the past and rake up all the troubles they ever had, and then they look into the future and anticipate that they will have still more trouble, and then they go reeling and staggering all through life.”

It has been said that the past is valuable as a guidepost, but dangerous if used as a hitching post. When God’s vision for the future is darkened by our memories of the past, our minds and our hearts become similarly dark. If we are to once again see the light of God’s grace and glory, we must recognize the truth that “the past cannot be changed, but our response to it can be.”(Erwin Lutzer)

Isaiah 65:16b “For the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes.”

There are several choices we have when it comes to the past:

• We can dwell on it and hope to change it by the power of our imagination, leading ultimately to discouragement, despondency, and death.
• We can hold it in our memory ready to be used at a moment’s notice to manipulate, suppress, or attack another person.
• OR, we can learn from its mistakes, accept God’s forgiveness for it and look to the future as if it never happened.

In Isaiah 65:13-16, the LORD offers forgiveness of the past and change for the future. Here’s the hope He offers each of us.

• My servants will eat
• My servants will drink
• My servants will rejoice
• My servants will sing out of the joy of their hearts  
• To His servants He will give another name.

Contrast that with what happens if we stay focused on the past:

• You will go hungry
• You will go thirsty
• You will be put to shame
• You will cry out from anguish of heart and wail in brokenness of spirit
• You will leave your name to my chosen ones as a curse
• The Sovereign LORD will put you to death

The Apostle Paul said it well when He wrote, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

I pray that today you will allow the Holy Spirit to have access to your heart. As the writer Oswald Chambers said, “If you. . . begin to find that the Holy Spirit is scrutinizing you, let his searchlight go straight down, and he will not only search you, he will put everything right that is wrong; he will make the past as though it had never been.”

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

 “Good luck.”

“Have a good day.”

“Live long and prosper.”

“It’s Karma.”

“It’s my destiny.”

“My horoscope says…”

All the above statements are contradictory to faith in God.

Now before you close this blog down and spend the rest of the day fuming about what I just wrote, think about it. God is sovereign. He is always in control of all things. He has a specific purpose for our lives, and that purpose is centered on the command of Jesus to go into all the world and make disciples. He has already determined our destiny based on our acceptance of or rejection of His Son Jesus Christ. He has condemned the practice of seeking guidance from the stars because it is the worship of the creation rather than the Creator.

Pay attention to the warning of God in Isaiah 65:11-12. It is entirely possible and most probable that we have forsaken the Lord for the worldly worship of Fortune and Destiny.

Isaiah 65:11-12 “But as for you who forsake the LORD and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny, I will destine you for the sword, and you will all bend down for the slaughter; for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me.”

Both terms used by God in this passage refer to pagan gods. According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia,  “the two names Gadh (the Hyades) and M^enı̄ (the Pleiades) taken together give the meaning of the “Fortunate Number,” i.e. seven. The spreading of the table and mingling the wine to Gadh and M^enı̄̌ at the beginning of the year to secure good fortune throughout its course, were therefore held about the time of the Passover, as if in parody, if indeed they were not a desecration of it: heathen rites added to one of the most solemn services of Yahweh.”

People were perverting the Passover, God’s ordained feast to reveal His plan of salvation for people through the shed blood of a Lamb. They were seeking the favor and good fortune of false gods. They were throwing the dice, hoping to hit seven all the time. They sought the counsel of the stars when they should have sought the Creator of the stars.

It was the propagation of the problem of Eden, when Eve was convinced by Satan that God’s purpose and provision were not sufficient to fully satisfy the human heart. How could the people of Israel, after all God had done for them, in delivering them from the bondage of slavery to sin and directing them to the Promised Land, turn their backs on Him and declare that He alone was not sufficient for them? How could they turn instead to the gods that are not gods to seek their fortunes and destinies?

However, I cannot condemn in others, past or present, what I do myself. There are things in my life that I trust to add fulfillment, joy, peace, and prosperity that stand in direct contradiction to absolute trust in God. I’m sure you have them too. Bank accounts, retirement plans, recreational activities, vacations, possessions, sports, Facebook, and the list could go on and on. If even one aspect of this list is allowed to become a means of providing personal value and worth to our lives, we are guilty of forsaking the LORD. We spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny every time we use the creation to attempt to fulfill what only the Creator can provide. We are guilty of false worship. We even forsake the worship of God with God’s people to pursue these other gods.

My friends, as we think ahead to spring and summer, we are all excited about the opportunities we will have to finally go have some fun and pursue gratification and fulfillment through vacations, recreation, and family sporting activities. Be very careful that all of it is done in the context of worship to the Creator. It is possible we are motivated by a belief that God alone is not sufficient and we need these other things to satisfy us. Our choices truly do reveal what we love and worship. Do not forsake the LORD.

Pastor John