God totally shook me this week, and it seems like everything I’ve been learning lately at church, in my quiet times, through books I’m reading, and through my music has culminated and been summed up by Psalm 69:9:
“Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.”
I learned this verse while reading in John 2 (this is the NKJV)...
“Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, ‘Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’ Then His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.’”
Jesus was so “eaten up” (in Hebrew it means ‘destroyed’ and ‘consumed’) with passion for God that He absolutely hated the things that God hates, and absolutely loved the things that God loves. A few weeks ago one of my friends was teaching my Sunday School class about the holiness of God, and how since He is such a holy perfect God, He hates sin more than we ever could understand. (And let me clarify what I mean by sin; sin is not “drugs, sex, and rap music.” When I talk about sin I mean doing stuff that makes God sad, or failing to do stuff that makes God happy…basically sin is rebellion against God...and every single one of us is very very guilty of that, even if you don’t do the “typical” stuff that the “moral” people look down upon.) So since God is so holy and just, when He sees us giving in to the flesh rather than surrendering to Him, it’s like we’re drinking someone else’s vomit, which is absolutely disgusting, but still not an adequate portrayal of how God sees sin. So in order for us who sin to be able to have a relationship with such a holy God, Jesus (the sinless one) came to die for us sinners before we even knew Him. (Romans 5!) What a beautiful way for both God’s love and His justice to be satisfied!
So anyways, Jesus saw sin like God saw it…so when He saw people making a mockery of the temple, He was angry. And He did something about it. May we be so consumed by God that we love the things He loves and hates the things He hates too. This should radically change the way we live our lives. In Isaiah 6, upon encountering God, Isaiah said “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” In this verse, “ruined” also means to be destroyed. So God, upon us seeing Him, will ruin who we are and rebuild us to who He wants us to be…so what a beautiful destruction!
Lately I’ve read some awesome books by people who have been “ruined” by God. Gary Witherall wrote a book called “Total Abandon” that talks about how he and his wife Bonnie were serving as missionaries in Lebanon. They were “souled out” to God; forsaking all that they were to be used by God in a country that was very closed to Christians. Bonnie was killed on November 21, 2002, by a Muslim extremist…and Gary, through his pain, forgave her murderer and continued serving God. Gary Witherall was ruined.
On Tuesday I started reading “Through Gates of Splendor” by Elisabeth Elliot. (She is the wife of Jim Elliot, one of the men speared by the Auca Indians while trying to show the love of Christ.) I haven't even really gotten to the part where he's a missionary yet; just his journal entries from his early life are so insightful.
After trying to lead Gospel meetings for youths that turned out very unsuccessful, he wrote "This problem of meeting a culture with truth from God is the most difficult kind of thing. One comes as a renovator, a conditioner of society, and society is in no mood to be conditioned. The fixedness of the human mind is the wall of Jericho to Gospel preaching. GOD must shake, or there will be no shaking." Wow! What a beautiful picture of salvation! Jericho, like the lost soul, is closed to Him and is perfectly content with the wickedness going on inside. And He commands us Christians to "walk around the walls" to pray for these people and proclaim to them the gospel, and when the time is right, if He so chooses, Jesus tears the walls of their stony hearts down, and He enters. He alone is capable of this beautiful destruction. Praise God for destroying the walls of Jericho around my own heart, so that He may enter in!
Another thing Jim said that I thought was totally cool was in a letter he wrote to his parents regarding his numerous awards and achievements for academics, wrestling, popularity, the whole gamut. But in spite of this, he said, "The LORD has given me a hunger for righteousness and piety that alone can be of Himself. Such hungering He alone can satisfy, yet satan would delude and cast up all sorts of baubles, social life, a name renowned, a position of importance, scholastic attainment. What are these but the objects of the 'desire of the Gentiles' whose cravings are warped perverted. Surely they can mean nothing to to the soul who has seen the beauty of Jesus Christ...life is not here, but hid above with Christ in God, and therein I rejoice and sing as I think on such high exaltation." I think we all can look at our own lives or our little trophy closet and see all the accomplishments we’ve made and, even if we don’t say it out loud, we take great pride in them. Truly, in light of the Kingdom of God, these things mean nothing! When I get to Heaven God won't say "Good job being homecoming representative in tenth grade, Hope. I always wanted you to be kinda popular." NO NO NO NO! If I were truly unashamed of the gospel (Romans 1:16 yay!) I would have a great deal less friends. I have abused the gift of encouragement that God has given me to make friends and increase social status...life is such a vapor, and all these things are vapors too, vapors in which I once and delighted and of now am ashamed. (In case you can’t tell, striving for popularity is one of my biggest struggles haha.)
Jim’s friend Ed McCully said this as God was working on his heart to come to Ecuador: "I have one desire now: to live a life of reckless abandon for the LORD, putting all my energy and strength into it. Maybe He'll send me someplace where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown...I'm taking the LORD at His word, and I'm trusting Him to prove His Word. It's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, but we've already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned? If there's nothing to this business of eternal life we might as well lose everything in one crack and throw our present life away with our life hereafter. But if there IS something to it; then everything else the LORD says must hold true likewise."
What a good point! If we trust Jesus for salvation (which is a biggie) why don't we trust Him for His direction in our lives? Why don’t we trust Him to abolish who we are and recreate us to who He wants us to be? One time a girl named Lauren was being introduced to speak to our youth group, and my youth pastor described her as “There’s not much of Lauren left.” WOW! God shines so brightly through her that (for the most part) her personality is not her own, her words are not her own; her every thought is geared towards pleasing God. Such is a life that has been “eaten up” by zeal for His house.
I’ll close with this example that I heard on Wednesday: Sometimes in forestry it’s necessary to make something called a “prescribed burn” where the forest is set on fire, but it’s controlled in such a way that it doesn’t destroy any more than what’s needed. By setting the forest on fire, the old is destroyed and new life begins. Some seeds (such as sequoia) are actually dormant until fire breaks down the seed coating. We need God to destroy who we are and replace us with who He is; it might be painful to let go of things we always loved or start doing things we always hated, but we must remember that God’s ways are always best, no exceptions.
So surrender yourself to Him.
Ask to be consumed with passion for Him.
Love Him.
Live for Him.
Be ruined by Him.
Do it.
I dare you.
“Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.”
I learned this verse while reading in John 2 (this is the NKJV)...
“Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, ‘Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’ Then His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.’”
Jesus was so “eaten up” (in Hebrew it means ‘destroyed’ and ‘consumed’) with passion for God that He absolutely hated the things that God hates, and absolutely loved the things that God loves. A few weeks ago one of my friends was teaching my Sunday School class about the holiness of God, and how since He is such a holy perfect God, He hates sin more than we ever could understand. (And let me clarify what I mean by sin; sin is not “drugs, sex, and rap music.” When I talk about sin I mean doing stuff that makes God sad, or failing to do stuff that makes God happy…basically sin is rebellion against God...and every single one of us is very very guilty of that, even if you don’t do the “typical” stuff that the “moral” people look down upon.) So since God is so holy and just, when He sees us giving in to the flesh rather than surrendering to Him, it’s like we’re drinking someone else’s vomit, which is absolutely disgusting, but still not an adequate portrayal of how God sees sin. So in order for us who sin to be able to have a relationship with such a holy God, Jesus (the sinless one) came to die for us sinners before we even knew Him. (Romans 5!) What a beautiful way for both God’s love and His justice to be satisfied!
So anyways, Jesus saw sin like God saw it…so when He saw people making a mockery of the temple, He was angry. And He did something about it. May we be so consumed by God that we love the things He loves and hates the things He hates too. This should radically change the way we live our lives. In Isaiah 6, upon encountering God, Isaiah said “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” In this verse, “ruined” also means to be destroyed. So God, upon us seeing Him, will ruin who we are and rebuild us to who He wants us to be…so what a beautiful destruction!
Lately I’ve read some awesome books by people who have been “ruined” by God. Gary Witherall wrote a book called “Total Abandon” that talks about how he and his wife Bonnie were serving as missionaries in Lebanon. They were “souled out” to God; forsaking all that they were to be used by God in a country that was very closed to Christians. Bonnie was killed on November 21, 2002, by a Muslim extremist…and Gary, through his pain, forgave her murderer and continued serving God. Gary Witherall was ruined.
On Tuesday I started reading “Through Gates of Splendor” by Elisabeth Elliot. (She is the wife of Jim Elliot, one of the men speared by the Auca Indians while trying to show the love of Christ.) I haven't even really gotten to the part where he's a missionary yet; just his journal entries from his early life are so insightful.
After trying to lead Gospel meetings for youths that turned out very unsuccessful, he wrote "This problem of meeting a culture with truth from God is the most difficult kind of thing. One comes as a renovator, a conditioner of society, and society is in no mood to be conditioned. The fixedness of the human mind is the wall of Jericho to Gospel preaching. GOD must shake, or there will be no shaking." Wow! What a beautiful picture of salvation! Jericho, like the lost soul, is closed to Him and is perfectly content with the wickedness going on inside. And He commands us Christians to "walk around the walls" to pray for these people and proclaim to them the gospel, and when the time is right, if He so chooses, Jesus tears the walls of their stony hearts down, and He enters. He alone is capable of this beautiful destruction. Praise God for destroying the walls of Jericho around my own heart, so that He may enter in!
Another thing Jim said that I thought was totally cool was in a letter he wrote to his parents regarding his numerous awards and achievements for academics, wrestling, popularity, the whole gamut. But in spite of this, he said, "The LORD has given me a hunger for righteousness and piety that alone can be of Himself. Such hungering He alone can satisfy, yet satan would delude and cast up all sorts of baubles, social life, a name renowned, a position of importance, scholastic attainment. What are these but the objects of the 'desire of the Gentiles' whose cravings are warped perverted. Surely they can mean nothing to to the soul who has seen the beauty of Jesus Christ...life is not here, but hid above with Christ in God, and therein I rejoice and sing as I think on such high exaltation." I think we all can look at our own lives or our little trophy closet and see all the accomplishments we’ve made and, even if we don’t say it out loud, we take great pride in them. Truly, in light of the Kingdom of God, these things mean nothing! When I get to Heaven God won't say "Good job being homecoming representative in tenth grade, Hope. I always wanted you to be kinda popular." NO NO NO NO! If I were truly unashamed of the gospel (Romans 1:16 yay!) I would have a great deal less friends. I have abused the gift of encouragement that God has given me to make friends and increase social status...life is such a vapor, and all these things are vapors too, vapors in which I once and delighted and of now am ashamed. (In case you can’t tell, striving for popularity is one of my biggest struggles haha.)
Jim’s friend Ed McCully said this as God was working on his heart to come to Ecuador: "I have one desire now: to live a life of reckless abandon for the LORD, putting all my energy and strength into it. Maybe He'll send me someplace where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown...I'm taking the LORD at His word, and I'm trusting Him to prove His Word. It's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, but we've already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned? If there's nothing to this business of eternal life we might as well lose everything in one crack and throw our present life away with our life hereafter. But if there IS something to it; then everything else the LORD says must hold true likewise."
What a good point! If we trust Jesus for salvation (which is a biggie) why don't we trust Him for His direction in our lives? Why don’t we trust Him to abolish who we are and recreate us to who He wants us to be? One time a girl named Lauren was being introduced to speak to our youth group, and my youth pastor described her as “There’s not much of Lauren left.” WOW! God shines so brightly through her that (for the most part) her personality is not her own, her words are not her own; her every thought is geared towards pleasing God. Such is a life that has been “eaten up” by zeal for His house.
I’ll close with this example that I heard on Wednesday: Sometimes in forestry it’s necessary to make something called a “prescribed burn” where the forest is set on fire, but it’s controlled in such a way that it doesn’t destroy any more than what’s needed. By setting the forest on fire, the old is destroyed and new life begins. Some seeds (such as sequoia) are actually dormant until fire breaks down the seed coating. We need God to destroy who we are and replace us with who He is; it might be painful to let go of things we always loved or start doing things we always hated, but we must remember that God’s ways are always best, no exceptions.
So surrender yourself to Him.
Ask to be consumed with passion for Him.
Love Him.
Live for Him.
Be ruined by Him.
Do it.
I dare you.
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