Genesis 22:1-3

While it’s often a struggle to put everything on the altar, one thing I’ve learned is, you don’t have to understand how God will accomplish His plans. All He asks is that you surrender your will to His and trust that He will show you the way (Prov. 3:5-6). Abraham’s willingness to give up what was most precious to him came from his unyielding faith in the Lord’s trustworthiness.

However, if you tell God no because He won’t explain the reason He wants you to do something, you are actually hindering His blessing. But when you say yes to Him, all of heaven opens to pour out His goodness and reward your obedience. What matters more than material blessings are the things He is teaching us in our spirit. Don’t miss that His way of rewarding is like a parent withholding a treat until the child does as he is told. Obeying the Lord naturally positions us to receive what He is already trying to give us and accomplish in our lives. So, when we fail to trust Him and refuse to do what He says, we are the ones choosing to close ourselves off from those good things.

What has God told you to do? Have you only partially cooperated? Or have you, like Abraham, relinquished your need to understand and then obeyed completely?

If the Lord says to give more than you think you are able to give, know that He will provide for you. Whether things are sailing smoothly or the bottom has dropped out, He is always trustworthy. You can count on Almighty God to keep His everlasting Word.

 Why isn’t God more obvious? This question is often asked in many ways and in many contexts, by people of all levels of faith. When prayers go unanswered, why is God silent? When suffering or tragedy strikes, why would God allow this to happen? Why wouldn’t God want more people to know God’s good news? When all the “evidence” seems to counter the biblical narrative, why doesn’t God just give the world a sign? If God was revealed through many wondrous signs and miracles throughout the Bible, why doesn’t God act that way today? All of these examples get at the same issue—the seeming “hiddenness” of God. 

 Atheist Bertrand Russell was once asked what he would say if after death he met God. Russell replied: “God, you gave us insufficient evidence.”(1) While many who have found God quite evident would balk at Russell’s impudence, a similar struggle ensued between the psalmist and his hidden God. “Why do you stand afar off, O Lord? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Indeed, the psalmist accuses God of being asleep in these plaintive cries: “Arouse, yourself, why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake, and do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?”(2)

 In fact, belief in a God who can be easily found, a God who has acted in time and space, makes the hiddenness of God all the more poignant and perplexing. Theologians have offered many explanations for God’s hiddenness: because God seeks to grow our faith, because our sins and disobedience hide us from God and keep us from seeing God properly, or because God loves us and knows how much and how often we need to “find” God. If we are honest, we are just as likely to hide ourselves from God because of our guilt and shame, just as the first man and woman did in the Garden when God sought after them. Even so, once our hearts are examined and our lives are blameless with regards to any willful hiding from God, we cry out, just like Job did and wonder why God stays hidden away in unanswered prayers and difficult circumstances: “Why do you hide your face, and consider me the enemy?”

 The hiddenness of God is problematic for theists and atheists alike. Christians often take for granted that we have the Scriptures which give us a record of God’s revelation. We have the benefit of a book full of God’s speech. God speaks in the wonder and mystery of creation; God speaks through the history of the nation of Israel; God speaks through the very Word of God incarnate, Jesus Christ. His life reveals the exact nature of God, and places God’s glory on full display. 

 But still we may wonder if we must always and only look to the past to hear God’s voice, while we wonder why God isn’t more “talkative” today? Has God not given us an additional witness for God’s presence and activity in the world today? 

 In fact, God is often found in one of the last places we think of—the church. At its best, the church retells the story of God speaking across the ages and definitively in Jesus Christ through the preaching of the gospel. But the church can also create community where God may be encountered in the faces of others as a result of the empowering Holy Spirit. Such a community is to be the symbol of God’s presence among us and with us as “God-found,” not “God-hidden.” It is to be the arms of God around us when we are hurting, or the voice of God speaking when we feel we haven’t heard from God in years. Such a community is to be God’s voice, God’s hands and feet as they go out into the broken places of the world to bring healing, help, and comfort. Through worship and liturgy, prayer and communion, service and sacrifice the church is to reveal the God who spoke and is still speaking. 

 God is not often revealed in the roar of the hurricane or the loud-clap of thunder, but in a “still, small voice”—a voice that is barely audible except to the most patient and still. But when the Church, broken and human as it is, seeks through the power of the Spirit to be who it is, we see God and hear God, and find God beautifully obvious. 

 For those who long to see God, who long to find God in the darkest hour, we may not find God in the dramatic or the victorious, the miraculous or the stupendous. Instead, we may yet hope to find him in the pew, at the table of the Lord’s Supper, in a simple hymn, or in the gift of fellow seekers longing to find God too. 

 Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington. 

 (1) Cited in Dr. Paul K. Moser’s booklet, Why Isn’t God More Obvious: Finding the God who Hides and Seeks (Norcross, GA: RZIM, 2000), 1.
(2) Psalm 10:1, Psalm 44:23-24.

Morning “I will; be thou clean.” / Mark 1:41

Primeval darkness heard the Almighty fiat, “light be,” and straightway light
was, and the word of the Lord Jesus is equal in majesty to that ancient word
of power. Redemption like Creation has its word of might. Jesus speaks and it
is done. Leprosy yielded to no human remedies, but it fled at once at the
Lord’s “I will.” The disease exhibited no hopeful signs or tokens of recovery,
nature contributed nothing to its own healing, but the unaided word effected
the entire work on the spot and forever. The sinner is in a plight more
miserable than the leper; let him imitate his example and go to Jesus,
“beseeching him and kneeling down to him.” Let him exercise what little faith
he has, even though it should go no further than “Lord, if thou wilt, thou
canst make me clean;” and there need be no doubt as to the result of the
application. Jesus heals all who come, and casts out none. In reading the
narrative in which our morning’s text occurs, it is worthy of devout notice
that Jesus touched the leper. This unclean person had broken through the
regulations of the ceremonial law and pressed into the house, but Jesus so far
from chiding him broke through the law himself in order to meet him. He made
an interchange with the leper, for while he cleansed him, he contracted by
that touch a Levitical defilement. Even so Jesus Christ was made sin for us,
although in himself he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. O that poor sinners would go to Jesus, believing in the power of
his blessed substitutionary work, and they would soon learn the power of his
gracious touch. That hand which multiplied the loaves, which saved sinking
Peter, which upholds afflicted saints, which crowns believers, that same hand
will touch every seeking sinner, and in a moment make him clean. The love of
Jesus is the source of salvation. He loves, he looks, he touches us, we live.

Evening “Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have.” /
Leviticus 19:36

Weights, and scales, and measures were to be all according to the standard of
justice. Surely no Christian man will need to be reminded of this in his
business, for if righteousness were banished from all the world beside, it
should find a shelter in believing hearts. There are, however, other balances
which weigh moral and spiritual things, and these often need examining. We
will call in the officer tonight.

The balances in which we weigh our own and other men’s characters, are they
quite accurate? Do we not turn our own ounces of goodness into pounds, and
other persons’ bushels of excellence into pecks? See to weights and measures
here, Christian. The scales in which we measure our trials and troubles, are
they according to standard? Paul, who had more to suffer than we have, called
his afflictions light, and yet we often consider ours to be heavy–surely
something must be amiss with the weights! We must see to this matter, lest we
get reported to the court above for unjust dealing. Those weights with which
we measure our doctrinal belief, are they quite fair? The doctrines of grace
should have the same weight with us as the precepts of the word, no more and
no less; but it is to be feared that with many one scale or the other is
unfairly weighted. It is a grand matter to give just measure in truth.
Christian, be careful here. Those measures in which we estimate our
obligations and responsibilities look rather small. When a rich man gives no
more to the cause of God than the poor contribute, is that a just ephah and a
just hin? When ministers are half starved, is that honest dealing? When the
poor are despised, while ungodly rich men are held in admiration, is that a
just balance? Reader, we might lengthen the list, but we prefer to leave it as
your evening’s work to find out and destroy all unrighteous balances, weights,
and measures.

 You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin.   Leviticus 19:36

Weights and scales and measures were all to be according to the standard of justice. Surely no Christian will need to be reminded of this in his business, for if righteousness were banished from all the world beside, it would find a shelter in believing hearts. There are, however, other balances that weigh moral and spiritual things, and these need to be examined often.

Are the balances in which we weigh our own and other men’s characters quite accurate? Do we not turn our own ounces of goodness into pounds, and other people’s pounds of excellence into ounces? The scales in which we measure our trials and troubles—are they properly set? Paul, who had more to suffer than we have, called his afflictions light, and yet we often consider ours to be heavy—surely something must be wrong with the weights!

We must see to this matter, before we get reported to the court above for unjust dealing. Those weights with which we measure our doctrinal belief—are they quite fair? The doctrines of grace should have the same weight with us as the precepts of the Word, no more and no less; but it is to be feared that with many, one scale or the other is unfairly weighted. It is a vital matter to give honest measure in truth.

Christian, be careful here. Those measures in which we estimate our obligations and responsibilities look rather small. When a rich man gives to the work of God the same amount as the poor contribute, are things properly weighted? When pastors are neglected, is that honest dealing? When the poor are despised, while ungodly rich men are held in admiration, is that a just balance? Reader, we could extend the list, but we prefer to leave it as your evening’s work to identify and destroy all unrighteous balances, weights, and measures.

Family Reading Plan    Ezekiel 7  Psalm 45