Author: Danny Panter

Danny is the Associate Pastor for NextGen Marrieds & Community Missions at FBCSA.

Enjoy One Another

Re:Verse passage – Acts 2:42-47 (day six)

…all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. Acts 2:47

When you read these verses, does it put a smile on your face? Can you imagine the joy they experienced with one another? Not to mention the extraordinary display of God’s power?

We were meant to delight in one another, to express goodwill towards each other. It’s joy in Jesus and one another that drew the attention of others in those early days. And what they saw they had never encountered anywhere before.

I imagine, what was true then, is true now.

Let’s enjoy one another!

Mercy Doesn’t Wait

Re:Verse passage – Judges 3:11-30 (day six)

But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, the Lord again raised up a rescuer to save them. Judges 3:15

Their cry for deliverance was not a cry of repentance. They didn’t make things right. They didn’t confess their sin. They didn’t throw out their idols. They didn’t turn to God in faithful obedience. None of those things.

And yet, God delivered them still.

God’s mercy does not wait for us to get our act together.

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Romans 5:8

Aren’t you thankful.

King of Mercy

Re:Verse passage – Judges 2:11-20, 3:5-11 (day six)

Judges is the preamble to 1 Samuel. It is there that God tells the last judge, Samuel, that the people hadn’t rejected him in their demand for a king, but God himself.

That’s it central message after all: the people rejected God as their king over and over again. Every test was another opportunity to declare God as king. Every test was another act of mercy. And they failed.

But God didn’t.

Each time they would fall deeper, his mercy would reach deeper still.

He is the King of mercy.

Gradual

Re:Verse passage – Judges 1:1-2, 8-13, 20 (day six)

I don’t imagine any of the tribes were defiant, at least not in the beginning. They didn’t set out to disobey God outright. Likely, it was a gradual decline; subtle diversions, cut corners, postponements (“I’ll get serious about that later.”)  Like petty crime, no one would really notice (or even care), unless they were really looking.

Even the smallest diversions can descend into the deepest chasms, the kind that even when you look back you can’t see where you started from or where you are going.

In their wildest imaginations, they never dreamed they would forget God, and fall in love with gods of their own making, but they did.

…and so do we.

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,…”-C.S. Lewis, The Screw Tape Letters

“Who will rescue me from this body of death?! Thank God! The answer is in Jesus!”- Paul, Romans 7:24-25

 

Word

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 9:13-31 (day six)

11 God said to Solomon, “Because your greatest desire is to help your people, and you did not ask for wealth, riches, fame, or even the death of your enemies or a long life, but rather you asked for wisdom and knowledge to properly govern my people— 12 I will certainly give you the wisdom and knowledge you requested. But I will also give you wealth, riches, and fame such as no other king has had before you or will ever have in the future!” 2 Chronicles 1:11-12

While we can lament Solomon’s waywardness, that is not the purpose of this closing chapter on Solomon’s reign. With the chronicler’s emphasis on his political and economic wisdom, along with his astronomical wealth, it serves one purpose-a declaration that God keeps his word.

At the very beginning of his reign, God promised Solomon wisdom, wealth, and influence, and he kept his word. The people reading this history (a few hundred years later) had returned to a dilapidated city and a leveled Temple, they needed reminding that God is a promise keeper; that they weren’t forgotten.

So, don’t let your circumstances rob you of hope. Our God keeps his word; he is making good on his promises. Already we are a redeemed people through Jesus, and one day he will finish what he started. That’s a promise.

Just What They Needed to Hear

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 (day six)

Then if my people who are called by my name… 2 Chronicles 7:14

These words were written to a people newly returned to Jerusalem after 70 years of exile. They had lived through the consequences of previous generations’ rebellion against God. (Vs. 19-22) They had to be struggling with who they were and whose they were. Much like the prodigal son, they likely couldn’t imagine being received as my people; servants or slaves maybe, but surely not sons and daughters.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to hear those words for the first time, a promise given to King Solomon-if MY people? While they had deserved God’s judgement, they were not forgotten or forsaken! God had made a way for his people to return to him, and just like the father of the prodigal son he was longing and waiting and running to receive them.

 

40 Years

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 7:1-10 (day six)

Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. Jude 24

In less than forty years Solomon turns from God and gives his devotion and attention to pagan gods. As goes the king, so does the people. Save the prophets of the Lord, the nation is rife with rebellion and the pungent stench of idolatry. It is hard to imagine how quickly they forgot their incredible encounter with God at the dedication of the Temple.

The irony is stark; as important as the Temple was to David, and then Solomon, there is barely a mention in the rest of the historical books (save during Josiah’s reign).

What a terrible reminder for us! How quickly we can exchange the glory and wisdom of God for our homemade (and destructive) idols!

Oh what a miserable person I am. Who will free me from this life of sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord! -Paul, Romans 7:24-25

House of ________

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 6:12-42 (day six)

The temple was a house of prayer. The whole purpose of atoning sacrifices was to pave the way for the people to commune with God; to petition him from out of their brokenness and sin, to find wholeness again. This ornate building was to be a constant reminder of that reality, that the God who fashioned the heavens and the earth, gave the people his name on which to call, giving his infinite and glorious attention to a people who need his help.

The temple was a sign of hope and promise:

That if they would humble themselves and call upon the Lord, they would be saved.

Jesus, is not a sign, he is the truth. He is temple, sacrifice, and high priest…

God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. Acts 4:12

Faithfulness

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 6:1-11 (day six)

Solomon stood on the promises of God for only a short season. While God remained faithful, Solomon soon began to go his own way. The chronicler is writing hundreds of years after the fact, of course. He knew all too well the destruction Solomon’s unfaithfulness would eventually bring.

Solomon was not the fulfillment of God’s promise to David. Nor would any king after him; not of the political sort, at least. God’s long game was not to prop up a perishing earthly kingdoms (even our own).

No, his faithfulness would eventually find its fulfillment in the one true eternal king, his Son Jesus. As true today as it was for the Israelites after the exile.

Interestingly, we find ourselves in the very same position as those who first read the writings of the chronicler. They were looking to a future Son of David, the messiah, to restore the kingdom. We now are looking to his return.

Continuity

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 5:1-14 (day six).

God descended upon Mount Sinai in smoke and fire. When Moses completed the assembly of the Tabernacle, God covered it in a cloud and his glory filled the tabernacle, so much so Moses could not enter. The same cloud hovered by day, and glowed with fire by night above the Tabernacle. In the desert, when either would move, then the people would take up camp and follow God’s lead.

So, when God’s presence filled the temple with a thick cloud during the dedication of the temple, it had little to do with God blessing the temple building, and more to do with expressing his continuity:

I am the God who revealed his glory to Moses.

I am the God who made a covenant with you on the mountain, and gave my Word to you.

I am the God who lead and provided for you for 40 years in the desert.

I am the God who fought all your battles in Canaan.

I am the God of your fathers.

I am the unchanging God. And I have made a way for you to know me, love me, meet with me, and move with me.

Emmanuel [God with us]

So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.  John 1:14