We all know not to follow the crowd, but aim to be different.  Unique is good.  Peer pressure is the devil.  We know.  But are there not exceptions?

Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve.  And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus.  They were delighted and agreed to give him money.  He consented, and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present.                                    Luke 22:3-6

I have often wondered, just as did Jesus Himself, why it all had to go down as it did, why did they have to sneak out in the night to arrest Him.  Jesus even asked them, “Wasn’t I teaching in the Temple every day and yet you come out to arrest me with armed guards in the dark of night?”  His executioners knew where to find Him every day, why did they need a betrayer, why was Judas worth paying?  They stood before Him at the Temple every day that week and yet needed to find Him at night.  Why make it so difficult?

There is a lesson in the answers.  It’s actually there twice in this one little passage.

It has everything to do with the crowd.

The chief priests couldn’t seize Him during the day because of the crowd.  The crowd loved and adored Him and kept Him safe by day.  It was only at night, in the dark, in solitude with His chosen few that He was vulnerable.  There was a problem there though, it was dark.  There were no street lights spaced throughout the Garden, there was no residence to sneak in the back door of.  It wasn’t easy to find Him without an His enormous entourage and it wasn’t easy to find Him without the sunlight!

The people were the level head.  The second that the priests and officers escaped the eye of the grounded and loving crowd, they sank into the depths of their own insipid desires.

Then there’s Judas.  Judas too had a crowd to keep him grounded.  As long as he stayed with the Twelve, he was safe from the voices that called him wayward. There was safety in numbers, but alone, he was defenseless, vulnerable to attack.

Most crowds these days probably don’t keep us in check.  Most may not be beneficial for our ‘keeping the faith.’  There’s a good chance that most crowds today will contribute to our downfall rather than our upholding.  But not every crowd is ‘most.’

When we feel we must step away from believers before we answer the call or carry out the habit or conversation or action or vent the angst, anger, or grief, then we may be walking away from the one crowd that could keep us from being vulnerable to attack.  That crowd may keep us grounded.  That crowd may be there to keep us safe.

What if Judas had refused to leave the table that night?  He and Jesus both knew what he had in mind.  What if he refused to go it alone, refused to step away from those who helped to hold him up, what if he didn’t leave the faithful crowd for the darkness outside?

The plan would have still happened, it was necessary.  But he might have been able to rewrite his lines.

Perhaps there would be no cemetery at Potter’s Field.

Chose your crowd wisely.  Find strength in numbers.  Don’t walk life alone.

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.                   Ecclesiastes 4:12

The whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:  “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”                                                                     Luke 19:37-38

But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed.                                                               Luke 23:23

Same crowd.  Perhaps even some of the exact same fickle souls played party to both crowds, lifted their ‘loud voices’ in both sets of cries.  How on earth could this happen?  How could just a few days change so very much?

There are some days in our own lives that change everything.  A loved one dies, a dream dies, a child arrives, a debt is relieved, a job is lost, some things alter the course of our lives instantly for the better or worse.  This crowd didn’t necessarily experience any of that.  They didn’t necessarily experience a crisis of faith a midst a struggle in life.  They were just plain fickle.

And yet Luke called them disciples.

And they appeared, by all that we see, to have recognized this Man as King of Kings.  They praised the Lord.  They laid down their coats in submission.  They knew not just with their heads, but with their hearts that this Man was someone more.  And they acted on it.

What were they missing, where is the flaw, because the praise died and the death cries rose and the tide turned and the people fell away so far and so fast.  What went wrong?

Again, Luke hides gems.  I don’t know the motivations of mens’ hearts and I don’t know why history has played out in this way, but I think Luke felt he had some idea of why this crowd was so quick to turn.

The whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen…

Did you see it?  Their praises looked right and genuine and well founded and secure and informed, but where did their motivations lie? In the miracles.

Between the two previous verses, 19:38 and 23:23, Luke records not one single miracle.  Yet he twice points out that Jesus taught daily in the temple (19:47 and 21:37).  When the miracles took a back seat to the serious study of His Word, when the emphasis fell away from what can He do for me and toward what might I do for Him, the tide began to turn.  The people’s actions revealed the truth that lay deep in their hearts:  they didn’t love Him, they loved what He did for them.

I’ve so often wondered how, in just one tragic week, such inexplicable and drastic swings could happen among such a chosen and treasured people.  The ultimate answer is that it was the plan.  It had to be.  For my own eternal standing, praise God it was the plan.  But men’s hearts, lives, emotions… I’m lost to see how they could fall so tragically and so lightening fast.  From publicly professed devotion to cries of execution, that is a fierce jump.  And to make both shouts with such vigor as to be repeatedly professed as “loud shouts,” they cried for both with conviction.

When the miracles stop, when it becomes harder to see what’s in it for you, that’s when the heart reveals all that is within.  When you are left with nothing more under the tree, no gift waiting to be opened, does your heart still soar as others continue to unwrap their treasures?  When there is only the giving to be done, when you feel as though there’s nothing left for you, it is then that you see what rests within you.  And for so many called disciples that week, they found selfishness rested below the surface.

This nasty test has been known to reveal all manner of latent evil.  When you lose all your possessions, do you, like Job, praise the Lord who gives and takes away? When you receive great and public praise, does your heart relish the attention with an inward pride?  When great reward finds it’s way into your coffers, do you rationalize how very well deserved it really is?  When tragedy strikes, what dormant sin arises?  When glory shines, what sleeping transgression awakes?

I’ve been staring down this parable for days.  Read it yourself and let’s wallow in the reaches of it: Luke 19:11-27.

(Really, take a minute and read it)

Dum,da,dum,da dum…let me know when you’re done.

You see what I mean!  Luke tells stories we’ve heard from others, but with his own little spin, his own nuances that make you read it a second time and think, “You sneaky fella, you sure packed a lot into one little story.”

Let’s start at the beginning.  Jesus is headed into Jerusalem and apparently everyone expects Him to somehow take a throne there and rule them in power–as evidenced by His “triumphal entry.”  So He tells them this story to help them to realize it isn’t time for that yet.  He has to go away and return and this is how they are to spend that interim time.  And thus He tells the story.

A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return.

He is not among us, but He is King and He is coming back.

“Put this money to work,” he said, “until I come back.”

He was quite clear they were not to sit and await His return idly, they had work to do.

And then this part really gets me:

“We don’t want this man to be our king.” He was made king, however…

His being King doesn’t have a thing in the world to do with whether or not I or you or anyone else wants Him to be.  He just IS.  For goodness sakes, He is known as the I AM.  And He is when I feel like it and when I don’t.  He is whether I acknowledge it, defame it, embrace it, deny it, or ignore it.  He is for the saint and for the sinner.  He is for the nun and for the atheist.  He is for Billy Graham and He was for Charles Darwin.  He is for Barack Obama and He was for Charles Manson.  He is not because of what we believe, but because of who He is.

He is King and I am not and the less I fight Him for the position, the sooner I can get to the heart of this earthly living business.

This Master doles out His gifts as He will and goes on to His distant country. When He returns, He calls His servants to account: What have you done with what you’ve been given?

Some worked quite diligently.  Others not so much.  But here is the truth that overwhelms me: the last servant didn’t do anything wrong.  He just didn’t do anything right.

He didn’t refuse to give back the mina.  He didn’t steal it or gamble it away or use it for personal gain.  He did nothing bad.  He just didn’t do anything good.  He gave back what was given him, an even trade.  And that was not what his Master had in mind.

When Christ returns, He’s gonna ask me how I GREW what He invested in me.  If I look and live and talk and serve and study and worship the same today as I did last month or last year, then I’m not growing anything!  I don’t want that kind of tongue lashing!  I’m not interested in seeing the tough side of this love!

And that’s the final mine where I’ve found myself rolling around these last few days.  The Master gave to him who was blessed, more blessings.  And from he who had nothing, He took all there was.

“Sir,” they said, “he already has ten!”

People didn’t like that much.  I often don’t like that much.

It is the King’s right to dispense of His belongings as He sees fit.  And sometimes I’m not going to like how things shake out. The King is free to give and take rewards and hardships, lessons and blessings, talents and troubles, in whatever way He might chose.

And there will be times when I and others don’t think it’s quite fair.

Finally, the same Master who piles blessings onto one man, powerfully strikes fear into another.  I serve a great and mighty God who is rightfully Ruler of my life and powerfully King of this planet.

He’s given me a work to do and I don’t like the idea of having to look into His face and not see the kind eyes of a Savior Friend who took my place.  I’ve no interest in presenting myself on my own merit.  I know how very far that would fall from sufficient.  And the wrath due me is too much for me to bear.

Our King awaits!  There’s work to do, because to those who beg it on and to those who deny it’s coming, the King will return!

I visited a cathedral in a prominent European country not long ago.  It was breathtaking.  I received something of a ‘gift’ there, a disposable skirt.  You see, they believe in modesty and were prepared to enforce modesty on those who visit their church.

I don’t disagree with the practice.  I think that the unrelenting display of flesh that parades through our churches and streets today is both sinful of itself and a stumbling block to others.  Thinking on it now, it would be a fantastic idea within our churches!  Every woman who walks through the door gets a dress that covers up all the things she is so quick to display.  Out go the wrong motivations for coming and dressing, out go the ad nauseum bouncing of the eyes.  Out go the competitive one-upping in fashion and fitness.  The idea does have it’s benefits.

But then there’s the draw back.  It leads one to believe that it is acceptable to be one thing within the walls of a particular building and something altogether different without it.

It’s a sad reality that propriety and modesty need to be policed wherever they might.  But it is dangerous to let the policing be the solution rather than a turning of hearts to lives that no longer require such mandates.  Simply put, our aim should be to live lives everywhere as though they were being lived in the very Throne Room of our Father (because they are certainly visible there!)

The skirt that I was given displays my point tragically well.  I received a disposable skirt, like what you get in the hospital only missing the top part.  You were given one at the door if your legs were uncovered and were encouraged to drop it in a bin by the exit as you left.

Our desire to live lives of holiness simply isn’t something that can be dropped at the door.  Our relationships with the God who made us, the Creator who sustains us, the Savior who bought us, the Spirit who empowers us, it isn’t something that can be put on in one room and cast aside upon entering the next.  Religion can be put on and taken off.  A relationship cannot.

That beautiful cathedral was impressive.  It was gold and elaborate and pristine and expensive and clean and orderly.  Then there was the bin and the open doors. Outside was sunshine and life and babies crying and litter.

Praise the Lord my life is somewhere in the space between the perfect quiet of a cathedral and the chaotic whirl of a city street.  Some moments I find rest in the quiet and some moments I can only hang on through the tumble of regiments and responsibilities.

My life with this Man is not meant to be taken up and put down depending on which one I find myself in today.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory!  For the wedding has come, and His bride has made herself ready.  Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.                                                                                                   Revelation 19:7-8

I’m not meant to don a hastily tied throw-away.  I’ve been given something not only beautiful–like the most elaborately ornamented wedding gown of all time– but it’s eternal.  It’s not a one-use-only disposable skirt, it’s a once in a lifetime treasure.

You’ve likely heard of the idea of your heart as a house with many doors.  True surrender, total acceptance of the life to which your God calls you, is a house full of open doors.  For most of us, however, there are a few rooms still kept behind not only closed, but locked doors.

Are there rooms into which you walk only after having dropped your disposable skirt?  You might want to keep in mind that it was given to you ‘bright and clean’ and is meant to last forever.

The attire to which we are called and equipped, the lives that we are both intended and demanded to live, they are not disposable.  They cannot be cast aside as one strolls back out into the sunshine of a ignorantly, blissful life devoid of purpose, conviction, and calling.  There are no bins.  There are no areas into which our Almighty might call us that would require that we dispose of our relationship, our eternal attire in order to enter.

We have been clothed in beauty, eternal and flawless.  And there is no need to ever change your clothes.  This dress is not disposable.  It’s meant to last.  And it’s perfect for every occasion.

I have a special affinity for Palm Sunday.  For ten years I told the story of Easter through the eggs in a Story Basket to every little kid who would come and hunt them. This Palm Sunday you’re it.  No little kids came hunting this year and I still love to tell this story.

They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it.                                                                                                Luke 19:35

If we are to accept the great gift that Christ endured this tragic week in history to secure for us, it must begin with a choice to “put Him on it,” put Him in His rightful place on the colts of our lives, the thrones of our hearts.

Our Jesus was far from feeble, but He realized the importance from the outset of letting His children choose to call Him King.

And some did, they put Him on His trusty stead, and let Him run with their very lives.

“I tell you,”  He replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”                                                                                                            Luke 19:40

Is God Dead as some proclaim?  If we were ever to come to a point when all mankind believed such drivel, the whole world would be immediately set right again as the rocks cried out that which we were too foolish to profess ourselves! My God Lives and reigns supreme over His creation! If not one responded in love and obedience to His offer, He would not go quietly into the good night.  His praises would be heard around the world as cries of nature expressing the greatness of our God.

As He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.                                                                                                                   Luke 19:41

Some did put Him where He belonged, but the idea of some not choosing so wisely brought Him to tears.

He rejoices at the turning of every heart to His love.  But He is never content with your one heart coming home.  He longs for others who still wander outside the fold.

He has a plan to bring them in.  And you’re it.

He is broken over those who are lost.  Are you?  He fulfilled every part on the drama set before Him.  Have you?  Will you?  This is not a one Man show.  This isn’t a one-act play.  This one plays on for millenia.  It’s players are many and storied and valuable and necessary to the plot line.  And they are you and me.

How do we know our role?  How do we faithfully “put Him on it” day after day?

The leaders among the people were trying to kill Him.  Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on His words.                                                                                                                               Luke 19:48

When there are those–including yourself–who attempt to kill the flame of His love for you, who attempt to kill the bonfire of passion for Him in your life, hang on His words.

Those who desire to quiet and kill Him and those whose aim is to deter you, hang on His words and hear their voices fade.  Tune your ear to His voice, His word, and “the things of this earth will grow strangely dim.”  Hang on His words.  Quiet the killers.  Sing with the rocks.

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!                                                                                                                                Luke 19:38

You ever seen a grown-up stick their fingers in their ears and “la-la-la-la-la, I can’t hear you!!!”?  I’ve seen it happen over sporting events.  The old, “I’ve got the game recorded, please don’t spoil it for me” trick.  TV shows.  A season finale.  There are some justifiable times for such childish actions.

I don’t see it all that much, but I fear that I do it often.  Maybe I don’t literally use my fingers and the words may be a bit more sophisticated than la-la-la, but I’m pretty sure I do the ‘grown-up’ version more often than I’d like to admit.

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him….”Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”  The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”                                                             Luke 10:33-37

The prejudice ran so deep, the loathing so intense that the expert knew the answer to the question but couldn’t bare to say it outright.  The idea of the Samaritan being the good guy just wasn’t one he could stomach.  Instead of giving the easy answer, “The Samaritan was the good neighbor,” he chose to describe the action that was good rather than the actual person.

Do you see the subtle slighting there?  This expert would not give the Samaritan, any Samaritan real or storied the credit of being the hero. He wouldn’t hear of that.

Thus the grown-up la-la-la-I can’t hear you.

God has asked me to do a few things I can instantly recall when I pulled a la-la-la. One I have in mind was just a potentially humiliating endeavor.  I resisted, I hemmed and hawed, I even thanked and praised Him for speaking to me so clearly!  He didn’t think my hearing was enough.  He was looking for a little action.

I did it.  It was a bit humiliating.  It was worth it.

I’m thinking of another la-la-la.  He asked me to do something that was over my head.  It wasn’t something that I could do without help and, true to my sinful self, I don’t really like help sometimes.  He had dependence on the Body in mind and I was satisfied with dependence on the Man alone.  I do love a Holy Huddle.

I did it.  It was a bit overwhelming.  It was worth it.

And then I turn to other la-la-la’s.  There are countless ones I’d rather not think on.

I didn’t do it.  It was a bit too hard.  I missed all that would have been worth it.

He will stretch and He will speak and He will move and He will work, but will I plug my ears or let Him do it?

Take a minute and think back on the parts, the moments in your life that even after decades are so fresh and meaningful in your mind.  Do any of them involve laundry?  Do any of them have you on the edge of your seat in excitement over whether or not the bill gets paid?  Do any of the truly meaningful moments in your life involve the safe and predictable things that we plug our ears and press on toward with such resolute obstinance?  Martha’s role is a valuable one.  People gotta eat.  But how often does our Daddy find Himself shaking His head and wishing we’d take our fingers out of our ears and sit for a while. (The story of Mary and Martha is right after the Good Samaritan in Luke by the way.) How often do I miss that which is worth it.  How often do I plug my ears and la-la-la through all that is meaningful and lasting and purposeful and eternal and full for reasons that are endless and varied and shockingly insignificant?

Sometimes you hear things that stretch you beyond comfort.  Sometimes you hear things that scare you to death.  Sometimes you hear things that your prejudices want to deny.  Sometimes you hear things that don’t fit your mold.  Sometimes you hear things that send you down untrodden roads.

And the sometimes when you quiet the la-la-la’s of defiance, obstinance, and fear, you get to live the moments that are worth it.

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grain fields, and His disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels.  Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”  Jesus answered them….                                                                           Luke 6:1-3

Yes, I did stop that a bit short.  It’s because the story isn’t so much in the answer to the question today.  It’s in the One who answers.

It struck me as I read these verses that it wasn’t Jesus who had done something “unlawful on the Sabbath,”  it was His disciples.  However, it wasn’t the disciples who answered the protest, it was Jesus.

Jesus was walking through the fields and the disciples were just following Him.  If we are following where He leads and protests arise, the fight isn’t ours it’s on Him.

Truth of the matter is, if we live lives that are sold out to following this Guy, we’re going to have some opposition. There are going to be many who say, (in various tones) “Why are you doing that!?”

The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.                 Exodus 14:14 (NASB)

Moses continually reminded himself and the Isrealites that their grumbling wasn’t really against him, it was against the Lord.  If we are just the follower, then there is a Leader, and followers don’t have much say in the direction in which they find themselves traveling.  The authority and the responsibility lie with Him who calls the shots.  This is so freeing!  It abdicates me from the responsibility of justification.  The only ‘excuse’ that I need for doing that which the Lord calls me to do is, “He said so.” People–including myself!–may not understand what the Lord is up to, but it’s enough that He’s up to it.  Much like His written Word, it is enough without our explanations and addendums.

Despite this truth, opposition does come and God’s Sovereignty may not be the answer that others were looking for.

You ever notice how siblings can talk horribly of one another, but don’t let someone on the outside speak ill of them!  Out come the claws!  And then there’s the children.  Not a God-fearing mama on planet earth is going to let someone speak ill of her baby!

When opposition stands before you, you have an advocate that doesn’t like for people to mess with His baby.

When you choose to raise your children differently, when you choose to spend your money differently, when you choose to go where others never would, when you choose to love whom others wouldn’t, when you choose to give what others can’t, and when you choose to live like others don’t, there will be questions.  And they are for the Lord to answer.

Sadly, I’m the one posing those questions sometimes.  The Lord calls me to go down a road I don’t want to travel and the questions and oppositions don’t come from others, they come from me.  I am often my very own worst enemy and the central figure of my own derailment.

Perhaps I should keep silent and step into the grain field.  I hear the harvest is plentiful there, the food is fresh, the company is fantastic, and the leader is jealous for His own.

You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but on the seventh day you must stop working, even during seasons of plowing and harvest.             Exodus 34:21

It’s a command you know.  You can read the list, it’s number 4.  For some reason we don’t think He means this one.  We’d never consider murder.  Theft just isn’t right. But Sabbath rest is on the iffy side.

Part of me thinks that God put this command in there for other than the obvious reasons.  There are the givens: I rested on the seventh day and you should do as I do, so rest on the seventh day; I didn’t make your bodies to go hard 24-7, so take a day and let them rest; if you focus your attention every day on the burdens of this life, I’m more likely to get squeezed out without your even noticing.

I think He may have had another in mind too.

Sometimes I’ll tell you things that don’t make sense and that don’t appear to lead you in the right direction.  I want you to do them anyway.  Even when you don’t agree or understand.

Our God was not unaware of the pressures of our lives.  He was also not unaware of our tendency to deal with those pressures on His time.  “Even during the seasons of plowing and harvest.”  He knew fully well that there would be seasons of our lives when we just couldn’t get it all done, when there just weren’t enough hours in the day.  He knew it and He said take the break anyway.  He was not missing information, He simply didn’t find the information compelling enough to change the verdict.

You need more time to get your to-do’s done.  You need more quiet hours in the office to catch up.  He knows.  Yet there is no exception clause.  He made sure we didn’t have any grounds for creating one.

Tomorrow doesn’t belong to you.  The Sabbath is His.

Get up, go to church, have some lunch, take a nap, watch some hoops, love on your family, sit in the glorious sunshine and recount the many ways in which the Almighty has lavished His love on you this week, go to bed early.  Monday will come again and you’ll have a lighter burden to carry into it for having obeyed.

“Come on,” they said, “make us some gods who can lead us.  We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.”                                                                            Exodus 32:1

Some of the saddest words in all of Scripture.

How quickly did they forget.

Forty days prior to the speaking of these words, the Israelites had heard the booming voice of the Lord Himself, descended upon Mt. Sinai.  They had shaken in fear and pleaded with Moses to intercede for them.  (Exodus 19, one of my favorites) Just a few months prior to that, they had seen the Almighty God separate the waters of the Red Sea.  They had seen ‘this fellow Moses,’ God’s chosen agent, stand on the shores of the Sea, raise his arms, and send the waves crashing destruction and death upon their enemies. (Exodus 14:26)  They had followed a cloud and a ball of fire through the desert for weeks.  They resided now at the foot of a mountain cloaked in that cloud and the Holy Presence of their One True God.

And now look at them.

How quickly did they forget.

Their situation, their circumstances made it impossible for them to forget that it was indeed a power outside of their own that had brought them to this place. They just failed to remember whose power it was.

The story gets sadder still.  Aaron, poor foolish Aaron.  He gets so excited that the people are looking to him, are loving what he’s doing.  He was so hungry for their approval.  He wanted them to follow him so desperately.  He built the calf and called for a celebration.  Somewhere in his heart he thought it could actually be ‘to the Lord.’ (Exodus 32:5)

It is so easy to say that they were shortsighted.  So easy to call him duped and needy.  So easy to see that they were wayward and foolish.

Just because their idols were made of gold and accompanied by fires on an altar doesn’t make them any more sinful than our own that hide behind behaviors and political correctness.

It’s easy to spot their idols; they were in the middle of the camp with a big altar erected in front of it.  Our idols are a bit more elusive.  But the worship we offer them is just the same.

What can we learn here?  As we shake our heads in wonder at how they fell so far, what might we see if we turned the looking glass inward instead?  How many days can you go in silence before you hunt the worthless to save and guide you? How profoundly have you seen the Lord at work only to seek out other gods to whom you may give the credit?  When the Lord is working in the background, how patiently do you wait, staring up to the mountain of His Presence in anticipation?  How often do you find yourself somewhere wonderful and turn to the useless to explain how it happened?

And then there’s Aaron.  He compromised the Lord’s holiness in order to gain a following.  He attempted the old bait-and-switch.  He gave them a golden calf and called them to a ‘festival of the Lord.’ He thought that he could dilute the Almighty God of the Universe in order to draw them in.  He even thought it worked.  But if you water down the Impeccable Almighty, you just get a worthless imitation.  He can’t be deluded and doesn’t want us to take Him on our own terms.  He isn’t willing to change His Timeless Perfection because it’s what people would rather hear today.  He is the same yesterday, today, forever.  He doesn’t need a cooler image or a new spin.  He didn’t need for Aaron to make Him look more visible or more fun or more cool or more anything.  He is enough.

We don’t have to spruce up the King of Kings.  People will take Him as He is or they just aren’t going to take Him at all because there is no way on this Earth that we can ever make Him look any better than He already is.

Don’t read about these silly, forgetful, and impetuous Israelites and pity their shortsightedness.  Don’t read the stories and ‘wag your heads’ at their lack of wisdom.  Though our idols may not be of gold, they have certainly set up shop in the center of our lives equally as often as they did in theirs.  Our idols have merely gotten smarter.  And we have merely become more proud.  Be not deceived.   We are the foolish.  We are the Israelites.  We are idolaters.  And we need to remember Who brought us here.

You know much about the Tabernacle?

One thing you might need to know today:  there was only one fire.  That one fire was spread to more than one altar, but there was only one fire, an important one, God Himself lit it.  When the temple was dedicated to the Lord, He indwelled the place, the priests offered the first burnt offerings shortly after, and God personally lit the fire of the bronze altar as He consumed that first offering. (Leviticus 9)  He then told them to take fire from that altar and light the other altar, the incense one in the Holy Place.  He didn’t want just any fire or just any offering on it.

Aaron had two sons that didn’t quite grasp this.  They lit that incense altar with unholy fire and felt the heat themselves when God consumed them for their hubris.  They had forgotten that while He loved them and had them construct this beautiful place in which He might commune with them, He was still God and not a mere man to be trifled with.

“Oh that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar!  I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.”                            Malachi 1:10

Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron who died that day before the altar, clearly had some sort of love for the Lord, otherwise why offer Him anything.  But their little offerings were not merely unwanted by the Lord, they were repugnant.  They were such a defamation that the Lord had to consume them where they stood for the lack of respect that they represented.

Just because we come before the Lord and lay down our offerings doesn’t always mean that He looks lovingly on them and smiles.

Just because we come into His ‘house’ on Sunday morning and we lay down our time, our talents, our service, or any other offering we believe ourselves to be contributing, it doesn’t necessarily mean that God has a welcoming “well done” waiting for us.

Just because you light the fire doesn’t mean that it isn’t a useless one.

Those Israelites put a great deal of time and money and muscle and life into the work of the temple.  It was a focal point of their lives and their families.  But in Malachi’s day, that temple duty was not the focus of their hearts as much as it was of their schedules.  And their God was not pleased.

What a devastating blow if you were to hear your Maker say, “Please shut this church down!  Just close the doors so that your people will stop offering me the useless ‘sacrifices’ that I don’t want and find no pleasure in!  Stop giving them the opportunity to feel as though they’ve earned my blessing!  For all that they offer me, I do not accept.”

To have this be true of our own offerings and our own churches would be more than deflating or sad, it would be more than disappointing or humbling.  It would be dangerous.  This great God to whom we continue to offer our ‘useless fires’ is not to be messed with!

“Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord.  For I am a great King,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.”               Malachi 1:14

This is not some trifling thing with which we toy.  This ‘playing religion’ is a consuming fire of a jealous God who should be both revered and feared.  Don’t mess around offering your leftovers and your disposables and the dregs of your day and your life and your wares to Him.  He doesn’t want those and considers it a ‘cheat’ when you offer it–He isn’t to be cheated!

Your mind might go straight to money.  Do you give Him that which is left over when the bills have been paid?  You may have thought time.  Do you give Him those final minutes of the day when you’re not entirely focused or even awake? How about your service?  Do you give to Him by giving to others only that which costs you nothing–time you were already going to be spending at the church anyway, shoes that don’t fit anymore anyway, love that you would have shared anyway?

What lovely trifles are you laying into the useless fires on the altars of your life?

He wants no part of our leftovers.  He doesn’t want the blemished goods that we wouldn’t miss anyway.  He “will accept no offering from our hands” when it is only laid down after we have no use of it anymore anyway.  And not only will He fail to accept it, He has nothing but a bad name for us for offering it.  Cheat.

This is no mere man with whom we deal.  We must offer the Lord that which is of value or keep our useless fire until it burns right through the charade of religion we play the fool with.

                                  “I am a great King and my name is to be feared.”