Fifty Shades of Taupe

Since Mother’s Day is just around the corner and that’s the designated day to honor the women in our lives, I thought I’d get this out there in advance to both pay tribute to my female readers and encourage the male participants to be proactive.  The slightly provocative title is not chosen to spur some erotic adventure, but to honor my wife’s favorite color – taupe.  If you were to look through her closet, you’d find garments consistent with the title, along with a few black and white ones.  Her philosophy of decorating, both for her personal adornment and for our residence, is to use earthy tones as a background punctuated by splashes of color.  As I consider her plan, it seems God used the same strategy with the earth and its people – shades of taupe with splashes of color – so it must be a pretty good design approach!

In a time when many people seem to want to put all their “business” out there in cyber space, I find subtlety – the “taupe-iness” of personality – a preferred virtue, and my wife is filled with the quiet grace to qualify.  By contrast, those personas, that if they could be described by colors such as bright red, or neon orange, or electric blue, are a bit disconcerting for me.  I much prefer taupe.  It’s my contention that the writer of Proverbs does, too.  Here are a few excerpts from Proverbs 31:

Who can find a capable wife?  She is far more precious than jewels.  The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will not lack anything good.  She rewards him with good, not evil, all the days of her life.  She …works with willing hands…she…provides…for her household.  She draws on her strength and reveals that her arms are strong.  She sees that her profits are good…Her hands reach out to the poor, and she extends her hands to the needy.  She is not afraid for her household…

Strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the time to come.  She opens her mouth with wisdom and loving instruction is on her tongue.  She watches over the activities of her household and is never idle. 

“Many women are capable, but you surpass them all!”  Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised.

Nothing lipstick-red about that woman.  Just hard-working, generous, strong, compassionate, prepared, wise, gracious, and productive.  Oh, and filled with faith.  That, my dear friends, is a life-palette to be honored. 

God is less concerned with the quality of our “selfies” than He is with the character of our hearts.  So to all the mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters, I offer both prayers and praise for your strong lives and godly examples.  Men, get it together!  If the women in your lives are setting the pace by being Proverbs 31 women, the least you can do is try to keep up!  And don’t forget the cards and flowers.  Maybe even a nice outfit?  I’ve heard you can’t go wrong with taupe….

Thankful for the wonderful women in my life,

Jacob

Dear Gavin

Sometimes it’s hard to remember what it was like being a kid.  Even when I was young, I thought my view of things was pretty “grown-up”.  I worried about my parents getting divorced every time they argued, because I had heard that sometimes happened when parents couldn’t get along (though only a couple kids I knew had divorced parents back then).  I always told my parents, “Good night, I love you” after I got into bed, but I always alternated telling them, mom first one night, then dad first the next, for fear either would think I loved them more.  I remember that I decided I would live in Iceland when I got old enough because I read they had the lowest murder rate in the world.  And though back then I aspired to grow up to be a politician, I wanted to be a senator rather than president, because in those days, they shot you if you were the president.  That’s all kind of sad when I think about it now.  Kids shouldn’t have to worry about such things.  Children’s lives should be spent in simple trust and feeling secure.

That’s why Jesus became so upset when His disciples tried to keep parents from bringing their kids to be near Him:

Then children were brought to Him so He might put His hands on them and pray. But the disciples rebuked them. Then Jesus said, “Leave the children alone, and don’t try to keep them from coming to Me, because the kingdom of heaven is made up of people like this.”  (Matthew 19:13-14)

I find it interesting that most adults feel much “safer” around other adults than children.  Kids scare us!  We never know what they’ll ask us or, scarier still, what they’ll ask us to do with them or for them.  I wouldn’t want a video to surface on YouTube of me doing the Hokey-Pokey, though I have done it at the request of children.  And I believe Jesus would have, too. 

Jesus thought kids were cool.  He didn’t have to wonder if they were planning to be mean to Him later, even though they were acting as though they liked Him now.  It wasn’t children that plotted against Jesus – they loved Him as much as He loved them.  That’s why He wanted them to know these three things and to never forget them:

1.  Jesus wants every child to know Him and love Him, because He knows and loves each one of them.
2.  Heaven is a real place and life there will be like it should be for all kids now – safe, secure, and filled with love.
3. When it sometimes seems like life is difficult, or someone hurts you, or you feel alone, remember Jesus is always there for you.  Always.

 Right after Jesus rebuked His disciples about trying to keep the kids away, He did just the opposite of what they wanted.  Jesus touched each child, and based on the way the Bible says it, He prayed for each and every one.  Can you imagine having the real Jesus put his hand on your shoulder and pray to our Heavenly Father on your behalf?  For those children who were old enough to remember, that experience must have been a treasure to cling to forever. 

Here's the best part.  No matter how old you are today – 10 years old or 110 – if you know Jesus and you trust Him, He is doing the very same thing for you right now.  “Christ Jesus is…at the right hand of God and intercedes (prays) for us.”  (Romans 8:34)  Jesus is thinking about you and praying for you.  Right now.

I wish I had known that when I was ten.  It would have saved a whole lot of worry.

I’m so thankful for faith like a child,

Jacob

The Language of Forgiveness

¿Es difícil leer esta frase?  Как трудно читать это предложение?  Both of these sentences, first in Spanish and then in Russian, say “How hard is it to read this sentence?”  Kind of tough to figure out if you don’t speak the language, right?  But when you stop to think about it, the words used in church services to speak about faith-related issues form their own language.  When we use terms like “redemption, justification, and propitiation”, we might as well be saying, “Ukombozi, kuhesabiwa haki, na suluhu.” (Same thing, but in Swahili).

So how do we get across the truths of the Bible without having to teach listeners another language?  By using the pictures those words represent.  In fact, the Hebrew language (in which the Old Testament is primarily written) is actually a language of images. In Hebrew, the word for the lid placed on the Ark of the Covenant is כַּפֹּרֶת.  Unless you read Hebrew, seeing the word doesn’t do you much good, but the picture the word represents is “lid”.  Makes sense right?  But it can also be translated “cover” – as in a cover for something (it covers the ark).  Even more to the point, it can mean “to cover” in verb form.  That’s starting to sound like something that might have religious overtones.  And its ultimate interpretation is “mercy seat” which refers to its role as the place where the high priest of Israel sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the day of Atonement to “cover” the sins of the people.  Here’s the passage:

“Make a mercy seat of pure gold…Make two cherubim of gold…The cherubim are to have wings spread out above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and are to face one another…Set the mercy seat on top of the ark and…I will meet with you there above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are over the ark….”  (Exodus 25:17-22)

How does this all fit together?  The word translated “mercy seat” in both the Old and New Testaments is also translated in both to mean propitiation.  That’s a religious word that means when Jesus died, He satisfied the wrath of God toward us because of our sin.  Said another way, God will never take out His anger on us (who accept Jesus through faith as our substitute sacrifice) since Christ propitiated all that sin on the cross.  Confusing when we say it that way, right?

Here’s the picture God sent us:

One time each year, the high priest of Israel entered the holiest place in the temple and offered a sacrifice for the sin of the people.  The priest approached the golden box that held the stone tablets of the Law that showed everyone’s guilt before God.  (Go back and read the post, Raiders of the Lost Art, if you need a refresher on what’s inside the Ark.)  The high priest then took the blood from the sacrifice, and sprinkled it seven times on the lid, the mercy seat, of the Ark.  Then, symbolically, the glory of God would “meet” the people above the mercy seat, between the angels positioned there.  And as God looked down at the Ark, He no longer saw inside the sin and guilt of mankind, but instead saw the mercy seat covered by the sacrificial blood offered for sin.  The blood covered our sin.  See why it’s called the mercy seat?

What a perfect picture of God’s mercy and grace toward us!  While we are rightfully convicted of sin by the law, we are freed from the wrath of God and His judgment because we are covered by the blood of Christ.  By the time Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem, the Ark had been lost to history.  So on the day He died, instead of the blood of an animal sacrifice dripping from the edge of a gold-covered Ark, the precious life-blood of the Lamb of God flowed down onto an axe-hewn cross.  For you.  And that doesn’t require any translation.

 感谢耶稣的血  - In Chinese it says, “Grateful for the blood of Jesus”

Jacob

Raiders of the Lost Art

First of all, no, I didn’t misspell the title.  Nearly everyone is familiar with the movie hinted at by the title, or at least they’re familiar with the object of the movie – the Ark of the Covenant.  What exactly was the Ark?  It was a boxy device designed to carry the promise of God’s love for mankind.  Though that description might sound like the ark that Noah and his family used to escape the flood that decimated the earth, this is a different ark, but designated for the same purpose.  And God was pretty specific about how He wanted it made. 

“They are to make an ark of acacia wood, 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high.  Overlay it with pure gold; overlay it both inside and out. Also make a gold molding all around it.  Cast four gold rings for it and place them on its four feet, two rings on one side and two rings on the other side. Make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark in order to carry the ark with them. The poles are to remain in the rings of the ark; they must not be removed from it. Put the tablets of the testimony that I will give you into the ark. Make a mercy seat of pure gold…Make two cherubim of gold; make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat…At its two ends, make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat. The cherubim are to have wings spread out above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and are to face one another. The faces of the cherubim should be toward the mercy seat. Set the mercy seat on top of the ark and…I will meet with you there above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the testimony; I will speak with you from there about all that I command you regarding the Israelites.”  (Exodus 25:10-22)

If you read all that, it sounds just like the Ark pictured in the Raiders movie.  Instead of people, this Ark was filled with the symbols of God’s perfection, His provision, and His power.  “The tablets” mentioned in the passage refer to the stone tablets that contained the 10 Commandments delivered to Moses at Mount Sinai.  Later, two other items were added to the Ark (see Hebrews 9:4).  The second item in the Ark was a golden jar containing the manna that was delivered to the wandering Israelites every morning during all four decades of their desert journey.  The third item was the staff that belonged to Aaron, Moses’ brother.  This staff, the same old piece of gnarly wood that Aaron had toted around for years, had actually bloomed and bore fruit (Numbers 17:8).  Life and fruitfulness from something that was once dead.  Doesn’t that sound like a lot like the faithful believers who follow Christ?

So this amazingly beautiful, gold-wrapped box was filled with the symbol of God’s perfect character, the sign of His constant provision for our needs, and a stick that showed He can make dead things alive and fruitful.  If YOU could put together a “boxy device designed to carry the promise of God’s love for mankind”, what could you have possibly chosen that would have better pictured the amazing truth of what Jesus does for you each day? 

So why not try this today?  Instead of staring at your computer screen until your eyes glaze over, or watching the “idiot box” for hours, commercials and all, try to picture in your mind’s eye the contents of that sacred box.  Use your imagination to look over each one carefully, considering the love and power behind each item.  And then thank the One who makes the power of the Ark real in your own life.  Because if you can master the art of reflection and worship, then nothing has really been lost….

Jacob