Deeper Still by phil mccallum

Scripture
When the Israelites escaped from Egypt—
when the family of Jacob left that foreign land—
the land of Judah became God’s sanctuary,
and Israel became his kingdom.
The Red Sea saw them coming and hurried out of their way!
The water of the Jordan River turned away.
The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like lambs!
What’s wrong, Red Sea, that made you hurry out of their way?
What happened, Jordan River, that you turned away?
Why, mountains, did you skip like rams?
Why, hills, like lambs?
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob.
He turned the rock into a pool of water;
yes, a spring of water flowed from solid rock. Psalm 114:1-8

Observation
What does God look like from a rock’s point of view?
How does the ocean feel about the Almighty?
How does a river react to the presence of the Lord?

Those may seem like odd questions, but they are exactly what Psalm 114 asks. When God shows up things change; that’s the message of this psalm. Even the rocks and oceans and rivers make a reaction when God arrives on the scene.

The poet picks inanimate, natural objects like stones and water to show just how daunting the presence of the Lord really is. If inert objects snap to attention at the passing of God, then we can have every confidence that anything else that may block his path will also move.

If you follow God’s personal Daytimer as recorded in the Bible, it is clear that there are times when the Lord seems to step back and allow human events to unfold with divine tampering. Then when human events have reached a crisis, or the sins of the people have reached full measure, God steps in the ring and takes control.

That flux of God in and out of human affairs takes some getting used to, especially when it is your life that could use some divine intervention. God doesn’t show up exactly when we would like him to, and he arrives on the scene when we least expect him. But we can be certain of this…God will show up.

Application
There can be stubborn rock slides that block our progress or raging torrents that even a four wheel drive will not cross. There can be insurmountable obstacles that are before us. But of this we can be certain nothing can stop the Lord from accomplishing his will.

Every time we are asked to worship the Lord it is an invitation to re-calibrate what we are daunted by and fearful of. Instead of shaking in fear at the rocks and rivers in our way we should be trembling at the presence of the Lord. We need to be afraid of the right thing.

Prayer
Father, I ask you to show up.� � Amen.

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Scripture

The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate. Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists. Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” And he did. “Now put on your coat and follow me,” the angel ordered. Acts 12:7-8

Observation

Your life is not a closed system. Doors can open. Things can change. Though you are trapped on the inside God is bounding on the outside. Nothing can stop him from bursting in.

Rusty words are strewn through Peter’s prison story: “chains”, “cell”, and “gate”. Each is a cast iron weight suffocating hope. The jail door of disappointment can slam on our expectations. We think life is a closed system. We can’t get out of prison because prison has crept into us.

It took awhile for Christians in this story to wake up to what God was doing. Peter had to be poked by an angel. A minimum-wage housemaid didn’t even recognize a miracle standing at her front door. I’m sure glad that Peter and Rhoda are in this story. They make me feel more at ease with a God who can pop up in the most unlikely places. If Peter and Rhoda were startled and sluggish then I will not be disappointed by my own drowsy response when the Lord slips through locked doors to save me.

The comforting picture in this story is the split second before the miracle. CEO Peter was snuggled up with his pillow snoozing away. There is something profound in this picture of Peter getting a good 40 winks before his court trial. His slumber proved his faith in Jesus’ promise given just a few months before that Peter would not die until he was an old man. Peter slept because he knew that he had many days yet to live.

Application:

We need to learn to rest in our confinement, not always looking for a way out, and instead to go to sleep knowing that nothing can lock God out. Sure we can stand on God’s promises but it doesn’t hurt to sleep on them too.

What was the promise God made last to you? Is that your comfort? Do you think of your life like a terrarium, all sealed with no way in? Do you hear the footsteps of God outside your door? These are questions I ask myself. I think I hear someone knocking. Excuse me while I answer my door.

Prayer

Father, I know you are out there. I’m listening for your knock. Amen.

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The Bible Says

Peter and John went to the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o’clock prayer service. As they approached the Temple, a man lame from birth was being carried in. Each day he was put beside the Temple gate, the one called the Beautiful Gate, so he could beg from the people going into the Temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for some money. Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, “Look at us!” The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”

My Mind Thinks

Baseball fans all over Colorado are as exuberant as the autumn trees. The Colorado Rockies actually stand a chance of making it to the World Series. We’re staying in Colorado at the moment with friends. The hype is everywhere. The local sporting goods store is sold out of Rockies caps. Cars have flags waving. It’s fun to be neighbors with winners. The Rockies have nothing to do with the Bible passage I’ve read today except this: in baseball it’s three strikes and you are out.

Peter had three strikes against him the day he walked into the temple.

He was on his way to a Jewish majority event as a minority Christian. � � Strike one.
He met a man asking for help with needs bigger than he could fix.� � � Strike two.
Like most pastors, he didn’t have enough money.� � � Strike three.

But this time, after three strikes Peter was not out but in. Peter made it to the home plate of a miracle because he knew what he did have. Peter had the Lord Jesus Christ and that was enough. Jesus was freshly resurrected from the dead, ascended on high and seated at the right hand of God. This news was so fresh it had not even yet been written about. Peter’s Lord Jesus was in a place of power to act. This would be the Lord’s first public demonstration of his healing power since his days on earth. Peter was poor but he knew he was rich because he had Jesus. The rest of the story is in the Bible.

So often we disqualify ourselves from miracles because we focus on the strikes against us rather than what we do have to offer. Throughout the Bible all kinds of excuses are used to opt out of doing something supernatural.

“I can’t talk so good.”
“I’m a sinful man.”
“My tribe is the least in Israel.”
“I have only a little oil.”
“We have only a boy and his lunch but what is that among so many.”

You’ve heard the excuses all before as the struck out batter shuffles back to the bull pen with his shoulders slouched. So many of us check out of God’s supernatural plan because we accept as ironclad fact that three strikes make an out.

But not with the Lord. Three strikes can be rubbed off the scoreboard if we will instead dig down in our pockets into what we do have. When was the last time you took personal stock of your assets rather than your liabilities? Or take it one step further. What does Jesus have to offer that you don’t have?

My Heart Responds

I’m about to take a Sunday morning walk along a path that leads straight to Pikes Peak. On my prayer walk I’m going to ask the Lord and myself this question in a new way, What do I have? What does Jesus have that I can use that I have not touched.

My Spirit Prays

Father, can you speak louder than the Umpire today, over the sound of striiiiiiiiike and instead remind me what I do have? And then help me to use it. Amen.

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Kaylee and Kyler, my neice and nephew, out for a walk at Grandpa’s house at our family reunion.

What the Scripture Says

As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. But God kept them from recognizing him.

As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared! They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:15, 16, 30-32

What My Mind Thinks

Have you ever searched for your sunglasses only to find them resting on your head? Afterward all that fumbling through sticky pennies and gum wrappers under the car seat seems silly, doesn’t it? Desperation can blind us to the nearness of the answer that we seek to our problems.

Cleopas and his buddy were a gloomy pair that day. A gray rain cloud of hopelessness tracked over their heads like a speech bubble of despair. Jesus was right beside them presenting a private, leisurely 7 mile counseling session. But they were so intent to look at their feet and study the ruts in the road that they never noticed who the stranger was.

It would be easy to brush aside their blindness as the product of their own gloom. But the Bible says “God kept them from recognizing [Jesus].” God himself had blindfolded their eyes in a game of Hide and Seek!

Why would God do such a thing? Why does God hide himself from us when we are earnestly searching for the sunglasses on our heads? Why doesn’t God pop out and cry, “I’m here!” Why does he deliberately play this blindfold game with us?

The answer is found in the transcript of the conversation that day. Cleopas and friend essentially said, “God is not here” while Jesus said over and over from the Bible, “Look God is near.” Because the two bumbling disciples looked for answers rather than for Jesus they never saw that he was walking right beside them all along. Finding God may be as simple the trite motto implies: “God is nowhwere. God is now here.”

Of course God doesn’t play the game forever. He did come out of hiding as if to say, “Tag, you’re it” and then poof! disappeared from their sight. The Lord won’t play the game forever with us either. Jesus has a habit of revealing himself to those who keep walking with him.

But the point of this story is to remind us not to miss the journey with Jesus. Jesus spent several hours telling them in detail how Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled in him. It was probably one of the most remarkable talks of Jesus next to the Sermon on the Mount. Yet not one word of it is recorded because the two disciples were so busy looking for answers that they missed listening to Jesus. Sure their hearts burned, but we have no record of the words he spoke that day. There is so much of the Lord to enjoy on bewildering roadways but we can miss it if we are preoccupied looking for the answer who is walking right beside us.

How My Heart Responds

We who walk today along familiar roads with confusing questions need to remember the lesson of this story. We must not be so focused on finding answers as in discovering the presence of the Lord Jesus. He is walking beside us. The choice to become aware of Jesus presence changes everything. Could it be that the Lord hides himself because he is waiting for us to stop asking for him to restore what we’ve lost and instead to enjoy what we’ve found? Jesus says, “Stop looking for answers, start looking at me!”� Instead of saying, “Lord, where are you” we should call out, “Lord, you are here!”

What my Spirit Prays

Father, what would have happened that day if Cleopas had stopped studying his toenails and looked for a few minutes into the face of the stranger beside him? Would he have seen you in the eyes of the Lord? You hid yourself that day not in the torture of the crucified Jesus, but in the face of wholeness and health that only the resurrection could bring. Those men could not see you in the face of Jesus because they had made no room for miracles in their thinking. Help me not to miss Jesus today. Help me to expect him not just with hardship and trial but also with the face of a victor. Jesus, I know you are walking beside me right now. I am aware of it. I’m listening closely because what you have to say is more important than all the answers I could ever find. Instead of showing me the road, show me yourself. Amen.

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Passover for Jews is like Christmas Dinner…a not to be missed meal.

What the Bible Says

Jesus sent Peter and John ahead and said, “Go and prepare the Passover meal, so we can eat it together.” “Where do you want us to prepare it?” they asked him. He replied, “As soon as you enter Jerusalem, a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him. At the house he enters, say to the owner, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will take you upstairs to a large room that is already set up. That is where you should prepare our meal.” They went off to the city and found everything just as Jesus had said, and they prepared the Passover meal there. Luke 22:8-13

What My Mind Thinks

What is the most important meal in human history? It was not a state dinner in the White House, or escargot on a Paris avenue, or even tea at Buckingham Palace. The most memorable meal of all time was the last meal of Jesus with his disciples in the Upper Room. That story would be told and retold in cathedrals and church halls around the world, week after week over the 100,000 Sundays since it was first experienced.

Think of it: the experience of billions of future Christians in the 100,000 Sunday communion services since that day depended on 12 men cooking dinner. The disciples cooking is a scary thought. Peter could catch fish and burn them too, that’s why in the beginning he had Jesus heal his mother-in-law so she could cook. Matthew could count money but slice his finger chopping veggies. While John and James quarreled about about how much thyme and cumin to throw in the soup, the pot boiled over.

But Jesus left dinner up to 12 men.

Notice how Jesus started: he gave the instructions without any provision. Jesus told them to prepare the Passover meal but gave the disciples no place to host it. Jerusalem during Passover week was as busy as Macy’s on Christmas Eve. The city was booked out. Finding a restaurant with a banquet room at Passover would be like finding a hotel room during the Superbowl. But Jesus gave the disciples no directions, just the instruction to go and make ready the meal.

Nothing has changed today in the way that Jesus works. He often gives us staggering responsibilities without filling in the details. This isn’t a kindergarten class trip where the teacher holds the tells the kiddies every little thing in triplicate. No, Jesus gives us responsibility and then watches to see what we will do next.

The disciples responded well. They had matured enough not to say, “Come on Jesus, where do you expect us to find a spare room at a time like this?” Instead they asked Jesus for more details. It’s comforting that Jesus was okay with their questions about building and budget. He’s comfortable with our questions about his commands. Jesus wants us to ask him about the details.

What happened next is…well…just out of the box. You need to understand a little about the do’s and don’ts of daily life in Jerusalem in those days. Women carried objects on their heads, but men did not. A man with a water jar on his head in Jerusalem was as likely as seeing a football player with a purse in your hometown. So a strapping Jewish man parading down Main Street Jerusalem with a water jar on his head would have stuck out.

When Jesus calls us to do the difficult we should have our eyes opened to see the unexpected. On our way to obey Christ we will find the man with the water jar on his head who can lead us to where everything has been prepared. What a contrast the disciples experienced as they left the jostling streets where there wasn’t a place to sit let alone stay for dinner and stepped into a banquet hall with linen pressed, pantry filled, pots and pans and dishes waiting. Jesus had been at work ahead of time. They had only to follow the man with the water jar to find out.

How My Heart Responds

Overwhelming responsibilities should cause us to look for the unexpected. I’m opening my eyes today.

How My Spirit Prays

Father, today open my eyes to see as my feet move forward the things you have prepared for me before I have even arrived. Help me to see the man with the water jar on his head. Amen.

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