A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty. 

‭‭Malachi‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

-All too often, we treat God as if he’s a feeble old man who won’t take notice and can’t tell the difference anyway. We short him what is rightfully his convincing ourselves it doesn’t matter so much. 

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. 

‭‭Malachi‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬

-Of course we know he doesn’t need our sacrifices but has set the practice of giving him our best as a test of our wholeheartedness. 

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.

‭‭Malachi‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

-No better test exists than in our finances, tithes and offerings. 

-It’s a heart condition. 

-Wholeheartedness is offering our very best in return for his very best. 

-Any measure less is a shoddy, halfhearted substitute.

The day is coming when all other gods will be muted. All other allegiances will be silenced. All declarations of faith in false gods will be null and void. 

The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.

‭‭Zechariah‬ ‭14‬:‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Those led into worshipping false icons and deities as a place of hope and refuge will be abandoned by the truth of Jesus, left holding the bag on which they relied for guidance and direction. 

Many well-meaning, good people will have denied the John 3:16 invitation for another invalidated path to greatness or godliness. 

Hard to hear and harder to embrace, this single truth alienates those who insist on believing they can score god points by living a good life that helps your fellow man alone and apart from belief and faith in the person and purpose of Jesus. 

Absolutes are never popular, but often necessary to separate the sheep from the goats, lies from truth, and heaven from hell. 

I started off and I’m ending up to be a pretty good dad.

For several years in between, notsomuch if I’m to be completely honest as I learned to be in recovery.

My best Father’s Day gift was the one I gave myself almost ten years ago at the hands of a very patient and very mighty God, my own true Father.

It has kept on giving to my growing family who will inherit this world when I am gone and makes me most proud to be and to have been part of their lives.

To all fathers still traveling the painful path of the hopeless, come home for Father’s Day and be the prodigal to which you’ve been called but have yet to answer.

It’s a gift that will bless your family for generations. It will make this one a Father’s Day everyone remembers.

Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole earth will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live on the earth.

‭‭Zephaniah‬ ‭1‬:‭18‬ ‭NIV‬‬

-I bet you missed it. 

Read that verse again. 

If you miss it, it’s literally not the end of the world. 

-Jealousy is the driver of God’s wrath. 

-Nothing makes God more angry than when his creation misdirects their love and worship to idols and false gods. 

-He is jealous like a jilted lover, only much much worse. 

-What’s it like to have a god who is so deeply and madly in love with you, so much so that when you seek a relationship with something or someone else or elevate a creation of your own hands to god status, he flies off into a rightful jealous rage?

-Most of us concur that nobody has ever loved us so much that our unfaithfulness has provoked  such response. Add our accumulated sins to the mix and it’s even harder to believe anyone might love us at all. 

-Yet, that’s the mystery of our faith. A loyal, monogamous relationship between a faithful God and you, his creation, warts and all. 

-Jealousy is the heartbreaking concern that you believe you can be happier with another. 

How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

‭‭Habakkuk‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬-‭4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

-In the midst of heartache it’s difficult to see the forest for the trees. 

-Where is God?

-The world is an ugly place. Yet we’re smack dab in the middle of it every day. 

-Where is God? 

-Right there with us. 

I will never leave you nor forsake you—Hebrews 13:5

-If we can’t rely upon the promise of a living God, then nothing in or of our existence is reliable.

Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.

‭‭Habakkuk‬ ‭1‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?

-The things of greatest value to God are almost never things.

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

-Cost of sacrifice isn’t tied to any material stuff you can give to God as he is already the creator and provider of them all.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly
and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
‭‭Micah‬ ‭6‬:‭6‬-‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

-Justice, mercy, and humility are uniquely human attributes which reflect God’s character living in us.

No dollar value. Not offerable based on what we can afford, yet affordable for anyone to give in worship to God in any quantity.

-God’s expectations go beyond mere external rituals or sacrifices. Instead, He desires a heart committed to justice, mercy, and humility.

-The emphasis is on genuine moral behavior and a humble relationship with God rather than ritual sacrifices or offerings.

-Devotion’s most prized display is in our transformed hearts and actions, not just performing traditional religious rituals.

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.
‭‭Jonah‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

If God is anywhere, he’s everywhere.

He shows up in the most unlikely places and situations. Our darkest hours, our deepest grief, our most desperate circumstances, nowhere is off limits.

But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’

When he shows up, so must we, with a message of recognition and hope for his end game to manifest for us in a cloud of glory.

And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
‭‭Jonah‬ ‭2‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

If God is anywhere, he’s everywhere. From deep inside a big fish to the tiniest and most intimate place of your heart, waiting for you to seek him.

You can run but you cannot hide.

Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
‭‭Jonah‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬-‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Your choices affect those around you.

The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?
‭‭Jonah‬ ‭1‬:‭11‬ ‭NIV‬‬

At some point, taking responsibility is necessary.

Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.
‭‭Jonah‬ ‭1‬:‭12‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Don’t be surprised at the great lengths God may take to get you on board with his agenda

Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
‭‭Jonah‬ ‭1‬:‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

…stay tuned for the continuation of Jonah & The Big Fish Hideaway.

It had been a few months since our last Sunday morning chat on the church sidewalk.

Tall with a big build, Gil was one of my more awkward acquaintances but faithful to a fault in his routine.

After service I always left to spend the day with my young grandsons and he was always off to the nursing home to visit his ailing wife of half a century.

When he failed to show up for a few weeks, I asked if anyone had seen him. I didn’t have his number and had never bothered to get his last name.

He showed up this past Wednesday night, walking to the grocery store for some orange juice resembling nothing of the man he once had been.

I went out to greet him. He’d shriveled down to a frail frame that seemed to wear skin and bones like an oversized tshirt three times larger than necessary.

Gil has bladder cancer.

His wife had passed in March at the facility, his car had been in the shop for months, too expensive to repair, and the cancer diagnosis was only slightly more recent, obviously hungrily having eaten away at the once impressive presence of a man.

I invited him in for a meal with our recovery group on his return trip from the store and he accepted. He’d not had as much a human conversation with anyone since his wife’s death and seemingly beamed at the invite.

I got his number and his last name this time and along with hopes he’d indeed return for dinner and a chat was a wish he wasn’t destined to die alone soon in his tiny apartment like so many other widowers I’ve known.

I’m not sure what became of him after his orange juice trip but I will be calling him today to assure him he’s not alone in this world anymore.

All the lonely people.
Where do they all belong
if not in the company of friends.

The day of the Lord is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head.
‭‭Obadiah‬ ‭1‬:‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The global landscape is changing.

Evil nations will soon face the day of their own reckoning and destruction.

The verse from Obadiah 1:15 emphasizes the idea of divine justice and accountability when the actions people or nations have taken will ultimately come back to haunt them.

In more colorful terms,
karma’s a bitch.

God’s judgment will reflect the deeds of individuals or nations.

The tides will turn and it will be solely because God moves against the evils of humanity.

And yet, the unschooled masses will reach for the popcorn instead of the bread of life.