While there is no good time to have a blind guide, there are worse times to have one. If you must have a blind guide, then have him when you are meandering through a meadow, making your way through Kansas on a calm sunny day. Unfortunately, we are not in that story at the moment. Our situation is more like traversing the Rockies in a blizzard, with snipers on the ridge, and it is almost certain that several in our caravan have come down with a nasty case of cholera. Now is not the time to have a blind guide and it is not the time to be one.

You can easily spot the blind guides. They are the ones who leave their big gnarly sins festering, only to wake on Sunday and open the spice cabinet to measure out the oregano tithe. They use the sieve to strain the gnat out of the coffee while sitting down to a camel breakfast. The blind guides have lost all sense of proportionality, distance, weight, size. They have lost their vision, but they are still eager to talk to you about what you need to see. Well, how did they become such visionless visionaries?

Jesus told his disciples that the Scribes and Pharisees said, but did not. There was plenty of talk about what ought to be done without the doing of it. They would strap others with burdens, but they wouldn’t move a pinky to move those burdens. 

When the LORD shakes the things that can be shaken, as He most certainly is doing, the people who have been laboring away at the things that cannot be shaken really do have a lot to teach others. But the only way to guide others is to do the good works God has called you to do.

Jared Longshore – July 21, 2024

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Why do we get tired?

On long summer days working on projects, filling the weekends with adventures and making the most of Idaho summers before school starts up again, it is inevitable that you will get worn out. 

It is easy to think about exhaustion and see it as a consequence of the Fall. Our bodies break down with time, we get sick, we get tired. Tiredness is a little form of death, and every night we lie down to sleep, and we die, but like death, that is not the end. You rise back to life in the morning. Death and resurrection. 

But unlike exhaustion, rest has a very different picture in Scripture. God rested on the seventh day from His work. God was not worn out and in need of a break. And man was given this pattern of six days labor and one day of rest before man fell. Work was good. And rest was good and there was no sin. The Israelites looked forward to their rest in the promised land of Canaan when their work of conquering the land was complete. The new Israel, the church, looks forward to rest in this land, when the last remaining strongholds of sin are removed. Rest is the reward. Rest is sweet. 

So, when you are dead tired from long days of work well done, thank God for the rest that He gives each night. Thank God and take rest on the Sabbath. Ecclesiastes 5:12 – “The sleep of a laboring man is sweet…” 

But when you are exhausted because you have been living with sin, fighting and falling to temptation, when there is no rest in your marriage, when you are filled with stress and can’t relax on Sunday, this exhaustion gives you the picture of the only place that sin will lead to death. If you want rest, if you want peace, then first go and fight the giants in the land, the giants in your house, the giants in your heart. Do not be ok with a few sins on the edges that are currently out of site and not causing trouble. The command is to kill every last one, and the God who gives the command is the same God who has promised you rest. The reward is sure.

Zach Browning – July 14, 2024

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The therapeutic worldview which prevails in our society views trauma as the operating system. Your every action is caused by underlying trauma. But the demand for trauma outstrips the supply. So, the priests of this new religion contrive new sorts of trauma. Everything becomes a tangled web of traumas inflicted upon you, and trauma for trauma you’ve inflicted on others due to your privileges. 

It’s hard to keep up with such a system, because, at its core, it’s an incoherent system. It’s a system which wants any evil in you to be pinned on someone else.

But evil doesn’t come from outside you. Each of us are quite capable of innovating some of the worst scum known to mankind. Have others wronged you? Most certainly. But in your response to that wrong have you always and in every way responded with innocent motives. Have you never harbored bitterness, wishing for evil to befall those who wronged you, lusting for revenge? 

God’s Word gives us an entirely different route for dealing with evil. Ironically, God calls you to pin all your evil on Someone Else. You must put all your sin on the only One who never sinned, but first you must also confess that all your sin is, in fact, yours. You can’t blame shift. You can’t pin it on your parents, your culture, your skin color, your socio-economic class, or anything other than you. Your sins, every last one, is yours, and God welcomes you to put it all on Jesus. He who knew no sin became sin, that we might be made righteous. Confession of sin, then, is taking responsibility for all the vile things you’ve done as well as all the vile things you’ve desired to do. And then Christ gladly takes it upon Himself, and pins it to His cross, that it all might die there.

Ben Zornes – July 14, 2024

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When contemplating the innumerable corruptions that exist in our country today, there are many legitimate reasons for us to be tempted to be discontent. Our society hates God, murder of babies is applauded, sexual degeneracy is promoted, inflation, wars, the IRS, and of course that presidential assassination attempt.

But despite all of these real evils in our land, we still enjoy great blessings that many others don’t. We’re here worshiping God openly every Lord’s day, we have the ability to work and provide for our families, we can give our children a Christian education, and we enjoy an abundance of comforts that we often take for granted. We have all been given much.

And even with all that we have been given, we so often can grow discontent. Discontent with what we have, or don’t have. Discontent with our job, our house, our health, or our spouse. Many times, the better you have it, the more discontent you can become.

When Jesus said “to whom much is given, of him shall be much required,” He was speaking of the reality that we will be held accountable for our use of the gifts that He has given us. There is a higher bar for those who have more. And considering the blessing that God has given each of us, this statement carries much weight.

It follows, then, that as we have been given much, it is required of us that we not only use our gifts well, but also that we have much gratitude for them. Much thankfulness for them. When we’re discontent, it’s because we think too highly of ourselves. We’re quick to protest against government entitlements, yet at the same time feel entitled ourselves to bigger and better handouts from God. You look upon another’s talents or position with envy, not because you don’t have it, but because you don’t realize what you do have. The remedy for this discontentment is found in Psalm 144:

LORD what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him! Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.

When you’re discontent, ask yourself the question; who am I? Who am I? My life is a breath. I’m made out of dust. Who am I to receive such blessing from God?

When you consider the insignificance and unworthiness of yourself, it will magnify your perception of God’s goodness toward you. Even the recognition of how unworthy you are, is not natural to you, but it is a pure gift of His grace.

Think about this: God knows all of your sins, your failures, and your weaknesses. And He still loves you. He still floods you with more heavenly and earthly blessings than you can count. We don’t comprehend how extraordinary this is.

Meditate on this, remember this. Discontentment will die, and gratitude will rise.

Mike Niam – July 14, 2024

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