Isaiah 36:13-20

13 Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you; 15 nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”’ 16 Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make peace with me by a present and come out to me; and every one of you eat from his own vine and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink the waters of his own cistern; 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18 Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria from my hand? 20 Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’”

Ah, the King of Assyria. He claimed to be able to trump the will of God with respect to the ultimate fate of Jerusalem. He also promised to take care of the Jews, deliver them to a land of plenty if they would only bow down to him. How many things do we have in our lives that speak to us the way he is speaking in this passage. Things like our jobs, reputations, our savings accounts, our houses, even our relationships can easily compete with God in our fragile souls. They promise to take care of us and we forget that they can't apart from God's will. They claim to be able to trump the will of God, and we forget that there is no such thing.

Things work so much better when we remember the truth, which is that the only thing we really have that is ours, is our relationship with God. Everything else has been given to us, and will be taken away from us at some point. When we trust in the things God has given us as an end in themselves, we are trusting in a lie, and we carry the burden of maintaining those things apart from God, a concept that is a lightning rod for anxious thoughts and also fatally flawed. When we trust in the God who gave them to us, we are trusting in a solid, unchangeable truth. The jobs, the money, the health, even the people who God uses to provide for our needs now, can and will come or go, but the God who has met our needs using those gifts will never come and go, and His promises to continue meeting our needs (through whatever means He chooses) won't either.

How do we avoid our natural tendency to see material things as our protector and provider? I think we must invest in our relationship with Him to keep our focus where it needs to be. This means time in prayer, time studying His word. Otherwise the pull toward the cares and worries of the word is too strong.

John 20:1:9, 19-20

1 Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”3 Peter therefore went out, and the other disciple, and were going to the tomb. 4 So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. 5 And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also; and he saw and believed. 9 For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went away again to their own homes.

19 Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled,[c] for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

Here is a link to an old folk song by Don Francisco, that I think tells this story well. In the song, it is told from Peter's perspective:

Isaiah 26:3-4

3 You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
4 Trust in the LORD forever,
For in YAH, the LORD,
is everlasting strength.

My Grandfather passed away Friday at the age of 90. I think these verses describe who he was pretty well. I am sure he must have had fears, but I never saw any evidence of anything in his demeaner, words or reactions to circumstances except perfect peace. I'm not sure if he always had this part figured out, but from the time I knew him he seemed to. In his presence I felt a sense of peace and safety, like as long as he was there, nothing could happen that couldn't be handled.

Even though Grandaddy was naturally built this way, with his strong physical stature, blue collar work ethic, and white collar education and wisdom, the degree of peace he possessed could not have been grounded in his confidence in his own abilities. I believe He is evidence that these verses from Isaiah are true. This provides much hope for the rest of us, that a man who centered his life around the person of Jesus Christ exhibited such strong evidence of this promise of perfect peace fulfilled. The hope is this-- that if we do as he did and make Jesus the center of our lives-- we will see that same promise fulfilled in us, we will have peace in all storms, we will not want to run from any problem whether sudden or chronic, we will shelter those around us and make them feel safe.

Luke 18:13-14a

13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' 14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.

We can find ourselves so often praying for the "tax collectors" of the world to be more like us, when what we should be doing is praying that we might see ourselves more like the way that they see themselves. It was not the works of the tax collector that allowed him to go home justified before God, it was his attitude of repentance, his understanding of the reality of his sinfulness and God's righteousness.

The day that we can say-- "Lord, You have the power to destroy me, and because of the way that I have treated you, I deserve nothing less. And because You are a righteous God, by the laws of justice, I should not be here, even now. But because I know You are also a merciful God, here I am Lord, please have mercy on me, a sinner."-- that is the day that we too, will go home justified before God.

John 1:47

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”

It is the hope for my own life and my prayer for you today, that when we encounter Jesus someday, He will have this same reaction to seeing us: "Ah... true Christians indeed, with no ulterior motives but to know the truth!"

Job 1:9-12

9 So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

Why did God let Satan do this to Job? I believe that Job, like us, needed to be able to answer Satan's accusation for himself. If a Christian who has never had any problems is asked, "Will you still follow Jesus when times get tough?", he doesn't really know the answer until he has been through it. This takes away our confidence, if we aren't totally sure whether one bad turn of events would cause us to lose our faith. On the other hand, the more hardship we endure with our faith intact, the more we know for sure that we will never lose it.

2 Corinthians 5:17

2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

To the extent to which we are in Christ, all things have become new. But we have a constant choice to be in Christ or to sin. It as if we have been given a brand new car, right off the lot, delivered to our driveway each day. We also have our old car in the driveway, the one with faded paint, french fries and cheerios under the seat, bald tires and worn-out upholstery. Each day, actually each moment, we have a choice which car we want to drive. For some reason, the old car still looks apealing to us. It is what we know. When people see us in the old car they don't expect much. We can get it dirty and it won't matter. There is also a polished used car salesman, called Satan, who is somehow able to convince us in different ways at different times that the old car is better than the brand new one. But every time we get in the new car we realize how nice it really is, and how foolish we have been to ever have driven the old car.

Revelation 21:4-5; 2 Corinthians 5:17

Revelation 21:5
4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”5 Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”

2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Why do we like new things so much? I like them because they have not been worn out, stained, faded, outdated or otherwise compromised by use, lack of use or by being upstaged by something better. In God's factory everything that He makes is new, and stays new, and only sin (i.e. absence of God) can degrade something that God has made.

But even better than something brand new, I like things that were once old old to be restored to new condition. Like a 100 year old house that has been made to look like the day it was first built, this is what God does and will do with the perfect things He has made that have been degraded by sin.

Is he doing that in us now? I believe so. Even as the restoration of our bodies is being delayed to a later date, our spirits are being restored even now. Like the 100 year old house, the restoration process isn't always pretty or painless, and several dumpsters may be filled with the ugly things that must go, but we have seen the drawings and we know what the final product will look like-- Jesus Christ Himself.