Peter Misselbrook's Blog

Jul 9 2020 - 1 Timothy 6:1-21 – Pursuing the right goals

What do you most desire in life? It's easy to list some noble goals, but what is it that shapes your decisions and fills your dreams?

Paul warns against making the acquisition of worldly wealth our goal in life: “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6:9-10). We live in an acquisitive society, and it's easy for us to become shaped by that society and, perhaps even unthinkingly, adopt its values, particularly the incessant desire for more.

Paul encourages Timothy to live by a very different set of goals: “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (6:11-12). Paul challenges us to ask ourselves, “What am I fleeing from, and what goals am I pursuing?”

But Paul is not a kill-joy who wants us to live a life of self-denying asceticism. The key, as so often, is contentment: “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that” (6:7-8). Such contentment is to be accompanied by genuine enjoyment of all that God has given us (6:17). There’s nothing wrong with being rich if it is money legitimately gained and if it does not captivate our soul. But, as well as enjoying the abundance of good things God has given us, we are to be generous in sharing it with others, particularly those in need (6:18). This is the way to “take hold of the life that is truly life” (6:19).

In his book, Money, Sex and power; The challenge to the Disciplined Life, Richard Foster writes:

The Christian is given the high calling of using mammon without serving mammon. We are using mammon when we allow God to determine our economic decisions. We are serving mammon when we allow mammon to determine our economic decisions. We simply must decide who is going to make our decisions – God or mammon.

We need continually to question our own motivations; to examine the things that captivate our hearts and to question honestly the goals that shape our daily lives. Are the decisions we make day by day designed primarily to please and satisfy ourselves or to serve and glorify God and bring blessing to others?

Creator God, we give you thanks for all that you give us day by day. We receive your gifts as evidence of your love for us. May your gifts never become our idols. Help us rather to use all that we possess for your glory and for the blessing of others. May we be wholehearted, single-hearted, in our devotion to you and to the life of discipleship and witness to which you have called us.

Jul 9 2019 - Amos 1:1-8; 2:4-16 – Judgment closing in

Amos prophesied to the northern kingdom of Israel about fifty years before that kingdom was swept away by the Assyrians. The threat from Assyria seemed to have decreased and both Israel and Judah enjoyed stability under their respective kings. It was a period of relative prosperity which was taken as evidence of the Lord's favour and blessing. People were even saying that "the Day of the Lord" was about to arrive – a day when God would judge all the enemies of his people and they would enjoy a kingdom more prosperous and peaceful than those of David and Solomon.

But the prosperity enjoyed by the few had come at the cost of oppressing the poor and needy. Amos was sent to declare that when God comes in judgment his people will not be exempt.

Amos begins with a declaration that "The Lord roars from Zion" (1:2). In Genesis 49 the elderly Jacob, pronounces a blessing on each of his twelve sons – the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Of Judah he says, "You are a lion’s cub, Judah; you return from the prey, my son. Like a lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness – who dares to rouse him?" (Genesis 49:9). Judah was likened to a lion – and later the risen Lord Jesus will be called, "The Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Revelation 5:5). It is the Lord who roars from Zion, the city of God, and at his roar, "the pastures of the shepherds dry up, and the top of Carmel withers." This is no tame lion.

Amos then speaks of the fierce roar of God being directed against Israel's enemies. He speaks of God's judgment against Damascus, the Syrian capital (1:3-5). The king of Syria had "threshed Gilead with sledges having iron teeth"; God will destroy their kingdom. 

Amos then turns to prophecy against the Philistines and their capital city of Gaza (1:6-8). God is going to destroy the cities of the Philistines because they raided Israel and Judah and sold captives as slaves to Edom.

In the verses we skipped over, similar judgments are pronounced against Tyre (1:9-10), Edom (1:11-12), Ammon (1:13-15) and Moab (2:1-3). We can imagine the delight of the Israelites as they hear of the judgment which is about to fall on their enemies.

But in 2:4-5 judgment falls nearer home; God's judgment is proclaimed on the southern kingdom of Judah. The fact the lion's roar sounded from Jerusalem does not mean that the people of Judah will escape God's judgment. They have rejected the law of the Lord and turned to false gods (2:4). God's judgment will even fall on Jerusalem, the holy city.

Amos was preaching in the northern kingdom of Israel. They may still have imagined that they would escape judgment. But no, the longest declaration of God's judgment concerns the kingdom of Israel (2:6-16). Despite having known God's salvation when he brought them out of Egypt, provided for them in the wilderness and enabled them to conquer those who possessed the land before them (2:9-10), they also have turned from the living God to worship idols. They have sought to make themselves rich at the expense of others: "They trample on the heads of the poor" (2:7). Father and son make use of the same prostitute at pagan altar sites (2:7). Those who have sought to dedicate their lives to the Lord have been plied with alcohol to make them break their vows, and those who preached God's word were told to be quiet (2:11-12). God will come to judge Israel (2:13-16).

As we look at the world around us with all the greed and evil that seem to go unchecked, we may ask, "Why does God not do something about it? Why does he not come down in judgment?" Amos calls us to look to ourselves; are there things in our lives that call for God's judgment?

Father God, I recognise that I too am deserving of your judgment. Thank you for the Lord Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who is also the Lamb of God who takes away my sin. Help me by your Spirit to be more like him: to be freed from greed and filled with compassion for those in need. Help us to be the beginnings of the change we long to see in this world.

Peter Misselbrook