I am suffering, friends…. feeling exhausted in prayers for healing. I feel alone with my sorrows and relentless pain; I am in darkness as I wonder why the Lord has allowed such afflictions to come upon me. My agony arises not from unbelief, for I am fully persuaded and entirely convinced that the Lord can simply “say the word” and I shall be healed, despite my worthless condition… Yet my vexations remain; they torment me in their persistence; I cry out for mercy yet there is no relief… “How long with you forget me, O LORD, forever?” With tears I cry out “Lord I believe; help thou my unbelief” (Mark 9:23-24). In a flash of distress I feel like I am on the border of death itself, as David cried out: “the snares of death encompass me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffer distress and anguish…”

It is written: “Blessed is the Lord, who daily bears our burden; He is the God of our salvation; selah” (Psalm 69:19). The word “selah” here means to pause or reflect (the ancient Greek uses διάψαλμα, meaning to “hold out the palm of the hand” for this word). Our burden includes the sorrows of loss and pain as well, as the passage continues: “Our God is the God of deliverance, and the LORD our Master provides escape from death” (Psalm 69:20). Yea, the LORD provides deliverance from death, even in the midst of our dying, and even when we die, as it says, “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Messiah died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:7-9). Suffering and physical death are a part of our journey in this fallen world, though they do not have the final word about who we are and what ultimately becomes of us. May God grant us strength to endure our days. Amen.

Read more “Help Thou my Unbelief…”

Did you know that one of the most frequently occurring commandments of Torah is to love the stranger? The commandment is repeated in various forms over 30 times in the Jewish Scriptures, for instance: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Lev. 19:18); “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God” (Lev. 19:34); “Love the stranger, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19); “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Exod. 22:21); “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong” (Lev. 19:33); “Do not oppress the stranger” (Zech. 7:10); “Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due the stranger” (Deut. 24:19); “The stranger shall be as the native born children of Israel among you” (Ezek. 47:22), “There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you”(Exod. 12:49; Num. 15:16), and so on. Clearly the LORD does not want people to feel ostracized, excluded, or otherwise left out of His providential and loving plans… Indeed, the message of the universal love of God is at the heart of the gospel itself, hearkening back to God’s earliest promises to redeem humanity and restore paradise lost. “Religion,” tribalism, prejudice, ethnic pride, and so on, are anathema to the Kingdom of God.

Read more “Loving the Stranger…”

Shalom chaverim.  Here I present a quick overview of Deuteronomy 6:4, the opening verse of the great “Shema Israel” affirmation of faith. For Hebrew analysis, consult the image below (or download the pdf file here)

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Though the Scriptures teach that the realm of the demonic exists, we encounter its presence most usually in thoughts and feelings that torment us. That is where the battle begins. In the mind. The monster that tempted Eve in the Garden got into her head before she bit into the fruit from the forbidden tree. And unless we are on guard against insinuations of godless insanity, we are liable to be under its influence as well…

You might think that demonic oppression is something flamboyant or requiring the ministrations of an exorcist, but long before such intervention may be necessary, the mind has been captivated by evil and deranged thinking.  Such thinking may have its origins with a demons named “worry,” or “shame,” or “unworthiness” or “envy.” But a common strategy of the devil is to supply plausible ideas that are designed to deceive us and lead us astray.

Everyone is a theologian of sorts. The difference, however, is whether you are a good theologian or one who is swamped with muddled thinking about the issues. As C.S. Lewis once said, “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps we need intimate knowledge of the past.”

The devil doesn’t care if it is a “holier-than-thou” theology, a murky mysticism of “absolute tolerance,” or a smarmy disavowal of faith in God altogether — he is equally pleased with the sensualist as well as the atheist, indeed, he is content with any distortion of the truth, for this enables him to “feed” his deluded ego as the “Prince of Darkness.”

In a way, dealing with evil thinking is prosaic and unremarkable. After all, the airwaves of mass media continually disseminate lies, disinformation, and godless thinking in countless formats and through diabolical stratagems. Whenever we encounter the demonic affecting us, then, we should not panic or be scandalized, but must instead reaffirm the truth of God and resolutely submit to his will (James 4:7). Sometimes this means contradicting the lie by quoting Scripture, offering praise to the Lord, and asking your Heavenly Father for deliverance. In extreme cases, it may be necessary to command the evil spirits to silence their blasphemies and to cease their intrusions. If we find ourselves going out of control emotionally, we are giving ground to the devil. The best tactic is to stay calm and re-center our focus on the Lord who is always present. There is shalom – that is, healing, wholeness, and soundness of mind – as we regain awareness of the greatness and the beauty and the glory of our God.

• Psalm 3:3 Hebrew page (pdf)