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God Has A Bell; He Wants To Hear You Ring It
Last week, when my grandson was too sick to go to school, he spent the day at our house. Right after I’d tucked him in bed, he asked, “Do I get to have the bell?”
The “bell” is a hand-sized figurine of an angel gazing at a bird in her hands–not exactly the sort of thing an eleven-year old boy usually wants. However, there’s a small clapper in the hollow of the figurine, and when he grasps the head of the angel and shakes it, the high-pitched sound is loud enough to be heard throughout the house.
I’ve had the bell for a number of years—it was given to me by a Bible study group—and a few years ago, I decided to put it to good use. Now, whenever anyone in my household gets sick, I put the bell within easy reach of their bedside. That way, if they need something, I can be summoned to their side.
My mother, who was in a wheelchair during the last years of her life, had to use the bell a lot more than most family members. Whenever she did, she would apologize for having to ring the bell. “It’s nice to have an angel when I need help,” she’d say, “but I hate to be a bother.”
My grandson, though, voiced no such sentiment when he rang the bell.
He rang it just to see if I could hear him ringing it. He rang it to ask for a drink, a cracker, a bowl of ice cream. He rang it to call attention to something on the television screen. He rang it to ask for a bowl of ice cream. He rang it because he said he was bored. He rang it to tell me he was happy to be at my house and not in school.
God also has a bell. He calls it prayer. Whenever I ring His angel bell, He’s at my side immediately. Sometimes, I think I’m using it too often, and I need to apologize. “I’m so sorry I have to ask for this again. I’m so sorry I can’t remember what you told me. I’m so sorry I have to ask forgiveness for this sin.”
However, at other times, I act just like my grandson. I ring it often and long, and I’m continually asking for something that I don’t even need. But, like a grandma who’s just happy her grandson wants to have her at his side, God doesn’t mind when He hears the angel bell ringing. He’s delighted His children want to spend time with Him, even if it’s just to ask Him for something. He’s happy His children believe He’s the answer to everything that matters.
He’s always overjoyed to hear that bell ringing! Ring away!
Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
I Found A Reason To Celebrate This Week–Have You?
I believe God wants us to celebrate the milestones of our life.
In the Old Testament, he gave the Israelites seven festivals of celebration each year. That’s a lot of celebrating! However, each festival was also a means of remembering the awesomeness of God and an occasion for teaching about the holiness of God.
In the New Testament, Jesus told his followers to celebrate the meaning of the cross and to do so by using unleavened bread and wine to remember his broken body and his shed blood. Unlike the seven celebrations of the Old Testament festivals, Jesus gave no restrictions on the number of times we could celebrate this event–“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:26.
I recently celebrated the day I was born. Although I didn’t feel any differently on March 31st, than I did on March 30th, I marked it as special and didn’t treat it as an ordinary day.
Christians and Jews alike mark this week as special, but for Christians, the most important day this week will be celebrated on Sunday. If this spectacular event—which took place on Sunday some 2,000 years ago—had not happened, then this week would mean nothing. There would be absolutely nothing about this week to mark it as special. Why celebrate the death of a man who claimed to be God? Disillusioned people die every single day.
But this man, this Jesus, who said he was God, who claimed that He and Jehovah were one and the same, backed up those claims by coming back to life. After being pronounced dead, wrapped in a shroud, and placed in a borrowed tomb, He showed himself alive to over 500 people.
While certainly spectacular, resurrections from the dead had occurred before Jesus’ death and even occurred afterward–by His hand and power. But, whereas others resurrected from the dead later died, never to be alive on this earth again, Jesus ever lives!
“Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:34).
More importantly—at least for me personally—is the reason behind his intercession for me. The death he died on the cross was the punishment I deserved, both for my sinful nature and for my own willful sins. By accepting Jesus as The One who died in my place, as The One willing to intercede for me before God, I too will be granted eternal life. “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).
Now, that’s a reason to celebrate!
I Want To Know God
Last week, I talked with a young lady who had been a believer for several years, but who had just recently decided to become involved in a Bible study. She said, “I want to know God, and I know that’s only going to happen if I study my Bible.”
Without realizing it, this young lady had made a profound statement. There’s no way anyone can know God except through the study of Scriptures, except through studying the revelation He’s given us through the Word He’s given us. The best way to learn about God is to read and study and meditate on the love letter He’s written to us.
Although I met my husband-to-be when I was sixteen years old, for the next two years, we lived a thousand miles away from each other and never had the opportunity to spend any time together. I understood why my friends and family were surprised when I announced James and I were getting married only a couple of months after my eighteenth birthday. What they failed to grasp was that James and I had been corresponding with each other regularly, and, through those letters, we had come to know each other as well as many couples who had been dating for several years.
While this illustrates the concept of getting to know God through reading His Word, it fails to portray the real picture of how intimacy with God is possible through the study of His Word. This truth can only be experienced when a believer spends time in the Word every day. This is the way God has chosen to build a relationship with His children. This is the way God speaks to His children, and this is the way His children learn to recognize the voice of the Father.
Jesus said His followers are able to discern His voice. John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
Read His Word, become familiar with the sound of His voice, if you truly “want to know God.”
When God Doesn’t Answer, Don’t Act Dumb!
God promises to hear the prayers of His children. “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” 1 John 5:14. And Jesus told His followers in John 16:23, “Whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.”
Quite often, though, when I claim this promise from Him, I overlook one important aspect of it—He never promised to answer my prayers immediately. And, my timetable isn’t even mentioned in this verse.
The truth is, God often delays his answer whenever His children ask Him for something. There have been very few times when God has answered my petition within hours of presenting Him with some perceived need in my life. I’ve heard stories about the doorbell ringing or a letter arriving as soon as the “Amen” was spoken, but it doesn’t happen very often. At least, not to me.
So, when God doesn’t answer immediately, how do I respond? It would be easy to list a few Do’s. For example, I should 1.Examine my heart for unconfessed sin. (1 Peter 3:12). 2. Question the motives behind my request. (James 4:3). 3. Realize God’s ways are not my ways (1 Corinthians 13:12).
But, the best example of what NOT to do, is found in Exodus 32:1. “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him,“Up, make us gods who shall go before us.”
The theology behind this passage is clear: When God delays answering your prayers, DON’T act dumb.
Don’t act dumb by 1. Providing your own answer. Like the golden calf, it will be a poor substitute for the real thing.
Don’t act dumb by 2. Acting out of fear. The Israelites rationalized their response by saying, “As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Exodus 32:1. Fears for their future clouded their faith in God’s ability to provide for them and caused them to act irrationally.
Don’t act dumb by 3. Asking God to bless sinful behavior. After acting against God’s will for them, the Israelites sought God’s blessing for their actions. “And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.” Exodus 32:6. Don’t expect God to bless something that came about as the result of sinful behavior.
The next time God delays in answering your petitions, don’t dumb down.
It Doesn’t Really Make Sense
I’m a very practical person, and I like for things to make sense, to be understandable, well-ordered. That’s why, whenever I’m reading the Bible and come across a verse that doesn’t make sense, it immediately gets my attention.
I read this verse in my Quiet Time this morning. Psalm 36:9, “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.”
It was the last part of the verse that got my attention because, normally, when believers speak of seeing God or drawing closer to God or sensing the presence of God, there is an emphasis on the fact that it’s during the dark days, when God is most easily perceived.
However, like many aspects of living in God’s Kingdom, man’s way of thinking is reversed. Living in God’s Kingdom means “the first shall be last.” God says if you want to be great, “be a servant.” He admonishes believers to “repay evil with good” and “love your enemies.”
Thus, even though it’s true that the light of His Presence can sometimes be more easily seen when darkness envelops our world, the more we walk in His Light, the more we see His Light.
That’s because, as John writes in I John 1:5, “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all,” so, the closer we walk toward the source of light, the brighter the light becomes.
Now that makes sense.
This Is A Gross Subject
Until recently, I never realized how gross the subject of purification could be. Then, I had to do some research about my refrigerator’s water filter. That’s when I read about the stuff a water purifier is suppose to remove–things like cysts, radioactive particles, arsenic, bacteria, viruses, and chemicals. I found myself getting a little sick just reading about the stuff.
The same week I was researching pure water, I read this from James 4:8, “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind.”
God expects those who desire His presence in their lives to have their hearts pure, to be free from contaminants. However, pure hearts, like pure water, must go through a purification process before being pronounced clean. Like water from a dirty lake, our hearts don’t become pure on their own. Hearts must be cleansed by an outside source.
David, in Psalm 51:10, cried out to God for purification, “Create in me a clean heart, O God!” Only when we cry out to God for purification does the process of heart cleansing truly begin. Luke, writing in Acts 15:9, says God does His act of purification “by faith.”
Water purification occurs when I connect a water filter to a water source. Heart purification occurs when, by faith, I connect my desire for purity with the source of purity, God Himself.
Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
What’s Going On With God?
Often, God’s work in our lives seems hidden, a barely discernible matter. That’s true in the life of an individual, the life of a church, and especially in the world itself. Yet, the Bible assures believers this is simply not the case. God is doing something in all areas of our life, our church, and the world. He’s doing it all the time.
So, what is God doing when we can’t see what He’s doing?
When God made His presence known to Moses through the flame shooting up from the non-burning bush, He told Moses what had been going on with Him while the children of Israel were suffering under the oppression of the Egyptian pharaoh. God said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings” (Exodus 3:7).
That’s what God was doing then. That’s what God is doing now. He’s doing it in your life and He’s doing it in my life. He’s doing it throughout the world today.
God told Moses He “had surely seen.” Nothing escapes His attention. He sees it all. From the beheadings in the Middle East to the hairs on my head, not one thing gets past God. He’s observing every minutiae and every big thing.
God said He “had heard.” Not one word coming from my mouth escapes God’s ears. He hears my sweet words as well as my harsh words. He hears what your boss utters as well as what you utter about your boss. He hears words of profanity and words of praise. His ears are never closed; He hears it all.
“I know,” God said. God is aware, thoroughly knowledgeable, about me. That means He is completely cognizant of my every thought, my every motive, my every desire, my every sin, my every . . . my everything. This is true of a church body. This is true of a family, This is true of a nation. This is true of our universe.
When God told Moses what was going on with Him, He did so, not to instill fear, but to give Moses comfort. Moses was afraid of God, so God wanted to reassure Moses that the manifestation of His presence wasn’t to be feared. God described what He was up when He spoke from the midst of a flame in a non-burning bush. God did it again when He spoke in the form of His Son Jesus. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
We can be comforted by what’s going on with God both now and in the future. God not only told Moses what He was doing in the present, He also told Moses what He was about to do for His children. “I have come down to deliver them” (Exodus 3:8).
God will do the same for His children today. “Yes, I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:20).
You Could Always Ask Him!
I believe the disciples who followed Jesus heard a lot about the glories of heaven. Surely Jesus mentioned His own experience of living in perfect harmony with His Father. As human beings, we enjoy sharing our own times of close fellowship with our Father, and Jesus, though fully divine, was also fully human, so I believe He must have talked to His friends about His preincarnate life with His Father.
Like Moses, the disciples of Jesus, were probably persistent in wanting to hear and see more of God’s glory. In fact, Moses’ request of God to “Show me your glory,” (Exodus 33:18) sounds more like a demand that a request.
Whether the disciples had asked (or demanded) to see His glory or not, Jesus gave three of his closest followers the incredible experience of glimpsing a tiny, pinhole peek of the glory He shared with the Father. He did this when he allowed them to accompany him to the top of a mountain as told in the gospels (Luke 9:28-36). “As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.”
I long for such times of close fellowship with the Lord, and, like the disciples, I believe He gives us opportunities to see a tiny fraction (really, infinitesimal) of what living with Him, seeing His glory, enjoying His Presence completely will be like when we read His Word, bare our souls in prayer, and engage in worship with fellow believers.
Why did Jesus take only three disciples with Him when He revealed His Glory? Perhaps they were the only ones who asked of Him, “Show me your glory.”
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7.
Should I Fear God?
The notion of being afraid of God seems foreign to those of us who view God as the Lover of our Soul, who sing of His blessings, and who trust Him with our eternal soul.
Yet, one can’t read the Bible without encountering the oft-repeated admonition to “fear the Lord.” Throughout the Old Testament, there are numerous examples of God’s children receiving a blessing because they fear God. Also, because of fearing God, they do what He commands them to do. (Genesis 42:18; Exodus 1:17; Exodus 18:21)
Fear of God is not just an Old Testament concept, though. Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Nevertheless, there are times in my life when I’ve struggled with the concept of what it means to fear God. That’s why, when I recently came across a definition of fearing God in Drew Dyck’s book, Yawning At Tigers: You Can’t Tame God, So Stop Trying, I spent time meditating on it.
Dyck says, “To fear the Lord is to be grounded in reality, to have an accurate view of God’s holy nature and his awesome power.”
Fearing God doesn’t mean we cower in His presence—like a dog who knows he’s displeased his master—nor does it mean we run and hide instead of joyfully approaching Him. Instead, we embrace the fear of God because we recognize His to-be-feared characteristics, such as His all-powerful wrath toward sin, His unending sovereignty, and His unapproachable holiness, are an accurate understanding of who God really is.
The fearfulness of God is a reality, even if we don’t like it very much.
Having a true picture of God is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
I live in Norman, Oklahoma. That means I know what’s it’s like to watch a mile-wide tornado approaching my city. It’s a fearful thing. However, if I’m hunkered down inside an indestructible storm shelter, I’m able to be in awe of the storm’s fierceness without fearing for my life.
We should fear God. We should be in awe of His wrath and His judgment. Yet, at the same time, we should have peace, knowing He is shielding us from wrath, sheltering us in His arms forever.
Entered Any Wormholes Lately?
After my husband and I saw the movie, Interstellar, the question of “Whose wife will she be?” was introduced into our discussions concerning the movie.
What does a question the Sadducees asked of Jesus have to do with a secular movie about intergalactic space travel, wormholes, and quantum physics?
Although the movie’s basic plotline centers on mankind being forced to search for a new Earthlike home because this present Earth’s resources have been devastated, several questions were raised by the characters in the story as to a “Being” or a “They.” At least one of the characters believed “They” were trying to help earthlings leave the planet for a better existence far beyond Earth’s present galaxy.
(At the end of the movie, a definite conclusion was reached about this “They,” but, in case you haven’t seen the movie yet, I won’t spoil it for you by revealing the identity of “They.”)
What most moviegoers have difficulty dealing with in the movie—besides its three-hour running time—is the physics of space, time, and gravity. These concepts are an integral part of the story, and, yet, they don’t concern most of us as we go about the reality of our everyday lives. In fact, many of us can’t begin to connect with these scientific facts and/or theories, even when they are presented in a movie through entertaining methods.
After watching the movie, I pointed out to my husband I felt Jesus encountered this same difficult-to-grasp concept when He tried explaining to his disciples the life awaiting those who accept His offer to live with Him in His Heavenly Home for trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years—eternally, forever, infinitely.
I referred him back to a gospel story in Matthew 22 describing how the Sadducees attempted to trap Jesus by describing a scenario involving multiple husbands. They asked Jesus, “Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” When Jesus gave his answer, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God”(Matthew 22:29), it completely silenced these learned men.
I believe they were silenced because they couldn’t—like all of us—begin to grasp the concept Jesus described—a place where the relationship between a man and a woman, whether husband or wife, was really relevant to human existence.
The possibility of living eternally with the Creator of the Universe in His home, as His child, in a perfect environment, without sin and without evil, is as remote to some people as the possibility of traveling through a wormhole. Yet, scientifically speaking, although there is a possibility the latter does exist, Jesus guaranteed the former isn’t just a possibility—it’s a promise He made to us and for us, and He paid for it with His own blood.
Even though such a way of life is as foreign to us as life on the other side of a wormhole, we are given a few pinhole glimpses in His Word to the world awaiting those who believe. I find these descriptions as interesting and intriguing as black holes, space travel, and exploding nebulae.
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer, will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 22:1-5)
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His Glory My Joy, a blog of Author Luana Ehrlich 
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