Monthly Archives: October 2010

Follow the Leader-The 34th Day of Christmas

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On the 34th day of Christmas my true love gave to me a leader with the ultimate guarantee (Joshua 3).

When I was growing up I remember one spiritual leader was always sharp. Her hair was salon groomed, she usually had a French manicure or a splash of red, and she wore St. John suits. And she could bring the word. Some of the women who served under her began to follow her ways. If it weren’t for height, gait and skin tone, you may have mistaken them for her. I think it’s good to have someone as a style barometer if you are having trouble in that area but better than style is spiritual substance. Sometimes we follow style over substance and the substance gets buried.

And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had done for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals.

I have always nodded my head in shame of Joshua and his generation for not passing down their spiritual heritage to the next generation. I assumed that because the next generation didn’t know the Lord that Joshua and his contemporaries failed to teach them. But a further reading in Judges 2 makes it clear that Joshua’s descendents “turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the LORD, and they did not do so” (17). The descendents decided not to follow who Joshua followed. As long as they could see Joshua, they followed him. They never saw beyond Joshua to see the Lord leading him. When Joshua and his contemporaries died, following the Lord died with them.

Like Moses, Joshua was a type of Christ, a historical person illustrating the spiritual truth of Jesus Christ. Joshua came after Moses and went beyond him by leading the children of Israel into the Promised Land. This illustrated how Jesus would come after the Mosaic Law and lead his followers the way to the ultimate promised land—heaven), something the Law couldn’t do. Joshua led the Israelites to defeat many nations and was clear that God enabled him. Somehow the people missed “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Maybe they got caught up in the fanfare of victories or they focused more on the plunder. Whatever the reason they missed the spiritual substance, that God is who they should follow, not a man and what God allows to happen through that man.

God gives us leaders to follow, but when they leave our lives we should still be able to see and follow Jesus. It’s up to us, not our leaders. Let’s choose spiritual substance over style and make spiritual substance our very own.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Your Lead-The 35th Day of Christmas

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On the 35th day of Christmas my true love gave to me a prophet sent to guide me (Deuteronomy 18:15).

“If it was a snake it would have bitten you,” the saying goes for people who overlook something that is right in their midst. I’m sure most of us who have children have said this or something like it when a child can’t find his shoes in the middle of a clean room or homework left on the table without any other papers. This is the great refrain of my Joshua’s life. After I find the elusive item I say, with my fingers spread on outstretched arms shaking in syllabic rhythm, “It’s right here!” These phrases aren’t just child refrains but a part of the adult song of life that could be titled “Seeking But You Already Have.”

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him (Deuteronomy 18:15).

This is what Moses told the children of Israel regarding their coming Messiah. And God the Father did just that. He sent Jesus, who, like Moses, was 1) in peril as a baby; 2) whose life was preserved among Egyptians; 3) was an Israelite (Jew); 4) a leader of his people; and 5) a prophet among other similarities, but these are the ones that the Israelites in Jesus’ day witnessed. Also, like Moses, his own people rejected him.

We know that God spake unto Moses: [as for] this [fellow], we know not from whence he is.—John 9:29

At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”—John 6:41-42

The Jews saw Jesus speak like no other prophet and they witnessed him healing, but when he told them that he was the one Moses spoke of, that he was that bread of life that would give them eternal life if they believed in him, they didn’t believe. We, Christians, do believe that God the Father sent Jesus as the bread of life, but when we don’t believe that our leader, our lord, is right in our midst, when we overlook him surrounding us, we are like disbelieving Jews. We are told that greater is God in us than the devil in the world, but we (strong black women) try to use our own strength. We are told that Jesus will never leave us or forget about us, but we leave and forget about him and seek to do things our own way. Like the Jews looked to Moses, we look to old methods that once helped and overlook our present help, our Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want God shouting “I’m right here!” when he sees me looking for a self-conceived fail-proof way. I’m aiming to quickly remember my leader, my lord, in my midst and follow him. Won’t you join me? And send me a comment about how if Jesus was a snake, he would have bitten you.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Faithful God-The 36th Day of Christmas

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On the 36th day of Christmas my true love gave to me a promise that he’d always be with me—Numbers 14:14.

For a couple of years I had a real problem with Christianity: When I was wrestling with my faith, I hated the lack of clarity leaders had when I asked them to explain to me who Jesus is and the pat answers that followed, like “you just have to have faith.” I praise God that He saw my doubt and he sent people to help me out, and now the more I read Scriptures, the more assured I become in this faith that I once rejected.

I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, what happened to our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. God guided all of them by sending a cloud that moved along ahead of them, and he brought them all safely through the waters of the sea on dry ground. As followers of Moses, they were all baptized in the cloud and the sea. And all of them ate the same miraculous food, and all of them drank the same miraculous water. For they all drank from the miraculous rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:1-4 NLT).

This is Paul in the New Testament talking about Jesus in the Old Testament leading the children of Israel from their Egyptian bondage into their promised land, and this blew me away. In these four verses Paul tells believers in Jesus that their God was the same God leading, protecting and providing for their ancestors in the wilderness. Jesus was symbolized by the cloud, by the manna and the water that sprang from the rock. He was that rock, and everything that they needed came from the rock. Everything they needed came from Jesus.

Yet after all this, God was not pleased with most of them, and he destroyed them in the wilderness. These events happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did. . .

We, like they, get our needs and wants mixed up. We want shoes to match every purse we own, carry out food instead of what’s in the freezer or lust after a rock star-like man instead of the finance husband we have. Jesus knew what the Israelites needed, but they sought what they wanted and ended up in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus knows what we need, yet we, too, end up in wildernesses of our own. What type of wilderness have you been in, or are you now in a wilderness from following your own ways, dissatisfied with the shelter, food, drink—the life—Jesus gave you? Yeah, it happens to the best of us, that’s why Paul says the consequences that happened to the Israelites are a warning for us so we won’t crave the evil things they did. But even when we do, Paul says:

But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it (v 10 NLT).

Yes, God is faithful, always there to guide us, protect us, provide for us, and even to help us escape evil things. Commit yourself to believing His word and you will see and be able to do great things.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith