A Little Walk With God

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

Do not cross the double line. Do not pass. Do not enter. Do not steal. Do not kill. Do not lie. Do not commit adultery. Do not covet. Do not. Do not. Do not.

Have you ever noticed how negative life can sometimes get if we are not careful? We can get trapped in the "do not" whirlpool and feel like everything around us is taboo. Anything we do will bring lightning bolts down on our heads. Growing up, I felt that way. I grew up in an era when the church laid down lots of rules and regulations and said if you don't do any of these things, you'll be alright with God.

It's funny how easy it is to get trapped in that mentality. The church still has that problem in many ways. The Pharisees still live in too many of our congregations. They quickly point to the things we shouldn't do and tell us how evil we must be because of our behavior.

Jesus never seemed to work that way. It seems to me that he operated from a different point of view. It's not that he didn't understand the laws the Pharisees preached. His Sermon on the Mount proved that and went far beyond what they held as the universal standard. You can hear his explanation of the law in his words recorded by Matthew:

"You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

"It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

"Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.' But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one. (Matthew 5:21-37 NIV)

These demands certainly go much further than the Pharisees required, but Jesus puts a spin on what he asks of us that the temple could never do. Remember the two commands he says sums everything up? He puts those in pretty positive terms. Love God and love others.

How much more positive can his commands get? He gives us two and says he will send his Spirit to empower us to keep these two commands. He gives us simple rules to follow, then tells us he will provide us with the means to do it — what an extraordinary deal.

We could never keep the old rules. Jesus comes and explains the old rules start with thoughts we harbor and mull over until they become more than just ideas. They grow into acts of disobedience. Murder begins with anger. Rape and adultery start with lust. Theft grows from the seed of covetousness. Acts of disobedience don't just happen; they germinate from ideas planted in our minds because of the evil desires within us. We take the God-given emotions and feelings we have and allow Satan to twist them and try to satisfy them in unhealthy disobedient ways to gain temporary pleasure.

Those who listen to Jesus' words and follow him have found the promise God gave to the Israelites pretty applicable in their everyday life as well. Moses shared it with them in Deuteronomy 30, and it goes like this:

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20 NIV)

I think I'll choose life by following his decrees as simple as they are: love God and love others. It's a good way to live.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan 

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

Not often enough, I take it upon myself to clean out our refrigerator or pantry. When I take on the fridge, I'm sometimes surprised at the small containers that hold some mysterious gelatinous substance that no longer resembles the original product the box once held. I sometimes try to label those things I put in there (usually called leftovers), so I know what and when they first found their way onto the shelves, but I seldom keep up and so continue to find those mystery boxes.

The pantry task is even more fun. I hate to admit it, but even after trying to do a thorough job every once in a while, but obviously not often enough, I'm surprised to find products that expired, not months but years earlier. I'm not sure how that happens. I'm beginning to think elves come in at night and change the labels just to give my daughter and grandkids, who usually prompt me and help me take not on the task, a good laugh. We fill bags of expired stuff, drag it to the trash, and in a few months, seem to repeat the same process again and again and again.

A month or so ago, I decided to do the same thing with our spices. They sit in a separate space in our kitchen because we want them handy for cooking. Makes sense, right? The problem is they don't get into the same not often enough clean this stuff out routine. I was a little more than embarrassed when I went through our spices. We used to joke that we have a kitchen because it came with the house, but we do a lot more cooking at home now that both of us are mostly retired. The expiration date on spices becomes a little more important. I don't think that makes any of them dangerous, but it certainly makes them less potent in recipes.

So I started the process. I began to go through our two shelves of spices and divided the expired from the nearly expired, and the not expired. You know where this is going.

The three piles were not even by any measure. I think I counted the not expired collection on one hand and those probably because they had no expiration date on them. The nearly expired pile was smaller. If I remember correctly, two would expire within a couple of months. Then I looked at the heap of spices with expiration dates long past. Remember, this sorting happened at the end of 2019. I found spices that expired in the 1990s. Did you get that? Expired more than 20 years ago! How could that happen? And what good were they if they were that old?

I'm replacing spices as I need them. Most of those expired ones, we seldom use, which is probably why they found their way to the back of the shelf and ignored for so long. But the exercise caused me to think about a couple of verses in the lectionary from this week.

Matthew records what we call Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Early in that sermon, he says this: "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot."(Matthew 5:13 NIV)

Today salt remains salty a long time because of the way we process it. Sodium chloride the chemical name, and the two ingredients in pure salt can be extracted and purified to a high degree so that our salt stays pure for decades. That wasn't true in Jesus' day. They used sea salt and sea salt loses its saltiness. Why? Because it isn't pure. It has other minerals in it that, over time, break down the chemical composition of the sodium chloride that is also in the mixture.

Does that mean sea salt is bad? No, some of the minerals are good for you. It's just that those same minerals reduces the longevity of the salt's properties. The people of Jesus' day understood that very well. It's the only salt they could buy. It's the only salt they used. They replaced it often because it lost its potency and then could no longer be used as a spice or preservative, one of its most important uses to keep meat and fish from decaying.

Because we buy our salt from the grocery store and seldom kill, butcher, and salt meat and fish to preserve it, few of us understand the importance of these properties. We know salt as a spice to make things taste better, and we might use it to remove ice from our sidewalks, but we seldom try to save meat throughout the year by salting or smoking it. We just freeze it or more often go to the store and buy it fresh without knowing or caring how it appeared on the shelf. We just wonder why the price keeps going up.

Take a look at Jesus' words again. "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?"

As his followers, we live here, we hope for heaven, but we're not there yet. We are the salt, not of heaven, but of the earth. Live now, be salt now. Be the spice that makes the world better now. That's part of the problem the world sees with Christians today. What are we doing to make the world a better place? If we are truly the substance in this place to make the world better the way salt makes food taste better, the world should recognize it.

I'm not a FaceBook person, partly because too often when I peak at entries from many who call themselves Christians, I have seen words that certainly don't make the world better. I don't see comments that lift people. I see judgment, criticism, hate, the things Jesus talked about with the Pharisees. I quickly retreat from the page before I get caught up in the vitriol that spews from the keyboards that I'm sure would never come from their lips if they were standing face to face with you. We hide behind the screen and seem to think we can say and do anything. Not so. I think we will be judged for every word we write.

The sea salt that lost its saltiness became good for nothing. People threw it out. The only positive property at that point, let it kill the grass and weeds that grew up in the road. People threw their useless salt on the path to kill the undergrowth and keep it clean; well, not so clean, but vegetation-free.

So what message does Jesus give us in these words? We're salt. We're supposed to add spice to the world and make it better. We're sprinkled in the world like salt is sprinkled on food. But one last thing. Remember Jesus talked about salt losing its saltiness. It happened. Everyone knew it. Salt expired which means when you bought it, you started using it right away. You didn't hold on to it and put it away in the back of the cabinet like my 1990s spices. You kept it up front and used it often, then went and got some more.

It's like the daily bread for which he taught to us ask. Get enough for today and use it up. Then get more and use it up. Then get more and use it up. Rinse and repeat as the bottle says. We are the salt of the world so he expects us to be used up, restored, and used up again like those little bottles of spices. That was the problem with many of my expired spices, I bought the big bottles, cheaper per ounce to save money, then threw most of them away, wasting more money because I didn't use them up. The small bottles would have been cheaper in the long run because I threw away spices I didn't use.

I'm learning. Fresh is better in cooking. Fresh is better in spiritual warfare. Fresh experience is better in sharing what God is doing in your life. Fresh is better to act as salt in the world. Let Jesus spice up your life so you can make the world a better place as his salt in a world that truly needs it more than ever.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

Some things just don't make sense. Why do most animals in a herd point the same direction in a field? Why do penguins live only in the coldest climate on earth? Why do most whales, the largest animals in the ocean, eat only the plankton, the smallest of sea life? Why is an octopus considered one of the smartest of sea creatures, incredibly ugly, and seldom seen in the wild? Why do some areas of the world get torrential rains while others get only a few inches of rain over decades?

We sometimes call them imponderables, things that have no concrete answers. Science is uncovering some logical responses, but still, we are baffled by the mysteries of the world and the whys that surround us every day. We have learned more in the last 100 years than in the rest of man's history, but we still have many unanswered questions about the world in which we live.

We think we're pretty smart today since we know a lot about quantum physics and how things stay together. We've learned about the universe and the fact we are not the center or even near the center of one of several billion galaxies. Our Milky Way seemed so large until we began to compare it to more enormous galaxies around us. We thought we understood the weather until we found we really don't, and our weather folks still get it right about two-thirds of the time. Yep, we think we are wise today with the trillions of words housed in the Library of Congress on floating around on the Internet.

Paul got it right, though, when he wrote his first letter to the members of the church at Colossae in the first century.

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Everyone around him thought they were wise, but compared with God's wisdom, we are pretty foolish. We don't know much of anything. Scientists will tell you the more we know, the more we figure out we don't know. But God is the creator of all things. He knows it all. He's the one who made all the rules we are just on the edge of trying to figure out. In the 1970s, we sent two experimental crafts called Voyager, to explore the outer edge of our solar system. Forty years later, they found out all our assumptions about the border of our solar system were wrong. Now those two satellites are still headed where no one has gone before but have barely scratched the surface of real space travel.

Our brilliance turns into ignorance when we see all that is out there beyond the confines of our puny planet. Our greatest wisdom appears as foolishness compared to God's understanding. And what does Paul use as his comparison? The cross.

How can we explain why God would do such a thing? We can't, except that he loves us more than we can ever understand. We disobey him, but he loves us. We run from him, but he loves us. We curse him and do everything he asks us not to do, yet he loves us enough to wrap himself in human flesh and live among us to show us just how much he loves us.

He died the most horrible death imaginable, crucifixion at the hands of Roman soldiers, after an unjust kangaroo trial. He never did anything to justify the suffering he endured, but he took it, all the same, to show us how much he loves us. Jesus taught radical lessons that said follow a pattern set by a heart filled with love instead of the rules given to the prophets and priests. He said to do two things, and you'll be in good stead with the creator. Love God and love others.

He never said it would be easy to follow those two rules, but that's a straightforward list to remember. It's sure a lot easier than remembering the laundry list of dos and don'ts most organized religions give us to follow. Just love.

Paul tells us what that looks like, and again, it doesn't make sense to us. It looks like the cross. Be ready to be hated by the world. Be ready to be misunderstood. Be ready to suffer when you share the good news of what God has done to redeem us from the deceiver who wants to capture our soul. It sounds crazy to those who have not given themselves to him. But for those who have, for those who know his forgiveness, the cross is the answer. The empty tomb is proof.

Are you ready to let go of the wisdom of the world and accept the wisdom of the one who created all things? It takes faith. It costs everything. God never accepts second place in your life. He wants everything you have and everything you are at his immediate disposal. But God never makes mistakes. He knows how best to bring you safely home. All you need to do is believe and follow him. It's a good day to start.  

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

Last night the lights went out. It was dark. I mean dark. I went to the front of the house to see if the whole neighborhood lost electricity or just us. By the time I reached the hall, I had realized it was a bad idea. I headed back to retrieve a flashlight from the nightstand before I stumbled over a chair or table or something left in a spot I didn't expect. I couldn't see anything with cloud cover and the darkness. 

It made me wonder about people living before electric lights. Just two hundred years ago, candlelight would have been the extent of the illumination to lead me through my house last night. Have you ever traveled through a house by candlelight? It's not much. Certainly, more than pure darkness, but not much. 

Candles produce about thirteen lumens, less than a two and a half-watt small Christmas tree bulb. Can you imagine living with no more light than that? Picture yourself as the woman looking for the lost coin with just a candle. Or think of the fear of huddling in the darkness during one of those famous Texas thunderstorms with only your oil lamp to provide some relief from the dark and the howling wind that threaten to overtake you.

Our kids don't know much about physical darkness today. Few have seen the beauty of the Milky Way with their eyes. Light pollution from most of our cities keeps us from observing that band of stars that populate our galaxy and stretches across the sky. The lights from towns mask the brilliance of the stars except on oceans or deserts. We don't know darkness, so we don't appreciate the light. 

Now that you've given a little thought to life without electric lights. Now that you've spent a moment putting yourself back a couple of hundred or a couple of thousand years into the past looking into the darkness of the night that surrounds you wondering about the predators that might be lurking in the shadows. I'd like you to listen to the words Isaiah wrote concerning the coming savior of the world.

They come from the book by his name from chapter 9.

But there will be no more gloom for those who knew such hardship. In times past, God humbled the land of Zebulun and Naphtali; later, He will restore the honor and glory to the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee, home of the nations.

The people who had been living in darkness

   have seen a great light.

The light of life has shined on those who dwelt.

   in the shadowy darkness of death.

And You, God, will make it happen. You bolstered the nation,

   making it great again. You have saturated it with joy.

Everyone in it is full of delight in Your presence,

   like the joy they experience at the harvest,

   like the thrill of dividing up the spoils of war.

For as You did back in the day when Midian oppressed us,

   You will shatter the yoke that burdens them,

You will lift the load that weighs them down,

   You will break the rod of their oppressor.

About whom is Isaiah talking? The God-Man, Jesus. He sheds light on the darkness of our hearts. He opens our minds to what God intends us to be. He makes a way for us to enter into the presence of a holy God when we know we do not deserve to be there. Jesus, God wrapped in human flesh to show us how much he cares for us. He came to pay the price for our disobedience. He died for you and me so that we might live.

From an earthly point of view, he grew up in the most unlikely place, Galilee, and in one of the most unlikely villages in that region, Nazareth. No one would have thought the King of all kings would come from a place like that. He knew what it meant to grow up on the "other side of the tracks" in poverty and crime-ridden neighborhoods. Nathaniel understood Nazareth when he commented, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

But something did. Someone did. Jesus. The one who brings light to a dark world. His light is not that lumen candle the people of his day used to illuminate their darkened houses in a storm, but John described his glorified body in his Revelations as brighter than the sun. You can't look at the sun for more than a few seconds without some serious pain; the light is so intense. That's the light Jesus brings to our hearts. 

The end of the first month of 2020 approaches fast. We've talked about the coming of God into our world and how we should listen to him, seek him, share him. We should also let him illuminate our lives in such a way that he can shine through us so that others see him in us. We should reflect his light in all we do. Today is a good day to start, don't you think?  

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked THE VOICE are taken from THE VOICE (The Voice): Scripture taken from THE VOICE ™. Copyright© 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

Growing up in middle Tennessee, I had the opportunity to go spelunking in high school and college relatively often. I enjoyed the experience of exploring deep into the earth and seeing some of the beautiful formations most people never get to see. I sometimes wonder why God would create such beauty in places so inaccessible that only he could enjoy it. 

Every once in a while, we would get into places we probably should have avoided. I remember going through a few spaces, cracks, chimneys, and holes I wasn't sure I would get through or back through on the return trip. The squeeze was pretty tight, even with my much thinner frame. We would wiggle and squirm for what seemed like hours to get through some of those tiny spots to get to a few of those caverns that revealed their unbelievable beauty when we finally shed light in those darkened vaults. I will never forget some of those incredible experiences. 

I will also never forget a few of those close calls. The scary times. The times when we tried to climb out of those underground streams when we forgot to anchor ropes at the top of the slope and suddenly found ourselves at the bottom of a 15 or 20-foot slick stone wall ankle-deep in thousands of years of accumulated muck. 

I remember one of those mistakes that took us several hours of work to get out of that predicament, four of us finally standing on each others' shoulders until the top one could reach a spot dry enough to get a handhold and pull himself up. Then we waited for another hour or so for him to find a place with rock instead of clay firm enough to hold a pivot to anchor ropes we could climb to get out of our predicament. In the meantime, the three of us tried to wait patiently. 

I lost my backpack in the stream that flowed fast enough that it pulled it through an opening in the small chamber before I could catch it. The second in our threesome forgot to bring extra batteries, and of course, his lamp went out before our rescuer could return. My extra batteries were in that lost backpack. The third turned his light off while we waited since he was now the only one with extra batteries and a chance to keep us from being in utter darkness. We were not a cheerful group that day.

I wasn't a big fan of the Psalms in my youth, but this one could have calmed my heart had I learned it early and put it in my bank of scriptures for memory and meditation. David wrote it millennia before my time, but that psalm sure fit our predicament that day. Psalm 40:

I waited a long time for the Eternal;

   He finally knelt down to hear me.

   He listened to my weak and whispered cry.

He reached down and drew me from the deep, dark hole where I was stranded, mired in the muck and clay.

   With a gentle hand, He pulled me out

To set me down safely on a warm rock;

   He held me until I was steady enough to continue the journey again.

As if that were not enough,

   because of Him, my mind is clearing up.

Now I have a new song to sing—

   a song of praise to the One who saved me.

Because of what He's done, many people will see

   and come to trust in the Eternal.

Surely those who trust the Eternal—

   who don't trust in proud, powerful people

Or in people who care little for reality, chasing false gods—

   surely they are happy, as I have become.

You have done so many wonderful things,

   had so many tender thoughts toward us, Eternal my God,

   that go on and on, ever increasing.

Who can compare with You?

Sacrifices and offerings are not what You want,

   but You've opened my ears, and now I understand.

Burnt offerings and sin offerings

   are not what please You.

So I said, "See, I have come to do Your will,

   as it is inscribed of me in the scroll.

I am pleased to live how You want, my God.

   Your law is etched into my heart and my soul." (Psalms 40:1-8 The Voice)

I read those words and think about the agonizing hours my friends and I spent standing in the muck by that stream in that cave and understand what it's like to be stranded in a deep, dark hole, mired in the muck and clay. If there had only been three of us instead of four, I'm not sure anyone could have found us or if we could have found a way out. 

That's not the only time in my life I've been one person or a few minutes from disaster. As I think back through life, I realize the fractions of a second before or after a crazy driver ran a red light and would have collided with me at high speed. Or the day I left before some disaster happened in the city I just left. I remember the just in time events where moments could have meant the difference between life and death. But here I am recording a podcast to share the promise that God cares about us and knows our needs. Does he always give us what we want? No. Does he always stop the disasters in our life? No. But he cares and sees us through even the worst times of life. 

When we stop and realize the Old Testament passed down through generations orally, we need to think about what we are doing today. The Hebrew Scriptures Jesus and his disciples knew were written and collected in the fifth century BC, about 1,500 years before they gave their first sermons. And remember they spoke about the events they saw. Scholars believe the earliest New Testament books, Galatians and Mark, found their way to paper around 50 AD, almost 20 years after Jesus' resurrection and ascension. So for 20 years, all their work, all their witnessing was oral. They told the stories and teachings of Jesus and God's transforming work in their lives. 

The Psalmist convicts us as he continues in his song as he writes:

I have encouraged Your people with the message of righteousness,

   in Your great assembly (look and see),

I haven't kept quiet about these things;

   You know this, Eternal One.

I have not kept Your righteousness to myself, sealed up in the secret places of my heart;

   instead, I boldly tell others how You save and how loyal You are.

I haven't been shy to talk about Your love, nor have I been afraid to tell Your truth before the great assembly of Your people. (Psalms 40:9-11a The Voice)

As we continue to move through this leap year, 2020, I invite you to think about these three verses. They convict me. I haven't been as bold as I should. I leap in my heart over the things God has done for me, but have I exuberantly shared as David did? I must admit I have not. I am not ashamed of my salvation. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Have I enthusiastically shared the good news with the world as did Peter and Paul and those who traveled with them? No. 

Perhaps we, including me, can leap into the fray, be bold in our witness, talk about your love, and not keep you in the secret places of our heart. If we share what God has done for us, not parrot what the Bible says, I think we can impact the world for Christ as we failed to do over the last several decades. Let's leap to our feet and let his spirit help us in this mission. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked THE VOICE are taken from THE VOICE (The Voice): Scripture taken from THE VOICE ™. Copyright© 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

Last week I talked about John's description of Jesus as the Word. We are bombarded by words every day that attempt to sway us to the world's way of thinking, but Jesus gives us truth because he is truth. I want to go back to John's description again, but in a different light. 

Imagine yourself living in Jesus' day. You live in a small village outside Jerusalem and see Roman soldiers pass through your town almost every day. When you see them coming, you do your best to make yourself invisible because the Roman soldiers have a reputation for cruelty. You hate the very fact they occupy your nation and live among you. You detest the abuse they inflict on innocent villagers who happen to be in their way or hesitate to do what they ask or look at them with anything other than honor and respect. 

You've witnessed the verbal abuse, the floggings, and the crucifixions these beasts made an art form in their heinous subjugation of others. You'll do anything to keep your family and yourself out of their sight as they pass through. 

The Pharisees that rule the synagogues and temple are not much better. The rules they pile on you to appease God create such a burden it seems impossible to please the God Moses told us to serve. Is he any different than the pantheon of Roman and Greek gods who demand so much? The Pharisees have added so many laws, things we must and must not do to please God, it seems easier to satisfy Zeus than Jehovah. 

But you've heard of a prophet named John, who has said the Messiah has come. He says we should repent, and he has called the Pharisees vipers because they tell us to do things they do not do themselves. He calls them hypocrites to their faces. So you go out to see this prophet. And you happen to be there when the writer of the gospel of Matthew describes an incredible event: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"

But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.

And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:13-17 NIV)

God arrived. The Kingdom of heaven came to earth. The Messiah, the Redeemer, lives with us. There is hope for peace and relief from the struggle you've faced all your life. Something good is about to happen. This man you saw come up from the water will change everything. You can feel the excitement in the air as all around you experience the beginning of his ministry today. 

Someone beside you reminds you of the power of the voice of God as they sing out one of David's Psalms:

Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory of his name; worship the LORD in holy splendor.

The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over mighty waters.

The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.

The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire.

The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the LORD causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare; and in his temple all say, "Glory!"

The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD sits enthroned as king forever.

May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace! (Psalms 29 NIV)

This man is the one. His voice carries the strength and power of the Almighty because he is the Son of Jehovah. His voice separated the waters at creation. His voice has the power of the whirlwind and shakes the earth. His voice rings across the water and through the valley where you stand, and you feel the majesty in it. As he speaks, you know he fears nothing. 

The Romans from whom you cower are nothing to him. The Pharisees standing on the shore quiver at his gaze. The poor and outcast feel his compassion. The mood of those around him changes as his eyes make contact with theirs. It seems no one can encounter him without being affected. It's like he can see into your soul.

The crowd would follow him anywhere right now. But he left as soon as he came out of the water. No one really knows where he went. Some think he went to Jerusalem, but the road is too busy for someone not to notice him. Some say he went back to Gallilee, but again the road is too heavily traveled for him just to disappear. Some say he was led into the wilderness by an angel. But who is to say how an angel looks? 

Whoever this man is, you know you want to see him and hear his voice again. Wherever this man has gone, you know you want to follow him. There is something about him that draws you to him like a moth to a flame. You know he will satisfy the hunger in your heart as nothing else can. If only you can find him once more, you will never let him get away from you...ever. 

Perhaps a few thought like the man described in this story. Most did not. The same is true today. We have 2,000 years of evidence that Jesus is who he said he was. We can trace with our technology, all the cross-references between Old Testament prophecy and Jesus' fulfillment of those prophecies, almost 500 of them. The odds that Jesus is not the Messiah based on prophecy fulfillment statistical analysis alone is so great as to be irrefutable, better than our best criminal DNA matches to a single individual. 

So, if that's true, why do we resist him so much? He never told us to do anything that would hurt anyone, or that would hurt us. His commands are simple: Love God; and love others. Those two commands are not always easy to carry out, but they are simple to remember. So, why do we not listen? Why do we push him away? Why are we so insistent on having our way and not his? A single word answers the question and it's the same word that caused Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Selfish. I want what I want. Period. Even at the expense of eternal separation from the God who made me and gave his all for my redemption. 

This year, put yourself in the place of the man in the story just outside Jerusalem. Long for the one John baptized. Seek the voice of the one who can give peace and joy in a world filled with war and anger. He is here. He wants us to find him. It doesn't take much effort, but we do have to walk away from the world to him. I guarantee it is worth the effort.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

The new year is here. We’ve had almost a week to figure out what we expect from it. So far it looks like the same old politics and news and violence between nations. We’ve already had mass murders in our country and others. We’ve had an attack in Iraq that killed an Iranian general. We’ve escalated tensions in the Middle East again. We’ve riled the public and politicians against each other as to the actions taken in retaliation of the assault on our embassy. Was it too harsh? Was it too late or too early? Should there have been more talk? What’s next? 

Yes, this year has started out much like the last. Lots of words by lots of people and most of what is said is meaningless. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes had it right thinking about what goes on the world. “There is nothing new under the sun, and it’s all meaningless.”

We could be pretty pessimistic about the future if we chose. We could look at the new year the way I’ve described it above and give up on the world. It would be so easy to just let things go and not worry about anything because we know where everything will eventually end up. Armageddon will eventually become a reality and the world will end. Some will find salvation in believing in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Many will be eternally lost because they refuse to believe the evidence that he is God and came to save us. 

But I don’t think that is what God expects us to do in 2020. I don’t think the year is as bleak as it appears in the news reports or as horrid as some want us to believe. We are bombarded by words that the world uses to create a picture of despair and hopelessness. However, 2000 years ago a man named John penned a description of one whom he identified as “the Word.” Not words to sway a crowd, but the originator of all there is. The one present at the beginning of creation. The one credited with giving us the ability today to put thoughts together to sway men and women. It is through his creative act that we have the ability to reason and think and communicate, unlike the rest of the animal kingdom. 

John described “the Word,” the personification of truth and grace. He came from heaven, lived among us for some 33 years, taught us what God was like, died as a sacrifice for our sins, rose from the dead, and sits as our intercessor with the Father. As we listen to the deluge of words that come through the multimedia jungle, remember the real Word. The one who brings peace to troubled hearts. The one who heals broken relationships. The one who mends shattered lives. The one who forgives and frees from guilt. The one who welcomes the outcast and brings hope to the hopeless. 

2020 will come with its share of good and bad events in life, just like every year before and after it. The question for each of us is whether we will face it with the hope that Jesus brings or try to move along without him. I can tell you from experience, the bad that comes is so much easier to handle when he is by your side. So, replace the words that the world sends your way with “the Word,” the truth, the light, the life, the way, the hope, the joy, all you could really want because he is God and knows you better than you know yourself. Give yourself to him fully and completely this year and you will find the world’s words cannot hurt you or put you in a state despair or keep you from the joy and peace he has to offer. It’s the legacy he leaves for those who follow him.

Welcome to 2020. A great year to listen to the Word. 

    You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

Well, 2020 is here. The lectionary reading in Matthew this week reminds me of just how politically selfish and self-centered most of our elected federal representation in Washington seems to be. Regardless of your views on the actions, investigations, character, or status of our president, all indications seem to point to the fact that the Senate will soon start a trial that will end along party lines as did the impeachment proceedings in the House. One side will proclaim guilty, the other not guilty and the not guilty side is currently in the majority. Again, whatever your views, it means we will have wasted millions of dollars and thousands of manhours that could have been spent on something much more worthwhile. Both parties knew the outcome before the circus started, and here we are grandstanding before another election, spending millions more and thousands more manhours with known results.

So, what in the lectionary makes today's news headlines so familiar? The passage comes from Matthew, chapter 2.

After they [visitors from the East] had left, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, "Herod will be looking for the child in order to kill him. So get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you to leave."

Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and left during the night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod died. This was done to make come true what the Lord had said through the prophet, "I called my Son out of Egypt."

When Herod realized that the visitors from the East had tricked him, he was furious. He gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its neighborhood who were two years old and younger—this was done in accordance with what he had learned from the visitors about the time when the star had appeared.

In this way what the prophet Jeremiah had said came true:

"A sound is heard in Ramah,

    the sound of bitter weeping.

Rachel is crying for her children;

    she refuses to be comforted,

    for they are dead."

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go back to the land of Israel, because those who tried to kill the child are dead." So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went back to Israel.

But when Joseph heard that Archelaus had succeeded his father Herod as king of Judea, he was afraid to go there. He was given more instructions in a dream, so he went to the province of Galilee and made his home in a town named Nazareth. And so what the prophets had said came true: "He will be called a Nazarene." (Matthew 2:13-23 GNT)

Herod wanted no competition. He was one of those political animals who wanted his way no matter what. He would do anything to stay in power, even kill his wives and sons. Talk about ruthless.

The wise men, magi, visitors from the East, whatever title you might give them, heard from God after visiting the king, little "k." They knew the subterfuge Herod played when he wanted the location of the newborn King, capital "K," and went home another way.

What Herod did cannot be excused. We sometimes believe the slaughter numbered in the hundreds and thousands of toddlers in our mind's eye. In reality, the small villages in and around the region probably held few toddlers, and most scholars estimate the number killed at around 20. But imagine soldiers bursting into your home, grabbing your young son, dragging him into the street, and killing him in front of your eyes. This happened in all the villages in and around Bethlehem. The census had passed. Most who came for Caesar's counting left months ago. Mary and Joseph only stayed because Jesus was still too young to travel. That is until the angel told Joseph to go anyway to Egypt.

Herod's action only added fuel to the fire of hatred the Jews had for this tyrannical King. They were only too happy for his reign to end. So was Rome, apparently, since the empire divided Herod's territory into four sections ruled by his four sons instead of remaining under one ruler. The kinds of things Herod did to please himself to hold his seat of power doesn't seem much more self-centered than much of the drama and power struggle we see all around us today.

I'm glad God doesn't take political sides. He didn't take the side of Pharisees or the Sadducees. Nor did Jesus say either was wrong because of their belief, only because they didn't live what they believed and wouldn't believe what they saw right in front of them. He befriended "sinners," Gentiles, and outcasts. But he also befriended some in the temple and synagogues. Jesus just lived the two commands he gave us: love God and love others.

In fact, if the Bethlehem story were replayed today, with our country as its background, he would be born in a broken-down shack in Iowa or more likely in Mississippi, in some backwater town no one could find on a map. The politics in Washington would be of no concern to him. However, everyone would ask him which side he preferred, he would never give an answer to such a stupid question. Particularly since all parties have become so corrupt in recent years, no exception.

Every religion would tell us how corrupt he is because he refuses to play by the rules. He wouldn't raise money for their cause. He wouldn't join the bandwagon of most of the charities across the country because they put more in the administrations' pockets than they do their client benefits.

Jesus would be unimpressed by our wealth, our things, our burgeoning economy, our technology, our entertainment, our leisure, most everything we think is great. I think he would look at it and tell us, like the rich young ruler, to get rid of the surplus and give to the poor to inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Things aren't bad. Wealth isn't bad. Money isn't bad. Jesus never said any of those things are bad. It's the priority we put on them. Unless he is above all else, he takes no place in our life. Jesus refuses second place.

Over the next several weeks and months across the country, a lot of people will try to get you stirred up about the circus happening in Congress. Frankly, whatever happens, doesn't matter. God is still in charge. He doesn't play politics. Never has. He allowed Donald Trump to be elected. Not the Russians, not the Democratic or Republican Parties, not some computer hacker somewhere. This is God's world, and he allows people in power to govern.

We might not like it. The Israelites didn't like it when the Babylonians took them into exile or when the Greeks and Romans ruled over them. But they also understood that God calls the shots, not them. If we understand God, we realize that he still cares for us, and the things of the world never shake him off his throne. We don't need to get excited about what will happen, or not, throughout the Washington circus. We can be frustrated at the waste of our tax dollars. Still, if our Congressmen and women weren't spending the millions on this fiasco, they'd probably be spending it on something just as ridiculous and wasteful. So enjoy the new year, trusting God to take care of you when you love him and others. Remember, too, we are directed to pray for our leaders - both parties. Their good means good for our nation. So pray for their good.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) Copyright © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

Here we are at the last week of Advent. Children wait expectantly to open the packages under the tree. Moms and Dads scurry around for those last-minute gifts and the trimmings for the Christmas feast at the family table. Everyone vies for their favorite Christmas movies on one of the six-thousand cable channels. At least it seems there are that many sometimes. The countdown to Christmas has almost finished.

But what do we expect when the countdown reaches zero?

Too often, the climax we expect feels like a letdown. When the paper and empty boxes pile up in the corner, the plates find themselves in the sink, and the leftovers fill the refrigerator, we sigh and ask, "Is that it? All that work and fuss for this?"

In just a few short hours, it's all a memory and usually a relatively short one at that. We build our hopes around what happens around a Christmas tree or a Christmas dinner and find that what happens there just doesn't last. The ribbons and bows and shiny paper don't bring the joy we thought it would in the end. The perfect present we spent days and weeks searching out doesn't carry the reaction we thought it would. The feast doesn't create the festival we expected.

There is a reason why, but most won't agree. You see, we miss the point. We celebrate Christmas, but forget to invite the person we celebrate. We forget to leave a seat for the namesake of the holiday. We welcome all our friends but put an "X" in place of the most important guest of the season. Even those who call themselves Christian miss this essential ingredient in celebrating this holy day. We forget to leave a place for him as we prepare the schedule crammed with fun things to bring special memories for the future.

Matthew records his birth this way:

The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. His mother Mary had been promised to Joseph in marriage. But before they were married, Mary realized that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Her husband, Joseph, was an honorable man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he decided to break the marriage agreement with her secretly.

Joseph had this in mind when an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. The angel said to him, "Joseph, descendant of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus [He Saves], because he will save his people from their sins." All this happened so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet came true: "The virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel," which means "God is with us."

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him to do. He took Mary to be his wife. He did not have marital relations with her before she gave birth to a son. Joseph named the child Jesus.

His short journey with us isn't one most would want. He began his life marked as an illegitimate son of Mary, born in a cave with a stone bed filled with straw as the only place to lay his tiny head. He knew poverty. Most scholars think his earthly dad died shortly after his temple experience at the age of twelve. He became the breadwinner for his family in a village whose residents often operated on the wrong side of the law. And most of those villagers thought he was an illegitimate child, not the son of holy God they worshipped.

People expected the Messiah. The prayed for him to come to rescue them from the tyranny of Rome. They longed for relief from their long trial of oppression at the hand of godless nations after returning to Jerusalem from their defeat and exile.

But surely God would not send his Messiah through a poor peasant from Nazareth. Surely God would choose the wife of the chief priest or some other notable character in the temple to raise his Messiah. He wouldn't possibly have some peasant girl from the lowest of towns on the dark side of the nation give birth to the savior of Israel.

For everyone who knew him growing up, Jesus didn't seem to be anyone special. But he knew, Mary knew, Joseph knew that he would redeem Israel one day. He would bring freedom to the captives. They didn't understand how. They didn't realize it would mean his death on the cross, and he brought freedom from the penalty of sin, not freedom from political oppression.

But we know. We look back on two thousand years of history and see what God did through his Son, Jesus. We know the changes he made to the world. We recognize the incredible transformation his presence in one's life brings. Still, we leave him out of our celebrations at this special time of year.

We stay absorbed in the world's pleasures and what the world offers instead of the real treasure Jesus offers. We remove his name from Christmas, replace it with an X, or just call it the holiday season, so no one gets offended. Then wonder why there is no satisfaction when we get up from the feast or unwrap the last present.

I invite you in the last days before Christmas to stop and meditate on him. Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, our Savior is the namesake of these holy days. He is the reason we celebrate. Be careful preparing the festivities for family and friends that you leave a place for him in your celebrations. Make him the centerpiece in all you do.

If you will, you will find this holiday most enjoyable. If Jesus is in the center of your celebration, this will be one of the best Christmases you've ever had regardless of your outward circumstances. Because he never fails, and he never leaves us alone.

Merry Christmas, and thanks for letting me share with you this past year.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Join us as we explore God’s ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.

I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.

As I read the scriptures associated with the lectionary readings for this third week of Advent, three words stuck in my mind for some reason - arrogance, humility, and patience. Why those three words struck such a chord for me that I can't get away from them, why is beyond me, but since they keep popping into my head, I might as well explore them with you in light of the events of today and Jesus' coming.  

It's not hard to think about how they fit together, but let's talk about arrogance first. Just pick up a smartphone and tap into any social media and find the anti-social comments in the first two scrolls of the screen. We talk about or behave with a high degree of arrogance in our day.

In our nation, everyone takes one side or the other over the articles of impeachment leveled against an arrogant leader. He flaunts his power, the news says. He abuses his privileges, the reports say. Others say he acts like every other president doing what he said he would do. Others say he's just doing his job and the other party is just mad because they didn't win the seat.

With some assurance, I can tell you the truth is somewhere in between those extremes. We manage to view most events through a jaundiced lens and see things the way we want to see them despite the reality of the situation. Most of the time, our opinions are just that - opinions.

Arrogance is defined as having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities. Our opinions sometimes fit into that inflated sense of importance, our ability to think we know something a lot deeper or clearer than we do.

We can become arrogant in our thinking, our approach to others, our position in life, our jobs, in all kinds of ways. We can even become arrogant in our goodness. Jesus pointed out the Pharisee and the sinner praying in the temple and the arrogance of the Pharisee's "righteousness." God didn't see him as righteous at all because of his pride and arrogance. He prayed to himself, not to God, as Jesus pointed out.

It's a state of mind that creeps up and engulfs us so quickly. We can be proud of our humility if we're not careful. Arrogance is one of those slippery characteristics that Satan wedges into our lives in the most benign ways that make us feel like we are anything but arrogant, yet those on the outside see it glaring its ugly head through us.

I'm reminded of that display of arrogance as Herod made his rash oath to his daughter at a feast. "I'll give you anything you ask, up to half my kingdom." What an arrogant boast in front of his royal, drunken friends. His wife set the trap, and his daughter asked for John's head on a platter.

Arrogance cost Herod to act foolishly and then act even more foolishly by having that execution carried out. John had done nothing but spoken the truth to Herod and his ill-gotten wife, Herodias. His acts later cost him his life. He died of worms at the hand of an angel.

Then there is the subject of his execution, John the Baptist. Jesus describes him a little differently. John was in prison for his condemnation of Herod's marriage. He had baptized his cousin, Jesus, but didn't understand the delay in his redeeming Israel as he sat in prison. Here is the story from Matthew.

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"

Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces.

What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, 'See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.' Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (Matthew 11:2-11 NIV)

It sounds like the description of a pretty humble guy. What does it mean to possess the character of humility? Well, it's the opposite of arrogance. It's having a modest or low estimate of one's own importance. John knew he heralded the coming of the Messiah. He knew that was an important task. But John didn't think himself a critical cog in the mechanism. He just did what he was supposed to do. God called John to preach repentance to those who would listen and to announce the coming of the Messiah. That's what he did.

The people announced John's greatness as a prophet. Those who flocked to him for repentance and baptism proclaimed his authority from God. The multitudes that came out of Jerusalem into the wilderness to meet him and listen to his preaching decided he had something important to say. John never put up billboards or handed out flyers or blasted the population with twitter feeds. He just humbly proclaimed the way of the Lord.

John's message got him in trouble more than once. The Pharisees didn't like him. They didn't like the way he pointed his finger at them and accused them of hypocrisy. Herod didn't want to hear John pointing out he and his wife's adulterous marriage. Those that didn't want to change their ways and turn to God didn't enjoy John's messages of repentance so much. But John stayed faithful to his mission, and humbly did what God asked him to do regardless of the price.

We've discussed arrogance, and its opposite humility, but why the word patience? Why would that word stick in my head this week? Patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. I need that in San Antonio rush hour traffic. We all need that in our current political disaster. But why did the word stick with me concerning Advent?

I think the answer lies in the meaning of Advent. We wait for the Redeemer to return. All around us, we find arrogant men and women. We can sometimes find ourselves slipping into that mode if we are not careful. Jesus calls us to live a humble but courageous life among all these arrogant people. And like many in John's day, we ask, "How long must we wait for your coming?"

He answers, "Be patient. Be ready, but be patient."

You see, I think God wants us to work to share the good news diligently to as many as we can before he comes. He desires that all would be saved. Some will decide not to follow him, but all should have the opportunity to choose, and we are his ambassadors to share the message. So he says, "Be patient, be ready, and work until I come again. It won't be long. It's another day closer. Be patient."

Enjoy this third week of Advent looking for his return.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan