“The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out.” (Leviticus 6:12–13 ESV).Israel's priests had work to do. These men didn't just sit around offering "thoughts and prayers" for the peeps. Nah, dudes worked, and one job they had was to keep the fire on the altar of sacrifice at full blaze. That fire had to roar, lest the sacrificial smoke lazily waft through the camp toward the people. It was supposed to jut upward toward heaven.For the fire to burn brightly, wood had to be found and cut and laid on the altar. Animals had to be examined and then offered. Ashes had to be removed. And that fire, God said, "shall not go out."We, also, must keep that fire burning! We have no literal altar, of course -- Praise Jesus! -- but we do have a ministry to God. We pray. We sing. We read his word in anticipation that the voice of heaven wills to break through into our modern minds. And those fires should not lazily burn. They must rage.Paul told Timothy, "I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God" (2 Timothy 1:6). As we walk through life, we must remember how Jesus gave himself for us. Before he did, we could not even begin to give our bodies to God. Our entire beings -- eyes, hands, ears, mouths -- were depraved (Romans 3:9-18). Now, however, after the gospel shocked us into resurrection life, we can give our bodies to God as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to him (Romans 12:1-2). What we could not do while dead in trespasses and sins, we can do now that the life of the immortal Spirit is within us, driving us forward as we walk with God.I'm sure at various places and times it was more difficult to obtain enough wood to keep that old altar's fire burning bright. I'm sure there were moments the fire flickered and became a bed of smoldering ashes. I'm sure it sometimes felt an unnecessary task to those ancient priests. And when our fire wanes and the smoke wafts, let us ask the Spirit for the strength to get that fire burning bright once again.“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23).

The LORD will save me, and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the LORD. (Isaiah 38:20)Hezekiah was an excellent king of Judah. A descendant of David, he bore similar traits to his ancestor in that he worshipped God and delighted in God's law. At one point, Hezekiah became sick. Isaiah the prophet was summoned, and he told Hezekiah his time to die had come. Hezekiah pleaded with God but also pleaded with Isaiah to plead with God. Isaiah returned with the glad announcement that Hezekiah would live. For another fifteen years, Hezekiah sat on the throne.In response, Hezekiah sang. He said many things to God in his song, but this final sentence is beautiful to me: "The LORD will save me, and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the LORD." In Hezekiah's statement of praise, I see four elements I want to emulate, since the LORD has also, in a more robust manner than Hezekiah experienced, saved my life.1. Our Song Should Be Rooted In SalvationHezekiah sang, "The LORD will save me." His entire song, his joy, was based on the salvation God would win for him. As a Christian man, I can rejoice over a million other things, but I want my truest and most poignant joy to be over the cross of Christ and the salvation it won for me. I am saved! Wrath, death, and hell are not mine. The blood of Jesus has made me new!As I said, it is easy for me to celebrate the lesser and forget to rejoice over the greater. It has always struck me as interesting that Jesus had to give believers communion, his table, the bread and wine, to remember his work on the cross. Forgetfulness is human, and we often slip in our fascination with the cross of Christ. I pass through life and become distracted with, well, life, and the work of Christ's salvation diminishes within me. But if I am going to sing, I must remember I've been saved.2. Our Song Is A Personal OneHezekiah said, "We will play my music on stringed instruments." For him, it was his music, a personal song with personal lyrics meant to describe his personal experience with God. This does not mean his faith was secretive or individualistic, his own unique religion he had crafted for himself. No, it means the God who is available to all had been enjoyed by Hezekiah personally. The song had become his.As a believer, I want to sing, but I know I cannot sing the general song of the congregation until I sing the personal song of Nate. I must have an individual encounter with God, and continue to encounter him my entire life if this song is going to flow. His power is immense, but if I can only think of his power in the past (the date of my conversion) or the future (the coming of his eschatological kingdom), I will not sing today. I want to live in his power today, but for that, I must continue to stretch out my hand (Matthew 12:3) and get out of the boat (Matthew 14:28). He is calling me into further obediences, ones which stretch me, and it is during those callings I will sing my own song before the Lord.3. Our Song TravelsHezekiah said we would sing, "all the days of our lives." He knew he wouldn't forget his song, but that it would travel with him every step of the way. In a sense, he was committing to God. Every day of his life, Hezekiah would rejoice over God. He was a man in debt, one which he could never repay, and he would thank the God who had blessed him so with breath from every day of his future life.The commitment Hezekiah made is a strong one. You see, our song travels with us into the everyday experience of life. There is much I love about Sundays (traditionally the day we gather to celebrate Christ). But there is much I love about Mondays (and Tuesdays, and beyond). He meets us in those days. He has a song for us during monotony, through pain, and in all the individual seasons in which we find ourselves. Solomon spoke of the different times of life (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), and God's song can be

A Vital IntroductionOur world whirls and spins without thinking. On hyperdrive, society cruises ahead at breakneck speed. We move fast to get what we want fast. Like Veruca Salt, we want it, and we want it now! Gone are the days of slowness, the days when the journey was just as beautiful as the destination. We often think any shortcut worth taking, that the quickest route is the best route.We dream of lottery wins -- financial security for which we did not struggle. We want romantic magic -- relationships which click without effort or sacrifice. We crave overnight success -- for the first invention to be the multi-million dollar winner. The world speeds along in this line of thinking. A little more, a little better, a little faster -- and then, surely, happiness will come. But this is a mirage. There is no truth in it. Sure, there are pockets of slow, Sabbath-like life around us, but for many of us the world is buzzing.Amid the noise, however, some have found a subversively different brand of life. A small remnant has seen a beautiful and contradictory way forward. This new way is an old one and is a paradox to the imaginations of the societies and cultures which dominate people's thinking. It is the life of pilgrimage. It is the life of faith, a life set apart for God, devoted to Him, playing by His new, yet ancient, rules. Eons ago, He designed these dictates so that we might flourish. We are wired to succeed when submitting to them.The life He's designed is the good life, the best life possible while still in this broken and fallen world. It might be slow. It might be different. It might be a process. But it is good, so very good.The Need For PilgrimageThis good life is pictured for us in Psalm 120-134, ancient Israel’s Songs of Ascents. Also known as the Songs of Steps or Degrees, these songs describe the attitudes needed to endure the thrice-annual climb to Jerusalem for the worship of God. The Hebrews who sang these lyrics and knew these melodies had decided to follow God and His counterintuitive processes for their lives. Much of what they did would make no human sense, but God involved Himself in their lives and proved that pilgrimage works because He works.God had asked Israel to come to the temple three times each year for worship. First, they would go to Jerusalem for the Passover, a feast designed to commemorate the great exodus from Egypt. Then, fifty days later, they were to go to Jerusalem again for the Feast of Firstfruits, devised to recognize God’s provision for them when He brought them into Canaan. Finally, each fall, they would celebrate the Feast of Booths, intended to celebrate the faithfulness of God during Israel's wilderness wandering between Egypt and Canaan. Three times each year the people would ascend to Jerusalem and remember His past faithfulness in their lives.God’s ways with humankind have progressed since those days, and the church has something fuller and richer today, but those days are still highly instructive for the modern church. Each feast was rich with imagery, but it is the act of climbing to Jerusalem that will capture our attention in this book. By going up, a Hebrew man or woman was making a statement about their lives. They were declaring their devotion to God, their willingness to follow Him with their lives.To climb to Jerusalem thrice annually was a way for them to put God at the center of their lives. Surrounded by other Israelites who might say God held first place -- "our top priority" -- these pilgrims lived as if God were first. The temptation to avoid pilgrimage must have been strong, for leaving your home and hometown unprotected at predictable intervals every year would have been a scary thought. All that time off from working the land would have also been a tough sell. For their fears, the pilgrims had a promise from God -- “For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD your Go

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 ESV).Jesus, man, sometimes he drops some wild stuff. The Spirit had come upon some of the Old Testament saints. They did some great things for God. David killed the giant. The prophets prophesied. Esther did her thing. But when God's Spirit came upon those Old Testament heroes, it was temporary and rare. He did not stay in them or upon them, nor did he empower all of them.When Jesus rose, however, the Spirit was set free to regenerate every believer in Christ and his cross. By simple belief -- faith -- people are regenerated by the Spirit of God. Through faith in Christ, we are born again, born of the Spirit. He makes his home in us. He is the down payment, the deposit, the guarantee God is going to redeem our bodies eternally. Forever, we'll be with him, because right now he's in us.Jesus also said the Holy Spirit would come upon us. Not only would the Spirit live within us, helping us mature and grow and love, but he would come upon us, empowering and enabling us to get it done for God. Jesus told his early disciples that the Spirit would embolden them to testify of Christ throughout the whole world. They'd start in Jerusalem, where they lived at the time, and expand out to the ends of the earth.The books of Acts records this exact reality. It begins in Jerusalem with Jews and ends in Rome with Gentiles. And it was all accomplished by the power of the Spirit. He came upon, empowered, enabled, and strengthened the believers.He wills to do the same in you today. If you're a believer in Christ, the Spirit dwells within you. He longs to work through your life. He wills to come upon you and empower you for the work of ministry he's called you to. When confronted with the lion and bear and Goliath, the Spirit of God rushed upon David and aided him in his fight. And he wants to help you on your mission as well. He lives in you to aid you in your Christian walk and discipleship, but he comes upon you to aid you as you fight and labor and testify of Christ.In the last days we are living in, I am convinced it is the empowering nature of the Holy Spirit we need most. We need his aid and grace and strength to get the job done. The obstacles and arguments in the heart of depraved humanity are too much for our feeble attempts and strategies. No, the only way forward is by the power of the Spirit. He must help us. He must conquer. He must empower us for the work.

"There was another man who prophesied in the name of the Lord, Uriah the son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-Jearim. He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like those of Jeremiah." (Jeremiah 26:20)Jeremiah, like most of the prophets, was a solitary pillar of truth in a wasteland of doctrinal deception. He stood for the truth of God, saying hard things during hard times when no one else would. As truth spilled from his mouth, lies dripped from the lips of many false prophets.When Jeremiah spoke of judgment, they talked of peace. When Jeremiah told Israel of God's certain discipline, they spoke of God's immediate renewal. When Jeremiah prophesied they'd go into captivity for seventy years, the false prophets told them not to worry, they were coming home in just a year or two.At every turn, Jeremiah's words were combatted by soft false prophets who healed the wounds of God's people lightly. These men looked like prophets, dressed like prophets, and talked like prophets, but their words were false, and Jeremiah outlived them all, for his words were sure.But in the middle of the book bearing his name, another true prophet emerged. "There was another man who prophesied in the name of the Lord, Uriah... He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like those of Jeremiah."There he is, a man named Uriah. Like Jeremiah, he spoke the truth of God's word. Jeremiah, for a brief moment, was not alone. Uriah's destiny was different from Jeremiah's, and he quickly vanished from the biblical scene because he was persecuted unto death, but, at least for a moment, he became a peer of the great prophet.Call me crazy, but I think many believers feel alone in their reception of God's word and truth. Daily, new voices emerge, false prophets who bend and twist and dilute the clear and historical teachings of the Christian faith. These scholars and pastors and leaders are like the false prophets of Jeremiah's day. Rather than say hard things, they conform the word of Christ to the word of culture, and people follow them.We've known days like these would come, of course, and to a degree, they've always been. Paul said, “The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3–4). He also wrote of days and cultures where the society would "not only do" evil but "give approval to those who" also practice evil (Romans 1:32). It is enough to make a believer feel that they are alone, a solitary voice with solitary beliefs. They roam their campuses, offices, streets, and churches, alone.But Jeremiah was not alone, and neither are you. If you hold to the Scripture, if you will not stand for its dilution, you are not alone. There are others. Your pastor is not the only one who stands for truth; there are others. Your friends are not the only ones who believe Scripture; there are others. You are not the only one who holds to historical, biblical Christianity; there are others. You are not alone.In times when the culture and society do what culture and society do, we must remember the prophets. In days of waywardness, they help give us a spine. In days of ignorance, they help us stand for God's word. Make them your friends. Their bravery and courage just might help you in your quest. When alone, they might encourage your heart and help you see you're not quite as solitary as you thought.

An Invitation Into Christ's RestJesus, famously, said, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). Millions, since he said it, have craved that rest. We seek him for it.But what is God's rest? What image does the word "rest" conjure up in your mind? I think of hammocks, beaches, books, and lazy summer days. I think of Netflix and play and sport. But what does God envision? What is God's rest?The passage before us, Hebrews 4:1-13 is all about the rest God offers to his people. The two most repeated words in the section are the words "rest" and "enter." God's preeminent desire for his children, in this passage, is for our lives to enter his rest. But, again, what is this rest?What Is God's Rest?First, to discover what God's rest is, we must look at what came before Hebrews 4. Early Jewish Christians (thus the title, Hebrews) were tempted to engage in the Old Testament rituals once again. God offered them a relationship through Christ, not a ritualistic, religious observance of him. In Hebrews 3, these folks were invited to come into the rest of God. So at least part of God's rest was to cease from the Old Testament religious observances.Second, to define God's rest, we must also look at what comes in Hebrews 4. The author will point us to the seventh day of creation, or Eden, the Promised Land after Joshua's conquest, and the Sabbath system instituted by God. So another facet to God's rest is found in all three, for they are at least emblematic of what Christ offers his people.Thirdly, and finally, to define God's rest, we must look at what comes after Hebrews 4. The author will conclude his book with a crescendo of phrases to describe the new life to come. He wrote of the city that has foundations, our homeland, which is our heavenly country and city (Hebrews 11:10, 14, 16). He talked of the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22). He said it was the kingdom that cannot be shaken, the lasting city that is to come (Hebrews 12:28, Hebrews 13:14). So another facet of God's rest is found in the eternal city and the destiny of God's people.So, God's rest is a place, but also a state of being. It is yet future, but we can enter it right now. It is as if the heavenly throne room is trying to reach down into our current experience, our modern lives, and alter our experience. Our tomorrow should influence our today. Our eschatological hope should impact our daily grind.Or, to put it another way, our Father in heaven speaks from his throne with the hope that his children would allow his word and promises and truth to bring them into rest today. I was a little stress-ball when I was a boy. One day, after a baseball game in which I performed poorly, my father said, "Nathan, there are a billion people in China who don't even know you played that game today." For me, it was a revelation! My father's voice went with me into the batter's box in future games. His words shaped my experience and helped me rest. That is a little glimpse of the rest Father God offers his people in Hebrews 4 -- the word of heaven shaping life today.The rest of God brings us past a slave-like relationship with God and into one that responds to his grace. It brings us past dead religion and into life and joy with him. It brings us past dreadful fear and worries, and into a simple trust which is free in his love. It takes us past self-effort and self-righteousness into running in the imputed righteousness of Christ. It takes us past mere words into congruity between our words and actions.I crave this rest. I want to enter into it every day. Hebrews, as we'll read in a moment, tells us to strive to enter this rest.Entering God's Rest Should Be a Major Priority for God's Children (Hebrews 4:1)"Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it." (Hebrews 4:1)So, this rest is out there, available, somehow accessible to