SHE SAYS: Tax Day Reflections (pun intended...seriously)

Most Americans are relieved that April 15 is in our rearview mirror. However please stay with me as I reflect on a passage of scripture from the Bible that discusses the subject of paying taxes. I promise it won’t be boring and could have a dramatic impact on your life!

In an effort to trap Jesus and have him arrested, the teachers of the law and chief priest sent spies to watch him & try to trip him up with their duplicitous questions. They asked him “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

Jesus asked them, “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?"

They replied, “Caesar’s.”

He told them to “Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

This ended their recorded conversation because they understood his remark and knew they’d been foiled. But we might not fully get it. If so, then this most likely would have been their next question – What then belongs to God?  

In past readings of this text, I have always thought of these verses from Psalm 50: “Listen, my people, and I will speak; I will testify against you, Israel: I am God, your God. I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me. I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.” 

I believe God is saying, “I own all of creation.”

HOWEVER, this gets much more personal! I believe Jesus was telling them – “Go look at yourself. Whose image do you see?” We can find that answer in Genesis 1:27 “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”  We are "Imago Dei" - made in His image.

Friends – have you looked in the mirror lately? Have you given back to God the life He has so graciously given you? If not, today is the day to repent and put your trust in the One who at this very moment is giving you breath and sustaining your life. If you do this, He will grant you eternal life, so even if you die, you will live with Him forever. Don’t just take my word for it, read on – take it on authority of God Himself.

ACTS 17:24-31 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

ACTS 20:21 “I have declared to both Jews and Greeks (and all nationalities) that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.”

JOHN 5:24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life."

SHE SAYS:  Making Headlines

“ISIS Does Its Best to Eliminate All Traces of Christianity in Parts of Iraq and Syria under Its Control” 

 

“ISIS' dark mission: Destroying all signs of Christianity”

 

“SIS tweets destruction of more Christian sites”

 

The above, are headlines seen in the news this week. As a Christian, these actions of ISIS do not alarm me. A cross is simply a symbolic reminder of our Lord’s rescuing act for us. We do not worship icons, statues and even if someone destroys our places of fellowship, the Church still exists – no one can destroy true faith.

However, God has a stern warning for those who choose to destroy His temple (i.e. believers).

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. 

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 

 

The persecution of my Christian brothers and sisters in these places must spur me to action. 

1. I must pray for them as never before.
2. I must give generously to support those who have been displaced and those who are fulfilling the great commission on the frontlines. 
3. I must be known for my love for others, whether friend or foe.
4. I must care too much to be silent or idle.
5. I must seek out and learn as much as I can about those in harm’s way. 

God Did Not Remove the Snakes!

SHE SAYS:

God did not remove the snakes!  This reality stood out to me this morning as I reread Numbers 21.  Let me set the stage:  Israel was grumbling about God and Moses (for like the 14,600th time!) because “There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”  So God responded by sending snakes among them and many people were bitten and died. 

The people were afraid; confessed their sin against God to Moses and asked him to pray that God would remove the snakes.  Faithful Moses prayed, and God provided a way of escape, but He didn’t remove the snakes.  He had Moses make a bronze snake & set it up on a pole in the midst of the people.  Only by looking at the snake, would the people be healed and live. 

This event is symbolic of both the sacrifice of Christ and the faith of His people.  Just like the bronze serpent, Christ in the “likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3) was lifted up.  All of us have been "bitten" with sin – we’re sinners and the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23).  Therefore we have no hope for eternal life except to believe and put our faith Christ. 

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son."  John 3:14-18

Just as God did not take away the snakes, once we see Christ as our salvation, God puts His Holy Spirit in us, so even though we must continue to live in our bodies of flesh, tempted by sin, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing” (John 6:63).