The Character of Caleb

(Click to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

The Character of Caleb.

It’s easy to study the life of Caleb because there’s not that much about him in the Bible, but what IS there is very inspiring.

He shows up in Numbers chapter 13 when God tells Moses to send spies into the land of Canaan.  Moses has to pick one man from each tribe, and that man must be a leader.  Different Bible translations use different words, like “chief” and “ruler” and “prince.”  Whichever word you choose, the evidence is clear:  Caleb was a chief man of the tribe of Judah.

So, the 12 spies went into the land of Canaan and brought back a report to Moses.  They all agreed that it was a bountiful land, but 10 of the 12 spies said they should NOT go into the land because it was well-defended, even by giants.  This negative report spread fear throughout the people of Israel.

But not Caleb.  Numbers 13:30 says that Caleb “quieted the people before Moses and said, ‘Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.’”

This is the first time we have Caleb speaking in the Bible, and it is a bold and wonderful speech.  He is loaded with faith and courage, like David was with Goliath.

I was inspired, but the people of Israel were not.  Their fear and lack of faith made them cry out against Joshua and Caleb.  Then Numbers 14 says that Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes in anguish and tried to speak to the people, saying things like, “the Lord is with us” and “if the Lord delights in us” and “do not rebel against the Lord.”

But the Israelites were so afraid, they rebelled against God’s leadership, so God said this in Numbers 14, “because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.  But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.”

This is the Lord God Himself, calling Caleb by name!  God knows everything.  He knows our heart and our thoughts, and He said that Caleb followed Him fully, wholeheartedly.

“Lord, I want to follow You wholeheartedly, with faith and courage and boldness like Caleb.”

Then we skip ahead 40 long years, to Numbers chapter 34, and God is talking about the leaders who will lead Israel into the Promised Land.  And who is the leader of the tribe of Judah?  The same man from 40 years ago:  Caleb.  He’s first on the list!

Now let’s jump over to Joshua chapter 14.  The Promised Land was going to be divided among the tribes of Israel “by lot.”  Basically, God was going to distribute the land among the tribes by a type of drawing or lottery.

Except one man was exempted from the lottery.  Caleb.  You see, something very interesting happened right after they spied out the land.  Caleb had received a promise from Moses.  Moses told Caleb, “Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children’s forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord.”

So, on the day of distribution, Caleb reminded Joshua of that promise, and Joshua blessed Caleb and gave him Hebron as his inheritance.  

In Joshua 14 we have more great words from the mouth of Caleb.  He said, “The Lord has kept me alive these 45 years, and now here I am, 85 years old.  I am as strong this day as I was on the day that Moses sent us out.  Now therefore, give me this mountain.”

Here is Caleb with that same strength and faith and courage at the age of 85 as when he was 40, still trusting in God and ready to go forward and take action.

I am so inspired by the character of Caleb.  He was a man of faith.  He trusted God and His word.  He had courage to obey God when it looked hard if not impossible.  He followed God fully.  He didn’t give up.  He was a hard worker.  He was still ready to work, even at 85.  And God blessed him for his faith and courage and perseverance.

“Lord, I want to follow You wholeheartedly, working hard with faith and courage and boldness like Caleb, even into my old age.”

Amen.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

That Thou Givest Them They Gather

(Click to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

I heard an acrostic for the word “poor” and I can’t get it out of my mind.

It said the letters P-O-O-R stand for Passing Over Opportunities Repeatedly.

In other words, if you want to be poor, just keep passing up on the opportunities that come your way.

Sometimes people are looking for provisions to be handed to them, but what is handed to them instead is an opportunity, and they miss it.

I see people come to this fork in the road.  A good opportunity comes their way, and they have a decision to make:  take the opportunity or not?

Many times, I see people pass over the opportunity, and then later they wonder why they are still stuck, or they are lacking what they need.

Sometimes I see Christians crying out to God to provide for them, and then they wonder why He doesn’t…but what they didn’t see was that He gave them an opportunity.  They were blind to the opportunity because they were only looking for provision to be handed to them.

In Luke 12:24 Jesus says, “Consider the ravens.”  He said God feeds the ravens, and we are more valuable to Him than ravens.

But get this.  He doesn’t drop the food in the raven’s mouth!  The raven has to go out every day and GATHER his food.  God gives him the opportunity to eat, but He doesn’t hand feed the birds.  So if we are expecting God to hand feed us, we are missing the point.

I like what Psalm 104 verse 28 says in the old King James, “That thou givest them they gather…” In other words, when God supplies it, they go and gather it up.

Nehemiah knew this lesson when he was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.  In Nehemiah 2:20 he said that God would grant them success, but guess what.  They had to rise up and actually build the walls with their own hands.  He was basically saying, “God will provide; therefore we will arise and build.”

Yes, God says He will provide for us, but that usually means He is going to provide the opportunities for us rather than just handing it to us.

So, if you don’t want to be poor, don’t Pass Over Opportunities Repeatedly.

And remember our part in the equation found in Psalm 104 verse 28, “That thou givest them…THEY GATHER.”

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

 

A Servant, A Soldier, A Son

(Click here to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

“For Thine is the kingdom.”

That’s what it says near the end of The Lord’s Prayer.

I pray through The Lord’s Prayer most days and when I come to this part I expound on it.

“Lord, the kingdom is Yours.  Everything belongs to You, and I belong to You in your kingdom.”

A kingdom implies a king, and Revelation 19:16 says that Jesus is the King of Kings.

Psalm 47 says God is the King of all the earth.  He reigns over the nations and sits on His holy throne.

Isaiah said, “My eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.”

And what was Isaiah’s response when He saw the King?  It was great humility and repentance.  He said, “Woe is me, for I am undone!”

Isaiah also responded with a great desire to serve the King.  In Isaiah 6:8 he said, “Here am I!  Send me.”

This is a proper response to a king, an offer to serve.  So that’s what I do when I come to “for Thine is the kingdom.”  I say, “Lord, You are the king.  I am your servant.  I am here to serve as You wish.  I’m at your beck and call.  I want to do what is my duty to do.”

So I am a servant of the King, but I am also a soldier of the King.

Second Timothy 2:3-4 says, “endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with civilian affairs, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”

I am a soldier of the King.  When I roll out of bed each morning I take a knee, point to heaven and say, “Reporting for duty, Sir.”

One of the things I like about being a soldier is that I don’t have to come up with my own commands.  A soldier doesn’t wake up and say, “What should I do for the army today?”  No.  He is a soldier under command.  He does what he is told.  A soldier also doesn’t have to worry about his provisions, his gear, his lodging, his health care, his training.  That’s all provided as long as he is a soldier under command.

So when I pray, “for Thine is the kingdom,” I’m praying, “Lord, I am Your servant and I am Your soldier.”

But there’s more.  I’m not just a servant and I’m not just a soldier.  As a Christian I am also a son!  I am a CHILD of the King!

Galatians 4 says that Jesus came to redeem us so that we can be adopted as sons.  We become sons and daughters of the King!  It says we become heirs of the King through Christ.

First John 3:1 says, “Behold what manner of love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”

God is the King, and as believers we are the King’s Kids!

So when I pray, “for Thine is the kingdom” at the end of the Lord’s prayer, I’m saying, “Lord, You are the King.  It’s Your kingdom, and I am Your servant.  I want to do all that is my duty to do.  And I am a soldier under command.  And I am a son, so happy to be a child of the King, and that You love me and provide for me and lead me, not just as a servant and not just as a soldier, but also as a son.  Thank You, Father.”

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

 

Making Crooked Places Straight and Rough Ways Smooth

(Click here to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

I finally fixed our shower doors.

I don’t know why I waited so long.

At first they just started closing a little roughly.

It finally got to where one of the doors wouldn’t move at all without making the loudest screech and feeling like it was going to fall off and shatter.

But hey, you really only need one of the doors to work, so I still didn’t do anything.

Finally one morning I woke up and thought, “I really need to fix those shower doors.”

I bought new wheels that the doors hang on for basically pennies and within just a few minutes both doors were working like they were brand new.  It was so satisfying to feel how smooth they operated.  Why had I waited so long?

I don’t know the answer to that, but I do think this is our calling in the world, to make things run more smoothly.

I love this imagery in the book of Luke, chapter 3 verse 5, “…the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth.”

I think this is what God does through His Holy Spirit inside of us.  He begins His good work in us, straightening the crooked things and smoothing the rough things.

A big word for this is sanctification.  I just finished memorizing the book of First Thessalonians, and sanctification shows up repeatedly.  It says, “for this is the will of God, your sanctification.”  It says, “…may…God…sanctify you completely,” and then it says, “He will surely do it.”

God sanctifies His people from the inside out.  He takes our crooked places and makes them straight, and our rough ways and makes them smooth.

And then we, in turn, have a sanctifying effect on everything around us.  We go out into the world and we take crooked places and make them straight and we make rough ways smooth.

Have you ever heard someone say this, “He’s so heavenly minded he’s no earthly good”?  I think that’s the opposite of the truth.  The more heavenly minded someone is, the more earthly good they will be because of this sanctifying effect.  

A Christian who is truly connected to God is going to be improving the world all around him.  Everyone should be happier when a godly person comes in and begins taking crooked places and making them straight and rough ways and making them smooth…because people like straight and smooth!

My mom was a master seamstress.  She could work wonders with needle and thread.  Now we take it for granted today because of our store-bought, factory-made clothing, but have you ever tried to take two pieces of cloth and sew them together and make a nice, smooth seam?  It’s much easier to make it bunchy than smooth and nice.  

And it’s easier in life to make things bunchy.  We make our relationships bunchy.  Our budget gets bunchy.  Things get bunchy at work, at home, in the community, but there is good news.  God wants to take bunchy things and make them straight!

First, He does that inside of us as we submit to His leadership.  And then, through us, He does this work in the world around us, using us to fulfill His plan to take crooked things and make them straight, and rough ways and make them smooth.

And yes, I believe that includes fixing those shower doors.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

The Unlimited Supply

(Click to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

Are you keeping your eyes on aging family members and calculating what you will get when they die?

Are you ready to fight with other people to get what you think should be yours?

Why are you doing that?

So many family divisions have happened over stuff.  People value the money and the things more than they value the family relationships.

It’s greed.  It’s a lack of faith.  It’s storing up treasures in the wrong place.  It’s putting stuff before people, which is ultimately putting stuff before God.

In Matthew 19 we read about the rich young ruler.  Jesus said to him, “Follow Me,” but the rich young ruler chose not to follow Jesus.  Why?  Matthew 19:22 says it was because “he had great possessions.”

It makes me wonder, “How great were they, really?  Great enough to literally turn your back on Jesus so you could focus on your stuff?”

You know, it wasn’t long until that man died and then what happened to all his stuff?  Did his kids fight over it?  Or maybe he didn’t have any kids because having kids would have taken away from his wealth.

Now I’m thinking of Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol.  He had no children, and when he died, the servants came in laughing and grabbing the spoils, not even caring that he was dead.

In Luke 12 we read about brothers who were in a big fight over their inheritance.  It was so divisive that one of them came and presented his case to Jesus.  I don’t know what he thought Jesus was going to say, but Jesus certainly didn’t give him the answer he wanted.

In Luke 12:15 we read what Jesus said, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

Then he told the parable of the rich fool who horded up stuff for himself, only to die and someone else got it.  God called the man a fool, and Jesus said that’s what everyone is who “lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

In the very next verse Jesus said, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on.  Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing.  Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them.  Of how much more value are you than the birds?”

Jesus concluded by saying that our heavenly Father knows what we need, and that when we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things will be provided.

God has an unlimited supply!

Pastor Adrian Rogers said, “Which would you rather have, a storehouse full of bread, or a Father who is a really prolific baker?”

Our Father is a prolific baker!  He will provide for us daily as we seek Him first.  And seeking Him first means loving people.  That means putting people before stuff.  It means putting our family relationships ahead of the family spoils.  

Let them have the stuff!  What are you going to do without?  God says that as we seek Him, we will NOT go without anything that we need.  

When we realize that God will supply all of our needs according to His riches in glory, we can relax!  We can let the other guy have some!  We can let the rest of the family have the spoils without us blowing up the family just to get our share.  God is our provider, and that sets us free to love others and let them have the stuff instead of fighting them for it.

So if you have your eyes fixed on those aging family members and the potential riches you might grab onto, stop it.  Fix your eyes on Jesus.  Set your eyes on things above, not on things on the earth. 

We don’t have to scratch and claw and bite and fight with the family.  We love them!  And then we trust in God to supply what we need, and the great news is…

He has an unlimited supply!

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Disappointed With God

(click to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

“I’ve spent a good portion of my life disappointed with God.”

That’s what he said, and it got me thinking.

Am I disappointed with God?  Have I been disappointed with God?  Was I ever disappointed with God?

I can’t think of a time when I was ever disappointed with God.

Oh sure, there have been a thousand times when things didn’t go the way I wanted them to go, but that didn’t make me disappointed with God.

Why not?

I guess it is because I always just figured that if things didn’t go the way I expected, it’s because I didn’t really know how things are supposed to work.

For example, there was the time as a baby Christian when I concluded that I didn’t have to lock up my bicycle anymore because God was going to protect me from theft.  Then I came home one day and found that my bicycle was gone!  Of course, I was disappointed, but I wasn’t disappointed with God.  I was just disappointed with the situation.  I thought things worked in a way that they actually don’t work.  I just recalibrated my thinking and moved forward in my walk with God.

A more serious example is when I was a Christian radio DJ, on the air daily, playing Christian music and ministry live on the radio, taking requests, talking to people, encouraging people in the faith, etc.  I also had a wife at home, and an increasing number of mouths to feed.  And being a little Christian radio DJ is not a great way to provide for a big family.

There’s an old joke in the radio industry:  what do a DJ and a large pizza have in common?  They can aaaaaaalmost feed a family of four.

I was praying things like, “God, I believe You have called me to this radio station, and yet I’m not making enough money.  I thought You were going to provide for my needs as I do Your will.”  Meanwhile, the owner of the station wanted me to get into advertising sales to help support both the station and myself.  But I didn’t want to.  I wanted to focus on the on-air ministry as a live DJ.  

Yes, that led to some frustrating days where I was expecting God to provide more money, meanwhile I was turning down my boss’s encouragement to get into sales.  Then I finally realized, “Well, I guess this isn’t how this is going to work.  God isn’t going to suddenly drop in money from heaven.  But meanwhile, I do have this opportunity.” So in the summer of 1992, with our fourth child on the way, I went off the air as a live DJ and began working in sales.  And that turned out to be a positive change in every way, for that whole ministry as well as for my family.

Disappointment with God never took root in me.  I just figured, hey, that’s not how this works.  Let’s move on.  And I would say, yes, God provided.  I saw it over and over.  But He provided through open doors and opportunities that came our way over and over and over again, thank You, God!

Have you ever been learning something new, and it was frustrating, and at times you wanted to quit?

I remember when I was first learning graphic design, using a computer program called CorelDraw.  I didn’t go to school for this.  I was already raising my own family, but the opportunity came.  I suddenly found myself editing a small newspaper, and I didn’t know what I was doing!

I was sitting at Kinko’s in Carbondale, Illinois late one night, because they had a computer with CorelDraw on it, and I had to get this newspaper edited before the deadline.  There was a certain ad that I needed to change, but I couldn’t change it.  Every time I clicked it, the whole thing highlighted and moved, but I couldn’t click just the text to change it.

I was going out of my mind!  It was late at night.  There was no Google to ask.  The Kinko’s worker didn’t know anything about it.  Back then you couldn’t even right click for a context menu.  Plus I was so tired by then.

Finally.  FINALLY I realized that the text inside the ad had been GROUPED TOGETHER.  I had never heard of things being grouped together.  I didn’t know you could group things together.  

Did I become disappointed with the CorelDraw corporation?  No.  I was just frustrated because I didn’t know how it was supposed to work.

And I think that is how people end up feeling disappointed with God.  It’s not that God is disappointing.  It’s that we don’t know how it’s supposed to work, so we burden our relationship with God with all these expectations, and then when our expectations aren’t met, we feel disappointed with God.  Some people walk away from God altogether for this.

What if I would have walked away from graphic design just because I didn’t know about grouping?  That would have been dumb, right?  

When things don’t work the way we expect, we don’t quit.  We figure out how they are supposed to work!

The same is true in our walk with God.  Of course it’s hard to figure out.

Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Romans 11:33 says, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!”

In Job 11 it says, “Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven…their measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.”

Psalm 147 says God’s understanding is infinite!

If we don’t even know how everything works in our favorite computer app, what makes us think we understand the workings of the infinite God?

There’s no room for disappointment.  We don’t get disappointed.  We just realize, “Hey, I guess that’s not how this thing works.  God, please teach me and show me and lead me.  Your ways are higher than my ways, so I put my faith and hope and trust in You.  Please help me to hear and to follow You every step of the way for the rest of my days…in Jesus’ name…”

Amen.

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.

I Will Walk at Liberty for I Seek Thy Precepts

(Click to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire.  (Luke 24:32)

How can you have more freedom by living with more restrictions?

It sounds counterintuitive.  It sounds like nonsense.

We want to be free to do whatever we want, whenever we want.  The more limits, the less freedom, right?  It’s a one-to-one ratio.

Yet we find a different concept in the Bible.

Psalm 119:45 says, “I will walk at liberty; for I seek Thy precepts.”

The precepts are God’s commands, His laws, His principles, His boundaries, His guidelines.  It’s God’s blueprint for how to live.

It says we can have liberty and freedom as we seek to live within His boundaries.

But there is something inside of us that doesn’t want boundaries.  Tell a man not to cross a line and some part of him is itching to do it.

And God lets us cross the line.  We have the free will to crisscross His boundaries all day long.

But there are consequences for crossing God’s boundaries, and one of the big ones is:  less freedom.

“No, Doug.  That sounds like MORE freedom.”

I know that’s what it looks like.  I’m trying to live within God’s boundaries, and let’s say someone else isn’t.  They can do things I won’t do.  They can say things I won’t say.  They can ingest things I won’t ingest, watch things I won’t watch, listen to things I won’t listen to, do things with their body I won’t do.  They sound way more free than I do, right?

And that’s what makes this Bible verse sound absurd, “I will walk at liberty for I seek Thy precepts.”

Now let’s look at what Jesus said in John chapter eight.  In verse 34 He said that whoever sins is a slave of sin.

Sin is anything outside God’s boundaries.  We are all free to exercise our freedom INSIDE God’s boundaries, but as soon as we step OUTSIDE of His boundaries we are now in a territory called sin.

And Jesus said that whoever steps into that territory of sin becomes a slave of sin.

And being a slave is the opposite of being free.

That’s why Psalm 119:45 says, “I will walk at liberty for I seek Thy precepts.”

When we seek His precepts, we are seeking to know God’s boundaries.  Where are the lines?  I want to know where the lines are so I can stay in freedom and out of sin so I don’t become a slave of sin.

Now when we think of slavery, we think of being forced to do things we don’t want to do.  Sin, on the other hand, is often what we DO want to do, so how is that slavery?

It’s slavery because listen:  sin always traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in.

I’ll say it again.  Sin always traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in.  That’s the slavery.

So yeah, you might think of a sin and how much you want to do it.  That’s called temptation.  It’s the treat inside the trap.  It’s the bait hiding the hook.  God said don’t do it, but you WANT to do it, and you want to be free to do it, and God seems like a killjoy when He says, “Don’t.”

You can go ahead and do it, but if you sin, you’re going to find that there’s always WAY more to it than the thrill on the surface.  Sin ALWAYS traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in.

That’s why God gives us boundaries.  He wants us to be free, and His words help us to live free.  Psalm 119:103 says, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

Verse 44 says, “So shall I keep Thy law continually for ever and ever.”

And verse 45 says, “And I will walk at liberty; for I seek Thy precepts.”

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.