Nathan R. Hale

A personal blog

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  • Why the blood of Jesus is enough for me, you, and God

    Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. (Hebrews 9:22 ESV)

    Hebrews chapter nine examines the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant. These ancient rites dealt with external actions, not the internal conscience (cf Heb. 9:10).

    Sacrifice and blood were the essential ingredients.

    The priest and people repeated these ceremonies day in and day out, year after year.

    The New Covenant also involves blood, but instead of the blood of animals, it is the blood of Christ. Because of his special status, his self-sacrifice on the cross is able to be a once-for-all sacrifice (cf Heb. 9:12). This does much more than purify our bodies, it purifies our minds (cf. Heb. 9:14). (more…)

  • Meditation on the Resurrection is like…a lottery ticket?

    Say a stranger buys you a lottery ticket in the gas station line as a random gift on an otherwise mundane day. You get back to your car and put the ticket on your dash. Might as well, you think.

    You scratch the little shiny circles with the last dime you have in your pocket. You start to get excited as the numbers are revealed.

    Turns out, you won.

    Every time you look down at that ticket, you smile to yourself. Even if you haven’t cashed it in yet, you are a winner and things are going to be very different for you shortly. Sure, you may be technically in debt right now, but that’s about to all go away. Yeah your car doesn’t work, but that won’t be a problem much longer. You’re behind on rent, but soon you’ll be buying a new house.

    What fortune! You didn’t even buy the ticket.

    I think meditating on the Resurrection of Jesus is a lot like looking at that winning lottery ticket.

    Your body may be broken, but you’re going to get a new one. You might be homeless but there’s a mansion waiting. You’re tired now but rest and refreshment is around the corner. Loneliness might be killing you but there’s a wedding feast coming up and you’re invited. You stumble through doing the right thing, but you’re getting stronger, even now.

    Sin still tends to gnaw at you, but you know it can’t defeat you.

    You were empty but now you’re filled with the Spirit.

    You can hardly believe it.

    You had nothing–nothing–but now you’re rich beyond your wildest imagination.

    You’ve been forgiven, ransomed, redeemed. You’ve seen mercy.

    You have God.

    And you didn’t even buy the ticket.

  • 5 practical ways to guard your personal time with God from distraction

    distractionI recently asked my Facebook friends what distracted them from their personal time with God. Here are some of the answers:

    • Myself
    • Facebook
    • Kids
    • Job
    • Sleep
    • Church (!)

    As a “ministry professional” with young children, I get most of these reasons. Every day our Western culture bombards us with demands for our time and attention, and it’s hard to say no.

    If God really is who he says he is, however, and we really believe that, we’ve got to learn to focus in on what’s really important: him. Here are 5 practical ways to guard your personal time with God from distraction. Each one takes time, planning, and commitment, but it will be so worth it.

    1) List the reasons why it’s important

    Writing things down is powerful for creating motivation and making ideas concrete. List the reasons why you believe spending personal time with God through the Bible, prayer, and meditation is essential. Keep this list in the place you tend to get the most distracted (say, taped to your computer monitor).

    2) Schedule your quiet time

    Things that get scheduled get done. Make the effort to integrate your personal time with God with your schedule. Again, put it on paper! Find those 10-20 minute windows of opportunity in your day and determine to set them apart for God instead of reading articles online or socializing. Set up reminders on your phone so you don’t forget!

    3) Enlist your spouse’s help

    I know firsthand how difficult it is to find any kind of alone time when you have small children. You’ll have to touch base with your spouse and see if they can help you by taking the kids for 20 minutes while you close your bedroom door or step outside to walk and pray. Don’t forget you can do this for them, too. What a great way to minister to each other!

    4) Check the Bible before you check Facebook

    This one is really simple. Just give yourself a new rule for life: no checking Facebook or social media until you’ve spent time in the Word. If you’re getting sucked into your timeline or feed and wondering where all the time went, this small adjustment will keep your priorities straight in your head and in real life.

    5) Move to a different location or a dedicated space

    It often helps me to move away from my computer for my devotional time. I don’t necessarily even have to go to a different room of the house or head out to a park (although that’s nice). Sometimes just moving from my desk to a chair in the living room can help clear my mind and “reset.” If you have the room, setting apart a dedicated space for prayer in the form of a home altar, prayer room, or closet is helpful too.

    What other ways have you fought distraction from your personal time with God?

  • What to do when you feel spiritually stuck

    Do you ever feel like you’ve hit a wall when it comes to spiritual growth? Does there seem to be something missing, even though you are pretty consistent with your prayer time and you read from the Bible regularly?

    I’ve been there too. For me, the key to breaking through was trying something new…in my case, Christian meditation in the form of Lectio Divina.

    For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:12-14, ESV)

    According Hebrews 5:12, the foundational knowledge of salvation and the Gospel should be intimately familiar. The basics have to always be there (to continue the food analogy, we still need dairy in our diet) , however as we progress in the faith it is essential to grow in your understanding of doctrine and God’s character beyond “repentance from dead works…” (Heb. 6:1). (more…)

  • A new kind of covenant

    Chapter 8 of Hebrews elaborates on this new covenant innaugaurated with Christ. Now, God’s law can be written our minds and hearts, and we can “Know the Lord” and experience the mercy of God in a new way (Heb. 8:11).

    The new covenant of Christ accomplishes something the old covenant of Moses never could, and its effectiveness doesn’t depend on our actions. Israel proved that humans under their own power cannot “continue in the covenant” (Heb. 8:9).

    This new covenant in which forgiveness reigns and our souls are transformed is enacted completely on the basis of Christ’s faithfulness and the promises of God the Father.

    Is it any wonder that we are spiritually formed by this new freedom and intimacy with the Creator of the universe? How can we not be changed when Jesus, through whom the world was created, is praying for us constantly (cf. Heb. 1:2)?

    Just knowing this truth causes a change in my mind and spirit.

  • If I had to choose between all the spiritual disciplines

    Bible memorization is absolutely fundamental to spiritual formation. If I had to choose between all the disciplines of the spiritual life, I would choose Bible memorization, because it is a fundamental way of filling our minds with what it needs. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth. That’s where you need it! How does it get in your mouth? Memorization.

    ~ Dallas Willard
    (“Spiritual Formation in Christ for the Whole Life and Whole Person” in Vocatio, Vol. 12, no. 2, Spring, 2001, 7).

  • Poem for Ash Wednesday

    Return from your sin.

    Be faithful to the Gospel.

    And remember

    from dust

    you came and

    to dust

    you will return.

    Words that–when spoken along

    with the imposition of oily ashes

    crossed

    on my dirty forehead

    and the body and blood of Jesus

    the Christ that washes me white–

    remind of mercy and grace

    and love.

    This poem for Ash Wednesday was originally published on February 14, 2013

  • 3 highly effective methods for memorizing Bible verses

    There’s no doubt that memorizing Bible verses is difficult for many people (myself included!). A big aspect of the challenge for me has been that I haven’t been very methodical about memorizing. I’d simply repeat a verse a few times and hope that it stuck, with no plan for review. Going about memorizing halfheartedly like this is a recipe for discouragement and–ultimately–failure.

    Effective methods for memorizing Bible verses always involve an intentional approach to internalizing new verses and reviewing old ones. Don’t think that there is a magic formula out there for doing this without putting in the hard work.

    You’ve got to commit to the process and show up daily.

    Here are three ways I’ve found to effectively memorize Bible verses. (more…)

  • Jesus the perfect priest did this once and for all

    Chapter seven of Hebrews gives what few details we know about a mysterious priest named Melchizedek — that his name carried a meaning regarding righteousness, and that his office was one of peace.

    Because the records of his birth and death are not found in Scripture, and because his priesthood is not tied to any biological lineage, it seems that he was a priest solely at God’s discretion. In some way Melchizedek foreshadowed Jesus.

    Jesus, a priest after the order of Mechizedek

    Jesus is “after” (“like”) the order of Melchizedek because he is righteous. His office as Prince of Peace also grants him special status. Like Melchizedek, Jesus is not installed as ultimate high priest because of his lineage, but rather because of who he is and the divine will of God.

    It’s at this moment that Jesus as the catalyst for spiritual formation comes into focus. Because we have this perfect high priest, we are able to draw near to God through him, and he makes intercession for us…changing us in the process.

    A perfect and eternal sacrifice

    For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. (Hebrews 7:26-27, ESV)

    Ultimately, God’s plan couldn’t be accomplished by the Levitical priesthood. Their sacrifices were temporary, and as fragile human beings they could not go on forever. Jesus, however, can offer himself one time, for all eternity.

    His perfection ensures us that we don’t needn’t continually offer sacrifices to appease God or obtain forgiveness.

    Jesus–the perfect priest–did this for us, once and for all. We are at peace with the God of universe and ourselves.

    Hallelujah!

  • 3 vital questions to ask yourself when picking a Bible translation for memorization

    Photo Credit: UnlockingTheBible via Compfight cc Photo Credit: UnlockingTheBible via Compfight cc
    The very first “real Bible” I remember having as young child was the Good News Bible. It’s a easy-to-read paraphrase with line drawings. I loved it, and still read from the GNB on occassion for nostalgia’s sake. After that I “graduated” to the New International Version (NIV), but as I learned more about Bible translation philosophy, I became enamored with more “accurate” word-for-word translations. For a big chunk of high school I studied out of the New American Standard Version (NASB), while keeping the New King James Version (NKJV) on hand for general reading. In college I began using the English Standard Version (ESV) and have pretty much settled on that one as my primary reading and memorizing translation. (more…)