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J R Dickey

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God's Talents

Matthew 25

None of us wants to be like the man who told his lord, “‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man,…” and consequently buried his talent.  Driven by hubris and/or a drastic misperception, he did nothing with his talent.

Now, in the parable that Christ told, the lord doled out talents to three men, each according to their ability or literally power (inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth – ‘dunamis’ in the Greek from which we get dynamite in English).

The first man was given five talents, and he says he ‘traded’ and obtained another five.  The word ‘traded’ is more appropriately translated ‘worked with’. The second man was given two talents, and he said that he had ‘gained’ two more.  In the scripture, this word usually means to gain any one i.e. to win him over to the kingdom of God, to gain one to faith in Christ.  For example:

And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;

To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.

To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all [men], that I might by all means save some.  (1 Cor 9:20-22)

So, it would appear that the trading (i.e. working) and gaining which the two first men experienced had to do with furthering the kingdom of God while the third grumbler was simply a ‘pew potato’ so to speak. 

But it is key to understand that this working and gaining is NOT by human effort.  It is entirely God’s Spirit at work in us and through us:

So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.  (1 Cor 3:7)

And their results were in contrast to the ‘pew potato’ for you see, the third man was:

…not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. (Col 2:19)

But hear me on this. This is NOT a lesson on ‘church’ growth; this is about body of Christ growth, both on an individual and corporate basis.  And it is always, always the increase that is from God not man, not human effort or schemes or business models or anything conceived by or for the flesh.

So, what is this increase? More pew potatoes?  Louder ‘worship’?  Bigger donations?  More satellite congregations?  Let’s see what the scriptures say:

And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you,  (1Thes 3:12)

Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, (2 Cor 9:10)

I’m very much inclined to see these talents as God’s Holy Spirit working and gaining in each of His children except of course for the one that was buried in the earth.  These are NOT human talents like music, speaking, or other skills.  Take heart, all of you who can’t sing or dance or orate.  PTL!

You may not even see your increase of talents or should I say treasure:

Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”  (Mat 19:21)

“Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. (Luke 12:33)

So, every sincere believer who listens to the voice of God’ s Spirit in their inner being (all day, every day, any where) and obeys is like the two who increased their talents; it’s the in-dwelling, the communing and the obedience that results in the increase. But the ‘spudster’ just buried his talent.  He separated himself and had nothing to do with it (Him). 

The Greatest

Matthew 18:1

Jesus came as a teacher.  Of course, He came first to be our Savior, but what He did during His entire public ministry was teach.  Of course, He was a healer and prophet and other things as well but foremost, He showed Himself to be a teacher, and his followers were called disciples which means “learners”.

And He practiced a perfect style of teaching which we can also see throughout all of  scripture – that is, every lesson contained more than what was obvious on the surface. It/They required you to think, to engage and ponder to really understand.

And there were some things that His ‘learners’ just didn’t seem to learn or at least let sink in.  Nevertheless, Christ was so patient with them.  I’ve been a teacher, and I know it’s tempting sometimes to just say, “What are you doing in this class?”  But Jesus didn’t do that.

One thing the boys just couldn’t let go of or understand was this notion of greatness.  Of course, greatness or being the greatest can apply to earthly things such as size or age or intelligence or talent or fame, etc.  And it seems like they were always arguing amongst each other who would be the greatest; clearly, they weren’t learning what God wanted them to learn from observing and hearing Jesus.  We read that even near the end of His earthly ministry He said,

"But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.” -- Jesus  (Mat 23:11)

Because, over and over again, they disputed with each other:

But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest.  (Mark 9:34)

Then a dispute arose among them as to which of them would be greatest.       (Luke 9:46)

Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest.  (Luke 22:24)

James and John even approached Jesus and asked to be enthroned on His left and right in His kingdom.  Wow. 

But they couldn’t agree with each other because they were not considering the display of Christ before their very eyes.  At one point, they came to Him with this perplexing issue:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them,

and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

"Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.    (Mat 18:1-4)

Now, to be fair, every human being is tangled up in this issue – greatness or being the greatest.  We either strive for it or think we deserve it or think we absolutely do not.  In all cases, its specter haunts the human psyche, and the flesh taunts us with it as well. 

Politicians revel in it, celebrities revel in it, preachers revel in it, everyone except one – the child.  No, not teens, but little children.  And it’s absolutely critical to ‘get it’, to understand why.  Jesus told the boys that they weren’t even in His kingdom yet and they wouldn’t enter unless they changed, fundamentally changed.  They had to become like little children.

It’s the same message He gave to the ‘teacher of Israel’, Nicodemas.  To him, He said, “You must be born again” or literally, “procreated from on high”.  Here, He clearly implied that the needed change was humility.  Without humility, they could not enter, in fact they could by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

So, we can conclude that being born again requires humility.  Doctrine won’t do, neither curiosity nor education nor birthright nor donations nor affiliation nor…  It’s childlike humility and that’s key to the whole issue of greatness in heaven because its antithesis, pride, is the foundational sin of humanity.

Which means that you simply cannot enter by any effort of your own because everything, everything will be polluted by pride somehow.  It takes a divinely originated change in you that you can ask for but never accomplish on your own. 

And then comes the ‘kicker’.  Jesus finished with:

"Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Humility is the key to conversion, the key to entrance and the key to greatness in the Kingdom.  According to human perception (which is fouled by sin), it’s the opposite of what we would expect.

In addressing the ‘boys’ during one of their disputes on greatness, 

… He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”  (Mark 9:35)

Now, this was not a warning of discipline but rather a promise of experiential training.  Who is the greatest in heaven?  God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. 

Are you hearing Him?   

More on Hope

Romans 5:5

I just have to write some more about hope.  It is just so important to those of us who believe.  Here are just a few scriptures to consider:

Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.  (Romans 5:5)

Literally, “disappoint” means dishonor so basically what this first phrase is telling us is that hope, that is, the expectation or anticipation of coming good, will not let us down.  But how interesting that this is because God’s love has been (note the past tense) poured out in our spiritual core by His Spirit who lives there with us in unity. Hope comes through and satisfies our blessed expectation because love is in abundant supply in us.  Hope and love work together in perfect harmony.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  (Romans 15:13)

John told us in his epistle that God is love and here Paul adds that another attribute of God is hope and because our Maker is infinite in His attributes, hope abounds, and this abundance is the work of His Spirit in us as is the blessed filling of joy, peace and trust.

You see, hope and trust are tightly linked to one another in the Lord:

For You are my hope, O Lord GOD; You are my trust from my youth.  (Psalm 71:5)

 Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD.  (Jeremiah 17:7)

 

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil,  (Hebrews 6:19)

In this verse, although the writer of Hebrews is using a picture of the Hebrew temple, the truth applies to both Jew and Gentile believers.  Herein, the power of hope is described.  The veil is the name given to the two curtains in the temple at Jerusalem, one of them at the entrance to the temple separated the Holy Place from the outer court, the other veiled the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place.  The latter one was torn apart by the hand of God from top to bottom upon the death of Jesus.  As such it symbolized that the way to approach the Almighty was from that moment on, open.  The veil separated us from God until Christ, Who carried all our sin, died.  Thus, the veil served also a type or picture of our flesh which continues, in futility, to oppose our unity with God’s Spirit.

Also note that hope is the anchor of our soul.  It tethers us securely to the Lord and with it, we enter His Presence at the moment of salvation and enjoy His Presence even now.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,  (1 Peter 1:3)

Even as God Almighty gave life to Jesus and raised Him from the grave, so also, He has birthed us with Him to literally an eternal expectation of coming good (that’s the living hope). That means that in Jesus, we will never stop expecting or anticipating more and more goodness.  Eternity is filled with God’s goodness.

And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.        (1 John 3:3)

Don’t misunderstand here; you cannot purify yourself.  It is the hope in Him that purifies you.  It’s the same hope, given by God’s Spirit, that Jesus had/has in the Father.  You have it too.

So, as you can see, the hope in scripture is NOT the same word hope we so casually toss around today.  It’s a God-word, an Almighty-word and with it we hold to a forever anticipation of coming good.

The Leaven of the Pharisees

Mat 16:6

Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”  (Mat 16:6)

At first glance, you might think that this lesson from Jesus to His disciples was a stand-alone thing. Like many of His analogies, they didn’t understand it at first and assumed it was alluding to their failure to bring along bread on their journey.

“Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up?  Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up?”, Jesus asked.           (Mat 16:9,10)

I imagine them looking at each other like deer in Christ’s headlights.  After a gentle rebuke:

 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  (Mat 16:12)

As we can see, Jesus’ warning was about leaven as a picture of the religionists’ doctrine.  He didn’t warn them about the religionists themselves but their teaching – why?  And why leaven?  In the scriptures, leaven is always a picture of sin. 

Was He just saying that their teaching was in error or sinful?  I think it is more than that.  You see, leaven, which is normally used in bread, has a characteristic that we should keep in mind here. 

Leaven is what is placed in bread dough to make the bread rise. It is placed in the dough and spreads throughout the entire lump.  As it ‘rots’ the dough, it gives off gas and puffs up the lump.  And that is the picture Jesus wanted them to consider – the doctrine of the religionists puffs up – makes one prideful.  Religious knowledge alone is indeed a ‘heady’ trip so to speak.

Paul echoed this when he wrote:

“We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.  And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.”  (1 Cor 8:1,2)

And then in the verses immediately following Christ’s lesson on leaven, we find an example of what he meant:

When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?"

So, they said, "Some [say] John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed [this] to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

"And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

"And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."             (Mat 16:13-19)

Yes, Peter nailed it with his Son of the living God answer and may have felt pretty puffed up by the response Jesus gave him.  Clearly, he had gotten his special insight from God, but insight alone, even insight from God was not the ‘brass ring’.  Jesus demonstrated this to him.  I say that because in the very next passage we read:

From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.

Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!"

But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."    (Mat 16:21-23)

Evidently, Peter got so puffed up he was now rebuking his own Master, voicing the very words of Satan. Wow!

Dear friends, if you’re a believer, it’s not what you know that matters most, it’s Who knows you.  Even scriptural knowledge as good as it can be, if it is not accompanied by a sincere surrender to Christ’s grace, that is, for the present, His indwelling Spirit, can act as a leaven and just puff you up.

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees because doctrine alone doesn’t save, even God-given insight.  It is faith/trust in the risen Son of God – that means sincere relationship, real love, genuine on-going submission to Him. And remember, this faith/trust is also the result of God’s grace.

A Future and a Hope

Jeremiah 29:11

A friend of mine once asked me what my favorite word was in the Bible.  I knew immediately; I said, “Hope”.  He then asked me to describe this hope, and I had to think.  I told him, “It’s not the wimpy word that we hear thrown around like, “I hope so.” Or “There’s really not much hope.” Or “Hope you can make it.”

The hope I think of is an atomic bomb compared to these little firecrackers.  My hope anchors me to the Son of God as He lives His life out in me, in my soul.  This hope is like His yoke and His cord of love as He both plows patiently in my heart-soil and draws me like a Shepherd with His sheep, in and out of His own being - His own sheep-fold.  He draws me in for deeper fellowship and He draws me out for ministry.  This hope is His gift as is His trust and the two work in perfect harmony; trust knows, and hope expects.

The prophet Jeremiah, speaking to the rebellious house of Israel both in the homeland and those carried away to Babylon warned of terrible judgements that were on the way because of their rebelliousness.  Sadly, he could not identify a single penitent man in nearly 50 years of preaching to them. 

Speaking of those in Jerusalem, God told the prophet, “Behold, I will send upon them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil.” And He added, “And I will persecute them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and an astonishment, and an hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations whither I have driven them:”

Sounds severe, doesn’t it. But God wasn’t simply punishing them, He was disciplining them in order to get them to wake up spiritually. You see, we would think, ‘God’s really mad at them.’ And in fact, you may think or expect God is mad at you.

But God doesn’t think like that; He doesn’t think like us.  He says,

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith 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.”                    (Isaiah 55:8,9)

Here’s how He thinks:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.  (Jer 29:11)

Now in the original language, it appears that this verse says, “a hope and a future” but be that as it may, it is this God-given hope that draws us on into a wonderfully glorious future with Him.  Let’s consider this future. 

Literally translated, this word for future means an end and that makes sense since it implies an end goal or something worth hoping for and for us as believers it’s an awesome future – eternal life in the glorious presence of our Savior, a mind-boggling heavenly city filled with people who actually love God and love each other, a new body made for eternity and so much more.

So, when the whole world is going to hell around you and you’re taking punches in the gut and kicks in the butt figuratively, understand that there is a reason, a lesson, an Almighty God who can and will deliver you when you honestly turn to Him.  Don’t get caught up in the mindless group-think of evil men who always hate and blame God for what they bring upon themselves.  Just set your mind on Him for His thoughts toward you are of peace and not evil.  If you will submit your life to Him, He will give you a future and a hope.

Sin and Death

Romans 6:23

I mentioned in an earlier article that I suspect that something akin to a genetic factor might be involved in the transgenerational nature of sin.  I don’t want to ‘pound that table’ too hard because sin is first spiritual and then physical.  Nevertheless, it’s interesting to note that Jesus was, as we know, sinless and he was born of a virgin.  A legitimate question is, was the virgin birth necessary for His sinless condition? Does the sin we are born with transfer by way of the man?

Remember, David said,

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”                                          (Psalm 51:5)

Spiritually, that would make sense since it was Adam who God held accountable for disobedience: 

Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.  (Romans 5:14)

This occurred to me as I was considering the lineage of Jesus given to us in both Matthew chapter one and Luke chapter three.  Matthew looks forward in time from Abraham to Joseph, Mary’s betrothed while Luke looks backward in time from Jesus to Adam to God.  Both lineages, of course, include David but then there’s a difference for it was David’s son Nathan whose lineage brings forth Mary and it is David’s son Solomon whose lineage brings for Joseph.  But keep in mind, Joseph was NOT Jesus’ father, God was.

Now, it could be that the Holy Spirit’s impregnating Mary caused Christ to be sinless; that’s probably the case.  But it may be also that though Mary, like all of us, had sin, she did not transfer sin to Jesus’ body.  Perhaps it was both.  That determination is WAY above my ‘pay grade’.  Whatever the case, Christ was born perfect, sinless, and He maintained that all the way through the cross.  Hallelujah!

Now, as many of us learned in high school biology, when humans mate, the woman’s XX chromosomes combine with the man’s XY and as it turns out we have a recently revealed problem therein.  That’s because the Y chromosome is decaying and has actually already decayed 97%. Yes, I said 97% and this is clearly an existential threat. 

For with no more Y chromosome, no more men and the human race disappears. 

“Despite their shared evolutionary origin, extensive genetic decay has resulted in the human Y chromosome losing 97% of its ancestral genes while gene content and order remain highly conserved on the X chromosome. Five ‘stratification’ events, most likely inversions, reduced the Y chromosome’s ability to recombine with the X chromosome across the majority of its length and subjected its genes to the erosive forces associated with reduced recombination.” – Nature, Published: 07 February 2020

“The Y chromosome is a fundamental component of male biology. It carries the SRY gene, which triggers the development of male characteristics, including the formation of testes and the production of male hormones. This genetic marker is unique to males, passed almost unchanged from father to son, allowing researchers to trace paternal lineage across generations. Its stability has made it a valuable tool for studying human ancestry… The Y chromosome is not just about sex determination; it also plays a role in male fertility. Certain genetic conditions linked to the Y chromosome can affect a man’s ability to father children, underlining its importance in reproduction… If the Y chromosome were to vanish without a replacement mechanism, it could threaten the survival of men and, by extension, the human species.”—The Times of India, Aug 28, 2024

“As men age, some of their cells lose the very thing that makes them biological males—the Y chromosome—and this loss hampers the body’s ability to fight cancer, according to new research from Cedars-Sinai Cancer. “ – Cedars-Sinai Jun21,2023

Of course, with the disciplined training of evolution, scientists predict it will be some 4 - 11 million years till extinction happens but when you understand that mankind hasn’t been around evolving for millions of years, the timeline of this degradation is radically different. 

I’m convinced that this degradation is the direct result of sin.  You see, as the Bible has told us, the wages of sin is death and with this information we witness that it is not only death for the individual but death of the entire species. 

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (Romans 6:23)

Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!  (Rev 22:20)

Choose Life!

Deut 30:19

Perhaps the most basic of our responsibilities ever since our creation has always been – choice.  The Most High created a beautiful garden and placed our original ‘parents’ there and implicitly presented to them – choice. Two trees; one gave life and the other brought death.

You all know the story. Eve made a choice and Adam made a choice. The choice that doomed us all to die was Adam’s.  You see, Eve was deceived by the serpent, but the Bible tells us that Adam was not deceived.  Effectively, he chose Eve.  He chose fellowship with her over fellowship with God or he chose to disobey God along with her or he chose to die with her.  Whatever the case, he chose Eve. And later we discover that he never chose life – before his fatal error, he never chose to eat of the tree of life.  Afterwards, God prevented that to protect them.

How could the original perfect, sinless man make such choices?  What ever the reason, it set the stage for thousands of years of death, destruction, misery, grief, darkness – doom.  I’m inclined to believe it possibly instituted a genetic change that has been passed from generation to generation.  Whether or not that is the case, we know it brought a spiritual detachment from the Almighty.

And though the disastrous effects were transgenerational, they were also immediate.  They lost the ability to perceive correctly good and evil; for the first time, they had pride and fear of their Creator rather than fellowship.  Living became difficult, for the creation was cursed for the sake of mankind. 

Later, as mankind became fatally vile and violent, God Himself chose to begin again with the godly man, Noah who chose to obey God fully.   After the devastating flood, mankind again declined into vile and abominable practices, so God chose to begin again with the godly man Abram who chose to fully obey God.

Do you see a pattern? As we might expect, Abram/Abraham’s progeny became warped in their beliefs such that they, at first opportunity, in Moses’ absence, built a golden calf idol and danced in worship around it. In response, God was ready to start again when Moses stood in the gap if you would, and God mercifully waited. 

However, in giving Moses the Law, He told the people to make the right choice:

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;”      (Deut 30:19)

But unfortunately, mankind perpetually makes bad choices.  Even when we suffer terribly for those choices, we still come back to them over and over and over.  Just look at history.  And of course, God knew this would be the case from before the beginning for as He had planned, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus to provide the real answer – He paid the price for all our sin and left us with one final choice.  Choose to accept His gift of Life, choose to accept Him.

So, as you can see, God repeatedly presents to man this one thing – choice.  Of course, He looks as well for the consequent obedience or submission to His will as well but understand, those things are His doing, His work, the action of His Spirit in you.  You can’t take the credit.

Most people don’t get this. The effects of mankind’s first choice has been ‘hard-wired’ into our psyche so that we are convinced that to rise above our meager existence we must strive, we must work to be ‘like God’.  Either we crave rebellion as a form of coping with this drive or we crave to be considered noble, good, better.  But both of these drives are fueled by our original sin, pride, which resulted from our original choice.

Many people ask, “So what is our part?”  The answer – choice.  You see, choice is not just wanting or wishing or even willing.  Those things are essentially passive.  Making a choice is an active mental/spiritual engagement that is like taking the first step in the direction.  That’s the one thing God requires.  Choose Him, choose Christ, choose Life.

Am I overly simplistic? Maybe, but the ‘final choice’ is the key to which God unlocks faith/trust in Him and eternal life.  Afterwards, your life, your service, your everything is first His choice.    

A final note on this. Although the ‘final choice’ is indeed a one-time event for each of us, choice itself continues to be an ongoing reality, for moment by moment, God wants us to learn, to grow, to produce good fruit, and thus He continually allows us to choose to obey Him and submit to His will.

This brings us to the dichotomy that Paul realized in Romans chapter seven when he wrote, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” And, “But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”  You see, even after the ‘final decision’, your dead flesh is still ‘hard-wired’ by Adam’s original choice.  The good news is that your soul is joined in one with Christ, His Holy Spirit and even the Father.  You are no longer to identify with that dead body:

Likewise, you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:11)

Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.  (2 Cor 5:17)  That is, you have a new identity.

Yes, you are still housed, temporarily, in that dead body; and that dead body still acts out, but when it does, you simply confess to God that you momentarily stopped trusting Him (that’s sin) and because your identity is no longer that dead body but rather it’s your living soul which is one with Christ, He forgives you and cleanses your conscience from all unrighteousness.

Yes, choice is a wonderful responsibility and privilege.  God doesn’t want robots, He desires children and wonder of wonders, if you’re saved, He chose you. 

Growth

John 12:24

The whole of scripture from Genesis through the New Testament is filled with references to growth. Jesus even explained spiritual growth in one of his many parables to his disciples:

“When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.  (Matthew 13:19)

Here, the heart is shown to be like the soil on which the seed, or Word of God, is planted.  Depending upon the conditions of this heart-soil, the seed will bear fruit or not.  Herein, only the soil that is broken up and deep and weed free yields a crop.

As Christians, we desire to please the Sower of the Seed and bear much fruit, but without understanding the Word of the Kingdom, we can mistakenly focus on trying to bear ‘fruit’ by eliminating sin in our own strength/efforts.  We neglect the fact that upon the cross of Calvary ALL sin was paid for in full.

Here, the Greek word for heart means the central core, physically and spiritually, of any person. With the unsaved, it is only deceitful and desperately wicked.  With those who are saved, it represents both the dead fleshly heart and the living soul. Now, when the wicked heart, with hard or shallow or rocky ground receives the Word, the thoughts, the misunderstandings it creates are those that tell us we need to ‘be like God’ and they push us to try, try, try to do that; but did you know that there is only one individual in the Bible that made the confession of that obsession?  It was Satan. He said:

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.   (Isaiah 14:14)

So clearly, that aspiration, though it may sound noble is anything but.  What God is looking for from the good heart-soil is understanding, humility and obedience/submission all of which are the gifts of His Spirit. Christ demonstrated this for us:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God (He didn’t ‘try’, He trusted):

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  (Philippians 2:5-8)

Which takes us back to the notion of seeds and good soil and fruit because Jesus also said:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”  (John 12:24) 

So you see, pleasing God means death to self, death to that deceitful heart and thus an abundance of good spiritual fruit:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness (or faith), gentleness, self-control.  (Galatians 5:22,23a)

So, God is very much into growth.  He’s into the growth of His Seed in your heart which will bear fruit for all eternity. You want to please Him?

...grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ    (2 Pet 3)

and...

speaking the truth in love,… grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ  (Ephesians 4)

A friend of mine likes to say, “Stop trying and start trusting.”  Amen.  That’s God’s work in you  and the growth He desires.  It bears the good fruit of love.  Paul put it this way:

We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith (trust) grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other,               (2 Thes 1:3)

 

Thinking

Jeremiah 17:10

Has it ever occurred to you that there is something that you’re doing all the time?  Every moment of every day it is with you.  Even when you sleep, you can only slightly escape it and then when you wake, there it is again.  Sometimes, it’s superficial; sometimes it’s profound.  It’s your thoughts, your thinking, your mind and/or heart. 

It is the engine or energy of your actions and your speech.  And from the beginning, it has been the target of our enemy for at the very moment of her interaction with the serpent, Eve and then Adam were changed in their thinking and trapped by sin.  Ever since, mankind’s thinking has been twisted, prideful, turned inward and completely futile.

There are a couple of important terms we read about in the Bible – heart and mind.  They are similar and definitions of the two overlap somewhat, but you can consider the heart as the “inner man”, the once – living spirit of man that has been corrupted unto death by sin while the mind is the soul, the self, and when saved, the living part of each person.

Because of sin, the heart of mankind is a treacherous thing.  The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  (Jeremiah 17:9)The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Jesus spoke of this very clearly:

But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?  (Matthew 9:4)

"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within and defile a man."  (Mark 7:21-23)

Now, God’s word enlightens us concerning our thinking and ultimately gives us hope.  Let’s consider (think) about what it has to tell us.

“As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.  (1 Chron 28:9)

OK, let me emphasize first that no one is born again by a simple intellectual assent to the grace of God. If you are a child of the Most High, it is His gift to you, accomplished by His Holy Spirit birthing in your soul triumphant faith/trust in what Christ did for you – forgiveness, life and union. We commonly say that it’s matter of the inner man not simply the head.

When sin entered mankind’s existence in the garden of Eden, our spirit, which God had created, died. That is, it was separated from God. After that point, (and prior to Calvary) our soul which came about by God’s Spirit breathing life into a lifeless body, was left with the dominant influence of the flesh:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground (i.e. his flesh) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (i.e. his spirit); and man became a living being (literally, soul).  (Gen 2:7)

The Bible does not talk about saving the spirit of man (though it mentions prior to Jesus, lifting up or retaining the spirit of man); rather, it says that Christ saved our souls.  That’s because when we are saved, His Spirit takes up residence in us, in our soul.

In Chronicles, we see that David told his son, Solomon, that God wants both our heart and mind.  That’s because your thoughts originate from both places – the ‘dead’ part of you, the heart, and the living part of you, the mind/soul. 

I, the LORD, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.  (Jeremiah 17:10)

Now, the thoughts of the heart are vain or futile:

The LORD knows the thoughts of man,
That they are futile (coming from the word meaning emptiness or vanity; figuratively, something transitory and unsatisfactory .  (Psalm 94:11)

But possibly as a foreshadowing of the ‘work’ of salvation, Proverbs declares:

Commit your works to the LORD,
And your thoughts will be established (that is, to be firm, be stable).  (Proverbs 16:3)

Fortunately, and contrary to us, God’s thoughts are absolutely pure, perfectly and eternally pure:

"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.”  (Isaiah 55:7-9)

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

And He knows our thoughts, good and bad:

You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off. (Psalm 139:2)

I say good and bad because even though we are saved in Christ, God has temporarily left us in a body of ‘dead’ flesh; and both our new living soul as well as our dead fleshly heart are sources of our thoughts.  I suggest that this is to teach us humility which will be to our benefit in heaven. And until we are there, we do battle spiritually with the dead flesh simply because it is incongruent with our new life as it tries to poison our thinking. 

Now the battle is the Lord’s – He is our shield, our defense, our ‘high tower’ and the unbeatable victor Who uses these battles to teach us many things:

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ…  (2 Corinthians 10:4,5)

This obedience is not obedience to Christ but rather the obedience of Christ – the obedience He displayed to us in obeying the Father’s will all the way to the cross, to the grave and to the throne of heaven – submitted, perfect, humble obedience. 

And Paul wrote of this battle even in his own life:

But I see another law in my members (the flesh), warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.  (Romans 7:23-25)

With all this in ‘mind’, the scriptures leave us with hope and guidance concerning our thoughts:

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (the work of God’s Spirit), that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.  (Romans 12:2)

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind (honest, Godly humility) let each esteem others better than himself. 

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  (Philippians 2:3, 5-7)

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.  (Colossians 3:2)

Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;  (1 Peter 1:13)

And the good news is that in thinking (or being) this way, you gain perfect peace:

You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.  (Isaiah 26:3)

The Glory of God

1 Peter 5:4

I have become fascinated by the topic of God’s glory.  For years, I thought I knew what it was (or sort of knew) but recently I’ve realized it is just so much more.  Let’s look at what the scriptures have to say about it.

First, there is the manifestation of the glory of God which we can recognize:

The sight of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. 

                                                                                          (Exodus 24:17)

This and many other scriptures  show us that God’s glory is like a brilliant light which illuminates:

The (heavenly)city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 

                                                                                                 (Rev 21:23)

“The sun shall no longer be your light by day,
Nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you;
But the LORD will be to you an everlasting light,
And your God your glory. 

                                                                                           (Isaiah 60:19)

But then there’s also its sanctifying (or purifying) power:

“And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory.”  

                                                                                        (Exodus 29:43)

And there are the promises of God concerning His glory:

“but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD—”                          

                                                                                      (Numbers 14:21)

The glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” 

                                                                                    (Isaiah 40:5)

And gloriously (no pun) there are those things we read concerning our Lord Jesus Christ:

“And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. 

                                                                                     (John 17:5)

“For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. 

                                                                                (Matthew 16:27)

Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.                            

                                                                                   (Matthew 17:1,2)

And we learn that the glory of God gives life:

(Spoken to Martha concerning her dead brother Lazarus whom Jesus rose from the dead):

Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” 

                                                                                      (John 11:40)

So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.

It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.                                                                                         

                                                                                      (1 Cor 15:42,43)

And then there’s the glory of God that concerns us as believers in Christ. Jesus spoke to the Father:

“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:  

                                                                                       (John 17:22)

And Paul wrote to the believers:

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 

                                                                                          (Romans 6:4)

When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.  

                                                                                          (Col 3:4)

Before Calvary, the glory of God was too much for a man to behold and live. Ask Moses:

Then Moses said (to the Lord), "I pray You, show me Your glory!"

And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion."

But He said, "You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!"

Then Yahweh said, "Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock;

and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.

"Then I will remove My hand, and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen." 

                                                                                      (Exodus 33:18-23)

But after Calvary, because of the grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ, it’s the opposite – the Glory of God in the face of our Savior is exactly what we need to live:

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. 

                                                                                              (2 Cor 3:18)

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 

                                                                                             (2 Cor 4:6)

And perhaps the most wonderful thing about God’s glory, for us, is that in heaven we get to receive it and also to release it back to Him:

and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. 

                                                                                               (1 Peter 5:4)

Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders (representing believers) fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:

"You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created." 

                                                                                                (Rev 4:9-11)

This is fascinating because it is usually the Lord who is giving or shining forth His glory, but here in the heavenly scene, it seems like He receives glory. Who does this?  I suggest that it is coming from those who cast their crowns (of glory) before Him in acknowledgement of His ultimate worthiness. 

I know this is a lot of information so let me summarize.  God’s glory illuminates with radiant brilliance. Wherever it exists, it sanctifies, while the Blood of Christ purifies, which is awesome because He promises to fill the earth with it.  It’s this light, this Glory that we ‘walk’ in:

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 

                                                                                                     (1 John 1:7)

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 

                                                                                           (Ephesians 5:8)

And then there’s Jesus and with Him the glory of God is expressed in even more wonderous ways.  He asked for and received the most indescribable glory that He had shared with the Father before the creation, before time, existed.  The Bible says that that Glory raised Him from the dead. 

He also shared that Glory with us who believe specifically to bring us into the same unity with Him that He and the Father know – a total perfect union.  That Glory gives us life, newness of life and makes us new creations and scripture tells us we can witness it/Him transforming us into the glorious image of our Savior.

You might think a lot of this sounds like the Holy Spirit and there is indeed a very strong connection because it is the Spirit that works with and enables us to behold God’s Glory – just ask Stephen:

But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 

                                                                                                (Acts 7:55)

So, as you can see, the Glory of God seems to be a nexus of sorts for the light, the life, the power, the sanctifying, the worship, the people and more.  I encourage all of you to learn more.

Child of God

John 20:21,22

You know one of the main arguments supporting abortion is for a woman to say, “It’s my body; it’s my health so I can do what I want.”  Now if that were true, I’d see no incongruity but it’s blatantly false.  By definition, pregnancy means there is more than one person involved.  There are two or more people occupying one body and abortion terminates the life of the innocent child. 

Having said that, I don’t intend to make this about abortion but rather about procreation and the awesome parallel we see spiritually when someone is “born again” or literally “procreated from on high”.  I’ve spoken before on this wonderous process and if you heard it, you may remember the part on gestation which precedes expulsion.

Gestation is the longest part of the procreation process – 38 to 42 weeks for humans; during this time, a fertilized cell becomes a zygote, then a morula, then a blastocyst, then an embryo, and then a fetus. The zygote contains all the genetic information needed to become a baby.  It’s truly amazing to consider that this is how the Son of God came into the world:

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.                                         

                                                                                                      (Luke 1:35)

Mary, impregnated by the Holy Spirit, carried Christ as a zygote, then a morula, then a blastocyst, then an embryo, and then a fetus and delivered her baby in a feed trough.  And though that is wildly amazing, there is a spiritual process going on in you right now, if you are born again, that mirrors this very process.

When you are born again, Christ places His Holy Spirit IN you and He unites with your dead human spirit, giving new life – you become a new creation, a spiritual zygote so to speak and the spiritual gestation continues until the moment you are set free, gloriously free, from your sin-filled corpse.  Jesus told Nicodemus about this when He said:

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

"Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'

"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." 

                                                                                                 (John 3:6-8)

Recall, before He died on the cross and rose again, Jesus told His disciples:

"A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.

"At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

                                                                                            (John 14:19,20)

That’s because after He rose, He gave them the Holy Spirit:

So, Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you."

And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.” 

                                                                                          (John 20:21,22)

So, like the pregnant mother, as a believer, your body carries another one spiritually – you, in utter union with Christ, His Holy Spirit and Father God. How amazing is that!

And your spiritual gestation period is all in God’s control – it may be a day or many decades.  And when you are born into Heaven, what a joyous freedom you’ll know as a Child of God.

Healing the Soul

Psalm 42

Most of us know some about the life of King David.  One of the things I’ve always appreciated about him is his confidence, his trust in the Lord.  We remember his trust when he ran at the giant Goliath with only a sling shot and a stone.  We can learn from him about trust at his low points – slobbering before a foreign king thus pretending to be insane, looking at the devastation of the town Ziklag where his family and the families of his men were kidnapped and the men were ready to stone him.  We are impressed with his trust as he is forced to flee Jerusalem with his own son, Absalom seeking his life.

So many events in his life were clearly tests of his trust in his Lord but all of them were ‘outside’. And of course, we all face outside circumstances that challenge us similarly.  But the greatest exhibition of trust we witness in David’s life is one dealing with his soul.

His very being was being destroyed, his soul was sick and he knew it.  The turmoil of illness put him in a sickbed and whether real or imagined, he seemed to have enemies all around.  It’s possible that this was the fall-out of his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and that some of the enemies were Ahithophel, his once trusted friend and advisor, and Absalom, his son who wanted the throne.

Whatever the case, we read in Psalm 41:

I said, “LORD, be merciful to me;
Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.” 

                                                                                             (Psalm 41:4)

Notice that he understood why his soul needed healing; it was due to sin.  He also recognized that his sin was against the Lord.  And this is critical for all of us to understand. Sin attacks the soul and brings spiritual (and physical) disease.  Then notice that as he asks for healing, he confesses his sin.  The Bible tells us:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

                                                                                                    (1John 1:9)

As long as the King was silent about his sin and his wounded soul, his condition worsened:

When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long. 

                                                                                                    (Psalm 32:3)

But as the Holy Spirit, which the Bible tells us never left David, reestablished his trust, he became confident of his wholeness, his completeness in God for he claims:

As for me, You uphold me in my integrity,
And set me before Your face forever. 

                                                                                                      (Psalm 41:12)

That word integrity means completeness and implies innocence.  And being set before the Lord’s face forever is eternally enjoying His favor.

So, we can see that David’s life, his words are given to us not simply as history but for our learning – the Spirit in his life is teaching us to trust, to confess to God our sin and to be upheld in completeness and to be set in His beautiful presence forever.

Ransom

Revelation 5

And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.” 

                                                                               (Luke 11:4)

Notice the connection between sins and debt.  A couple hundred years ago, a common notion about God was that He was angry with all of us and that He was ready to ‘blast’ us.  The fear of that drove many to become believers and to adhere strongly to a religious lifestyle.  More recently, a common notion about Him is that He is loving and forgiving. Acceptance of that has led many to become believers and to adhere to a loosely religious lifestyle.  I know I’m being overly simplistic but..

The question all people struggle with is, “Who is God?”  “What is His Name or nature?”  Is He the One Who deals out the judgements we read about in the Old Testament or the One Who graciously sent His only begotten Son to die in our places? 

You can get either impression if you overly focus your reading of the scriptures in one part of the Bible or the other.   This is especially true when you don’t have God’s Holy Spirit in your heart because He is the One Who teaches us. 

It is  not folly to desire to know Him, but it is folly to think you can know Him entirely.  He tells us, 

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts. 

                                                                        (Isaiah 55:9)

Now, when we become sincerely born again in Christ, He gives us the precious gift of His Spirit in our inner being to abide in us and for us to abide in Him – it’s not just a familial relationship that results but a unity with the Lord.  Fortunately, His Spirit is gentle.  Thus, He nurtures in us a willingness on our part to submit to His wisdom and ways. The more we do that, the more unity we experience.

So, what about the question? The answer is that we can know some things about Him from His Word, His Son, His Spirit like He is love, He is truth, He is life, He is holy, He is perfect, He is just and righteous, He is forgiving, He is patient and longsuffering, He is good, He is merciful, He is all-knowing, all powerful and eternally existent.  On and on it goes.

Hopefully you get the picture that His revealed nature is completely wonderful and infinite in far more ways than we can comprehend.  So, the God of the OT is the God of the NT and is the Almighty perfect creator of everything seen and unseen. 

Having said that, let me admonish you - don’t get caught in the mindset that tells you God wouldn’t do such and such because He is love or that God would never be merciful to me because He’s truthful and just.  We mustn’t try to box God into the limitations of our human intellect.  The good news is that you can, as His child, always ask and expect forgiveness and trust Him.

I think some theologians have their learned heads on backwards so to speak. They read in scripture, in clear black and white:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” 

                                                                             (Mark 10:45)

In fact, Matthew records the same thing.  And in the book of Hosea:

"I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction! Pity is hidden from My eyes." 

                                                                               (Hos 13:14) 

And still they deny the Gospel, they deny that Jesus was a ransom – but that’s because they jump to the assumption that the ransom was paid to Satan.  Wrong thinking!

This is why I started with the big question of ‘Who is God?’  Part of His revealed character is that He is just and righteous; He is Holy and He is indeed angry with wickedness:

God is a just judge,
And God is angry with the wicked every day. 

                                                                                (Psalm 7:11)

You see, all the way back in Eden, as mankind embraced sin and turned away from God, God saw the tragic consequences that brutalized His children.  In addition, every wicked act offends His holy character and trashes His lovingkindness. Consequently, God ordained that the wages of sin is death. That is, as we sin, the wage we OWE or the debt we owe, is our lives.  

Now, understand, no one owes a life to Satan, the debt is owed to God but it is a debt, a ransom, that only He Himself could redeem.  So much of God’s character is all about redemption.

   Back in the garden of Eden, mankind ‘forfeited’ his property rights.  In willful rebellion against God, he effectively forfeited his soul and became the servant of sin.  From that point, Satan was given a sort of stewardship and only a very specific price and time of redemption could apply to that property.  The price of redemption was one sinless man, an Adam for an Adam, so to speak. 

We learn more about this in Revelation 5:      

And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals. Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?” And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look  at it.
   So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it.

  As the Apostle John is watching, a scroll is in God’s possession. What could possibly be in this scroll that’s so confidential and so important?   No one in the created order, seen or unseen, can open it or even look upon it.  As he describes it, there are seven seals upon it and writing both inside and on the outside of it.

   Some have suggested that this is the title deed to planet earth and initially that sounds good, but there’s a problem with that – the earth is already the Lord’s forever. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the LORD'S, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”  For this reason, I think there’s a better explanation. 

   In the book of Leviticus 25:25 – 31, we find a very interesting law laid down by God pertaining to redemption. In short, if someone loses possession of his land, he can redeem it from the new owner at the appropriate price. If he that lost the property is too poor to redeem it, he must wait till the year of Jubilee at which time it will once again become his possession.  However, there’s a different rule for houses in walled cities.  If someone losses possession of this type of property (i.e. man made) and cannot redeem it within the allotted time (one year) because of poverty or indebtedness, that property forever becomes the property of the new owner.  It can never be redeemed again.

   All that is to say that this is a picture!  The land, the earth, is redeemable, but that which pertains to man can only be redeemed by the appropriate price within the specified time.

   When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, one of the temptations included this man-made property.  In Luke’s account, 

The devil led Him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to Him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So, if you worship me, it will all be yours." 

                                                                               (Luke 4:5-7) 

Jesus did not contest this point, He simply refused to worship him.

   Therefore, I submit that this scroll in the hand of God represents the encumbered inheritance of God’s people (the Hebrews) and all the kingdoms of man whom God would redeem for the price of one sinless man.  Of course, John wept bitterly, for when he learned that no one was found worthy to take and open the scroll, it meant that this inheritance would forever become the stewardship of Satan – eternally unredeemable.

From Revelation Five:

   But one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to lose its seven seals.” 

The mighty Lion of Judah was found worthy – the resurrected, glorified Son of God, Jesus Christ.  He paid the debt we all owed/owe.  It’s wholly a past tense situation for the honest believer.  For everyone else, the debt, though paid by Christ, is as yet fully burdensome because of disbelief. 

So, who received this ransom?  Did Satan get ‘paid off’?  No!  His so-called stewardship taken from Adam was stripped away by the blood of Christ and with that sacrifice God the Son paid God the Father.  God’s justice was satisfied and the devil was condemned, not enriched.

In fact the Psalmist spoke of the futility of man trying to redeem his brother but note Who would receive the ransom…

None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him— 

                                                                                  (Psalm 49:7)

So, in heaven, we read that the redeemed sing to the Lamb:

   And they sang a new song, saying: 
   “ You are worthy to take the scroll, 
   And to open its seals; 
   For You were slain, 
   And have redeemed us to God by Your blood 
   Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 
   And have made us kings and priests to our God; 
   And we shall reign on the earth.” 

                                                                        (Revelation 5:9,10)


 

 

My God, My God

Psalm 22

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Why are You so far from helping Me,
And from the words of My groaning?

                                                                          (Psalm 22:1)

Words of David and more importantly, words from Christ. This prophetic psalm just explodes with meaning concerning our Messiah and it opens abruptly with this startling cry. He doesn’t cry out “God, God” but rather “My God, My God”.  His sense of forsakenness thunders in His heart as the One with Whom He has had intimate relationship from eternity past is separated from Him. 

Did Jesus not know?  Was it hidden from Him as part of His incarnation, his human condition? Did He know and yet the shock, the reality, the meaning – did that erupt into this heart cry?

We don’t get the impression that the weight of all mankind’s sin for all time – His “groaning”, was as disastrous to Him as was the turning away of the Father.

Jesus knew that He was born for this.  He spoke of it often. He wept in the garden bloody tears, but He continued on.  He bore the lashes; He bore the mockery and beating; He bore the cross and the crucifixion. He bore it when all men – His friends, His disciples, His relatives – forsook Him.

But His Father?  How cataclysmic is that “Why”. 

How many of us have cried out in a similar fashion as truly minor echoes of this blast that resounded throughout the cosmos and perhaps throughout all time.

Was this a point in which He could not see the ‘other side’?  The Bible tells us, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…” What did He hold on to as He let go of His life?

Many bulls have surrounded Me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me.

They gape at Me with their mouths, Like a raging and roaring lion.

I am poured out like water, And all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death.

For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet;

                                                                            (Psalm 22:12-16)

Demonic attack is described as bulls and lions and dogs encircling. His strength, His heart has melted.  The congregation, the throng of the wicked enclosed Him; they pierced Him. 

Still, He never surrendered His trust:

But You, O LORD, do not be far from Me;
O My Strength, hasten to help Me!

                                                                               (Psalm 22:19)

And finally, at a point only the Father knows, the heart of Christ knew:

You have answered Me.

                                                                       (Psalm 22:21b)

So, when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

                                                                                                 (John 19:30)

And ultimately Jesus knew His forsakenness was temporary, and because He held on to His trust, He could lay down His life and with that He saved us all:

For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard.

                                                                                               (Psalm 22:24)

When your own “Why?” rings out, never stop trusting.  God hears you.  He loves you and He will deliver you.  Jesus proved it.

What Are You Looking For?

Zech 14

We can read in several places that the disciples bickered amongst themselves about who would be the greatest in the Messiah’s coming kingdom.  John the Baptist preached that He would bring fiery judgement (Matthew 3:12). Even Gamaliel reminded the chief priests about men who tried to form militias to take down the Roman rule (Acts 5).

It seems that the prevailing perception of the coming Messiah was as a violent and overwhelmingly powerful leader – I mean, who else could throw the Romans out?  But Jesus preached to love your enemies and turn the other cheek; do good to all men. 

But to be fair, the Jewish people got their mistaken impression from the scriptures. For example:

Behold, the day of the LORD is coming,
And your spoil will be divided in your midst.
For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem;
The city shall be taken,
The houses rifled,
And the women ravished.
Half of the city shall go into captivity,
But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

Then the LORD will go forth
And fight against those nations,
As He fights in the day of battle.
And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives,
Which faces Jerusalem on the east.
And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two,
From east to west,
Making a very large valley;
Half of the mountain shall move toward the north
And half of it toward the south.
Then you shall flee through My mountain valley,
For the mountain valley shall reach to Azal.
Yes, you shall flee
As you fled from the earthquake
In the days of Uzziah king of Judah.
Thus the LORD my God will come,
And all the saints with You.

And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem:

Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet,
Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets,
And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths.
It shall come to pass in that day
That a great panic from the LORD will be among them.
Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor,
And raise his hand against his neighbor’s hand;
Judah also will fight at Jerusalem.
And the wealth of all the surrounding nations
Shall be gathered together:
Gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance.
Such also shall be the plague
On the horse and the mule,
On the camel and the donkey,
And on all the cattle that will be in those camps.
So shall this plague be.                             (Zech 14:1-5,12-15)

So… 

when the Roman armies surrounded Jerusalem in A.D. 70 a mistaken assurance from prophecies like this made the Jews utterly confident that the Messiah would return from heaven and wipe out the Roman armies surrounding Jerusalem. They could not see that the Messiah must first be rejected and the nation brought to repentance as Zechariah mentioned in 11:12-13 and 12:10.               --David Guzik

The result was the near-obliteration of the Jewish race and eradication from the land of Israel.  You see, what we look for, even from scripture if we receive the message only selectively based on our own desires or expectations, can lead us astray.  We absolutely must listen to all of God’s Word and keep our own ‘context’ out of it.

Now, I am absolutely looking for the physical return of Jesus Christ; once for the rapture and resurrection and then again to destroy the REAL oppressor of humanity – Satan and his unholy spawn. 

But there are many, many people today who are confused and are confusing others so adherence to sound doctrine is more important than ever.  Many are only attempting to gather a crowd and build their own ministry by claiming special understanding of prophecies. 

In this age, it is oh so very important to seek God fervently for His help in discerning the truth from the deception.  To truly know the truth, first, be born anew in Christ, be lead by His Holy Spirit and be in fellowship with others who are ‘like-minded’.  Study the scripture such that you ‘live in the pages’ so to speak and obey it-that is obey Him.

Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation;

"nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."  (Luke 17:20,21)

The Pharisees ‘lived in the pages’ of scripture but they were blind to the truth because their own agendas.  The word “observation” in the verse above implies hostile questioning and “within you” is better translated “in your midst” or “among you”. 

Jesus told the Pharisees that their hostile, doubting eyes were unable to see or receive the kingdom of God… The kingdom of God was among them because the King was among them. – Guzik

So, what do we look for? You may wonder if the conditions are ready in the present day for the revelation of Jesus, both in delivering His people and judgment upon a world that rejects Him. Along with Guzik and other Bible scholars, we can say this confidently: The Bible describes certain political, economic, spiritual, social, and military characteristics regarding what the world will be like before His return. It is fair to say that the conditions exist today, and the stage is set.

Something Sudden

John 1:47-49

There’s something wonderfully sudden when we recognize and accept Jesus Christ as God’s Son and our Savior.  The Old Testament has many instances of sudden judgement, but the New Testament shows us over and over the sudden realization of the Son. 

I believe that’s because you can’t just grow into being a Christian – not the born-again kind.  You can’t ‘back into’ it rationally or approach it cautiously.  You must be ‘touched’ or empowered so to speak to see Him by the Spirit of God. Even Christ’s disciples had no clue, no real understanding of Jesus, His Words, His mission or His identity until after they were empowered by the Spirit. 

And this suddenness is always about Jesus:

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!"

Nathanael said to Him, "How do You know me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."

Nathanael answered and said to Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"                                                                                                                                                                (John 1:47-49)

Nathanael’s world was suddenly rocked by the first words he heard from Jesus because he truly ‘heard’ Him.

Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

The other disciples therefore said to him, "We have seen the Lord." So he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."

And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!"

Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand [here], and put [it] into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing."

And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"                                                                                                (John 20:24-28)

Thomas had listened to Jesus for years, but he became disillusioned and angry when he was ‘left out’ or so he probably thought.  After that, he had to touch the scars but the result was sudden and lifelong.

Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest

and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

As he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven.

Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?"

And he said, "Who are You, Lord?" Then the Lord said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It [is] hard for you to kick against the goads."

So, he, trembling and astonished, said, "Lord, what do You want me to do?" Then the Lord [said] to him, "Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."                                                                                                                                             (Acts 9:1-6)

Saul, later called the Apostle Paul, was an outright enemy of Jesus and everything He stood for.  He persecuted the first believers ardently until the light of Christ knocked him to the ground and empowered him to see the Lord in His glory.  In Paul’s own account, he says,

“Now it happened, as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me.”                                                                                             (Acts 22:6)

Now, it may not happen to you exactly the way it did for these guys.  But the truth is that until the Holy Spirit empowers you to desire, recognize and receive Jesus, you will at best be religious.  But don’t fret – you can ask for that empowering!

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”                                                                                                                                                                      (Luke 11:13)

Jesus told Nicodemus, the ‘teacher of Israel’ about this suddenness:

Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.                                                                                                                                                                                                 (John 3:3-6)

Now, “born again” is literally, “procreated from on high” and though procreation itself is not necessarily sudden, the final part which we call birth is sudden. 

So, why all this focus on suddenness?  Is that really the big deal?  No, it’s just that God wants our attention. Spiritual growth is not sudden but rather requires patience, but the pre-requisite spiritual birth is. You see, the big deal is the change, the new life, the new creature, the new relationship with God. 

And we who believe should be aware that something very sudden is on the horizon for many if not most of us:

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed--in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.                                                                                                                  (1 Corinthians 15:51,52)

Yes, spiritual birth brings spiritual change, and the day is coming in which Christ will complete the change to include all our being – soul, spirit and body!  Hallelujah!

The Invitation

John 14:6

So, in my last post, I concluded with the invitation of John 14:6.  That’s because it is Jesus Himself, the Way, the Truth and the Life, Who lives in all of us who are saved graciously.  And as a consequence, we are His church, His bride.  He loves us purely and eternally, and we love Him.

Now you may attend a religious institution periodically or regularly or you may work in some fashion to help those who do, and you may think I’m ‘down’ on these institutions.  Not so.  If you are born again, we are all part of His family and my heartfelt desire is for all of us to intimately relate to our Lord, to know His heart and voice, to grow and revel in His presence together. 

We must learn to abide in Him, submit to Him, not week by week or day by day, not even hour by hour but moment by moment.  His life is not on-again, off-again.  His life, His Spirit, does not share you with the world.  This is the danger of religion.  When we gather, He is in our midst, individually and corporately. Buildings, denominations, liturgies, are irrelevant – not necessarily bad, just irrelevant and they can get in the way the learning. 

We need each other and we need to gather but we need to know Him more than anything else.

You can think of the invitation like this – God’s Spirit brings us to the Way and in this Way we learn and come to understand the Truth, but what He wants is to bring us fully into His Life, His perfect, pure, eternal Life that is in His Father, Himself and His Spirit. 

So, the compromise with the world that we call religion, is, as you can see, a poor substitute, stuck within the confines of the compromise.  As believers, we need to enter and abide in Jesus.  He is real, He is uncompromising, He is Himself the Invitation and the only way to relationship with God.

The Great Compromise

Ephesians 2:6

I’m convinced that one of the reasons the Church as a whole today is so ‘shallow spiritually’ is because we have compromised with the world on the whole notion of ecclesia (ekklesia). Our “churches” are trapped in this routine, this compromise.  Pastors are trained to maintain the compromise rather than to pastor.  They learn to speak to a crowd and manage the business.  Worship is emotional entertainment that may elate but is focused on the worshipers and not the One worshipped. 

The whole way ‘church’ is practiced today is evidence that we don’t even recognize the compromise and that we are blind to the possibility of anything other than the compromise. Author Chip Brogden penned some thoughts that echo my own.  Presented below are parts of his essay "Escape from Churchianity".

 ___________________________________________________

An intellectual Christianity is what Organized Religion brings. It cannot impart Life. What do I mean by an intellectual Christianity? It is the ABC Gospel. Perhaps you have heard it. Salvation is obtained in three easy steps: “A” stands for “admit you are a sinner”; “B” stands for “believe on the Lord Jesus to save you”; and “C” stands for “confess Jesus as your personal Savior.” What is wrong with that? Simply this: there is no Life there. “ABC” will not save us. With “ABC” there is no encounter with Jesus, Who alone is Life. There is only an intellectual acceptance and affirmation of what is presented as “Three Easy Steps”. I believe this, I say that, and that makes me a Christian, right? No, it just makes you religious. There are many people who “get religion”, but they don’t get Jesus.

Organized Religion can bring doctrine, teaching, and belief. Some of it may be morally excellent and good. Some of it may even sound Biblical, like “Three Easy Steps”. Nevertheless, Organized Religion cannot impart Life. Why? Because it has no Life to give. Jesus Christ is the Life. And Jesus does not live within the matrix of Organized Religion. 

The Church, the Lord’s Ekklesia, is the synthesis of individuals who have the Revelation of Jesus and have come to Him to receive Him as their Life. Here is where the confusion begins. We glibly use the term “church” to describe things which are not The Lord’s Ekklesia. A building devoted to religious meetings is called “the church”. Attending a religious meeting is called “going to church.” Hearing a good message or good music during the religious meeting is called “having church” (a popular tune says “crank up the music, let’s have church!”). Becoming a member of the non-profit organization which owns the building devoted to religious meetings is called “joining the church”. Taking responsibility as the founder or being voted in as the director of the non-profit organization which owns the building devoted to religious meetings is called “pastoring the church”. Making additions to the building devoted to religious meetings or to the membership list of the non-profit organization which owns the building is called “church growth”.

But the reality is that everything which makes up the Ekklesia is spiritual, and thus, it is invisible to the naked eye. It is non-corporeal. It cannot be measured by dollars and statistics.

 This invisible Life is the characteristic of the Ekklesia. When you can capture the wind in a bag then you can stuff Christians into a building and call it “church”.

So, from our vantage point here on earth, Organized Religion can be easily seen, felt, touched, experienced, quantified, denominated, characterized, categorized, analyzed, and explained. We can chart its progress and hang the data up on the wall, point to it and say yep, we’ve got this many million converts here, and this many million members there. Church growth is up (or down), we collected this many billions of dollars last year, and in relation to the rest of the world’s religions we rank number whatever. We’ve got this many thousands of churches in this part of the world, we have this many thousands of pastors and Christian workers, and we’ve translated the Bible into this many different languages.

Meanwhile, what drives the Real Church, the Ekklesia, is invisible, spiritual, ethereal, in the world but not of the world, hidden, veiled, hard to describe in terms we can understand.

If God would grant you a moment by His side and allow you a fleeting glance at His Church you would at once understand what a pitiful substitute we have in Organized Religion. There is no vanity so deep as religious vanity, nothing more sickening and diametrically opposed to the heart and ultimate purpose of God.

And we who are in Christ Jesus ARE seated with Him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).

 ___________________________________________________

In his book Mere Christianity, author C.S. Lewis wrote: “…the Church exists for nothing else but to draw (humankind) into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.”

Christ loves His Church relentlessly.  When He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life” He referred to His infinite and eternal being and offered it as an invitation.  Don’t be trapped in the compromise of churchianity; live in the moment by moment vitality of life in, with, through our mighty Savior. 

What's In It for Me?

Luke 18

And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!

"For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

And those who heard it said, "Who then can be saved?"

But He said, "The things which are impossible with men are possible with God."

Then Peter said, "See, we have left all and followed You."                                                                                                              (Luke 18:24-28)

A rich man, intrigued by Jesus, asked what he could do to ‘get into heaven’. He was confident in his moral conduct and told Christ as much.  But Jesus gave him a challenge – 

“You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”                                                                                        (Luke 18:22)

This was a curve-ball, in the strike zone, that the seeker couldn’t hit. He shuffled away, or so I imagine, sorrowful.  This is where we have picked up.  Jesus followed up with those who could hear with the camel statement making it clear that riches are a hindrance to entering the kingdom of God, a seemingly impossible hindrance.

And a whole lot of sermons, good teachings, have launched off from this.  But again, I want to look at a different aspect of the event.  To the Jewish mind of the time, being rich and successful meant the best seats in the synagogue, shoulder-rubbing with the religious elite, and virtually guaranteed hearty welcome at heaven’s door.

Peter, and presumably the rest of the disciples, were shaken.  They exclaimed, "Who then can be saved?"

Jesus answered with a truism that no Jew would dispute, "The things which are impossible with men are possible with God."  But this was utterly insufficient for Peter; he seemed to be focused, along with the rest of the disciples, upon the fact that they were just not seeing what they expected to see, what the hoped to see, from the Messiah. 

They loved Jesus and they wanted heaven, but if even the rich were kind of going hitless (pardon my baseball analogies) and they themselves were basically penniless – well:

Then Peter said, "See, we have left all and followed You."           

The unspoken but clear implication was, “So then, what’s in it for us??” 

Now, Jesus knew his heart.  These guys were thinking about the expected riches and positions of importance in the Messiah’s new kingdom.  But Christ graciously promised:

"Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life."                                                                                                                          (Luke 18:29,30)

So, we cannot help but think that this promise must have refocused them on Christ and His mission.  But that does not appear to be the case.  Just following this “What’s in it for me?” questioning, Jesus tells them what’s coming, what to expect:

Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.

"For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.

"They will scourge [Him] and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again."                                                                       (Luke 18:31-33)

Wow!  If the camel-needle talk alarmed them, this forecast surely brought a freak-out, right? Nope. 

But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.                                                                               (Luke 18:34)

They were clueless.  I suggest that the ‘what’s in it for me’ mindset, which pollutes every human mind, caused them to miss it.  They were blinded by their own self-focus.  And this blindness continued even through the crucifixion.

This so common among believers today as well – people in the pulpit and people in the pews.  Sincere followers, but who are expecting something other than that which Jesus promised:

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”                                                                                              (Matthew 16:24)

Today’s Churchianity is all about pleasing the ‘what’s in it for me?’ perspective.  It is self-focused. 

The disciples needed to see Christ crucified, resurrected, and to receive the Holy Spirit in order to start understanding; Thomas had to touch the scars. We all need the same thing spiritually. As long as we keep asking “What’s in it for Me?” rather than “What’s Your Will, Lord?” we won’t understand the beauty and wisdom of our God.

A Thought on Thanks

Luke 17

Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off.

And they lifted up [their] voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

So, when He saw [them], He said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on [his] face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.

So, Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But where [are] the nine?

"Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?"

And He said to him, "Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well."                                               

                                                                                           (Luke 17:12-19)

I was raised in a ‘different time’.  I was taught to always show appreciation for others kindness and that’s the way I raised my own kids.  Now, there are still people who have this ethic but increasingly I hear from others that this thankfulness is not so common anymore.

In Jesus’ day, if you had leprosy, you were treated as a non-person.  You were shunned and despised.  Of course, there was no cure so as your disease progressed, your body rotted away and became terribly disfigured, and you mostly hid from the rest of the world. It’s hard to conceive of just how horrible your life would have been.  Perhaps those children who are sold into sex slavery and the endless horrors therein could relate.  My heart breaks for them.

Now, none of Christ’s encounters were by chance.  He headed through Samaria for a reason, and it may have been to meet this small group of desperate people plagued with leprosy.   As I read the above verses this morning, the part that caught my attention was, “And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.”  It was a test of their faith and a testimony to the priest(s).

I wondered; did it happen suddenly or gradually?  Did it happen to one and then another and another or to all of them simultaneously? Did they shout for joy or cry? Did they dance together or run off in different directions?  Did some just sit down and pray?

There was only one of them that came back to thank Jesus.  What does that say?  Christ was clearly surprised and probably disappointed. 

I suspect that few of us have had to deal with this plague of leprosy but many of us, myself included, deal with the plague of indifference to God’s goodness at times. 

Now, and I’m sure you’ve seen this for yourself, indifference to God’s goodness is sometimes accompanied by a sense of prideful entitlement.  Perhaps it’s just the natural regression of the ‘disease’.  Sick minds and dark hearts develop when people are unthankful.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,… because, although they knew God, they did not glorify [Him] as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.                                                                (Romans 1:18,21)

But thankfulness is the natural condition of the hearts filled with God’s Spirit.   The Psalmist declared:

To the end that [my] glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.                                                                                                                 (Psalm 30:12)

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, [And] into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, [and] bless His name.                                                                                                                    (Psalm 100:4)

Speaking of Christ, the apostle Paul wrote:

Thanks [be] to God for His indescribable gift!      

                                                                               (2 Corinthians 9:15)

And in the midst of God’s judgements upon devil-ruled planet we call earth, the twenty-four elders in heaven who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God,

saying: "We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come, Because You have taken Your great power and reigned.                              

                                                                                      (Revelation 11:17)

And speaking of heaven, those closest in proximity to God are continually offering heartfelt worship 

saying:
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom,
Thanksgiving and honor and power and might,
Be to our God forever and ever.
Amen.”                                                                                                                                                                                                             (Revelation 7:12)

You see, the disease of indifference is born out of pride, the pride that all dark hearts are controlled by, and even enlightened hearts have to continually overcome by trusting in God’s grace and goodness.

As we have read, all ten lepers had the faith to be healed but only one welcomed God’s light into his heart and became thankful.  He was healed physically AND spiritually – I bet we’ll see him in heaven. 

Where Are You From?

Luke 13:25-27

It is so sobering to think that you could be so mistaken in your assumptions as to believe that heaven’s door will be open to you and then you hear from Jesus, “I do not know you…”.  Then you step back and claim, “But we ate and drank in your presence…” all to no avail.

Here are the warning verses:

"When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open for us,' and He will answer and say to you, 'I do not know you, where you are from,'

"then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.'

"But He will say, 'I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.'                               

                                                                                    (Luke 13:25-27)

I’ve taught many times from these scriptures about the need for us to know Jesus. Not just know about Him but know Him. 

But there’s more, and Jesus mentions it twice for emphasis – “where you are from.”  This word where can refer to a place or to a condition or origin or source even author.  You see, where you are from spiritually, is directly related to whether or not Jesus knows you. 

If you are born again, by God’s Spirit, you are from Him.  He is your origin or source.  He is your Father.  It’s not a matter of the condition of your flesh.  Jesus once told the Jews:

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” 

                                                                                                 (John 8:44)

They were so proud to be of the lineage of Abraham; so, this truly upended their world.  At heaven’s doorway, eating and drinking with Him didn’t make the cut; hearing his teaching didn’t do it either.  If He knows where you are from – your Source, your Origin, your Author even – then He could say, “I know you.” 

The Jews at the time truly thought their goodness, their guarantee of salvation was their flesh, their lineage.  But even Paul who claimed to be a super-Pharisee said,

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells;…”   

                                                                                          (Romans 7:18a)

Friend, if you are not sure that you are born again by faith in Jesus, do not continue with a false and deadly assumption of eternal life.  It’s all based on where you are from – who is your Father; not church attendance, not good deeds, not people you know.  Surrender your heart, your will to God’s Spirit.  Ask Him to forgive your sins, for the faith to always trust in Him.

Even Pontius Pilate knew how important this notion of origin was:

Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, "Crucify [Him], crucify [Him]!" Pilate said to them, "You take Him and crucify [Him], for I find no fault in Him."

The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God."

Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid, and went again into the Praetorium, and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus gave him no answer.                   

                                                                                                    (John 19:6-9)

When you know you are from the Lord, you can know that He knows you.

Heaven's Lost and Found

Luke 15

“for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”                                                                     (Luke 19:10)

God ‘lost’ something many, many years ago.  Now, He always knew where it was and actually, He ‘let it go’ as an essential part of His grand plan.  As we consider the three parables Jesus taught concerning this, you may have always thought they were about evangelism but I’d like to see them afresh and with a desire to know our LORD.

I along with many others have used these lessons to teach about God’s patience, His desire to find the one who is lost and that’s all valid.  But we need to understand some things first – in each one, someone or something is lost and in each one someone searches or waits patiently to find what is lost.

The lost are you and me, and in fact, all of mankind.  The One who searches is Jesus.  Let’s look at each parable and consider the lesson(s).  First, there is a lost sheep.  Roaming the hills, searching for good pasture and clean water, a shepherd knew each of his flock and developed an attachment to them individually and as a group.  Now, Jesus said:

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

"And when he has found [it], he lays [it] on his shoulders, rejoicing.

"And when he comes home, he calls together [his] friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'                                                                                                                                                                                    (Luke 15:4-6)

So, he’s got 100 sheep, and one wanders off.  He leaves the 99 to go after the one who is lost but where does he leave them – in the wilderness.  His total focus is on the one.  Oh, he loves the 99 and presumably has an under-shepherd to care for them in the wilderness, but our lesson is that he is consumed with caring about the lost one.

And what does he do when he finds it?  Does he smack it with his rod or staff?  Does he kick it and yell, “You stupid sheep!”  No.  He carries it on his shoulders, absolutely delighted and he celebrates with friends. 

Jesus sums this tale up-

"I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.           

                                                                                                    (Luke 15:7)

This story is about JOY, the joy in heaven.  And the joy, there, over one person repenting of his/her sins exceeds the joy over the faithful 99.  Why is that? Hang with me – I’ll tell you why.

So, then Jesus follows with another parable:

"Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds [it]?

"And when she has found [it], she calls [her] friends and neighbors together, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!'

"Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."  (Luke 15:8-10)

Now a shepherd with his sheep speaks of responsibility and caring while this woman and her coin(s) speaks of something valued.  She lights a lamp, sweeps the house and searches diligently.  Again, as with the first parable, when she finds the lost item, she rejoices with her friends.

And again, the repentance of one and the consequent joy in heaven is described.  Then, for the third time, Christ brings home the lesson with the well-known parable of the prodigal son:

Then He said: "A certain man had two sons.

"And the younger of them said to [his] father, 'Father, give me the portion of goods that falls [to me].' So he divided to them [his] livelihood.

"And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

"But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want.

"Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

"And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him [anything].

"But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

'I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you,

"and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants." '

"And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

"And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.'

"But the father said to his servants, 'Bring out the best robe and put [it] on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on [his] feet.

'And bring the fatted calf here and kill [it], and let us eat and be merry;

'for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry.  

                                                                                           (Luke 15:11-24)

This parable displays repentance, compassion, forgiveness and relationship.  Now, the first two tales gave us the perspective of the searcher – Jesus. This one shows us the familial perspectives of the lost son and the gracious father.  But in this parable, like the first two, there is rejoicing when the one lost is found.

And there is more to this story because there is someone who is not joyful:

"Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.

"So, he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.

"And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.'

"But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore, his father came out and pleaded with him.

"So he answered and said to [his] father, 'Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends.

'But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.'

"And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.

'It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.' "

                                                                                                (Luke 15:25-32)

While the whole household is dancing and joyful, there is still one sourpuss.  The other son who was angry because of self-righteousness. He claims that he has never transgressed.  But his transgression, which is more serious than his brother’s prodigal living, is that he thinks he is worthy of his father’s grace.  This is the treachery of religion – it despises the father’s goodness and envies those with true relationship.

You see, the father’s all about demonstrating his profound love for the lost.  He doesn’t love the faithful but self-righteous son any less but the joy of heaven, the joy of the Lord is His redemption, His reconciliation because it show everyone His character.  Heaven rejoices more for the one lost who is then found because that ultimately demonstrates the gracious loving character of our God.  That is what makes heaven joyful for all of us who are there.

The faithful son could rejoice along with everyone else but chooses to be in a funk because his faithfulness he attributes to himself so he is stuck in funkville.

Friends, we need to get this down.  It’s all about our Lord – His goodness, His work, His will, His grace, His love, His mercy and forgiveness, all of it, everything!  It’s for Him, by Him, to Him and we get to join Him in joy if we recognize this.  Rejoice!

Faith That Doesn't Fit

Luke 7

We learn a lot about the character of God by watching how Jesus acted with those who didn’t fit in. You have to realize that the Jewish society of His day was utterly steeped in the notion of who was considered ‘IN’ and the who was ‘OUT’ – who was accepted and privileged and who was not included, considered filthy or supremely insignificant. 

In Luke chapter seven we meet two people who were definitely on the outside; one a gentile soldier and the other a “sinful” woman.  It’s also an interesting setting, that is, Capernaum, for although Jesus did many miracles there, He also condemned the place (Matthew 11:23) for their lack of true repentance.

And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die.  So, when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to Him, pleading with Him to come and heal his servant.                                                                               (Luke 7:2,3)

A centurion was a Roman officer in charge of 100 soldiers.  If anyone was an outsider to Jewish society, it was a Roman, a gentile, and indeed a gentile who was a part of the oppressive army that dominated the nation. 

But this centurion, being very much attached to one who served him, when he heard about Jesus, sent some of the Jewish elders (the ‘IN’ crowd) to plead for Christ’s help.  Of course, this was more than a little unusual; it was amazingly unusual, mind-bogglingly unusual, even scary unusual.

And when they came to Jesus, they begged Him earnestly, saying that the one for whom He should do this was deserving,

"for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue."                                                                                                                 (Luke 7:4,5)

Nevertheless, they genuinely implored Jesus on behalf of the officer noting that he was deserving and why.  Did they really believe it or were they scared that he could order his men to tear down the synagogue and more if rebuffed?  Can’t say.

And we should note that Jesus said on another occasion, to a gentile woman, begging for help for her child, that to help her would be inappropriate saying, 

“It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.”          

                                                                                 (Matthew 15:26)

Meaning that His mission and ministry was to the Jews, not the gentiles (not yet).

So, this request could easily have gone south, so to speak, but,

…Jesus went with them. And when He was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to Him, saying to Him, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof.  Therefore, I did not even think myself worthy to come to You. But say the word, and my servant will be healed.  For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”                                                                                                ( Luke 7:6-8)

To say that this kind of behavior from a roman officer was unexpected would be an understatement;  it was amazingly unusual, mind-bogglingly unusual, even scary unusual.  But how did it affect Jesus?

When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him and turned around and said to the crowd that followed Him, “I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”                                                                                                                       (Luke 7:9)

There are only two occasions in all of the Bible that say Jesus marveled.  This is one. Christ marveled at great faith from an “OUTsider” and as a result:

…those who were sent, returning to the house, found the servant well who had been sick.                                                                                                             (Luke 7:10)

And then there was another occasion in which Jesus dealt with “OUTsider” who was actually  inside a Pharisee’s home.

Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down to eat. 

And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that [Jesus] sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil,

and stood at His feet behind [Him] weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears and wiped [them] with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed [them] with the fragrant oil.                                                                  (Luke 7:36-38)

Jesus was attractive, like a magnet, to OUTsiders.  Here, a woman who was morally repulsive to Simon the Pharisee entered his house at great risk and put on a display of love and humility that was amazingly unusual, mind-bogglingly unusual, even freakishly unusual. 

I’m inclined to believe that she did not go in intending to wash His feet with her tears but, on her knees, finding Him accepting of her, she broke forth in tears.  His love was unexpected, and she wept.  Then seeing that His feet were wet, she used what she had, her hair, to wipe them and she kissed them in humble admiration and thankfulness.  Then she used her costly fragrant oil on the spots that would soon be pierced with a stake to the cross.

Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw [this], he spoke to himself, saying, "This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman [this is] who is touching Him, for she is a sinner."                                                          (Luke 7:39)

The INsider was offended.  In his cold, hardened heart, he saw nothing to be impressed by.

And Jesus answered and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." So he said, "Teacher, say it."

"There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.

"And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?"

Simon answered and said, "I suppose the [one] whom he forgave more." And He said to him, "You have rightly judged."

Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped [them] with the hair of her head.

"You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in.

"You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil.                                                                                                           (Luke 7:40-46)

The rudeness of the INsider was exposed.

"Therefore, I say to you, her sins, which [are] many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, [the same] loves little."

Then He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven.”                                                                                                                                           (Luke 7:47, 48)

The faith of OUTsiders doesn’t fit in the established religious order.  INsiders only approve of other INsiders: 

And those who sat at the table with Him (the other INsiders) began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”                                                                             (Luke 7:49,50)

The centurion’s faith made Jesus marvel and this  woman’s faith brought His blessing.  You see, Jesus is deeply affected by the unusual, crazy unusual faith of the OUTsiders and He responds to their need.  This is what we learn – religion is all about ‘coloring inside the lines’ while Jesus is all about real (even if unusual) faith and love.  The former does not displace the latter.

Doubting Has Consequences

1 John 1:9

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.                                                        (James 1:6)

So much has been written about faith, but this verse is really about doubt and its consequences. The one who doubts the Lord has himself no stability, no foundation.  He/she rises and falls over and over and is easily influenced by the “prince of the power of the air”:

And you [He made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.                                                                                                                                                               (Ephesians 2:1-3)

Let’s see what we can learn from some notable characters in the scripture who experienced doubting the Lord and the resulting consequences.  Of course, we all know about Adam and Eve because we all are living (or dying) with those consequences but let’s fast forward to Moses and Aaron.  In the book of Numbers we read:

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

"Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals."

So Moses took the rod from before the LORD as He commanded him.

And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?"

Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank.

Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them."

                                                                                (Numbers 20:7 – 12)

Moses, in anger, doubted the Lord about speaking to the rock.  Instead, he hit it twice.  His anger caused him to doubt that just speaking to the rock would cause water to come forth.  You see, earlier, at Horeb, God had instructed him to hit the rock and the water that the people needed would come out.  There, he obeyed and the miracle occurred.

And his obedience had hallowed or honored the Lord because this event was indeed a picture of Christ, our Rock, being struck at God’s command on Calvary and spiritually out poured the gracious water of Life that we who believe in Him have received.

But this second time, Moses was supposed to speak to the Rock, just as we pray, for Christ suffered ONCE. 

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 

                                                                                                (1Pet 3:18)

So, Moses and Aaron blew it and dishonored God.  Of course, they probably did not understand the prophetic message that they messed up but that was secondary; their doubt and consequent disobedience was the primary issue and as a consequence, they both died on mountain tops before the people entered the promised land behind Joshua.

Wow.  Bummer. Moses had labored for 40 years to bring his people across the Jordan.  But doubt has its consequences.  I’m speechless.

And speaking of speechless, let’s fast forward again to a dear old priest, Zacharias who after a lifetime of service as a priest was picked to burn incense to the Lord.  Now, he and his wife Elizabeth were quite elderly and childless.  This was a disappointment to be sure and a humiliation to Elizabeth.  However, it was God’s time, a time that the nation had waited for, and prayed for, for many hundreds of years.  It was Messiah time and time for His forerunner.

As Zacharias was going through his duty with the incense, a mighty angel appeared to him in the temple.  Here’s what transpired:

There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife [was] of the daughters of Aaron, and her name [was] Elizabeth.

And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.

So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.

And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

And when Zacharias saw [him], he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.

But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.

And Zacharias said to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years."

And the angel answered and said to him, "I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings.

"But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time."                                                                                                                                     (Luke 1:5-13,18-20)

Wow.  Bummer. Zacharias doubted God’s messenger and goes speechless for nine months.   Yes, doubt has its consequences.  Kind of gives you a sinking feeling, huh?

But lets fast forward again to a boisterous, confident fisherman, in his element – that is on the water.  Peter and his cohorts were in their boat and the sea was rough.  Jesus had stayed behind, or so they thought.  Suddenly, they saw someone WALKING ON THE WATER.

Here’s the story:

Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.

And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out for fear.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid."

And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water."

So He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.

But when he saw that the wind [was] boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!"                                                                              (Matthew 14:25-30)

Yes, Peter actually walked on the water.  He must have been elated, excited to the max.  But he took his eyes off Jesus, and being freaked out by the wind, he doubted and started to sink.

Wow.  Bummer.  It was miracle-day for Peter, but it turned into an extra helping of humble pie.  Doubt has its consequences.

But with God, consequences are not necessarily the end.  In fact, we often see Him showing amazing compassion and grace.  Consider Peter:

And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”                                                                                        (Matthew 14:31)

Jesus did a one-arm curl and Peter was saved from drowning.

Consider Zacharias:

So, they made signs to his father--what he would have him called.

And he asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, saying, "His name is John." So, they all marveled.

Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue [loosed], and he spoke, praising God.                                                                                                           (Luke 1:62-64)

And furthermore:

… Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:

"Blessed [is] the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited and redeemed His people,

And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David,…    

                                                                                                 (Luke 1:67-69)

And much more.

Zacharias named his son John just as the angel had instructed and suddenly, he could speak.  His son became the greatest of all the prophets and his own prophecy is one of the longest in the New Testament.

Consider Moses:

Moses actually did make it into the promised land – on the mount of transfiguration.

Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.

And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.                                                                            (Matthew 17:1-3)

Isn’t God gracious! 

The point is, sure, doubting does have its consequences.  We should never ever doubt our Creator and Savior. However, when our God deals with us, we can trust Him to be merciful and gracious when we repent. 

A friend of mine says unrighteousness is simply not trusting God. I think he’s right.  Let’s repent, moment by moment if necessary, of our distrust and doubting our Father in heaven.  Remember:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.                                                                                                                                      (1 John 1:9)

Clueless

Mark 10

Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed. And as they followed, they were afraid. Then He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them the things that would happen to Him: 

(Mark 10:32)

Jesus taking the twelve aside to reiterate what was going to happen to Him is in all three of the synoptic gospels. But only here in Mark’s do we read about their mental and emotional state – amazement and fear. 

Why the amazement; why the fear?  We can only hypothesize, but notice these states preceded Christ’s talk in which He said:

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will deliver Him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.”               

(Mark 10:33,34)

It would seem that Jesus knew they needed this talk.  They had followed Him for some three years, seen countless miracles and at this point He reminded them that He was about to be killed and rise again.  What do you think?  Did they ‘hear’ Him?

Then James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying to Him, "Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You."

And He said to them, "What do you want Me to do for you?"

And they said to Him, "Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on [Your] left, in Your glory."

(Mark 10:35-37)

Now, it could be that these two disciples thought that time was running out to ‘stake their claim’ or perhaps they were volunteering to die with Jesus.  But whatever the case, Jesus answered:

“You do not know what you are asking.”

(Mark 10:38)

Essentially, they were clueless.  After all the teaching, all the demonstrations of mercy and compassion and humility, they were still looking out for themselves.  This is so sobering.

Just think about this. Jesus Christ Himself, did not teach or demonstrate His own followers into saving faith.  It was only after He rose from the grave and imparted His Holy Spirit to them that they were truly born again.  I believe He was self-restrained in order to provide us a vital lesson.

Nevertheless, how many well-meaning preachers today are trying to talk people into the kingdom of God. Now, words can indeed be powerful, but they have to be inspired by the power of the Holy Spirit. When that is the case, we can see thousands getting saved (see Acts 2:40,41).

And anyone who is truly born again can have that power, but it will never be to glorify yourself or build your own ministry.  Today, there are many who think that is the case and their motive is to make a name for themselves.  So sad. 

Don’t be clueless. Stop looking out for ‘number one’. Be filled with His Spirit and abide in Him.

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No Patches

John 14:6

Christ brought a new message, new wine, that the Jewish religious law pointed to but  could not contain.  The old law was fulfilled in Him.  The new law is very different.  Jesus proclaimed the difference when He taught:

“No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.  Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”                                                                  (Matthew 9:16,17)

His gift of eternal life, which we obtain by trusting in Him, in what He taught and what He did on Calvary and Resurrection Sunday, was never meant as a patch to repair the old and ineffectual law.  That’s because His message dealt with the eternal consequences of faith or the lack thereof. He lambasted the dead religious system that men created to push this faith to the side. This system included 613 patches of the Mosaic Law discussed in the Talmud. 

The old religion was all about works and obedience to these patches; the new was not a religion at all but is all about relationship with the God of all through faith in the gracious gift He presented to us in the sacrifice of His only begotten Son.  And it’s only this faith that can save us. Jesus said, 

 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”                                                           (John 14:6)

Sadly, the Pope just recently contradicted Jesus and said that all religions lead to God wherein he established himself as either a liar or a lunatic.  It would seem that his goal is to patch together a worldwide religion in which all adherents sing ‘kumbaya’ together around the campfire resulting in a planet Babylon delusion.

I choose to believe Jesus and the Apostles.

The Apostle Peter said concerning Jesus Christ:

“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”                                                                                                      (Acts 4:12)

And the Apostle Paul warned:

“But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."                            (2 Timothy 3:13)

When He Comes to Us

John 14

"And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, that He may be with you forever;

the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him. You know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

"After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you [will] see Me; because I live, you will live also.”

"On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”                                                                                                         (John 14:16 – 20)

There is so much comfort in these verses.  More than you may think.  When Jesus spoke these words, it was a very dark time.  The Jewish people, led by satanic religious imposters were on the verge of killing their Savior, the Creator, the kindest, gentlest, most gracious being.  Their hatred was boundless as they fully embraced the darkness. 

Imposters like this abound today as well – people with dark or darkening empty hearts, deceived by greed and the lust for power.  And we were warned of this:

                “For behold, darkness will cover the earth and dense gloom the peoples;”                                                                                                                                                                                          (Isaiah 60:2)

You see, darkness and death is the ‘natural’ state of this world called Babylon.  But in contrast to this prison planet is this promise from Christ – the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth – our eternal ‘parakletos’ (that word means helper, comforter, one who comes along side) Who abides with us and IN us.

Most of us are looking forward to the rapture/resurrection and then the second coming of Christ to earth.  But He comes to us also in that moment of transformation, when our heart yields to His call and surrenders to His will.  And as our union with Him matures, like a seed in good soil, we die to self and live, truly live. 

“On that day…” is not just in the future.  It is also, every time you yield to the voice of His Spirit because each time you do, even moment by moment, you increasingly realize His presence and as Jesus said, “…you will know that I am IN My Father, and you IN Me, and I IN you.” 

Now, it’s not that He comes to us again and again.  No, if you’re saved, He’s already in you, but your fresh realization of that is a continual fragrance of life and love.  It’s the Light that shines in the darkness.

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Cleaned Up

John 13

And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's [son], to betray Him,

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.

After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe [them] with the towel with which He was girded.

Then He came to Simon Peter. And [Peter] said to Him, "Lord, are You washing my feet?"

Jesus answered and said to him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this."

Peter said to Him, "You shall never wash my feet!" Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."

Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not my feet only, but also [my] hands and [my] head!"

Jesus said to him, "He who is bathed needs only to wash [his] feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you."

For He knew who would betray Him; therefore, He said, "You are not all clean."

So, when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you?

"You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for [so] I am.

"If I then, [your] Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

"For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.  (John 13:2-15)

 

I think some of us miss the point in this magnificent demonstration.  Understand that this was a physical display of a most important lesson.  A spiritual lesson.

Now you may have participated in a ceremony like this and thought it was all about humility; and you wouldn’t be wrong.  But the lesson goes much further.

The disciples had only a short time earlier been disputing (yet again) who among them would be greatest in the Kingdom. (see Luke 22:24) 

And indeed, He said to them, 

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves.”    (Luke 22:25-27)

But we have to focus on what He was doing, how He was serving – He was washing them, washing their feet.  Of course, you may be aware that this was not an uncommon practice at the time. Generally speaking, people’s feet were filthy, having walked on dusty roads.

So, what exactly was the lesson? 

Listen to Jesus’ words – “you also ought to wash one another's feet.”  Of course, this takes humility  but the point is cleansing, cleansing one another.  And note that He did it with simply a towel around His waist – that points to humility and openness. 

You see, the main point of His earthly ministry was cleansing.  Cleansing from sin.  It was/is a cleansing that only He could do in the aggregate, on the cross – the once and for all wiping away all sin, all debt, for all people, for all time.  But isn’t it awesome that He said we could, should be cleansing each other.  What’s that all about?  If all sin was dealt with by Jesus on Calvary, what are we cleansing?

It’s certainly not the sin that leads to death; that filth has to do with the lack of trust and faith in God and His gracious gift.  I suggest that it’s the dust and dirt of this world; that has to do with the stinking flesh. This humble cleansing, a cleansing that is vulnerable and open, is synonymous with forgiveness and esteeming others better than our selves.  The Apostle Paul wrote,

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.  (Philippians 2:3)

Now, of course, Peter objected to being washed by Christ.  He didn’t ‘get’ it, but Jesus told him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."

Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!"

You have to love Peter. I’m not sure he really ‘got it’ but he enthusiastically wanted to.  Jesus clarified the cleansing process by telling him that it’s just those parts that get dusty, that contact the earth, which need to be washed. 

                “Jesus said to him, "He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean;”

Where have you gotten dirty? Oh, not your feet or hands physically, but in your heart.  Where have the earthly thoughts you entertain defiled? Jesus said,

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man,..”  (Matthew 15:19,20a)

Modern Christianity is very concerned, like Peter, about cleaning the outside entirely, but this misses the point.  In fact, Jesus told one of His religious hosts something related to this:

And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So, He went in and sat down to eat.  When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner.  Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness.”  (Luke 11:37-39)

And as many if not most of you can attest, this condition is not isolated to the Pharisees.  Each of us needs the interpersonal ministry of cleansing forgiveness from one another.  It’s not necessarily a salvation issue but a freedom from all unrighteousness.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  (1 John 1:9)

There’s no lasting shame in needing to be cleaned from the dust of this life.  The shame is in staying dirty.  If you need a heart (foot)-washing from a brother, sister or the Lord, get it. We all need it from time to time.

 

 

Good Wine

John 2

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.

And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine."

Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come."

His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do [it]."

Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece.

Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water." And they filled them up to the brim.

And He said to them, "Draw [some] out now, and take [it] to the master of the feast." And they took [it].

When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom.

And he said to him, "Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the [guests] have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!"

This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him. 

(JOHN 2:1-11)

The apostle John chose specific actions and events to record in his gospel account and he had many from which to choose. In fact, he wrote,

        And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.

(JOHN 21:25)

The point being that he had plenty of options and he himself said that his account was not just a history lesson but an effort at encouraging faith in Jesus.

        And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

(JOHN 20:30,31)

John Chapter Two presents to us the beginning of Christ’s ministry from the perspective of His disciples. And notably, John finishes the story by recording, “and His disciples believed in Him.”  Now, some writers suggest that this may have been John’s own wedding.  It does seem like he had knowledge of the ‘behind the scenes’ action.  Whether or not that is the case, he asserts that this was the “beginning of signs” and as such we can benefit from a closer examination.

Jesus did not seem to be in a hurry to start his open ministry.  Mary, who some think may have been the actual ‘wedding coordinator’, (note her authority over the servants) was concerned that the festivities would be shamed by a lack of wine.  She went to her Son with this issue either because He was her eldest (in the absence of her husband) or because she was aware of His calling and power or both. 

Whatever the case, Jesus was apparently sensitive to what was effectively a prompting to show Himself.

        Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come." 

(JOHN 2:4)

But interestingly, despite His hesitance, He decided to take action.  And, probably in His presence:

        His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do [it]."

(JOHN 2:5)

So, what did they do?  There were six 20 – 30 gallon waterpots available intended for ceremonial purification according to the Law.  Think about this.  As with the miracle of the loaves and fish, Jesus could just as well have produced wine in everyone’s cups or any other containers but He chose these waterpots. I suggest that as they represented the Law, He was symbolizing that His ministry was going to be a fulfilling of the Law with joy just as the pots were fulfilled with wine.

Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water." And they filled them up to the brim.

(JOHN 2:7)

No half-way measures here.  They were completely filled.  This was a foreshadowing of  when Jesus later prayed to the Father:

“But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.

(JOHN 17:13)

His next instructions were to take some of the water/wine to the master of the feast.  The results of Christ’s work were put in full view, not hidden in a closet.  But note, it was only the servants, Jesus, Mary and the disciples who knew the source of the wine. 

And it was Good Wine!  Only the best.  That’s because it’s the Good Wine that glorifies God.  That’s what we learn about Jesus from the beginning.  It wasn’t just that He could do a miracle; it was how He did the miracle.   It was a message; a message about joy and about glorifying God.

Eternal Beauty

Psa 29:2

You know, at best, human beauty is fleeting and we have all witnessed the pathetic parade of those who just can’t handle that fact.  They simply cannot tolerate their own ‘wilting’. 

Nature’s beauty is also temporal, though it tends to last longer.  And of course, the old adage ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is talking about what the eye can behold.  That’s because the grandest beauty is not in the ‘skin’ or the ‘landscape’.  You may behold it but not with your eyes.

David the king spoke of it:

One thing I have desired of the LORD,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD,
And to inquire in His temple. 

(PSA 27:4)

He spoke of the beauty that only your soul and spirit can enjoy because only those parts of you desire it.  And this is very important to you if you seriously want to know the Lord because you will ask yourself, what does one do “in the house of the Lord”; what do we do as we “inquire in His temple”?

Yes, you know. Worship.  That’s the purpose.  And as we behold the Lord’s beauty, guess what?  It’s contagious!  Both His beauty and His Holiness!!  That’s why David proclaimed:

                Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!

                                                                (PSA 29:2)

What captured the king’s eye was the beauty of Bathsheba, but what captured his soul was the beauty of the Lord.  The former led to catastrophe (though God, in His mercy, redeemed it), the latter led to eternity, that is, an eternal relationship.

The glorious thing about beauty is that it’s present with us now as we worship “in Spirit and truth” – that is, in the beauty of holiness, and it’s promised to us forever as Isaiah foretold:

Your eyes will see the King in His beauty;
They will see the land that is very far off. (New Jerusalem, ISA 33:17)

You see (no pun intended), the “land that is very far off” will one day be very close.  John saw this:

“He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name.

                                                                             (REV 3:12)

Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

                                                                                 (REV 21:2)

Eternal beauty, the Beauty of the Lord, the beauty of holiness is simply indescribable and you can only witness Him in the Spirit Who, if you are born again, is IN YOU.

It is finished.

John 19:30

Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

                                                                                 (JOHN 19:30)

Three words that were uttered from the perfect, pure heart of the God-man, the Creator Himself and only He knows all that they meant.  There was yet more that would happen – He went to preach to the spirits in prison (1 Pet 3:19), He rose from the grave (Lu 24:1-7, Jhn 20:11-17), He ascended to heaven (Lu 24:50-53), He sat down at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33), He will return for His bride, the church (1 Cor 15:50-57), He will come to render judgement on the earth (Jude 1:14,15), He will rule the planet for 1000 years (Rev 20:4), He will destroy Satan and death (Rev 20:10,14), He will make all things new (Rev 21:5). 

Now, in the Greek, which is what John wrote in, this proclamation was the singular word  τελέω teléō, tel-eh'-o;  to end, i.e. complete, execute, conclude, discharge (a debt):—accomplish, make an end, expire, fill up, finish, go over, pay, perform.  And thus, I am very inclined to believe that this awesome declaration was God the Son speaking together with what God the Father and God the Spirit would proclaim as well -  the debt was paid to the full.

This was the total and complete cumulative debt due to the sin lade on all creation, perhaps upon the whole cosmos.  With this, the types, prophecies and promises of the Old Testament concerning Christ were fulfilled.  All the typical sacrifices in the Law were finished and fulfilled – the lamb, the oxen, the heifer, the dove, the goat.  Christ’s perfect obedience to the Father was complete.  And the satisfaction of the justice of God Almighty was complete.  Of course, all of these things pointed to the debt of sin, the debt of a broken world, the unimaginably enormous debt no other man could pay. God paid it with His own beloved Son.

And when He uttered those words, bowed His head and gave up His spirit, He carried the weight of all sin for all time.  He became sin:

 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. ( 2 Cor 5:21)

It was the one thing Satan never thought could happen; the one thing that effectively stamped “DOOMED” upon his own existence.  The holy angels were awestruck.  The demons were terrified.  The earth shook, the veil was torn open, the awesome holy character of God was displayed in His Son for all the cosmos to see.  Soon, He would rise, for death could  not hold Him.  Soon, the Gospel would be spread throughout the whole world.  Soon, the dead would rise, and the Son would be crowned in heaven as King of kings and Lord of lords.  Soon, the Lion would open the scroll in heaven and bring worldwide judgement on planet Babylon.  Soon, Christ would welcome His bride home.

All because the debt was paid.  Because of Jesus it is truly finished. Hallelujah!

The Wilderness

John 14:6

Of course, if you have been there or seen a map you know that the Middle East land  surrounding Israel is dominated by wilderness, that is, desolate desert regions.  Very hot, extremely arid and virtually empty.  Very few people live in the wilderness.  It is unwelcoming to say the least.

But that is where Israel of old was tested.  In fact, it seems like that’s what God uses frequently to test His children:

Immediately the Spirit drove Him (Jesus) into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him. (Mark 1:12,13)

“who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end— (Deut 8:16)

The wilderness is also a place of communing with God, of prayer, and of refuge:

So, He Himself (Jesus) often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. (Lu 5:16)

But the woman (the remnant of Jewish believers) was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent (from  the antichrist during the Tribulation). (Rev 12:14)

But God also used the wilderness as a place of judgement:

So the LORD's anger was aroused against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the LORD was gone. (Num 32:13)

And He also speaks prophetically of a way that He will make in the wilderness:

Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road (way) in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert. (Isa 43:19)

Which arguably speaks of the Savior who said:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

And the wilderness is spoken of as a place of blessed transformation:

Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb sing.
For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert. (Isa 35:6)

So, clearly, the wilderness, physically and metaphorically, is an instrumental part of Israel existence. But, not only Israel; that’s because this whole world is a wilderness spiritually.  Satan has made it that way. Isaiah spoke of him…

Who made the world as a wilderness
And destroyed its cities,
Who did not open the house of his prisoners?' (Isa 14:17)

Yes, he is the destroyer. All of his efforts, his thoughts, his twisted goals, are to create planet Babylon – a desolate waste, spiritually and physically; he works and schemes to destroy all that God has created. That’s his nature; he’s filled with hatred as are his offspring.

Yes, the wilderness is essentially the story of broken mankind as well as mankind’s redemption for although Satan will succeed during the tribulation in creating his hellish planet (see Rev 18:2), Christ will crush him under His heal and …

… the LORD will comfort Zion,
He will comfort all her waste places;
He will make her wilderness like Eden,
And her desert like the garden of the LORD;
Joy and gladness will be found in it,
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody. (Isa 51:3)

Jesus is our Way in the wilderness!

The NAME

Mat 6:9

Contemporary Christian teaching and preaching doesn’t put much focus on this topic and indeed it is something that contemporary societies don’t emphasize either at least not the way people did in earliest times.  Names.

Now if you think about it, it’s really no mystery why – that’s because if you truly know and understand the NAME, you’re in for a blessing beyond description.  You see, there have been only two sinless men to walk the earth, Adam and Jesus Christ and both of them were very involved in names.

Before Adam sinned, while his mind and soul were still pure and uncorrupted, God had him name all the land animals and birds.  Jesus, during His life and ministry, was all about the Name. For instance:

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” (Mat 1:23)

“In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name…” (Mat 6:9)

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” (Mat 18:20)

And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called JESUS, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. (Lu 2:21)

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: (John 1:12)

“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18)

Jesus even gave new names to some of His disciples:

Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter; (Mark 3:16)

James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, “Sons of Thunder”; (Mark 3:17)

Why even in heaven, some will receive new names:

 “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name. (Rev 3:12)

In biblical thought, a name does not merely identify; it expresses the essential nature of its bearer. In all probability, Adam named the beasts by observing their natures, as he had nothing else on which to base his judgments. From this arises a principle about how the Bible uses the term "name." To know God's name is to know God as He has revealed Himself, that is, to understand His nature.

When name is used in this way, it does not mean "the word by which a person is called," but rather "the whole nature or character of the person" as far as we know it or understand it. This is why the proverb says, "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches"

So then, to "believe in the name of Jesus Christ" means to believe in the nature and the character of Jesus Christ. It means to believe that He is the Son of God and that He stands in relation to the Father in a way that no other person in the universe ever has or ever will. It means that He can perfectly reveal the Father to us. It means that we believe He is the Savior, the High Priest, the Mediator and Intercessor, and our soon-coming King. It means that we believe that through Him we have entrance into God's presence—not just entrance to Him, but actually, fellowship with Him.

(thanks, John W. Ritenbaugh)

In fact, when you “praise the name of the Lord”, it implies that you should know that name and the character of it. For instance:

I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify Your name forevermore. (Psa 86:12)

Praise the LORD!
Praise, O servants of the LORD,
Praise the name of the LORD! (Psa 113:1)

I am the LORD (Jehovah), that is My name; (Isa 42:8)

So, we know the name of the Lord, at least this one; He has several.  What does it mean? -- the one bringing into being, life-giver, giver of existence, creator, the absolute and unchangeable one, the existing, ever living, I am.

We also know Him as Jesus which means "Jehovah is salvation". So, you see, all the way back in Eden, in tasking Adam to name all the creatures God was training Adam to know Him. Then sin entered our world, and it changed Adam’s ability to name, that is to perceive and know someone’s character.  Consequently, he hid from God and mankind has hid from God ever since.

Enter, Jesus Christ.  What Adam never understood, and what Jesus perfectly manifested – the character of God:

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father;” (John 14:9a)

Quite simply, God wants us to know Him.  In fact, He wants the whole cosmos to truly know Him. The NAME says it all.

Eternal Life

John 17:3

You know, life is not simply living any more than love is simply a hand-shake.  A heart beat, a breath, standing upright are signs of living but not signs of life.  To put it frankly, living in this world is simply a sham, a fraud, a deceit because it isn’t life, it is death delayed. It is merely existence, at times punctuated with ‘blips’ of revelry as distractions from the harsh reality of ‘living’ in darkness.

I know that isn’t inspiring. But if you are truly born again, life, eternal life, the magnificent quality of eternal life is IN YOU.  No longer are you simply existing.  Now, your body, your ‘flesh’, is not part of this life for even when it’s ‘living’, it’s dead.  Don’t be discouraged, defeated or deceived when it does not cooperate with the life in you.  You see, for as long as you are housed in it, God intends for you to learn – to learn humility, to learn to trust Him – truly trust Him, to learn to listen, to learn faithfulness and obedience.

Understand, you are not your ‘flesh’. Your flesh, despite its influence on your soul, is not you. When you are saved, you are “one Spirit” with the Lord (See 1 Cor 6:17).  You don’t work for that, it’s a gift.  Just as Adam and Eve did not make Eden – God did, and placed them in it in order to have fellowship with them.  Their original purpose was to know God and that purpose which they lost, was re-established for us in Christ.

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3)

So, let’s explore some more about this eternal life.  In doing so, I’ll borrow a bit from a couple of my fellow bloggers.

What is eternal life? It is first of all uncreated; and as such it is self-existing and ever-existing; unlimited; full of attributes; and indestructible.

Being eternal is one of God’s qualities; He is the Self-Existing and Ever-Existing One. Some translators use the term “everlasting life,” but this does not capture the meaning, for everlasting merely refers to time without end. In actuality, with God there is nothing called time. Eternity has to do with the quality and nature of this life. This life is eternal because it is the life of the self-existing and ever-existing God; it is eternal because it is unlimited and indestructible.

So now, what are the attributes of this life? We may be familiar with the commonly mentioned attributes of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. I would also bring to your attention that oneness is also a divine attribute. When you consider the oneness of the Triune God, you must acknowledge how wonderful a thing such oneness is. On this earth, there is no such thing. 

When you are one with this Person Who is the eternal life (John 14:6), you are also one with His transcending power. When I’m one with Christ, I’m one with His love, light, holiness, righteousness, oneness, purity, singleness, harmoniousness, and I’m one with His power because these are all in Him, these are all attributes of this one eternal Person.

So then, what kind of power does God possess? Resurrection power! Ascending power! Enthroning power! The power that is infinity and thus overcomes all limitations! This power is another of His attributes.  (Thanks Titus Chu for some of this.)

Now, though I’m glad “eternal life” includes the grandeur of the new heaven and new earth, its focus really is elsewhere. Eternal life is a quality of life before a quantity—it’s knowing Jesus Christ and our heavenly Father in the most intimate relationship imaginable. This is the essence, heartbeat, crux, core, magnificent splendor of eternal life.

To know God is to begin the journey of fulfilling our deepest longings for connection, relationship, and intimacy. No mere humans can satisfy these insatiable cravings—not a spouse, children, friends, parents, co-workers… only God. Only His Holy Spirit is powerful enough to bring us into such intimacy, and to take us further up and further into the matchless riches of such grace. 

To know our Lord is to be fully known—in all of our brokenness, beauty, weakness and neediness. Equally, it’s to be fully loved—way beyond our current grasp or capacity to imagine, as well as the immensely powerful hope that such a relationship with Him could be ours.  (Thanks Scotty Smith for some of this.)

Is He your Shepherd? He said:

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.  And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.” (John 10:27-30)

Do you understand His message?

“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20)

Yes, eternal life is a quality of life and that quality is entirely based upon your relationship with “the Way, the Truth and the Life.”  So, I’ll take quality over quantity any time, even when there is no more time!  Love the Lord!

One of Christ's Commands

Mark 13:37

Among the important words in Christianity – love, faith, peace, joy, kindness, etc. there is one that is rarely mentioned but vitally important.  It was one of Jesus’ commands, a fervent command and yet we tend to yawn at it.  Even the disciples were rebuked because they could not do it for even one hour.  (See Mat 26:40)

We need to understand it from a spiritual perspective, not so much physical.  If we believe Jesus, we’ll do it; if we don’t or don’t care about His commands or we don’t really love Him, we won’t do it and sad to say, we may even mock those who do. 

Some say doing it is just too intense for them.  Some think that to do it is fruitless or boring.  Some say they are too involved in ‘more meaningful’ activities ‘for the Lord’. They just don’t get it.

Most, if not all these excuses show a lack of understanding of the nature of this command. 

“And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”  (Mark 13:37)

“Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luk 21:36)

Jesus is talking about His return, and He commanded us to:

“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.” (Mat 24:42)

Now, quite simply to watch means to stay awake and alert. So, clearly the Lord wasn’t saying stay physically awake and alert but rather He’s speaking to a condition of the inner man. In Revelation, He addressed the church in Sardis as having “a name that you are alive, but you are dead” – serious indeed.  And He also says, 

“Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.” (Rev 3:3)

In this verse, we can see that to not watch is the counterpoint or opposite to remember how you received and heard the gospel and hold it fast.

With Sardis, it is apparent that He is referring to His instantaneous appearing at the rapture but He also speaks to the remnant of Jewish believers during the Tribulation when He says,

“..you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately.  Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them.” (Luk 12:36,37)

So, watching is synonymous with having a real relationship with your Savior – not lip service or just going through motions.  Even in the times of greatest trial, when you know Him and know His love, you will always remember His words and hold them in your heart.  You’ll watch.

When Love Waits

John 11

Then the angel, whom I saw standing on the sea and on the earth, lifted up his right hand to heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, WHO CREATED HEAVEN AND THE THINGS IN IT, AND THE EARTH AND THE THINGS IN IT, AND THE SEA AND THE THINGS IN IT, that there will be delay no longer, but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as He proclaimed good news to His servants, the prophets. (Rev 10:5-7)

Sometimes, God waits, and we’ve all gotten used to accepting the old adage that He does things ‘in His time’.  As we can see above, there will come a time when His mystery is finished and He will proclaim via His angel that there will be no more delay.  What’s this mystery?  Wait for it…

But generally, we do not do well with His delays, in fact, we can get pretty freaked out.  Even the best of us can react this way.  The prophet Daniel cried out to God, 

“O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.” (Dan 9:19)   

King David cried desperately, 

But I am poor and needy;
Make haste to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay. (Psa 70:5)

But then when his heart was stronger, he also exhorted us to look to the Lord in times of delay.

Behold, the eye of Yahweh is on those who fear Him, on those who wait for His lovingkindness, (Psa 33:18)

Why are you in despair, O my soul?

And why are you disturbed within me?

Wait for God, for I shall still praise Him,

For the salvation of His presence. (Psa 42:5)

And the prophet Micah echoed the same thing:

But as for me, I will watch expectantly for Yahweh;

I will wait for the God of my salvation.

My God will hear me.  (Mic 7:7)

Now the Jewish people need this encouragement in particular because the Lord has made them wait for two thousand years as He has extended His grace to the gentile world.  By the way, according to 2 Pet 3:8, that’s two days:

“But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.”

So that brings me to the reason for this lesson and helps me better understand the story of Jesus with Lazarus when it says,

Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.  And it was the Mary who anointed the Lord with perfume, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.

So, the sisters sent to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick."

But when Jesus heard this, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it."

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  So, when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days in the place where He was.  (John 11:1-6)

Yes, Jesus made them wait two days and when He arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.  That corresponds to four thousand years, prophetically.  And take special note that the scripture says He waited those two days because He loved them.  Huh? And note, also that the call of Abram was just about four thousand years ago. Hmmm.

You see, I’m convinced that Lazarus is indeed a type or prophetic symbol of the Jews.  Christ’s coming to Him was delayed for two days because of love and as he was in the grave for four days, in like manner, the Jews have been spiritually dead (i.e. separated from God) for two thousand years because of their rejection of Christ, and even for four thousand years – why?  Because although they have walked in humble acknowledgement of and loyalty to and even service to God it has not been in union with God because that union can only come from trusting in the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So why did they reject their Savior?  How could they go two thousand years in disbelief - ‘in the grave’ so to speak? Blindness.

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.  (Rom 11:25)

You see, as Paul wrote, they were blinded so that the Gospel could be taken around the world.

“Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My Elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.” (Isa 42:1)

Just as the book of Revelation declares above, this “good news” was proclaimed to/by the prophets, and as for their blindness – this was spoken of by prophets like Isaiah and Moses (See Deut 29:4 and Isa 29:10 as examples).  Why even the life of Jesus (that’s His testimony) portrayed this with Lazarus. John recorded:

And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev 19:10)

All this is to say that Jesus waited for two days because He loved Lazarus and his sisters. And, He’s waited two prophetic days for the same reason – He loves His people.

 

Head-Scratcher

John 10:1-4

"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

"But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

"To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

"And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.  (John 10:1-4)

Whenever Jesus gave the Pharisees an allegory to consider, you can imagine them just scratching their heads (or turbans) and here He goes again.  In context, He’s not directing this only at His followers but at His detractors.  Starting off, He says there’s a sheepfold (lit. sheep palace) with a doorway.  He then says there is only one way into this sheep palace – the door. 

Every other religion in the world is somehow based upon works – climbing up to heaven.  The one and only true religion is about trust and relationship with God.  The sheep trust the Shepherd because they know the Shepherd.  He says that all other religions are thieves and robbers because as agents of the wicked one, they want to steal your soul away from the Father.

A few verses later, He tells us that He is the door. And this agrees with the declaration, “I am the way the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)   

Then He states that there is the shepherd, not shepherds.  Just one, who enters by the door. Now, as I mentioned, Jesus will soon say that He is the door, and He will also say that He is the Shepherd of the sheep.  So, is he telling them the door enters by the door?  Yes, but like I said, for a Pharisee, it was a head-scratcher. 

You see, Jesus is the Door and of course you use a door to enter someplace; additionally, to do that you must trust that the door leads into someplace you want to enter.  You must trust the door so to speak.  So Jesus is saying, if you want to get into the sheepfold, heaven, you have to trust Me and enter Me. It’s about trusting One Who is higher than you.  For us, it’s Jesus; for Jesus, it’s the Father.

“If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.”  (John 14:28b)

So, Jesus is the Door and Jesus is the Shepard.  “He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.”  Jesus entered (re-entered) heaven by trusting/obeying in the Father and thereby led the way before His sheep as a shepherd.  

We know that Jesus is the only way to the Father for us.  How about for Jesus? How did He come before the Father?  By the obedience of the cross.  That was the only way.  In the garden, Jesus prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.”  Jesus chose to obey and trust the Father.  That was His door. And in entering it, He became our “Chief Sheperd” 

"To him the doorkeeperopens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” 

Now, Who is this Doorkeeper? I believe this is the Holy Spirit – He is the One Who opens hearts, our hearts, and that’s when we hear our Shepherd’s Voice.  And the Shepherd leads His flock in and out of the sheepfold. You see, the sheepfold is for protection, but the sheep also need to eat.  So the Shepherd also leads us out to green pastures – places of ministry. Remember, Jesus told His disciples, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.” (John 4:34)  And the Psalmist adds, 

                A Psalm of David. Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. (Psa 23:1-3)

So, the Shepherd leads us out and He Himself is our protection – to do ministry and in the process to be refreshed and restored.  You see, this parable is about life - 

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

And, it’s about how we get that life – 

                "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.”  (John 10:11)

That is, Jesus gave His life for us.  And…

                “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me,”  (John 10:14)

We get to have a relationship with the Shepherd, to know Him.  And that relationship leads to wonderful rewards - 

And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. (1 Pet 5:4)

So, for His sheep, this isn’t a ‘head-scratcher’.  It’s a glorious promise of life, relationship and rewards – just listen to Him, trust and follow.

 

Babel

Gen 6:5

A long time ago, just after the flood of Noah, as mankind began to repopulate the earth, the evil-hearted who did not trust God decided to build for themselves a city with a tower. It was called Babel.  Now God wanted men to spread out but these people were against that and intended to band together.

God knew that this unity would be problematic and would recreate the same conditions on the planet that moved Him to send the flood.

And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. (Gen 11:6)

To a prideful human heart, it might appear that God simply wanted to hold them back, that He didn’t want them to advance.  But this is again the same thinking that the serpent in Eden used on Eve.

The reality is that if they could do all “that they have imagined to do”, there would be a big problem for preceding the flood:

“… GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen 6:5)

So, once again, God decided to protect them from themselves.  However, soon after this, along came the one the Bible calls “the mighty hunter against the Lord”, Nimrod.  He used this place to build his own city that he named Babylon. Years later, the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, brought his army to Jerusalem and leveled it.  He took the holy articles from the treasury and the temple and brought them back to Babylon along with many select boys, one of whom was Daniel.

It was this king, Nebby, that forced Daniel the prophet to interpret his dream in Daniel chapter two. See my devotional, “Dreamworld” for more on that. Succinctly, the dream prophetically displayed all the kingdoms that would rule over the Jews and Jerusalem.

So, its not surprising that the name Babylon comes up again at the end of our age:

And he (one of God’s angels) cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.  (Rev 18:2)

 Babylon started off as a tower, became a city and then a regional empire and in the final end-times represents the entire planet.  The heavenly angel declares that Planet Babylon has become the home of all the evil in the cosmos – yep, that’s Earth under Satan’s rule. The name Babylon means “confusion” and that’s appropriate because all the deceit and evil in every corner, in every heart, will bring with it great confusion.

But don’t  let that circumstance cause you any fear or concern.  When the angel declares this, the church is in heaven having been taken there at the rapture/resurrection.  In the meantime, the stage is being set and indeed the days are globally going from bad to worse.  More war and violence is ‘on the menu’,  more delusion and deception, more hatred – the world is indeed a war zone spiritually. 

John Rich, the singer, has put out a new song and video that highlights this. It’s called Revelation.  This is the link:

https://youtu.be/Yk6YPFCUaqA?si  to open it, right-click and open the hyperlink.  Hope you enjoy it.

 

What's It Going to Be?

John 6:28

As believers, it’s important for us to put ‘first things’ first and ‘major on the majors’.  Sadly, the preponderance of us are like the men in John chapter six who wanted more banquet miracles (loaves and fishes).  They ran after Christ, but Jesus tested their motives and gave them something to ponder when He said,

“Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”  (John 6:27)

Oh, most of us are not going after Jesus to be fed, but we do get hung up on the doing.  What do I mean?

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? (John 6:28)

You see, our minds can more easily understand doing something to earn God’s favor and we often put that doing first before anything else.  And for that reason, our churches are ‘running over’ with people willing to attend, to give, to work, but coming up short on spiritual depth.  Christ gave them an answer that for many is still a conundrum today:

Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent. (John 6:29)

In fact, the whole notion of ‘being’ is important to God.  It’s a ‘first thing’.  For instance:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. (Gen 17:1)

‘For I am the LORD who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. (Lev 11:45)

Be still, and know that I am God; (Psa 46:10)

“Look to Me, and be saved,

All you ends of the earth!

For I am God, and there is no other. (Isa 45:22)

Yes, to be blameless, to be holy, to be still and know, to be saved, these are ‘first things’ with God.  And they follow the first of the first things – believing on Him whom He has sent – Jesus.

That’s because being these things is directly linked to KNOWING God.

‘Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart. (Jer 24:7)

And, of course, many of you realize that the verb ‘to be’ is an existential verb.  "To be" is a verb, like, I am, you are, he/she/it/one is, we are, they are, etc.  Notice each of these ‘first thing’ being statements also includes God saying, “I am”. In fact, He introduced Himself to Moses that way:

And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.' ” (Ex 3:14)And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

In the Hebrew, this “I AM” is YHWH.  Scholars say that YHWH is … derived from the Hebrew verb hayah, which means “to be.” 

Latin-speaking Christian scholars replaced the Y (which does not exist in Latin) with an I or a J (the latter of which exists in Latin as a variant form of I). Thus, the tetragrammaton became the artificial Latinized name Jehovah (JeHoWaH). 

“Scripture says Christ embodies every attribute that is true of Jehovah, Colossians 2:9: "For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form." And Hebrews 1:3 says Christ "is the radiance of [Jehovah's] glory and the exact representation of His nature. Jesus is Jehovah God.” -- C.H. Spurgeon

All that is to say that Jesus is I AM.  He said so Himself – 

                Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:58)

So here’s the summary – getting the ‘first of the first things’ (believing in Jesus) leads to the rest of the ‘first things’ as you are fully submitted to Jesus. And they lead to Knowing God.  So what’s it going to be?

I Will Work With That

John 1:46

So often, the scripture shows us that the very thing(s) that we think disqualify us, or that give us doubts about ourselves or even God, are the things that God shows, ‘I will work with that.’ 

And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” John 1: 46

 Now, Jesus, when He saw Nate approaching said, “Behold, an Israelite with no deceit!” (I paraphrase) We don’t know a lot about his background or character, but we can certainly trust Jesus.  Nate was a straight shooter.  So, when he doubted that anything good could come out of Jesus’ hometown, it was an honest doubt.  It was sincere.

What was the nature or source of his doubt?  Perhaps he had some personal history that prejudiced him or maybe he’d heard so many bad reports from other people that he was entirely convinced.  It could have been a social/religious or even political deal for history shows us that Nazareth did not have the greatest of reputations politically. Following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, the Roman armory in Sepphoris (four miles from Nazareth) was robbed, and the Romans retaliated by crucifying 2,000 Jews as a disincentive to such revolts. Whatever the case, Nate was dead set against the notion that the Messiah could come from such a place. 

Now, his doubt wasn’t born out of apathy. He doubted precisely because he cared about the coming of the Savior intensely.  You see, he was evidently one who looked for the Messiah.  His friend, Philip, was like-minded.  Here’s the story:

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

And Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!"

Nathanael said to Him, "How do You know me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." (John 1:45-48)

“Under the fig tree” was a phrase Rabbis used to describe meditation on the Scriptures.  And, because of this, there’s a lot of speculation about whether Jesus actually saw him or was referring to a spiritual observation.  In either event, what mattered was that Christ’s statement was like a trigger that ignited a bomb of sorts blowing up Nate’s doubt. 

Something about Nazareth had clouded Nate’s mind but Jesus brought in the light, swept away the clouds and Nazareth was no longer an issue.  This is the doubt that many people hold to who want the truth but can’t get past the prejudice of their ‘logic’ or the frustration of ‘rabbit-holes’ that turn up empty.

Then, there was Thomas, the disciple also known as the “Twin” who was so adamantly a doubter that even today we can refer to someone who’s doubtful as a “doubting Thomas”.  Tom’s character was a fervent and expressive one. When Jesus told his group of followers that He was headed to a little settlement close to Jerusalem (in order to raise Lazarus from the grave), at a time when the powerful Jews were wanting to kill Him, the scriptures say,

Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” (John 11:16)

Tom was loyal and true to what he could see.  Some speculate that he was called the Twin because he looked so much like Jesus.

But after the Lord’s torture and crucifixion he split from the rest of the disciples.  We don’t know why, but when the risen Christ appeared to the others in their hide-out, he was missing – the only one.  And when he returned, this is what happened:

Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you."

When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

So, Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you."

And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”

"If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

The other disciples therefore said to him, "We have seen the Lord." So, he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." (John 20:19-25)

You can’t help but sense Tom’s offense.  He may have thought, ‘Why did He appear when I’m gone – the only one missing?’ Clearly, he was angry and perhaps feeling left out.  His doubt wasn’t simply because he couldn’t see the Lord; I firmly believe the issue of the scars was an excuse – he was offended, feeling shunned and left alone. But God had a purpose in mind.

This is the doubt that is emotional and based in hurt or disappointment.  I have two children who have been through such a circumstance. When life is merciless and we experience bitter pain and as a result we are often ‘missing’ when Christ shows up. It can seem like everyone else ‘gets it’, everyone else is included. I mean Thomas missed the giving of the Holy Spirit (though he got it later).

But Jesus didn’t exclude Thomas, indeed, He had him in mind. Here’s the story:

And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!"

Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving but believing."

To both of these ‘doubters’, Jesus showed compassion and mercy and grace.  As a consequence, each of these men uttered the greatest confessions of the New Testament:

Nathanael answered and said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” John 1:49

And…

                And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28)

Both men followed Christ faithfully for the rest of their lives even unto death.  And perhaps, Jesus had John in mind too because it was this incident that he says stirred him to write the Gospel of John:

Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (like us)

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.   (John 20:29-31)

Both these men were honest about their doubts.  You can be too.  God can handle them; in fact, He will work with them and ‘blow them away’.

It's Getting Nuts 'Out There'

Mat 24:37

Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. (Gen 6:5,6)

In like manner, our current societies are becoming filled with anger and violence.  To back up this statement, if it isn’t obvious, I’ve clipped a few segments of semi-recent research on this topic which follow:

When people think of violence, they think of war. But about 83 percent of violent deaths now occur outside conflict zones. From 2007 to 2014, more civilians died violently in Mexico than in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2015, Brazil had more violent deaths than Syria.

 

And what about the media we are addicted to?  Is it a contributor?

Among the same study participants, now at age 30, early exposure to TV violence did correlate with self reports of adult aggression among men (Huesmann & Miller, 1994), including the “severity” of criminal behavior (Wilson, 2008);

A 15-year study of 500 individuals, released in 2003, followed children from the 1st or 3rd grades into their early to mid-20s (Huesmann, Moise-Titus, Podolski, & Eron, 2003). This study, which did control for parental aggression as well as early IQ, social class, and other variables, found that heavy exposure to TV violence in childhood predicted increased physically aggressive behavior in adulthood for both boys and girls (based on self-reports) (Bushman & Huesmann, 2012). Among the findings were that “heavy viewers of violent TV shows in 1st and 3rd grade were three times more likely to be convicted of criminal behavior by the time they were in their 20s” (Bushman & Huesmann, 2012). Specifically, males who had watched large amounts of violent television during childhood were “nearly twice as likely to have assaulted their spouses 15 years later, 18% more likely to have threatened or used a knife or gun on someone in the last year, and significantly more likely to have been arrested for a crime” (Bushman & Huesmann, 2012)

“The most recent meta-analysis of research about video game violence (Anderson, Shibuya, Ihori, Swing, Bushman, Sakamoto, Rothstein, & Saleem, 2010) included 12 longitudinal studies that met the “best practices” criteria and that explored the effect on physical aggression. These studies, some of which were conducted internationally, included a total sample of 4,526 participants. They found a positive relationship between amount of time spent playing violent video games and later violent behavior.”

“Children exposed to violent programming at a young age have a higher tendency for violent and aggressive behavior later in life than children who are not so exposed.” 

American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, & American Psychiatric Association

Media and Violence: An Analysis of Current Research

A Common Sense Media Research Brief 2013

“Meta-analysis suggests that effect of media violence is positive on aggression based anxiety. The anxiety that stems from the viewing violence in media. Theoretical frameworks like social learning theory also supports the assumptions that exposure to media showing aggression increases the anxiety of people who are exposed.”

MEDIA VIOLENCE AND ANXIETY: A META-ANALYSIS ON THE OUTCOMES OF AGGRESSION BASED ANXIETY 2024

“Research suggests that young people in the United States spend more time interacting with various digital media than in any other activity except sleeping, with a typical 8- to 18-year-old using some form of media for an average of 50 hours per week or more.21 On average, U.S. teens spend more than seven hours per day consuming a variety of entertainment screen media (e.g., smartphone, social media, gaming, music) and 8- to 12-year-olds spend more than four hours per day.”

“In 2000, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a report noting that media violence is a risk factor in shootings in school.25 A 2003 review identified media violence as a significant causal factor in aggression and violence.26 The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a 2007 report on violent programming on television and noted that there is “strong evidence” that exposure to violence through media can increase aggressive behavior in children.”

“These reports and others are based on a body of literature that includes more than 2,000 scientific papers, studies, and reviews demonstrating the various effects that exposure to media violence can have on children and adolescents. These include increases in aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, bullying, fear, depression, nightmares, and sleep disturbances.  Some studies found the strength of association between consumption of violent media and these behaviors to be nearly as strong as the association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, …”

“Nearly all American teens—97% of males and 83% of females—play video games. Many video games contain violent content, and studies have shown a significant association between violent video game exposure and increased aggression, increased desensitization to violence, and decreased empathy.” 

Violence in the Media and Entertainment, AAFP 2020

“…thoughts that cause distress and are often unprompted are known as intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are not uncommon, and in fact, studies have shown that more than 94 percent of people have experienced intrusive thoughts at least once in the last three months.” – WebMD

 

Of course, I could continue to cite from literally thousands of references that all lead us to the same conclusion – it’s getting nuts ‘out there’.  Add to that violence in the Middle East, violence in Ukraine and the threat of violence all around the world. 

Now, the reason I bring all this up is because as I opened with, violence was the key characteristic of the world before the flood, that is the flood of Noah’s day.  Jesus Himself said that:

“But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Mat 24:37 and Lu 17:26)

So, keep spiritually alert. Watch!  This sad state is just another sign that the Lord’s return is near.

 

 

 

 

Face to Face

1 Cor 13:12

I’ve written about our identities as born again believers – we are human beings made perfect or complete spiritually by Christ as His Spirit lives in us and one day soon we’ll be perfectly perfect when He transforms our earthly bodies to be like His own heavenly body – fitted for eternity if you would.  That will happen, we are told, at the rapture/resurrection:

             Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (to change, to exchange one thing for another, to transform).

             For this corruptible must put on (clothe one's self in) incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

            So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. (1 Cor 15:51-54)

In the meantime, we are told to consider our flesh as dead.

                Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.  (Rom 6:11)

                Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. (Col 3:5)

So, as you can see, our sinful flesh is still, in this life, part of the ‘equation’.  Now, God sees us as complete, perfect because of the indwelling presence of His Son, Jesus.  But He also knows that presently we are saddled with a ‘dusty’ body, a tent so to speak.

                For He Himself knows our form; He remembers that we are but dust.  (Psa 103:14)

He knows that our dead, dusty body is like a sin-megaphone, constantly trying to make us think it’s still alive.  He knows that we will occasionally listen and stumble.

                If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

                If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. ( 1 John 1:8,10)

               If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

So, we are not to ignore our sin or dismiss it.  Understand that it’s not us, not our spirits – Christ redeemed us.  It’s the ‘not us’ – the dead flesh that continues to encourage sin. This is what Paul recognized in Romans 7:15-25.  We are to ‘lay it aside’ (i.e. stop it in its tracks).

            Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (Heb 12:1)

Therefore, as 1 John 1:9 says, we are to confess it – to the Lord.  When we do, He forgives us and cleanses us completely; there’s no trace of its stink.  This process teaches us truthfulness, humility and trust – all while we are indeed perfect spiritually, but our souls are still being transformed into the complete image of Jesus Christ.

            But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed (changed into another form, transformed, transfigured) into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

             For now we see through (look into) a glass (mirror), darkly (lit. obscurely); but then face to face: now I know (perceive) in part (partially); but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Cor:13:12)

You see, if you are truly born again, you’re learning to trust Him all the time. You’re learning to be honest about yourself and to recognize Him in you and actually AS YOU. Of course, if you’re like the rest of us, you probably are thinking, I only see Him in me occasionally.

Trust me, He said that if you came to Him, He’d never leave you.

              Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  (Heb 13:5)

But to see Him, you must take the veil off (unveiled face).  That is, be honest and open (no ‘fig leaves like Adam and Eve).  If you are, you are going to transform, by God’s Spirit with increasing glorious trust in Him, and the evidence/fruit of His Spirit will become more obvious.  I say trust because for now, your dead flesh ‘clouds’ the view so to speak. 

When you look into that mirror of your soul, who do you see reflected?  The greater you learn to trust and submit your ‘all’ to Him, the clearer the view of Him will be.  Oh, He’s always there in your spirit in utter perfection.  But as you abide in Him and allow Him to express Himself to and through you, you’ll realize His glory.  And one day the view will be “face to face”.

 

Humbling Three Revisited

Daniel 7

I think it’s time to revisit some of my ‘last days lessons’.  One in particular is “Humbling Three” which is based upon a section of Daniel chapter seven.  In it, I cited information on the Transatlantic Union which just petered out. But low and behold, another initiative popped up called  the Trade and Technology Council (“TTC”).  I’ll explain why that is significant a little later.

In the meantime, I’ll step through Daniel Seven verses 19 through 27 and explain what it pertains to and why it’s important.  You may want to take a few notes and do your own study.  The section begins with the prophet Daniel speaking to an angelic helper (v16) about a vision he experienced:

“Then I wished to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the others, exceedingly dreadful, with its teeth of iron and its nails of bronze, which devoured, broke in pieces, and trampled the residue with its feet; and the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn which came up, before which three fell, namely, that horn which had eyes and a mouth which spoke pompous words, whose appearance was greater than his fellows.”

“I was watching; and the same horn was making war against the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and a judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom.”

In Chapter Seven, Daniel describes a vision of four beasts; he goes into detail on each one – I’ve dealt more with that in my lesson entitled “Daniel 7 – the Quartet?”. Herein, our focus is upon the fourth beast.  This forth beast is traditionally said to be Rome (the iron legs of Daniel 2) but is also said to foreshadow the Antichrist government (the iron and clay feet and toes of Daniel 2) which arises out of the old Roman empire (principally Europe and the Arab dominated Middle East and North Africa).  I think this creature does indeed picture the Antichrist government which I’ll suggest will arise out of Europe (which, by the way is particularly supportive of the Arab world). 

This war against the saints is the antichrist’s attacks against the Jewish believers during the up-coming tribulation time.  Therein the AC will indeed seem to prevail over them until the Ancient of Days – Jesus Christ – comes and deals a crushing blow.  Daniel’s narrative continues with the angel’s explanation:    

“Thus he said:
‘The fourth beast shall be
A fourth kingdom on earth,
Which shall be different from all other kingdoms,
And shall devour the whole earth,
Trample it and break it in pieces.”

Historical accounts clearly describe Rome’s behavior as a trampling and breaking in pieces during its conquests. 

“The ten horns are ten kings
Who shall arise from this kingdom.
And another shall rise after them;
He shall be different from the first ones,
And shall subdue three kings.”

So, who are these ten kings? There are several good theories. One points out that there are ten European founding members of NATO. NATO's original members in 1949 were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.  That’s 12 but of course, the UK and the US are not in the EU.

Another theory points out:

 The 10 NATO Countries With the Largest Militaries:

  • United States.
  • Turkey.
  • France.
  • Germany.
  • Italy.
  • United Kingdom.
  • Greece.
  • Spain.

 

However, the US and Turkey are not in the EU.  For this reason, I think the first theory is more likely.

Now, who are the three that need to be “humbled”?  “The EU three, also known as EU big three, EU triumvirate, EU trio or simply E3, refers to France, Germany and Italy, a group that consists of the three large founding members of the European Union.” 

 

And the prophecy adds that another ‘horn’ or power, the anti-christ, will arise after the ten horns:

 

“He shall speak pompous words against the Most High,
Shall persecute the saints of the Most High,
And shall intend to change times and law.
Then the saints shall be given into his hand
For a time and times and half a time.”

So, it will look grim for the saints – the Jewish tribulation believers, especially during the last half of the seven year long tribulation.

“‘But the court shall be seated,
And they shall take away his dominion,
To consume and destroy it forever.

You see, the AC is going DOWN.  When Christ comes again with His hosts, that evil one is toast.

Then the kingdom and dominion,
And the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven,
Shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High.
His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.’”  (Dan 7:19-27)

Now, earlier in verses nine and ten we see portrayed the judgments of the Ancient of Days– definitely an end time event.  Then, in verse eleven, the beast (the AC government) is slain and its body is given to the “burning flame”.  This may not be the same event, but it is probably tied to the one described in Revelation 19 and 20 where the AC and his false prophet are cast into the lake of fire.   

So, you can see that this ‘other’ or ‘little horn’ the anti-christ, is bad news for the world and especially for the Jewish nation.  We read more about him in the book of Revelation (see my commentary “Fire Eyes”). In that book, we find something called the “image of the beast” which seems to be an artificial intelligence (AI) and a decree for the whole world to take a ‘mark’ that qualifies eligibility to buy and sell in the AC economy (the buy and sell club).  As an information scientist/engineer, it’s clear to me that managing such a large scale campaign will require enormous computing capability, biotechnology  and highly advanced computing and digital technology.

For that reason, I am watching the progress of the “TTC” mentioned above.  The following snippets are taken from its website:

The sixth ministerial meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (“TTC”) took place in Leuven, Belgium, on 4 and 5 April 2024.

The acceleration of the digital transformation creates unprecedented opportunities for growth and innovation but also raises numerous risks and challenges that call for accelerating our efforts to establish joint leadership and continue robust coordination on our approaches for creating rules of the road for emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum technologies, and 6G wireless communication systems.

Working with stakeholders, we continue to use the TTC to advance the governance of critical and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, semiconductors, biotechnology, and online platforms

We intend to continue our trade and technology cooperation as set out below.

The United States and the European Union reaffirm our commitment to a risk-based approach to artificial intelligence (AI) and to advancing safe, secure, and trustworthy AI technologies.

We are also united in our belief of the potential of AI to address some of the world’s greatest challenges.

The United States and the European Union established a Quantum Task Force to address open questions on science and technology cooperation between the United States and the European Union on quantum technologies.  (High speed computing)

The United States and the European Union affirm the importance of the rapid mobilization to secure our digital communication networks against the threats posed by the potential for a future cryptanalytically-relevant quantum computer.

The coordination on our respective efforts to build resilient semiconductor supply chains remains crucial to the secure supply of semiconductors, which are indispensable inputs to an ever-growing range of key industry sectors, and to ensure leadership in cutting-edge technologies.

We acknowledge the significant promise and risks associated with the integration of advanced biotechnology (mark of the beast) with other technological disciplines such as AI, information technology, nanotechnology, neurotechnology, chemistry, and medicine, which will drive innovation and have significant implications for academia, industry, and economic security.

Following a successful round of government-to-government technical exchanges, the European Commission and U.S. government released a Digital Identity Mapping Exercise Report.

The next phase of this project will focus on identifying potential use cases for transatlantic interoperability and cooperation with a view toward enabling the cross-border use of digital identities and wallets.

The United States and the European Union are advancing discussions with relevant financial institutions for the mobilisation of support for secure digital connectivity infrastructure projects with trusted vendors. (buy and sell ‘club’)

Since its inaugural meeting on 29 September 2021, the TTC has realized substantial progress… for safe, secure, and trustworthy AI globally ; to advance the resilience and security of our ICT infrastructures; and to finance and promote secure connectivity with trusted suppliers around the world. (buy and sell ‘club’)

As you can see, we are very close to the prophesied worldwide oppression of ‘666’.  Let’s keep our eyes OPEN.

 

 

 

 

Your True Identity

Phi 3:12

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. (Phi 3:12 LSB)

Jesus told us that the path of discipleship would be difficult (see Mat 7:14).  Some of that difficulty is from the outside, it’s external to us and some of it is internal.  Paul expressed some of this latter part when he wrote, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24)

What he came to understand was the dichotomy:

                “So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Rom 7:25)  I believe this is what he meant when he wrote that he had not yet become perfect (complete).

But for the born-again believer there is a sense in which we are indeed perfect. Let me explain:

                “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” (1 Cor 6:17)

This “joining” is what Jesus prayed for:

“that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” (John 17:21-23 NKJV)

More specifically, this union, which by the way is two-way, in Christ’s ‘absence’ is accomplished by His Spirit:

“A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” (John 14:16,17,19,20 NKJV)

“And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”

What this means is that, once you are joined with Christ, by His Spirit, you are spiritually perfect but not perfectly perfect.  What do I mean? 

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Cor 3:18 LSB)

There is a transformation going on. And Christ is patient with it:

“It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost. Yet for this reason I was shown mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Christ Jesus might demonstrate all His patience as an example for those who are going to believe upon Him for eternal life.”  (1 Tim 1:15,16 LSB)

 You see, Paul came to understand the ‘dichotomy’, but God is not finished.  The ‘perfectly perfect’ we all can look forward to is the perfection of our identity.  Our reborn spirit is alive in Christ and our sinful flesh is dead.  Thus, we are not yet completely perfect for our identity is “human being” – body, soul and spirit.

            God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our  likeness;” (Gen 1:26)

Then Yahweh God formed man of dust from the ground (body) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (spirit); and so the man became a living being (lit. soul). (Gen 2:7 LSB)

Jesus showed us the ‘finished product’ so to speak when He showed Himself to the disciples after His resurrection:

“Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” (Lu 24:39)    

Christ led the way for us:

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.”   (Phi 3:20,21)

“And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.” (1 Cor 15:49)

“Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed-- in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” (1 Cor 15:51-53)

Why isn’t God finished?  Why is the ‘dichotomy’ not the end?

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Rom 8:29)

So how you perceive yourself is very important to your overall health.  Do you think Christianity is a self-improvement program? Do you continue to try to overcome sin?  I hope not because Jesus settled that once and for all.  Do you just continue in your sin?  I hope not because if so, you haven’t realized who you are – your identity in Christ.  If you’re identifying yet with your ‘flesh’, you’ve missed the point of salvation, the indwelling of Christ in you.  You are a human being, if saved, you’re redeemed by the blood of Jesus and one day soon you will be a glorified human being transformed by the power of Jesus.

Yes, you are complete, you are perfect.  Trust God for that – from heaven’s perspective, it’s done.  For now, you must learn to trust the Lord that He is IN you and you are IN Him.  Thus, your sins are paid for in full.  You can truly enter, even now, into His rest – like God with the Sabbath, cease from your own works, your own efforts to ‘be like Him’, to overcome sin on your own.  The ‘dichotomy’ is not your end; being ‘perfectly perfect’ is. 

And like Paul, our calling is clear:

“Him we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.” (Col 1:28 LSB)


 

Heavenly Things

John 3

Nicodemus seems to have been pretty unconventional among the religious elite of his day.  (See John 3) He actually listened to Jesus and wanted to understand.  The rest or most of the rest were closed-minded.  Jesus called them white-washed tombs – pretty much ‘dead men walking’ spiritually. 

And Nick was no slouch intellectually.  He was a known teacher.  But Jesus befuddled him with His “born again” assertion.

"Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?"

You have to appreciate his honesty.  After all, Christ challenged him to open his mind to some things that shook the core of his beliefs and then went even further…

Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.”

Now the capitalization we see in English was not in the Aramaic that Jesus spoke or the Koine Greek that John wrote in but the translators clearly acknowledged what Jesus was implying when He said repeatedly “We”.  That is, “My Father and I” or “All three of Us in the Godhead”.  Of course, this again challenged Nick, but then He ‘hit it out of the park’ with…

"If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven,the Son of Man…” 

The first “heavenly thing” Jesus shared showed that God in heaven does not live in time.  In fact, Jesus asserted that He ascended and came down, to and from heaven in the past – our past – because we are in time.

Now, we can read this “heavenly thing” and even if we don’t quite understand it, we can accept it and trust the Lord.  But Nick is a Pharisee, a “teacher of Israel”.  His cohorts condemned Jesus to death.  For him to ‘hang in there’ with Christ was more challenging than it was for the disciples.  So when he accompanied Joseph of Arimathea to bury the body of Jesus in the garden tomb when all the disciples were hiding in fear, you can’t help but sense that the change he went through was stunningly profound.

And the teaching continues for the teacher of Israel…

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Eternal life does not mean that this life goes on forever. Instead, eternal life also has the idea of a certain quality of life, of God’s kind of life. It is the kind of life enjoyed in eternity.  (Guzik)

More than any other man, the Pharisee’s admired Moses. But the serpent on the pole (see Num 21:8,9)  was a symbol of evil AND a symbol of salvation.  That would have been another mind-boggler for Nick.  What was symbolized and what even the disciples did not comprehend was the destiny of Jesus taking on all of our sins – becoming sin for our sakes (see 2 Cor 5:21).  Serpents are often used as pictures of evil in the Bible (Genesis 3:1-5 and Revelation 12:9). However, Moses’ serpent in Numbers 21 was made of bronze, and bronze is a metal associated with judgment in the Bible, because bronze is made with fire, a picture of judgment. So the bronze serpent was a picture of evil/sin judged which will lead Jesus into His next heavenly thing - maybe the ‘clincher’…

“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (LSB)

Note, God ordained for mankind the freedom of choice from all the way back in Eden.  However, Jesus here seems to be explaining to Nick that from heaven’s perspective, those who do not believe have already made that choice and have been judged already.  Again, there is no time as we know it in heaven.

Now we do live in time and we do NOT have that perspective; thus, as believers we are to obey the Great Commission to preach the Gospel to everyone. 

And that Gospel is summed up in the verse I skipped over so we could end with it …

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Everlasting Life: This describes the duration of God’s love. The love we receive among people may fade or turn, but God’s love will never change. He will never stop loving His people, even unto the furthest distance of eternity.

We may say there are Seven Wonders in John 3:16.

God -- The Almighty Authority

So loved the world -- The Mightiest Motive

That He gave His only begotten Son -- The Greatest Gift

That whoever -- The Widest Welcome

Believes in Him -- The Easiest Escape

Should not perish -- The Divine Deliverance

But have everlasting life -- The Priceless Possession

“If there is one sentence more than another which sums up the message of the Fourth Gospel, it is this. The love of God is limitless; it embraces all mankind. No sacrifice was too great to bring its unmeasured intensity home to men and women: the best that God had to give, he gave — his only Son, his well-beloved.” (Guzik/Bruce)

This is the greatest of the “heavenly things” Christ shared.

 

Can't See!

Genesis 3

Understanding how ‘it’ all began is a fundamental help in growing or maturing as a believer.  For that reason, I love to ponder our beginnings. Why do we act and think the way we do? Let’s consider Genesis chapter three. The Holy Spirit tells us that a creature referred to simply as a serpent in most translations appeared in the garden that God had made for communing with mankind.  It says that he was the most cunning or crafty land animal that God had made.  Interesting that this serpent could speak, and he engaged Eve, Adam’s mate with a question that baited her into a trap of sorts.

                “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

The immediate implication was that God was being arbitrarily restrictive.  So Eve tried to explain to this creature that was clearly Satan or possessed by Satan.

                  “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”

At this point, the serpent could tell that Eve was in over her head because God said nothing about touching the tree.  Where did she get that part from?  Perhaps Adam in wanting to protect her added that part on his own.  We don’t know.

But that’s when the serpent struck.

               “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So, there were multiple lies in this attack.  First, death indeed came into our existence.  Second, he asserted that God was withholding something desirable, something god-like – to know evil.  You see, the truth was that she and Adam already knew or literally perceived with the eye “good” because as the scripture tells us, at the conclusion of His creative work:

                Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.

But Eve took the bait. To “be like God” enticed her to disregard the warning.  Who was it that first wanted to “be like God”?

                 How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer (soon to be Satan), son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!

                 For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north;

                 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.'  (Isa 14:12-14)

At that point, Eve was trapped and taken captive so to speak.  She believed the serpent’s lies and decided not to believe God.  She doubted and it immediately changed how she perceived the threat.

                So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

Before she ever ate the evil fruit, she was drastically affected by the lies. Everything she saw or perceived was off.  Believing the lies turned her against God’s warning. 

                She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

Now the scripture tells us that Adam was not deceived.  He made the decision to eat himself without the serpents lies.  I submit that it’s possible that he knew they would die but was so ‘connected’ to Eve that he did not want to live without her.  Be that as it may, what God warned them about took place in multiple ways.  First, they both died spiritually.  That means that one part of their triune being, their spirit, detached, separated from God’s Spirit. You see, most literally, that’s what death is – separation from God.

Next, something in this vile fruit effected the perceptors in their brains, perhaps the cerebrum or visual cortex.  At any rate, as is evident, they could no longer perceive correctly.

                Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked…

Now they could see or rather perceive something new, evil, but more than that, as we noted, they could not perceive accurately.  What was previously good was now perceived as evil and this became the fundamental flaw in humanity.  It was imprinted into our DNA so that we are no longer independently capable of communing with or heeding our Creator.  Even the Apostle Paul said:

                 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. (Rom 7:18,19)

In addition, sin immediately brought shame which of course is based on pride which is the first and most pervasive sin of mankind:

                 And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. (Wow. That had to itch!)

Also, it brought fear – specifically, fear of God – remember, their perceptors had become corrupted:

               And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?"  So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself."

So, this is how it all started. The single decision to stop trusting God and instead, listen to Satan enslaved all of us since that time.  It brought spiritual blindness (we’re not even aware of the evil one’s influence), shame, pride, fear and later, hatred, envy and more as mankind tumbled downward and downward.

One man, and his mate, brought us from the paradise of Eden into the hell of planet ‘Babylon’.  He was created perfect – no sin.  But just like Lucifer, he had free will and his choice was calamitous.  The good news is that one Man, the Son of Man, also perfect used His free will to choose to trust and obey God and He redeemed all of creation.  It cost Him His life but with it He covered, or atoned for our sin.  This too is pictured in the beginning:

                Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.

Those tunics, those coverings cost an animal its life – the Lamb of God.  Of course, we individually, because we all have free will, have to choose whether or not to believe and accept that.  You see, Calvary was never an issue of ‘crisis management’ for God. It was in the Plan from before the beginning.

                Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,…  (2 Tim 1:8-10)

Jesus restored our sight.  Now...

Who do you trust?  The serpent, your self or the Son of God? 

Being Small

Mat 18:3

You really can’t ‘do’ small.  But this morning, I was impressed that ‘being’ small in your own estimation is something God can and will work with.  So, what does ‘being small’ mean?   

Well, first of all, it’s not really so much a physical characteristic.  It’s not being tall or short or numerous or few.  Rather it’s a character attribute that walks hand in hand with humility and lovingkindness. 

It also goes with submission and obedience to the one you esteem greater than yourself.  King Saul stood head and shoulders taller than all the rest of his countrymen, but when he ‘did his own thing without God’  Samuel the prophet said to him, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel?” (1 Sam 15:17) You see, the problem was Saul did not want to be small in anyone’s eyes.

Look around you.  Everyone, yes virtually everyone has this same mindset naturally. I say virtually because once in a while someone with a unique character fashioned by hardship or trial develops the godly ‘being small or little’ attitude.  The Psalmist had it.  He wrote in Psalm 119, “ I am small and despised, Yet I do not forget Your precepts.” (Psa 119:141)

And then, of course, is the example of Christ - Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Phi 2:5-8)

And though God is big, really big; His hand’s span stretches across the universe, He also expresses Himself to us surprisingly ‘small’ -  for instance, in dealing with a dejected, depressed Elijah, “— and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” (1 Kings 19:12) 

You see, with God, there are no size hang ups. He’s perfectly at peace, perfectly God either way, big or small.  But when he reaches out to us, it is often with the little things.  Even in providing the heavenly manna in the desert wilderness with Israel, — And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground.  (Ex 16:14) 

Of course, this foreshadows Jesus for He told his followers, “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.  I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”  (John 6:50,51) 

Thus, it’s clear that ‘being small’ is a quality God uses.  But it’s not just ‘being small’ but it’s the being period, being what God desires and that’s the difference between religion and a genuine relationship with Him. 

Being is not the same as doing because being is God’s work, not ours.  It goes all the way back to the beginning.  God’s first command was a ‘be command’ - And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. (Gen 1:3) Then He followed with seven more - And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. ... And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. ...  And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:  And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. ... And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. ...  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. (Gen 1:6, 9, 14-15, 22, 28)

So, when the Lord tells us, “…Be ye holy; for I am holy.” (1Pe 1:16 KJV) He is NOT telling us to do anything but rather to allow Him to do His work in us, to submit to the work of His Spirit. I think ‘being small’ in my own estimation is in fact part of that submission.

Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat 18:3)  So ‘being small’ is a big deal; it’s a key to entering God’s kingdom.

Perfect

Luke 23:34a

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” (Lu 23:34a)

Blood dripping from His punctured wrists and feet, with exhaustion so heavy He could not carry the cross, His back ripped open by whips, thorns pressed into His scalp, almost unrecognizable from the beatings, mocked and spit upon, jeered and taunted – the only perfect man to ever walk among us. 

These, His first words from the cross, a prayer, were not for help or comfort or vengeance – nothing for Himself at all.  It was why He came. He died just as He lived – utterly selfless, loving and forgiving. Not in all eternity past nor eternity future does any act compare – no heroism, no martyrdom, no words or deeds, nothing compares. 

No human being could do this – it took God incarnate Who revealed Himself to us and at the same time exposed the lies of the evil one. 

Now, unfortunately many if not most of us have heard and read and seen these words so often that in our minds we tend to trivialize them but these words, coming from this person – the Word, the one who created all things (see John 1) ignited the PERFECTION. 

In one moment, He Who is perfect unleashed the truly cosmic destruction of darkness and establishment of the perfection of God’s light and life into the tainted creation.  Far more, far greater, far, far, far greater than our pitifully small minds can comprehend.  The angelic host cheered in astonishment, the demons shrieked in fear, the cosmos was redeemed from evil as the Perfect heart of our Creator was revealed.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him. (Isa 64:4)

God originated that prayer and God heard that prayer and God answered that prayer and God demonstrated His approval by completing the most Holy sacrifice and raising Christ from the grave and seating Him at His right hand.  Indeed, all of creation led up to this moment. The spiritual realm became tainted by Satan and his demons, Lucifer became Satan and tainted the physical creation as well – sin, evil, death and all darkness had to be dealt with and we were created not only to be objects of His affection but instruments through which the cosmos could observe the Perfect ‘heart’ of the Perfect One.

“Father, forgive them…” Who are “them”? The soldiers? The people watching? The Hebrew nation? The Romans?  The world?  The cosmos?

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming.

Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.

For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.

The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.

For "He has put all things under His feet." But when He says "all things are put under Him," it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.

Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:22-28)

Now, we live in time. God does not.  You may say, “but I don’t see it”.  Nevertheless, in eternity, it’s done, and trust Him, in the end you will realize it.  No wonder all God’s holy ones in heaven exclaim, “Holy, Holy, Holy” to He who is indeed Perfect. Thank you, Father!

Darkness

Isaiah 60:2

Towards the end of the Tribulation, when the planet Babylon’s systems are crumbling and all hell literally has broken loose, the forces of Antichrist will come against Christ.  Rev 18 records, “And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.  And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” (Rev 18:1,2)

Yes, Satan will gather every evil, foul, unclean and hateful spirit together to our rebellious planet.

Now, it seems like a large portion of the ‘moving and shaking’ today is done either openly or behind the scenes by those we refer to as ‘elites’ or 1%’ers.  In the media, they are referred to as “influencers”.  And it’s the media that basically tells us what to believe. Which, as most of you can see, is very powerful because an enormous number of people are utterly dependent and even addicted to this media.

At the same time, what we have witnessed over the last generation is an overwhelming ‘darkness’ that has taken over this media worldwide.  I suggest that this is at least part of what Isaiah meant when he prophesied:

                For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,

                And deep darkness the people;

                But the LORD will arise over you,

               And His glory will be seen upon you. (Isa 60:2)

Fortunately, God is not ‘influenced’ by darkness, and He is not impressed by these elitists, these movers and shakers.  In fact, those who have influence so to speak in His kingdom are quite the opposite of what you would expect. In fact, His Word says:

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: (1Co 1:27-28)

Check it out – the foolish, weak, base, despised and the NOT - these are God’s elite, His chosen.

Now, Christ told his disciples to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mk 16:15) so for two millennia His ‘call’ has gone out to many, many people. 

 "For many are called but few are chosen.”  (Matt 22:14)

Thus, for those of you who know Him, you ‘heard’ that call and by the gracious work of His Holy Spirit you responded and discovered that you were ‘chosen’ – that is, you opened your heart and submitted to God’s love, life and forgiveness.  And from that point onward, you’ve been prepared.

Prepared??  Yep. God’s been preparing you, training you, to TRUST Him in all circumstances. 

That’s because, in a way, this life with Him is a ‘bootcamp’ of sorts for the day will come (and it is fast approaching) when the ten major ‘elitists’ of the world, the leaders and the powerful, those that the book of Revelation refers to as ‘horns’, will support the antichrist world leader and fight against Christ.  In fact, the scripture says:

These shall make war with the Lamb (Christ), and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. (Rev 17:14)

Yes, today is a dark day; but Jesus told us:  

“I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”  (John 8:12) and:

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.

You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. (1 Thes 5:4,5)

Basic Training - Three

Matthew 5

Blessed [are] the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Now the opposite of peace is war or conflict.  The blessed here are not just those who enjoy peace but rather make peace.  So where is this conflict, this war?  Is it between the Arabs and Israel?  Is it between the ‘right’ and the ‘left’?  Is it between nations?

The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. (Ex 15:3)  Moses sang this after God took His people through the Red Sea and destroyed Pharoah’s army.  This was not the war we are looking for but it is symbolic for Egypt has always been a type of the world spiritually.

And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.  (Dan 9:26)

This is part of Daniel’s famous 70 weeks prophecy concerning the Jews and Jerusalem.  It speaks of a war and desolations (tribulations).  We’ve discussed in other lessons how this war is the one between Israel and God. 

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins. (Isa 40:2)

Both of these verses speak of the war between Israel and the Lord.  This war came as a result of Israel rejecting her Messiah, God’s Son. Concerning is death they cried, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” (Mat 27:25)  This is part of the war we’re looking for, but there’s an even greater war. 

It is the universal war of mankind:

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.  (Rom 8:7)

This enmity results in a struggle, a conflict which started all the way back in Eden:

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you do not do the things that you want. (Gal 5:17)

This is the big war. This is the war in each individual with God.  And the only way for there to be peace is with our surrender, surrender to God’s grace through Jesus Christ.  Each of us individually can make peace with God this way.  It is, in fact, the only way to make peace with Him. 

And when you do that, you become a child of the Most High:

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, (John 1:12)

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not been manifested as yet what we will be. We know that when He is manifested, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. (1 John 3:2)

The last two Beatitudes go hand in hand and are linked with the final encouragement.  If you’re going to follow Christ’s teachings, you’re going to follow Him.  He said:

“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.”  (John 15:20)

Blessed [are] they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now, when you follow Him, you will receive persecution but when you do and you endure it humbly, don’t then get high-minded about it because if you’ll notice, your reward is the same as those who are poor in spirit.  Remember Jesus’ example.

Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Christ fully submitted to the Lord’s will all the way to and through the cross.  It was in itself, such a powerful testimony that :

And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.  Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous man.” (Lu 23:46,47)

The two main things to note are “falsely” and “for My sake”.  Don’t give the enemy ammunition to speak evil of you truthfully and remember that the blessing comes from being persecuted for His sake, not your own.

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great [is] your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.  (Mat 5:1-12)

A heavenly reward is an eternal reward.  The Apostle Paul, wrote:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.  (Rom 8:18)

Why were the prophets persecuted?  They spoke the truth via the Spirit of God.  So if you do the same, you’re in good company.  Great is your reward in heaven!