Spiritcode

The Unknown God

THE UNKNOWN GOD 

Paul had been preaching in Thessalonica and Berea in Northern Greece with Silas and Timothy, as part of his apostolic ministry to the gentiles, and he had to escape on his own from there because of opposition to his preaching and plots against him and he found a safe haven at Athens in the south of Greece. While he waited for his companions Silas and Timothy to arrive Paul was distressed to see that Athens was full of mythologies and legends and idols so he began to visit the Jewish synagogues there and the open marketplace and preach the resurrection of Jesus. 

Meanwhile some of the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers of the city became intrigued and sceptical of these strange new things he had to say so they urged him to come to speak publicly about his views at the Areopagus, which was part courthouse and part philosophical debating forum. There he was met by ‘the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there who would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new’

Acts 17:22 So, Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man, of one blood, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their allotted spans of time and the boundaries of their dwelling places, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.
Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own philosophers have said, ‘ For we are indeed his offspring’. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
When they heard Paul speak of the resurrection of a person who had been dead, some laughed, but others said, "We want to hear more about this later." That ended Paul's discussion with them, but a few joined him and became believers, among whom were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

When Paul spoke to those religious Greek scholars in Athens who were seeking to understand the meaning of their concept of ‘The Unknown God’ he told them that Jesus was the ‘Unknown God’ that they were actually seeking after, and when he said to them; In Him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28), he went on further to say an extraordinary thing; ‘Even one of your own philosopher/poets has said this same thing.’

Paul understood Greek philosophy and knew that it contained an all-embracing eternal and unchanging truth of universal reason that they called ‘logos’, a word which described an unknown something that arranged and sustained the universe. 
So somewhere there was a concept in their minds that all human beings really belonged within an unknown something far greater than themselves. We know that something as a Someone called Jesus.
It might seem amazing to us that these Greek philosophers even had a concept of an unknown god, but the Bible tells us that God has placed ‘eternity’ (olam – the vanishing point that remains unreachable – an horizon) in the human heart.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 he has put eternity into man's heart, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
That means that there is an unquenchable searching in the human heart for something that is far greater than humanity and contains humanity within a higher creative entity than itself. 
This concept exists deep within the heart of every person right up to this day but this concept can exist in peoples’ minds as simply being a concept and not being a person who is relational towards humanity with love and mercy and compassion and wisdom and order, and who is also that ultimate intelligence of creation. That person is Jesus Christ 

Paul offered those Greek scholars his revelation of Jesus as the Son of God who was that ‘Someone’ in whom all of humanity now existed. He told them that Jesus Christ as God had become a human being that was the Son of God and that had been killed for proclaiming that fact - and had then risen from the dead. Jesus had told his disciples that he and his Father would live in them and they would live in him and that the Holy Spirit would reveal all of this to them after he had left them to be with his Father. (John 14).

Some of the Greeks he was speaking to accepted the truth that Paul spoke but others said this was preposterous while others said they would give the matter some thought (Acts 17:32) 

So even though that profound cosmic truth of what Paul proclaimed to those people on that day about us as humanity being in Jesus and his being in us there is no way that that can be grasped with the natural mind. This requires a revelation of the Holy Spirit about the Father/Son relationship that we have been brought into through Jesus, otherwise it is not a personal reality for us to live in. Our discovery of this cosmic truth that has already been accomplished becomes our FAITH. It doesn’t become true when we believe it; it was always true but now our faith makes it a present reality for our lives as we discover it. Jesus is never separated or isolated from the Father and he has made us part of their life and we had no say in that decision – but we do have a say in how we respond to it just as those Greek religious scholars had. 
We need the light of this truth to penetrate our heart otherwise the darkness and confusion of the human mind keeps us ignorant of it and we remain forever searching and never finding the unknown something (Someone) that we need, that fulfils our lives.
What is generally believed in our Western culture is that wealth and success and being well thought of is just about the best thing that could ever happen to us, and God has every good reason to break this illusion of ours however he chooses. This is part of the perplexity and confusion of our age. Other cultures may have different values, but there is ultimately only one destiny to be realized and the natural mind cannot realize it without a revelation from God.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural mind does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned…16 For "who has known the mind of God. But we have the mind of Christ.”

Paul was not speaking to a Jewish culture in Athens, but to a sophisticated elite bunch of philosophers, so he did not speak to these scholars about Israel; he went back to the creation of mankind and the oneness of us as being all of one blood in origin from one male and one female. Paul is anticipating the reaction of people of the world of all kinds of cultures having to grapple with the one universal truth that ultimately includes all of us in history as being in Christ before the beginning of time. 
That is why the Bible is clear in its recording of its genealogies of Jesus as an historical person, and while placing him particularly in a Middle Eastern culture his wisdom and his supernatural acts of love and justice and mercy strike deep into the hearts and minds of all cultures.

These genealogies that are recorded in the Bible in the four Gospels go back to different points of commencement and origin of the ancestry of Jesus. The writers of each of these gospels were inspired to convey particular emphases concerning the narrative of the life of Jesus and his ministry. The writers were also targeting different audiences of that day. For instance, Matthew goes back to Abraham, and Mark starts with the birth of John the Baptist, while Luke goes back to Adam. 

John, however, goes back beyond them all and begins with ‘In the beginning was the Word’ (Logos) – which was a word the Greeks understood, as we saw previously with Paul in Athens. John was stating that Jesus was the Logos, the very same word that the Greeks used to describe an all-embracing truth of universal reason, an unknown something that created and arranged and sustained the universe. That statement would have challenged any Greeks anywhere listening to it regarding their understanding of the meaning of Logos, because they would not have conceived of that lofty universal concept of theirs as being a mere mortal called Jesus who somehow created the universe. Nonetheless the Holy Spirit confronted them with that truth and made grace available for that truth to be embraced in their hearts and believed in as the ultimate truth for their lives. In the same way that statement of John’s would have disrupted the Jew’s understanding of the word Logos, which to them was not Jesus but simply and categorically the Torah, the sacred written Word delivered to them from God, and again the Holy Spirit would have confronted them with that truth of Jesus as the Christ and made grace available for that truth to be embraced in their hearts and believed in as the ultimate truth for their lives.

So across the board, Jews and gentiles (the rest of us as humanity) were being confronted by the reality that one man, Jesus, is, as God, the totality of meaning from the beginning of creation through the times of its fall and its redemption and then its fulfillment in eternity - the Alpha and Omega.

When John writes in his Gospel further on in the first chapter (vs.11) he states emphatically to all of us concerning Jesus, that he came unto his own and we knew him not and received him not. And we killed him. But Jesus came back from the dead, and he can never be killed again, so John tells us that the best thing we can decide for our lives is to be actively joined in Spirit to his life, because he will not cease his speaking and his supernatural doing of love and justice and mercy towards us - he will never go away. He will interrupt all of our religion and worship and philosophy and he desires to draw us into participation of the oneness of life that he shares with his Father. 

Among the Apostles it was Paul and John who were the ones most graced with the revelation of the vastness of the universal work of atonement accomplished for all of humanity by Jesus on the cross. When Paul said those words to the Greeks in Athens ‘In Him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28), he was stating a universal fact about all of humanity.
He was actually saying that each one of us has our ‘being’ in Christ. God is uncreated being and we are created being. In English grammar to have ‘being’ simply means ‘to be’, so to have your being within something means that that is what describes what you are part of and what you belong to - it defines who you are – it is your ‘I am’ – it is your identity. 

The world carves out its own identity – its own ‘I am’

For many people this identity can be a religion, a political party, an ideology, or a pathway to enlightenment, whether that is a pathway of reason or a pathway of mystical practice – there’s a thousand varieties and in all these things people live and move and have their being – and that’s understandable because they find some kind of meaning in those things. And the Church has also often adopted its own different styles of thinking and dogmas that may not altogether be of divine revelation but are strongly held opinions or persuasions that people belong to, in which they live and move and have their being.

The people in the book of acts knew they were in a world changing time – not just starting a new religion or even trying to get people to come to church. They didn’t even know precisely what church was – they just regularly gathered together as God’s Family and their conversation was about Jesus and they believed in the witness of the Spirit - and his Church grew. They became a community of love and faith and took that love and faith wherever they went. Jesus did the rest as the Holy Spirit gifted them with power from on high.
They also had to learn right from the beginning through many challenges how to avoid false teaching. Paul wrote to the Ephesian church not to be like children, believing in one opinion and then another because of persuasive teachers who had cleverly used deceptive techniques that sounded like truth but weren’t, and they took advantage of the people to gather disciples to themselves. So Paul warned them strongly about this and urged them to grow in truth and love and discernment, that they might become more and more like Christ (Ephesians 4:14-16)

And each one of us is designed to live and move and have our being, our true being and our true identity in the person of Jesus. So as a church and as individuals our purpose is to believe in that witness and empowerment of the Spirit and in the simplicity of Christ as in the book of Acts and to participate in the life of Jesus and the Father. 
Participating in the life of Jesus and the Father is what we have been given to share in as humanity. This was all planned before sin came into the equation and that’s why Jesus had to come to live and die and live again to reconcile us to the Father. He wanted to get us in on the beautiful relationship that he had with the Father and Holy Spirit. And whether Adam had sinned or not, Jesus still had to come to make us one with the Father because HE IS THE ETERNAL SON – NOT ADAM. 
In him we live and move and have our being – we are not trying to get there - we are there - so let’s embrace it, celebrate it and proclaim it.

Ephesians 3:18 That you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness (pleroma – completeness) of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

 

 

Promise and Blessing

 
 
PROMISE AND BLESSING
 
The Blessings of Abraham.
Genesis 12:1 ‘The LORD had said to Abram, Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. 2I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing… and all people on the earth will be blessed through you.”
These blessings were spoken to a man who came from what is now Iraq. He was a man with a heart that wanted to find the one true God. The blessings he received were personal for him but they were corporate for both the Jewish Nation of Israel that was to come through him, and later to the whole world through Jesus. 
 
The Blessings to Israel
Israel first became a nation in Egypt, where they had been in captivity to Pharaoh for four hundred years. God then miraculously delivered them out of Egypt by the hand of Moses who led them through the wilderness on their journey to the Promised Land. God gave Israel the Covenant of the Promises and blessings of the Old Testament and the Commandments of the Law through Moses when they began their wilderness journey. God said to Moses “I am going to give you the land that I promised to Abraham” (Exodus 6:6-8). However, there were conditions that applied for Israel to receive the blessings (Deuteronomy 30:15-20). Moses was told to tell the people that if they loved God and obeyed all the Commandments he gave them, and worshipped God correctly they would receive the blessings of the land and its crops and have good rains in their seasons, but if they disobeyed God and worshipped other gods they would receive no rain, the enemy would take their land, and their crops would fail. In fact, the Bible records a whole page of curses for disobedience.
 
There was a command with a conditional blessing that God gave to them concerning the land which was that they had to give the land a rest for one year in every seven years. This was called the Sabbath Year. There was to be no work, just a happy life together as families and as a community of God’s people, and in that Sabbath Year God would give their crops three times the normal yield, and he would bless them with a holiday year during which time they would bless God back with joy and thanksgiving for their prosperity. 
Another example of a command with a conditional blessing to them as a nation was that if they strayed away from God but then repented and came back to him, to the temple, and prayed with a right heart then God would hear from heaven and forgive them and heal their land - meaning that he would send them rain and grow their crops etc. (2Chronicles 7:14). 
For about 1500 years there were seasons of blessing and obedience, but there were also long stretches of time of disobedience and confusion, and God’s judgment came on Israel. For example, they failed to obey the Sabbath Year for 490 years by not resting and for that disobedience they were sent into captivity in Babylon for seventy years for the land to get its one in every seven years rest (2Chronicles 36:21). The behavior of the people usually fell into line behind the behavior of the kings and the priests, and the prophets would have to call them back to repentance.
 
So what were these Old Testament blessings for and what was the point?
The blessings showed the nations round about them such as Iraq and Iran and Syria and Egypt, that a supernatural God was active and powerful in the heavens on behalf of his people.
The blessings were also simply an act of love and kindness from a good God to his people so that they could live a life of fulfillment and prosperity.
These blessings kept and preserved the nation of Israel intact so that they could become the womb and the cradle for Jesus to come to earth and bring the most profound and wonderful ultimate blessing to them and to the whole world – The gift of God’s life to humanity through Jesus, fulfilling the last clause in the blessing to Abraham which was ‘and all people on the earth will be blessed through you.’

God was telling Abraham here that there would be a new kind of blessing from a new promise about the New Testament Covenant blessing that is radically different from the Old Covenant. This supernatural blessing allows all of humanity to share in the life that Jesus has with his Father in heaven, as explained by Paul in Ephesians. 
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with ALL spiritual blessings from Heaven.

The law of the Commandments was given to keep Israel from destroying their moral and relational integrity because the Law was perfect in its wisdom and order for the self-preservation of a community (Psalm 19). That was the best system that could have existed to achieve that end. The Commandments if observed faithfully by anyone, even today, will preserve the integrity of any community and produce outcomes of blessings of all kinds. They are designed to bring peace and order and harmony and prosperity and honesty and good health - and no corrupt politics. 

The new Blessings of the New Covenant are of a far greater supernatural order
The shortcoming of the Law of perfect wisdom and order was that it could not produce a life of oneness in spirit with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. To receive this ultimate blessing of having God’s life living within us one has to believe the truth of what actually happened in and through Jesus’ life and death and resurrection – and that’s all! It has nothing to do with the Law. However, the Bible tells us that if we are truly living in the Spirit of the life of Jesus we will live out our lives demonstrating the reality and meaning of those Commandments through the grace and power of The Holy Spirit as he makes them real to us (Romans 8:4). Our outer life may become blessed with a new dimension of order and integrity, and that is great reward, but even that virtuous natural reordering of our outward lives is not the spiritual blessings of the promised blessing of Abraham. 

 

All Spiritual Blessings
The spiritual blessing is The Holy Spirit bringing to us the impartation of God’s nature of his goodness and his love and joy and peace into our hearts. This operates as an active spiritual energy of life wherever we are and in whatever circumstances we are, whether we are on a holiday or in the busy stress of work, in times of global peace or in times of a global pandemic, in a good economy under good government or under dictatorial rule. The shared life with Jesus has nothing to do with how life seems to be going on in our circumstances. The shared life with Jesus IS the blessing that reorders our life and brings all things into line with his will for our lives.
 
All the material blessings under the Old Covenant had a spiritual silver lining because of the supernatural manifestations of God to them in the wilderness and in the Promised Land, with miracles of provision and protection and angelic visitations. In the same way, all of our spiritual blessings bring the intervention of God into our lives in a supernatural way above what we could ask or think - and we don’t get to vote on what kind of blessings we receive. They are given by God and they are ultimately better than we could ever order for ourselves. 

So this life of faith is also a life of paradox because we don’t always see blessings in the same way that God does. God has the big picture for our lives and he wants us to trust him for the details. The Bible says he has written the days of our lives in a book (Psalm 139). We have a friend who is on every page of that book and he gives us wisdom when we ask. We put together imperfect prayers and he designs the perfect answers that take us closer and closer to his goal for our lives in contrast to ours.
Even good honest spiritual goals that we set for ourselves like becoming more holy, and serving The Lord more faithfully end up bringing us into a place of realizing our own powerlessness to achieve them. This sense of inadequacy drives us into depending more and more on Jesus and his kindness and compassion and grace to travel with us in our honest seeking for these things.  It then dawns on us that a process of total dependence upon God is the real goal. This is God’s goal for us. This is where REAL FAITH happens, and this real faith pleases God.

The real blessings are enjoyed in a life shared with a friend who wants the best for us. He is perfect love, and perfect love desires the best for the beloved (1 Corinthians 13). This relationship is a moment-by-moment journey that Jesus lives in – in the here and now and for all eternity. If the whole world came into this friendship with Jesus now there would be no wars, no poverty and no darkness and destruction. The world must give account in due time for the integrity of its relationship to its friend Jesus, here and now and in eternity (Romans 1:18, Acts 17:31). This eternity will exist as a new Heaven and a new earth one day, but the life of faith in Jesus as our friend can exist for us as a life of ALL spiritual blessings right here - right now. Amen
   
 
 
 
 
 1
 
 

Healing the Shadow Self

HEALING THE SHADOW SELF

Much of our inner life with its feelings and deeper motivations of why we do what we do is hidden in the deeper recesses of the soul and remains unknown even to ourselves. These feelings and doubts and fears get pushed down and suppressed, and they make up what are called the shadows of the unknown self – our shadow self. 
When David wrote Psalm 32 he portrays to us his life as a man who was taken from shame and guilt into acceptance and forgiveness, and from despair and depression into fulfilment and joy - and transformed from his shadow self into his true self. And he encourages us to embrace this kind of transformation through God’s love and mercy and forgiveness. In this psalm David starts off paying tribute to the blessing of the magnificent mercy and forgiveness of God. He then recounts the damage and torment he did to his soul by keeping everything in the shadows before finally opening up to God and letting his light and truth come in to his heart. Then he gives thanks for the safe place of refuge that he finds in the presence of God and he rejoices in the powerful blessing of his inner transformation, encouraging us to trust God for this same blessing.

Psalm 32:1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 
2 Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 
3 For when I kept silent (h?âra??; concealed or ignored the state I was in), my bones wasted away through my groaning (aga) all day long. 
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 
5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. 
6 Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, so that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment.
You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from getting stuck in a place of trouble: you surround me with shouts of deliverance. 
7. (And then God says) I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye. Don’t be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, and will not stay close to you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

DAVID’S TRIBUTE TO GOD’S LOVE AND FORGIVENESS
This Psalm starts off speaking about three expressions of God’s of love, in his forgiveness and covering and mercy towards us of our three areas of failure and liability in our human nature which are, transgression, sin, and iniquity. Each of these is defined specifically in the original Hebrew language; 

Transgression - (p?e??a‘); means active resistance, revolt or rebellion. This is the act of deliberate and wilful disobedience to God’s moral and spiritual laws. David said that he received forgiveness for those things from a forgiving and eternally loving God (Jeremiah 31:31). Right from the beginning God never stopped loving his children Adam and Eve and he forgave them their transgression. He also required that they bear the consequence of their disobedience – primarily the startling and unfamiliar experience of feeling separated from God, which would disappear whenever they repented and received his forgiveness and redeeming love. 

Sin - (h???t?â’â); means an offence – turning from the path and missing the mark. This is the experience of being led astray by wrong desires and falling into sin through temptation. David was temped into committing adultery with Bathsheba and subsequently sending her husband into the front line of battle where he was killed. 
And even though David knew that he was covered by God for those things because of the blood of sacrifice, he also knew he would bear the consequences of his sin, and suffer much grief because of it. We read in this psalm of the sorrow and remorse he went through because off his guilt.

Iniquity – (avown); means the twisted or distorted nature of our flawed humanity right from the time of our birth. David said that this was not counted against him.
David describes his iniquity (avown) in another psalm; 
Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was born in iniquity… You delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret place of my heart. 

DAVID’S PAIN AND SORROW THAT OPENS HIM UP TO GOD’S LIGHT
That is why David said in Psalm 139 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is anything offensive in me, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. 
David realized he was getting in the way of God’s light into his heart so that all he could see was his shadow - the shadow of the unknown side of his sinful self, the false vision of himself living independently from God and getting stuck in a place of trouble (vs 6). He knew that God knew everything about him and that God didn’t have to search him in order to find out what he was like. What David was saying was ‘Lord I want to know about me what you know about me’. David wanted to know what was in the shadow side of his life so that he could make way for God to transform him into the man that God wanted him to be. David knew by his guilt and shame that there were things inside him that had led him into deep sin. He also knew he had been driven by his natural instincts to react defensively and aggressively in the face of threat and danger. 

He tells us in this psalm that what caused him so much sorrow and suffering was the struggle with the burden of his hidden sin and his doubts and fears and wrong motivations, and he was honest enough to want to know about them and to be transparent about his shadow self.
Our shadow self is a bundle of everything we don’t want to know about concerning this painful life of ours because we have a life full of our own aspirations and plans that we want to get on with and it is scary and painful to face the why and how of the pain. We cannot ignore the very real pain of those hidden shadow feelings even though our inner shadow self with its hidden feelings and deeper motivations and its doubts and fears can get pushed down and suppressed so that we can remain unconscious of them. Our pain will always come to the surface while everything else can stay hidden. 
when David faced that shadow self and came into the light of God’s Word he received healing from the guilt and shame and the emotional and mental pain.

When David wrote in the Psalms, he opened up his life to us as well as to God - his thoughts and feelings and his successes and failures. He does not only open up his own life to us but he also mirrors the soul of humanity and the journey of that soul as it changes its attachment from a self-serving pursuit of fulfillment and happiness to its attachment to God’s heart.
David is an example in the Bible of an Old Testament person living with a heart for God and prophetically enjoying a New Testament experience of mercy and forgiveness and the attainment of true fulfilment and happiness through God’s love. The Bible tells us that he was called ‘a man after God’s own heart’ (Acts 13:22) and he writes in Psalm 139:16 – all the days for me were written in your book, as God has done for each one of us. We are drawn into the life of David where we can often see our own hu manity reflected in his life. Even Jesus in his humanity as the perfect Son of God who was without sin is called many times in the Bible ‘The Son of David’. David opens up that book of his God-loved and God-forgiven life for us to read, inviting and challenging us to do the same and to be healed from our shadow self to our true self. 

THE NEW LIFE OF TRANSFORMATION 
Paul quotes David from Psalm 32 in Romans and brings this experience of David’s healing of his shadow self into the New Testament through the work of Jesus on the cross and he mentions those same three areas of failure and liability.

Romans 4:6 … “Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his iniquity.”

So this psalm is central to the gospel and points out the path of true peace and happiness to all of us who are made aware of our shadow self, and upright enough in heart (righteousness) to take responsibility for it. This awareness often comes about when we have failed ourselves and God through our stumbling and falling and our hurtful reactions to situations. However, this blessing in disguise of being made aware of our shadow self can set us free from the harmful spiritual and emotional and physical effects of darkness so that we can find healing and growth in our spirit and soul. 

Just as our weakness and failure of our natural life is hidden in our shadow self, our New life of faith is hidden with Christ in God. And just as light and truth reveals our failures, his light and truth reveals to us our true self as God created us to be in Christ, accepted and forgiven, endowed with individual creative gifts that are waiting to be expressed and enjoyed. 

The journey of the old natural mindset that creates its own pathway to fulfillment and happiness starts at around age 3 or 4 when we begin to plan ways to achieve our own program for happiness, which is about having what we want when we want it, and using unpleasant measures such as demanding attention, emotional manipulation and crying, and anger tantrums. The difference between children and adults is that adults have learned to become more skilled and subtle about pursuing their fulfillment and happiness program. 
In this old natural mindset as adults we still want to control the circumstances around us, and to get attention and approval for everything we do and to feel secure about our material possessions, and along with around 8 billion others we pour all our emotional and mental and physical energy into those pursuits. We are willing to change our careers, our appearance and identity labels, and even our names, but ask us to pour our energy into changing our heart to pursue a life devoted to God and we resist at all costs. People are too busy with their programs, even religious and prayerful ones, wanting that bit of extra control maybe just over a few things, even sometimes over God, and quoting a Scripture to him just for good measure.

The kind of transformation that David is talking about in this psalm is not about being changed from a bad person to a good person, or from a non-churchgoer to a churchgoer; transformation is about being changed from living in the natural shadow of our false self to living in the light of The Holy Spirit in our true self. 
That transformation is what the Bible means about what our salvation really is – sozo – salvation – healing of the shadow self at the present moment. It means far more than going to Heaven one day – where there will be no more tears no more sorrow no more shadow self. 
That is why the Bible says ‘Now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2 - sozo – healing). This is the time for the healing of our shadow self – here and now. We have the presence of God but what can be missing is our being present to God. Being present to God means two things; the first thing is simply to BE THERE and honouring that time as belonging to God and CONSCIOUS of his love for you and of his supernatural activity for good towards you at that moment. The second thing is to PRESENT yourself to God as his new creation yielded to his will for your life and confirming this by giving thanks to him in your current circumstances. I believe that at this time in history there is a work of the grace of God drawing us into being PRESENT with him and to him with our whole heart and mind.

 

 

 

 

 

The Other Side

THE OTHER SIDE

Jesus had been with his disciples caring for the multitudes and had just miraculously fed five thousand people with the five loaves and the fishes. It had been a tiring day and so instead of going back to Capernaum with His disciples in the boat, he told them to go ahead (Mark 6:42) while he went up on a mountain to pray.

John 6:15 … Jesus went up to the mountain alone by Himself, and when it began to get dark, the disciples went down to the sea and began to row their boat toward Capernaum, but soon a gale swept down upon them as they rowed, and the sea grew very rough and it was now dark. They were three or four miles out when suddenly they saw Jesus walking toward the boat! They were terrified, but he called out to them and said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the other side. 

This story describes some of the faith principles of how we work together in partnership with Jesus as the disciples did. They had faithfully done their part in the miracle of the multiplication of the food, in handing out the loaves and fishes and they had trusted Jesus to do his supernatural part. 
Jesus had been teaching the multitudes and his disciples had been feeding and caring for them and having completed that day’s work there was more work for them to do the next day across the sea of Galilee where another crowd would be waiting for Jesus. They would usually travel together across the water to Capernaum, but this particular time Jesus told them to row across without him so that he could rest and pray to his Father.

They would never have guessed that the experience of rowing across the Sea of Galilee would work out the amazing way that it did. They were seasoned rowers but rowing is tough work and involves the uncertainty of rowing forward in one direction while you are actually looking backwards in another direction. It would have been particularly tough for those disciples because there was a raging storm and darkness and they were fearful that Jesus was not with them, but the disciples kept on rowing. Suddenly Jesus came to them in a supernatural way walking on the water, and they thought he was a ghost, but when he told them it was he, they willingly let him into the boat and the boat was miraculously transported to the other side.

When we think about it, that’s the way we move forward in life anyway, rowing forward in one direction while we are actually looking backwards in another direction. We can only go ahead in life with the things that belong in the package of our past, the good and the bad, the successes and the failures and the lessons learned and the faith gained. We can’t guess the future but we can have a goal – and that is the ‘other side’ which contains the uncertainties and the challenge and the effort. Our real faith is the reality of knowing that trusting God that in our obedient rowing forward while also looking backwards will be met with Jesus supernaturally coming into the boat. He gets us to the ‘other side’ in every situation if we are truly living by faith. Our times are in his hands. 

We have the same natural uncertainty as those disciples about how things will work out as we try to move forward in times of storms of darkness and difficulty, and that is when we call upon the faith that is being considered in this story. Faith means we are never certain about the future but we are certain that God has it all in hand and is acting supernaturally for good on our behalf.
We do the natural and God does the supernatural and it is beyond our understanding how the working together with God plays out, other than we have faith that he alone knows the end from the beginning and always shows up and is never late.
That is how faith works – we remain faithful to yield obediently to what Holy Spirit prompts us to do then we trust Jesus to complete his perfect work. That is our obedience of faith (Romans 16:26).
The Bible tells us that he wants to help us be willing do what is the good thing to do, and he helps us in the doing;
Philippians 2:12 … you must be even more careful to do the good things that result from being saved, obeying God with deep reverence, shrinking back from all that might displease him. For God is at work within you, helping your willingness to obey him, and then helping you do what is his desire for you.

Often because of our limited understanding of what God wants us to do, the doing can become problematic because we might try too hard to do things in our own strength and feel we can push through, and it may not be what God wants but we do it anyway and we find out later that we got it wrong. We did what we thought was a good thing but it was not a ‘God’ thing.
On the other hand, we may not try enough, and fail to do the responsible good thing out of ignorance or carelessness or apprehension - but God sees the heart and can override our human failure, and we learn to trust in his mercy and we get to learn of his ways.
Staying with the metaphor of rowing across a lake, we can ask the question ‘Why wasn’t the journey of the disciples on a placid lake with a moonlit sky and no wind, and all having a singalong? Well, day to day to life is not very often like that, and that day wasn’t like that for them. They were hardy rowers but on that night things were scary and they were full of apprehension, as it is so often with us, but they kept rowing

And as we obediently keep rowing forward, I believe that we do not always have to be looking backwards, but rather we can be looking upwards, knowing that Jesus is on the mountain, praying and cheering us on from Heaven, and he will come to us as we seek Him in the midst of storms and darkness, and get us to the other side. 
Philippians 3:13 But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward Heavenly call (invitation, welcome) of God in Christ Jesus.

And God is going to get us there. I believe we are currently in critical times of being taken forward in the purposes of God, and we are deeply aware that we are going through storms and sometimes darkness, and many are wondering when Jesus will come to them. He is actually always with us, but he wants to open our eyes of faith and show us that he is in the boat and replaces our rowing with his supernatural completion of the journey. 

Jesus has a special here and now journey for every one of us in our current circumstances. He has destined us to get to 'the other side', to the place where we are meant to be going, that is, the spiritual and circumstantial goal he has for us in any particular season in our lives. He is watching over us. He is not complaining about how badly we may be rowing even if we are, so we keep on rowing, because if we stop rowing, we drift.

There are many ‘Other sides’ in our day to day experience that God wants to get us to and they all involve us faithfully doing our part while he supernaturally works his part.
The other side of the challenge of what is required of us that faces us today in our circumstances.
The other side of something that has been delayed or put off because it is difficult.
The other side of our management of a tiring physical struggle of illness or recovery from illness.
The other side of this current global pandemic that faces us all.

He is cheering us on. Some of those disciples had made mistakes in the past and would make more into the future but He loved them dearly and was committed to working with them and helping them – ‘gracing’ them. Jesus is not just working with us but he is working within us by his Spirit.

On your particular journey at this present time all you may seem to be doing is rowing your lungs out, but he is up on the mountain praying. He is praying for our faith and watching, and he is willing to come to you in a supernatural way, and when he does, 'immediately you are on the other side' - to where he wants you to be. When the connection happens, you become a different person and your world changes.

 

Commandment 8 episode 9

How does failure in the seventh commandment lead to a problem in the eighth Commandment?

 

In the last commandment, which dealt with unfaithfulness and infidelity in relationships, we saw that materialism began to establish itself in the heart of that person, so that self gratification and things that people could have or indulge themselves in became more important than other people and their needs and feelings.

So people start to take for themselves. They become takers instead of givers.

 

How does the New Testament expand the meaning this Commandment like it has  with all the other Commandments?

 

The apostle Paul wrote concerning the transformation of a thief.

Ephesians 4:28 Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.

 

This scripture shows that the total transformation is that a taker becomes a giver. And on the way to becoming a giver the thief also becomes an honest worker. this commandment then, is more than just about stealing, but about a change of heart that brings a person into the full understanding of their own, and other people's worth. That scripture actually covers three areas in our lives, which are: Material honesty, productivity, and generous giving.

 

Would you see tithing being related to this Commandment, because the Scripture says in Malachi 3 :8 Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, "In what way have we robbed You?" In tithes and offerings.'

 

It is because we acknowledge God's ownership of everything that we tithe to Him. Many who disagree with tithing believe that tithing belongs under the law of Moses, and therefore has been done away with in the New Testament. That is not true. Tithing began before Moses was born, and was first performed by Abraham as a relational act of worship, when he called God 'The possessor of Heaven and earth' (Genesis 14:22).

 

So does that mean that Christians have to tithe today?

I do not believe that Christians are under the Law as regards tithing. I believe there needs to be a revelation of tithing as an act of relational worship towards a person, God, in fact Jesus, rather than a legalistic obligation. 

 

There is a Bible principle that giving generously causes people to give back to you. Luke 6:38 – For if you give, you will get! Your gift will return to you in full and overflowing measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more.

Yes it seems to speak for itself and many people can testify to the fact that it works. And it is not just about money-it works for anything that is given out of a giving heart.

This Scripture describes that faith principle that releases a miraculous increase of what is given out of a right heart, like you just said about the giving person.

The Devil and the Detail

THE DEVIL AND THE DETAIL

There is a lot of speculation and attributing of blame concerning how the Corona virus came into being– was it made in a laboratory and if so where? Or was it transmitted by a bat or some other animal? Some people may even ask whether it was sent by God, and if so, why? Others may believe that it was sent by the devil.
In my humble opinion, which I think I share with many others - the jury is still out on the laboratory and/or the bat, and the exact whereabouts of the bat and the lab. 
I don’t think it was sent by the devil, but I think he is having an eventful and busy time with it.

GOD’S CREATION
Ultimately the virus is simply part of God’s creation, along with other viruses and bacteria and microbes and plants and animals and people - these are now all part of a disordered fallen creation that fell when man and woman fell in the Garden of Eden. The creation was put out of order and into corruption through the sin of Adam and Eve. And after that happened God said to Adam ‘the ground is cursed because of you…it shall bring forth thorns and thistles (and other ugly things - Genesis 3:17). 
The Bible also says that People walk on in darkness, and all the foundations of the earth have been put out of alignment (Psalm 82:5). That follows the fact that humanity is out of alignment with God and because of sin we do harm to ourselves and others and bring disorder into our world. 
But the Bible also says that this curse will only last for a limited time, when God’s plan of redemption is finished in the earth and the Lord returns and we are given new bodies at the Resurrection of the dead.
Romans 8:19-22 … For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing (apokalypsis) of the sons of God… The creation waits with hope to be set free from the bondage of corruption, and that there will be a New heavens and new earth (Isaiah 66, 2Peter 3:10, Revelation 21).

JESUS IN A FALLEN WORLD
The fact is that when Jesus arrived on this planet he lived his life in a fallen world in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. He knew he was not in control of the corruption that was going on around him politically and religiously, but he also knew that his Father was in command of everything, and that things were going according to his Father’s plan. 
Jesus did only what his Father told him. If his father told him to still a raging storm, it would happen, and on the other hand when Pontius Pilate said to Jesus, “Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus didn’t resist that claim but said to him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. God was in control and he had a purpose for everything and in everything that was going to happen.
Jesus did not come to reform the politics of the day, he came to transform lives.

So this current global pandemic was always going to happen within the purpose and plan of God.

TIMES OF TRIAL
We are living in times of great physical and emotional and spiritual trial in the current global pandemic, in which there is an enormous amount of strain being placed upon nations, governments, communities, corporations, churches, families and individuals. 
The physical and emotional pressure that everybody is under is out in the open for all to see and to be read about and talked about everywhere. 
But there is a spiritual activity of both darkness and light that all nations and all individuals at this present time are under in the unseen world of the spirit and that sits invisibly above everything else, ultimately influencing the feelings, the thinking, and the behavior of people in a far broader spiritual dimension than anyone could imagine.

DARKNESS AND LIGHT
The opposing spirits of darkness and light are both powerfully at work in this hour. The Bible tells us that in intense conflict between darkness and light, God says to his people that his Spirit is far more powerful than the spirit of this world – He says to us;  arise and shine, for your light has come…for darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you, and nations shall come to your light… (Isaiah 60:1)

THE POWERS OF DARKNESS
We will look first at the purpose and strategy of the power of the work of darkness. The purpose and strategy and the activity of darkness lurks behind the different names that darkness is known by – names such as the Devil, and Satan, and Lucifer and the god of this world, and the Prince of the power of the air, and a number of other nasty titles (Abbadon, Beelzebub etc.)

All those different names that are used for the powers of darkness also portray a range of different job descriptions that can be found in those Scriptural titles;
The Devil - Diabolos – to throw or let go of a thing without caring where it falls - to fragment and scatter - to create division.
Satan – Satanas – the accuser and the adversary – to create judgment and vengeance and hostility.
Lucifer –The fallen light giver who became the dark giver who said he would be as the Most High God (Isaiah 14:14) – and as the ‘god of this world’ he blinds the minds of those who do not believe (2Corinthians 4:4)
The prince of the power of the air who tempts the sons of disobedience to live for their own desires (Ephesians 2:2).

THE DETAIL OF DIABOLOS
Most of those dark spiritual activities found in the meanings of the names overlap in some way, such as lying and tempting and accusing, but I would like to feature the detail of the name of the Devil - Diabolos – to throw a thing - to fragment and scatter - to create division.

Diabolos comes from two Greek words, dia which means through, and bolos which means to throw. The word bolos is where we get the word ball from, like throwing a ball. It is also where we get the word ‘ballistic’ from, as in ballistic missile. So we have the picture of the Devil hurling destructive spiritual missiles at us to break and fragment our relationship with God and with one another and within our own souls. Diabolos doesn’t care what he throws as long as it destroys oneness with God and peace with one another.

DIABOLOS AND JESUS
When Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (diabolos - Matthew 4:1). Darkness came at Jesus as the Devil, the missile thrower, and he threw every missile he had at Jesus to tempt him to split off from his Father and show how powerful he could be independent of him. 
The Devil even subtly taunted him with ‘If you are the Son of God turn these stones into bread!’ What a victory if Jesus would have fallen for that and not remained faithful as ‘the Son of God’. Jesus didn’t do anything unless his Father told him, so Jesus was able to hold things together in his heart of faith and truth and love between himself and his Father. He was integrated with his Father and was not going to be disintegrated.

The disintegration of relationships is being hurled at humanity during this time of trial like never before. Jesus prophesied of times like this that would come; He said that nation would rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another, and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray, and lawlessness will increase, and the love of many would grow cold. (Matthew 24:7).

 

So when we look at the kind of behavior going on all over the world at the moment there is a heightened activity of people accusing one another, and violent disagreement over ideologies and medical and lifestyle and political opinions. All of this gets more heightened by the sensationalism of the media and the weird conspiracy theories broadcasted over social media. And it is difficult for people to remain objective in times like this because we often don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are, but we can still discuss and debate without aggression and antagonism.

THE TURNING POINT – LIGHT AND POWER
God does not want us as his Church family in the earth to live in the shadow and darkness of self-opinionated hostility as so many are doing in this world, because it is the devil’s work - Diabolos – to throw missiles of destruction that scatter and create hostility and division about opinions and dogmas and ideologies. That has always caused the church to lose its real power to be a light to the world in bringing God’s healing and transforming of lives. 
It is the work of The Spirit in us to make us one with God and with one another, and to transform lives, and to be his light in the world. 

God’s light in his people can overcome darkness in these days.
There is a swirl of redemptive God activity around you when your light is defeating the darkness in someone else. We wait with the ONE who knows all things, in the midst of an age full of unknowns and opposing views. God is at work in and through us by his Spirit in ways beyond our understanding as he reveals truth, his way, to the hearts of men and women everywhere, through our faithful trust in him. 
Jesus taught against antagonism and hostility to those who were different to us ethnically and culturally and socially and politically. He taught us about who was our neighbour in the parable of the good Samaritan. He taught us to love our enemies;  Matthew 5:44 Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. 

That is a principle of the cross, dying to things like division amongst ourselves as his family, and dying to hostility to others who do not know God, and growing in our faith and trust in God as our Father in Heaven. We know what and who we have faith in when we can name the one in whom we have absolute trust. I am grateful to the Lord for the times when I have found grace to have absolute trust in him in a matter, and to see his goodness come to pass beyond what I would have asked or thought, because I believe in this truth of surrender and in his faithfulness. And yet there are so many times when I think I have absolute trust in him and I find that residue of anxiety still there in my soul, and all I can say is that merciful verse in Mark 9:23 … Lord I believe, help my unbelief. And he remains faithful and we learn to trust even more. Jesus had absolute trust in his Father and he died and came alive again in order to live within us by the Holy Spirit and to impart into our hearts that same absolute trust in the nature of God. 

True transformation means that we sometimes have to pay the price of dying to self by not having our opinion agreed with, or by losing a debate about what civil duty means or by forgiving someone who judges us unjustly. We stay on the journey of dying to ill will between ourselves and others and coming alive in absolute trust in God’s love to bring peace and good will out of division and chaos. This can be how light comes in to darkness and powerfully results in someone finding truth. 

While we face the uncertainty of events in this world, which is God’s appointed way for us at this time in history, we put all fear aside as we live with the certainty of being led and guided by the peace of God in his world of the unseen, the world of faith and hope that is energized by his love to us and through us.
Philippians 2:1 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life
Shining as lights means having God on display in our lives, not in a pious or religious way, but by simply living in the flow of the powerful love of God. 

1Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or insult for insult, but on the contrary, bless, for you were called to this, that you may also obtain a blessing.

The struggles of life

THE STRUGGLES OF LIFE

Life holds many struggles for us and indeed life itself is a struggle, right from the start; we struggle to be born into this world, and then we struggle to overcome the many obstacles to survival and security and satisfaction. There are the natural or outer struggles that we all have to deal with that belong to the outward circumstances of our lives and they are always in front of us every day. And there are the spiritual or inner life struggles that challenge us to grow in faith and trust in God. Our life is a journey in which we learn to know the difference between the outward natural struggles and the inner spiritual struggles, and we learn to choose which are the struggles worth having and which are not. 

Many of the stories in the Bible in the Old Testament were preparing us for the understanding of the New Testament truth of having both the natural and the spiritual natures within us and how spiritual transformation by the work of the Holy Spirit is from the natural self that started with Adam into the Spiritual self that was given to us through Jesus – That is the message of the Gospel – Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith.

Our natural self struggles with our spiritual self because both of these ‘selves’ have different desires.
Galatians 5:17 the good things we want to do when the Spirit has his way with us are just the opposite of our natural desires. These two forces within us are constantly fighting each other to win control over us, and our wishes are never free from their pressures.

One of these stories that is like a parable of the two selves within, the natural and the spiritual starts in Genesis chapter 25 with a struggle between twin boys, Jacob and Esau, who even at their birth appeared struggling to see who would be the first one to arrive into this world. The Bible says ‘First the natural and then that which is spiritual’ (1Corinthians 15:46). Esau was the first of the boys to be born but at the time of birth Jacob could be seen grasping on to Esau’s heel, as if to say ‘outa my way, I want to be first’. These boys were the sons of Isaac, who was the son Abraham, the father of the Hebrew Nation. Abraham was told by God that his descendants would inherit the Land of Canaan, the Promised land. 
So as tradition had it in those days the firstborn son of Isaac received that Patriarchal blessing, which was revered as the highest of spiritual blessings. Esau was in line for he, and his descendants, to inherit all the Promises given to Abraham, and which is passed on down to us spiritually through Jesus. This inheritance was to be imparted at the end of Isaac’s life and when it was time to pass it on, and while Esau was out hunting at the time, Jacob cheated his blind Father and older brother by dressing in Esau’s clothes in order to smell and feel like his older brother and so fool Isaac into thinking that Jacob was his firstborn son Esau. When Isaac reached out to lay his hands on Jacob to impart the spiritual blessing he thought it was Esau, and this blessing could never be reversed. 

However Esau and Jacob had two very different longings in life. Esau was a man of the natural, the outdoors, who loved to hunt and to acquire the things of this world, and that is what he struggled for, while Jacob had a heart after God and longed to achieve the spiritual blessings of Abraham and that is what he struggled for. In fact, Jacob probably should not have felt too guilty because one day when they were younger, Jacob had even negotiated for Esau to swap his firstborn Patriarchal blessing for some measly red soup of Jacob’s that Esau couldn’t take his eyes off. Their future life choices had already been embedded in their hearts.

But when Esau finally found out that Jacob had actually received the blessing in the way that he did, he was furious and set out to kill him, so Jacob’s next struggle was to escape the wrath of Esau. Isaac stepped in and reassured Jacob that it would all be okay, and sent Jacob away, telling him to head for Haran to visit his Uncle Laban who had two daughters, Rachel and Leah. Soon into the journey he stopped at a place called Bethel and rested. Despite the conniving struggle of Jacob to acquire the blessing God honoured Jacob’s longing heart for that spiritual blessing in a vision where The Lord speaks over him and confirms the blessing of Abraham to him with all of the promises of being a father to all of the Jewish nations. 
Jacob went through further struggles to obtain his two wives Leah and Rachel and to ultimately father the twelve tribes of Israel. 
Much later in his life on his journey back to the region of his inheritance with his wives and families and servants and cattle, his final struggle was his wrestle with God, who appeared in the form of the Angel of The Lord. Jacob told God that he would not let him go nor cease the struggle till God blessed him. Such was his longing for God’s blessing and his holding on that God finished the bout by touching Jacob’s hip and putting it out of its socket, leaving Jacob with a permanent limp. God then renamed Jacob ‘Israel’ which means ‘having power with God and struggling with God and prevailing’. God used those words over Jacob. 

When we compare the struggles of Jacob and Esau we see those two longings struggling within us. They represent the two sides of us, our Jacob self and our Esau self. They each wanted different types of blessings. Esau reached out eagerly to struggle for worldly blessing to fill his life while Jacob reached out eagerly to struggle for spiritual blessing to fill his life. 

OUTER STRUGGLES
Everybody has to deal with the outer struggles of life, and for most people this is the only struggle that counts because it mostly deals with the material things of life that they need and want. These things include physical health and well-being, financial security, leisure and recreation and aspirational goals of personal achievement. We all struggle for many of these things, but they are not our highest order of struggle.

EXPECTATIONS 
Most people try hard and struggle against the challenges to achieve results and they expect to get them and are pleased when they do. They expect challenges and competition and adjust their goals and expectations as they go. We all learn how to manage the world’s systems and some do better than others. Some prosper for the right reasons and others are greedy and still prosper but for the wrong reasons.
In this world of outward struggle there are always disappointments and frustrations and we do our best to learn to live with them. 

These things are all part of the outer struggle of the circumstances of this world and are different to the inner struggle of the spirit. We all have both of these struggles waiting for us to engage with, but most people ignore the inner struggle of the spiritual life that we have been given to live and think that everything depends upon the management of the outer struggle of life, to have what we need or want or demand. 

But the Bible tells us that we have both an outer and an inner struggle, in a natural outer life and in an inner spiritual life. As we read before; ‘These two forces within us are constantly fighting each other to win control over us, and our wishes are never free from their pressures (Galatians 5:17)’.

By the grace of God we come to a time when the Esau nature in us to win the outward struggle yields to the Jacob nature in us to win the inner spiritual struggle.
There are stories in the Bible of this change happening in the lives of people who were challenged to let go of the old life and to take on the new. The parable of the prodigal son shows us how a young man who had given himself to the longing for the things of this world would come to the end of himself and humbly decide to return to his father. 

There is also the story of Saul the Pharisee who was once arrogantly proud of his religious credentials and who was cruelly persecuting the followers of Jesus when he was stopped in his tracks by a blinding light. And he saw a vision of Jesus who spoke to him with words that penetrated his heart, turning his life around to fully follow him.  

And when Jacob struggled with God and had his hip joint put out Jacob’s heart was filled not only with blessing but with a desire to walk with God, and so he did walk with God, and ended up walking with a limp. The limp reminded him that every step he took showed him his own human weakness and his dependence upon God’s strength, and it reminded him of his commitment to go through any struggle to receive the blessing of God in his life, over and above any blessing that the world could offer. 
That is a shadow of the longing of The Holy Spirit to give us that desire to struggle for the blessing of living out from the inner life of Jesus within us. The Holy Spirit shows us that we also walk with the limp of weakness, our humanity, and we struggle to hold on to God as our strength. The struggle to hold on to God also involves the letting go of things of the world. It is hard to hold on to two things at once, like holding on to God and holding on to resentment and other harmful attitudes in the heart. We end of letting go of one or the other.

An excerpt from ‘The Problem of Pain’ by C.S. Lewis

My own experience is something like this. I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happiness’s look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God's grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over. I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed. And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless.

So in the world of the outer struggle against the tribulations of this present time of global pandemic, where everything has changed everywhere for everybody at the same time, we are seeing an increase of fear and anxiety in many people concerning the necessary things of life; safety and security and wellbeing. 
This is changing the nature of peoples’ expectations. What and who do people trust?
This brings people to a point of choosing what kind of struggle to take on, and that choice is all about what to hold on to and what to let go of.
Esau’s struggle was to conquer life by holding on to his own strength and not letting go of the things of the world that end up bringing so much stress and anxiety.
The Bible calls Esau a ‘profane’ man which means not having regard to the things of God and it warns us not to go the way of Esau.
Hebrews 12:16 Watch out that no one becomes careless about God as Esau did: he traded his blessing as the oldest son for the pleasure of a single meal

When people are not able to let go of things or are deprived of things they want or demand to have, it brings resentment, and we are seeing much of this in these days in which we live and the reaction is to blame someone. 
Being able to let go of things willingly, brings freedom and peace and the response is to thank someone.
Jacob knew that life was a struggle anyway so why not let holding on to God be the struggle of his life. He learned to be able to let go of anything but never to let go of God.

Christianity is not about avoiding a struggling life; it’s about avoiding a wasted life. 
It will mean holding on to God in times of uncertainty, and times of difficulty, but it also means holding on to a whole lot of faith and a whole lot of hope. We don’t try to make the Esau in us become polite and caring and never get resentful or angry – Esau has to get out of the way for Jacob. It was Jacob who stood toe to toe with God and understood that his weakness was the welcome sign for the strength of God to possess his heart and mind.
If our hope is the same as the hope that the world has, then there is no basis for anyone in the world to ask us the reason for the hope we have.
1Peter 3:15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.
Holding on to God is not a passive waiting around for something to happen but it is holding on to a loving Jesus toe to toe, with a full hope and expectation of God bringing his loving goodness into our lives.

Romans 15:13 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.

The Important Thing

THE IMPORTANT THING notes

The important thing is to know what is the most important thing. 
The Bible speaks about Jesus being close friends of a man called Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary. Jesus would raise Lazarus from the dead and Mary would soon anoint feet of Jesus before his betrayal and his death on the cross. But prior to those events there is a story about Jesus being invited to have a meal in the home of Martha in Luke Chapter 10.
Luke 10:38  Jesus was welcomed to go and enjoy a meal in the house of Martha. But Martha was left to to do all the preparation on her own while her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet taking in every word that he said. 
Martha became stressed and upset with her sister Mary, and so she approached Jesus and said, “ Lord, don’t you care (melo – to realize it matters!) that my sister has left me to tend to all this work on my own? So tell her to help me.”
And Jesus answered and said to her, “ Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed (chreia – most important – a must), and Mary has chosen that (most) important thing, and that can never be taken away from her.

There are a number of important things happening here.
Martha thought that what she was doing, in preparing and serving up a meal was an important thing.
Martha also thought that having someone to help her prepare was an important thing.
Jesus would have appreciated the care that Martha had put into the preparation of the dinner and been blessed by that, but he was concerned about Martha’s attitude of resentment and judgment towards her sister Mary and himself that they were not being considerate of her.
Martha thought that Jesus did not think that what she was doing was important, that he didn’t care – that it didn’t really matter. Imagine telling God that he should get his priorities right about what really matters.

Jesus had to address Martha, but not to scold her; He loved her and Mary as sisters, as he loved their brother Lazarus as a brother (John 11:5). He wanted Martha to be healed from anxiety and stress and to enjoy the caring good work she was doing. He was not telling Martha that she should have ordered a takeaway meal and sat on the floor with Jesus and her sister, but to do the good thing she did with grace.
He also knew that Mary needed to choose that time at his feet for the inner healing of her own soul and spirit. The Bible tells us that Mary who anointed the feet of Jesus before his betrayal was a woman whom Jesus healed from deep inner torment (John 12 and Luke 7). 

The point of what I’m wanting to say today is this; We all have some Martha in us and some Mary in us. There is the doing self and the being self, and each one has its time and place. Many of the stories that Jesus told were preparing us for the understanding of the New Testament truth of having both the natural and the spiritual natures within us and how spiritual transformation is from the natural self from Adam into the Spiritual self through Jesus. The Bible doesn’t  tell us that there was anyone else in the room that day a Martha’s house – Lazarus isn’t mentioned and neither is anybody else - There were just three people in the room – and as far as this story goes there are always three people in the room – Jesus and the Martha and the Mary within us.
That busy Martha living in me attacks my soul peace and tells me that I’m not doing enough even when I’m busy doing things that I think are worth doing. 
My inner Mary self allows my soul peace to be restored but still has to learn to not get under condemnation or guilt and to enjoy sitting with Jesus, knowing that it is the best choice at that time and that it is always available.

I felt God saying to me in one of my ‘Mary sitting with Jesus’ times recently to resist the urge to get up and try to do some worthwhile thing, but to wait for something that he would bring before me to respond to - rather than for me to initiate anything. I found it was a challenge but it was a real blessing to be waiting and ready to respond and to come from that place of stillness rather than the place of being ‘distracted with many things’. Then the work that really matters comes from Jesus and not my busy self-effort self.

It is hard for us in our humanity to always strike the right balance but we need to hear the words of love that Jesus was saying to Martha and to Mary as his beloved sisters.
I was reading again how Jesus thought of us as his brothers and sisters and how he also said ‘I now call you friends and not servants’ (John 15).
So I asked Jesus the other day how I should worship him and I felt that he said to me ‘just be my brother and my friend; don’t get too religious. I am here for you and you can be here for me and we can worship the Father together in our spirit, and do the things that please him, the things that really matter’. The BiBle says that he worships his Father along with us and together we will sing his praises (Hebrews 2:12)

So it means that whether busy or quiet, we do it all unto the Lord. Jesus went to that house with healing in his heart. On his journey to his death he was always bringing to us his resurrection power and his healing. I have felt in these Covid times we have been afforded more opportunity to sit quietly with The Lord and to wait for him to arise with healing in his wings. Amen

 

 

Commandment 7 episode 8

There is a generally accepted definition of adultery which is in line with the Scriptures and it is ‘Unlawful sexual intercourse with married people’ – So this now depends upon what ‘Unlawful’ means

 

Lawful can change but what does not change is the spirit of adultery. It was lawful for Sarah to give Hagar to Abraham to have a child because if a woman was barren she could give her handmaid to her husband as a surrogate mother. It is unlawful in most of western society for a man to have two wives – bigamy, but it is not unlawful to commit adultery, but it used to be grounds for divorce in Australia till 1975. There are legal definitions of adultery in the American States of N Carolina, Minnesota and Virginia. And the commandment itself, and the spirit of adultery, or infidelity takes a lot more into account. Jesus once again expanded on this commandment in the sermon on the mount.

 

Jesus once again expanded on this commandment in the sermon on the mount.

Matthew 5:27-28. 'You have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not commit adultery." 28. 'But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to desire to have her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

 

From what Jesus said in that Scripture we can see that it deals with the whole sphere of unfaithfulness or infidelity, wrong desires, and excessive self-indulgence.

The self-indulgence part is one of the biggest factors that drives the rest because the commandment is about commitment to another person and their needs.  Excessive self indulgence is about no one else’s needs but our own.

 

DOES PROSTITUTION COME INTO THE CATEGORY OF ADULTERY?

Prostitution more of an expression of the next commandment – number eight, because it is as much about materialism as relational infidelity - It’s the money for the prostitute but the spirit of adultery for the man/woman.

 

IS PORNOGRAPHY PART OF COMMANDMENT SEVEN?

In the sexual area pornography seems to top the list. It is an addictive behavior that allows a person to isolate themselves and be gratified rather than engage meaningfully in fulfilling relationships and be satisfied. Also in the area of sensual gratification and outside of the sexual area are found things like over-eating, and drug abuse which includes alcoholism, and the abuse of prescription drugs, as well as the abuse of narcotics, and stimulants. At first glance, these pursuits and activities might seem to be rather 'private' habits, which do not involve causing harm to other people, but really they destroy themselves, their families and everyone else in their world.

 

Commandment to bless

COMMANDMENT TO BLESS 

There is a story in the Book of Numbers in chapters 20 to 24 which tells of Israel coming to the plains of Moab just east of the Jordan River and opposite Jericho. It was towards the end of the forty years of wandering in the wilderness and just before the death of Moses. They would later cross the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua, but at this time under Moses the Israelites had already defeated two powerful kings in that area of the Jordan - Sihon the king of the Amorites and Og the giant king of Bashan. 

Balak the king of Moab was in great dread of the multitudes of the people of Israel as they marched relentlessly onwards, sending up huge dust clouds that could be seen from afar. Balak had heard of the devastating defeats of the other nations and had heard the reports of the supernatural help that Israel’s God had given to them, and Balak said to his elders, ‘This horde will now lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.’ and he sent some of his elders to procure a man called Balaam for him.
Balak had figured that it would take supernatural power to defeat Israel’s supernatural God so he hired Balaam, a non-Israelite who was a notable ‘seer’, with a gift of divination whom he would have calculated was the equivalent of Moses, the prophet leader of Israel. He arranged for Balaam to be given a handsome ‘fee of divination’ by the elders of Moab to curse Israel. He said to Balaam ‘I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed’. It is reported in many Jewish writings that 
Balaam had prophesied that Balak would become the king of Moab.

But God spoke to Balaam and told him not to go with the elders to curse Israel because he had given his blessing to Israel. So Balaam sent the elders back to Balak with the message that God had given him. Balak then sent a greater delegation of even more honourable princes with greater enticement and honour to be bestowed upon Balaam for him to curse Israel. God came again to Balaam and told him that if Balak’s men came to him he should go with them but to resist the offer of Balak and to only say what God put in his mouth to say.

God sent an angel to warn Balaam to not deviate from what God had instructed him. The Bible says that God had seen perversity in the heart of Balaam so he had to warn him again. The angel needed to get Balaam’s attention so he pressed Balaam’s donkey against the wall of a narrow pathway that they had to pass through on his way to make his proclamation over Israel, and the donkey became stuck, whereby Balaam flogged the donkey three times until the donkey had a most extraordinary conversation with Balaam and complained of such harsh treatment after all of his years of faithful donkey service. This strange going on opened the eyes of Balaam to see the angel of The Lord standing in the narrow pathway and it was too much for Balaam, so he said to the angel of the LORD, ‘I have sinned, for I did not know that you stood in the road against me. Now therefore, if it is evil in your sight, I will turn back.’ And the angel of the LORD said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but speak only the word that I tell you.” So Balaam went on with the princes of Balak. 
That conversation that Balaam had with the donkey would win the vote of being the strangest conversation in the Bible. It shows what lengths God will go to in order to get our attention to let us know that he has given commandment for the blessing of his people.

Then the LORD put a word in Balaam's mouth and said, ‘Return to Balak, and this is what you shall speak; 
God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Behold, I received a command to bless: he has blessed, and I cannot reverse it…
The LORD their God is with them, and the shout of a king is among them.

So Israel went on to become a nation greatly blessed of God and went across the Jordan into the Promised Land and took the territory that God had promised to them through Abraham. But in all the years that they lived under God’s Covenant and under his blessing they were never called to bless those other nations or become ‘evangelical’ by gathering nations to themselves, but rather to stay separate from them. 

This might seem strange considering that God told Abraham that he would bring God’s blessing to all the nations of the earth through his offspring. But the fact is they have brought the greatest blessings to all nations through the seed of Abraham – Jesus. 
It was not the call upon the nation of Israel to bless the nations of the world in their time under their Covenant. It was only through Jesus as the most perfect and complete blessing, that Israel could have bestowed blessing upon mankind, and when Jesus came he bestowed mankind with that blessing of his life to us all.

God’s commandment to bless now comes through Jesus to us. 
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

No curse of evil will ever reverse that blessing of our inner spiritual life even in times of outward affliction and hardship. God has given commandment to bless us with all spiritual blessings through Jesus, and he will find ways to bless us that we could not even imagine, even within the disorder and disaster of this age in which we now live.
The devil is using his missiles of fear and resentment and anger and violence in today’s world, caught in the middle of a global pandemic, and all of these weapons of darkness add up to a commandment of cursing upon a humanity made in the image of God.
God is pouring out his love and peace and faith and hope into the hearts of his people, also in the midst of the same global affliction, and all of these are God’s arrows fired from his bow of love and they add up to being blessed in Christ with all spiritual blessings.

And not only have we received God’s command OF blessing but we have received God’s commandment TO bless 
God’s blessing to Israel came in the form of territory, the Promised Land of Canaan, but God’s blessing to us and through us is not the physical territory of land but the spiritual territory of the heart. He wins the territory of our hearts by his love and we win the territory of peoples’ hearts in the same way.
God has ordained for his imperfect people through Jesus to release the perfect blessing of Jesus and to bless all the nations of the earth. 

That is why the Bible says to us ‘Be perfect as God in Heaven is perfect’ (Matthew 5:48).
‘Being perfect as he is perfect’ is an act of faith that allows us as imperfect people to relate to a perfect God that we cannot see, where the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit can bless those we know and love, or strangers that God sends our way for him to bless. He has given commandment to bless and he will not reverse it.
Those things are waiting to happen to us all the time wherever we are, and they happen to us unexpectedly and uninvited. And we might not always feel prepared and ready like 
We might find things landing upon us when we would rather get on with what we want to be doing at any particular time, not realizing that Jesus is indeed still really perfect at that moment, ready to do his perfect will in our life and for our life and through our life.  He hasn’t forgotten and become distracted with other weightier matters. 
It becomes a matter of thinking about what is going on between us and God at that moment of time, and that he has not changed.

And we need to reassure ourselves that nothing we do will ever look perfect on the outside. It is not like being an Olympic diving champion and diving a perfect ten off a ten metre-high tower. It is like being an ordinary human being that is trying to stay afloat and swim the distance.

We can turn a simple act of care and good will in what seems like a very ordinary moment, into a moment of God’s perfect spiritual work of goodness and grace, like being kind to an ungrateful person or helping someone who is in need but who maybe really isn’t in need. That has not been a waste of time. It requires awareness and faith and hope. God is there waiting to love someone who doesn’t deserve it like we didn’t deserve it, and he is very patient and eager to endue us with power from on high to be used by him in this way. That is why he sent the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t just for church. 
Jesus didn’t just go to the churchgoers but to the outcasts and sinners who weren’t even allowed in the temple. He met them where they were and the power of The Holy Spirit was released.

Jesus comes to us in these moments disguised as our everyday life. That is why the Bible speaks about Jesus saying on the day of judgment ‘I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…And they replied  when did we see you thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, And the King will answer them, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Those things we have done in partnership with Jesus through the Holy Spirit will accompany us into the age to come. That is what it means by storing up treasures in Heaven.

I don’t think this is easy and it takes practice to develop a keen awareness that God is with us, because there is so much that we have to process that presses in upon the narrow pathway of our everyday challenges of life that takes over our souls. 
So we can practice how to stop and reflect at that moment of challenge to consider what is really going on in the powerful realm of God’s perfection alongside our imperfection and that makes us rethink about what is going on between us and God – our ordinary life in partnership with his extraordinary life that desires to bless the world and draw them to himself through his people.

We get our minds off our weakness and onto him and his strength, as Paul tells us what God said to him when Paul was becoming weakened under attack from Satan ‘My grace is sufficient for you – My strength is made perfect in weakness’ (2Corinthians 12:8) - and that is what leads to the faith that assures us that God is at work mightily on our behalf.

We are living in days when God is shining a light to our path and bringing light into the darkness, and order into the midst of disorder. He is commanding his blessing in the midst of an outpouring of what could seem like cursing in the way many people are affronting and insulting one another in these contentious times. But no matter how much the enemy wants to spiritually defeat us through all this, God’s will to bless his people and for his people to be his blessing to others will be seen triumphing over those destructive and evil strategies of malevolence and ill will. 

We learn to wait ON God to receive the faith and the peace that he is at work, while we actively seek to bless, but we also learn to wait FOR God and his timing to reveal his supernatural activity, and as we move forward faithfully, waiting for God, with our eyes on the horizon of faith, God appears as a sunrise that rises above that horizon, and reveals what he is doing and what he has done that only he can do as he commands the blessing. Amen