Spiritcode

Waiting and Hoping

WAITING AND HOPING

The Book of Isaiah is a story of how God’s people live in hope, waiting for God. There are times that they start to trust in their own strength and turn away from him, and there are times when they are reminded to turn back to God, and when they do, they are mightily surprised by him, and it all comes into focus in this message in Chapter 30.
God had been calling upon Israel for more than fifty years since the days of King Uzziah to take on a non-reactive role in international politics so that they could be given a new place of being God's spiritual representative as his servant to the world. and this role becomes clear in the later chapters of Isaiah, ‘arise shine for your light has come’ (Ch.60). 

He called for a willingness on the nation's part to stop gazing out at the other nations and getting involved in their chaos and disorder and to rather search inward to find faith and to rest in God's grace and commitment to grow them and form them and do them good. He had said he would make them the head and not the tail, and that they would be above and not beneath (Deuteronomy 28:13). The world around them would then see that God was with them. God had his timing for Israel to position them in the best possible way and much would be expected of them, but they had to learn to hear God.
In the following Scripture we see a cry from God’s heart to the people of Israel (and also to us). He was speaking through His prophet Isaiah, and He said:

Isaiah 30:15 For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, says: Only in returning to me and waiting for me will you be saved; in quietness and confidence is your strength; but you'll have none of this.
‘No,’ you say. ‘We will get our help from Egypt; they will give us swift horses for riding to battle.’ But the only swiftness you are going to see is the swiftness of your enemies chasing you! 
18 Yet the Lord still waits for you to come to him so he can show you his love; he will conquer you to bless you, just as he said. For the Lord is faithful to his promises. Blessed are all those who wait for him to help them. You shall weep no more, for he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. He will answer you.
20 Though he has given you the bread of adversity and water of affliction, yet he will be with you to direct you, and with your own eyes you will see. And if you leave God's path and go to the left or to the right, you will hear a voice behind you say, ‘No, this is the way’, so you can walk in it.

These words were said to God's people during a time when they had become tired of waiting for God to do something and were agitating to organize things for themselves. but God was waiting for them to do nothing! They were in a position where there was a fierce army from the north that was about to come and plunder them – and they were planning a political alliance with Egypt. But they had been told by God to wait for him to act on their behalf - 'In quietness and confidence you shall find your strength'. 
This would require quietness in the midst of turmoil, and trust that God would control the great forces that were devastating the world around them. That would be a braver and wiser kind of leadership than trying to control the politics of the day. 

It is the same with us as his people in these challenging days we live in now. We don’t sit around passively but we let him position us in his way and in his time. There are good things that are God things that God has ordained for us to do and we need his wisdom to make the right decisions at the right time.
The Holy Spirit teaches us that wise activity comes from a place of peace not emotional reaction or ambitious ideas that come from self-importance.

The final blessing in verse 18 is dedicated to those who are willing to listen and who wait.
‘Yet the Lord still waits for you to come to him so he can show you his love; he will conquer you to bless you, just as he said’.
What Jesus conquers in us is our independence from him as a savior and friend and brother. God had engineered a situation for Israel in which no matter how much skill and ingenuity they thought they had, they were acting without his direction, and they were not only going to fail but they were going to make matters worse for themselves and come under God’s judgment. God does this kind of thing for a reason for all of us because there are some things that are just beyond us, beyond our ability to solve. But we still try – and we still fail. 
God is waiting for us to wait for him.

God assured Israel that he wanted to take them back again to a place of hope where he would look after them. He repeats to them that He will do good to them. He concedes that He has allowed them to go through tough times of adversity, and that He has even contrived it for a good reason, but that now it is time for rest and peace to come to them instead of anxiety, and that when they cry out to him, he will hear and act.

God is saying the same to us in this time of anxiety and uncertainty that has come upon the whole world, where there is strife and contention on many different levels. People are in conflict and causing offence to one another over things that once would never had bothered them, and the emotion that gets attached to the offences gets amplified by all forms of media to stir up political and relational strife in the community and even in families. It seems like everybody is waiting for something good to happen because too much bad and sad has happened, and they don’t know how to make the good thing happen because the world is broken and so are they. 
And God’s wants his people to know that they are not here to ‘fix’ the world but to bring healing to the souls of individuals and families and the community, to bring hope for those lives to become fulfilled and meaningful, trusting in a loving God.
The hope is that God wills to do good at this time in this world for all that call upon him with a true heart, to bring rest for their souls, and it is only when we are in a place of peace that we can impart this living hope to those around us. 

Philippians 4:6 Let your steadiness and calm be seen by those around you. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Does this Scripture mean that God will give us the answer to every prayer that we pray?
No. This Scripture tells us to wait for the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.
So why don't we wait? 
Well, just like Israel - we feel we can't just wait around and do nothing - we must solve the problem our own way and try to make something happen or maybe decree things in God’s name that he hasn’t authorized and then end up anxiously waiting to get the answer we want. We need to receive God’s peace first.

How does this peace give us hope?
When we know that there is a person that we can trust in totally to look after all our needs and problems in the best way possible, we can be at rest and let them do what they know is best for us. That allows God’s peace to sweep over our souls.
When we wait and receive that peace it becomes the signal that God has arrived on the scene. Suddenly, we see things in a different way – we lose our anxiety and fear, and we re-gather hope and expectation for things to change for the better – better than we could have ever planned for them to be. We can then live with the hope that he will surprise us with his outcome because his gift of peace guards our hearts and guides our minds saying to us; And if you leave God's path and go to the left or to the right, you will hear a voice behind you say, ‘No, this is the way’, so you can walk in it.

This becomes something that we learn, sometimes the hard way, that God waits for us to wait for Him, to give us his peace!
God also loves to share that moment with us of showing us what he has done for us, and to reveal more of himself to us so that we can get to know him better.

 

 

 

Nourishing Faith

NOURISHING FAITH 

The Apostle Peter died shortly after he wrote his second epistle and in the first verse of that letter he tells us that we have received ‘faith of equal standing with his (isotimos; of equal value or honour). He goes on to write about how that faith grows and brings forth the fruit of the true person that we were created to become. I see that being like a tree of life growing within us. It took many trials of faith for Peter to come into the fulness of that fruitful faith experience, and he wants to impart that experience to us in this epistle. He came from being a godly man under the Law who strived to say and to do the right things as a man of God, into becoming a man of faith who lived in the flow of God’s divine nature within. 
2Peter 1:3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to (pros move forward to, bring about) life and godliness, through the (intimate personal) knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, through which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises (commitments), so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of wrong desires (epithymia). For this very reason diligently add to your faith virtue, (epichor??ge?? - nourish -vitalise the organic nutrients of the tree of life within you with) and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

How do we add to our faith? Do we say we believe in Jesus and his death and resurrection and then having settled that, we start to become a better person by making an effort to becoming virtuous and gaining knowledge and being kind and trying to sacrificially love people?
It could seem that this Scripture is saying this, and if that were the case we might as well have a Christian belief system and then live under the Law by doing our best to obey the Ten Commandments. Now that is not a bad thing to do and perhaps that is what James is saying when he says that ‘faith without works is dead’ (James 2:26), which could look like a contradiction to what Paul says. 
Romans 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith alone not by the works of the law.
There is no contradiction. James and Paul are both saying the same thing, and so is Peter in this passage of Scripture - that everything in our Christian faith, from being forgiven and receiving the life of Christ and being made one with him through the holy Spirit depends upon our conscious dependence upon what he has done and is doing for us. Peter and James and Paul all assume that we will undertake to live a life in participation with God that produces the fruit of his Spirit within us. Faith is always about depending upon God while nourishing his divine activity within.

The following episodes of Peter’s life I am about to describe are not meant to disparage this Apostle of God, but they reflect to us how we too can struggle like Peter did, with all good intentions to be who God wants us to be. And like Peter we learn to realize that we can only be changed into who God created us to become, through a surrendered faith in the work of the Holy Spirit within us. That is the obedience of faith.
Peter was a man of good intentions and great aspirations, a man who wanted to give everyone the best advice but who often didn’t know what he was talking about. He told Jesus that it was not God’s will for him to die on the cross. He said to Jesus, ‘No Lord, far be it from you, you’re not going to the cross’. 
Peter was also a man who wanted to be so friendly he would swap sides if being on the wrong side made him look bad to his other friends. When Peter visited Paul and Barnabus in the new gentile church in Antioch which they were growing, Peter accepted their gentile Christian lifestyle which was free from Jewish rules and regulations and rituals and was happy to share their expression of Christianity. That was until James and some other Jewish Christians decided to come and check out how things were going in this new church, and immediately Peter stopped eating with the gentile Christians and stopped associating with them and convinced Barnabus to do the same. Paul became incensed about this hypocrisy and berated Peter in front of all the other Apostles (Galatians 2:11).

Peter was a man of such self-conscious mood swings that he could say to Jesus ‘no you won’t wash my feet’, and then realizing his foolishness say, ‘please not just my feet but wash all of me’.         

On one occasion Peter went with Jesus up onto a mountain with James and John where Jesus was transfigured, and his face shone like the sun. Moses and Elijah appeared, talking with Jesus in a bright cloud and Peter decided to break in on their discussion and he said to Jesus, ‘If you like, I would be happy to put up three tents here right now, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ Then from the cloud another voice broke in on Peter and said ‘This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, Listen to him!’ When Peter heard that he fell flat on his face on the ground, terrified.  
                                         
Peter was a man who was so loyal to his religious opinions that he let his opinions give him permission to say no to God – ‘Not so Lord I can’t eat what you’ve offered me it’s religiously unclean’ (Acts 10:14). Peter was then told by God to preach the Gospel to a Gentile centurion called Cornelius, and he did so, but upon being invited into the man’s house the first thing he said was;  ‘Do you know it’s not lawful for a Jew to enter a gentile house?’
Peter was a man who found it so difficult to control his emotions and reactions that after praying in the garden of Gethsemane with Jesus, and continually nodding off to sleep, he lopped an ear off the guard who came to arrest Jesus for his trial, and he then ran and hid in the crowd and told people he didn’t know who Jesus was. 
Peter was a man who learned the hard way, and for many years to surrender in faith to God’s grace and his idea of who he was and who he could become and he humbly let God’s grace allow him to become that man God created him to be, beyond all of his good intentions and all his personal aspirations.

Peter’s life is a lesson to us of how not to become victims of our own strong opinions about who we are, who other people are and what is going on. We think we have opinions but often they really have us, and they’re mostly borrowed from other people anyway.

Peter went on to become a hero of faith. He became a man who humbly lived and spoke from the Tree of Life and not the tree of knowledge (which was mostly the religious knowledge of rules and regulations). 
Peter is telling us that the spiritual growth activities that he mentions in his letter from verse 3 will be brought about by the divine life of the nature of God in us. They are not a compulsory set of regulations enforced upon us in order to gain merit or favour or achieve some kind of status as a Christian. These are the overflow of the life principle (Divine nature) that spills into our heart and mind and soul and body from Jesus through the Holy Spirit. This is what our faith opens up for us and what flows out into the people and the world around us.

Do we dare to believe this? So what does faith do? How does this tree grow?
For any plant to grow it needs good soil and sunshine and rain.
The sunshine is God’s love – the universal energy that causes life to flourish. 
The rain is the Holy Spirit that joins us in oneness of the values of God’s mind and heart. The soil is our heart that is broken up and softened by the rain and the sun and by our desire to have that tree of life planted into our value system with real intention and aspiration. This is what makes our life one of fulfillment and joy, and all the while we are painfully aware of falling short but we give our best to this work of nourishing our faith and there is always the now to come back to.

Virtue; arete – The character traits of courage, honesty and integrity. 
We ask ourselves the question; Why will I not face this challenge of obedience to God? Am I avoiding this because of fear of failure or rejection? Am I taking shortcuts because no one is watching? If I fail I’ll feel ashamed.
If the answer is yes, we can ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us that we can trust God to honour the smallest step of our yes to him even if it looks like there will be a cost to our yes of being opposed or of suffering disadvantage – for example admitting to getting something wrong with no excuses and taking the consequences. We will then see God honour his commitment to bring about his good and perfect will for us in the situation.
We also learn in trusting God this way that he is purifying our conscience to see more clearly his right rather than being at ease with our own rationalisation of our actions. We the get to trust in our own heart with more confidence and so grow in faith.

Knowledge; gnosis - understanding of what is worthwhile knowing as far as growing in a living faith is concerned. 
Do I want to know spiritual concepts and doctrinal facts things because it gives me significance or influence with others?
If yes, then we need to ask God about the things he wants to reveal to us about who he is and to trust the Holy Spirit to give us his wisdom from above so that we can know his will for our lives in order to make right choices. He will teach us by His Spirit and his Word what is worthwhile knowing, and also how to impart wisdom to others.

Self control; egkrates – Management of boundaries in our life. 
Do I want to live without boundaries in my life that limit my self-determination to do things my way or that limit my self-indulgence to have what I want?
If yes, we can ask God to help us reorder the spiritual and moral priorities in our lives, starting with ourselves, and if we choose to live like that we become part of the reordering of the people and things around us.

Perseverance; hypomeno – abiding patiently under circumstances. 
Do I find myself impatiently complaining about the way things are or the way other people are and resisting rather than accepting the things that I cannot change?
If yes, we can ask Holy Spirit to give us his grace to give thanks in all things – for this is the good will of a loving God for us, then he will reveal to us that he is working all things together for our good.
 
Godliness; eusebiea - spiritual focus, devotedness. 
Do I find myself being more attracted to the things of the world rather than to God?
If yes, then we can ask The Lord to create in us a clean heart, and to renew a right spirit within us. He will then touch us with his presence and purify our hearts so that we begin to see God in everything around us.

Brotherly kindness; Philadelphia - care and compassion. 
Do I find it is an irritation or an annoyance when I have to go out of my way to assist someone, and turn away or find reasons why I shouldn’t have to? (Good Samaritan)
If yes, ask The Holy Spirit to help us understand the feelings of helplessness or heartache that another person is suffering. The blessing for us is that we will find the compassion and comfort of God coming upon us in abundance in our times of despondency.

Love; agape – selfless sacrificial love.
Do I find myself not heeding what God says about what love is and what it is not?
1Corinthians 13:4 Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful, or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong. 
If we knew how much we were loved by God we would find delight in heeding those words and living this life that he has given us and finding delight in loving and blessing others

Attending to this process of spiritual growth makes our life one of fulfillment and joy, and even though all the while we are painfully aware of falling short, we give our best to this work of nourishing our faith. When we fall short there is always the now to come back to. Faith only works in the now. We don’t go back to regretting what we got wrong, and we don’t make a resolution to try and get it better tomorrow. We come into the now immediatelyknowing that at that moment God is loving us and forgiving us and increasing our faith to produce the fruit of his tree of life in us.  
    

 

 

We the Temple

WE THE TEMPLE 
 
During the closing few months leading up to the final week of the life and ministry of Jesus the momentum of his public appearances began to build up, and supernatural works of miracles and healing among the blind and the lame and the infirm were taking place everywhere he went. These sensational public appearances of Jesus and his engagement in open conflict and debate with the Scribes and Pharisees created a fame and notoriety that he had not deliberately set out to achieve. But he saw his Father ‘s power and love being glorified through him in these things, especially in the final most astonishing miracle of his raising of his friend Lazarus from the dead, and it was during that time that he began to be questioned by the many that followed him if he was indeed the Christ. 

All this uninvited fame and notoriety and political power polling posed an enormous threat not only to Herod who was the legal king over the Jews, but it also signalled a threat to the Roman Empire as the people were urging him to establish his own kingdom. And when he finally rode into Jerusalem on a donkey at the beginning of the week of the Passover the Bible says; ‘The Pharisees spoke to one another saying, “You see, we can do nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him!’ (John 12:19)
They feared that Jesus would decide to rule over the Jewish religion and keep on working miracles like feeding hungry multitudes and raising people from the dead, and they were anxious about the fervour of the hero worship of Jesus and the anticipation of his rise to spiritual power. They feared He would be invincible and topple their religious power base. They had feverishly been trying to discredit the resurrection of Lazarus to the point that the chief priests plotted to have Lazarus put to death, and for him to stay dead this time (John 12:10).

The passionate dedication of Jesus for the Temple, his Father’s house, had been most evident in those last few months of his ministry as he placed intense focus on the final three Temple feasts.   
For Jesus each Temple visit was not just like a visit to church as a good religious Jew. There was a distinct purpose for each visit because each feast had a message about how Jesus had been intricately involved in the record of Israel throughout history. At each feast he made statements that declared that he was the spiritual fulfillment of what that feast was all about. At each feast he declared what was happening in the here and now for Israel in that present moment. And for each feast he declared our future participation with him as the new Temple to be - in the prophetic fulfillment of our lives, as history would move forward in the plan of God for this age.

The first of the final three Temple visits was when he attended the Feast of Tabernacles, called ‘the feast of booths (tents)’, celebrating the miracle of the living water that flowed from out of the rock that Moses struck with his rod in the wilderness. (Exodus 17:3) 
Jesus had taken the back roads to Jerusalem to avoid the now common busy interaction with the crowds because he wanted to appear at the feast about midway into it to be ready for the moment for him to speak the words that would be immortalised for us throughout time. On that meandering way to the Temple he would have passed many hundreds of tents camped upon the hillsides because thousands of people gathered on these hills for the week of the ‘feast of booths (tents)’.

During that feast people had been dancing and singing as the water drawing ceremonies and rituals were acted out each morning. Women would get water from the surrounding springs and wells in their water pitchers and take them up to the temple singing with the men and the children from Isa 12:13 ‘Therefore with joy you shall draw water from the wells of salvation.
The feast had a closing ceremony on the 7th day and the main feature was the drawing of the living water commemorating the living water that God had provided for them at the Rock in their wilderness travels, and Jesus had arrived for that special part of the ceremony
On that day, as the large golden water bowl was carried by the people up the temple steps, the huge crowd stood around watching and cheering, amidst the sounding trumpet blasts. This was the high point of the feast, and at the top of the temple steps was a special altar with a priest selected by the Sadducees, waiting for the big moment to arrive. When the bowl was presented to him he would raise his hand to indicate that the call was about to be made for people to ‘Come, you who thirst, drink of the water’. 

This would have been the moment, when the priest raised his hand, that Jesus would have stood in front of the crowd and called out in a strong loud voice as we see in the Scripture, ‘On that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, As the Scripture has said, Out of His heart will flow rivers of living water’. He was speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive (John 7:37)
Those words that Jesus said at that time in front of all the Jewish pilgrims from all over the Middle East, Asia Minor and Greece would have hit their ears like a thunderclap. Everybody would have known whose cry it was, and many would have seen its significance, namely that Jesus had come to embody all that past experience of Israel in the wilderness. 
The Scriptures tell us (John 7: 40-44) that division and argument broke out amongst the crowd. Many in the crowd said, ‘This is The Prophet’ while others said ‘This is The Christ’, while the temple police officers said ‘no one has ever spoken like this man’. Jesus had turned their historic feast into a proclamation of their salvation and our salvation, our present faith and our future hope, an astounding fulfillment of prophecy. And this audacious performance further provoked the priests and the teachers of the Law.

The second Temple visit was when he attended the Feast of Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the feast of the re-dedication of the Temple at Jerusalem. This feast is not mentioned in the Old Testament as it occurred between the time of the last book (Malachi), and before the time of Jesus. However, it is mentioned in the New Testament. It came in December, a little while after the Feast of Tabernacles, and before the Feast of Passover in March/April of the next year.
John 10:22 Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the Temple, in Solomon's porch. Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
And then Jesus declared ‘I and the Father are one’ and the Bible tells us that the Jews picked up stones again to stone him, but Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” (John 10:31)

Then in the last week of Jesus’ life and ministry, which we call Holy Week, Jesus rode down from the Mount of Olives near Bethany into Jerusalem on a donkey that had been prepared for him by his disciples, while the crowds laid palm leaves on the road in front of him calling out ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!’ (John 12:12) That last week, which was to culminate in the feast of Passover was also the week of the Last supper, and the week where he was betrayed by Judas, and where he agonised in the Garden of Gethsemane, and where He was denied by Peter, put on trial, and crucified. 
That spectacular visit of Jesus to the feast of Passover was the third significant visit to attend special Feasts at the Temple that Jesus had made in the last five months of his ministry.

This third visit was a week before the Feast of Passover, and this time he came to cleanse the temple from the corruption of the money changers and to heal many of the blind and the infirm who were only allowed to enter the outer Temple area.

Jesus had made clear to his disciples that the procession was to be the fulfillment of a prophecy by the prophet Zechariah.
Zechariah 9:9 cry aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king is coming to you; he is righteous and able to deliver, he is humble and riding on a donkey and a colt, the foal of a donkey. 
Jesus had also told everyone that he was not interested in an earthly kingdom, and that his kingdom is a spiritual one, but his followers did not want to believe this.  

After Jesus had entered Jerusalem and the noisy and boisterous procession was over, with palm leaves left strewn everywhere, Jesus headed straight for the Temple, his Father’s House, to which he was dedicated with a passion. 

When Jesus entered the vast outer court of the Gentiles he went to where the money changers were selling animals and birds for sacrifice. It was into this area where multitudes of Jews from other regions like Syria and Persia and Chaldea and Asia Minor would come during this special week for the Feast of the Passover. The grandeur and vastness of this Temple complex that Herod had built covered an astounding area of about 35 acres, and the outer court of the Gentiles would have accommodated the space of many many football stadiums. It was a massive wonder described by Josephus the historian as ‘the greatest ever heard of’. Because these foreigners didn’t have the silver Temple shekel currency, they had to exchange their foreign money. The money changing tables were not the problem for Jesus, because these people needed to buy turtle doves, lambs, and such things to offer sacrifices, but his heart burst with indignation at the greed and corruption of the money changers because they charged from twenty to three hundred percent interest. This was not only criminal, but it was an abomination that his Father’s House which was supposed to be used for prayers and worship and sacrifice had been turned into ‘a den of thieves’ (Matthew 21). So he threw over their tables and chased them out of the temple. His actions were hard-hitting and forceful, but they were driven by a zealous and protective love for his Father’s house, the house of prayer and the presence of God. 

There were many others quietly mingling among the crowd in the outer court that boisterous day of the incident with the money tables, they were the silent ones who had learned to accept their lot and not lift their voices above the crowd. They were the blind and the lame and infirm who were forbidden by the decrees in Leviticus 21 to enter into the Temple proper to ‘appear before the Lord’ and worship in his presence. They were separated and cut off and mostly despised by the Pharisees and some others of the Temple worshipers and Jesus had great compassion for them. They would have heard the life-giving words of this prophet/teacher who healed the sick and even forgave sins, and they would have held a humble hope in their hearts that this man was indeed the Messiah. They had held back when the commotion of the money tables was going on and when it had at last ceased and Jesus was left standing alone for a long moment they rushed towards him with outstretched arms and Jesus stood in their midst and healed everyone of them from their diseases. Jesus had come to change their pitiful state that day and to turn those outsiders into insiders.
Matthew 21:14 the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

The Temple was the one Old Testament fixture that was emblematic of everything holy for Jesus throughout his entire life. He was dedicated there, and twelve years later when he came to the Temple with his parents for the feast of Passover he sat with the teachers of the Law there for three days speaking words of wisdom there to them and astonishing them, and when his distraught parents found him after they had supposed him missing, he said to them, ‘Don’t you know I must be about my Father’s work?’(Luke 2)

The Temple was the place where it was ordained in the Old Testament that God would meet with his people – it was his habitation. But this Temple was about to change its nature from a man-made structure to a Heaven-sent person. This was paramount for Jesus, who was in fact the living breathing walking Temple who knew that his death and resurrection would mean that the material Temple, called in Scripture the ‘Temple made with hands’ would no longer be the place where God met with his people. In fact, a short time after his death and resurrection the Temple would be destroyed and cease to exist. His prophecy concerning this reality actually became the charge of blasphemy that was made against him at his trial.
John 2:9 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

The final dramatic transfiguration of the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem from the place of worship and God’s presence into a spiritual reality of ‘God with us’ through Jesus Christ was marked by a supernatural sign at the time of his crucifixion. When Jesus died on the cross at Golgotha the Scripture says; ‘And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit, and behold, the curtain of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split’ (Matthew 27:50) .

When that curtain was torn it was the last barrier to come down between God and mankind in the earth. In a few weeks the Holy Spirit would be sent from heaven to the earth on the day of Pentecost and access into the holy place of God’s presence would be an act of faith and love as people received the risen life of Jesus to dwell within their hearts and become living Temples of the Holy Spirit. 

So just as Jesus was able to say I am the Temple, he said that so that we can now say we are the Temple. And just as Jesus declared he was the living water at the feast of Tabernacles, so now we have that river of the life of the Holy Spirit flowing within us. And just as Jesus said ‘I and the Father are one’ at the feast of Dedication, we can say we are now one with he and the Father (John 14). And just as he spoke the words ‘It is finished’ on the cross at the Passover feast, so for us there is nothing we can do by our own works to add to his perfect work of salvation other than to believe.

No matter how many cathedrals and churches we build there is no longer any man-made sanctuary in this earth, or any altar. The altar is in our heart of love and surrendered faith in Jesus, and wherever we meet and however we meet in his name we are his Temple (1Corinthians 6:19), and he joins with us there in worship to the Father.

 

Mountaintop Manifesto

MOUNTAINTOP MANIFESTO

Matthew 4:24 So the fame of Jesus also spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

On one such occasion Jesus sat with his disciples on a mountaintop and from there he began to teach the crowd that had been following him about what are called the Beatitudes, which means blessings – the blessings of being deeply fulfilled in soul and spirit. This teaching of Jesus is also known as ‘The Sermon on the Mount’.
Today I’m calling that Sermon on the Mount the ‘Mountaintop Manifesto’
A manifesto is a proclamation of a grand intention that states where we have come from and where we are and the plan to get where we are going.
Jesus starts the manifesto with the words; “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:2).

Life was difficult for the people who lived under the harsh Roman rule that governed their lives in those regions around Judea and from beyond the Jordan. They were mostly very needy people and many were poor and sick and infirm and had no real hope of fulfillment in life except for perhaps a faint and distant promise of a coming Messiah. Jesus wanted to give these ordinary lives the dignity and meaning and satisfaction in life that they had been created for, and to bring a spiritual fulfillment that they had never dreamed of.

He came to change the pitiful state they were in and to turn it upside down for them, and not only for those who heard him speak that day, but for all people everywhere and for all time, through being given entrance into his Heavenly Kingdom that would dwell within them in the here and now of their daily lives, and that new way of living would commence after his death and resurrection. Jesus had a wonderful plan to set all of these people into his Heavenly family with his Father and the Holy Spirit, and in his eyes they were already his brothers and sisters in that Heavenly family and so his heart was filled with compassion and with a magnificent hope of what his love was going to achieve for them. 
 
However, he knew that the words of blessing that he was about to speak over them would be difficult for them to comprehend and as being beyond the realm of possibility, so he began to speak to their self-image of poverty and lowliness and to lift them into a place of blessed hope. And he began to teach the people, saying:

Matthew 5:2 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

I want to take these blessings one by one and expand on their message of blessed fulfilment of soul and spirit.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus chooses the lowest standing of human spiritual experience, that of poverty which reflects an attitude of neediness and scarcity and even destitution, and he offers the greatest of all possible blessing and benefit – that of possession of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus bestows his Kingdom with all its order and authority and wholeness and love and provision to enrich the spiritual lives of all who believe, no matter to what depth of poverty they have sunk. And Jesus made this promise to all of us. For all those there who heard that promise this would have been almost beyond belief, but Jesus spoke a powerful truth that day, one that he continues to speak to us in these days.

 
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

The pain of deep personal loss is very hard for another person to share in because they cannot undo that loss for us. We cannot be told to cheer up or get over it or to ‘move on’.
There is only one thing we need at that time – and that is to be comforted.  These people had lived with loss and grief…We can ably comfort someone at those times with grace and sensitivity, and sometimes with a quiet presence that stills the heart. But the ‘Comforter’ the Holy Spirit can come into our loss in such a perfect way that only he can at those times because he knows exactly what kind of comfort we need and his embrace can give us comfort like we have never found before.
The decease of a loved one brings a grief that is mingled with hope in the sense that the person we have lost has not ceased to exist and it is a matter of time till we meet again, and all will not only be well but be perfect.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Meek – praus - gentleness of spirit)

The gentle spirit of the meek doesn’t aggressively assert its rights over the rights of other people but knows that what is truly due to them will come to them in God’s way and in God’s time.   
There is great peace in being able to say ‘Thank You for what I have’. where you can find contentment in who you are and what you have, no more, no less. There is great peace in being able to say ‘I have enough, and God will supply what I don’t have.’ That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought with money.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Life takes on new meaning when you get a hunger deep inside of you to know God. This is what fulfils a life. We can compare the difference between an inner hunger and an outer hunger. The empty feeling of an outer hunger leads to a person eating anything they can find and that’s not always the most healthy food to choose and can lead to health problems. An inner hunger is an emotional and spiritual kind of emptiness that is only satisfied by relationships of mutual blessing where each person desires to bless the other, just as God desires to bless us and where we are also able to bless God. 

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Up to this point Jesus has been talking about the blessings that would come from God to them – for their own personal blessing. But now he begins to speak to them about how these blessings could begin to flow out from them, to bless other people.

He tells us we are blessed when we care and have mercy, because at the moment of being caring, we find ourselves being cared for, as caring and showing mercy sets up the divine flow that draws God’s care and mercy from Heaven to us and through us to others. 

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

When we get the inner world of our heart put right with attitudes of faith and love and truth we will see God in our outside world in the things that happen to us and in the people we come across – and they will see God in us. We will see meaning and purpose even in things that are contrary because God is working out all things for our best. This is a measure of our growth in faith and trust in the fact that God is always acting on our behalf for his goodwill to come to pass in those people and situations in our world that we bring before him in prayer.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God.

At this point Jesus now lifts them into becoming co-laborers with him in building up the family of God, the family he has brought us into as his brothers and sisters.
Peacemakers know their place in God’s family, and they help others to find their place in God's family. Peacemakers help people to agree and cooperate instead of competing or fighting. This is the gift of grace that sees past the differences that exist between one individual and another – in personality, and background, and ways of thinking and acting, and to be inclusive instead of exclusive.  We may be different to each other in hundreds of ways, but we are one in Spirit. Paul writes from prison to the Ephesian Church and says;
Ephesians 4:1 therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.
We have been given gifts by God that are uniquely designed and made to measure for each one of us to express the love and power and truth of the Holy Spirit that we might bless one another. We celebrate that unity whenever we gather together, no matter how few or how many we are and that is one of the greatest ways we can bless The Lord who celebrates that love and unity along with us.  

 

 

Commandment 9 Episode 10

Exodus 20:16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

 

Does this Commandment only deal with what we say about our neighbour, or does it include what we say about God?

It includes what we say about God because he wants there to be a true witness of himself in the earth. So when we discuss bearing false witness it is important that we also discuss true witness, and God is also person and therefor is also out neighbour.

 

Truth about God comes from God himself as his revelation or self revealing through his Word and his creation and the things that he does for us to see.

God is before all things. This is sometimes called the ‘prevenient grace of God’ God has acted upon us first and is always acting upon us. Atheists would say no – you thought God up. I say no to that - he thought us up.

 

What about scientific truth –  Is not that an honest representation of what is?

Yes it is. However science is continually finding that it can observe ‘what is’ far more accurately than it used to. What has been concealed can now be more readily revealed because of new technology and instrumentation especially regarding the observation of the galaxies and the laws of motion. Truth is ‘what is’ The word in the Greek used in the Bible is ‘alethinos’, which means ‘that which is not concealed’, IE, ‘that which is revealed’.

 

What is the difference between scientific objectivity and faith.

The Bible says ‘faith is the evidence of things not seen’ Scientific enquiry would once perhaps scoffed at that statement but it now uses the same framework of enquiry into ‘what is’. Nobel Prize-winning physicists referred to the phenomenon of what appeared to be the possibility of two particles being in the same place at the one time (The Higgs Boson) as the "God Particle" It took nearly half a century and a multi-billion dollar particle accelerator to observe this. In the meantime the reality of this had to be ‘assumed’ as true before it could be seen because of their brilliant mathematical conclusion – so - ‘faith is the evidence of things not seen’

 

So how does this Commandment relate to the one before it  regarding our relationships with one another?

The best way of linking them is to start with the relational failure that occurs with Commandment eight, being about the devaluing of another person’s possessions and their entitlement to them, and Commandment nine being about the devaluing of another person’s name and reputation and honour - their essential being or nature.

 

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
   
 
 
 
 
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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.