Spiritcode

God's wrath and reconciliation and Gospel

GOD’S WRATH AND RECONCILIATION AND GOSPEL 

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed (apokalypto – uncovered) from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Note; This is present tense)

God’s wrath is an act of love nested in justice and truth as well as in mercy and forgiveness. God’s wrath (orge – intense feeling of indignation) is an expression of his protection of humanity against the destructive effects of sin that we commit against each other.
The main causes of the pain and harm that we inflict upon one another are the corruption of Justice and truth in the misuse of power over each other and our malevolent attitudes towards one another. This protective indignation of God is dealt out through his discipline upon us individually and corporately.
This expression of God’s justice goes hand in hand with God’s offer of his mercy and forgiveness to all the world which brings about his great acts of redemption and reconciliation with all mankind. 
So he exercises his discipline like a loving Father upon us as his children to change our character and very nature to be like his own.
That has to be proclaimed, and that is the reason for the absolute necessity of the Gospel.

The nature of God’s wrath is also that it is revealed (apokolypto), which means that it acts by uncovering the sin of injustice and the suppression of truth that is occurring in the world. 
The Bible shows us how God has acted upon the world throughout history as a loving Father to intervene when we go off track and to bring us back to himself, such as with the flood of Noah’s time and with the judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah in Abraham’s time. These have also been times of God’s gracious intervention and deliverance of those faithful to him, as with Moses bringing God’s people out of Egypt and the time of their entering into the promised Land under Joshua. The greatest of all interventions in a time of injustice and suppression of truth was the Incarnation of Jesus as the living God who came to us to give us his life and his heart of love to the Father through the Holy Spirit.

We are currently living in a time of a rapid escalation of the corruption of justice and truth in our world. The Godly values which used to be a foundation of our society have been replaced in many cases with ideological values and virtues that compete with one another for a place of influence and political power.

God is allowing many areas of injustice and suppression of truth to be uncovered (apocolypto) and to come under his hand of discipline, and in a widespread communal crisis like a pandemic where people do not know what to trust or who to trust anymore that uncertainty becomes a crisis of anxiety concerning the future. It also becomes a crisis of anxiety concerning a scarcity of outward things that were once expected to be on hand but are now often not even within reach.
In an environment like that suspicion and blame and resentment is out there, and it is at times like this where God counters all of that negative activity with a Gospel of hope and an abundance of grace where God is always within reach and peace can abound in our inner lives. 

God created us to be at one with him – that is, to be at peace with him (Eirene – peace – oneness). And even more than that, to be sharing in his divine nature.
God lived in perfect oneness and harmony as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, where there was perfect love and perfect agreement. There was no need for forgiveness there because there was no sin of selfishness from one against the other, so there was no wrath because there was no sin, and there was no temptation because perfect love cannot be tempted. That was the perfect way to live in a perfect relationship. 

So what happened? Why couldn’t God create us as very nice people who loved one another with the same love that Father and Son and Holy Spirit have?
Because only God is perfect and anyone and anything he creates is not perfect, and even the angels who are spirit beings are not perfect, and as we know, they are able to be tempted, like Lucifer. He was deceived into thinking he could have what he wanted without God, and so he became proud and independent and rebelled against God. And he deceived mankind into thinking the same way.

It is obvious really - We believe a lie about who God is and what he is like and then we believe a lie about who we are as an independent self with a right to have certain things, and then we rebel against the authority that stops us getting what we want, and then we become disobedient and miss the mark of staying close to God and then we sin, and sin runs the show from there, causing harm to our own soul and to the people around us.

God hates sin because it separates us from him AND it destroys our soul.
Isaiah 59:1 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
Only he can do something about that. Left to themselves people wander off track.
So what does God do?’

He uncovers all the disorder and corruption that is waiting to be exposed for his purpose of shaking and converting the minds and hearts of people who have resisted him.

God’s love feels the grief of the hostility of his children against him, and the pain and destruction that that hostility brings upon them. And that is all because our human independent mindset of a lie about what God is like robs us of the truth of his loving heart of goodness and blessing towards us. 

His heart is constantly seeking to subdue or overcome that hostility and soften our hearts and to make us aware of his love. 
How much would his love delight in there being a heart of love in the earth that loved him back as much as is humanly possible (like Jesus). 

 

 

Also nested in his love is God’s offer of forgiveness and mercy.
We need this change of heart to get out of the ‘sin cycle’. We have to be rescued from the law of sin and death and receive his Spirit of life in Jesus. God has forgiven sin AND he does change the desire of our hearts to love him more than sin, and yet we still see the hostility of humanity against him happening in our human hearts.

Only God can do something about that – we can’t. 
He cancelled out the sin factor of humanity that separated us from him and that allows us to be close to him and to love him back.

RECONCILIATION
God had to bring about reconciliation because our distrust towards God was too great an obstacle for our hearts to reach out to him. 
So if God wanted peace and oneness only he could put away this estrangement between man and God. It had to be all his work. 
And he was already perfect so he couldn’t make himself become more perfect. 
So what was he to do?
Instead of remaining in his perfection of Heavenly Being who could not be tempted, he entered into our weakness as a human being who could be tempted. He came down as Jesus and so Father in Heaven had a Son in the Earth who was indwelt by his Spirit, and who could and would love him totally on behalf of all of us.
But how does this change the rest of us, because we are still human beings who still can’t trust God because we never have?

A simplistic way to see the heart of reconciliation is this;
Two friends who have fallen out decide to try and make up and bury the hatchet. Then one of them who has a very generous heart says ‘look I care deeply about our friendship and I want you to know that anything you might have done to offend me I forgive you for’. He then goes on to say ‘so are we good?’ and the other one replies ‘yes we’re good - thanks’ 
That is reconciliation – it’s not a blame game.

That is where the miracle of God’s supernatural reconciliation comes to pass. He not only changed himself into one of us, he changed us into one of him. He died like a seed going into the ground and he rose like a plant springing up from the ground, a resurrected tree of life that bore fruit which was us as a New Creation humanity. We have his resurrected life sent from Heaven as the Holy Spirit who joins our spirit to the Spirit of God. We can now have Jesus’ heart of love for his Father. That is reconciliation.

The word reconciliation in the Bible is katalasso – that means a mutual change of two things to make one new thing. The supernatural miracle of God’s act of reconciliation for us is that he caused both himself and us to experience a change of being. God became one of us – forever – as the risen Christ in Heaven, and he has made us one with him because the Bible says we are ‘partakers of his divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through sinful desires’ (2Peter 1:4)
That is the Gospel of Peace – oneness – that is what Paul preached.
Paul was not told to tell the world to make peace with God, but to tell the world that God has made peace with them. 
2 Corinthians 5:19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting men's sins against them but blotting them out. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others…
That is the message of the Gospel – Accept the forgiveness of God through Jesus and begin to walk in a new way.

There are examples of Jesus demonstrating both God’s wrath and his reconciliation as he walked among the people and ministered to them. There is the story of the Jewish elders who approached Jesus and brought forward a woman who had been caught in adultery, and they placed her in front of Jesus and told him that the Law of Moses commanded them to stone such women. They asked Jesus what he had to say about that. The wrath of God was revealed (apocalypto – uncovered) upon these men as Jesus began to write in the sand, uncovering their sins before all that were there watching. Each of the men walked off in shame and guilt. Then Jesus turned to the woman and the reconciliation of God was ordained upon her as her sins were not charged to her but were forgiven.
In a similar way in the Gospel of John chapter 4, Jesus was sitting by a well and a Samarian woman came to draw water and Jesus asked her to please draw some water for him to drink as he was thirsty. On this occasion God’s wrath was nested in his love as a most effective tough love wake-up call about her disordered life. When Jesus said to her ‘you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband’ the woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet’. But Jesus did not berate her or condemn her. Jesus had just told her that he could give her more than just the water from the well, and that he could give her the living water of the Holy Spirit that would spring up within her, and she had said ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty’. 
So in that story we have both tough love wake-up call of God’s wrath uncovering her moral disorder, and the magnanimous bestowal of reconciliation in the promise of her being filled with the living water of the life of God. Her human weakness was her thirst 
for love which she could never emotionally gratify, and that was satiated not only emotionally but now spiritually by God’s love flowing within. 

If you begin to search you will find many examples of God’s wrath and God’s reconciliation coming forth through the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels. A clear case of God’s wrath is seen in Jesus overturning the money changers’ tables in the temple uncovering the corruption and injustice of the Jewish stewards by overcharging the poor people and making a profit from the sale of the birds and animals required by law for the temple sacrifices for sin. He was expressing his Father’s indignation against this corrupt abuse of power over the people in this holy place of prayer. 
Notice how often the wrath is tempered by love and sadness. For example in the story of Jesus uncovering the sin of the rich young ruler’s love of money, there was great sadness as he walked away from the offer to follow Jesus. There is also the beautiful example of both wrath and reconciliation in the story of the prodigal son. 
Let me read this beautiful Scripture  from Romans where all that I have been sharing is encapsulated.
Romans 5:8 God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us … having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him, for if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 
That solves the problem of God’s wrath from his side – and now it is up to us to believe and to trust in that every moment of our lives. 
That is the faith that saves our soul.

THE GOSPEL
Because of God’s love, his wrath is a significant reality, and the very reason from God’s point of view for making the Gospel so necessary and powerful. He hates the bad news of what sin does to people so he has good news about what forgiveness and reconciliation does for people.

That is why there has to be a Gospel – both for those who wilfully do harm and for the poor people who get harmed. The good news is that there is forgiveness and the further good news is that there is the gift of the life of Jesus within. He gives us a new spirit - he gives us his Spirit and he gives us a new heart.

People need to be told they are forgiven, and that they need no longer be separated because of the feelings of guilt and shame about their sinful behaviour, which makes them hide from God and cover up in front of each other. They need to have a new mindset – metanoia – which means repentance. The new mindset acknowledges that God is not at odds with them and they no longer need to be at odds with him. They are reconciled. They cannot have everything that they want, but they can receive every good thing that God wants for them. They are now able to have God’s peace. They are now able to trust God. They can now know what it means to be saved. And they also need to know that God holds us to account to not neglect such a great salvation.

Sometimes people need a wakeup call, and God is giving the world a wakeup call right now. It is like the story of the prodigal son who had to have things go so bad for him that he came to his senses and said ‘I will go home and return to my father’. He decided to settle the score with his conscience and to return to his father before the consequences of his life brought him complete ruin.

I believe that in these days God wants to grow his Church as his loving and caring family that will find its voice to proclaim a loving and forgiving God who desires to turn the heart of  the world to himself - all of his sons and daughters, created in his image .
Lost sheep will be found and prodigal sons and daughters will come home. The healing rain of the Holy Spirit will fall upon the hearts of men and women and grace will abound. People will call on the name of The Lord and be saved. They will receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation of the knowledge of God. He will strengthen us with power through his Spirit in our inner being. He will do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power of his life that he has placed within us. Amen

God's Love and Blessing and Wrath

GOD’S LOVE AND BLESSING AND WRATH

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God after being tempted by Lucifer the first thing they did was to hide from God in the garden, and they covered themselves with fig leaves. That was the beginning of a mistaken mindset of hiding from a God whom they thought was angry and was now going to punish them for doing wrong. The fig leaves were a useless way of covering up their shame and guilt for doing wrong. That was not God’s way of thinking, and he needed to change that mistaken mindset.
God told Adam to come out into the open and talk to him. He was going to cover Adam with the skin of an animal (lamb, ram, sheep, goat?) to replace the useless fig leaves. 
So God shed blood and covered Adam.
This is a prophetic picture for us of God providing Jesus as a blood sacrifice for the sins of humanity. This blood sacrifice covers the shame and guilt we all experience as sinful human beings, and the fig leaves represent our futile attempts to cover our shame of exposure by covering up for ourselves instead of letting God’s mercy cover our shame.

Without a mindset of faith and trust in God for this, we will always live at a distance from God and hide like Adam because of shame and guilt instead of coming close to him through his loving mercy and forgiveness.
That was the beginning of a lesson from God to us, that he does not want us to hide from whom we think is an angry God that wants to punish us. He wants us to know that we do not have to hide who we really are with our weak and frail humanity but to let him redeem us with his sacrificial love - the sacrificial lifeblood that he shed for us then and always. 

God used another prophetic picture of sacrificial lifeblood for us when he told Abraham to offer his only son Isaac on an altar. God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of countless children and in him all the families in the earth would be blessed. Abraham had to wait 25 years for the promise of a son to be fulfilled and then he was told to offer him as a sacrifice (It is believed that Isaac was a teenager at the time). Abraham was about to plunge the knife into Isaac when God at the last moment stopped him and provided a ram (lamb?) for a sacrifice. 
But this time he added the dimension of faith, where Abraham had to trust God to the utmost limit, that he would provide the sacrifice. 
Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, was in the act of offering up his only son … He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, in a manner of speaking, he did receive him back.
This was a different lesson for us. This is the lesson of faith in the promise of God through Jesus to bring to pass the promise of his resurrection life to us when we take up our cross and trust in him by surrendering our will to his will.
Without a mindset of faith and trust in God for this, we will always live at a distance from God instead of coming close to him in hope and expectation of his goodness to us.

In the first three hundred years after Jesus the early Church Fathers like Athanasius and Irenaeus spoke powerfully about this redeeming and lifegiving work of God through Jesus which restores close heart-to-heart and trusting fellowship between us and the Father. Then soon after that, Augustine, who was in fact a devoted heart-to-heart disciple of Jesus, began to use Greek philosophical language to describe God in terms of his ‘essence’. Then came further well-meaning descriptions of God’s exalted attributes like Omnipotence and Omniscience, which mean ‘all powerful’ and ‘all knowing’, and it is inspiring to realize these awesome qualities. However if these attributes are all we are told about who God is we could perceive him as distant and judgmental and non-relational instead of intimate and loving and forgiving.

The Roman Catholic and Judaistic legal mindset and the Greek philosophical style of thinking inadvertently allowed there to develop from all of that a tendency for many people to see God as an all-powerful God that was waiting to punish us if we disobeyed his set of rules. 

When this kind of thinking is taken to its extreme it gets lived out as legalistic Christianity, and this extreme has influenced Christianity throughout the centuries.
It oppresses God’s people through a misuse of authority and power.

The other extreme is that God is an easy-going person who wants to gratify his needy children with whatever personal comfort and spiritual accessories that would help make life on this earth more bearable, until we can have a nice mansion in Heaven. 

In between these two extremes of legalism and self-gratification sits the weighty reality of God’s wrath. God’s wrath is a profound expression of God’s protective love towards his children – it is his intense indignation against sin and its harmful destructive effect upon humanity (like a mother bear defending her cub).

The beginning of God’s wrath
Satan is the classic example of the extremes of both of the two bad postures of legalism and sinful self-serving gratification. 
Lucifer abused his place of authority as a covering angel (Ezekiel 28:14) and brought temptation into humanity’s appetite to gratify itself by offering Adam and Eve a taste of independent self-serving autonomy and causing them to despise God’s goodness towards them. In doing this he brought deathly oppression upon all of humanity.

What indignation would this cause God’s heart, to see such deadly sinister deception cause so much harm and destruction to his sons and daughters!
The wrath of God plays out in the awful consequences of harmful and destructive sin, missing the mark of oneness with God – all starting with deception, rebellion and pride.
Can you imagine from God’ point of view, giving us the gift of life and watching it turn against him as he has to let it play out in repulsive and offensive and destructive behaviour.

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed (apokalypto – uncovered) from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Note; This is present tense)

God’s wrath is being revealed or put on display around us in the world, in the harmful and destructive personal and political and ideological conflicts that are shredding peoples’ souls and causing such grief and loss and misery and pain. History has repeated itself over and over and we find ourselves in this day and age in a suffering world separated for the most part in mind and heart from God, but he still remains faithful. 
Romans 5:8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Wrath only came into existence because of sin, and sin is going on all the time.

Paul shows us the way of freedom – a way of living with sin, but above sin.
Paul realised he had a problem and he said ‘It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I find that evil is present within me. Now if I am doing what I don't want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp. Who will ever get me out of this death trap?’ (Romans 7:20). 
Paul here is describing the ‘law of sin and death’ which is what we all live under.
This law made him feel stuck in a pattern of wanting to do the right thing but ending up doing the wrong thing and then feeling guilty and cut off from God and his peace. His mind was full of all the mistakes and failures and this made him dread the consequences – what would God think and what would people think – he felt trapped and just wanted to hide. This is what the law of sin and death does. He and we want to hide from God, like Adam did.

That law of sin and death was like the law of gravity. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to jump up in the air to get higher, gravity pulls you down with a thud.
Paul knew he couldn’t kid himself that he wasn’t a failure in his own natural strength, even though he achieved much as a legalistic Pharisee – he knew that didn’t count any more. He knew that as natural human being we are all failures as far as being spiritually perfect. He knew he had sin within him even when he wanted to do good!
He knew he couldn’t pat himself on the back for being spiritual, and if he did he’d better watch out and not think more highly of himself than he ought to or he would come down with a thud. What a paradox.
The Holy Spirit had given him the wonderful revelation of another law of the Spirit which overcame that law of sin and death. 
Romans 8:2 For the powerful law of the Spirit of Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death.
Paul saw that the experience of being set free was not the absence of sin in him but the presence of God in him. 

So there was only one thing to do - just hang on for dear life to the only perfect one and get lifted into a higher way, like having another natural law that could overcome the law of gravity, so that if you went up in the air you didn’t come down with a thud – you stayed up there. This is how the law of aerodynamics operates. When we fly in an aeroplane, we overcome the law of gravity, and in order to do that the plane must use two things, first, an enormous thrust from the engine and secondly, lift with the wings. The Holy Spirit gave Paul the wonderful revelation of another law of the Spirit which overcomes that law of sin and death, just like the law of aerodynamics overcomes the law of gravity.
We need a different kind of power that we could ever humanly muster for the thrust, and we need wings that keep us in the air, like an eagle. An eagle was created to fly, and when we talk about a higher spiritual way for ourselves, we too were created to mount up with wings and fly like an eagle.
So we have the thrust of the Holy Spirit combining with the spiritual aerodynamics of the wings of an eagle and we can live above the law of sin and death. God doesn’t motivate by fear or outside pressure but by inside inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
So how do we live in this law of the Spirit of life and escape the law of sin and death.
The Bible says that ‘they that wait upon the Lord will exchange their strength with his strength, they will rise up with wings of an eagle.

It is when we wait upon The Lord that we exchange our strength with his strength. We have our heart-to-heart conversation with him about what is going on inside of us. We bring him our confusion or distress or pain from the past, or our anxiety for the future, and we sit with all of this in his presence, and we do not hide from our feelings of shame and guilt, as much as we would like to run away from them and escape them if we could. 

How does this make the problems lose their power over us? They simply have to move over because we are not focussing upon them but upon the greatest reality, which is that he desires a close relationship with us despite our weaknesses and failures, and he knows that our shame and guilt about those things make us feel separated from him.

A life hemmed in by the closed horizon of ourselves and our problems is too dismal to give our lives real meaning. Once we welcome the present moment which contains a present Jesus and give him that place in our minds and hearts, we understand what reality is all about. Instead of talking to ourselves in our lostness, we do the heart-to-heart talking with God and become found in him. Jesus is always seeking and finding and restoring with deep compassion all that is lost and broken in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Amen.

 

 

Facing a New Future

FACING A NEW FUTURE 

Facing the future is usually based on expecting things to keep on happening the same way that they have happened before. There is a consistent routine and we have a level of confidence and competence to manage that. If we have some worthwhile goal ahead, we can divert some extra energy away from some of the routine for that goal.
But there are times like the strange times we are now in when the routine gets out of routine so much that we don’t know what to expect any more. Something bigger than our personal routine has taken over our circumstances so that it is difficult to make things happen that we did quite normally before. 
We have to know how to face a new future.

In normal times if something disruptive happens just to us personally, we seek help from those we can trust and we are grateful when help is given. We can have faith in God and look to the Lord for wisdom and guidance about how to see the challenge through so that we can recover and get our life back on track. 
But when something disruptive happens to everyone at the same time it is a different matter. A global pandemic is currently happening to everybody at once and there is no single answer we can get for ourselves to solve all the problems by simply asking someone to sort it out for us. There are thousands of different opinions and thousands of different reasons for them.
We find that we no longer have the personal freedom to just sort out our own situation because something bigger than our personal set of circumstances has been disrupted. 
God alone has the answer for each one of us personally to find the way forward, and he has allowed this circumstance to happen for a reason – and notwithstanding all that, our praying for one another never fails. 
But the fact remains;

We are living at a time when we are each personally facing a new future. 
We are living at a time when the World is facing a new future.

This current time we are living in is marked by certain realities;
A time of affliction and suffering has plunged our world into a weakened state.
A spiritual attack from Satan is provoking reaction and confusion and division in peoples’ hearts.  
An uncertainty and a sense of hopelessness is in the air regarding the future. 
And in all this God’s people are being challenged to hear from him regarding how to face this new future.

There have been times in history where the World has entered a new era, a new eon (Grk. Aion – age). 
These times are significant for God’s people because they are primarily about what he wants to do through his people.

The birth of Jesus began a new eon (or age) for humanity. It was an appointed time of God in history. 
His death on the cross was also an appointed time of God for humanity, just as was his resurrection, and just as was his ascension into heaven, and just as was his sending the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. 

Any appointed time of God in history is called a Kairos time, as opposed to chronos time which in simple terms has the meaning of ‘clock time’. Kairos time defines a time for God’s appointed purpose on the Earth.
There would have been many Kairos times in your life when you knew that God was doing something unique for you or speaking something special to you.
I believe we are in one of those unique times at the moment – 

In this kairos time of God we are being shown how to come through an intense time of testing of our faith into a new future of hope and promise, while the whole World is in a weakened state.
When God chooses HIS times to take us into a new future, Satan chooses that time to intensify his spiritual attack upon God’s people to stop us moving forward. Satan uses the times of our weakness to attack us in our weakened state and to try and get us to give up on God or deny him or reject him. 

But Satan gets it wrong. 

Satan gets it wrong even when it seems he has gained a victory. 
God knows that Satan’s pride and deception makes him think he can target our weaknesses to stop God’s purpose from happening in our lives. But God uses Satan’s strategy of attacking our weaknesses as an opportunity to turn our human weakness into his strength.
Paul writes that when he was being buffeted by Satan in the times of his own weakness. He learned to find God’s strength and turn it into victory. (2Corinthians 12:8).

JESUS FACES THE FUTURE FOR GOD’S PEOPLE

Jesus went through the most grueling experience in his life and was at his physically weakest point after being led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness and fasting for forty days and nights (a ‘number forty’ experience – a time of trial and testing – Moses and Elijah and Jesus all fasted for forty days and Israel went through forty years of testing in the wilderness).
Jesus battled against the prince of darkness in a series of tormenting temptations as in, asking him why he didn’t just turn stones into bread and not go hungry, and why not prove his claim of being the Son of God by leaping off a cliff and letting the angels save him. Jesus won a mighty victory for himself and for all of us against this onslaught of Satan, who in the Bible is called ‘the god of this world’. This false god finally took Jesus onto the top of a high mountain and arrogantly offered him the rule over all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for Jesus falling down and worshipping him. His pride and deception had blinded Satan to the fact that Jesus was the heir of all the kingdoms in Heaven and Earth from before the beginning of time. Jesus dismissed the false god and put him in his place.

Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministering to him. 

Jesus then quietly rested from his ordeal on that mountain top and received comfort from the angels. Not only was he now set to begin his ministry of three and a half years of overcoming the darkness in the kingdoms of this world, but he was about to begin establishing the Kingdom of Heaven in the hearts of mankind, from that time on and into eternity. 
And after he was rested he moved his mind from that forty days of trial and affliction and he turned to face the future.
The Bible tells us that as he set off to walk the journey home to his family in Galilee he came across the poor and the sick by the side of the road, as people were healed of blindness and infirmity and other diseases. His Father was unfolding his future before him step by step along the way.

Jesus showed us what to do.   
He stood against the deceptive affronts of Satan in his time of weakened strength and he overcame Satan through speaking God’s Word of truth concerning himself.  
He then sat and rested and became refreshed.
He walked away from that season of trial and faced the new future that awaited him.
The future presented itself to him, as he walked step by step along the way.

JOSHUA FACES A NEW FUTURE FOR GOD’S PEOPLE
Joshua was also a man who had a ‘number forty’ experience His was not forty days but a long hard trial of endurance in Israel’s journey out of Egypt that took forty years – a generation. Joshua kept faith throughout those forty years under Moses and when Moses died God gave Joshua the leadership of the Nation of Israel. 

When Joshua came to the Jordan River he ordered the priests to carry the Ark of the Covenant into the water and just as Joshua had witnessed the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea under Moses, the waters miraculously divided so that all of Israel could pass over and finally enter into the promised Land. Just as the Ark represented the presence of God for Israel, so Jesus is the presence of God for us. 

Joshua 3:1 And they came to the Jordan, he and all the people of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. At the end of three days the officers went through the camp and commanded the people, “As soon as you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it. Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length. Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.”
They were facing a new future and the wilderness was behind them. The promise of God for their lives was now before them. A ‘number forty’ experience is not just a time of the testing of our faith, it is the time of preparation for the facing of a new future. It is the same for us today, as we are also in a number forty experience of trial and testing and    need to heed the words of Joshua to Israel when he told them to follow the Ark, the presence of God ‘that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.’

It is important to know that the devil did not set up the forty days of wilderness testing for Jesus. The Bible tells us that the Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tested – it was God’s doing. But Satan used that time of Jesus being pushed to the limits of endurance to try to break his spirit, and Satan failed. It was the same for Israel going through the forty years of testing in the wilderness – that was God’s doing, and Satan tried to prevent them entering the promised land, but a new generation under Joshua brought them into a new future of promise for their lives.
It is the same with us – going through a global pandemic and being pushed to the limits of endurance. It is like a ‘number forty’ experience of trial and testing, and of promise! And God has allowed that and Satan jumps at the opportunity to break our spirit. But our struggle is more than just for survival. We are overcoming through a renewing of our strength into a new future in the will of God for our lives, and the future may present itself to us in unexpected ways as we walk forward step by step trusting in God. 

Jesus did not complain once throughout his forty-day experience of his trials in the wilderness, but Israel did not stop complaining for the entire forty years of their trials, because of their unbelief. 
If we want to overcome in our time of trial and face a new future that God has for us, we need to know how to manage our emotional reactions to the new and unfamiliar disruptions that are happening to us – different to how our life usually unfolds. Being exposed to emotionally charged comments and opinions by opportunistic politicians, TV commentators, and the media (especially social media), can cause us to attach negative emotions of anxiety or disappointment or resentment to our thoughts on the matter. 
And while there is certainly a place for strong emotions to motivate creative and constructive activity, those negative and unhelpful emotions can rob us of our peace and throw us back into the Israel wilderness experience of unbelief. I find that when this happens to me I have to get my mind on God straightaway, because those negative emotions disappear in the presence of faith. 
We can live amongst the commotion and find peace, because like Jesus in his number forty experience, we have the Holy Spirit with us and the Word of God in us and we can be assured that he is at work on our behalf to guide us each step of the way.

We can be confident that we will hear God’s voice clearly amidst the many voices and personal opinions that seem to shout over and contradict one another in these days. 
Observe the things that come across your path directly – maybe small things or maybe big things - and ask God what you should do or think regarding that thing. It may be more important than you think, as different as it may seem from past practice – why is this interruption or intrusion happening at the moment? And as we pause at that time and still our hearts and give that moment and what is happening, to God, it could be that God will do something in our lives he has not done before. He presents a new future to us as he did with Jesus.
And if that way that looks good for us to walk in seems to get blocked, we can ask God to part the waters in front of us while we keep our eyes upon him, as he goes before us. 
As Joshua said to the people ‘you have not passed this way before’.

Thankyou Lord, for leading us into a new future of victory, out of the times of trial and into the times of faith in Jesus name – Amen.

MEDITATIONS

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31)

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. (Isaiah 43:2)

Do not be afraid for I am your shield and your everlasting reward (Genesis 15:1)

It is no longer I that live but it is Christ who is living in me (Galatians 2:20)

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)

I am with you always even till the end of the age (Matthew 28:20)

Be anxious for nothing but in everything let your prayers and requests be made known to God; and you will receive the peace of God (Philippians 4:4)

Be strong and of good courage, do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9)

Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid – My peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you (John 14:27)

All things are working together for good for those who love God (Romans 8:28)

I know the thoughts I have towards you for good and not for evil – to give you a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11)

My presence shall go with you and I will give you rest for you have found grace in my sight and I know you by name  (Exodus 33:14)

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord (Psalm 37:23)

I have loved you with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3)

You will keep them in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you (Isaiah 26:3)

My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness (2Corinthians 12:9).

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard · Nor has it entered into the heart of man · The things which God has prepared for those who love Him. (1Corinthans 2:9)

 

 

 

Commandment 6 episode 7

 

This Commandment is about much more than murder or killing – It is about the killing of relationships through anger and lack of emotional control.

 

This commandment speaks about more than just the act of taking of life in general, but is concerned with the heart attitude of malice, which can start with frustration, then resentment, then even vengeance or letting hatred or some other hurtful intention harm another person. Jesus enlarged on this commandment in the sermon on the mount.

Matthew 5:21-24 It has been written in the commandment, "You shall not kill." And whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. 22. 'But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment…'Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, 24. 'Leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.   

 

The transformational aspect of this Commandment is in forgiveness and reconciliation. And it also talks about bringing your gift to the altar, so it also looks like it involves an attitude towards God as well.

 

There is always the redemptive process of God on the positive side to transform us like all the commandments. This is in the context of people getting offended and angry – and that kills relationships and the remedy for that is this process of forgiveness and reconciliation.

 

The attitudes of relationship in Commandment five were about trust and care and that ties in with this Commandment. It is this the link between five and six.

 

In the last commandment (Number five) , which is about our relationship with authority, we saw that the problem with people, was the inability to trust another person to influence or direct their life – it started with parents and children This was because of self-determination, so that they could have their own way. And now we see that the person who has a mistrust of authority, will act out this mistrust with other people generally, and, still determined to have their own way, will behave in a way that is destructive of all relationships – so they get angry.

 

What are some of our defence mechanisms and how effective are they?

And what about our self -made relational or emotional defence mechanisms?

 

The most subtle and dangerous of our defense mechanisms are those negative relational ones that we use as weapons or as shields against other people – and there are three interesting ones like withdrawal, resistance, and aggression.

 

With the heart man believes

WITH THE HEART MAN BELIEVES

There is a lot of speculation these days about what faith really is, especially among Evangelical Bible believing Christians - What to pray and how to pray, what to hope for and what to expect. Many things are being claimed by faith and do not come to pass and many get disappointed, and some think that God has forgotten them or didn’t hear their prayers. Is there something that maybe needs to change in our thinking about our faith? 
What in fact IS OUR faith? What do we believe and how do we believe?

The Bible says that with the heart man believes’ (Romans 10:10) so I would like to discuss today the matter of believing with the heart. I will start by saying that I personally have a very simple and straightforward approach to believing with my heart.
There is an ongoing dialogue with God on a schedule of prayer concerns that sit in my heart and are being placed before him. I also believe that the Father knows what the cry of my heart is in any personal situations of my own and that Jesus will intercede on my behalf to the Father and that his will shall be done in my life for them. That way I am confident that God is doing the supernatural work and I try to stay at rest in my soul, ready to do what work The Holy Spirit prompts me to.

Our deepest beliefs and values and desires reside in our heart and flow out of our heart as the real issues of our life. The heart conveys who we are and what we do.
Proverbs 4:23 Guard your heart with all diligence; for It is the outflowing of your life. 

So how do those beliefs and values and desires get into the heart?
Our heart is informed by our mind as to what it acknowledges as being true and of highest value to us and therefore worth living for.

However we will be discussing today the difference between what our natural rational mind informs our heart of in contrast to what our renewed ‘spiritual mind’ informs our heart of.

Our Natural mind
As far as our natural rational mind is concerned, on the one hand it can certainly be convinced of high moral standards and virtues and aspire to those values and convince and persuade the heart so that there is an outflow of civility and decency in that person’s life. On the other hand the natural rational mind can be deceived into accepting corrupt or hurtful attitudes as being the most rewarding things to convince and persuade the heart of and they will become a destructive outflowing of that person’s life. 
We see the panorama of all of those states of the heart (including our own) being played out in the world around us (Mark 7:21. Jeremiah 17:9)
The natural human mind is a wonder of God’s creative genius and it has brought into this world both great good and great evil. We can’t live without our natural rational mind but we also can’t let it run our lives when it comes to our inner being, our ‘God with us’ spiritual life of faith. We need another kind of mind with a higher order of knowing and understanding truth than just the natural rational mind.

Our renewed spiritual mind

When Paul wrote to the churches (ALL of them) he instructed the newly converted non-Jewish Christians about not being conformed to the rational natural mind of the world. This was a huge and fundamental change of thinking for these novel disciples that Paul saw was vital for them in the new Kingdom age of the life of God within us. (Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, Galatians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus)
The heart of faith gets informed of spiritual truth by the spiritually renewed mind, and that renewed mind finds its home in the new heart that is part of God’s Promise to us (Ezekiel 36:26 a new heart I will give you). That new heart is the place where faith dwells. 

Paul wrote to ALL the churches that were in his care about the spiritual renewing of the mind. He spoke to them about how to know God by faith and how to be known OF God by faith. But he also taught them how to see themselves as being part of the life of God. This was a revolution of thinking - and it still is!

When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church (1Corinthians 2:14) he was writing to people who had lived within their Greek philosophical and religious culture and had been steeped in all those customs and behaviours in their natural minds. 
He told them that their natural rational minds (psychikos – soulish mind) could not receive the things of the Spirit of God because those Spiritual things were irrational (m??ros; absurd) to them; and that they couldn’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned, and that only those who were spiritually minded (pnematikos) could discern those things.

Paul finished that topic about having a spiritual mindset by writing to the Corinthians that they could have the mind of Christ. This does not mean that we know the all the content of what Christ knows, but that we can think like Jesus thinks! And we can know what he reveals to our hearts by the Holy Spirit! Paul also wrote to the Philippian church and entreated them to have this mind in you which was also in Christ (Philippians 2:5).

When Paul writes to the Ephesian church (Ephesians 4:17-20) he tells them that they needed to think differently and to live differently from all the gentile unbelievers around them, who didn’t know the Ten Commandments and who had all kinds of ideas about what religion or morality was (similar to what we see around us today). He spoke about those unbelieving people as being ignorant of God and resistant in their hearts to God. They were alienated from the life of God because of an uninformed mindset of separation from God. He goes on to say to the church ‘But that is not the way you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught the truth concerning him as it is in Jesus. 
Paul had taught them of the gift of the life of Jesus within them that changes their old self life with its natural mindset and natural desires of the heart into a new self in Christ with a new mindset and with new Spiritual desires in the heart. 

He says to them ‘put off your old self, which belongs to your former wayward way of life and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God.
This is not just a different thing to think but it is also a different way to think. 

This is actually what REPENTANCE is! 
But isn’t repentance about turning away from sin? Yes – but how do you do that? 
Do we simply tell people to make a resolution to use more will power and stop sinning?
The word repentance (metanoia) means ‘A change of mind’ a 180 degrees turnaround!
Only our renewed mind understands the Spiritual reality of a life of putting on the new self, created after the likeness of God. Our renewed spiritual mind informs our heart of that truth and that becomes believed upon in our new heart and that becomes a new way of living. That is the only way we can live above sin (1John 3:9). That is the repentance that leads to faith, and this is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, sent to convince the WORLD of sin, because of their unbelief.

This putting off the old self and being renewed in the spirit of the mind and putting on the new self is to be an everyday activity for us all! We move in and out of our natural rational mindset and have to re-engage with our renewed Spiritual mindset a lot of the time.

The best that a person could obtain in the Old Testament as far as a pure mind is concerned was to revere the Ten Commandments that God gave Israel. This is what David did, and he shares his love for God’s Commandments throughout the Psalms and speaks about how they restored his soul and enlightened his eyes (Psalm 19).
And Psalm 119 contains 176 verses speaking about nothing else except David’s love of God’s Law. We see the effect of this upon David in that he was a person of faith and was called ‘A man after God’s own heart’.
  
But Paul was offering those gentile churches a Gospel of a totally new measure of truth and grace and faith through Jesus Christ that was above and beyond the Old Testament faith experience or comprehension. This was a New Word, with a New Voice, the Voice of Jesus.

Just one Voice

Hebrews 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;

The voice of God’s Son is better than the voice of the prophets. This was the motive of the epistle, the purpose of the letter, and the heart of the message of the Book of Hebrews. When Paul comes to the faith chapter (Ch.11), he shows us the faith of the patriarchs and prophets, from Abel, and Noah and Abraham through Moses and Gideon and David which were counted to them as faith – It was the faith for that time. Then Paul tells us that the faith of Jesus in comparison to those works and words was something far greater. He closes that faith chapter with the words, “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” 
In other words, their excellent faith for those days was waiting to be completed by the new kind of faith imparted by God himself through Jesus to our hearts.
And he begins the next chapter (12) by saying that Jesus is the author and finisher of OUR faith.

Looking to Jesus

We look to Jesus who is the Author and Finisher of our faith. In other words, all true faith now begins and ends in Him. 
Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author (archegos – primary bringer of) and finisher (telei??t??s –final goal achiever) of our faith…

When faith is needed, it will not be withheld. We can always be assured that Jesus is interceding for us to the Father for his will to be done in our lives.

Our faith comes from the heart of Jesus into our heart.

If someone tells me that they have received real faith for a situation I would sincerely assume that they received it from Jesus, and that they heard him (I don’t mean audibly). That is what Paul wrote; Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word (rhema – utterance) of God. (Romans 10:17) 

But can’t we just read a Scripture and say we will receive it if we believe it and just claim it? To that kind of question Jesus said;
John 5:39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
So our spiritually renewed mind can go to the Scriptures to receive truth about Jesus, but our heart needs to go to Jesus and wait for him to speak his truth to us.
That way you read truth with your renewed mind, and you hear Jesus in your heart, and you will see his supernatural work on your behalf. 

To believe in healing or any other supernatural work of God is one thing; but to have faith for it is altogether something else. 

If you receive healing or any other supernatural work of God, it will be because of the impartation of His faith; it will be because Faith has flowed out of His heart into yours; and that is the only faith that brings about the work of God. 
And you can have it; for He does give it! Then you will know that your faith, your ‘shared with Jesus’ faith is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8).

The wonder of the gift of God lies in the fact that faith for any supernatural work of God is frequently imparted to us as a gift when we feel the least deserving of it. It is not always the product of our loyal ‘exercise of Godliness’ and our faithful waiting upon him, for God hears the cry of our human heart when we can’t even put a prayer together in our heads. God says he dwells in a high and holy place, and with the humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the aching heart (Isaiah 57:15)

And even when we are faithfully being ‘exercised in Godliness’ and seeking after God from our hearts we will not always feel that we’ve received faith from Jesus for some particular request. 
But we can always know that we do have Jesus! 
So our faith is never far away because Jesus is at work on our behalf in the world of the unseen. We can remember the words of our Lord, ‘Without me you can do nothing’ and be comforted that being ‘with him’ in our heart is certainly the best place to be.

Pray and ask anyway

When we bring a prayer request before God, be it for guidance or spiritual understanding or healing or any other spiritual or material need we can wait on God for the witness of the Spirit – for the faith OF Jesus. If we receive that then it is a gift from Jesus. In the meantime we have made our request with sincerity of heart and we surrender the request from our heart to God’s heart. That is the most and the best we can do. We then leave it in God’s hands and trust the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, who is the one who intercedes for us according to the will of God (Hebrews 7:25. Romans 8:27). Then that peace of God that surpasses all understanding can be ours. The following Scripture tells us that both our heart AND our mind is being guarded or protected from fear and anxiety through Jesus Christ
Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, 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 minds through Christ Jesus.

So how do I know I’m believing from the heart and not my natural mind?

When we are genuinely seeking to believe God and yet somehow realize we are still functioning in our natural minds we become more aware of the way our emotions get attached to our thoughts. The anxiety digs in and the doubts line up waiting for our attention and our sense of God’s peace seems to vaporize. That doesn’t have to be a problem as long as we become aware that we need to make the shift of bringing our mind into the heart. We recall to mind his love for us and cast our cares upon him.  
All things are possible to those that believe, but it is important to know how you believe.

The imperative from Jesus has always been ‘seek first the Kingdom of God’ That is why the emphasis is on the surrender of the natural to the spiritual and being aware of our human shortcomings as well as God’s gracious provision for us. Then we can know that Jesus will be to us all he has promised to be, first spiritually, and then physically and materially. This is the renewing of the mind, aligning our minds with the mind of Jesus who emptied himself from his ‘me-self’. 
The pathways of the mind into the heart are being formed each time we let go of one direction of the mind and move into the other, continually returning to ‘God with us”
Amen!

 

 

Heart and Soul

HEART AND SOUL 
I am following on from the previous talk called ‘Saviour of all mankind’ regarding the spiritual exercise of the soul in moving from its expression of our natural spirit to our ‘God with us’ Spirit. I want to discuss a further aspect of the salvation of our soul today by considering the place where this soul and spirit activity takes place. That place is the heart. Guard your heart with all diligence; for It is the outflowing of your life. (Proverbs 4:23)

Let us do a brief recap of the function of the soul;

Our soul – our mind and our emotions and our will, process the inner senses of the spirit as well as the five outer senses of the body. The soul is the loudspeaker of what both our inner spiritual reality and our outer world reality is going through. It does all the oohs and ahs and groans and moans and hurrahs and hallelujahs. It laughs and cries and sulks and sighs. It is the public broadcast of our being – the person we think we are, (that could become much better as far as God’s idea of us is concerned). These expressions of our souls that contend with the expression of the souls of other people, can be quite intense but they are often more surface than real. Our soul is looking for something deeper in a safe place, a home where it can be rested and healed and made to settle. Where is that place where God invites us in to be where he is, where is that place where he knocks on the door to be where we are?

Again; That place is our heart. The heart is where our spirit is nested, and it is where God has always met with mankind (He has put eternity in their hearts - Ecclesiastes 3:11). This is where he reserved a space in the hearts of men and women to speak into from all tribes and Nations since the beginning of time. The Scriptures record his conversations with Adam and Abraham and Sarah and Rahab and Deborah and David and many others, including all the prophets up until John The Baptist. And then God came to us as Jesus, to live as one with him in the fullness of his heart. This was more than humanity just having a ‘God space’ in the heart for God to communicate into. This was the fulness of God’s own heart dwelling within the heart of humanity within the heart of his Son Jesus.  
Colossians 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;
And the Bible tells us that from that time on that He dwells in our hearts by faith so that we may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God ( Ephesians 3:20) 

Our hearts were created to live in that relational atmosphere of closeness and belonging to God and we are invited in there by God himself. God, whose own heart expresses the fulness of this environment and invites us into it. What a miracle - That God can live in loving fullness in a human heart that has become a new heart, by faith.!

This new heart was what the prophet Ezekiel spoke about that God would give us at the appointed time (Ezekiel 36… a new heart I will give you, and a new spirit will I put within you). It is fashioned after God’s own heart and it can begin to emerge through us into a world that needs the love and compassionate action that comes from the heart of ‘God with us’ though Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

How does this new heart take shape in us and live and become the announcement of our being, instead of the surface reactions and self-focussed demands of a restless soul?
We start by giving attention to the nature of God’s heart of closeness and belonging that draws us into itself. This is where we were appointed to live. 
So why do we tend to resist and separate off? 
Unfortunately, other things get our attention. But if we start to appreciate and choose the highest spiritual goal of our life, to know and love God, and to be with Him forever, we will choose to not be distracted from that goal. 
There is a story in Greek mythology of a footrace where one of the runners (Hippomenes) sets his heart fully on winning the race against a swift and well-trained female athlete (Atalanta). His trick to win the race was to throw a golden apple upon the ground from time to time, which distracted Atalanta who would stop running to pick up the golden apples and so lost the race. Hippomenes won the race, won Atalanta as a bride, plus a huge bunch of golden apples!
Paul tells us that God has set the race of faith and endurance before and for us not to get hindered or distracted (Hebrews 12:2)
We are not competing against anyone else except ourselves, and we can choose to run the race set before us and so win the eternal prize of ‘God with us’ life.

Running this race of faith properly comes through surrender and release. This is the real effort. We learn to ‘let go’ of the many unproductive distractions to the inner life of our soul, where the racing mind and its imaginations and our emotional unrest do not hijack our soul from achieving its goal of faith, which is the soul finding its place in the heart where we find that place of closeness and belonging with God. (1Peter 1:9). 
 

The mind

We cannot turn off our minds and go blank but we can redirect our minds to contemplating God’s idea of what he thinks is important about us and our situations, instead of debating with ourselves about our idea of what is important about life. We let go of following one train of thought and embrace another train of thought.

When we do this, we are bringing our mind into the heart. We align our minds with the mind of Jesus who emptied himself from ‘me-self’. This is a renewing of the mind, the saving of the soul-mind from its anxious and uptight fixation on the problems that invade our outer world of conflict and disorder. We can practice this exercise of shifting the focus from the outer world to the inner world of God’s heart, for short periods of time as we find opportunity. I call this the Pathway of Presence Prayer. 

The pathways of the soul into the heart are being formed each time we let go of one direction of the mind and move into the other. 
We keep returning to ‘God with us”.
We can then start solving our problems in our ‘God with us’ minds.
This starts to become not so much about what we think but more about how we think.
The attitude of surrender has brought the soul home to the heart where it finds God’s wisdom (James 1:5)

The emotions/feelings

The heart is also where we can choose to set our feelings and affections upon God and his love for us.
Colossians 3:3 Set your affections (phroneo – sentiment or fervent opinion) on things above, not on things on the earth.

Just as our mind can be distracted by all those outer problems so our feelings and emotions can be side-tracked by focussing more upon the negative feelings we have of ourselves rather than the loving feelings that God has about us.
We can get weighed down by guilt and shame or feeling too unworthy to be receiving God’s love.
Once we have come to this point we need to know we can enjoy having a clear conscience, not being weighed down by guilt and shame or feeling too unworthy to be engaging with God in this way. This is where The Holy Spirit shows us the bigness of God’s loving heart towards us and he shows us how precious are his thoughts towards us we are in his sight (Psalm 139). He loves us just as much as he loves Jesus (John 17:23) sees us as the finished product of our new heart self in Jesus, and his reality of who we are is greater than our own heart’s reality of who we are. 

John 3:19-20. For if our heart accuses us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. 21Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. 22
And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

We can confess our own sinful nature and its weakness and fallibility and receive the love and mercy and greatness and goodness that is God’s great heart. As we appreciate more of the loving nature of God we begin to set our affections upon God and grow to love and trust him more and more. This is when he so often makes his presence known to us and we become aware of being ‘found in him’. 
When we realise that our hearts are so small and judgmental even upon ourselves and that his heart is so big and accepting of us in his mercy and forgiveness, this is where we learn to ‘give thanks in all things because this is the will of God’ (1thessalonians 5:18).

It is difficult for our emotions to say ‘thank you God’ when we are going through an unpleasant circumstance because our emotions get stuck and we tend to resist what is happening. 
What is really happening at that moment is not just the unpleasant circumstance – it is our unpleasant emotional reaction to it, like anxiety or impatience or frustration or even annoyance. This inner conflict is what is hard to live with more than the circumstance itself in the present moment, and this is where the bigness of God’s heart comes into the picture once more. So we confess honestly to a merciful and forgiving God the fact that we are stuck in those negative and hurtful emotional feelings. 

God is greater than our heart and lovingly accepts us in that human weakness and he then releases a healing grace of peace that lifts us out of our painful ‘me with me self’ of our reactions into our ‘God with me self’ freedom to be able to accept that circumstance. We begin to experience the closeness and belonging environment of the heart of God and we regain confidence that he is still supernaturally working all things together for good for us and we set our affection upon God and give him thanks. This is another opportunity of surrender of letting go.

The will
Once we have begun to set our affections upon God, with the awareness of ‘being found in him’ we find that he begins to change the desires of our heart. Our will has become nestled in the embrace of God and we begin to live in the ‘not my will but your will be done’. We begin to ‘do those things that are pleasing in His sight’.

This is the letting go of one desire and taking hold of a new desire of the heart – a gift of God’s transforming grace – another act of surrender.

When God puts this new desire into our hearts we get a new perspective of who we really are in Christ because we are becoming a person after his own heart and that is where we know we belong.

There is a story about a cluster of acorns laying underneath a huge oak tree on a grassy slope in the shady sunshine. They were boasting to one another how fulfilled and satisfied they felt about themselves as a group, and how splendid and shiny they looked. Then a smaller drab looking acorn fell from a great height though the branches of the oak tree and landed in their midst. They scoffed at the sight of this newcomer and continued to discuss how splendid they thought themselves to be and then one of them asked the little acorn; ‘where did you come from?’ and ‘who on earth do you think you are? They didn’t think he really belonged.

The little acorn said humbly that he dropped from way up in the top of the tree and that as he was falling past the huge branches he heard a whisper from the great oak tree saying about him ‘he’s one of us’. The little acorn knew that would one day come to pass. He knew where he really belonged deep down, with other oak trees, not other pretentious acorns.
Just as an acorn contains an oak tree so our new heart can contain God. The acorn lets go of remaining an acorn and sheds its outer shell and germinates as a seed to become an oak tree. We are found by God within and God is found by us within. God with us.
 ‘Us in him and him in us’ (John 14:20). Our new heart functions authentically in the infinite greatness of God’s love.

I encourage you to stay with the thoughts that I have shared with you today to allow the inner shift of faith to occur, that the Scriptures hold out to us, and let the soul find its home in your heart. As the Apostle Peter said;
1Peter 1:8 You love him even though you have never seen him; and though not seeing him, you trust him; and even now you rejoice with the joy that comes from heaven itself, receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

So let us to do an exercise of Presence Prayer again in a moment for three minutes or so, and to meditate again upon some spiritual realities of God’s words to us from Scripture.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, (PSALM 19:14)

I am going to read some of the Scriptures I read the last time we sat in the presence of The Lord and add a few others that speak particularly of the heart. You may find that one of the following Scriptures speaks to you in a special way, and if so hold on to that one thought throughout the week and let that Word become flesh in you.
So let us come into his presence now and be still and know that he is God.

Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8)

I am receiving from you Lord the salvation of my soul (1Peter 1:9). 

I am seeking first your Kingdom O Lord and knowing that you add all the other things that I need according to your will (Luke 12:31). 

You give me the spirit of power and of love and of an ordered mind (2Timothy 1:7)

I know that it is you that is working within me to will and to do that which pleases you (Philippians 2:13)

I am coming to you just as you asked me, to find rest for my soul (Matthew 11:28). 

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21)

I will be still and know that you are God. 
I will be still and know that you are the Lord that heals me. (Psalm 46:10)

How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them (Psalm 139:17)

I know that your presence will go with me and you will give me rest for I have found grace in your sight and you know me by name. (Exodus 33:14)

I trust in you O Lord
I say you are my God
My times are in Your hands 
My times are in Your hands (Psalm 31:14)

I Know that you doing exceedingly abundantly above all that I ask or think according to your power that is working within me. (Ephesians 3:20)

I know the thoughts that you have towards me, of good and not of evil, to give me a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11)

I am confident that you Lord who has begun a good work in me will complete it until that day (Philippians 1:6)

Guard your heart with all diligence; for It is the outflowing of your life. (Proverbs 4:23)

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. (John 7:38)

Saviour of all Mankind

SAVIOUR OF ALL MANKIND

We are continuing the discussion of the goal of our faith – the saving of our souls.
The saving of our souls is a collaborative work between us and the Saviour of our souls.

1Timothy 4:7 train yourself for godliness; for if physical training has some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. For to this end we struggle and make an effort because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all Mankind, especially of those who believe. 
Saviour - g4990. ????? s??t??r; from 4982 sozo; saviour, rescuer, healer, protector.

I want to note especially that this saving work of the soul was achieved by Jesus for all of Mankind – everybody - That is the heart’s desire of a loving God for his creation, but it only becomes a present reality to those who have faith in that work of God through Jesus Christ.
Paul compares the effort for spiritual fitness to training ourselves for physical fitness, and physical fitness is only effective if the discipline is regular and ongoing. The same goes for our training in spiritual fitness, or godliness.
How do we train ourselves for godliness, the inner work of spiritual fitness?
Paul tells us that we have to make an effort - an inner spiritual work of the soul – a labour of entering into the rest of faith, as our Saviour works supernaturally upon us and for us in all things. 
All of us have a natural human spirit that was created in the image of God before the foundation of the world, but when the Holy Spirit was poured out on humanity on the Day of Pentecost God’s Spirit was made available to be joined to our human spirit through our faith (God with us). 
The soul expresses both the natural human spirit, and our ‘God with us’ Spirit, and these are two different spiritual realities for us

Our human spirit reality is instinctively influenced by what is happening to us in the world around us and that stamps its identity of our idea of ourselves (who we think we are) upon our soul. Our God with us Spirit reality is influenced by what The Holy Spirit is doing to transform us and that stamps the identity of God’s idea of who we are upon our soul. It takes work and effort on the inner life of the soul to move from one reality to the other and that work includes what the Bible calls being renewed in the spirit of our mind (Romans 12:2).

The human spirit always has a sense of falling short – the have not, am not, know not, cannot and do not. These can seem irrational to our minds if we analyse them but the emotions and feelings are what they are and they are not always rational because our imagination can escalate the drama of any situation whether good or bad.  . 
We often deal with this falling short am not, have not in our natural minds by deciding to put on a front or go into denial or blame a whole lot of circumstances or other peoples’ behaviour, but our self defence mechanisms and coping devices end up failing and wearing us out emotionally, and all kinds of harmful or destructive behaviour can result from these efforts. 

God sees each one of us in our human spirit as his child created in his image. But those who believe the lifechanging truth, that God has caused our spirit to be joined in oneness to his Spirit are told in the Bible that they are being transformed into the image of Jesus by the Spirit of the Lord (2Corinthians 3).  This only has meaning and power for those who believe in this truth and choose to live in it.
Holy Spirit seeks to awaken us to a new Reality of who we are. On the one hand we need to have a grasp of how to honestly admit our own sinful nature and its weakness and fallibility. On the other hand we need to have a grasp of the nature of God’s forgiveness and love and mercy. God is bigger than our opinion of ourselves, and our opinion of God is always immeasurably deficient. As his Word and his Spirit informs our spirit more and more of the loving nature of God we grow to love and trust him more and more. 

Our experience of the outer life and the inner life.
The outer life is experienced as a series of events and happenings with the world.
The inner life is experienced as a series of moments of connection with God. 

The outer life
Our outer life experiences dominate the attention of our natural mind which is the mind of our natural human spirit. The natural mindset in relationship to the outer life and the world goes down the pathway of wanting to ‘know the world’ and wanting to be ‘known by the world’ and this is where our mental and emotional energy is spent. That is the place where our sense of ‘I have not, I am not, I cannot, wants to ‘know the world’ and find answers of self-help and self-mastery. That is also the place where our need for belonging and feeling some measure of significance causes us to want to be ‘known by the world’ and find answers to these basic human needs. These are not wrong pursuits for the natural mind and emotions to have, because for most of the world that is the only kind of mindset that exists as a reality, and that is what has brought us all individually and collectively to the place of whatever measure of material attainment and success we have all reached at this time in history - and this is where our natural and emotional energy has mostly been spent and where we call upon the reserves of our acquired skills and learning and God given gifts.
However, this natural mindset has also brought us to whatever measure of evil and disorder that also exists at this time in history – our failure to live in love and be at peace with one another, and this is where our natural and emotional energy has mostly been spent.

The inner life
The inner life is experienced as a series of moments of connection with God. 
Connecting with God is not just the mental knowledge of the fact that God exists remotely in the universe and if you try hard enough you might get his attention. He is there within you wanting to get your attention. As far as you and he are concerned you are his only concern - his concern is your inner life, your inner world, and we need to learn that we can give any given moment of time to that reality, no matter what else is going on. Otherwise Jesus is not your Saviour but a concept of someone you can read about in the Bible who did wonderful things on the earth two thousand years ago.
Your present reality is that he is actively at work in the world of the unseen on your behalf concerning every detail of your life. You are his creation and have been brought into oneness with him, which is a reality for us only if we believe it, even though God’s oneness with us is his objective for humanity – ‘the Saviour of all mankind, especially of those who believe’(1Timothy 4:7)

The spiritual ‘God with us’ mind goes down the pathway of wanting to know God and be known by him (Galatians 4:9). Knowing him is more than just having information about him. It is experiencing the warmth and friendship of Jesus in his humanity and his divinity. The Bible tells us that those who love God are known by him because knowing and being known is a two-way self-disclosure between one person and another. 
We give ourselves to him by sharing everything about ourselves with him and he gives himself to us not only by revealing to us what his Word says about him but also by the whisper of the Holy Spirit who reveals who Jesus is to us in any given situation. We focus upon that and connect with God in that moment. 

We’re talking about going down this pathway of connecting with God, but this pathway has to be formed first, for us to be able to get on it quickly and freely, in any circumstance or situation, and this takes practice – it takes spiritual work, the exercise of godliness. This becomes what we give our time and energy to. 
So where is our mind at any one stretch of time? Is it stuck on ‘‘am not - have not - cannot - will not? 
If we can focus on ‘God with us’ and his goodwill towards us in the events and happenings of life, those things of the world assume their rightful place in the big scheme of our lives, and that captive moment of oneness with him turns into a moment of faith, where I am assured that God is at work for me in that situation and that, in turn brings rest and peace and blessing. That is the ‘when I’m weak I’m strong’ exchange in real time, and at so little cost. New pathways of faith and hope get laid down and get formed more permanently in our minds every time we do this exercise of godliness, and more space is created in our hearts to contain his loving presence and rest. 

So we need to establish these pathways of faith and hope by setting aside quality abiding time with God, as Jesus did when the Bible speaks of him retiring to be away from others and to be with his Father on a mountain top, a metaphor of putting our minds upon things above and not on the things of this earth. I call these structured times of collaborative work with God ‘Presence Prayer’. 
The practice of presence prayer establishes these pathways of faith and hope. Our work is the being still and holding on to him in our minds and hearts - a work of receiving – the labouring to enter into the rest of the soul.
We focus upon God’s spiritual reality that he is supernaturally at work in the world of the unseen on our behalf concerning every detail of our inner life – his Spirit changing us into his likeness and opening our eyes to his miraculous ordering of all things in our life, and becoming our peace and hope and consolation. We practice focussing upon this instead of focussing on our human spirit ‘have not’ reality concerning all of our problems. We can do this often and for extended periods of time just as Jesus did. It is something we can do when we choose to. 
I would like us to do an exercise of Presence Prayer now for a couple of minutes, and to meditate upon some spiritual realities of God’s words to us from Scripture, as David said;
PSALM 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord,
So just sit quietly and meditate upon these words of encouragement from the Lord.

 

Meditations

I am receiving from you Lord the salvation of my soul (1Peter 1:9). 

I am seeking first your Kingdom O Lord and knowing that you add all the other things that I need according to your will (Luke 12:31). 

You give me the spirit of power and of love and of an ordered mind (2Timothy 1:7)

I know that it is you that is working within me to will and to do that which pleases you (Philippians 2:13)

I am coming to you just as you asked me, to find rest for my soul (Matthew 11:28). 

I will be still and know that you are God. 
I will be still and know that you are the Lord that heals me. (Psalm 46:10)

I give you thanks Lord, with a grateful heart. 

How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them (Psalm 139:17)

I know that your presence will go with me and you will give me rest for I have found grace in your sight and you know me by name. (Exodus 33:14)

I trust in you O Lord
I say you are my God
My times are in Your hands 
My times are in Your hands (Psalm 31:14)

I Know that you are doing exceedingly abundantly above all that I ask or think according to your power that is working within me. (Ephesians 3:20)

As you said Jesus; I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I determine; and My judgment is right, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me. (John 5:30)

I know the thoughts that you have towards me, of good and not of evil, to give me a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11)

I am confident that you Lord who has begun a good work in me will complete it until that day (Philippians 1:6)

 

Salvation of the soul

SALVATION OF THE SOUL

 

We will be looking at the meaning of these two words today – Soul and Salvation.

The Bible tells us that as human beings we have a body and a soul and a spirit.

1Thessalonians 5:23 may your spirit and soul and body be kept strong and blameless …

 

Our soul sits between our spirit and our body. It receives information from our spirit through our conscience and intuition which informs our soul about what is happening in our inner world. The soul also receives information from our body’s five senses which informs it about what is happening in our outer world.

 

The soul processes each of these areas of information through its three modes of activity, which are the mind, the emotions and the will.

The mind receives information and orders it according to what it ranks as being of value to our life.

The emotions/feelings react or respond to information as to whether it is helpful or harmful

The will finally decides how to act upon the information when it has evaluated what the mind has considered, and how the emotions and feelings move it one way or the other.

 

Our area of focus today concerning the salvation of the soul is about how our soul responds to the inner world of our life in the spirit.

And this is where the soul actually relates to the two different worlds of our inner spiritual life and they are a) the natural human spirit and b) the human spirit that is joined by faith to God’s Spirit.

All of us have a human spirit that was created in the image of God before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) and that is the reality of the inner world of humanity since Adam. It is perhaps the most vulnerable part of our being and is open to being wounded and isolated and feeling deprived. It can see itself in a place of ‘not having’ even when it is in a place of relative plenty. It yearns for fulfillment, and God know this, and so does the devil.

When the Holy Spirit was poured out on humanity on the Day of Pentecost God’s Spirit was made available to be joined to our human spirit. Our faith brings into being our new inner world reality of ‘God with us’ (Acts 2:16).

 

This soul of ours is the critical measure of who we will come to be during this life of ours, the person that will give an account of itself on the day of judgement before God. It will either struggle through life following its own choices as to how to have the needs and demands of its own vulnerable human spirit met, perhaps doing its best to take on this world and being overcome by its chaos and disorder.

Or this soul of ours will be found of God and transformed and have its mind reordered and renewed, its emotions healed and restored, and it’s will subdued into harmony with God by The Holy Spirit. This will be what we can really call Salvation.

 

As afflictions and burdens weary the mind and body, and the soul follows a weakening will, looking for rest, God waits to heal and to save the soul – come to me all you who burdened and heavy laden… and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28).

 

When the Apostle Peter writes to the Christians he tells them what the Good News is all about, the Gospel of the Salvation of our lives. He speaks about the faith and grace that has come to us that was not available to God’s people in the Old Testament. He tells them that the prophets told God’s people that something wonderful was coming one day but that even the prophets who proclaimed it did not understand when and how it would happen. He was talking about the Salvation of our souls.

 

1Peter 1:8 Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with inexpressible joy, receiving the goal of your faith - the salvation of your souls. 19 This salvation was something the prophets did not fully understand and even though they wrote about this grace that would come to you; they had many questions as to what it all could mean… these things have now been revealed to you by the preaching of this good news through the Holy Spirit, things which angels also long to look into.

 

What did the prophets say? Let us look at what Isaiah said – He talks about the pain and suffering and grief that Jesus went through when he overcame the world of chaos and disorder that he was born into. He tells us what this suffering saviour would do for humanity. He would heal the inner life of humanity by restoring our peace, carrying our griefs and sorrows and forgiving our sins. 

 

Isaiah 53.4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes (wounds) we are healed (made whole – strengthened).

 

And then further on in the next chapter Peter actually repeats what Isaiah the prophet said.

 

1Peter 2:24 He himself carried our sins our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his stripes (wounds) you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and carer of your souls

 

What is being healed here?

Guilt, shame, feeling lost and uncared for - Our soul – the inner life.

This gives new meaning to the phrase ‘saving the lost’.

 

Healing for the body is a different matter. Physical healing is always a separate act of grace and faith in us and it occurs by the sovereign will of God.

1Corinthians 12:9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles… All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one accordingly (‘kathos’ as to how and when) as he wills (boulomai – to intend, be disposed). This means that healing of the body is always a sovereign act of God, even though in his sovereignty he allows us to be partners with him in these acts of grace by our faith. This is so that we can be used of God to bring healing to others. (We can obviously acknowledge that God also heals people with such sovereignty that they are healed without any human participation at all).

 

These gifts can be operated by all believers and there are some who have been notable in the use of these Holy Spirit anointings, but it is clear that the supernatural act of grace is always at the disposal of the will of The Holy Spirit. This means that these gifts operate with the same surrendered heart of submission that Jesus had, just as he said;

 

John 5:30 I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I determine; and My judgment is right, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.

 

 

The word ‘Salvation’

 

The original Greek Scriptures were written in pure colloquial Greek but our English Bible developed very differently and was not presented in simple colloquial English when it at last began to be read by Christians at around the time of the reformation. Many of the important doctrinal terms were words adopted from Latin that was adopted from Greek and then translated back into difficult English along the way and then into the cherished poetic prose of The Kings James Bible.

 

So we had pure Greek with the Church Fathers (Athanasius, Irenaeus), through till 380 AD which was translated into Latin by St. Jerome for 1000 years which dominated most of Christendom right up to the Reformation in 1517AD.

 

Along the way there was an awkward Anglo Saxon version (680-900 AD) then the English Wycliff translation (1380 AD) then the English Tyndale version (1526), and Tyndale was the first one to use the word Salvation in the English Scriptures and he used it only once, in John 4:22 … for salvation commeth of the Jewes…

 

For a thousand years the Latin Jerome version used the Latin word ‘salut’  which meant ‘health’ (as in drinking a toast – good health! - Salut). This word salut became the word

that we would eventually read as Salvation in our English King James vesion

 

The original Greek word we now call Salvation is sozo which had the meaning of being healed and to be made safe and made whole.

After the fine robust old English word ‘health’ dropped out and was displaced by an imported and now most important Latin word, ‘Salvation’, that the whole world of Christianity could at last read, that word came to mostly mean going to Heaven for any struggling human being of good conscience.

 

It was meant to be a present experience of the spiritual reality of the healing and wholeness of a New Creation life that comes from the forgiveness of sin and the joining of God’s Spirit to ours through the Holy Spirit (as well as going to Heaven!)

 

The problem is – What does it mean?  The Greek is much clearer and simpler.

 

 

The Salvation (saving, restoration and healing) of the Soul

We saw in the Scripture of Isaiah about Jesus suffering and being wounded for our healing, and we saw how Peter repeated that Scripture in the New Testament concerning the saving of our souls. So how is this good news healing and saving experienced by us in our everyday lives? How do we live it out.

 

Our souls are constantly being buffeted by the adversities and the contradictions of life generally, and these experiences cause us emotional suffering and feelings of grief and loss that can overwhelm us and rob us of our peace and take away our hope. The constant bombardment of bad news that circulates in today’s global community can affect our souls massively. this has become a kind of negative consciousness that hangs over everybody.

Where can people find that sense of certainty and confidence and hope?

 

It comes by our growing in faith, trusting that a merciful God is with us and inspiring us by his Spirit to live out that godly (healed and saved) life. When Paul writes to the Philippians he urges them to take this healed and saved life seriously as an awesome responsibility. He tells them to … ‘live out your salvation (sozo) with awesome fear and respect, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to do what his good will desires for you. (Philippians 2:12)

 

Our will can be healed and saved as he puts his desires in our hearts and transform our wilfulness into willingness.

Our mind can be renewed and re-ordered by receiving not just knowledge about God  but receiving spiritual truth from God by the Holy Spirit who is joined to our spirit.

 

Our emotions can be healed (saved) as God’s love comforts and encourages our hearts of faith, which is then able to express the love and peace and joy of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 14:17 For the kingdom of God is … righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

 

 

Commandment 5 episode 6

How do the next six commandments from Commandment Five to Commandment Ten differ in nature from the first four commandments?

These next six commandments differ from the first four because there is a new framework of relationships. The first four commandments dealt with our relationship to God and the next six deal with our relationships to one another. The relational scope of the Ten Commandments is for us to live in harmony with God AND at peace with other people.

The Fifth commandment tells children to obey their parents. This only seems to be written to children – or is there another way to apply this to us all as adults? 

The fifth commandment ALSO teaches us how to understand and respect the nature of authority itself, as it brings order into our lives at many levels. God ordains authority to be instrumental as the ordering of our relational reality. In thus Commandment we see how life now becomes a series of lessons divinely designed starting with this commandment and through the following commandments to transform our hearts relationally till we learn to live in harmony and order with other people.

What are some other areas of responding to authority as we grow up?

After experiencing parental authority there is school life, and that is mentioned in the Bible. (Galatians 4:2) 

Then a young adult comes under the authority of his employer in the work place (Colossians 3:22-4:1). 

Then we all come under the authority of the State (Romans Ch.13).

There is also the authority structure of the Church (Hebrews 13:17). 

NB. All of the above authority structures operate under a two way agreement between those in authority and those under authority – AND – All authority is under God Who also operates under a two way agreement with us through His Covenants.

 

Gideon getting faith

GIDEON GETTING FAITH

Hebrews 11:32 And what more do I need to say? It would take a long time for me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, ruled the people well, obtained promises, kept from harm in dens of lions, and in a furnace of fire, escaped death by the sword, and out of weakness were made strong

‘Out of weakness and being made strong’ was how Gideon learned how to respond to God in faith. He thought ‘I’m not worthy so God would not bother with me’. He had to learn and to understand the partnership arrangement that God desired to have with him. This message of Gideon getting faith is also God’s message to each one of us,
where life and power can be released into any situation through our faith partnership with Jesus, which is simply trusting that God is at work for good in the situation.  We learn to focus upon the fact that God invites us into that partnership with him. 

Gideon’s response to God’s invitation.
Judges 6:11 Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress Not where wheat was usually threshed!, in order to hide it from the Midianites (which were an oppressive nation that God had used to punish Israel for seven years because of their continual disobedience). And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!” Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”

There is a lot of ‘O, if, but, why, where,’ in there. That is because Gideon had a very low estimation of himself and he also underestimates God’s desire to have us work with him. God has to remind Gideon that salvation is his idea and that he will accomplish what he sets out to do and we will have the privilege to be part of what he is doing. So God overrides the ‘O, if, but, why, where,’ and tells him to get on with it.

Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”

Gideon makes one more attempt to wriggle out of the assignment and explains his lack of status and qualifications to God and outlines his CV that identifies him as unemployable.

Judges 6:15 So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.”

But God shuts down Gideon’s resistance by assuring Gideon that all he needs to know is that God will be with him and that the project will succeed. 
And the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”

Then Gideon does certain sacrificial offerings as directed by the Angel of The Lord. 
Judges 6:24 And Gideon built an altar there and named it ‘The Altar of Peace with Jehovah’ (peace speaks of oneness with God) and he burned down the altars of Baal (burning the  idols was the signal to all of Israel about trusting only in God). 
Vs.33 Soon afterward the armies of Midian, Amalek, and other neighboring nations united in one vast alliance against Israel. They crossed the Jordan and camped in the valley of Jezreel. 
Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet as a call to arms, and the men of Abiezer came to him. He also sent messengers throughout Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, summoning their fighting forces, and all these tribes responded.

So Gideon has amassed a vast army of 32,000 men and The Lord said ‘Sorry Gideon, that’s too many’.

Judges 7:3 If you win, Israel will boast that it was because of their massive army – so tell any of them that are scared to go back home, and 22,000 went home, and there were 10,000 left. But the Lord told Gideon, ‘There are still too many! Bring them down to the spring and I'll show you which ones shall go with you and which ones shall not.’ So Gideon assembled them at the water. There the Lord told him, ‘Divide them into two groups decided by the way they drink. In Group 1 will be all the men who cup the water in their hands to get it to their mouths and lap it up. In Group 2 will be those who kneel, with their mouths in the stream.’ Only three hundred of the men drank from their cupped hands; all the others drank with their mouths to the stream. So God said ‘I'll conquer the Midianites with these three hundred! Send all the others home!’

God then instructed Gideon to take his servant down into the vast valley and creep into the enemy camp where many thousands of them had swarmed within the entire countryside like the sand upon the seashore, and the camels were too many to count. When they got close enough they heard one soldier telling his friend that he had had a dream that they would all be defeated by Gideon and massacred.

Judges 7:24 When Gideon heard the man talking about the dream all he could do was just stand there worshiping God! Then he returned to his men and shouted," Get up! For the Lord is going to use you to conquer all the vast armies of Midian!"
He divided the three hundred men into three groups and gave each man a trumpet and a clay jar with a torch in it. Then he explained his plan. ’When we arrive at the outer guardposts of the camp (on high ground) do just as I do. As soon as I and the men in my group blow our trumpets, you blow yours on all sides of the camp and shout, ‘We fight for God and for Gideon!'
Suddenly they blew their trumpets and broke their clay jars so that their torches blazed into the night. Then the other two hundred of his men did the same, blowing the trumpets in their right hands, and holding the flaming torches in their left hands, all shouting, "For the Lord and for Gideon!"
Then they just stood and watched as the whole vast enemy army began rushing around in a panic, shouting and running away. For in the confusion the Lord caused the enemy troops to begin fighting and killing each other from one end of the camp to the other, and they fled into the night to places far far away… 

It is amazing to see the intervention of God as he works in partnership with Gideon. He is told to do some simple things that whittle down Gideon’s chances of seeing the victory as anything else but God’s strategic wisdom and God’s supernatural power.
He will do the same with us as we accept that God wishes to break through our everyday routine lives and manifest the riches of his wisdom and power through us.  
We are not going to be told to do anything as mad as what Gideon had to do but we can expect God to put us into everyday situations where God puts it into our hearts to do simple and often little surprising things that express his heart of love and peace and blessing, and his wisdom will be seen to act. Those promptings are signs of the intervention of Jesus in his vision for our lives of partnership and friendship with him.

The amazing interventions of God for Gideon were made for the express purpose of showing Gideon that the work was of God and not of him. We saw this with the peace offering he had to offer on the altar, which spoke of his oneness with God, and burning the  idols - the signal for all Israel about trusting only in God. That was the starting point. All the other signs were framed within situations where the conditions were turned from one extreme to the other, to show Gideon that it was not in his strength but in God’s; He went from 32,000 troops to 300; the battle became one of the enemy fighting against one another instead of fighting against Israel; the reason for the confusion of the enemy was that one man had a dream that Gideon’s army would annihilate them and they had better flee, and his panic threw panic into all of them - and that was all God’s work, not some smart strategic negotiation from General Gideon, who blew a trumpet and ran down a hill with  300 men all shouting and carrying vessels full of fire that they smashed to pieces as they ran. 

All of these signs were tests of faith set up for Gideon by God. However there was one test that was set up by Gideon for God, very early in the story; and that was the riddle of the sign of the fleece. This happened before he sent out the messages to gather all the tribes of Israel together. It was when God said that Gideon would have an army that would defeat the Midianites as one man.
Judges 6:36 So Gideon said to God, “If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said— look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said.” And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water. Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more: Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew.” And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground.

This test was also framed within a situation where the conditions were turned from one extreme to the other; the fleece had to be either wet or dry according to Gideon’s request. The Bible makes no comment about why this was the request or even about what Gideon thought or said afterwards, or what God said. It just happened - and Gideon got faith – God’ s faith. 

In simple terms, a fleece of wool can only exist if a lamb has been slain/sacrificed. This is prophetic for us of Jesus, who gives us HIS faith for every situation 
Galatians 2:20 … the life I now live, I live by the faith OF the Son of God….
No matter what the extremes are of our circumstances, or how little faith we have that things will work out for good, the reality of our faith is our trust in the faith of Jesus who asks the Father on our behalf for his good will to be done. 

The fleece was going to be there for Gideon no matter how implausible the test was for God to show that he was there for him. Jesus was going to turn up for Gideon – wet or dry - and he will turn up for us OUR FAITH, in a way that assures us by his Spirit that it is really him who is doing the supernatural for us and through us as his vessel. 

2Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us…

When this rest of faith has been entered into and we know that the power of God is at work it becomes clear that it is not about our estimation of ourselves anymore (in our weakness he becomes our strength). When we activate this kind of faith we will be in partnership with God, being guided along the way forward by the Holy Spirit and not by our own drivenness, and being prompted by him about what to do. Our battle is against our unbelief that God is with us in everything that is happening and even if we do not understand why it is happening we trust that God is bringing about the best for us right now – it is a present moment experience.

As earthen vessels we battle against;
The unbelief that there is an excellence of power within us.
Not understanding why what is happening to us is happening.
Trusting that God is bringing about the best for us right now.

When we know by faith that the earthen vessel and the treasure always act together;
It is no longer about our wrong estimation of ourselves as an empty earthen vessel.
It is about God being with us in everything that is happening.
It is about God bringing about the best for us in the situation right now.

Thank you Lord for being our faith, and our strength in our weakness. Amen