Category Archives: Christian Life

TWO LIONS

Christian Life, ,

TWO LIONS

Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He can open the scroll and its seven seals.” Revelation 5:5.

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8.

The devil wants to be in charge. He thinks that he is in control of the world and all the people in the world. He believes that the world belongs to him and that he can frighten people into doing what he wants. But the devil is not the true lion. He is only a counterfeit lion. He makes a noise like a lion, but he has no power to do anything to people unless they give him that power by believing his lies.

The world is full of people who believe his lies, are afraid of him and worship him through many false religions that keep them in bondage to fear. The devil uses the powerful weapon of fear to keep people enslaved to him. He has a very clever way of making people believe in him. He disguises himself as a god in many different forms. Some gods are idols or images that are terrifying and evil. These gods demand sacrifices and need to be appeased by doing rituals or behaving in cruel or ugly ways. All these practices show us what kind of a god he is, causing people to do things that are disgusting, making them undignified and inhuman.

Jesus is the true Lion. He does not harm or destroy people even though He is called “the Lion of the tribe of Judah”. He is strong and powerful, but He used His power to destroy the devil’s work by allowing Satan to do the worst he could to Him, killing Him on a cross. Jesus rose from the dead to show us that Satan’s most powerful weapon, death, could not hold Him because he is the perfect Son of God. He rose from death and will never die again.

By overcoming the devil, Jesus showed us that He is the Lord of all creation. He is in charge, not Satan. His kingdom will rule forever, not the kingdom of darkness. Jesus rules by love, not hatred and destruction. He will restore all of creation to its perfection when He returns to the earth to rule over His kingdom forever. He loves us and has rescued us from the devil’s power.

Satan wants us to believe that he is in charge so that he can destroy humanity because he hates God, and people belong to God. There is only one lion that will have the final victory and it is not the lion who can only roar but do nothing else. Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, has triumphed. When He comes, He will destroy Satan forever and all who have followed him. Then He will reign forever and we will reign with Him.

THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES

Christian Life, ,

THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

In the Old Testament, Israel was called “the vine”. “Israel was a spreading vine” Hosea 10:1. God planted Israel in their own land as a choice vine, but He was disappointed with them because their fruit was bad.

Now Jesus tells His disciples that He is the vine, and they are the branches. Which part of the vine is Jesus? Is He the root, is He the stem or is He the branches? He says that He is the whole vine, and we are the branches. That means that we are part of Him. He wants us to bear fruit for Him, but we can’t bear fruit without being a part of the whole vine. The roots and the stem don’t bear the fruit; the branches do, but they cannot make grapes without the roots to take up the food and water from the soil and the stem to carry it to the branches.

The leaves on the branches are also important because they use the food and water from the soil and the sunlight and air to produce the energy which the vine needs to grow grapes. The leaves on the branches don’t have to work hard to gather sunlight or air. They just sit on the end of the twigs in the sun and air and the cells inside the leaves use the sunlight and carbon dioxide in the air together with the water and food from the soil to produce grapes.

If the branches are separated from the vine, they wither and die. They cannot bear fruit by themselves. They must be part of the vine. Jesus said that we are just like that. If we are to bear fruit for Him, we must live in union with Him. That means that we must submit to Him, trust in Him and obey Him. Our hearts must be filled with His word because it is His word that is the food that helps to produce the fruit.

What is the fruit that He wants us to bear for Him?  The Apostle Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control. The first three teach us about our relationship with God. When we stay connected to Jesus, He fills our hearts with His love, joy, and peace because that is who He is. The next three show us how He wants us to treat people, with patience, kindness, and goodness because that is how He treats us. The last three, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control, tell us who we are. When we stay connected to Jesus, we learn to be in control of ourselves.  

Staying in His word and listening to Him is what we need for the fruit of the Spirit to grow in our lives. In this way, people will see how beautiful Jesus is.

GOD’S JUSTICE

Christian Life, ,

GOD’S JUSTICE

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you. Psalm 89:14

People hate to be treated unfairly. Whether by our family, our friends or even our bosses at work, we are outraged by injustice. In every country in the world there is injustice and in some countries more than others. Wherever people use their power and authority to oppress other people, injustice happens. Even our law courts do not always provide justice because they depend on how clever the lawyers are at interpreting the law.

God also hates injustice. He punished His people severely for being unjust towards one another. He always wanted them to remember that they were once a homeless people, strangers in a foreign land, first in Canaan and then in Egypt. As soon as they forgot, they began to treat each other unkindly and to be cruel to the strangers in their land.

In Psalm 98:14, the writer praises God because His government is based on righteousness, justice, love, and faithfulness. Just imagine how happy we would be if the country we live in were based on these four qualities.

There are many places in Scripture that show us how God’s justice works. Moses gave Pharaoh God’s message that he was to let His people go free. Pharaoh refused to listen to Moses, and he hardened his heart against God. Every time he refused to obey, God sent another plague to destroy Egypt. The Bible tells us that Pharaoh hardened his heart five times and five times God sent plagues on the land.

Then something terrible happened. Since Pharaoh had chosen to disobey God five times, when His message came through Moses the sixth time, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. He had chosen to disobey God and now God gave him what he wanted. He was not able to obey God because he had made his choice not to listen. Five times God hardened his heart. Isn’t that perfectly just?

God has given us His laws to protect us from harming ourselves. He wants us to be happy, safe, and free inside the “fences” of His laws. When we ignore His rules, there will be consequences which hurt us. Like little children, we need someone wiser that we are to protect us from making the foolish choices that will destroy us.

God has given us a very wonderful but also a dangerous gift called “free will”. He tells us that, by obeying His rules, we will always be safe but, if we choose to disobey Him, there will be consequences which will be painful for us and will take us down a way in which we will be punished for doing wrong.

When we choose not to listen to God and we experience the things He warned us about, He is being perfectly just by allowing us to suffer for our disobedience. He will always give us what we choose. If we choose to obey Him, He will give us the joy of fellowship with Him.

LOVE NOT THE WORLD

Christian Life, ,

LOVE NOT THE WORLD

“Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him…. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. “ 1 John 2:15, 17

Satan attacks us on two fronts. He comes at us directly from the outside through people and circumstances, illness, conflict, persecution, treachery, injustice, financial constraints etc. W know where these things come from but, if we keep our eyes on Jesus, we can use these trials to grow our trust in God and to build character – perseverance and hope, as James encourages us to do. We may not always understand what is happening, but we can be sure that God will give us grace to help us overcome the tests and not become angry or bitter.

We don’t always recognise the more subtle approach of the devil, to entice us to satisfy our natural human appetites and desires. We are physical beings who experience the world through our senses. We get pleasure through what we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. In this way we connect with the world around us. God made us to enjoy the pleasures of our senses but…

Satan wants to trick us into spending so much time enjoying the pleasures of our world that these things eat away at our desire for the presence of God and the lasting pleasures of His kingdom. The difference between the pleasures that the world offers and the pleasures of fellowship with God is that worldly pleasures require more to satisfy us, while the pleasure of walking with Jesus is lasting.

Another problem is that, because worldly pleasures demand more to get satisfaction that does not last, we soon become addicted to things which master us, destroy us and then we land up on the garbage dump and Satan laughs because he has got his way. We only wake up when we are hooked.

The Bible has a lot to say about the shortness of life. We are like a vapour that is here for a moment and then gone; like flowers that bloom today and are thrown away tomorrow; like a blip on the radar screen of time. We only have that tiny moment in which to plot our course for eternity. Seventy or eighty years, or even a hundred and twenty, pass by like a flash of lightning and then we are gone, but our choice is made, and our course set forever. 

Our appetites develop according to what we eat. Give a child only junk food and he will refuse vegetables. The key is to eat the right food until we develop an appetite for it. If we choose to “feed” on Jesus long enough by eating His word and spending time with Him, our appetite for Him will grow. The more we look at the beauty of Jesus through His word, the more we are attracted to Him and lose our appetite for the world.

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – BE CONTENT

Christian Life

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – BE CONTENT

“You shall not covet…” Exodus 20:17

The tenth commandment creates a problem for us. All the other commandments are measurable and observable, but the last one focuses on our hearts. Only God can see what goes on in our hearts. One rabbi said that the Tenth Commandment was not a command but a reward.  If you have measured up to the other nine, you will be so content that you will have no need to covet. It’s a matter of the heart.

The Bible teaches us that there are three levels to sin: iniquity, sin and transgression. In the Hebrew, the word “iniquity” means, “Whatever your eye hooks to, multiplies.” This is a principle that speaks of our whole life.  Whatever we focus on dominates us. Sin begins in the heart, lusting after things that we focus on.

Sin is a step beyond iniquity. We are enticed by lust for what the eye has hooked to. This leads on to the third level, transgression, which is crossing the boundary into doing what God has forbidden. In the Old Testament you could not be punished for iniquity or sin but only for transgressing the law.

“…The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6. Isaiah gives us a picture of God’s grace which goes all the way back to what started in our heart. God’s standards also go back to what is in our hearts.  According to Deut 6:10-12, it is critical that we acknowledge that everything we have is a gift from God and that we should be content with it. The best life is appreciating what God has given us instead of wanting what God has given some else.

God has given us each an inheritance. We need to ask God to show us what our boundaries are, not ask for more. We need to walk into what God has already given us. Contentment is something that cannot be bought.

If coveting is seeing some else’s life and wanting it, not coveting is being content with our own lives. To be content with our own life, we need to find our being in God. When we buy into the best life that God has given us, there are no slavedrivers. We are living with dignity, and we are treating others with dignity, and showing the world what God is like. It leaves us in a state of contentment which it is a reward and keeps us from a life of always wanting more.

To covet is to turn our backs on what God has given us and walk towards what God has given someone else.  Then we sit around and wonder why we can’t find our purpose. How awesome would it be if we could be content with all the unimaginable blessing God has showered on us. We have a choice. We can either be content with God’s goodness and kindness or have a life of endless jealousy, pressure, anxiety, and slavedrivers.