Monthly Archives: April 2015

Don’t Do It

Bible Study, , ,

DON’T DO IT

See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau who, for a single meal sold his inheritance as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done (Heb. 12: 16-17).

Some things we have done in our lives can be changed. Other things can never be changed and what remains is the pain of regret. Some sins can be forgiven and the consequences will fade into the distant past. Other sins, forgiven though they may be, will stay with us and haunt us for the rest of our lives.

As far as the sin of our unregenerate past is concerned, God wipes the slate clean.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us (Psa 103: 12).

However, there are consequences we cannot escape which will follow us for the rest of our lives. King David knew this only too well. His moment of indiscretion with Bathsheba dogged him and his family for the rest of their lives, wrought havoc between him and his children, and resulted in rivalry, bloodshed and war. Even the legitimate son, Solomon, born of his union with Bathsheba, turned out to be a failure and paved the way for a split in Israel which was never healed.

What the writer points to here is two kinds of behaviour that stem from a dangerous mind-set that will inevitably lead to disaster; sexual immorality – a spiritual disease that has gripped the world because people ignore God and make their own rules. Let’s examine this single meal, attitude a little more deeply. Why has the world dispensed with God’s instruction not to be sexually immoral?

Let’s look at it this way. People worship false gods, not so much because they are convinced that their gods and what they stand for are the truth but because their gods approve of their sinful behaviour. They ignore God because they are looking for instant gratification. Instead of understanding that God created us in His image and that our lives must be lived in line with who He is, people have created gods in their image because they want to live as they choose. Inevitably, false gods approve of what is basest in human nature, sexual immorality and violence to get their own way.

In my country, our so-called democracy is a cover-up for mob rule. Marches and protests, which are supposed to bring about change, usually end in bloodshed, vandalism and looting. Sexual immorality, which is approved by the gods the people worship, has resulted in both an exploding population of illegitimate children and an out-of-control incidence of AIDS and AIDS-related deaths.

Government coffers have been so plundered by greedy politicians and civil servants that the people groan under the weight of taxation and escalating costs. The country’s infrastructure is gradually collapsing because the money supposed to be used to run the country is either leaking into private pockets or given to the masses to support their ever-increasing number of illegitimate or orphaned children.

Why is this happening? The bottom line is that the majority of people want instant gratification with no thought for the future or for consequences. That was King David’s problem – hence he took Bathsheba; and it was Esau’s problem, hence he sold his birth right for a bowl of beans.

The difference between the godly and the ungodly boils down to this – the ungodly live only for now and for what they can grab for themselves while the godly take God seriously and live with an eye on the future because every choice they make now affects what happens to them later.

Casual sexual liaisons leave a trail of consequences which cannot be changed. Living only for now and making choices for instant gratification results in the same thing, a trail of devastation which cannot be changed. The writer says, “Don’t do it!” Jesus is a clear example of someone who kept He eye on the goal and moved steadfastly towards it.

And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12: 1b-2).

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

Prescriptions For A Healthy Church

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PRESCRIPTIONS FOR A HEALTHY CHURCH

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many (Heb. 12: 15).

This verse is so important that I will deal with it on its own.

The writer has two prescriptions for the health of the church:

  1. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God. What does he mean? Paul throws light on the meaning for us.

As God’s co-workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, ‘in the time of my favour I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:1).

Paul followed this statement with a resume’ of the many hardships he and his colleagues suffered for the sake of the gospel. Instead of becoming embittered, he laid hold of God’s grace – His supernatural favour and help which enabled him to endure and overcome.

On one occasion, Paul cried out to God for deliverance from the hardships that plagued him, which he described as a “thorn”. What was this thorn? Before God’s people entered the Promised Land, He issued a serious warning to His people about the inhabitants of the land.

But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you live (Numb. 33: 55).

It would seem that Paul identified his “thorn” as the many troubles he endured and the unbelievers who plagued him and hounded him from one city to the next as he spread the gospel across Asia Minor and Europe. But, instead of removing his thorn, God gave him a promise.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12: 8-10).

Instead of “falling short of God’s grace”, Paul gladly acknowledged his weakness and embraced God’s grace to make him strong in the face of all the hardships and difficulties he had to suffer at the hands of those who hated him. He refused to allow the way people treated him and the tough experiences he had to endure as part of his calling, to embitter him.

  1. And that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. When hardships come, and we refuse to embrace God’s grace, something happens inside of us. We allow a “bitter root” to grow and cause havoc in the fellowship of God’s people. What is this bitter root? Again we turn to the Old Testament to shed light on its meaning.

You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison (Deut. 29:16-18).

The readers would certainly not be idol-worshippers in this context, but refusal to receive God’s grace indicates a far more subtle form of idolatry. When they harboured grudges against their persecutors and refused to accept God’s grace to love their enemies and to do good to those who hated them, as Jesus taught, they were putting themselves about God which was, in effect idolatry. This attitude was poisonous and would soon affect and infect the entire community of believers.

Life throws us many curved balls. How are we going to handle them? When we hold grudges against others instead of forgiving and letting offences go, it rips a community of people apart. This happens when we think more of themselves than we do of God who provides the grace to forgive and love instead of becoming embittered. Only on the basis of Jesus’ death which paid the debt for all sin, can we forgive and be set free from bitterness.

This is the solid foundation on which a fellowship of believers is built. Whether offences come from inside or outside the fellowship, forgiveness through God’s grace is the only way to preserve the unity. Selfishness is idolatry will most surely destroy what God has built because of His grace.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

The Outcomes Of Discipline

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THE OUTCOMES OF DISCIPLINE

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen you feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12: 11-14).

We hate discipline, don’t we? As children, we needed it because, left to ourselves we would have become monsters. In whatever way our parents disciplined us, as much as we did not enjoy the pain, we reaped the benefit of being saved from our self-destructive behaviour.

We don’t always recognise God’s discipline. When we suffer, we think He is being unfair or uncaring, or that He is punishing us for some or other wrong we have done. The hardships and suffering we endure have puzzled God’s saints for as long as sin has been in the world.  There is no chapter in the Bible that sets out the answer for us but, as we read, we can glean answers from the way God dealt with His people in the past.

The Israelites were a wayward bunch. If ever there was a group of rebels, the Bible points to them. Their history is peppered with the evidences of their stubborn resistance to God’s ways which He lovingly revealed to them in His covenant. No other nation on earth had the pledge of His presence and favour on them as they had, and yet they threw it away and persisted in their senseless idolatry because they wanted to.

Time and again, when God’s patience with them ran out, He handed them over to their enemies to be overrun and destroyed. He always had a few who were faithful to Him and yet, who suffered with the guilty ones. Unlike the wicked people on earth who were destroyed in the global flood, God never wiped Israel out because of His promise to Abraham. Although they were eventually scattered across the earth after the Romans overran their land in 70 AD, they remained a people until God called them back in 1948.

But what about us? Why do we have to go through trials and suffering? We don’t worship idols like they did. Really? Think of the many things we have in our lives that replace God. Why does God hate idols? For two reasons, I believe.

Firstly, because He is jealous for us. He is the source of everything good. When we replace Him in our lives with anything less than He is, we lose out. When we follow the devil’s lies we are robbed of the unity He wants us to have with Him so that we can know, enjoy and glorify Him. He is passionate about us and, only in union with Him can we experience everything He made us to be and everything He promised us.

Secondly, God knows that we will become like the thing we worship. Whatever replaces Him in our affections will pull us towards it. In Israel’s day, the idols they worshipped represented the worst of human wickedness, and they practised every form of ungodliness in the name of their gods.

Hardships drive us back to God. We know, instinctively, that whatever we hold on to in place of God cannot help us in our time of need. We forget Him when life is easy; we cling to Him when we are in trouble. God does not send trouble – He allows it to call us back to Him.

But, unlike the Israelites, we shouldn’t wait for trouble to pull us back to God. Instead, “strengthen you feeble arms and weak knees.” Let’s allow our hardships to teach us the lesson of faithfulness and trust. Children who have learned to submit and obey their parents no longer need discipline. Only the stubborn ones do.

When we submit to God’s discipline by living with Him in the centre of our lives and trusting Him in everything instead of whining and moaning about every little discomfort, we learn to hate what He hates and love what He loves. That’s what holiness is. Sin is everything that contradicts who He is. Holiness is everything that affirms His character as the true and perfect God. That’s who we are already in His sight, perfect in Christ, but it’s also what we are moving towards if we desire to live with Him forever.

Through Jesus the writer affirmed that we have already been made perfect. Now God is making us holy – and discipline through hardships and suffering is His method. Submit, and you will live. Resist and you will die because, without holiness, no one with see the Lord.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

The Purpose Of Discipline

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THE PURPOSE OF DISCIPLINE

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined – and everyone undergoes discipline – then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness (Heb. 12: 7-10).

Ignoring God’s directions for life leads to all kinds of problems. He gave us instructions and prohibitions for a very good reason. He knows that life becomes a mess when we ignore the “no entry” signs along the path. One of the huge “no entry” signs is the one about the way we handle our sex drives. This one says “sex outside of marriage is dangerous” but, of course, because we humans think we know better than God, we ignored that one and set up our own rules – which in effect are no rules. Anything goes!

The result is a world of fatherless people, either because the biological father is absent and plays no part in the child’s life or because the father has opted out of his responsibility to father his children. Divorce has ripped families apart, leaving mothers to raise their children while fathers are out hunting for another mate, or at best, absentee fathers who see their children periodically and play no part in their upbringing.

Fatherless children grow up hurt and angry because they have no identity, and insecure because they have no one to affirm them and no one to set the boundaries within which they feel safe and free. There is no strong authority figure to bring order and discipline into their lives without which their sin nature plays havoc and leads to broken and destroyed people. Our prisons are full of criminals who grew up without the loving and guiding hand of a father.

It isn’t any wonder that so many of God’s children don’t understand what He is doing when hardships come. Discipline was not part of the equation. Punishment, yes, because many of the fathers were harsh and unpredictable, disciplining according to their moods and whims without purpose.

This writer perhaps experienced a father who loved him and disciplined him as a way of guiding his life towards a productive future. If so, it was easy for him to understand the purpose of hardship and suffering. God is the perfect Father. This writer knew that His people needed to be corralled in order to stay on the path. Without discipline, we lose our way amid the many temptations that appeal to our flesh and pull us away from God’s path through life.

How does God discipline us? He allows us to experience situations that bring the flaws in us to the surface. We bump up against people who irritate us, make us angry, or jealous, or who cause us offence in some way. We blame the other person when, in actual fact, our reaction comes from within us. Unless we own our own fault instead of blaming him or her, the exercise is wasted and God will have to keep up the heat until we learn the lesson.

He also allows us to get into sticky situations that require us to trust Him in the dark. Instead of trusting, however, we often try to fix things ourselves in a worldly way when He has said, “The battle is not yours but God’s. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” We pray desperately to get out of our problems instead of being still and trusting God in it. Our faith in Him cannot become stronger if the sun shines all the time. We need the storms to teach us how to hold on to Him in trouble.

“God uses hardships to discipline us,” said the writer. He has a goal in mind. He is building a family of sons and daughters who have progressed beyond the infancy, toddler and teenage stages. Each phase has it characteristics of immaturity. He has given us the model of His Son who lived as a perfect son instead of a spoilt brat or a stubborn rebel. His family destined for unity with the Father, sharing His holiness – His separation from and abhorrence for sin.

When we submit to His discipline instead of bucking and whining, something happens inside. A calm descends and a trust grows that God is, after all, in charge, good and moving us towards a desired end. If some earthly fathers did a good job, and they are fallible after all, submitting to and trusting in our heavenly Father will eventually bring us to maturity in this life and perfection in the next.

Is that a path worth following?

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

Discipline Versus Punishment

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DISCIPLINE VERSUS PUNISHMENT

Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten the word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his sons? ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the ones He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as sons.’ (Heb. 12: 3-6).

How important it was for his readers to fix their eyes on Jesus! Like Peter walking on the water, the turbulent circumstances around them caused them to waver and to lose confidence in their Master and in themselves and their resolve and ability to follow Him, no matter what. As His disciples, they knew that their relationship with Him was far closer than mere admirers. To be a disciple was to learn to become just like their rabbi, to live like him and to imitate him in everything he said and did.

By turning away and going back to the yoke – the teaching and way of life – of a lesser rabbi, they were in effect saying that they no longer believed that Jesus was most authoritative rabbi to follow. They were declaring, by their defection, that His life and teachings were no longer authentic for them, and repudiating their right to be called sons of God.

By doing that they had forgotten the reality of who they were. If they regarded the suffering they were undergoing as believers in Jesus as punishment for their sins, they had missed the truth of the radical change that had happened when they believed and received Jesus as their Messiah and Saviour. They were no longer slaves but sons.

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children (Rom. 8:15).

Slaves had a different relationship to their master from sons. Slaves did not belong in the family. They did not share the name or the inheritance of sons. They lived in fear of punishment if they did not comply with the master’s orders. They could be beaten or even killed if they disobeyed.

‘You are not slaves, but sons’ the writer reminded them. The troubles they were experiencing were not punishment for sin as they might have erroneously viewed them. God has dealt with sin, once and for all, in the death of His Son. The writer had taken pains to explain to them that Jesus’s once-for-all, never-to-be-repeated sacrifice had taken care of sin forever. Unlike the sacrifices of the old covenant which had to be repeated again and again as a reminder of sin, the blood of Jesus had perfected them forever and they were now undergoing the process of being made holy.

Their hardships were not punishment but discipline. Punishment was for slaves; discipline was for sons. Punishment was retribution for doing wrong; discipline was correction to point them towards becoming true sons in their attitudes and behaviour.

How important it is for us to understand what God is doing in our lives when we go through the pain and hardships that don’t make sense and seem to indicate that God is either absent or doesn’t care! “The problem of suffering” has troubled both believers and unbelievers from time immemorial. Books and sermons abound; solutions are offered or denied.

Two facts must never be ignored; we live in and are part of a fallen world – we cannot evade the effects of sin and the suffering which sin brings; we are God’s children – He uses every experience we go through to mould us into the likeness of Jesus.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters (Rom.8:28-29).

How else can God reveal the remnants of the old nature in us if He does not allow us to experience the circumstances that trigger our sinful responses? Because we don’t understand what He is doing, we mistrust or blame Him. Instead of growing in grace, we waste the opportunities to imitate Jesus. He endured opposition from sinners because His eye was on the reward. If we keep our eyes on the prize instead of bewailing our suffering, like Jesus we shall endure, persevere and, in the end, inherit God’s promises.

What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’ – the things God has prepared for those who love Him – these are the things God has revealed to us by His Spirit (1 Cor. 2: 9-10).

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com