Monthly Archives: December 2020

ARMED TO THE TEETH!

Bible Study, ,

ARMED TO THE TEETH!

Therefore, put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm, then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Eph. 6:13-17).

Three times Paul states our stance in this “struggle” against our unseen enemy – stand, stand, stand! Why should we stand and not fight if we are to take the ground the enemy occupies? We only need to stand because Jesus has already overcome him and taken from him what he occupied illegally – our hearts and bodies.

Jesus has redeemed us and taken ownership again of what rightly belongs to Him – the entire universe including the human race. Satan is nothing more than a squatter in territory that he has invaded. When we return to the Lord in repentance and faith, we take up our rightful position “in Him” and He “in us” to live once more under His authority who is God’s appointed and anointed king.

The battlefield is not in our circumstances but in our minds. Satan’s avowed purpose is to win us back under his control by undermining our confidence in God – His love, His goodness and His faithfulness towards us.  The devil lies to us as he did to Adam and Eve. He uses every form of deception and every lie to convince us that we have failed God and are disqualified, or that He has failed us and is no longer trustworthy.

Paul must have studied the Roman soldier’s armour and weapons as he sat in his prison cell in Rome, guarded day and night by a fully armed soldier, assuming that he wrote this letter from Rome. As he thought about his situation, he recognised that his circumstances were not his problem but his reaction to them. Why was he in jail and who was responsible for putting him there? Was he a victim of the devil’s schemes or was God still on charge and working in his life for his good?

If God had allowed him to be incarcerated in jail right in the very “den of lions”, Caesar’s palace, then He had a very good reason for placing him there. However, if Paul resisted and rebelled against what God was doing, mistrusting Him, questioning His love and goodness and complaining about his suffering, of what value would this trial be to him?

Paul realised, as he considered his plight, that what really mattered was his thoughts and his attitude to what was happening to him at that moment. How was he to handle the situation to get the best out of it? After all, hadn’t he penned the words to the believers in Rome years before?

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 He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:28-29).

Satan, the relentless enemy and his minions of allies, would batter Paul’s mind with doubts and fears to nullify his trust in God when he was in the darkness of uncertainty and insecurity. He needed something to fortify his mind against this attack. Ah! He recognised a useful parallel between the centurion’s armour and the protection God had provided to deflect the destructive thoughts that bombarded his mind.

Jesus used the same powerful protection against the onslaught of the devil – truth! The belt of truth. It was the soldier’s belt, fastened firmly around his waist, that held all the pieces of his amour in place. In the same way, it was the truth of what God had said – His infallible and indestructible Word – that provided the anchor for his confidence in all the benefits of His salvation bought by the blood of Jesus.

Every part of Paul’s armour was anchored to and derived from the truth which came alive to him through his faith in God. He could displace every lie that assaulted his thoughts with the validity of God’s Word, protecting his mind and heart from receiving and believing what the devil insinuated. He could stand firm in both peace with God though faith in Jesus and the peace of God which guarded his heart and mind as he released all his fears and anxieties to Him. He could nullify every lie with the Word of God – driving the devil back by the power of the Word, his mind shielded by his confidence in what God had said.

What an experience to share with his beloved fellow-believers! If it worked for him in his prison cell, with the threat of execution hanging over his head, it would work for them as well, no matter what their circumstances and no matter how relentless the enemy’s attack. His mind and theirs would be impenetrable fortresses as long as they were filled and fortified with God’s truth. Salvation, righteousness, peace, faith… all defended by the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, made him invincible against every lie the devil and his hoards could fire against him.

This is how we fight, not to win, but to press home the victory Jesus won in the wilderness, in the garden and on the cross, and powerfully confirmed by His resurrection from the dead.

Scripture is 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 first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

IT’S ALL-OUT WAR

Bible Study, ,

IT’S ALL-OUT WAR

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:10-12).

O, what a mess we have made of this Scripture! Paul has taken pains, in all his letters, to ensure that his readers understand one thing. We can do absolutely nothing to save ourselves. All our religious activities including rituals and rule-keeping, even strict adherence to the laws of Moses, impress God not one little bit. He swept it all aside as useless and ineffective to deal with the barrier of sin that separates us from Him.

There was only one effective solution to deal with sin – the death of a perfect human being. Since none on earth could be found, He sent His own Son, born of a woman, to take the place of sinful humanity and to die a death He did not deserve to die in the place of sinners.

The death of Jesus dealt not only with our sin; it also dealt with the enemy who was responsible for luring the first pair into disobedience to God’s one requirement. The devil won the first round by deceiving the woman into mistrusting the love of God. She fell for his lie and dragged her husband into disobeying God’s instruction not to go the route of independence from Him.

Jesus exposed his modus operandi and beat him at his own game by dying as a sinless man in perfect obedience to His Father’s will. He cancelled the debt of sin which the human race owed Him, took back the spoils of war, His children, and gave us the power and the freedom to stand firm against the devil in the truth of what He has done.

The problem is that we (and by this I mean the church in the main, led by those who have superimposed their own ideas on God’s Word), have fouled up Paul’s understanding and instruction about conducting this on-going war. We still have the tendency to want to make a contribution to this life we are called to live as followers of Jesus in spite of the fact the He said, ‘Apart from me you can do nothing.’  We have invented our own way of conducting “war” against the enemy.

Firstly, we have misunderstood the site of the battle. We believe that we must fight the devil in our circumstances. When life throws us a curve ball, we immediately blame the devil and take up arms against him. We “resist” him by speaking into the air, as though he is omnipresent just as God is. From where does this idea come? Satan is a created being, not the evil counterpart of God. We “take authority” over him. Where do we find anyone in Scripture doing that? Did Jesus “take authority” over the devil? No! He spoke the truth of the Word.

To make our warfare more effective, so we think, we must “identify the principalities and powers”. We have to know who they are so that we can address them by name. Where are they? In the heavenly realms. We must, therefore, “pull them down” to break their power over countries and regions. We must find out what the “altars” are to which people give allegiance. What a lot of responsibility God has given us to conduct the ongoing war against the devil and his minions!. It we don’t, God can’t save the people in those areas from their sin!

Another round of victory for the devil! Another huge distractor to keep us from dealing with the real issues! Since when does God give the church the responsibility to “fight” the devil in the world? Yes, we do have a ruthless enemy! Yes, we are in a constant state of war which many parts of the church have forgotten, but we are fighting the battle where the devil and his legions are not even bothered about.

Secondly, the real war is going on, not out there among the pagans but in our minds. Jesus is taking back the spoils of war. He is winning the willing allegiance of those who believe in Him. He is extending His kingdom, one person at a time, on earth by revealing the truth about God, about us and about His victory over the devil on the cross and by restoring those who believe in Him to His family.

Satan hates what Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is doing. He works hard to win back those who have recognised the truth, by attempting to reintroduce his lies, to discredit God and deceive His children into doubting His love and goodness and defecting to the enemy once more.

We live in a world which has been thoroughly corrupted by sin. Believers are subject to the same hardships and suffering everyone else in the world goes through. Being children of God is no guarantee that we will escape the effects of sin on this planet. Unbelievers hold God responsible for not intervening. Satan loves to blame God, to undermine His character and to lure God’s children into judging Him and even, if possible, deceiving them enough to lure them back into their old independent ways of thinking and behaving.

People in the world do not have to fight the devil. He already has them in his clutches. Paul is addressing the children of God. We are the ones who need to understand Satan’s strategy and beat him at his own game. Yes, we have a powerful and ruthless unseen enemy. He is clever and subtle and he has no rules but, as Paul triumphantly declared, “We are not ignorant of his devices.” Jesus exposed him and his lies.

Our job is not to fight what we think he is doing to us but to call his bluff! More tomorrow.

Scripture is 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 first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com

HARMONY IN THE WORKPLACE

Bible Study, ,

HARMONY IN THE WORKPLACE

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favour when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favouritism (Eph. 6:5-9).

The third pair of interactive people on Paul’s list is slaves and masters. Although he mentions slaves first, and gives detailed instructions for the correct way to think and act as believing slaves, once again it is the master who should set the tone for honour and respect and faithful service from his slaves.

In Paul’s day, there were slaves and masters across the entire Roman Empire. Whenever an army conquered a nation, they brought back many of their vanquished foes as slaves. The unfortunate victims were sold in the slave market to the highest bidder and became the property of the slave-owner. Their owners treated them as goods and could do with them as they pleased.

Many slave-owners were cruel and heartless, breaking up families and selling off children and beating their slaves mercilessly for any and every infringement of their whims. Slaves had no recourse to justice. They were forced to submit to whatever treatment was meted out to them without protest.

It was important for believing slaves to get their thinking straight. They were not only to give faithful and loyal service to masters who treated them well, but also to those who mistreated them, period. They were now citizens of another kingdom where the right thing to do was to obey, whether they were treated well or not. They were serving, not a human master, but their Master, Jesus, who showed them what was right, even if they were treated unjustly.

Let’s examine this way of living a little more carefully. Why should slaves not rebel if they were treated harshly? For two reasons: firstly, if they reacted to cruelty with a bad attitude, they would be guilty of sin. As children of God, they were to maintain a good conscience before God.

Secondly, they were to remember that their real Master was Jesus, not some capricious and cruel earthly tyrant. The way they served was more important than who they served. If they kept their eye on Jesus, they would serve Him with excellence regardless of the way their masters treated them.

These instructions should also apply in any employer/employee situation because they are based on timeless principles. However, once again it is the one with greater responsibility and accountability who should set the tone for harmony in the workplace. It is far easier for an employee to give faithful and loyal service where the employer is reasonable and fair in his dealings with employees.

As always, an employer is a servant leader.  Regardless of his position and authority in the workplace, like the husband in the home, he is not to lord it over his employees but to lead by example.   Every worker deserves fair wages paid on time.  Every worker deserves to be treated with dignity and respect as a human being regardless of his station in life. This not about one person being better or better educated or qualified than another and therefore deserving of greater honour than another. This is about a team working together, each person making his/her contribution for the good of the team. When the team pulls together, everyone benefits.

It is not the job of the employee to be a man-pleaser, only working well when the employer’s eye is on him. He must remember that he is always in the presence of God. The Holy Spirit is in him, not to catch him out or judge him for poor performance but to enable him to be the best he can in the workplace.

Similarly, the employer also has a Master to whom he is accountable. When we remember and become aware of God in everything, our behaviour and attitudes will be tempered by the knowledge of His presence.

Scripture is 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 first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIPS

Bible Study, ,

RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIPS

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honour your father and mother’ which is the first commandment with a promise – ‘so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:1-4).

Have you noticed how relationships always work in pairs? They are never one-sided. People on every level function interdependently but, at the same time, one group sets the tone and the other responds, and vice versa. Take the relationship between parents and children or, as Paul instructed here in his letter to Ephesian believers newly rescued out of paganism, fathers and children.

Why did Paul single out fathers for their specific role in the family? Is it not because, again, fathers have the responsibility to take the lead and to set the tone for the whole family. This, of course, assumes that there is a father in the family and that he recognises and understands his role as the head of the home.

With today’s rebellion against God’s beautiful idea for marriage, the world is full of biological fathers who have abdicated their role as real fathers, procreating offspring like animals whose main purpose is to pass on their genes, while ignoring their task of raising their children in a godly environment. Is it any wonder that the world is also full of ‘orphans’ who have no identity, no security, no home and no name because their fathers are not fathering them as Paul instructed?

It was not God’s idea to set boundaries around human behaviour to spoil our fun. Belief in the lie of evolution has a spin-off. If human beings are no more than a higher order of apes, evolved over millions of years to walk upright and to have superior intelligence, then it is in order for us to behave like apes, ignoring such things as decency and morality. (From where do morality and conscience come if we are only human apes)?

We can only be safe and flourish within the boundaries of well-defined moral behaviour. God’s prescriptions for children and fathers in the family circle constitute the safety zone in which they are protected and can live in harmony with one another.

When roles and functions are blurred, the power struggle begins and the result is chaos and unhappiness. It is the father’s role to set the standards for the child the moment he or she enters the world. Baby is not king in the house and the sooner he learns that, the better.

God has only one requirement for children – obedience to their parents. This does not mean that parents must beat their children into submission. They must apply discipline where necessary but always in the best interests of protecting love and preserving unity, not venting their anger and frustration on the child because they are bigger and stronger.

Why is obedience to parents of primary importance? A child is naturally selfish and independent – the hallmarks of Adam’s nature in them. If he is left to himself, his potential for selfishness and independence will come to full bloom in a life of lawlessness and rebellion against all authority, and he will end up a hardened criminal living a wasted life, probably in a prison cell.

It is the father’s role to tame that potential for rebellion by nurturing his child in the atmosphere of love and acceptance, to submit to his authority in the home. That presupposes that the father will love his child enough to set reasonable boundaries and to reinforce them lovingly and not in anger or frustration. Again, that presupposes that he is submitted to Jesus Christ as Lord and that he honours God and obeys His Word just as he expects his child to honour and obey him.

Once again, there is no place for one person lording it over another even if they are father and child. No child will honour, respect and obey a cruel or abusive father. He will do so if his parent treats him with respect. That implies and includes reasonable boundaries which, of necessity, will change as the child grows older.

This interconnected, interactive behaviour is intended to foster loving and harmonious relationships in the home that produce order and contentment. Each one in the family must know his or her place according to God’s Word, within which he or she will be safe and contented. When one or another steps out of line, the result is chaos, confusion and unhappiness.

There is a pitfall every parent must avoid – the idea that it is important to be your child’s ‘friend’. Some parents are afraid to exercise discipline and to teach their children to behave in a civilised way because they don’t want to lose their child’s ‘friendship’. That is a lie from the devil. Parents are parents, not friends. God placed parents in the home to guide and shape their children for responsible adulthood, not to be on the level with them or to please them.

It is only within this environment of interactive living that children can be their real selves and can develop to their full potential in the atmosphere of harmony and peace. The world is full of angry people, angry because Dad was either missing or a tyrant in the home. God’s way is the only way that really works.

Scripture is 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 first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

 

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

Bible Study, ,

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for his body just as Christ does the church – for we are members of His body. ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband (Eph. 5:29-33).

There we have it again! Back to the beginning.

Man always looks for loopholes to skirt God’s plan. When the Pharisees questioned Jesus about legitimate reasons for divorce, quoting Moses as their source and rabbis Hillel and Shammai as the recognised authoritative interpreters of God’s Law, Jesus took them back to God’s original intention for marriage.

Humans have introduced their own ideas about marriage and its purpose. Some believe that the union between a man and a woman is purely for the procreation of children. Once the family is complete, sexual union slows down and eventually stops and the relationship slowly deteriorates into nothing more than two people living under the same roof but going their separate ways.

Others treat marriage as a one-stop shop to get everything they need. If the spouse does not supply on demand, he or she shops elsewhere for what they want. Some even practise what they call “open marriage”, both marriage partners committing adultery with the other spouse’s permission, sometimes even together in the same room or in the same house.

Still others elevate their idea of marriage somewhat by seeing it as a union for companionship. The “best friend” concept is a lofty one but it still does not measure up to God’s intention for marriage.

Paul had an insight into this most sacred of unions which matched the explanation of Jesus by taking its elevated purpose in Christ to its highest level. Marriage presents a profound picture of the union between Christ and His church. Just as God intended Israel to be espoused to Him as His bride in the Old Testament, so Jesus proposed to His disciples to be His bride when the church was born on the Day of Pentecost. The church was to live in the most intimate of spiritual unions with their unseen Bridegroom and to await His return when their union would be consummated and complete.

However, this unity with Jesus in the Spirit should never be degraded into some mystical physical union. This is a union of heart, mind and purpose. The physical union of a man and a woman in a monogamous marriage is the picture of the oneness God desires to have with His people.

God is one. Each person in the Godhead submits to and participates in a perfect union of being and function. The Father planned, the Son executed and the Holy Spirit administers both creation and the “new creation”. They function in perfect harmony, both in who they are and what they do, without confusion or competition.

As the Godhead is one, so God desires that marriage should represent that oneness and that the family should uphold and protect unity in their relationship with one another through mutual submission. Jesus is God but He is also the Son. He came to earth to reveal the true nature of the Father and to model a real son. He lived in union with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit during His sojourn on earth by perfectly obeying, submitting to and depending on the Father and the Holy Spirit.

It is the role of the church, as the bride of Christ, to submit to and obey Him as Lord. In the same way, it is the role of the wife to submit to and obey her husband as her bridegroom as she is his bride, calling him “Lord” in the sense that he is the head. His role is to serve and take responsibility for her health and well-being, both spiritually and physically. Their mutual dependence will be harmonious when they each fulfil their own role without one trying to dominate or usurp the role of the other.

Love is the only environment in which a husband and wife will ever become one. When a husband focuses on the best interests of his wife in selfless love, she will be glad and willing to submit to his leadership because she knows that he will always do the best for her and the family.

This kind of love is neither humiliating nor degrading. It is the echo of the love the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit share in their relationship with one another. It is the love into which the Godhead invites human beings as they participate in His life through faith in Christ. Enjoying and sharing the love of God is the essence of salvation.

How sad that salvation has been reduced to “going to heaven when we die” as though everything God did for us in Christ provides nothing more than an escape route from hell! How can we credit this God who is, in the enormity and mystery of His being incomprehensible love, with so beggarly a motive for sacrificing His Son? Come on, church!

Jesus came to give us back the life God breathed into man at the beginning – His life in all its fullness and beauty. He reiterated that purpose when He invaded planet earth to restore what God created at the beginning.

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10b).

And this is the testimony; God has given us eternal life, and this life is in the Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5:11-12).

When a husband and wife put themselves and self-interest aside to foster this unity through the power of the Holy Spirit, they will begin to grasp and experience the intensity of God’s love in ever-increasing measure just as He intended from the beginning.

Scripture is 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 first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.