Monthly Archives: October 2021

LOVE SO AMAZING!

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LOVE SO AMAZING!

“‘Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

“‘Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you and they know that you have sent me.

‘”I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.'” John 7:24-26.

This beautiful, intimate communication between the Son and His Father breathes the atmosphere of tender love. After a physical and geographical separation from Him of thirty-three years, Jesus’ taste of living as a human being in time and space, He was on the brink of experiencing the worst that a human being could ever suffer. It was the necessary gateway to His return to His beloved Father to take His place once again with the Father in the eternal realm.

A new position awaited Jesus if He completed His mission to reveal the greatest measure of the Father’s love for His fallen world by being obedient to death, even death on a cross. He would be exalted to the highest place and given the highest name in all the universe. He would be elevated to king, ruling over everything, and head of the church, His body, the composite woman who was destined to be His bride when the universe was restored to its original perfection.

Jesus had spent three years imparting to this group of men whom the Father had given Him, the nature of the Father and the enormity of His love for His human race. By teaching and showing them what the Father is like, He wooed them back to intimacy with Himself so that they would understand how much the Father loved them and desired their love in return.

Jesus had done what He could and finished the task, sowing the seeds of the words God had given Him into His disciples. He had the confidence that, when He had returned to the Father, the Holy Spirit would continue the work of nurturing in them the knowledge of the truth.

It was time to go. In one last expression of desire, Jesus poured out His soul to His Abba. So precious had these men become to Him that He wanted them to be as close as they could ever be to Him, with Him, by His side so that they could gaze on His glory, the glory He shared with the Father before the beginning of time.

Yes, they had been with Him on earth, listening, watching and marvelling at a human being so different from all other humans that it took His every effort to teach them that He was truly the Son of God. However, this was only preparation for what was yet to come, something so otherworldly that the Apostle Paul could only declare, “No eye has seen, no ear had heard…” No imagination could stretch to embrace so glorious a being whom they were yet to see.

Jesus’ love for His disciples was so deep that He wanted to share it all, not only His place in eternity with the Father but the environment of love so pure and so all-embracing that He would give them not only His love and the love of the Father but His very position of power and authority in His universe —  His  throne. To be “in Him” is to be in everything He is and share in everything He owns.

Who can fathom the mystery of being “in Christ”? Through His Spirit, we are in such intimate union with Him that our spirits have been fused to His Spirit, inseparably joined to Him so that we have become one. This does not mean that we have become gods! Nowhere in God’s word does He even suggest such nonsense. No, He has restored us to the place of oneness with Him that He created in His first human pair.

It was God’s intention that Jesus, through His death on the cross, would reconcile all things to Himself — “For God was pleased to have all His fulness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.” Colossians1:19, 20, restoring perfect harmony in the universe, the environment He prepared as a home for His children.

How can we ever fathom a love so great? We can only respond by loving Him in return and giving ourselves unreservedly to His great plan for us.

Acknowledgement

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.

THE LORD IS ONE

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THE LORD IS ONE

“‘My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

“I have given them the glory that you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.'” John 17:20-23 NIV.

This is the third of Jesus’ requests — for unity in His body throughout the ages. Why was unity so important to Jesus?

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness so that they may rule…’ So God created mankind in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:26a, 27.

Theologians have many ideas about what the image of God means — a moral being; self-conscious and self-determining; able to know and have fellowship with Him etc. Although these are all valid expressions of the image of God, there is one overriding characteristic that makes human beings uniquely created in His image. He created us to be one with Him and with one another so that we perfectly reflect Him in the world.

The Hebrew “creed” (Deuteronomy 6:4) or Shema which they repeated over and over every day, and which a Hebrew child learned at his mother’s breast, states: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

Misunderstood, this statement has caused confusion because “one” is understood to mean one in number rather than one in unity in diversity.

“Reading here that God is one, most Jews for centuries have ruled out the possibility that Jesus could be the Son of God, on the same divine plane as the Father…”

“The Hebrew word translated one in Deuteronomy 6:4 is echad. Its meanings include the number one but also has such associated meanings as “one and the same,” “as one man, together [unified],” “each, every,” “one after another” and “first [in sequence or importance]” (Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1951, page 25). It can also be rendered “alone” as the New Revised Standard Version translates it here (William Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1972, page 9).The exact meaning is best determined by the context.”

(http://www.ucg.org/booklet/who-god/how-god-one/lord-our-god-one/)

Although “God is one” could mean “first in priority” or “alone”, Jesus gave substance to the New Testament truth that He and the Father are one in mind and heart, in essence and purpose, although two distinct persons. It was God’s original intention to create an entire universe that functioned as a unit to express the nature of the Godhead.

Marriage, according to Genesis 2:24, the most intimate of human relationships, was to mirror that oneness between a husband and wife. “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh,” because humans have the capacity to be one by choice and behaviour. The Bible is full on examples of the unity that mirrors the nature of God.

Adam’s disobedience disrupted the unity between God and man and in the entire cosmos, but God intervened through Jesus to reconcile everything to Himself and to restore the entire creation to the unity He established in the beginning.

“For God was pleased to have all His fulness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.” Colossians 1:19, 20.

Unity between believers is a miracle that only God can create, but it is up to us to maintain that unity (Ephesians 43) by submitting ourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21).

Will Jesus’ prayer be answered? Most certainly because God has promised that what He began He will complete, but we must partner with Him to see the dream of Jesus being fulfilled.

Acknowledgement

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.

SET APART BY THE TRUTH

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SET APART BY THE TRUTH

“‘Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

“‘As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

“‘For them I sanctify myself, that they, too, may be truly sanctified.'” John 17.17-19.

“Sanctify”? The dictionary meaning of sanctify is to set apart for its proper purpose. If something is not sanctified, it is abused, i.e., not used for the purpose for which it was intended; for example, if a paring knife is used for any other purpose than peeling fruit or vegetables, it is being abused.

God created human beings to be holy, to be separated to Him to bring glory to Him that is to reflect Him in His nature and character. We do this by living our ordinary human lives for Him.

“…Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Isaiah 43:7 NIV.

What has separated us from God and caused us to be abused – i.e., not fulfilling the purpose for which God created us? Through our ancient ancestor, Adam, we declared independence from God, set up our own standards of right and wrong and overthrew His right to govern us in righteousness and truth. We became subject to the devil’s deception, followed his lies and set ourselves on a path of self-destruction.

There is only one way back from this suicidal rebellion – to change our way of thinking (repent) and return to the truth about God and ourselves. God made this possible by sending Jesus to remove the barrier of sin that separated us from Him, cancelling our debt by paying it Himself, and pushing the “reset to factory default” button by reconciling us to Himself and restoring His image in us.

When we follow His prescription for sanctification – returning to the purpose for which He created us, we embark on a twofold process which begins when we start again through repentance from our old rebellious life and faith in Jesus to forgive our sin and enable us to begin a new life of trust in and obedience to Him. This process is both unlearning and re-learning – called repentance; not necessarily an emotional melt-down but rather the recognition that what we used to think about God and ourselves was wrong, lies spawned by the devil to degrade God and us and to take us away from God’s love. Lies must be replaced by the truth which God has set out in His Word for us.

There is only one antidote to lies – truth. Before we came to recognise that our thoughts about God were lies, we misjudged Him, were suspicious of Him and even outright hated Him. Why? The Bible says, “While we were God’s enemies…” Romans 5:10a. Enemies? Isn’t that a rather strong word? Yes, but it’s true. Why were we God’s enemies? Because we were on the side of His arch enemy, the devil. We listened to him, followed him and believed his lies about God and hated God for no reason other than the lies we believed.

How are we sanctified? When we believe and receive the truth that God loved the world so much that He gave His Son as a sacrifice to pay the world’s debt so that we can be reconciled to Him, we took the first step towards returning to God to fulfil His purpose for creating us. We began a journey that lasts a life-time, replacing lies with truth, one lie at a time, one thought at a time by learning from God’s Word what He thinks and plans for us.

Jesus’ high priestly prayer before He went to the cross was the expression of His deepest desires for His people, and the reason for His willingness to be sacrificed for us. In the entire prayer, He made only three requests for His disciples, both those whom the Father had given Him and those who would believe through them, and these requests summarise the purpose and outcome of His death:

1. That the character of God would be restored in them to immunise them against the devil’s deception (“Protect them by the power of your name”),

2. That the Word of God would be so deeply embedded in their minds that they would begin the journey of revealing God’s glory in the way they think and live (“Sanctify them by the truth”) and

3. That God’s image of oneness would be restored in them so that the world would believe that the Father had sent Him (“That all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me and I am in you”).

This is the Saviour’s prayer for you and me. Will it be answered?

Acknowledgement

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.

NOT OF THE WORLD

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NOT OF THE WORLD

“‘I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.

“‘I have given them your word and the world has hated them, they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.

“‘My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world even as I am not of the world.'” John 17:13-16 NIV.

Strange! The way the disciples were thinking and behaving at that moment, I would have thought that Jesus would realise that they were very much still part of the world – frightened, insecure, unbelieving, uncomprehending, competitive, bickering, indifferent – that about sums them up at this stage.

Amazing! Jesus saw them not as they were then but as they would be as they moved towards their potential as apostles and witnesses for Him in the world. He spoke prophetically and confidently of whom they would become when the Holy Spirit fell on them and transformed them into bold, confident and faithful followers of their Messiah.

Jesus had spent three and a half years with them, patiently giving them God’s word. As young Jewish men. they would already have memorised the book of Leviticus by the age of 6 and the entire Torah by the time they celebrated their bar mitzvah. The foundation of truth was already firmly laid in their minds in their formative years.

During His time with them. it was Jesus’ task to teach them His yoke – His way of interpreting and applying the Torah to His own life, and instilling it into His disciples so that they would imitate Him as they, in turn, made disciples of others. It was their task to release others from whatever “yoke” had brought them into bondage and place His yoke on them, setting them free from rules, regulations and obligations to live as sons and daughters of the Most High God – what Jesus called “binding and loosing”.

It was this yoke of believing in Jesus and loving one another that would, first of all, bring the hatred of an unbelieving world down on them, alienating them from the heartless and selfish attitude that rules in the world system. It was this yoke as well, that would insulate them from the temptations of the flesh to live for themselves, indulging their old, selfish nature.

God’s protection from evil comes, not in some mystical or angelic guard around us so that the devil can’t get near us. It comes in the form of changed lives that flow from changed hearts and minds as God’s truth about Himself and us gradually replaces our old ways of thinking and acting. Our enemy operates in our minds, sowing lies and trying to deceive us into thinking the worst about God and ourselves.

We erroneously think that the devil attacks us through our circumstances. When things go wrong, we wail, ‘O-o-oh, I’m under attack!’ Really! Yes, we are under attack, but not because of trouble and hardship but because we misinterpret these things and get into fear and panic mode, which are exactly what the devil relishes because they neutralise our confidence in the Father’s love.

Remember, Jesus said, ‘In this world you will have trouble’?  This is a statement of fact, but God permits and monitors the hardships we endure because He has another agenda. If we give the devil credit for the trouble we experience, we miss the whole point of the exercise.

Firstly, God wants to see what is in our hearts, whether we will trust Him or not.

“Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Deuteronomy 8:2, 3 NIV.

Secondly, God is disciplining us as sons so that we may share His holiness.

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?…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.” Hebrews 12:7, 10 NIV.

We have only one safeguard against the devil’s wiles — knowing and living by the truth.

David put it this way: “Teach me your way, O Lord; and I will walk in your truth…” Psalm 86:11a.

Acknowledgement

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.

KEPT – BY THE POWER OF HIS NAME!

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KEPT – BY THE POWER OF HIS NAME!

“‘I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them.

“‘I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.

“‘While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by the name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.'” John 17:9-12 NIV.

What a power-packed prayer! Not much asking — in fact only one request, but nevertheless full of assurance and affirmation!

What can we learn from Jesus’ prayer?

The first thing I notice is that this was a Son talking to His Father, expressing His confidence in and submission to the Father — not begging, cajoling, bargaining, demanding or manipulating. This is Jesus, Son of God, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, communing with His Abba in the language of intimacy and trust.

Secondly, Jesus expressed His oneness with the Father. Everything they owned, they shared. The men whom Jesus loved and trained for three years belonged to the Father, given to Jesus as a sacred trust. During His earthly life He protected them by the power of God’s name.

Where did the idea come from that is bandied about in many parts of the church today that we must “plead the blood of Jesus” over our loved ones and possessions, when the Bible teaches us that we are kept by the power of God’s name? Unlike us humans who blindly follow the error of others because it sounds good, Jesus knew the Scriptures!

“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” Proverbs 18:10 NIV.

Everything that God is, is in His name; His character and His attributes are represented by His name. To invoke the name of God is to call on His love, mercy, grace and power to intervene on our behalf. When Moses requested to see God’s glory, God revealed His name.

“Then Moses said, ‘Now show me your glory.’ And the Lord said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.'” Exodus 33:18, 19 NIV.

From what was Jesus praying that His disciples be protected?

We erroneously think that the devil is our worst enemy. If that were true, we would be helpless victims of his wicked schemes. No, we are our own worst enemy because there are in our old, selfish natures the seeds of self-destruction. We have the power to choose. God has given us His nature (2 Peter 1:4) but it is our responsibility to nourish that nature through faith in His promises. We are transformed into His image by gazing at Him (2 Corinthians 3:18) and contemplating His glory – His name.

Kept – by the power of His name – not some external power descending on us from above but the power of God’s nature wrought in us and at work in us by the Holy Spirit that makes us immune to the deception of the devil because we know the truth and can discern his lies.

Thirdly He was one with the Father in their nature and in their purpose to redeem mankind through His death. He would not deviate from the Father’s plan no matter what the cost. It was His passion that His disciples become one as He and the Father are one because, in that unity was the power to witness to the world that He was no self-appointed upstart but that He had come from the Father.

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. John 17:20-21

Acknowledgement

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.