Monthly Archives: February 2022

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

Bible Study, ,

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mind-set as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:6-8.

This was the mind-set of the human Jesus!

We will never know what it meant for Him to leave the realm of the spirit, where He reigned with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the indescribable glories of heaven and reduce Himself to the level of a human being. He entered the world He had created, beautiful and perfect in the beginning, only to be corrupted by a ruthless fallen angel and his minions of demonic allies.

Not only that, but the very humans whom He had made in His image to be His beloved family turned against Him. They were no longer family but enemies, filled with the same evil nature as their demonic overlords, rebels to the core, hating Him, defying Him wherever they could and living in the darkness of selfishness and greed.

How did He come? Not as God in a blaze of glory to take vengeance on His alienated family! Not in fiery chariot with a retinue of angelic warriors to make war on the master  Rebel, His own creation none-the-less, who had chosen to make war against Him and drag a third of the angels with him. He could have done because He was Lord of all creation and of those who had risen up against Him. Instead,He came like every other human being, from the womb of a woman.

Satan had power, but only the power of deception, lies that had no substance and would disappear in a puff of smoke when challenged by the power of truth. Jesus came, not to destroy the devil by sheer force but to unmask him by a life of perfect obedience to the Father as a submissive and obedient Son, and then to die as an evildoer at the hands of His enemies.

No fallen human being has ever lived like that – absorbing every cruel and ruthless attitude and action without resistance or retaliation because the Father willed it; living in perfect harmony with the Father and loving His enemies for the Father’s sake. They skewered His body to a Roman torture stake until every drop of blood leaked from the wounds they had inflicted on Him in an effort to make Him sin, but He remained pure in heart to His very last breath.

Even in His dying moments, He loved those who did it to Him. He embraced with His love a terrified criminal dying next to Him. He forgave His tormentors with His final agonising gasps of breath. He died a violent and unnatural death at the age of thirty-three, a young life cut off in His prime because His own people decided He was too good to live. And He won the war because He conquered death and came back from the dead

And Paul said, “I want you to live like that!” Are you crazy? Do you know what you are asking, Paul? You are expecting ordinary, sinful, selfish, self-centred and self-absorbed human beings to live like that? Impossible! No, it’s not, for two very good reasons.

The very nature of God has been implanted in those who have turned their lives over to Him.

“…He has given us His very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world, caused by evil desires.”  2 Peter 1:4.

The very Spirit who empowered Jesus to be a perfect Son now lives in you, enabling you to be a submissive and obedient son.

“The Spirit you received does not make you a slave 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.” Romans 8:15.

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” Galatians 5:16.

Paul held Jesus up to the Philippian church, not as a goal beyond their reach, but as a perfect model to follow even if they could not achieve it in this lifetime. It would not happen by trying harder but by gazing longer at Him.

“And we all who, with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18.  

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 GREAT DIVIDE

Bible Study, ,

THE GREAT DIVIDE

“Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above very name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-11.

This is Paul’s song – the greatest declaration ever made and the greatest song ever written.

Before the beginning of time, Lucifer set out to usurp God’s position in heaven and take over the ownership and control of the earth. He lied to the first pair by posing as the ultimate authority. They listened to him, did what he said, and plunged the entire universe into moral darkness and chaos. He, Satan, the deceiver, has gone on hoodwinking people ever since.

God had already laid His plan to prove the devil wrong before the earth was born, and to bring him to judgment so that He could restore His creation to its original perfection without the interference of His arch enemy, the Liar. His plan was Jesus, sent to earth as fully human, to live under the authority of the Father and in the power of the Holy Spirit as the lowest of the low, a servant; nothing.

Instead of acting and reacting like fallen human beings, hating and retaliating like the master they served, Jesus absorbed all of humanity’s hatred of God by serving, loving and forgiving God’s enemies. He showed the powers of darkness and the race of rebellious human beings that love is more powerful than fear. Why fear? Because the human race is driven to hate God because they are afraid of Him. They know that He has the power to destroy them.

God the Father put Jesus at the mercy of His enemies to do with Him what they chose. When they had finished with Him, He was mangled, bled out, humiliated and dead. Then they sealed His broken body in a cave and left Him to rot. Death was Satan’s final weapon against Him and he thought he had won!

But it did not end there. On the third day, Jesus broke death’s hold; with a burst of divine power, He came back to life and walked out of the tomb through an enormous boulder sealed with a Roman seal. What Satan thought would put paid to Jesus’ claim to be Lord was the seal of his own doom. Jesus’ death and resurrection was the final proof that He was God, not the devil, and He was Lord, not the usurper.

“Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Hebrews 2:14, 15.

What a moment! Now the Father had every right to declare who was Lord -Jesus! He earned and owned the title as His right. The Father put Him where He belonged, in the place of supreme authority, and gave Him the name that was His alone – Yahweh! Kurios! Lord! Supreme Commander of the nations and of the universe!

“…The end will come, when He hands the kingdom over to God the Father, after He has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” 1 Corinthians 15:24-26. 

Daniel saw this event in a prophetic vision centuries before it happened.

“In my vision I looked and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” Daniel 7:13, 14.

This glorious declaration also holds a warning. It is not only for those who believe in Jesus. Paul declared that it is for “every knee”. This includes every knee. Even the devil and his minions, and every person who sides with him, will be forced to bow on that day, obviously not in worship but in defeat, to acknowledge that Jesus Christ, not the devil, is Lord.

While we are still in this life, we have a decision to make. Who is Lord? If we choose to side with the devil and believe his lie, when we eventually bow to Jesus we will seal our eternal fate, and it will be our choice, not God’s that decides where we go. If we are convinced that It is Jesus who spoke the truth, our destiny with be with Him forever.

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.

ON TO MATURITY

Bible Study, ,

ON TO MATURITY

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, of any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being in one spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking at your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:1-4.

Paul must have been relieved that he did not have to deal with false teaching or misconduct in the Philippian church. These people were a joy to him. Some of the churches he founded were still wading around in the shallows of false beliefs and ungodly behaviour. This group of people seemed to have grasped the truth from the beginning and were moving apace towards being mature in their faith and influential for Christ in their living out the gospel.

Paul was happy to be able to add some polish to their lives by urging them on to unity which was the high tide mark of the true church. The gospel and their faith in Christ had brought them into the realm of the Spirit of God where the values of the kingdom were becoming more meaningful and ever more evident in them despite their environment.

Like all the other churches, they were like lilies blooming in the swamp. All around them people lived in the ungodliness of their sinful natures. There were no boundaries to their wicked behaviour because they were living out the nature of the gods they worshipped. However, in the church and in their lives together, the values of the kingdom of God were appearing more and more: unity with Christ, the comfort of His love, caring and sharing among the people in the Body, tenderness and compassion, were all there in increasing measure.

This delighted Paul. It was what the gospel was all about – not just believing in Jesus as a passport to heaven, a free ticket to God’s forgiveness and access to all His blessings. The gospel was about yielding to Christ as their new Master and living in the world by His power and in line with His nature.

All this is moving towards the goal of God’s creation. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God to reflect Him by living in perfect harmony with him with one another and with the world which He created for them. God is one; He made the entire universe to be one, interconnected and interacting as a unit. Sin entered the world through Adam’s disobedience, disrupted the unity and brought death and destruction to God’s perfect creation.

Jesus came to earth, God in person, to restore the universe to its original state and to get God’s purpose back on track. Once the barrier of sin had been removed, God was able, through His Holy Spirit, to set His plan in motion to reunite estranged people to Himself and to each other. This was the evidence that Jesus accomplished what He had been sent to do.

Why does the church not understand this? Paul touched the nerve centre of man’s fallen nature – selfish ambition and vain conceit. As long as self rules, the life of that person will be out of sync with God’s intention to reunite everything in Christ as the head.

“For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.” Colossians 1:19, 29, 20.

What is the key to real unity in the church? Paul gives us two simple steps: value others above yourselves and take care of the interests of others above your own. Is that difficult to do? Yes, it is if we are still alive to ourselves on the inside. No, it is not if we, like Paul, have died to ourselves and are alive to Christ and to what pleases Him. It all depends on how we view ourselves, alive or dead.

When we die to our old fleshly desires and appetites, we see ourselves from another perspective – not individuals taking care of ourselves first, but part of a living organism that functions as a unit, each part moving in unity with those around him. The goal is not for selfish benefit but for the benefit of the whole body. Then we can begin to experience heaven right here on earth and convince the world that Jesus was who He said He was and that He really came from heaven to restore everything that went wrong in the beginning.

Now Paul invites us to be a part of eternal plan!

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.

WORTHY BEHAVIOUR

Bible Study, ,

WORTHY BEHAVIOUR

“Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved – and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for Him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had and now hear that I still have.” Philippians 1:27-30.

That’s quite a tall order, Paul, isn’t it?

It would be if it were given to people in any other religion. Or would it? Take, for example, those who were so convinced that they were right that they were willing to kill Christians for their conviction. They were representing the character of the god they worshipped.

The God of the Jews was, for them, a hard taskmaster. He demanded perfect obedience to a host of petty rules, or else… The gods of the Greeks and Romans were immoral, unscrupulous and unpredictable. It would not be difficult for those who worshipped them to be worthy of them. Nero was a good representative – using Christians as living torches to light up his garden parties, and putting them in the arena to face starving and ravenous wild beasts!

Paul’s call to a worthy walk was quite different from, and far more difficult than for all these others. Believers in Jesus represented a God of grace – one who stepped in to do for them what they could not do for themselves. He was not a taker but a giver. He not only gave people, and that included those who did not even believe in Him, everything they needed to live on this planet; food, water, clothing, shelter and the beauty and bounty of the world around them. He also gave His Son as a substitute for their sin.

However people defined sin, they could not get rid of it. People today who reject God’s provision of Jesus as a sacrifice for their sin, have to come up with another solution – like going through various rituals, trying to wash their sins away, kissing or touching an object, eating the right food, etc. How can that affect their standing before a holy God? Some even come closer to the truth by offering animal blood for their sin. Blood is required, yes, but animal blood has no value to God because no animal can atone for human sin.

For the believer in Jesus, however, behaviour and a life worthy of Him is not impossible. First of all, Jesus came to earth as a human being to live a perfect, sinless life. It had to be for Him to take our punishment for sin. The prophet Micah asked a very relevant question:

“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow before the exalted God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Micah 6:6, 7.

Of course, none of these things can clear a guilty conscience. If they could, why do people keep going through the same rituals year after year?

Then Jesus died as a substitute for our sin. He was even made sin for us! Only a sinless human being could take the place of a sinner and pay his debt to a holy God.

“God made Him who had no sin, to be sin for us…” 2 Corinthians 5:21.

And then, miracle of miracles, He rose from the dead to set us free from the power of sin so that we are able to live a life worthy of Him. Anyone can live like the gods they worship but only through God’s power can a believer in Jesus live a life worthy of Him. Paul’s call to the Philippian church was not a vain hope but a powerful possibility because the very God they worshipped was in residence in them.

This was not a call to the Philippians and to us to self-effort or self-help, ten easy steps to holiness! This was an encouragement to live out who they were, sons and daughters of God, because they were forgiven and set free from the power of sin, and they had the Holy Spirit in them to energise them to be who they were.

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.

TO GO OR STAY?

Bible Study, ,

TO GO OR STAY?

“If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith so that, through my being with you again, your boasting in Christ will abound on account of me.” Philippians 1:22-26.

It is essential for some people to be around for as long as possible for the sake of others. Paul knew that. It was not arrogance that made him say that it was better for him to remain in the body for a while longer. There were groups of infant believers scattered across the empire. The Philippian church was one of them. They were in the charge of elders but even the elders were relatively new believers coming out of paganism.

Paul knew just how much they depended on him as their spiritual father to lead them on towards maturity. Even though he was in prison, there were still those who visited him and interacted with him for their benefit. He was able to communicate with the people in the little church groups by letter, and leave a legacy of teaching and instruction which would benefit the church through the ages.

What choice did Paul have in the matter? We don’t know. He was in the hands of the Roman authorities but, even more sure than that, he was in the hands of his heavenly Father who determined his destiny over and above Rome. He knew what he wanted to do – pass the baton on and go home to the Lord. Yet, at the same time, it was imperative that he remain a while longer to shepherd the little flocks as long as he had breath in his lungs.

Paul knew that his prayers and the prayers of the saints would count with God even though He had a master plan for all of them. If He removed Paul, there would be others who would continue to shepherd them. There was, of course, the indwelling Holy Spirit in whom Paul had the utmost confidence. Had he not already expressed the assurance that God would finish what He started?

The thought of passing on is always daunting, even for a believer in Jesus. It’s not about doubting His promises as much as it’s about wondering how it will happen. Will it hurt? Will I have to suffer serious illness, weakness and incapacity? Will it be sudden and painless? What will it feel like? It is natural to feel apprehensive about the unknown.

There is nothing in our experience to draw from to fire our imagination. For us, the future remains a blank except for His promise:

“What no eye has seen, what no ear had heard and what no human mind has conceived – the things God has prepared for those who love Him…” 1 Corinthians 2:9.

We must remember that, from Paul’s perspective, he was already a dead man and had been since the day of his conversion. Any benefit he was to people, any blessing to the churches, was purely because of Christ’s life in him. He knew that, as long as he was still alive, he would go on spreading the message and passing on the understanding of the gospel and the wisdom to live it out for others to see.

When he considered it better to remain in the body for the sake of the believers, it was purely for them, so that he could continue to impart truth to them and spur them on to be joyful and productive in their faith even in the face of persecution.

Not only did Paul anticipate staying alive but he also believed that he would be released to continue his work for as long as possible. For Paul, his destiny was not in the hands of Nero but in the hands of God. Nero was nothing but an instrument that God used to carry out His purposes. When he was finished with them, both Paul and Nero, their lives here on earth would come to an appropriate end. For both of them, their end would be the completion of what they had chosen to do and to be.

Paul had no qualms about what and where his end would be – the beginning of an eternity in the presence of the Lord he had loved and served through thick and thin. We have an amazing example of a man who lived and died for Jesus.

What about you? What about me?

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.