Monthly Archives: February 2022

NO ENDURING CITY

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NO ENDURING CITY

For we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that openly profess His name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased (Heb. 13: 14-16).

There are some very bad things happening in the world around us. Apart from the things that irk us in our own country, what about what goes on in the rest of the world? It is easy for us to become despondent, to complain and to criticise, to judge and condemn and, worse still, to blame God for not doing anything about it.

Our writer says, “Don’t do that. You don’t belong here anyway. This present world with its greed, sexual promiscuity, selfishness and injustice, is not your permanent home. This is your apprenticeship for the real life which is to come.” We forget, when life is tough and uncomfortable down here, that our citizenship is in heaven. When we keep our sights on where we belong – in the realm of God’s presence and rule, we can be optimistic and full of joy because what lies ahead for us is beyond our imagination.

This gives us reason to be a thankful people. It is not sacrifice in the sense of doing something painful when we offer God praise. It is an act of worship, continually remembering what He has done for us and raising our hearts to Him in gratitude and love for His mercy and goodness. This is the reason for our generosity towards others – God has been infinitely generous to us.

We no longer need to offer the sacrifices of animal flesh and blood to cover sin and to worship God since the blood of Jesus is sufficient for the forgiveness of our sin, once for all. However, this does not mean that we no longer need to offer sacrifices – tokens of our worship and gratitude to God. There are at least five different ways to express our love to Him which constitute our “spiritual” worship.

The writer to the Hebrews mentions two here:

Praise as an act of worship is an expression of our love to God, not only for who He is and what He has already done, but also as our way of trusting Him with our lives for the future. When we focus on God instead of on all the bad things that happen around us, we take our eyes off this world and fill our vision with the hope towards which we are moving.

Our gratitude to God spills over into acts of kindness towards others. It may not necessarily mean giving away material things. What about people’s need for acceptance and affirmation; expressions of gratitude and appreciation; support and comfort; or kind words instead of criticism? There are a thousand ways in which we can spread love and blessing in a heartless world. This is our way of showing our love to God.

Paul gives us at least two other ways in which we can worship God. In Romans 12:1 he urges us to respond to God’s mercy by giving Him our bodies. He is not talking about being literal sacrifices but “living sacrifices”, allowing Jesus to have complete ownership of everything we think, say and do. As he said elsewhere, “Not I but Christ lives in me.”

Being generous with our money and possessions is another way of worshipping the Lord. Paul acknowledged the generosity of the Philippian church towards him for sending him money when he needed it. What was more important, however, was that they were worshipping the Lord by their giving.

I am amply supplied now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent.  They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God (Phil. 4: 18).

Jesus spoke more about money and things than He did about anything else. Why? Because He knew how big a part money plays in our lives. It either rules us or we rule it. Generosity is the way to break the power money has over us. We are to be generous with our money because God has been generous to us in every way. When He has control of what we own, we are truly free from the crippling love of money.

Above everything else, however, there is a gift God longs for us to give Him. David understood that God was not interested in animal blood. He wanted something far more valuable from us – our submissive and contrite hearts. In the midst of his guilt because of the terrible things he had done when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, he said this:

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise (Psa. 51: 16-17).

What is the best offering of all? A heart that is submissive and obedient to God. Without it, all our worship is worthless.

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.

HE SUFFERED OUTSIDE

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HE SUFFERED OUTSIDE

We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through His own blood. Let us, then, go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore (Heb. 13: 10-13).

What a vivid picture of God’s redemption!

Every time an animal was slaughtered and its blood sprinkled on the Atonement Cover on the Ark of the Covenant on the Day of Atonement, it pointed to and spoke of another Lamb whose blood would provide atonement for the sin of the whole world. Daily, the smoke of the burnt offering would rise to God as a reminder of sin and of the price that had to be paid to atone for sin. The priests who ministered in the tabernacle, were permitted to eat their portion of the meat of the daily sacrifices.

Like them, we have a sacrifice of which we are permitted to partake because we have acknowledged the price of our sin and the value of the blood that atoned for it.  We partake of a different altar, not literally eating the flesh of the Son of God and drinking His blood, as some would have us believe but, through faith in Him, acknowledging His sacrifice, participating in the benefits of His death and identifying with Him in His death and resurrection.

Those who ministered in the tabernacle and ate the flesh of the sacrifices, did not have an automatic right to partake of the sacrifice of Jesus unless they, too, were part of the believing community. Being a priest in the Levitical order did not qualify them to participate in the “altar” of Jesus’ sacrifice. There is only one criterion for anyone to share in His sacrifice – repentance from dead works and faith in Him as the true Lamb of God – turning from sin and turning to God. Jesus said:

Very truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him (John 6: 53-55).

If we were to take these words literally, we would be in real trouble. How is it possible to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus without inventing some kind of crazy doctrine about God doing magic? No, that is not what Jesus meant. In keeping with the Hebrew mind-set, they would have asked, “What does the flesh and blood of Jesus do?” Just as we take in food nourish our physical bodies and provide energy to live, so by faith we take in the death of Jesus to nourish our spirits and enable us to live godly lives in a sinful world.

Animal blood, offered by Levitical priests, cannot do that. Only faith in the death of Jesus can atone for sin and provide life for our spirits.

Since we are part of a citizenship that is not of this world, we must stand with Jesus in spite of the hatred and persecution that loyalty to Him brings. Like the bodies of animals that were burned outside the camp, Jesus suffered outside the city. Symbolically it reminds us that He was rejected by His own people. They would have no part of the forgiveness and reconciliation He provided through His death. They threw Him out and killed Him.

When we take our stand with Him, we become outcasts like Him. It may seem like a disgrace in the eyes of the world, just like His death was a disgrace in the eyes of His people, but we wear that disgrace like a badge of honour because it is His death that gives us acceptance and access to the very throne of God, just as the blood of the sacrificial goat gave the high priest access to the presence of God in the Holy of Holies.

Since we are invited to share in His salvation, we are also urged to share in His disgrace. He did not consider the shame of His suffering enough reason to turn away from it.

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.

THE UNCHANGING JESUS

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THE UNCHANGING JESUS

Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so (Heb. 13: 7-9).

“Oldies” love to speak of the “good old days”. Some of the old days were good. Children and young people could walk in the streets without fear. We did not have to lock ourselves in behind electric fences and security gates while criminals had free range of the streets. We were not plagued by or addicted to the big “Cs” – cell phones, computers, credit cards, Covid, and cash loans! Living in debt was not the fashion as it is today.  We paid cash for what we bought and went without what we could not afford. We had less than we have today but we were content.

Yes, we have the advantage of the technological age which makes life much easier – and much faster – in many ways. Yet it has brought with it all kinds of evil and many trends that are unstoppable – like an avalanche plunging down a mountain. Our youth are addicted to its trinkets; video games, cell phones, the social media, and television to the extent that they are losing the art of socialising face-to-face.

Everyone’s business is splashed across the internet so that they no longer have private lives. Information technology is the name of the game – some of it useful and much of it damaging and dangerous. Life is no longer about honesty, integrity, loyalty and faithfulness but about information, and how to use it to get the better of others; how to take advantage of others or get the best deal out of others. Unscrupulous people outdo themselves in outsmarting the unsuspecting public.

The one constant in a changing world is the unchanging Jesus. Our writer did not have to contend with all the temptations we are faced with today, but his generation certainly had its fair share of what hell had to offer. Jesus is unchanging and so are the standards of His word and the benefits of His salvation. The motto of those who belong to the world could be: “I want it and I want it now!” The motto of the people of God’s kingdom, on the other hand, must always be: “Jesus is Lord.”

How vital it is to be anchored to Him and planted on His Word! If there were “all kinds of strange teachings” circulating in the writer’s day without the written Bible, there are just as many today with the Word of God freely available to us. Peter spoke of ignorant and unstable people in his day who distorted the writings of Paul as they did the other Scriptures to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).

Self-proclaimed apostles, prophets and teachers fabricate doctrines and garner a following of gullible people who have not taken the trouble to test what they preach and teach against the truth of God’s word. We ignore that responsibility to our own peril.

What is the antidote? Jesus is the constant to whom we must be secured. His word is the truth of who He is – not what we want it to say but what it does say – clear and simple. He has authorised leaders who, first of all imitate Him, and then who blaze the trail for others to follow. How do we know that they are trustworthy? Consider the outcome of their way. Scrutinise their fruit which cannot lie. Their fruit will reveal the root of their lives and their teaching.

How can we test the validity of teaching? Which motto are the teachers modelling – the world’s or the kingdom’s; self-gratification or self-sacrifice? It’s the heart that counts, not the flesh. There is no value in putting ceremonial food into the stomach but ignoring the condition of the heart. Grace is what God supplies to overcome the pull of the old evil nature with its ever-present demand for self-gratification.

All the rituals and ceremonies of their old way did nothing to change their hearts or alter their disposition towards selfishness. Death was the only solution – death to the old life through the death of Jesus and a resurrection to a new life that was powered by grace. All the doctrines and practices in the world that are good but do not change the heart and lead to submission and obedience to Jesus as Lord, are no more than hot air, filling the pages of thousands of books but making not one iota of difference to a single heart.

It all boils down to one thing – who or what rules your heart? Is it the unchanging Jesus or the ever-changing world?

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.

SEX AND MONEY!

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SEX AND MONEY!

Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed be kept pure, for God will judge the adulterers and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?’ (Heb. 13: 4-6).

Sex and money! Doesn’t the ungodly world revolve around sex and money? God has set the boundaries around which these two things are to be used for our blessing and benefit, and for His glory. When we stay within the boundaries, we enjoy God’s favour and blessing and both work for us as they should.

The problem is that human beings have said, “We don’t like your boundaries, God. They are too restrictive, so we’ll make our own rules.” However, our rules are – no rules. As far as sex and money are concerned, anything goes. The Hebrew concept of hell is a place with no boundaries. By casting off God’s restraints and refusing to believe that there are consequences until it’s too late, the human race has created its own hell on earth. 

As bad as that is, what is worse is that the church, to a large extent, has followed suit. Church leaders, and prominent ones at that, rationalise sin away as though God’s standards are equal to “situation ethics” – whatever feels right to you is right. What passes for “love” is the excuse for every kind of sexual promiscuity and perversity. Homosexuality, for example, is condoned and excused because people of the same sex “love each other.” “Falling out of love” is a perfectly good reason for adultery and divorce, and pastors very often lead the way. As for fornication among the youth, well . . .

What about money? What passes for “God’s blessing” is a cover up for greed and even extortion within the church. How did we get to the place where we buy God’s miracles by being given the guarantee that, if we “sow into” so-and-so’s ministry, God will do what we want? The tragedy is that gullible, uninformed so-called “believers” swallow the bait and line the pockets of unscrupulous big-name preachers so that they can enjoy the hard-earned money of those they deceive. Guilt is the whip these “spiritual” leaders use to drive the people “in the name of the Lord.”

And what of what I call “charismatic shopping”! “For a gift of x amount or more (note the “or more” bit!), you can have this book, or CD, or DVD” or whatever is on offer. Have you ever! Imagine going into a shop and seeing the price of an article stated this way: “For a gift of . . . you can have this . . .” Isn’t it the same thing?

Satan, under the guise of promiscuous or perverted sex and greed, has staked his claim to be Lord, and laughs at those who follow him. He knows very well where he is leading them. He gets them exactly where he wants them, enslaved to sin and in line for God’s judgment. He knows he is heading for the lake of fire and he is determined to take as many with him as he can. He dangles the carrot of pleasure and gratification in front of the unsuspecting until they are hooked and then he laughs in their faces.

What should our attitude be to these two most powerful forces in the world – sex and money? God has set His boundaries – and our response should be to obey. The surprising thing is that, when we do, we enjoy more pleasure and gratification than all the pleasure people seek who do it by bending the rules. God is smart. He knows why we were made, how we were made and what works for us. He ought to know, since He is our Creator, (with apologies to the “big bang” people).

His rules are simple. Rule number one: You can have all the sex you want, within the boundaries of monogamous marriage and a faithful and loyal relationship. Rule number two: You can have all the money you want as long as you work for it and use it to serve you, your family and those who are in need. Money is a good servant but a bad master.

Within these boundaries you will live in and promote peace in your family and wherever you can be of help to others. Unity in marriage is a reflection of the oneness within the Godhead.  Generosity with your money and possessions is a reflection of the generosity of our God who gave His only Son to save us from perishing in our sin. Our best and only response to love like that is to do what He tells us because He knows that it works.

A wise person, according to the Scriptures, is one who does what works. A fool is one who knows that what he does does not work but he does it anyway. He does the same thing over and over again but expects a different outcome. How dumb is that! For us as human beings made in the image of God, there is only one thing that works – obedience to God’s instructions.

So why buck the system? You will not hurt God but you will certainly hurt yourself.

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 GOSPEL MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

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THE GOSPEL MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering (Heb. 13:1-3).

As Jewish people, these readers were required to be kind to strangers. They were to treat the foreigners among them with generosity because they had been aliens many times in the course of their history. Abraham was an alien in the land of Canaan; Jacob and his family were aliens in Egypt; the Israelites were foreigners in Babylon. They, in turn had opportunity to show kindness to those who were not of them because it was the right thing to do.

God even made provision for foreigners within their economic system. After every harvest, they were to give the firstfuits to God, and bring a tithe of the remainder to the temple where it was stored and distributed to the priests and Levites to support them and their families. They also set aside another tenth to celebrate God’s goodness with their families. Every third year they brought their “family” tithe to the temple to be given the poor, the widow, the orphan and the alien because these people had no inheritance of their own and no one to support them.

In all their dealings with people – family, fellow Israelites or foreigners – the Israelites were required to treat people with mercy and compassion. This was Jesus’s issue with the Pharisees and religious leaders. They were such sticklers for the law as they interpreted it, that they ignored the spirit of the law which was mercy. This was the difference between Jesus’s interpretation of Torah and the rest of the rabbis whom the people followed.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised the latter without neglecting the former (Matt.23: 23).

The writer reminded his readers that taking care of strangers had a hidden blessing. They never knew if and when they had actually been generous to an angel.

Abraham had the unique opportunity of being host to God Himself. Three men came to his tent and he welcomed them and prepared a sumptuous meal for them, not knowing that one of them was God visiting him in human form, and that the other two were angels. What if Abraham had sent them on their way without showing kindness to them?

The angel of the Lord had a message for him that he had been longing to hear for twenty-five years.

“I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son” (Gen. 18: 10).

God had promised the childless couple a son. God had promised Abraham offspring as numerous as the sand on the sea shore and the stars in the sky, but it did not happen. Was God having him on? Abraham had begged God for a son but twenty-five years went by and no baby boy arrived. In any case, the elderly couple was way beyond having kids. They knew the drill!

However, God came when all hope was gone – a stranger materialising out of the summer heat to announce that it was time. What if Abraham has missed the cue?

“Suffer with those who suffer,” was the next instruction. Why? We should be grateful that we don’t have to face what some of our fellow believers are facing at the hands of religious barbarians who think they are pleasing their god by being murderers. What kind of a god is that? But that is not enough. Our writers says, “Don’t forget them. Identify with them.” We can’t physically be with them and suffer alongside them but we can pour our energies into praying for them. What will that do?

Aside from God supplying grace to them in their time of need, being aware of their suffering will not only soften our hearts towards those in need, but also towards their persecutors. Have you thought about that? Are we to hate them? No! Jesus did not hate those who crucified Him. He prayed for them. They were in line for God’s judgment. Jesus said that we are not to fear those who can only kill our bodies. We are to fear God who has the power to throw both bodies and souls into hell.

When we think of the terrible consequences of their actions, our hearts should go out to God in prayer for His mercy to be revealed to them. “Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.

It’s the power of the gospel that transforms us from revenge to forgiveness and from hatred to compassion.

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.