Tag Archives: believe

The Picture On The Box

Bible Study, , ,

THE PICTURE ON THE BOX

“Against hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.

“Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He had promised. That is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” Romans 4:18-22.

Faith, hope, love – three words that are often linked together in the Bible. Paul has already defined faith – “calling into being things that are not.” Love is not clearly defined in Scripture, but could be something like this – “meeting the needs of others at our own expense.” But hope?

According to Paul, faith and hope are closely linked together. It is because of our hope that we believe what God has promised. Biblical “hope” is very different from worldly hope which expresses both desire and uncertainty; desire because it is what we want to happen, but uncertainty because we have no solid ground for hoping that it will happen.

Biblical hope, on the other hand is based on what God has promised – sort of like the picture on the box. If you enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles, you’ll understand what I mean. You buy the puzzle because you like the picture. Then you find a suitable place to build it, spread out the pieces and begin to put them together. From time to time you study the picture to make sure that you are following it correctly because you want the end result will look exactly like the picture on the box.

That is the idea of hope. God has made a promise; you keep that promise in mind as you begin to pray, trust God and thank Him for the fulfilment of His Word. Hope is the picture in your imagination of what God has said He will do. Then you watch as God begins to put the pieces together to build the “puzzle”. At first it doesn’t look anything like the completed picture, but faith keeps seeing the picture and trusting God for the outcome.

Hope does not focus on the impossibility of present circumstances. Abraham was fully aware of his and Sarah’s age and the unassailable reality that it was impossible, humanly speaking, for them to have a child. Fact is fact! Sarah was long past menopause, No amount of wishing or willing could change that! Even though people lived much longer in their day, they were both past the age of childbearing. That was it!

Abraham could have given up hope on that fact alone. Instead he set his mind on what God had said rather than what was. That is hope.

From a hymn of Charles Wesley (1707-1789) came these words:

“Faith, mighty faith the promise sees,                                                                                                And looks to that alone;                                                                                                                      Laughs at impossibilities,                                                                                                                    And cries, “It shall be done.”

Hope sees, not circumstances but the ability and reliability of the one who has promised. If a human being had made the same promise to Abraham as God had made, he would have laughed at him. Of course that person had no power to follow through on his promise. But God? The crux of the matter?

“…being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He had promised.”

Why was Abraham “fully persuaded”? Because his faith had grown through believing and obeying God in the process of time. How does faith grow? By following the Lord one step at a time and watching Him work in response to our obedience. Faith grows when it is anchored to our hope as we keep the picture of the puzzle firmly in our imagination.

Acknowledgement

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

 

Is Seeing Really Believing Or Is Believing Seeing?

Bible Study, , ,

IS SEEING REALLY BELIEVING OR BELIEVING SEEING?

“Now Thomas, (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.'” John 20:24-25 NIV.

Doubting Thomas! That’s what people call him. But I have often wondered if that is a fair nickname for him. Perhaps a better name would be Disappointed Thomas or Dillusioned Thomas or even Devastated Thomas.

Why was Thomas so scepical of the good news that Jesus was alive? It’s easy to judge the man because we know nothing of his background and very little of his character.

We know he was a pessimist because he was the one who was resigned to dying with Jesus if they returned to Bethany when they heard that Lazarus was sick. They had been hiding out beyond the Jordan, not because Jesus was afraid, but because it was not His time, but the sisters’ plea had brought them out of hiding and back into range of the Jewish leaders.

What about Martha and Mary? When Jesus did not arrive in time to heal their brother, they were just as full of doubt about Him as Thomas was. Didn’t they both chide Him, “Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died”? They did not understand His ways and they had not yet developed an unshakeable trust in Him. That would come as they realised that what He did was far better than what they expected Him to do.

How much faith did the rest of the disciples have in Jesus? Had He not told them more than once that He would rise again? But, in spite of His many reassurances, they were devastated when He was crucified and went into hiding, feeling lost and abandoned, and not knowing what to do next. Some of them even went back to their old lives of fishing, as though the years with Jesus were just an interlude best forgotten.

At least Thomas was honest enough to express his misgivings out loud. He wanted evidence. He wanted his own personal experience of handling Jesus so that he would be beyond doubt that He was actually alive. After all, he had entrusted himself to Him once, and where had it got him? He was not prepared to stake his life on the testimony of others.

Perhaps Thomas had been seriously let down by someone of significance in his life  and he had carried the pain in his heart for a long time. “Once bitten, twice shy.” We will never know, but his vehement protest seems to suggest that he wanted to be very sure about Jesus before he was willing to entrust himself to Him once again.

Perhaps Thomas overreacted, but we can’t blame him because it is human nature to respond with reservation to promises that are not backed up by a trustworthy character. Perhaps he was also over cautious even though Jesus had never given him cause to doubt Him. Whatever Thomas’ reason for wanting hard evidence, at least he, unlike the religious leaders, was prepared to believe if Jesus showed up and he could check Him out for himself.

I think Thomas is a mirror of many of us. We also look for hard evidence when we are in a jam before we are prepared to trust Jesus. Unfortunately for us, in God’s scheme of things it doesn’t work that way. Jesus is no longer here in the flesh and is not likely to turn up in person when our faith has a serious wobble. Thomas’ reluctance to believe led him to a valuable lesson from which we should learn if we want to experience the peace of God in spite of hardships.

Although we cannot have Jesus’ physical presence with us, He has given us the assurance that He is always with us; even better, in us by His Spirit, but we have to accept the trustworthiness of His promise. He said He would rise again and He did. That is feat no one else has ever pulled off! Is that not enough for us to trust Him to make good everything else He promised?

The Lord Is One

Bible Study, , ,

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 NIV.

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 NIV.

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.

Will You Marry Me?

Bible Study, , ,

WILL YOU MARRY ME? 

“‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.'” John 14:1-4 NIV.

Such familiar words! Like the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm, we learned them at our mother’s knee and heard them at every funeral we attended.

But this is not funeral talk; this is wedding talk! Wedding talk? Yes, this is part of the prospective bridegroom’s proposal and the conclusion of his courtship.

When a young Jewish couple has drawn up their ketubah, their pre-nuptial marriage contract, and signed it in the presence of their fathers, the groom would formally propose to his bride. If she agrees to marry him, and by this time, of course, she has indicated her intention to say yes, he would tell her, “I am going to my father’s house to prepare the bridal chamber.” She would reply, “When will you return?” and he would respond, “When my father is satisfied with the bridal chamber, he will send me back to take you to his house that where I am you may be also.”

This exchange would mark the beginning of the betrothal period which was as legally binding as the marriage itself. To break the engagement was regarded as divorce — hence Joseph’s dilemma when he found out that his fiancée, Mary, was pregnant out of wedlock. He decided to divorce her privately rather than publicly disgrace her and risk her being stoned for infidelity.

In all the confusion of the escalating events and the disciples’ misunderstanding of Jesus’ intentions, did they catch the magnitude of what He was telling them? God (Jesus) had betrothed Israel to Himself at Mount Sinai, but they were persistently unfaithful to Him by their idolatry until He finally “divorced” them by allowing them to be sent into exile in Babylon. Now He was offering them a second opportunity to accept His marriage proposal and to be a chaste bride, unlike their forefathers, faithful to Him, their bridegroom.

The Bible is full of the imagery of a marriage to God. The Apostle Paul expressed his concern over the church at Corinth because, it seems, they did not understand the seriousness of the condition they were in. Some of them were dabbling in their old sinful ways, and he pleaded with them, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Him.” 2 Corinthians 11:2 NIV.

Would they have understood that Jesus was inviting them into a relationship with Him as intimate as a marriage relationship? In the last tender moments with them before He left them for good, He wanted them to know that this was not the end of a lovely friendship. Unlike earthly friends or marriage partners who are separated when death comes His departure was to be the beginning of an association far closer and more intimate than His presence on earth with them had been.

Even if they did not understand at that moment, He was sowing the seeds of His word into their minds which the Holy Spirit would bring to remembrance at a later time. Sorrow, uncertainty, apprehension, misunderstanding and confusion blocked them from making sense of what He was saying. As always, He tried to calm their fears with His reassurance, “Don’t be scared. Just trust me.”

That’s all He asks of us when stuff happens and life makes no sense. Hindsight will help us to understand but, in the meantime, Jesus encourages us as He did His disciples, “Don’t be afraid. Just trust me.” It is not easy when our whole world rocks or falls apart. Trusting Him means being still and letting Him guide us through whatever is happening. When our minds are in turmoil, we make foolish decisions out of our emotions.

Isaiah gives us a solid rock on which to stand while our world is “rocking”. “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord Himself is the Rock eternal.” Isaiah 26:3, 4. NIV.

Faith Is The Glue

Bible Study, , , ,

FAITH IS THE GLUE 

“Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in Him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved human praise more than the praise of God.

“Then Jesus cried out, ‘Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.'” John 12:42-46 NIV.

Secret believers! Held captive by fear!

This is the power of false religion. Because religion has its origin in the human mind, it needs humans to defend it and force to keep people from leaving when they know the truth; force, the only way humans know how to exercise power. Fear holds people in bondage and force protects their loyalty.

These religious leaders were bound by the fear of what their colleagues would do to them if they followed Jesus. Is it possible to believe but not to follow? Jesus said not. To follow Him means to take up the cross. Anyone who carried a cross was on the way to death. A disciple is one who has embraced his rabbi, his rabbi’s yoke, and everything his rabbi stands for. He is no longer his own person. He has died. These Jewish leaders, whom John said believed in Him, had not done that. They were afraid.

But fear and force cannot bind the conscience when it is convinced of the truth. How was it that the apostles and many thousands after them, were willing to lay down their lives rather than deny that Jesus is Lord? Did He threaten them with death if they refused to acknowledge Him? Did He destroy Peter for denying him with oaths and curses? What changed cowering men into courageous witnesses? The resurrection convinced them that He was the Son of God and not even death could scare them into submission to the Roman authorities or the bullying religious leaders.

But the reward for believing in Jesus far outweighs the cost! There is a revelation of the face of the Father in the face of Jesus that is reserved for those who recognize and embrace the truth that He and the Father are one.

Throughout the history of His people, Jesus had dealings with them in many different ways. He met Moses through the miracle of a desert bush that burned with an unearthly fire but was not consumed and revealed His name to him on the mountain. He revealed His glory in dreams and visions to His prophets, men like Isaiah and Ezekiel; He gave His personal protection to Daniel in the den of lions and his three colleagues in Nebuchadnezzar’s fire; He spoke in an audible voice to Abraham and Jacob and even wrestled with Jacob until he prevailed and became a prince with God.  But they never saw His face.

Now He was here on earth in person, in human form so that all men might see the face of God in Him; but only those who believed the truth of who He was would recognize in Him the nature of the Father He represented. To some He was a blasphemer; to others at best a prophet or just a good man. Only to those who believed in Him was He the face of the Father.

John lived and walked with Him for three and a half years. To him, Jesus was the Word become flesh…”We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14. Paul met Him on the Damascus road and, from then on He was, to him “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” Colossians 1:15. To the unknown writer to the Hebrews He was “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being…” Hebrews 1:3.

How did Jesus respond to Philip’s request, ‘”Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us’? “Jesus answered, ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.'” John 14:8, 9.

The miracle is that Jesus is just Jesus, good man, prophet perhaps, until faith opens the eyes and the heart sees Him as the Son of God and a mirror image of the Father. This is the glue that binds us to Him. We are not held to loyalty by fear or threats of death. To believe in Him is to see Him and to see Him is to love Him. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 NIV.