Tag Archives: justice

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO SAY “AMEN”?-2

Prayer, ,

So far, we have explored some aspects of Biblical prayer against the backdrop of the false notions that prayer is an office and a gift for special people…not true,

…that God only speaks to His prophets, not to all His children…not true,

…that prayer is about lengthy times of wrestling to get answers from a reluctant God…not true!

Now let’s explore what the Bible says specifically about “wrestling” in prayer.

Nowhere does the Bible teach us that prayer is about wrestling with God. On the contrary, Jesus taught His disciples that,

Luke 18:7-8 NIV
[7] “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? [8] I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Our Father is not reluctant to give us anything within the boundaries of His promises. He releases everything we need to us as we affirm His promises with a hearty “amen”, not a lengthy begging and pleading or explanations and instructions.

Matthew 6:7-8 NIV
[7] “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. [8] Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

Prayer is also not about wrestling with the devil. Jesus did this for us at the cross. He exposed the lies that Satan uses to enslave us, the broken law and its penalties. He paid the debt for our sin and set us free from Satan’s power to live by His Spirit in us.

Contrary to the ides that Paul was addressing this kind of wrestling in Ephesians 6…

Ephesians 6:10-12 NIV
[10] “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. [11] Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. [12] 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.”

What is this struggle in which we are to stand firm? It’s not a fight! It’s a determined occupation of the truths on which we stand, against the enemy who use lies and deception to throw us off balance. It’s God’s Word that assures us of who we are, whose we are, and His salvation from sin and its power. Hence the emphasis is that we are guarded and protected by truth which operates in our minds and spirits.

Paul uses the same argument in 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV
[3] “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. [4] The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. [5] We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

The real struggle in life is not a struggle with powers outside of us but with the battle within, not only to survive but to reign over our own unruly hearts. Our greatest battle is not against people, circumstances, or the devil but against the evil desires that rage within us. Prayer is about overcoming the obstacles to real faith, the fleshly appetites and desires that shadow our every thought and move.

Galatians 5:16-17 NIV
[16] “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. [17] For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.”

Herein lies our wrestling, learning to surrender, to submit, and to entrust our lives and circumstance to the perfect will of a loving Father. You see, until we submit to the Father in our darkest hours, our spirits will rise up in rebellion against the people who offend us, the constant injustices we face when our will clashes with the will of others, and even the circumstances that cause our struggle and over which we have no control. The flesh will demand revenge. Our desires will promote self above others. We will demand our own will above God’s will, even questioning His love and wisdom when stuff happens.

We will disqualify ourselves from receiving God’s answers because His passion for submission and trust clashes with our fierce independence. His will is to recreate us in the image of His Son, not to restore our comfort and ease, and to develop faith and persverence against all odds, not to give us our own way. Our will demands that our wants be satisfied. God’s will is that we submit to His discipline.

What do you make of this verse?

Colossians 4:12 NIV
[12] “Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.”

It seems that Epaphras, a fellow believer in the Colossians church, understood the nature of this wrestling, and identified with this church in his prayers for them. He wrestled, not with God or with the devil, but for them!

Can you see the difference? He understood that the sinful nature rebels against submission and obedience to God’s will. So, his prayers were directed towards victory over that struggle which would free the Colossian believers from the ravage ofcl self to become strong and mature by fully embracing God’s will. Perhaps, in this battle for their spiritual growth, he identified with their struggle, knowing and understanding the war that raged in his own heart.

To be continued…

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – RELIGIOUS FRAUDS

Bible Study, ,

RELIGIOUS FRAUDS

“I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God’s love. Careful bookkeeping is commendable but basics are required.” Luke 11:42.

Jesus’ perspective on what is important to God is very different from ours. Every man-made religion considers what we do more important than what we are. The gods of human imagination always require rule-keeping and rituals as the way to gain the god’s favour and get what we want.

Does it really matter who or what we worship as long as we worship something? It is in the basic nature of humans to worship and to pray. We are incomplete without allegiance to a higher power. To many people, sincerity is the most important ingredient in our worship. “It doesn’t matter who you worship, as long as you are sincere.” they say.

This is flawed thinking because every action in life has consequences. It does matter who or what we worship because we become like the thing we worship. What we embrace as the source of our life, we embrace as what we value and where we end.

The tragedy about the gods of human imagination is that they inevitably reflect the worst of human nature; cruel, heartless, demanding, unpredictable and unstable. Worst of all is that they do not exist but are the deception of demons to entice us to worship Satan.

Whether people bow down to idols of wood or stone or some invisible ‘god’ some human being told them to worship, the outcome is the same – behaviour that says one thing but hearts that are still rotten to the core.

What is God’s remedy for this terrible dead end? A heart transplant. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you…” Ezekiel 36:26,27a (NIV). Can God make good on His word? Yes! The evidence of a changed heart is a changed disposition.

Jesus’ quarrel with the Pharisees was that their religion was a cover-up for greed and wickedness and the people thought they were ‘holy’! They lived double lives, hypocrites playing to the crowd, but underneath they were worse than the tax-collectors, prostitutes and ‘sinners’ whom they despised.

Jesus was more comfortable with the outcasts because they had no reason to pretend. God cannot do anything for ‘holy’ people, those whose religious cloak keeps Him out. He is near to those who know they cannot pretend with Him. He can change the hearts of those who know their need but He can do nothing for those who think they are okay.

No matter what the barrier is between us and the only true God, only one thing will give us access to Him – to admit that we were deceived and to believe what He says.

The Spirit Of Torah

Christian Life, , , , ,

THE SPIRIT OF TORAH

Unlike the other rabbis with s’mikhah (authority) who were permitted to make new interpretations of Torah, but who focused primarily on behaviour and actions, Jesus turned His hearers’ attention to the spirit of Torah, what He called ‘the more important matters of the law.’ (Matt. 23: 23). The Greek word translated “more important” has the connotation of “weight”, i.e., that which is heavy, which carries weight or is profound.

What is this “weight” of which Jesus spoke? To understand its meaning, we must go back to the Torah and look at its use there. Moses used the same word, “weight” (Hebrew kabod), when he asked God to show him His glory – kabod – Ex. 33:18. What was he asking? He was asking God to show him what was heaviest, weightiest or profoundest in Him – in His character as God.

This is how God responded:

And the LORD said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass by 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.’ (Ex. 33:19)

It seems, then, that the weightiest part of God’s character is His goodness (functionality) expressed in His mercy and compassion. This was confirmed by the prophet Micah who asked the question:

With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down 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 oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (Micah 6:6-7)

All the things that Micah has mentioned were requirements within the Torah but taken to the extreme. But at the same time, all of these were useless without the “weightier things” of Torah.

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6: 8)

In Matt. 23, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for their attention to detail but the absolute neglect of their heart attitude of mercy. They did the right thing as far as Halakhah was concerned but they missed the point of Yahweh’s Torah completely. Whatever Halakhah demanded was to be fulfilled in the spirit of Torah – justice, mercy and faithfulness. These “religious” Jews were so intent on gaining a reputation for their “piety” that they were completely phoney before God.

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. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. (Matt. 23:23-24)

What was Jesus saying? Wherever the prescriptions of Halakhah came into conflict with the weightier matters of Torah, i.e. justice, mercy and faithfulness, Halakhah must give way.

Jesus’s many altercations with the religious leaders raged around the issue of mercy versus Halakhah. His call to Matthew to be a disciple and the subsequent banquet Matthew gave for Jesus with the disreputable element of society as his honoured guests, provoked a protest from the Pharisees.

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and “sinners”?’

On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy that need a doctor but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.’ (Matt. 9:10-13)

A few days later the Pharisees went on the attack again. While Jesus and His disciples walked through a field of grain on the Sabbath, the men picked a few heads of grain and rubbed them in their hands because they were hungry. Always on the warpath, the Pharisees protested.

When the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, ‘Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.’ He answered, ‘Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread – which is not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests . . . If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’, you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’ (Matt. 12:1-4; 7-8)

It is quite obvious that they had not learned the lesson. As far as Jesus was concerned, wherever mercy and Halakhah clashed, mercy took precedence, even when it came to the simple matter of hunger over what was lawful according to Torah. Every requirement of Torah had to be fulfilled in the spirit of Torah for it to be what God intended.

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.

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Eye For An Eye

Bible Study, , , , ,

EYE FOR AN EYE

“The people in the crowd had listened attentively up to this point, but now they broke loose, shouting out, ‘Kill him! He’s an insect! Stomp on him!’ They shook their fists. They filled the air with curses. That’s when the captain intervened and ordered Paul taken into the barracks. By now the captain was thoroughly exasperated. He decided to interrogate Paul under torture in order to get to the bottom of this, to find out what he had done that provoked this outraged violence. As they spread-eagled him with thongs, getting him ready for the whip, Paul said to the centurion standing there, ‘Is this legal: torturing a Roman citizen without a fair trial?'” Acts 22:22-25 (The Message).

What set the crowd off again? They had been listening to Paul’s story without any reaction up to this point, but at the mention of “Gentiles” they went crazy, demanding his annihilation as though he were a bug. This puzzled the Roman captain. What was it with these people? Why this pathological hatred of Paul?

He thought that there was something more sinister to this man, Paul, that he was not letting on about; he would wring it out of him under torture. Flogging him would do the trick, so he thought.

Paul was not looking forward to yet another beating, Roman style. He had one card up his sleeve to put a stop to it which he quickly pulled out while he had the chance — Roman citizenship. He did not whine to God about this unfair treatment. He used the system of the world he was in to protect himself from unnecessary suffering. There was enough of that ahead for him over which he had no power.

What should our response be to the injustices we, as believers, have to suffer at the hands of religious bigots? Jesus had an answer that befits citizens of the kingdom of God whose task it is to bring heaven down to earth.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12 (NIV).

Strange as it may seem, Jesus maintained that persecution was a reason to rejoice, firstly because there is a great reward for those who are unashamedly loyal to Him and follow Him with no qualms; and secondly, because you are in good company since their own prophets received the same treatment as you are receiving.

James also wrote about the benefits of various trials and tests. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James1:2-4 (NIV).

Peter had this to say about the trials the believers were undergoing in his day: “In this (all the benefits of salvation) you greatly rejoice, though now, for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials, These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:7 (NIV).

Paul also recognised the benefits of suffering: “Therefore we do not lost heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV).

What is God’s take in this? Will those who inflict pain on His people simply because they belong to Jesus and bear witness to His grace, never receive the justice they deserve for the injustice they have done against other human beings?

“You’re suffering now, but justice is on the way. When the Master Jesus appears out of heaven in a blaze of fire with His strong angels, He’ll even up the score by settling accounts with those who gave you such a bad time. His coming will be the break we are waiting for. Those who refuse to know God and refuse to obey the Message will pay for what they’ve done.” 2 Thessalonians 2:6-8 (The Message).

Cry For Yourselves

Christian Life, , ,

CRY FOR YOURSELVES

“As they led Him off, they made Simon, a man from Cyrene, who happened to be coming in from the countryside, carry the cross behind Him. A huge crowd of people followed along with women weeping and carrying on. At one point Jesus turned to the women and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t cry for me. Cry for yourselves and for your children. The time is coming when they’ll say, ‘Lucky the women who never conceived! Lucky the wombs that never gave birth! Lucky the breasts that never gave milk!’ Then they’ll start calling on the mountains, ‘Fall down on us!’ calling to the hills, ‘Cover us up!’ If people do this to a live, green tree, can you imagine what they’ll do with dead wood?'” Luke 23:26-31 (The Message).

Small talk between Jesus and the women! He’s on His last journey through the city. Exhausted and weakened by the long, sleepless night, the terrible beating He had received from the Roman soldiers, the gruelling trips through the city to Pilate, to Herod and back to Pilate, the incessant chanting and needling by the crowd, He was too weak to carry the crossbar which would support His battered body soon to be suspended on it.

Anyone else in that situation would have had no thought for the people around him. He would have been too preoccupied with his own suffering and what lay ahead to be bothered with the onlookers. Not Jesus!

He was acutely aware of the implications of what they were doing to Him. The women were not. They did not understand the reason for His dying. They saw only a bloodied Jesus, perhaps dear to them because of a loved one released from pain or sickness because of His compassion, perhaps His own beloved following of women among them.

Jesus was moved by their wailing. He understood their sorrow but He also knew something of which they were unaware. He painfully turned towards them. ‘Dear women,’ He said, ‘Don’t cry for me. My suffering is short-lived and has a purpose. Cry for yourselves because what they are doing to me today had far-reaching implications. In three days’ time I will be alive again. But your suffering will have just begun. It will be so terrible that you will wish you had never been born.’

What did Jesus know that prompted these words? Their representatives had judged Him that day but their judgment had decided their own. In the span of one generation they would cease to exist as a nation. Many thousands would be slaughtered in the city until their blood ran like a river in the streets. Their “indestructible” temple would be torn down, its stones scattered like pebbles, its gold and treasures plundered, and the city taken over by Gentiles for almost two thousand years.

They had rejected their Messiah and refused to acknowledge who He was. They had shut their ears to His message and their eyes to His love. They had seen but refused to comprehend His glory, His perfect mirror image of the Father. They thought they knew better and killed Him rather than admit they were wrong. Most of all, they were too comfortable in their greed and in their power over the people to think about their future. So they turned justice upside down and declared Him guilty and, by implication, themselves innocent.

The anguish in the heart of Jesus for these women was far greater than their anguish for Him. The outcome for Him was everything He and the Father had planned – resurrection and return to the Father, and reconciliation that would bring His alienated sons and daughters back to Himself.

But the way back to the Father is to believe and receive His offer of forgiveness and restoration. ‘Your sin did this to me, but my death will set you free from the debt you owe me if you accept what I did for you and return to the Father.’