Tag Archives: restore

THINGS THAT DAVID SAID – 8

Devotion, ,

RESTORE!

Psalms 51:12 NIV
[12] “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”

“Did you know that the word “restore” appears 136 times in the Bible? The Bible is filled with examples of healing and restoration. It is a consistent theme in both the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis all the way to Revelation.”
(https://theredeemed.com)

If I could give God a middle name that describes something about Him that is deeply embedded in His character, I would call Him “Yahweh Shoob”, the God who restores.

“Shoob” is one of the multifaceted Hebrew words with a multiplicity of meanings according to the context. However, when it comes to the character of God, one word above all others fits the bill… RESTORE!

Unlike our human tendency to destroy, and we do it all the time when our inborn selfishness crashes into the selfishness of others, God’s passion is to restore. He loves to fix situations and people so that His kingdom of love and light can become the real way for us to live on the earth.

The trouble is that we are more focused on the brokennes in our world than about the people who caused it, including ourselves…and that means ourselves first. When we keep playing the blame game, nothing will be restored.

Let’s examine David’s prayer in context.

His guilty secret was out! He had created a mess through his selfish behaviour. He had stolen another man’s wife and then tried to cover it up, first, by trickery and then, when that didn’t work, by murder! By “diminishing” Uriah, his mistress’ husband, by having him killed, he had conveniently forgotten that God never, ever let him down, and that he was to treat others in the same way.

God knew! He told His prophet, Nathan, to confront David with his sin. David was mortified. Instead of making excuses, like many of us would do, he came clean.

In two of his well-known psalms, David revealed the turmoil of his guilty conscience.

Psalms 32:3-4 NLT
[3] “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. [4] Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.”

David agonised over the terrible weight of his guilt. In his despair, he turned to the Lord, throwing himself on God’s mercy, knowing that no amount of animal sacrifice could make up for what he had done.

Psalms 51:1-4 NLT
[1] “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. [2] Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. [3] For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. [4] Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.”

David acknowledged that he deserved everything God’s judgment would bring on him. Crushed by his sinfulness, he hurled his pitiful self on “chesed”, the covenant love of God.

Psalms 32:5 NLT
[5] “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.”

GONE! All his guilt, all his agony…gone! In an instant! He felt as if he had never sinned. His soul and l conscience were power washed, clean, white as the driven snow.

However, there still lurked in his heart one anxious thought, one misgiving. Would God restore his position with Himself, that favoured position of intimacy he had lost through his foolishness?
Forgiveness was one thing, and that was already a given, but what about restoration? He had forfeited something very precious and he wanted it back. He had begged for forgiveness, and God had forgiven  him. Would He also restore to him His presence and his favoured position of a son?

Since, as David had learned, in God’s presence there is fullness of joy…

Psalms 16:11 NIV
[11] You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

…the return of this joy would confirm to David the restoration of God’s presence in his life. He wanted more than the experience of joy. He wanted to be assured of God’s presence with him and the restoration to full salvation that his joy would signal.

There were serious consequences to David’s moral failure in his life and the life of his family which he could not dodge. However, for the rest of his earthly life, David continued in humble trust and obedience to God, even through the horror of his son, Absalom’s abominable behaviour, murder and treason. God restored David’s throne and the respect and loyalty of his subjects and…the greatest honour God afforded him, the honour of being the ancestor of Jesus, the Messiah.

Yes, God restores, and even in the aftermath of our sin, His mercy triumphs over judgment. Falling into sin, as terrible as it is, never cancels our standing with God. Rather, it releases a flood of mercy and grace that indelibly imprints on our hearts the truth that God restores!

In conclusion, how I value this aspect of God’s character because I know that my appeal for restoration will never fall on deaf ears. No matter what the context, I am assured that God restores!

“RESTORE” IS God’s middle name. On the day when Jesus returns, He will clean up every last mess we have ever made of God’s earth. God’s plan to unite heaven and earth into one glorious, eternal kingdom when He makes His dwelling with us, will happen. He has already written the last chapter.

Revelation 21:1-5 NLT
[1] “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. [2] And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. [3] I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. [4] He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” [5] And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”

Hallelujah!

An Impossible Impossibility

Bible Study, , ,

AN IMPOSSIBLE IMPOSSIBILITY

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace (Heb. 6:4-6).

A much misunderstood and a much feared passage of Scripture! With God there are very few impossibilities. Only that which is contrary to His nature is impossible with Him.

But what the writer is talking about here is not something God cannot do. It is something we cannot do. When a human being renounces the truths God has laid down as the foundation of his walk with Him, he cannot return to the path of God’s grace and mercy. Jesus is, categorically, the only way to the Father and, to repudiate Him is to remain lost, forever, in the wilderness of sin and death.

The writer clearly enumerates the blessings and benefits of believing in Jesus and in His atoning sacrifice as the foundation of our response to God. There is no other way to return to the Father but by the way of the cross. It is the Holy Spirit who opens the eyes of our understanding that Jesus is the only way back to God. Though faith in Jesus we are fused to Him, we are in Him and He is in us. We are given our status as God’s sons and daughters, spiritual brothers and sisters of God’s Son (Heb. 2: 10, 11).

The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple (Psa. 119: 130).

God’s word becomes our daily bread – the manna from heaven which feeds and nourishes our souls as we journey from this life to the next.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Psa. 119:103).

We have tasted of the powers of the coming age, the victory that Jesus won over the devil and the hope of the resurrection. The benevolent rule of God is here. We are no longer subject to the devil; his deception has been exposed. He is not God and he no longer has the power to hold us in slavery to his will.

For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Col. 1: 13-14).

To fall away means to apostatize – to renounce and turn ones back on the truths one once believed. This is not about wandering off the path through sin and getting lost in the wilderness. This is about a deliberate choice to repudiate the work of Jesus and all the benefits and blessings of His salvation. Once someone has done that, there is no way back because that person has effectively put Jesus back on the cross.

For those who have wandered away, there is always a way back but for those who have deliberately chosen to take a wrong turn, knowing that the deviation will lead to another destination, there is no way back to God; as I heard an evangelist say, ‘There are many gods, but only one Jesus.’ Jesus is the only way to the Father. He said:

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (John 8:12).

Can you see how impossible it is to return? Faith is what pleases God. It matters in whom you place your faith. Like the Bedouins in the desert who need to anchor their tents lest the wind blows them away, you need to fasten your “tent” to the “peg” that will not be moved when the winds of false teaching and the howling gales of life threaten to blow you away. God and His word are the only reliable and immovable anchor.

The writer of this letter urges us to make sure that we are anchored to the only “tent peg” that will never shift or come loose in the winds of life. To change metaphor, God has given us a solid foundation upon which to build the superstructure of our lives. Without that foundation, like Jesus’s foolish builder in Matt 7: 26-27, our house will crash when the storms of life blow against it.

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.

 

 

Beware Of The Trap!

Bible Study, , , ,

BEWARE OF THE TRAP!

“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can have pride in himself alone without comparing himself to someone else, for each one should carry his own load.” Galatians 6:1-5

Now here’s a delicate situation. A fellow believer falls into temptation and you know about it. What to do you do? You have two options; leave it alone and don’t interfere or go to the person and point out that his or her behaviour is wrong. Paul said that you have an obligation to do the latter if you are being led by the Spirit.

But there’s a danger in doing that; the temptation to have a superior attitude because you have not done what he has done is very real. Instead of helping your brother to come clean and turn away from sin, you have now added your sin to his. The problem is that your sin is hidden in your heart and is far more subtle than his, whatever he has done.

Helping a brother or sister get back on the path is an act of love, not interference. That’s how Jesus wants us to treat one another because He knows that sin is destructive and alienates the person who sins from Him and from His body. But a superior attitude is equally sinful and destructive. We have to be constantly on guard against pride – the attitude that we are better than the person we are trying to help, or the false notion that we will never do what they have done.

Paul counselled: “Watch your heart. You can easily deceive yourself. You have the same sinful nature as his. You may not do what he did but you have the same potential to give in to temptation as he has.” Test your motive. Paul said, “Restore him gently.” When we remember that we stand on level ground before the cross, we have no reason to think we are better than anyone else. Don’t talk down to him. Get under the load with him and lift him up.

That leads to another thought. Paul seemed to be contradicting himself when he said, “Carry each other’s burdens,” and then, “Each one should carry his own burden.” What did he mean? When we come alongside another who has fallen, lift him up, dust him off and help him to continue on his way, we have shouldered the “burden” of his weakness with him. We have helped him acknowledge his sin, and turn away from it, and we continue to walk with him until he is strong enough to continue.

However, we carry a “burden” of responsibility which is ours alone; the responsibility of supporting a weaker brother but, even more than that, the responsibility of being honest with ourselves and honest about ourselves. If we live in self-deception, we will be as weak and vulnerable to sin as the brother we have tried to help. No one can carry that burden for us. It is ours alone.

Jesus was aware of the human tendency to independence. Before He went to the cross, He spent His last precious hours with His disciples coaching them to receive and rely on the Holy Spirit who would take His place as their Helper and Counsellor. He would reside in them and continue what Jesus began – teaching them and leading them into the truth.

They were to learn, through the Holy Spirit, to “remain in Him,” an imperative lesson because, He said, “…apart from me, you can do nothing.” Keeping our connection with the vine requires honesty. We have an obligation to help a fellow believer who is living in denial and self-deception, but we also have an obligation to keep ourselves free of the very same self-deception that tripped our brother up. We can only do this by keeping short accounts with God.

Our walk together with others in the body of Christ can be messy at times; we clash; we expose; we weep; we bleed, but in the end there is one purpose in it all – to clear away the dirt that clings to us and the obstacles that hinder us from what Jesus prayed for – that we may be one as He and the Father are one.

Our motive, then, for helping a fallen brother is not to lord it over him but to restore him so that the Body of Christ remain intact and not fractured by sin that destroys unity and leaves us vulnerable to the devil’s wiles.

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.

 

Peter Got It

Christian Life, , ,

PETER GOT IT!

“Peter fairly exploded with his good news. ‘It’s God’s own truth, nothing could be plainer. God plays no favourites! It makes no difference who you are or where you’re from — if you want God and are ready to do as He says, the door is open. The Message He sent to the children of Israel — that through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again — well, He’s doing it everywhere among everyone.'” Acts 10:34-36 (The Message).

A light bulb moment for Peter!

It had taken years for him to reach this moment of revelation — and he exploded with excitement. He nearly burst with the realisation that this was what the good news of Jesus was all about. The entire story of his people was about this moment when the light of God’s truth would break through the barriers of racial prejudice and religious bigotry and engulf the Gentile world with its message of love and liberty.

Peter, and all those he represented in the kingdom of God, did not have to hate any more. He could throw off his religious rags and embrace people of every nation because God gave His Son for the whole world. Food taboos and religious rituals did not count any more. What Jesus came to do was much bigger than petty scruples and irrelevant externals. The very people he had so hoped Jesus would evict from his country were eligible to share in the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit that he had experienced through God’s unconditional love and grace.

For the first time in his life, Peter fully embraced the truth that Jesus was the Saviour of the world. The confession he had so glibly made at Caesarea Philippi, at that point in his understanding accurate yet misunderstood, glowed with new meaning: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ At last the message he had to deliver was cosmic in his understanding and in its application.

Peter recognised an even greater significance in the life of his Master than he had seen before. This salvation was much more than a personal and individual thing. What Jesus did on the cross had ramifications for the whole creation. This was about reconciling and restoring everything to God, including the natural world which was included in the consequences of Adam’s rebellion.

Jesus did not come to make us comfortable. He came to put God’s cosmic programme back on track.

“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.” Colossians 1:17-20 (NIV).

Every dysfunctional thing was being restored through the death of Jesus and Cornelius and his associates were part of that new life. Peter would not only be able to share the story of Jesus with this group of people with new understanding but he would also take the same fleshed-out message to the rest of the world.

This is the miracle of walking with Jesus through His Spirit. It is a journey from ignorance to understanding; from the darkness of selfishness and greed to the light of generous love for all people; and from slavery to freedom. It’s a step-by-step moving towards shalom, wholeness and peace.

Religion can never do what Jesus does when He is given access to the very core of our lives. We are swept up into God’s plan of universal restoration and become an integral part of a new order of justice, righteousness and peace which will be perfected and completed when Jesus returns.