Tag Archives: revealed

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – THE INSIDE STORY

Bible Study, ,

THE INSIDE STORY

“The interest of the people by now was building. They were all beginning to wonder, ‘Could this John be the Messiah?’ But John intervened: ‘I’m baptising you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house – make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God, everything false He’ll put out with the trash to be burned.'” Luke 3:15-18.

Just imagine! These were the people who stood on the threshold of a new era in Israel’s history. Messiah was about to be revealed! And they were in on it.

No wonder they ran after John, even putting up with his scathing accusations to hear what he had to say. There was something in the air and they did not want to miss it. But, just like Jesus’ disciples, they all suffered from selective hearing. They associated Messiah so closely with their hope of deliverance from Rome that they conveniently missed the crux of Messiah’s purpose for coming.

John could not have made it clearer: kingdom life; fire; Holy Spirit; changing you from the inside; clean sweep; true/false…all these things had to do with the heart, and attitude, and behaviour, and relationships, and people – the  inner being – and nothing to do with politics and Roman occupation. But they just didn’t get it.

Funny how little has changed. Judging by much of what is propagated by so-called Christian television, the message still has to do with externals – blessing and prosperity and houses and cars and me, me, me; a free passport to heaven and everything I can get out of it now while I wait.

But that’s not what John told them. Messiah was about kingdom life and fire! If we read this like a Hebrew, fire was not about hell for those who don’t believe; fire was about purifying and burning off everything that contradicted the nature of God and His way of doing things; getting rid of the chaff so that the grain can be used. There is no place in His kingdom for anything false, like greed, selfishness, bitterness, anxiety, fear, unforgiveness, unbelief, jealousy, discontent and everything that makes our lives fall apart. It’s got to be burned off, burned up, if we are to have any place in God’s kingdom.

Unless a person is willing to let the fire burn, following Jesus becomes a very uncomfortable business. He’s not afraid to turn up the heat because He is passionate about presenting to His Father a family that resembles Him. If we are not prepared to let the fire burn off what does not resemble Jesus, the alternative is “torment”.

Torment is very much about “hell” now – the unquenchable fire of inner pain and turmoil. Have you ever been there? Jesus’ fire works quickly – it burns off the offending thoughts, attitudes and behaviour that contradict who He is, and peace is the blissful outcome, His peace that makes no sense but it’s real anyway. Hang on to your “stuff” and the fire burns slowly and never stops. It does not consume your issues but it does consume you.

When you think about it, God’s fire is pure mercy. Who, in his right mind, would want to hang onto the things that cause torment anyway? I recently read an article in a popular South African magazine about a woman who spends R3500.00 a month (about $350.00) on tranquillisers because she was raped. I have a young woman in my study group who endured the same terrible experience but she’s free because she allowed Jesus to “burn off” her anger and bitterness, and the torment has gone.

What John was introducing was something far better than a “Romans-free” life. When you are free inside, the outside has no power to enslave, no matter how bad the circumstances are. With shredded backs and their feet in the stocks, Paul and Silas sang in the jail because they were free.

That’s what Messiah came to do!

What A Prayer!

Christian Life, , , ,

WHAT A PRAYER!

What was the kernel of Jesus’ prayer for His disciples? One had already fallen away – on his way to sell his rabbi out for a few pieces of silver? Have you noticed that Jesus excluded Judas from His prayer? Judas’s mind was already made up. Jesus made no urgent request for the Father to stop him or for the Holy Spirit to convict him. It had to be and in the sovereignty of God He would blend every circumstance into His plan of redemption, even the free will of Judas who chose to betray his Master.

I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave then to me and they have obeyed your word. (John 17: 6)

What an insight into the heart of Jesus! The Father had given Him twelve men as a sacred trust. It was His task to impart the Father’s Word to them until they had grasped, embraced and obeyed that Word. Jesus could not leave them alone in this world until He was sure that His task of training them to be His disciples was complete. From the moment He finally left them, their role would change. No longer would they simply be His disciples. They would be, like Him, true sons of the Father.

Verse 6 can also be translated:

I have revealed your name to those you gave me out of the world.

What was the significance of this declaration? The Lord revealed Himself to His covenant people by many names; Elohim – the Mighty One; El Elyon – the Most High God; El Shaddai – the one who nourishes; Adonai – the Master; El Olam – the everlasting God; Yahweh – the one who is; and the many facets of Yahweh – provider, shepherd, healer, righteousness, peace, banner, sanctifier, Lord of hosts and the Lord who is there.

But there was one name by which He was not known until Jesus came – the name, Father. Jesus came to reveal that name by being the perfect Son. It was that name He made known to His disciples and it was to that name that He entrusted them because He knew that God, as the perfect Father, would always be with them, vigilant and caring like no earthly father could ever be.

Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I have given them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They know with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. (John 17: 7-8)

But wait a minute! What are you saying, Jesus? You are speaking as though the disciples had it all together. We know very well that they were an imperfect lot; they didn’t have a very good track record, and the events of the next few hours would show them up for what they really were – cowards and deserters. They had failed to learn their lessons and they fell apart when the crunch came. Jesus had warned them many times of the coming events, but they dismissed His words as of no consequence. How could He speak of them to the Father in this way?

Jesus has already shown us, time after time, that He saw people not as they were but as they would be through the work of the Holy Spirit in them. He spoke of His disciples as though they were already perfected because He had full confidence in the Holy Spirit to complete in them what He, Jesus, had begun.

But He was also realistic. The process by which they would reach maturity was fraught with danger. There was a threefold enemy they had to battle – the world, the flesh and the devil. They needed the supernatural defence and protection of the Father to arrive at their destination. Jesus was fully aware of this and He prayed for them.

Threefold protection

  1. Protected by the power of the Father’s name

I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name – the name you gave me – so that they may be one as we are one. (John 17: 9-11)

Theirs was a shared responsibility. What belonged to the Father also belonged to the Son. Jesus was soon to leave them. He would no longer be with the disciples to sort out their squabbles and keep them together as a band of His followers. They had the potential to lapse into their old, selfish and self-centred ways, ignoring the priceless love and unity that Jesus fostered among them and which set them apart as His disciples.

Jesus would now entrust to the Father those whom the Father had entrusted to Him. It would be the Father’s responsibility to guard them against the ravages of their ungodly old natures, the lure of the world and temptations of the devil. Jesus’s prayer was not about physical safety. That was not His priority. It was far more important to Him that God’s supernatural power at work in them would mould them together as one with one another and with the Father since unity was the supreme hallmark of the Godhead.

Jesus had been in harmony with the Father from the beginning, never failing to receive His instructions from Him and carrying them out with meticulous obedience. He expected no less from His disciples but, without the Father’s intervention through the Holy Spirit, there was every possibility that they would fail in their basic relationship with Him and with one another.

What was His prayer for them? “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name . . .” God’s name was far more than a handle by which He was known. The very name of God was powerful. Jesus would have been aware of the words of Proverbs 18: 10:

The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.

To call on the name of the Lord was to invoke everything that He was. Jesus entrusted them to the name of the Father.

While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. (John 17: 12)

Jesus lost one. Not even He was able to save Judas from the consequences of his own choices. He had to let him go, knowing that the Father would work everything out perfectly to fulfil His purpose to offer salvation to the whole world through the death of His Son. Judas had a part to play, an unsavoury set of choices which would doom him to eternal loss, but even that was woven into God’s plan of redemption.

  1. Protected by the power of Jesus’s joy

I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. (John 17: 13)

The disciples were facing the most terrifying experience of their lives. Not only were they about to witness the execution of their Master at the hands of the Roman government, but they could also possibly be implicated in the charges against Him. And Jesus spoke about them being filled with joy? His joy? What kind of joy would fill the heart of a man who was about to be crucified? This sounds crazy!

It is crazy if we look at it from a human perspective. But Jesus never viewed life in the same way as we do. The writer to the Hebrews understood Him.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the throne of God. (Heb. 12: 2)

What was disaster at that moment would be viewed with the full measure of His joy when they saw the big picture. The suffering of the cross was the process. Redemption was the goal. In the days to come the disciples would follow their Master down the pathway of suffering but, like Him they would learn to fix their eyes on the goal. The suffering was temporary – the goal eternal. Although Paul was not part of the Twelve, as an apostle he also learned the lesson and could write:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is sees, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor. 4: 16-18)

Jesus’s joy will immunise us from the effects of pain and sorrow. His joy will condition us for the future when we can put behind us the effects of Adam’s sin on the world and focus on what is to come. This was His legacy to His disciples and to those who follow in their footsteps, bearing witness to the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit within.

People with this kind of mind-set are invincible. If they are hated, persecuted and even killed, they are protected by an indestructible joy because it is anchored in an indestructible hope founded on the victory Jesus won at the cross.

  1. Protected by the power of God’s Word

I have given them your Word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself so that they may be truly sanctified. (John 17: 14-19)

The original Greek word ponos (meaning “anguish”) and its derivative poneros (here translated “evil one”) does not refer to the evil one but to the anguish that comes from the influence and effect of that which is evil. What is Jesus saying? His prayer has two possible meanings; either that the Father protect them from the anguish caused by the evil people of the world, or the pain the disciples would bring on themselves if they lived outside of the protection of God’s Word.

The second interpretation is more likely because Jesus has already prayed that they would be fortified against suffering by the power of His joy. People might inflict suffering on them as they did on Him, but the joy of knowing the outcome would fortify them against emotional pain and enable them to be overcomers.

Paul knew this joy when he wrote:

No, in all these things (trouble, hardship, persecution, nakedness, danger or sword – verse 35b) we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that (nothing – author’s note) will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8: 37, 39)

Jesus understood that the most potent enemy man has is within himself. The only way the disciples would be protected from the suffering they could bring on themselves was to follow Jesus by walking in the light of God’s Word.

They had already received God’s Word as Jesus had faithfully given it to them. It was up to them now to live by that Word so they could be set free from consequences of sin as they walked in the truth. Jesus had shown them the way. He had faithfully taught them how to be true sons by living by the spirit of Torah, by being gracious and forgiving and extending mercy to all who needed it.

They had chosen to walk in God’s way, and with that choice came the inevitable clash of light and darkness. How easy it would be for them to falter when the heat was on! Only as they remained true to the Word, fastened their eyes on the goal and not on their circumstances, and allowed the truth to set them apart from the world, would they enjoy the power of God’s Word to protect them from the ravages of their old sinful nature.

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.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Do you like this post? Then buy your own copy of my book, Learning to be a Disciple, which is also available from www.amazon.com or www.takealot.com in South Africa. You can also order a copy directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com

Watch this space!

My latest book, The Heartbeat of Holiness, will also soon be available.

 

The Mystery Of Christ Revealed

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THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST REVEALED

For this reason, I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles – Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that, through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus  (Eph. 3: 1-5).

The secret is out! The Gentiles, who thought they were excluded, are in on God’s master plan to bless the whole world, Jew and Gentile alike, with the spiritual blessings Paul declared in the opening paragraphs of his letter. The children of Israel were the initial recipients of God’s magnificent array of benefits – if they had only understood and co-operated with God to receive the favour He promised them. However, they were only the prototype of what God had planned for the whole world.

Israel was the nation God chose to coach to walk in His ways as a visual aid for the rest of the world, so that all the nations would understand what God had for them and what He wanted from them.

God entrusted to Paul and to his fellow apostles His plan to open the door of faith to the whole world. He placed in Paul’s spirit, through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, the understanding of this “mystery” – not something too difficult to understand but something hidden from human beings until the moment He made the truth known to His apostles. He entrusted to them the task of administering His grace to the previously excluded peoples so that they would have an equal share in everything He has promised to the Jews.

However, the Jews would have none of it. They believed that the covenant and the promises belonged to them, and to them alone. They hated and despised the Gentiles, believing that God’s prohibition to mix with them had to do with their worth as human beings. They failed to understand that the evil influence the pagan beliefs and practices had on His people was what God hated. After all they had suffered as a people because of their idolatry, they wanted nothing to do with Gentiles. They treated them as scum and called them “dogs”.

Paul and his fellow apostles suffered greatly at the hands of the Jews because they refused to participate in their prejudice. Jesus had given them a commission to take His message to the whole world. They were committed to go to the ends of the earth regardless of the way they were treated. The gospel of God’s grace was the dividing line which cut across all the divisions of race, colour, language and culture and created a new culture and a new race of people whose citizenship was not primarily in this world.

It was Paul’s task to administer this message and the grace which God offered to those who received it, regardless of their human condition. It was a sacred commission from the throne room of heaven. Paul accepted and carried out the commission with integrity and commitment to his dying day, not counting his life worth anything unless he obeyed his Master.

Imagine the joy of those who had previously believed that they were excluded from the benefits of the bond that God had created between Himself and His chosen people. The Jews were the privileged ones, and everyone else was regarded as trash – until Paul came to them with the good news that they, too, had equal shares with the Jews in the favour of God. God’s mysterious ways had become clear. He was not mad with the Gentiles, consigning them to hell, as they once believed. It was His plan, all along, to pour out His grace on them through the Jews who were the recipients and custodians of His covenant.

There are many references to God’s plan for the Gentiles in the Old Testament which His people could have understood, had they chosen to believe the prophecies. God did not hate them. Yes, He hated their practices but, through the cross, He also forgave their sin and gave them an opportunity to turn from their wickedness and put their trust in the Son of God.

What Paul had to share with the people of Asia Minor and Europe, regardless of their nationality and religious affiliation, was truly good news. God had given them the opportunity to turn away from the sins that tore their lives apart, to start again with a new life which He created within them, to bring them back from spiritual death to life and to set their feet on a path of obedience to God and His Word.

Through Christ, God had made a new race out of Jew and Gentile, belonging to His kingdom, under His authority and participators in His nature. All God’s promises were theirs as well. They had the hope of eternal life with those of the Jewish people who believed in and received Jesus as their Messiah.

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.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?

 

 

 

Highly Privileged People

Bible Study, , ,

HIGHLY PRIVILEGED PEOPLE

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed them that they were not serving themselves when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things (1 Peter 1:10-12).

In these three long and complicated sentences, what exactly was Peter getting at? We have to look at these thoughts in the context of what he had already written.

His readers were a rejected and abused people. Some of them were Jews who had embraced Jesus as their Messiah and others had come to faith in Christ from worshipping idols and practicing wicked things in the name of their religion. Instead of being recognised as upright citizens, they were despised and rejected by both Jews and Gentiles because they no longer fitted in. They would not acknowledge Caesar as Lord and they refused to take part in idolatrous worship and the practices of their pagan neighbours.

It was natural that they should feel like outcasts. One can sense, from Peter’s encouragement, that they were in danger of forgetting who they really were. It was his intention to show them who they were in God’s eyes regardless of what the people in the world thought of them and how they treated them. He had to put their circumstances into perspective so that they would not lose heart and go back to their old ways.

Far from their suffering being the evidence of God’s neglect, it was proof that they were genuine children of God. Rejected by the world? They were chosen, holy and beloved of God? Suffering for their faith? God was purifying their confidence in Him. They had reason to rejoice because, far from being the off-scourings of the earth, they were a privileged and blessed people.

They were so blessed, in fact, that they experienced what prophets and angels could not! God’s prophets of old were the most privileged of all His people. They were called and anointed with His Spirit to stand between God and His people. They stood in the presence of God to hear His word in order to speak it to His people. They had access to God’s counsel in ways which kings and people and even the priests did not. They not only understood what God was doing in the lives of His people in their current circumstances – they also had insights into future events.

It was from those who lived in intimate fellowship with God that we can draw an accurate picture of the Messiah long before He arrived on the earth. When we compare Jesus with the predictions the prophets made about Him centuries before, we come up with a perfect match. How else can we be sure that the man who claimed to be the Son of God and sent from God was who He said He was?

But there was one thing the prophets could not do – experience what they predicted because it was for a future time. They could only see it from afar. They would experience the benefits of His death because He was ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’ but they would never experience the temporal blessings which are part of the package of salvation.  However much they longed to be a part of what they had written, it was not to be.

Only those to whom Peter was writing and all those who follow in their footsteps of faith are privileged to be participants in the blessings Jesus, the Messiah brought when He came to earth.

Why is it important that believers go through the kind of things of which Peter wrote? Why does God not snatch us out of here the moment we believe? Firstly, of course, He needs witnesses to live and speak of His grace to a broken world. But secondly, and this is the part we don’t like, He takes time to sanctify and purify our hearts from the corruption of the world.

While we are here on earth in the midst of the world’s brokenness and wickedness, we are serving our apprenticeship for the life to come. God is grooming us for our role as co-rulers with Christ on His restored and perfected earth. He is teaching us to reign in life now so that we can reign with Him then. He cannot use untrained and untested rookies for so great a responsibility! How we function now will determine where we function then.

Far from being underdogs, Peter had to ensure that his readers understood who they were, why they were suffering and what their privileges were so that they would persevere, not with gritted teeth but with joyful purpose because, in God they were going somewhere – into the eternal realm of unimaginable blessing.

So are we if we hang in there!

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.

 

A Glorious Expectation

Bible Study, , ,

A GLORIOUS EXPECTATION 

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Romans 8:18-22.

Imagine yourself the parent of a child in a school play. Your little one is in the caste for which they have practised and she has talked about for many months. There is great excitement as the day arrives. Parents and friends have assembled from all over the town to watch the performance. The curtain is about to go up. Everyone waits with baited breath for the first glimpse of the children who are dressed in their finery. The props are in place. The music strikes up and slowly the curtain opens, revealing the splendour of the children!

Now imagine the caste being, not the children in a school play, but all the sons and daughters of God throughout time waiting for the curtain to be raised to display them in their final perfection as mirror images of Jesus, their elder brother. The audience is made up of all creation, including the fallen angels who have made every attempt to frustrate God’s preparation of His children for this big moment.

Creation waits with eager expectation because it knows that, in that moment when God’s children are revealed, it will be released from its captivity to death and decay, and it will join God’s children in putting God’s glory in display forever and ever. There will be no more carnivores, killing and devouring fellow creatures. Those that once ate meat will eat grass. There will be no more decay; no vultures will be hunting for carrion; no death of any kind will happen anywhere.

All that went wrong when Adam sinned will be reversed. God will make everything new. He will prove to rebel principalities once and for all, that He was right and they were wrong. Every son and daughter of God will be perfected in righteousness by his or her choice, freely loving and obeying God as their heavenly Father because He forgave all their sin through the death of His Son.

They believed the truth of what He had said and what He had done, and have become sons of God and co-heirs with Jesus. Finally, against all odds, God will have His family of beloved children, and He will be able to put them on display, perfected forever, for the whole universe to see. In that moment, those who have rebelled against Him and refused to believe His Word, will be banished from Him forever.

All the suffering that we are subjected to as part of this fallen world will be nothing compared with the glory that will be revealed on that day. God’s children face, not only the adversities that are part of an imperfect world, but also the hostility of those who are God’s enemies. Instead of evading suffering by joining the world in its sinful rebellion against God, we who remain loyal to Him and walk in His ways, are guaranteed a place in His forever family, and we have the promise of eternal life.

Look around you. Whatever frustrates you now, the destruction of our environment, the exploitation of our resources, the wanton decimation of our beautiful animals for human greed, will be over and those who participate in the mindless devastation, will be removed – forever.

We have a glorious future ahead. Be a part of it!

Acknowledgement

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