Tag Archives: suffered

Prayer And Obedience

Christian Life, , ,

PRAYER AND OBEDIENCE

This leads to our fourth important attitude towards God as we engage with Him in prayer – obedience. God rates obedience above everything else because obedience encompasses all the other right attitudes we need to have towards Him. Obedience is the ultimate evidence of our holy fear of the Lord. Again Jesus is our model.

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Although He was a son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him. (Heb. 5: 7-9)

I think this is the one we struggle with the most. Why? Is it because we connect obedience with understanding? Before we act in response to God’s instructions, we demand to know why. We will trust God and do what He requires of us if we know that it makes sense and will turn out right in the end.

Abraham was known as the friend of God. He did not respond to God’s command like that. What God asked him to do made no sense to him at all but he obeyed anyway. “Go and burn you son on an altar to me!” How crazy was that, especially when the son he was to sacrifice was the one who was born to an elderly and barren couple after twenty-five years of waiting! “God, do you know what you are asking? Do you know what you are doing?”

Obedience is the mark of one who truly fears God. Abraham obeyed and went without hesitation, willing to obey God to the last drop of Isaac’s blood because he knew what it meant to fear God, a holy fear because he knew God and he trusted Him because he knew that God knew what He was doing and why.

God told Jesus to give Himself over to the religious leaders to torture and crucify. Really? “God, this is your Messiah, your Son. Do you know what you are asking of Him? Do you know what you are doing? This surely has no good in it for Him. What is the point of having Him killed? A dead Son will be of no use to you.” That’s how we humans reason. God is not under any obligation to explain. The reasons may only become clear later on when we have done what He asked us to do.

There is one man in the Bible who was given the honour of the title “A man after my own heart.” Imagine that! In spite of the many theories preachers put forward about the reason for this honour, the Bible gives us God’s take on it.

He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David, son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ (Acts 13: 22b)

Was David a perfect man? Far from it! He messed up on more than one occasion, but at those times when “he enquired of the Lord,” as he so often did when he needed help from God, he did what God told him to do and he prevailed. He became the greatest of all the kings of Israel and the model of a godly king for both the southern and northern kingdoms.

In spite of his failures, David adored God. He longed after Him. He gazed on His beauty in the creation around him and in the tabernacle where he went to worship. God filled David’s horizon; He was his rock; his shelter, his source and his everything. He sang about Him; he worshipped Him; he danced before Him; he celebrated Him; he even complained and mourned over Him when God seemed far away and non-responsive to him, but he never gave up on Him or put Him out of His mind for any longer than a moment.

“A man after my own heart!” That surely fitted David as the one Old Covenant, ordinary, sinful human being who was “stuck” on God, and God loved it! With his limited vision and experience before the cross event, David was just like Jesus. He could not get enough of God.

How much more should we, who have the mercy of God right in our faces, and every opportunity with the Holy Spirit within us, to become like our rabbi, be stuck on God. What greater privilege is there than to do His will and to see Him kingdom come, to deliver people from bondage to sin and to give them brand new lives under His rule?

What if we really feared the Lord because we knew Him and trusted Him? Would we be, like the great men of the Bible, be willing to obey Him promptly and without question because we were sure that He would ask nothing of us that were not for our good or His glory?

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 Power Of The Cross – Made Holy By The Blood

Gospel, , ,

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

MADE HOLY BY THE BLOOD

The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through His own blood. (Heb. 13: 12)

Holiness is a scary subject, even for believers, if we don’t know what it means. We lower the volume when we sing about it in church as though holiness is something mysterious about it and we daren’t say the word too loudly!

The Bible declares that God is holy. What does it actually mean? God is absolutely and utterly disconnected from anything that is less than perfect. He is set apart from sin and set apart to Himself because there is no one greater than He. Habakkuk was well aware of this when he said:

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? (Hab. 1: 11)

God is holy because He always acts towards His creation in righteousness and justice. He is always consistent with who He is. His holiness guarantees that He will always be faithful to who He is and what He has said.

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Himself. (2 Tim. 2: 13)

God’s holiness is our security. Therefore, God’s holiness should make us shout, not whisper!

However, because He created us in His image for fellowship with Himself, He requires that we be holy, that we be set apart from sin for His exclusive possession. But why should we be holy?

Firstly we are because we are to be holy because we are His sons and daughters, and He requires that we be like Him as members of His family.

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. (Heb. 2: 11)

Secondly we are to be holy because there can be no fellowship between light and darkness.

What do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (2 Cor. 6: 14)

But we are sinful, born in sin and spiritually dead. How can we approach a holy God as we are, polluted with sin? Since it was impossible for us to remove our guilt except through the penalty of death, God provided His own solution to remove the barrier of sin and reconcile us to Himself.

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering . . . (Rom. 8 :3)

By dying in our place, Jesus paid the debt for our sin once for all, and brought us back into the family of God as His beloved children, guilt-free so that we are once again set apart from sin to God to live for Him under His authority and for His glory. By dying in our place, Jesus changed our status from sinners to God’s holy and beloved children (Col. 3: 12).

For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Heb. 10: 14)

But that’s only the first step. We also have a part to play in becoming what we already are. Potentially, we are holy. We have been set apart from sin to God through Jesus’ death. But how do we become what we are? It’s a process and a partnership between us and God, through the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil His good purpose. (Phil. 2: 12-13)

The blood of Jesus has “washed” us clean of our sin and guilt if we have responded to God’s word. By faith we received and believed the message, and God responded to our faith by removing us from the dominion of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of His Son, under His authority and rule.

Our responsibility now is not to make ourselves holy by trying to keep rules, but to remove ourselves from the corruption and pollution of the world, and to respond to His discipline by trusting Him in our trials and hardships and by submitting to and obeying Him because He is our Father and His love is perfect.

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined – and everyone undergoes discipline – then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all . . . They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good.in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Heb. 12: 7-8; 10)

Hardships expose our doubts, insecurities and fears, and reveal the level of our trust in God. He wants to bring us into the place where we trust Him and live in His perfect love, without fear and absolutely secure in Him so that we can enjoy uninterrupted fellowship with Him.    

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.

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), 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 ?

 

 

 

                             

 

 

He Suffered Outside

Bible Study, , , ,

HE SUFFERED OUTSIDE

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

What a vivid picture of God’s redemption!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12: 1b-2).

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

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

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

Christ Suffered For You

Bible Study, , , ,

CHRIST SUFFERED FOR YOU

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps. ‘He committed no sin and no deceit was found in His mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:21-23)

Slavery was an accepted part of life in those times. People were enslaved for many different reasons. Some had to sell themselves and their families when they fell on hard times. Others were enslaved through conquest. Many were the offspring of slaves who were sold off by slave owners, often as young children. There is no doubt that slavery brought terrible misery and suffering to a large part of the population. At least 40% of the Roman Empire at that time were slaves.

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. http://www.crystalinks.com/romeslavery.html

Although Peter was particularly addressing the slave community in the church at this point, what he taught has relevance for all God’s people. What he wrote was revolutionary. Not only was he encouraging his readers to submit to cruel treatment without resisting, but he also explained that their suffering was not just circumstantial but a calling from God! How on earth could the kind of suffering they had to endure be a calling? Had Peter somehow lost the plot? No, he was quite serious about what he wrote.

The majority of people in the world are in the grip of their ungodly nature – living for self and making their own rules. In the background is the ‘god of this world’, using his subtle influence to cause as much misery and destruction as he can. Some people even acknowledge him and willingly participate in his plan while others inadvertently carry out his evil design through the worship of false gods and the wicked ways their beliefs spawn.

There is only one way to overcome evil in the world – not by retaliating because this only contributes to more evil. Jesus revealed the answer by the way He conducted Himself throughout the ordeal of His unjust arrest, trials and crucifixion. Before He faced the cross, He came to terms with what lay ahead of Him, in the Garden of Gethsemane.

We know that a part of His mission was to be the sacrificial lamb for the sin of the world.  To be the perfect and unblemished lamb, He had to be sinless which meant far more than not committing the gross deeds we reckon as sin. To be without blemish meant that He had to be in perfect harmony with the Father in every aspect of His life – thoughts, attitudes, and motives, as well as words and actions. Everything He was and did was to reflect the Father’s nature – love and light.

Since it was the Father’s will that He die, He submitted not only to death but to the manner in which He would die, by the agony of the cross and all its implications. Day by day He submitted and obeyed the Father and in Gethsemane, where He fought His greatest inward battle, He overcame all the evil that His enemies could throw at Him by submitting to the Father’s will.

No matter what they did to Him, they could not break His will to obey the Father. He not only became our Saviour but also our example. By submitting to the worst His enemies could do to Him without resistance or retaliation, He absorbed all the evil in Himself and left them guilty and without excuse for what they had done.

‘Now,’ said Peter, ‘you do that as well.’ When we leave the judgment to the Father in the face of cruelty or injustice instead of trying to take it on our own shoulders, we know we will not have to face the music for our own sin. We also know that God will be perfectly just in the end.

Although we do not suffer the indignities of slavery, there are many occasions when we are at the receiving end of unscrupulous people, employers, lawyers, and people in places of authority. When, like Jesus, we entrust ourselves to Him who judges justly, we put them to silence and bring them to shame and force them to be accountable for what they have done.

This is how the kingdom of God functions.

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.