Tag Archives: today

TODAY IS THE DAY

Bible Study, ,

TODAY IS THE DAY

As has just been said, ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.’ Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter His rest if not those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter because of their unbelief. (Heb. 3:15-19)

These are serious words written about people who lived and died long ago, but applicable to us today. Today! We have no other time but today.

God’s people, the children of Israel, must have been excited at the thought that, through Moses, they would finally be free of the hated Egyptians and their cruel whips. With what expectation they gathered on that fateful night when the angel of death passed over the land of Egypt and left at least one dead in every household! The Israelites were untouched by the simple act of smearing blood on the doorposts of their houses. That was a miracle! It had to be because blood in and of itself could do nothing for them.

Then there was the unforgettable moment when the uncrossable Red Sea gave way and became a pathway through which they could walk on dry land. They saw it! They walked across it, and when they were through, the water collapsed back on itself and swallowed up the Egyptian army because it was not under God’s protection as they were.

So many miracles in the wilderness! Every day a vast cloud covered the camp and sheltered them from the searing desert heat. At night the same cloud glowed with warmth and kept them comfortable in the freezing desert cold. Every morning they gathered the mysterious manna which was there six days out of seven. On the seventh day, the ground was just ground, sandy, rocky and barren – no sign of the manna. It was heavenly bread, packed with all the goodness of all their food put together which nourished them and kept their bodies healthy and strong for their journey.

Where would they find water in a desert where is rained only every ten years? God did it again. He split a huge granite rock and so much water gushed out that it eroded the surrounding rocks and filled the plain below it with enough water to satisfy the needs of millions of people and animals for a whole year. How is that for a miracle!

When fiery snakes bit them because of their complaining against God, a brass snake on a pole was all it took to save them from the venom. In fact, God’s promise was a built-in medical service which guaranteed their preservation from sickness as long as they trusted Him.

They needed no shops or clothing boutiques. Their clothes and shoes miraculously lasted for the duration of their journey. How did that happen? God, again! For forty years God was an all-inclusive supply store of everything they needed. All they needed to do was ask and trust Him; but they didn’t.

They constantly revealed their unbelief and suspicion of Him by their complaining and threats. Worse still, they refused to obey Him. If He told them to do this, they did that! How is that for insult! They insulted God time and again by their in-you-face disobedience. It’s no wonder they provoked God to such an extent that even Moses’s intervention could not save them. One by one they died in the desert and their bodies were left to rot there instead of moving boldly and confidently into their inheritance.

For forty years, forty years! they went around in circles, just a few weeks journey from their destination but never reaching it because they would not listen in spite of all the miracles! How is that for wicked unbelief!

However, lest we judge them, what about us? We may not be crossing a real desert somewhere but life is often like a desert – barren and empty. Instead of trusting God and following His instructions, we complain, we murmur, we rebel and we disobey. We are no different from those who perished in the desert. We decide what to do and how to do it and we act like people in the world who don’t have a Father who loves them.

What’s the purpose of having to traverse the barren times in life? It’s about trust! Trust! That means listening, following, obeying, holding on and keeping on because the wilderness will come to an end. There is the abundance of God’s promises for those who are determined to go His way. When do we start? Today!

For those who trust God today, and today, and today, there is a reward, today! Rest! Trust leads to rest, the rest of leaning on the Father for the supply of every need without a murmur and without a qualm. In the desert? Is this really possible? Yes! God is full – full of everything, and He delights to fill those who know they are empty and come to Him to be filled.

All we need to do is to ask, and trust. After all, God is a perfect Father. And it can begin for you today.

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.

DO NOT HARDEN YOU HEARTS

Bible Study, ,

DO NOT HARDEN YOU HEARTS

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the end. Just as it has been said, ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. (Heb. 3: 12-14)

A powerful and relevant message indeed!

The writer may have been speaking to a group of people who lived over 2000 years ago, but his message is just as relevant today as it was then. His readers then may have been tempted to pull back because of the severity of persecution to save their skin, but the temptation to resist or ignore the Holy Spirit is just as strong now as it was then because human nature has not changed. 

When we consider the state of the church today, we must admit that, over the centuries it has surrounded itself with so many protective measures that Jesus’s message and instructions about the kingdom of God are hardly recognisable among the traditions, additions and rituals that have been collected.

Jesus issued one simple command, ‘Follow me.’ In that instruction lies the secret of true discipleship. Jesus was a rabbi, a teacher of torah – God’s teaching and God’s way – whose authority was recognised by both common people, and religious leaders, although they would not admit it. He spoke with the understanding and authority of one who knew God intimately.

It was the role of a rabbi with sh’mikah – authority, to train talmidim – disciples – to replicate him. He would call them with two simple words, ‘Follow me,’ which indicated that he considered them able to learn from and imitate him, and to exceed him in what he did.

Why would Jesus want them to do that? It was His goal for them to teach and bind His yoke – His teaching and lifestyle – onto others so that He could be replicated and perpetuated down the generations. In this way, the good news of the kingdom of God would be published to the whole world.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12: 24)

He would guarantee the success of their mission by the gift of the Holy Spirit who would teach and direct them from within. When the issue of sin was dealt with once and for all through His death on the cross, Jesus was free to reconcile sinners to Himself and then to send them in the power of His Spirit to do what He did and much more because He accompanied them everywhere they went. (Matt. 28: 19, 20)

So, what was the problem here? These Hebrew believers were afraid to obey the Holy Spirit because it cost too much. They would rather go back to a religion that was acceptable in the Roman Empire and dodge the persecution that the followers of a radical rabbi suffered.. 

What is the problem with the church today? The church has surrounded itself with a covering of respectability by creating a religion of do’s and don’ts which obscures the real Jesus and takes away the reproach of the cross.

Instead of the cross being an instrument of death, the symbol of Jesus’s victory over the devil and the reason for our obedience to our Rabbi, it is now an inoffensive decoration around our necks or on our buildings. It means nothing to the world any more. Anyone can wear a cross and no one thinks anything of it. Imagine if we wore gallows or an electric chair on a gold chain around our necks!

Sin does not have to be the big stuff in order to harden us. Every time we refuse to take Jesus seriously, we have a sinful heart of unbelief. ‘Follow me,’ means three things.  ‘Teach what I taught; do what I did and live like I Iived. Add nothing and take away nothing otherwise you are disqualified from being my disciple.’

‘Believe’ can be spelt in four letters, r-i-s-k. Taking risks means being in partnership with the Holy Spirit, hearing His voice and doing what He says. It’s simple but not easy because we constantly hear voices inside – our own thoughts, the subtle voice of the enemy and the voice of the Holy Spirit. How do we know who is speaking? There is no simple formula to know. We must learn by doing and making mistakes.

The enemy is a liar. He speaks the language of lies. He always contradicts the word and ways of God. We can distinguish his voice by comparing what he says with the truth. The Holy Spirit will never contradict His word. His role is always to glorify Jesus. We learn to distinguish His voice from our own thoughts by risking obedience to Him and examining the outcome. We learn obedience by obeying as Jesus did.

The life of taking risks is an adventure. If we are willing to make mistakes and even make fools of ourselves, we will become real disciples who ‘follow’ Jesus into a life of adventure.

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.

Rest From Our Works

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REST FROM OUR WORKS

And again in the passage above He says, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’

Therefore, since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience,

God again set a certain day, calling it “Today”. This He did when a long time later He spoke through David, as the passage already quoted: ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his works, just as God rested. (Heb. 4:6-10)

What is the rest about which this writer was speaking?

If we follow his rather intricate argument, he was using the Promised Land as a picture of the rest into which God invites us when we trust the work Jesus did for us on the cross to fully satisfy God’s justice so that we need not do anything more to be  accepted by Him.

For God’s people in the wilderness it required faith in His promise to go into a land full of giants and walled cities and drive out the inhabitants. God’s intention was for them to take over the entire land with its buildings and its flourishing agriculture so that they would have to do nothing but possess it and settle down in it. If they trusted what He said, it would have been an almost effortless process because He would have gone before them and fought for them just as they experienced when they took the city of Jericho.

However, in spite of all their experiences during their forty-year migration through the wilderness when God supported them and supplied their needs all the way, they refused to obey Him. Twelve spies went in to check out the land. Twelve came back with a glowing report of the land’s bounty, but only two saw the obstacles as challenges which they could easily over come through God’s help. Ten saw them as impossibilities because they refused to view them through God’s promise.

For forty years the people had tested God’s patience by murmuring, complaining and threatening every time they hit a snag. They just didn’t get it! They saw difficulties as the reason to get mad at God and at Moses and to pack their bags and go back to Egypt. God was trying to get them to grow up in their confidence in Him, because a big task lay ahead for them, one that required absolute trust and implicit obedience.

They were not interested in learning to trust God. They wanted their comforts and they wanted them now! They had no idea what lay ahead and how important it was to have confidence in God and to obey His instructions. By doing that, they would have entered into both a land and a lifetime of plenty and blessing. As long as they did what God told them to do, the conquest of the land would have been easy. God would do the fighting and they would gather the spoils.

Just as it didn’t turn out like that for them because they refused to trust God, so the writer warned his readers that they would never gather the spoils of Jesus’s victory over the devil if they refused to trust God. The rest He invited them to share with Him was the rest of entering into a victory already won. They had to do nothing but enjoy it. God required nothing of them but to accept all the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice and live in them.

The time for entering into and enjoying this rest is “today”. That means that every day is “today” as long as the day of God’s grace is still “today”. There will come a “day” when the door of grace will be shut forever, and those who refuse to enter will be shut out. The bridegroom will come and the door to the wedding feast will be closed. “Today” will be gone as time will cease and eternity will be upon us.

‘Don’t miss it,’ he pleaded. Today will not be here forever.

This is not a message specifically for the ‘outsider’ although outsiders are included in the invitation. This is for the people of God – for those who think that they have to add something to what Jesus has already done. We cannot add anything to His completed work. ‘It is finished!’ No good work, no ritual, no keeping of rules, no anything can complete what Jesus has finished.

Only one thing is necessary for us to do – believe it and . . . rest!

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.

 

Today Is The Day

Bible Study, , ,

TODAY IS THE DAY

As has just been said, ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.’

Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter His rest if not those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter because of their unbelief. (Heb. 3:15-19)

These are serious words written about people who lived and died long ago, but applicable to us today. Today! We have no other time but today.

God’s people, the children of Israel, must have been excited at the thought that, through Moses they would finally be free of the hated Egyptians and their cruel whips. With what expectation they gathered on that fateful night when the angel of death passed over the land of Egypt and left at least one dead in every household! They were untouched by the simple act of smearing blood on the doorposts of their houses. That was a miracle! It had to be because blood in and of itself could do nothing for them.

Then there was the unforgettable moment when the uncrossable Red Sea gave way and became a pathway through which they could walk on dry land. They saw it! They walked across it, and when they were through, the water collapsed back on itself and swallowed up the Egyptian army because it was not under God’s protection as they were.

So many miracles in the wilderness! Every day a vast cloud covered the camp and sheltered them from the searing desert heat. At night the same cloud glowed with warmth and kept them comfortable in the freezing cold. Every morning they gathered the mysterious manna which was there six days out of seven. On the seventh day the ground was just ground, sandy, rocky and barren – no sign of the manna. It was heavenly bread, packed with all the goodness of all their food put together which nourished them and kept their bodies healthy and strong for their journey.

Where would they find water in a desert where is rained only every ten years? God did it again. He split a huge granite rock and so much water gushed out that it eroded the surrounding rocks and filled the plain below it with enough water to satisfy the needs of millions of people and animals for a whole year. How is that for a miracle!

When fiery snakes bit them because of their complaining against God, a brass snake on a pole was all it took to save them from the venom. In fact, God’s promise was a built-in medical service which guaranteed their preservation from sickness as long as they trusted Him.

They needed no shops or clothing boutiques. Their clothes and shoes miraculously lasted for the duration of their journey. How did that happen? God, again! For forty years God was an all-inclusive supply store of everything they needed. All they needed to do was ask and trust Him; but they didn’t.

They constantly revealed their unbelief and suspicion of Him by their complaining and threats. Worse still, they refused to obey Him. If He told them to do this, they did that! How is that for insult! They insulted God time and again by their in-you-face disobedience. It’s no wonder they provoked God to such an extent that even Moses’s intervention could not save them. One by one they died in the desert and their bodies were left to rot there instead of moving boldly and confidently into their inheritance.

For forty years, forty years! they went around in circles, just a few weeks journey from their destination but never reaching it because they would not listen in spite of all the miracles! How is that for wicked unbelief!

But lest we judge them, what about us? We may not be crossing a real desert somewhere but life is often like a desert – barren and empty. Instead of trusting God and following His instructions, we complain, we murmur, we rebel and we disobey. We are no different from those who perished in the desert. We decide what to do and how to do it and we act like people in the world who don’t have a Father who loves them.

What’s the purpose of having to traverse the barren times in life? It’s about trust! Trust! That means listening, following, obeying, holding on and keeping on because the wilderness will come to an end. There is the abundance of God’s promises for those who are determined to go His way. When do we start? Today!

For those who trust God today, and today, and today, there is a reward, today! Rest! Trust leads to rest, the rest of leaning on the Father for the supply of every need without a murmur and without a qualm. In the desert? Is this really possible? Yes! God is full – full of everything, and He delights to fill those who know they are empty and come to Him to be filled.

All we need to do is to ask, and trust. After all, God is a perfect Father. And it can begin for you today.

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.

 

Do Not Harden Your Hearts

Bible Study, , ,

DO NOT HARDEN YOU HEARTS

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the end. Just as it has been said, ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. (Heb. 3: 12-14)

The writer may have been speaking to a group of people who lived over 2000 years ago, but his message is just as relevant today as it was then. His readers then may have been tempted to pull back because of the severity of persecution to save their skin, but the temptation to resist or ignore the Holy Spirit is just as strong today.

When we consider the state of the church today, we must admit that, over the centuries it has surrounded itself with so many protective measures that Jesus’s message and instructions about the kingdom of God are hardly recognisable among the traditions, additions and rituals that have been collected.

Jesus issued one simple command, ‘Follow me.’ In that instruction lies the secret of true discipleship. Jesus was a rabbi, a teacher of torah – God’s teaching and God’s way – whose authority was recognised by both common people and religious leaders, although they would not admit it. He spoke with the understanding and authority of one who knew God intimately.

It was the role of a rabbi with sh’mikah – authority, to train talmidim – disciples – to replicate him. He would call them with two simple words, ‘Follow me,’ which indicated that he considered them able to learn from and imitate him, and to exceed him in what he did.

Why would Jesus want them to do that? Because it was His goal for them to teach and bind His yoke – His teaching and lifestyle – onto others so that He could be replicated and perpetuated down the generations. In this way the good news of the kingdom of God would be published to the whole world.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12: 24)

He would guarantee the success of their mission by the gift of the Holy Spirit who would teach and direct them from within. When the issue of sin was dealt with once and for all through His death on the cross, Jesus was free to reconcile sinners to Himself and then to send them in the power of His Spirit to do what He did and much more because He accompanied them everywhere they went. (Matt. 28: 19, 20)

So what was the problem here? They were afraid to obey the Holy Spirit because it cost too much. They would rather go back to a religion that was acceptable in the Roman Empire and dodge the persecution that the followers of a radical rabbi brought.

What is the problem with the church today? The church has surrounded itself with a covering of respectability by creating a religion of do’s and don’ts which obscures the real Jesus and takes away the reproach of the cross.

Instead of the cross being an instrument of death, the symbol of Jesus’s victory over the devil and the reason for our obedience to our Rabbi, it is now an inoffensive decoration around our necks or on our buildings. It means nothing to the world any more. Anyone can wear a cross and no one thinks anything of it. Imagine if we wore gallows or an electric chair on a gold chain around our necks!

Sin does not have to be the big stuff in order to harden us. Every time we refuse to take Jesus seriously, we have a sinful heart of unbelief. ‘Follow me,’ means three things.  ‘Teach what I taught; do what I did and live like I Iived. Add nothing and take away nothing otherwise you are disqualified from being my disciple.’

‘Believe’ can be spelt in four letters, r-i-s-k. Taking risks means being in partnership with the Holy Spirit, hearing His voice and doing what He says. It’s simple but not easy because we constantly hear voices inside – our own thoughts, the subtle voice of the enemy and the voice of the Holy Spirit. How do we know who is speaking? There is no simple formula to know. We must learn by doing and making mistakes.

The enemy is a liar. He speaks the language of lies. He always contradicts the word and ways of God. We can distinguish his voice by comparing what he says with the truth. The Holy Spirit will never contradict His word. His role is always to glorify Jesus. We learn to distinguish His voice from our own thoughts by risking obedience to Him and examining the outcome. We learn obedience by obeying as Jesus did.

The life of taking risks is an adventure. If we are willing to make mistakes and even make fools of ourselves, we will become real disciples who ‘follow’ Jesus into a life of adventure.

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.