Tag Archives: Word of God

TIMELESS WORD OF GOD

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Dear Family
The timelessness of the Word of God continues to motivate and encourage me. I remain aghast at the way in which the Word works in and around my life in spite of the fact that nothing new has been written for nearly two thousand years. Clearly this book we have is inspired and useful for every area of our lives. When we choose to use it, to believe it, and to live it, we experience the “living and active” nature of it!
With so much insecurity going on in our country at the moment, it is easy to become bogged down in the weight of negativity that streams in from every angle. Humanly speaking, we are doomed! The politics and philosophies of this world are failing at every turn as selfish, greedy people continue to feather their own nests at the neglect of the many around them who have placed their faith and trust in them. Outside of the Word of God and the principles contained therein is only helplessness and hopelessness. However, as we gaze into the perfect law of God, we are encouraged and simply infused with hope. God has never failed, God is still on the throne, and God will accomplish His purposes with or without the co-operation of fallen man. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost—nothing has changed!
And so, as we look around and are tempted to slide into discouragement, let’s remember such simple truths as we read, for example, in Psalm 150:1 “Let everything that has breath, praise the LORD.” That’s not everything that is wealthy, or everything that is healthy, or everything that is happy, or everything that is rosy or hunky- dory. That’s simply, everything! Whatever your state or circumstances are, praise the LORD.

The most amazing thing happens when we do: our eyes are lifted off of our troubles onto His faithfulness, enabling Him to begin to work in our lives as He wants. Our Father loves us. He has promised to care for us, irrespective of our circumstances. Start today. Praise the LORD!

Inescapable Grace

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INESCAPABLE GRACE

Let us make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. (Hebrews 4: 11-13)

God is inescapable! Does that terrify you?

God’s word, God’s eyes are all around us; He is nearer to us than our breath! Did your mother frighten you as a little child with these words, ‘God is watching you!’? What a cruel thing to do to a child – treating God as though He were some great big celestial policeman who is waiting to pounce on any little kid who puts a foot wrong!

David was also aware of the inescapable God who knew where he was, what he did, where he went, and even what he was going to think before he thought it, but he was not afraid. On the contrary, it made him feel very safe because he knew that God’s nearness and His scrutiny were to bless and protect, not to judge and destroy.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. (Psa. 139: 9-10)

He welcomed and invited God’s all-seeing eye to search and test him because he wanted to stay on God’s path where he would walk in safety and reach his desired destination.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psa. 139: 23-24)

God’s word is like a mirror. When we look into it, is reveals both what we are really like and what we should be. Mirrors don’t lie. They reflect back exactly what we are. Every time God spoke and His people disobeyed and rebelled, their hearts were exposed. Like a surgeon’s scalpel, His word opened up their innermost being and showed them what was in their hearts.

Take Peter, for example. Jesus warned him that he was heading for a crash. He failed to heed His warning and fell headlong into the pit he had dug for himself by refusing to listen. What was the outcome? Did Jesus discard him as useless and worthless? Was He out to ‘get’ Peter because He knew how cocksure Peter was of himself?

No, His intention was to reveal Peter’s heart to Peter’s head, so that he would be aware of his weakness and rest in Jesus’s strength in him. That’s what the scrutiny of God’s word is all about – not to catch us out so that we can get the punishment we deserve for our foolish independence but to make us aware of the flaws in us so that we can throw ourselves on the mercy and grace of God.

Paul had his own experience of weakness. He called it ‘a thorn in the flesh’. It was so invasive that he pleaded with God to remove it. Every time he encountered hardships and persecution, he reacted. The way people treated him pricked him, exposing what was inside his heart. He begged God to put down His ‘sword’ because he didn’t like what he felt. God said, ‘No, Paul, you need the sword because it is exposing what is in you. I won’t remove the sword but I will give strength to keep going.’

Paul’s experience of God’s s’word’ revealed his weakness and right there, in his weakest spot, God provided strength to endure, but not only just to hang on with white-knuckled stickability – but to rejoice because he knew what grace was and how it worked for him.

If only the Israelites had had the maturity to realise what God was doing. Unlike the gods they insisted on worshipping, He was out to refine and purify their trust in Him so that, when the real fight was on in the land of Canaan where there were giants and walled cities, taking over would be a piece of cake.

What is God’s sword about? Not to cut us open so that the world can see all the foul stuff that is inside us? No! To show us what’s there; unbelief, disobedience, rebellion, suspicion, mistrust, fear, anger, guilt, shame, hatred, bitterness, offences and an endless list of imperfections that obscure our view of God’s love. God is passionate about setting us free from all these things so that we can live in His presence without shame or fear and enjoy Him forever.

Don’t fear the sword. Welcome it because it is a surgical knife which cuts with precision to remove the ‘cancer’ that will destroy your life.

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.

 

Born Again

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BORN AGAIN

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each another, love one another deeply from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1: 22-23).

Being first-born or second-born in Hebrew culture has all sorts of implications. We have already examined the privileges and responsibilities of the firstborn in the family.

Perhaps the most serious of all the implications is that the firstborn son received judgment for the rest of the family’s misdemeanours while the second-born – and all the other siblings were classified as second-born – received mercy. In other words, the first-born had to take responsibility for his siblings’ wrongdoing while they got away with murder.

This has important implications for us when it comes to judgment and mercy for our sin in God’s eyes. In Adam we are all firstborn and, since the firstborn took the rap for the sins of the family (and, in God’s eyes, there are no second-borns in Adam), we are all responsible for our own sin.

What do we need in order to receive mercy? We need to be second-born. But how can we become second-born when we are the first-born in Adam? This is where the genius of God’s wisdom comes in. He did not violate His own word but fulfilled it through His own Son.

Since Jesus is God’s first-born, He took the judgment for our sin and died in our place.  Through faith in Him, we are in Him and therefore, as we all die in Adam, so we died ‘in Christ’.

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death? (Rom. 6: 3).

But, as the same time, Jesus was the ‘second Adam’, created in the likeness of Adam so that in Him we might receive mercy. How do we move from judgment to mercy? As Jesus explained to Nicodemus on the night he visited Him, ‘you must be born again.’ To move from judgment to mercy you must move from first-born in Adam to second-born in Christ. How does this happen? Through believing what Jesus said.

To Nicodemus He said, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh give birth to flesh but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.’ (John 3: 5-6).

A miracle takes place in the spirit when a person who is in Adam takes Jesus at His word, confesses that He is Lord, and believes in heart that God raised Him from the dead. He is moved from firstborn in Adam to second-born in Christ. Instead of judgment which he deserved in Adam, he receives mercy because of Jesus.

For the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! (Romans 5: 15).

Jesus is also the first-born from the dead. Since we are ‘in Him’ in His death, we are also ‘in Him’ in His resurrection and therefore guaranteed resurrection from the dead.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. . . He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy (Col. 1: 15).

But Christ had indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15: 20-22).

It is, therefore, on the grounds of God’s faithfulness to His word that we have hope that we, too, will share in the resurrection of the dead, the perfection of our bodies and the blessing of eternal life.

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.

 

Anchored In Truth

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ANCHORED IN TRUTH

“After proclaiming the Message in Derbe and establishing a strong core of disciples, they retraced their steps to Lystra, then Iconium, then Antioch, putting muscle and sinew into the disciples, urging them to stick with what they had begun to believe and not to quit, making it clear to them that it wouldn’t be easy. ‘Anyone signing up for the kingdom of God has to go through plenty of hard times.'” Acts 14:21-22 (The Message).

How would you tackle the mammoth task of penetrating a completely pagan society with a message that made no sense and was being actively opposed by unruly mobs of fanatically religious Jews who were out to kill you? Call it a day and go home, probably!

What guarantee did Paul and Barnabas have that the converts would not quit the moment their backs were turned? Why should these people stick with believing a story about a Jew who said and did some extraordinary things, was executed as a criminal and then came back to life again? What proof did they have that this was all true?

Unlike religions, which are man-made belief systems, Paul and Barnabas were in partnership with God Himself. When people received the Message, something supernatural happened: their unresponsive spirits were made alive to God; their minds were enlightened by the truth and they were joined to Jesus by the Holy Spirit. God Himself took up residence in their spirits and they were in direct communication with Him.

They may not have had the written Word of God in their hands as we have today, but they had the Living Word in their hearts. Paul and Barnabas had a limitless confidence in the power of God to sustain every believer and keep them following the Master. It was their task to teach, exhort and encourage them to persevere, and those who were truly made new by God’s Spirit stuck with their new faith and passed it on to those around them.

Jesus gave His disciples the assurance that He would build His church. Their commission was to make disciples, not converts, by passing on everything they had learned from Jesus. For Paul and Barnabas to evangelise was only half the task. It was imperative that they thoroughly ground their converts in God’s Word — the Law and the Prophets — to ensure that their faith had a firm foundation in truth, not fantasy.

Paul and Barnabas did their best to imprint that Word into the new disciples and, to their delight, as they retraced their steps from town to town, they found people who were committed to the Faith they had received, regardless of the price they had to pay. They learned that the grace of God is free but it is not cheap. They had received the free gift of eternal life but with it came the refining process of hardship and trouble which would prepare them for lives that bore witness to the power of Jesus at work in them.

Those of us who have a shepherding role to play in the church have an example to follow in these two stalwart missionaries who never gave up, no matter how tough the way, and who faithfully taught the Word of God to the converts until they became disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, committed to Him as their Rabbi to stick with Him, learn from Him and imitate Him so that others, in turn, would also follow.

Our role is not to propagate a religion but to invite people to become followers of Jesus, to be united to Him and to navigate this life with Him as He takes us to the Father.

The Indestructible Word of God

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THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WORD OF GOD

“‘The sky will disintegrate and the earth dissolve before a single letter of God’s Law wears out.
Using the legalities of divorce as a cover for lust is adultery; using the legalities of marriage as a cover for lust is adultery.'” Luke 16:17-18 (The Message).

This seems like an odd combination of ideas, the eternal nature of God’s word and a warning against using legal ways as an excuse for adultery. But there is never anything random about Jesus’ thinking. He always came from the perspective of God and His ways rather than the natural, human way of thinking.

The concept of adultery has far wider implications than simply breaking a marriage relationship. It is a violation of the essence and nature of God Himself and the power that holds the universe together.

According to the Shema – the Hebrew confession of faith – “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV), which an Israelite would recite more than once every day, God is one (echad – in Hebrew), not in uniformity but unity in diversity. Those who deny the Trinity or reject the deity of Jesus or the personality of the Holy Spirit have not grasped the significance of this unity. God is three persons, separate, but in essence and nature, perfectly one.

This oneness is reflected in the universe. Everything in the universe is interactive and interdependent. Everything on earth functions as one; man is a unit – every system in his body functions as one and when one system malfunctions, the whole body is affected.

God created a man and a woman and brought them together in marriage to function as one as a perfect reflection of His being. So, according the Genesis 2:24, marriage is primarily to be a visual aid of the unity of the Godhead. “For this reason (that the woman was fashioned from the body of the man), a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” The purpose of marriage is not primarily for companionship, procreation or legalised sex but to express the unity of God.

Is it any wonder, then, that Satan targets marriage and the family as his most potent expression of hatred against God? Our so-called sexual ‘freedom’ has done more damage to the fabric of society than any other deviation from the ways of God because it has caused the whole of society to unravel.

Adultery is not just the disruption of a marriage partnership. It is a denial of the nature of God and attack on society as a whole and every human being in particular. The consequences of adultery are not only individual, they are universal.

Since God’s word is the manifestation of Himself in another form, it cannot be destroyed. It is as eternal as He is. His word is not broken – those who reject or disregard His word are broken by it and whatever is broken will land up in the trash.

Jesus warns that we must not think that we can get away with lust by disguising it under a legal divorce or even a legal marriage. Using divorce as a way for getting free to marry someone else does not fool God and neither does legal marriage as a cover-up for lust. These are the ways in which the selfishness that breaks ‘echad’ can be expressed. The only legitimate motivation for marriage is the sincere purpose of becoming one as a true, though imperfect, expression of God’s echad-ness.

Here is the Apostle Paul’s take on marriage. “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord…Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy…and to present her to Himself as a radiant church…In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies…’For this reason a man must leave his mother and father and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and His church.” Ephesians 5:22-32 (NIV).