Spiritual Cannibalism

 

But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.  (Galatians 5:15)
    

       Some people have the idea that all of nature lives in peace. The opposite is often true. Predators constantly hunt something to devour. Prey animals live a life of nervous alert, always waiting for the pounce of their enemy. For them, tension is a constant companion. Hunting predators rest only briefly when their bellies are full. The prey species seem to never find rest, always on alert so that they will not be consumed. If you live in an environment where you have to always be alert for the biters and the devourers, (even at church) it  may be difficult to live in God's peace. 

 

     In his commentary on Galatians David Guzik wrote -- Bite and devour one another sounds like a pack of wild animals! That's how the church can act when it is using its "liberty" as a platform to promote their own selfishness. If you want to see some fireworks, put two selfish people together. Selfish people will eventually be consumed by one another.

        Momentary peace in the wild (or among us) can be changed in an instant when a predator arrives looking for something to devour. We can quickly be reduced to predator/prey behavior if one among us turns to predation. What could inspire such behavior in the church? Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8) The great predator of humanity, Satan, is continuously hunting. He imagines the ticking of God’s eternal clock and knows his end time is always nearer, so he hunts relentlessly. He is willing to eat one at a time, but prefers to start a feeding frenzy among us. In Daniel’s imagery — In his place a despicable person will arise, on whom the honor of kingship has not been conferred, but he will come in a time of tranquility and seize the kingdom by intrigue. (Daniel 11:21) Satan seizes us by intrigue, attempting to draw our focus from God to humanity where fault can be easily found.

        Since our beginnings we have been troubled by our hunger for what we shouldn’t devour. In the garden God told Adam — but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die. (Genesis 2:17) But our father, Adam, ate and released in us an appetite for sin that enables that same scheming serpent to lead us to spiritual cannibalism. This isn’t a new problem. The Psalmist wrote — Have the workers of wickedness no knowledge, Who eat up My people as though they ate bread And have not called upon God? (Psalm 53:8)

 

 

       Who is on your plate? Who do you want to devour? Who has Satan drawn your focus to in a spirit of division? Who is the target of your spiritual cannibalism? Are you planning a revenge feast? Have you been bitten and decided to bite back, initiating a spiritual feeding frenzy? Successful diets often simply teach us to replace what we shouldn’t eat but  love with something less fattening that keeps us happily chewing. Eating doesn’t cause weight gain, eating the wrong things does. In Ezekiel’s encounter with God we read— So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth. Then He said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them. (Ezekiel 3:24) 

 

Don’t be a spiritual predator or engage in spiritual cannibalism. Instead, feed on forgiveness. Feed on the Word. Eat the scroll, and feed God’s Word to His people.

 

Copywrite 2012 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be quoted or used without prior written consent if a link is provided to www.wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com

The Amalekite Spirit (in me)....

The Amalekite Spirit…(in me) 

      

Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! (Deuteronomy 25:17-19 NKJV)

 

    I live in a culturally diverse area. It would be easy for me to read these verses and dismiss them as not relevant to my life because I am certain that no Amalekites live in my neighborhood. But maybe I can find some if I abandon my literalist tendencies and view these verses through spiritual eyes. First, let’s review Amalekites.

 

    The Amalekites were the descendants of Amalek. He was the grandson of Esau, Jacob’s brother. The Amalekites became a semi nomadic people who had two opposing primary characteristics, they were cruel and they were cowardly. Warfare in the Old Testament was a very cruel thing in our modern eyes, even when the Armies of Israel fought. But the Amalekites were cruel cowards. When Israel was on the Exodus from Egypt, they just trudged along in one huge group. The old, the sick and often children lagged behind. In Exodus 17, the Amalekites revealed their cruel and cowardly nature when they attacked the stragglers like hungry wolves, slaughtering the weak when no one was nearby to help them. God condemned them and pledged to wipe them from existence. Everywhere they appear in the biblical narrative, these same two characteristics, cruelty and cowardace, also appear. It seems they never repented.

 

    The Amalekites first appear in Exodus, then a few times throughout the Old Testament, and they appear again in one of the latter books, Esther. In the Book of Esther, Mordecai, a Jew who understood God’s contempt for the Amalekites, refused to bow to Haman because he was an Amalekite. Haman was faithful to the Amalekite tradition of being a cruel coward, and God was faithful to his pledge and His promise to give the children of Israel victory over the Amalekites. Mordecai trusted God’s power over Haman’s apparent favor with the Persian King, and in the end -- 13 Then Esther said, "If it pleases the king, let it be granted to the Jews who are in Shushan to do again tomorrow according to today's decree, and let Haman's ten sons be hanged on the gallows."14 So the king commanded this to be done; the decree was issued in Shushan, and they hanged Haman's ten sons.  (Esther 9:13,14 NKJV)

 

   In a spiritual sense, I see my flesh as a cruel and cowardly Amalekite, always seeking a weak place to sneak attack my faith walk. God’s Spirit is at war with the rebellious Amalekite spirit of my flesh. God’s Spirit will never relent and encourages me to battle my flesh wherever it creeps up from behind and tries to attack with the straggling ungodly desires of my heart that have not yet been firmly re-rooted in the Spirit of the Living Lord, Jesus. God has pledged to never abandon this battle as I am sanctified by the Spirit. From the day I was saved until the day I go to be with the Lord, the battle of flesh vs spirit will continue.

 

   God could have simply destroyed the Amalekites with fire from heaven, but He chose instead to challenge the Israelites to learn to recognize and destroy them wherever they appeared. God’s Spirit identifies for me the rebellions of my flesh through the witness of the Holy Spirit deep within me and as identified in His Holy Word, and He challenges me to recognize and destroy my cruel and cowardly Amalekite desires.

 

  I guess the Amalekite spirit dwells closer to my home than I first thought.

 

I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. (Romans 6:19).

 

Copyright 2012 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be quoted or excerpted without prior written permission if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com

Stuck Points in Spiritual Quicksand......

     

    Christian relationship begins in a wonderful place - The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me.  (Psalm 116:6 NKJV) Finding the saving Grace of God is thrilling, but that initial exhilaration is unable to sustain a maturing relationship with the Lord. Most Christians experience either plateaus or worse, stuck points. Relationship with the Lord seems to exist in one of two opposing states - advancing or retreating. When we experience a stuck point , the vibrancy of our relationship with Jesus fades into retreat. Many things can cause a stuck point. Today we'll concentrate on three.

Common Christian Stuck Points --                                

• We can get stuck and retreat if we toss the relationship responsibility to God and act as if He is retreating when instead we are.  Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 139:7-10 NKJV) To be released from the spiritual quicksand of blaming God we need to renew our pursuit of Him. Pursue His Word. Pursue His presence in prayer. Pursue his Grace through fellowship with other Christians.Pursue His mercy and forgiveness for our sins, and pursue His love through worshipping Him.
• We can get stuck and withdraw from God when we sense we have lost the path on our spiritual journey. Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because  narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:11-14 NKJV) If we find ourselves on no particular path we can be certain that God has not put us there. To renew God's call on our lives we need to find silent time with God where the noise of the world is diminished so we can hear in the faint shadowy corners of our hearts His gentle directing voice ordering our footsteps. Instead of retreating from God. we need to retreat to a time of spiritual solitude.
• We can get stuck and retreat into flesh feeding rather than spirit feeding. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. (Romans 7:5-6 NKJV) No bawdier voice exists than that of our flesh. It is demanding, self centered, greedy and lustful and will not tolerate peace. When it claws its way forward in our lives, our spirits wilt. It mutes our prayers, drowns out the Word and quenches the Holy Spirit. Only our daily appeal to the presence of the Spirit of God through prayer and washing in the Word can bind our lustful flesh. To break the back of dominant flesh God has left us the habit of fasting. After just a few days of the spiritual discipline of fasting the flesh retreats and the Spirit can again dominate as God intended. I've heard many Christians say that they can't fast. With rare exception most of them mean that they won't.

   None of these methods are easy, but they are all very simple, designed by the Lord to be easily understood and applied to our lives.

   Are you stuck? Is your relationship with Christ diminishing? God wants you released, refreshed, emboldened and empowered. Don't struggle through your days. When you are in spiritual quicksand, the more you struggle, the deeper you sink.

Copywrite 2012 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be quoted or used without prior written consent if a link is provided to www.wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com

Soul Surfer Bethany Hamilton, Arm Eating Sharks, Quinny, and Surfing By Faith Alone

    On a cold day last winter my granddaughter, Quinn (9), watched the inspiring movie Soul Surfer, about the Christian surfer, Bethany Hamilton, from Hawaii who overcame having her arm bitten off by a shark and continued to surf. Quinn was so impressed that she did what children easily do - she simply walked out of the theater and announced that she too was a surfer. She told me and anyone who would listen that she was a surfer. She refused to let the realities that she had no surfboard and had never been surfing interfere with her new identity. Quinn became a surfer by faith alone.

   She then began surfing Ebay looking for a board and found one for about a hundred dollars. She had fifteen dollars so she began confidently surfing family and friends asking for contributions. In a vessel usually empty she asked people to contribute their spare coins to her surfboard fund. As the winter progressed she accumulated and counted and recounted the money until in June there were enough coins to buy the board. When  it arrived she was happy but not at all flummoxed by the troubling fact that she had never ridden a surfboard. Her initial faith prevailed. Quinn was a surfer by faith alone.

   Eventually the day arrived when the self declared surfer, the unridden surfboard, and the ocean met at Chincoteague, Virginia. After a few minutes of instruction by a local surfing instructor, Shane, Quinn caught a wave and popped up on her board. Her family was proud and jubilant (and maybe a little relieved), but she took it all in stride. She'd been a surfer since the middle of last winter when she had first believed .

                               Quinny's First Ride (Sorry for the grainy iPhone photo)

    Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them,  and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:2-3 NKJV)  I pray that the childlike faith Quinn displayed when she became a surfer repeats as she walks out her faith in Christ.

   From the moment we first believed, our simple faith in Christ has been attacked. Spiritual sharks are always hunting.... like a hungry lion looking for something to devour. Jesus said in the explanation to the disciples of the parable of the sower -- But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. (Matthew 13:20,21 NKJV)  I can remember many who began with joy but who have stumbled away from Jesus. I've stumbled off the narrow path too, often when I misplace my childlike faith or attempt to replace it with biblical knowledge. I've let prideful thoughts displace Jesus. Being a Christian isn't nearly as complicated as we are capable of making it.

    I have a friend I meet with when one of us has a problem. We've done this for years. We discuss options, apply scripture, dream up solutions, fantasize about outcomes and eventually (usually about two hours later) we weedle it all down to two words, trust God, and our problem is solved. Neither of us can explain why we don't always begin where we have learned we will eventually end.

    When you and I walk out of the theaters of our imaginations into the realities of our lives maybe we should just recall Quinny, the little girl who became a surfer by faith alone, and declare ourselves children of the Most High, sealed, saved, and secure by faith alone.

    Trust God. Could the Lord have made it any simpler?