Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Religion Demands Authority From God, But Never Gets It...

...on one of the days while He was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted Him and they spoke, saying to Him, "Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?" (Luke 19:47) 

    On the day described above, religion confronted God, unpleased with His methods. These verses reveal the threat that is perceived when the Gospel is declared in the presence of those who refuse to declare it. I said is perceived and not just was perceived, although both are accurate. Even today, those who have not received God’s Grace through the Gospel often resent those who have. 

     I wonder what the daily Sanhedrin meetings at the Temple were like in the days of Jesus time on earth. He quietly entered the Temple, selecting a place under Solomon’s Colonnade, the roofed “porch” that extended around the perimeter of the Temple mount, and taught. It seems likely that spies were appointed to monitor all Jesus taught, seeking flaws. Looking back we see the absolute folly of trying to find the Author of the Scriptures in conflict with Himself, and imagining themselves more capable of understanding what we now know was His Word, than He. His opponents were used to looking back in Scripture, and agreed that a Messiah would someday come, but were unable to recognize Him when He arrived. 
 
   Then as now, if you don’t believe in a Messiah, the Gospel is nonsense. Then as now, if you have not been transformed by the power of the Gospel, you’ll find your spirit uncomfortably pricked every time you hear it or are near it, and although you may mention it in passing, if you have not experienced Gospel transformation you cannot be a valid Gospel witness.  

   In today’s verses, the Sanhedrin decided to open a debate with Jesus based on the issue of authority. They were men of authority who instead of operating always under God had co-opted His authority as if their own, presenting a sort of – this is our house and we’re in charge here attitude. In their pride of leadership, they mistakenly confronted God in His own house.  

   When God extends His authority to us for some purpose for ministry in His kingdom, we must receive it as servant leaders or we’ll likely end up as religious tyrants. Jesus promised that His sheep know His voice. Over the centuries ministry leaders who have begun to operate as the Temple leadership did are able to deceive their flock for a while, but eventually the flock recognizes the fraudulence of a voice which mimics but isn’t genuinely led by their shepherd, and they depart, seeking an authentic Shepherd. 
 

   We don’t need to spend a lot of time evaluating false spiritual leaders. If they mimic but don’t sincerely imitate the Lord, our ears will discern their spiritual lip-syncing. However, we do need to apply the spiritual disciplines of prayer, discernment, bible study, fellowship, etc, to make certain our message remains authentic, fully authorized by God. We need to seek Him with daily spiritual vigilance, especially if God has placed us as teachers of the Word in any way. It is an unfathomable privilege to be permitted to care for and teach God’s children. Paul told us -- and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.   (1 Timothy 1:5-7)  
  
   Be wary of unauthorized biographies of Christ expressed by false prophets. Are there some easily discernable signs of Christian authenticity? I think so.  Authentic Christians speak easily and without shame of the sin burden the Lord has lifted from them, and you won’t be around them long without hearing the detailed testimony of their salvation. They wear a mantle of love, forgiving easily, and have eyes that seek Kingdom purpose and opportunity. It is impossible to compliment them. They always deflect glory toward God.  

  Christ's authority only accompanies Christian authenticity. Religion can claim God's authority, but it will never possess it. Once, religion even tried to kill God to get His authority. It briefly looked like they may have gotten their way. But on the third day.... 
 
 
Copyright 2013 Mission of the Master Ministries Inc. May be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Power of Wet Ankles....

"When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you…. (Deuteronomy 7:1) 
    Sometimes I balk at the border of the better land to which the Lord has directed me. My hesitance always results from fear. Sometimes because I feel like a spiritual grasshopper and across the border I see scary grasshopper eating giants. Sometimes I feel like an interloper, unworthy of drinking from wells I didn’t dig. I often balk because I allow my timid self awareness to tint and diminish awareness of the Lord's omnipotence.
   Ever had a Moses moment where the "still small voice of God" reminds you – Remember, we were here forty years ago and you balked. You’ve had forty years to think it over. Have you decided to trust Me this time? In the old movie, The Ten Commandments, Moses perches on a rise overlooking the Red Sea and parts the waters. The bible isn’t clear on the minutia of the moment, but I think Moses actually had wet ankles. I see him timidly, maybe even with some fear (soon to be replaced with wonder) walking into water that the Lord said wouldn’t be there. Maybe he even got knee deep before the wind began to blow from the east and the water began to recede.
   Often, God goes before us and when we arrive the enemy we thought would be waiting is simply gone, banished by the Lord. More often the Lord waits for the first few timid splashes to reach His holy ear before He parts the water, or heals the sickness, or provides the money, or saves the seemingly unredeemable. 
   In today’s verse God describes the land we know now as Israel as the land  -- you go to possess. It was a gift waiting for the Israelites unwrapping with steps of even tepid faith.

   I prayed today, and asked the Lord to reveal to me the border of the next thing He is leading me to, at which I am stalled. Even as I formed the question in my mind, I was refreshed with the answer (which I’ve been wandering nearby for a while pondering the uncertainty before me).  When I fear my own ability to succeed, I am justified by experience. When I fear God’s ability to succeed, experience has proven me wrong many times.
   But, Lord, there are city kings and armed enemies in my way…. the LORD your God…… has cast out many nations before you…. Emerson wrote something which has been a helpful reminder to me many times-- Some of your hurts you’ve cured, the fiercest you’ve even survived; But oh, what torments and grief you’ve endured, from evils that never arrived. Is it possible that the Lord my God has already cast out the things before me that I fear? That would leave me in a pretty awkward situation, fearing only the welcoming holy Presence the Lord has provided to greet me.

   Maybe today my mustard seed faith will stop wandering and risk wet ankles.
 
2013 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be reproduced in part or in whole without prior written permission if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednsday.blogspot.com .

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

A Heart on Fire

   Let us all come forward and draw near with true (honest and sincere) hearts in unqualified assurance and absolute conviction engendered by faith (by that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness), having our hearts sprinkled and purified from a guilty (evil) conscience and our bodies cleansed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22 Amp.)
 
 
   There is no doubt that by the time the Lord saved me my heart had become well corrupted. When I was a new Christian, Satan used to attempt to induce spiritual whiplash with his accurate accusations about my thoughts and deeds. He seeded doubt in me by his relentless accusation -- You are a fraudulent Christian! In those early days, I often agreed. I allowed the devil to disrupt the work of the Lord by simply listening to him instead of listening to Jesus. It took a while as a new believer to sort that out. I eventually conquered his lies by responding to him with scripture. I'm convinced that drives him crazy. Satan hates the Word.
   Today's verse cites the power to transform a corrupt heart -- true (honest and sincere) hearts in unqualified assurance and absolute conviction engendered by faith (by that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness. Faith transforms and transcends human corruption of the heart. 
 
   David Guzik comments on the original audience for this verse, Hebrews who had found salvation in Christ, but were being drawn back by their peers to the traditions of their fathers -- The encouragement to draw near wouldn’t be given unless it was necessary. These discouraged Christians had a problem in drawing near. This was their real problem: they lost their intimate relationship with Jesus, and nothing else is going right. They may have thought that they had many, many problems - persecution, difficult relationships, hard times with culture or economy. But the real problem was their relationship with God wasn’t on track. They didn’t draw near to God on the basis of what Jesus had done.
 
   Are you in a tough time? Many people have gone through worse times and have had a better attitude, and more joy, than you do now. What is the difference? They knew how to draw near! Just as importantly, they are reminded that they will never regain that intimacy coming through the institutions of the Old Covenant.
 
   Transformation doesn't come from human desire to change. It comes from intimacy with the Lord Jesus through personal intimacy in prayer and intellectual intimacy through sowing His Word in our minds and hearts. Hearts corrupted by ordinary human life on planet earth can be transformed to hearts on fire for Jesus. There is still a part of me that mourns the loss of innocence, so I ask the Lord daily in prayer to restore that innocence to me. While that will never completely happen, I now know this. I walk out my days with a heart on fire for Jesus, enflamed by simple faith. (His work, not mine)
Thank you Lord.
 
Copyright 2013 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be quoted in whole or in part without prior written permission if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

An Ordinary Angel vs Satan the Serpent of Old

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years;  and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; (Revelation 20:1 NKJV)
 
  I read the bible everyday. I usually read two or three chapters. I have never begun at Genesis 1:1 and read straight through to the end of Revelation. My pattern is sometimes random at my own whim, and sometimes Spirit led. I've read the entire bible several times, and some books many times. Right now, I am again reading Revelation. I'm near the end, chapter 20, where I came across today's verse.
 
   Revelation is John's account of what Jesus revealed to him about the final days of the Age of Grace in which we live, and the return of Christ. Here he witnessed Satan's capture and imprisonment -- Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years... We often view Satan as more powerful than he is. Oh, he has power, but he is by no means in equal opposition to the lord. When it is time for his apprehension, Jesus won't come to get him, or even Michael or Gabriel, God's most powerful angels. Just an unnamed angel from the Lord's host of angels will be sufficient to do the job.
 
 
     ...and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed;  Satan had a moment two thousand years ago where he believed he had successfully entombed the son of God, Jesus. He probably celebrated that as a great victory..... for just three days. When Jesus decides to remove Satan's influence from the earth for a thousand years, it will be done with sparse effort. This will not be his full and final punishment. That will come a millennium later. Perhaps it will be a great heartache for him to see his manipulative influence removed and the earth, and to see it's creatures, man and the Lord in living in harmonic peace.
 
    Satan has read the end of the Book. He knows what is coming for himself, and often tries to attack Christians in a similar way. He wants to bind us with fear or shame or by convincing us that his authority is equal to the Lord. God seeds ministry in our hearts and Satan screams that we will surely fail. He would love to bind us in the smallest Christian image he can so that the influence of Christ in us won't overshadow him. God seeds hope, he seeds fear and we are left to follow fear or faith.
 
   Is there a ministry dream the Lord has placed in your heart that you are afraid to step into? Jesus doesn't send us into ministry, He leads us. Everywhere He asks us to step, He has already tread. Quit listening to the deceiver, and follow Christ. When you do, Satan's voice will fade in the distance.
 
 
 
Copyright 2013  Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com