Too Tired to Find Rest.....

   Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it...... For we who have believed do enter that rest. ........ There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. (excerpted from Hebrews 4:1-10 NKJV) 

 

   Rest? What's that? 

 We Christians today often lead a haggard, anxiety filled existence while quietly reassuring ourselves that we can rely on Christ -- if we can just find time to get around to it.  We conceive that rest is an inactivity only to be engaged when no possible activity can replace it. Even church activity can overwhelm our capacity. Do we really think this is what Jesus meant when He said, Come to me all of you who are weak and heavy burdened and I will give you rest?

   John Owen, bible commentator, cited five attributes of resting in Christ:

1-  Rest means peace with God.

         

      We should find great rest when the Lord lifts our sin burden. Knowing the eternality of our peace with God should be a fountain of daily peace.

2-  Rest means freedom from a servile, bondage-like spirit in the worship and service of God.

       Paul often repeated that he was a bond servant to Christ, but meant an indenture induced by his love for his Savior rather than at the hand of a tyrant God.  

3-   Rest means deliverance from the burden of Mosaic observance.

      This should be a no-brainer for every Christian, but it is not. It is very easy to drift into a mindset of law abiding works, where our service becomes erroneously a pleasing payment that tries to earn the gift that Jesus has already given us.

4-  Rest means the freedom of worship according to the gospel.

      How often have we stood in worship on the brink of exuberance, only to tamp it down out of concern what some other Christian might think of us? Oh, if we would only worship with childlike abandon!

5-   Rest means the rest that God Himself enjoys.

    

      God never experiences anxiety or worry. Ever. As animators of Christ's attributes in and to a hurting world, we need only to receive His rest to animate it visibly in our lives. This takes first a restructuring of our priorities. There will be no peace without sufficient daily prayer and time spent in the Word. While seemingly obvious Christian solutions, these are often supplanted by human busyness. We need to relive ourselves of the mistaken view of Christianity as a state of constant doing, and replace it with a view of our constant awareness of our eternal peace with, in, and from the Lord. 

        We have submitted to His authority. Why do we find it so hard to submit to His rest?

Psalm 116  -- Return to your rest, O my soul,For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

Copyright 2014 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 

Erasing Error Instead of Correcting It.....

And they sought to lay hands on Him, but feared the multitude, for they knew He had spoken the parable against them. So they left Him and went away. (Mark 12:12) 

    What do you do when you find the Word of God pressing against you?  This is an important question, because as the Holy Spirit leads us through the ongoing process of sanctification, many times the Word will instruct us and the Holy Spirit convict us. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness... (1 Tim 3:16) If humility and submission to the authority of the Word reign in your heart, you'll submit, repent, and ask the Holy Spirit to guide a course correction in your life. But humility's nemesis, pride, often has a different plan, suggesting that we simply ignore or erase our error instead of correcting it.

   When Jesus walked the earth in flesh, the rulers of God's Temple in Jerusalem had allowed spiritual elitism to infect their minds. They liked being the ones who had all the answers, and when Jesus arrived with better answers, and the Word (in the flesh) pressed against them, they let pride driven envy infect their thoughts and block a corrective teaching about their leadership. Members of the Sanhedrin felt they had paid their dues through service to attain the positions they held in the Temple hierarchy. Still others, the priests of God, had inherited their jobs by right of birth as descendants of Aaron, and they felt prideful entitlement. Both groups had enjoyed a long season where their authority was never questioned, so instead of looking to the final Arbiter for answers, they had become their own arbiters. They had barked human inspired orders and the multitudes had obeyed them. Now, a Servant Lord had arrived with Truth on His tongue and it infuriated them. The Psalmist wrote --  When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity, You make his beauty melt away like a moth; Surely every man is vapor.... John Wesley expressed their situation like this -- How wonderful is the providence of God, using all things for the good of His children! Generally the multitude is restrained from tearing them in pieces only by the fear of their rulers. And here the rulers themselves are restrained, through fear of the multitude! 

    What do you do when you find the Word of God leaned against you? What do you do when you realize you are wrong, sideways with the Lord, caught in sin? We've all had the experience of abrupt conviction by the simple hearing of God's word. Those moments test our claims of submission. I'd be less than truthful if I didn't admit to you that I have myself applied the Pharisaic solution, and plotted against the word. I've experienced conviction and instead of submitting to it's instruction, searched the scriptures for a loophole that would excuse me.  I've even resorted to reconsidering contradictory doctrinal positions that I thought might excuse me where God had accused me. I've worn a scriptural hearing aid that would allow some thoughts in but protect me from the menacing truth of my sin. I've wasted a lot of time and effort and taken many winding paths only to find myself standing back at the foot of the Word, with my heart fully convicted. Prideful resistance of God was a forty seven year habit for me before He, by Grace through faith, saved me. That's when I first experienced the blessing of Divine correction. Still, well rooted old habits and favored sins like to try to push up new shoots every now and then. 

   The writer of Hebrews reminds us -- Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)  If we I want to yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness, we have to yield to the Vine-dresser's pruning Spirit.

   Where in your life is the word of God leaned against you? Where are you pushing back instead of submitting? Where are you listening to everything or anything on your spiritual iPod except what Holy Spirit and the Word of God are instructing?

    For whom the LORD loves He chastens...

Copyright 2014 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 

Revealing the Cross of Christ

Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,  explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ." (Acts 17:2-3 NKJV)

    I intended to begin writing about 1 Thessalonians today, but realized that to do so I needed to begin in Acts, Chapter 17, where the contentious planting of the church in Thessalonika is fully described. If you Google "missionary" you’ll find more resources, ideas and information than you can possibly sift through in a lifetime. What endless Google results make seem complicated is really very simple. I often describe myself to people as a missionary. They typically ask, Missionary to where? I usually just name the place where I am standing. Missionaries are missionaries wherever they are. Paul had three mission centric resources when he entered the capital city of Macedonia, and these resources remain available to all missionaries today. 

   Verse 1 says -- Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica… In any work we begin for God, it is critical to remain sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. God often pre-softens stony hearts to be receptive to the Gospel as He did for Paul’s work here. Paul’s discernment carried him through many places before he arrived at the specific place where God had a plan in place. It is easy to convince ourselves we can decide what God wants done and where He wants it done without ever asking Him for input, and  thereby miss the blessing He has planned. When we do this we end up with our ministry to which we attach His name. Paul wisely kept walking until the Lord revealed the spot where He wanted to establish a new church.  

   

   Paul reasoned with them from the scriptures. Paul’s scriptures weren’t  our scriptures. He had only what we call the Old Testament. For him it was the Only Testament. Could you sit and reason with someone, could you make reasonable representations that Jesus was the Messiah from the Old Testament alone? Many people we encounter have no idea that the Old Testament is about Jesus. From shadows and types like Boaz in the Book of Ruth who was Ruth’s kinsman redeemer as a type for Christ, our Kinsman redeemer, to the specific details of the birth, life, death and resurrection found in the Psalms and Isaiah, the Old Testament points to Jesus. We are equipped with the Old Testament scriptures Paul had, plus so much more. Have you equipped yourself to reason with others from the scriptures?

   In Philippians 4:16 we read -- For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities. Paul didn’t just go, He was sent - both by God and by the church in Philippi. The success of any missionary is greatly increased with sufficient funding and prayer support from sending believers. Many are called to Christ’s Gospel mission, but more are called to support with prayers and funding. Do you support missionaries with prayers and funding? Ask God to reveal a missionary for you to support and begin sending monthly financial help. Even small support can produce huge Gospel results in the distant reaches of the Earth. If you can’t be a go-er, become a sender.

  If you are following the leading of the Holy Spirit, you have been strategically placed by God in a Gospel opportunity. Paul got busy in Thessalonica -- explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ." Today, to whom are you explaining and demonstrating that Jesus is the Christ? Or, have you abandoned God’s mission for one more of your own design and liking? 

    

Copyright 2014 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 

Hebrew Roots, the iPad Mini, Lance Armstrong, and an "I will" God...

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:26-28  NKJV)

 

Behind the Word – and cause – (Hebrew) – ‘asha (pronounced aw-saw’) – to produce, to make, to accomplish with effect, to ordain, to bring about. 

 

   I went back and read what God told Moses in Exodus as He dictated the ten commandments. God prefaced His commands with – if you… Mankind saw that if you... and said sure, I will. The statement was not a lie repeated with no intention of following through, but rather a hope with no ability to be carried out. Lance Armstrong didn't set out to win with an illegal advantage, but was so obsessed with winning that he was willing to cheat to win. Christians should not judge him. We have all tried to win with God but found ourselves unwilling to carry out our plan without sinning. Our attempts to live within God's rules always fail until we receive God's Spirit who begins to cause us to be sanctified.

 

   God sent these commands knowing the predicament in which I would find myself – willing to obey, wanting to obey yet unable to fully obey. Was this a flawed strategy on the part of a flawless God? Hardly! It was a strategy designed to get the precise effect God intended. Paul wrote to the Galatians -- Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (3:24) God knew He had to first prove beyond all doubt to me that I was incapable of willing myself to live a sinless life.

 

      Christ came and died and I found Him (really He found me) and so found relief from the weight of my sin. Then God sent His Holy Ghost to my heart that had received Him by faith in Jesus, and His language changed. The Old Covenant, The Law, The Commandments came with the – if you language, but through Ezekiel and Jeremiah, my loving Father changed His New Covenant mood and tense saying -

 

I will give you a new heart…

I will put a new Spirit within you…

I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh…

I will give you a heart of flesh…

I will put My Spirit within you…

I will cause you to walk in my statutes…

 

    When I became a Christian, I had a well tuned swearing tongue. I tried everything I could to quit swearing and failed. Abruptly one day the Holy Spirit confronted me. I confessed immediately that I had proven myself incapable to stop swearing. I had tried many times but I had failed. The Lord said to me, You are right. Now release all that effort and receive the power of My Spirit. Immediately and effortlessly, my thirty year career as a high level cursor was over. Unlike the iPad, I didn't receive help from a new improved Holy Spirit Mini. I received help from the original full sized Holy Spirit. He's not new and improved. He can't be improved. He's perfect. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Fully capable of causing sanctification where we have failed to cause it.

 

    The fullness of the New Covenant arrived with sufficient power to accomplish what God intended. The Holy Spirit resides in my inner being. He is continuously coaching, counseling, witnessing, and generously empowering.

 

I will put My Spirit within you…

I will cause you to walk in my statutes…

 

   God does not leave us as unarmed and unprotected warriors in our battle with sin. He will cause us to be sanctified once we are His children. Righteousness is an imputed blood bought gift.

But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.  (1 Corinthians 6:11 NKJV)
   I cannot commit the sanctification of my life, but I can submit to it as I submit each day to the work of the Holy Spirit in my heart.

   The spirit is willing.....

 

 

 

Copyright 2012 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

  

 

The Big Bang Theory, The Yankees vs the Tigers, and How can 3=1?

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! (Deut 6:4 NKJV)

    When I was first exposed to physics in the 1960’s, science ridiculed the idea of an initial point of creation by a Creator. Science now settles solidly on the “Big Bang Theory” which actually aligns itself with the biblical account (but still ridicules it). In an interesting choice of words, physicists had to define the "infinite energy source" they say had to exist to explode into all matter that exists in the universe at the moment of the Big Bang. They call this infinite source a singularity. I agree. I call the Infinite Source of Energy that created everything a singularity named God. Today’s verse reminds me –The Lord our God, the Lord is One.

  Is it possible for 3=1? Not in math, and not in last nights MLB playoff game where the Yankees learned that 2 is greater then 1 as they lost to the Tigers 2-1, but maybe in Hebrew. In Genesis 22:2, God instructed Abram to take his only son to the mountain and sacrifice him. The one son spoken of is described by the Hebrew word yacheed, meaning absolutely the only one (a singularity).  Abram had one son given by God, and the Hebrew is screaming, Isaac is the only son. From the singularity of Abram’s one son God has kept and continues to keep His promises that (the now renamed by God) Abraham would be the father of many nations and his progeny would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Of course his son Isaac was a type for Jesus, Gods (1=1) only son. Oops…. if Jesus(1) is God and the Father(1) is God and Holy Spirit(1)is God too, how can the scripture be true – the Lord is one?

   These verses appear alike in English, but they are not at all alike in Hebrew. Many Christians have struggled trying to understand the mystery of the Trinity. How can we avoid confusion with typical explanations telling us – one God in three persons….. What?....  Who really understands that explanation? Today’s verse, in its original Hebrew, brings perfect clarity. This verse does not say the Lord is yacheed, (an absolute singularity), but says the Lord is echad  In Hebrew this word describes a compound unity, one thing comprised of more than one thing that still results in one thing.  Trinity = a compound Unity - The Lord your God is One (3=1, echad). In Genesis 1:5 we read – God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the (echad) first day, a single day made up of multiple parts.

   The word used as God in today’s verse is Elohim. It always speaks to a singular God, yet it is written in Hebrew in a plural form and all adverbs and verbs which attend it are also plural.  One God, multiple parts.   

  God didn’t leave us searching the Old Testament alone for this explanation. It is clearly declared in 1 Corinthians 8 -- ⁴Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. ⁵For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), ⁶yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.

  The Lord our God (Elohim, plural), the Lord is One (echad - one compound God made of multiple parts –Father, Son and Holy Spirit).


Copywrite 2012 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc.  May be quoted in whole or in part as long as a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com .
 

 

 

Honey Boo Boo, iPhone5, Competing Ideas and the Thoughts of a Galilean Fisherman

    ...His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (most of 2 Peter 1:2-4 NKJV)

    My high school English teacher would have told Peter that this verse was a run-on sentence, and I'll admit it includes a lot of words (108). It also includes multiple ideas. Several of them are very important. Every day I find competing new ideas vying for my attention. Some come attended by massive advertisement or intense buzz. Either of these can delude me into thinking they are important when they really aren't. The yeast of digital noise in all its many forms has often made the the unimportant swell into my view, inflated by nothing more than its own hot air. The words and ideas in this verse come to us by the inspiration of God and although we often have to slog trough a swampland of unimportant secular noise to get to them, its worth the effort. Some days I feel like I've received so much information that I've got ideas growing out of my head. How can I prioritize all of this information?

   (Oh yeah, His thoughts are higher than my thoughts...)

   His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him...  If I already have all things that pertain to life and godliness, what can an IPhone5 gain me?  Or a half an hour watching Honey Boo Boo? Siri is cool, but she can't give me anything that pertains to life. If these aren't included in the all things that pertain to life and godliness, I can be assured I don't need them (no matter how long the line is at the Apple Store). In the past I've been willing to try anything except knowing Him. I've been willing to follow every new trend instead of following Him, I've been willing to worship at every alter except His. In all that willingness I was pursuing an illusion. It all left me empty. I found not one single thing that pertained to life.

 

   ...having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. The Greek word translated here as lust is epithumia. It means desire, longing, wanting the forbidden. If the corruption is found in the world through desiring what is forbidden, what can set me free from those desires? How can I be lifted above my most base nature? Or in Paul's questioning words, -- O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Followed by his answer -- I thank God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord!  Romans 7:24,25 NKJV

   When corrupt ideas try to penetrate my  spiritual defenses how can I sort them out, mark them as useless and delete them from my memoric hard drive? God's mercy is fresh every morning. So also must be my submission to Him. My daily submission will lead to daily reconnection through prayer. My daily prayer will refresh my hunger for His Word. Consumption of His Word will stoke my spirit. Submitted, reconnected, refreshed, and stoked by His Word, I'll be a partaker of the (His) divine nature and I'll have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust for one more day. 

    And if I fail today and am captivated by useless noise into following the corruption that is in the world through lust, tomorrow the sun will rise and so will heaven's fresh mercy. So will forgiveness. So  will Holy Spirit, speaking in my heart, offering again exceedingly great and precious promises....

   Its a new day. Will you follow Siri? Honey Boo Boo? Whose ideas will captivate your attention today?
  

Joy in the Hill Country in Judah



Artist's depiction of the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth

 Now at  this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! "And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? "For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord." (Luke 1:39-45 NKJV)

    For the period of time just prior to these verses, the lives of Elizabeth and Zacharias had been pretty amazing. Zacharias had a conversation with the angel Gabriel. Because he had failed to believe Gabriel, Zacharias spent five months unable to speak. His wife who was had thought to be barren was now pregnant. Her unborn child had an amazing assignment from God, and she had been filled with the Holy Spirit. That's a pretty good run! Most of us might feel very blessed by events like these. Just as Elizabeth and Mary are cousins, often so are blessed and prideful. Its a small step from being humbled by God's blessing to feeling superior by being called by God.



    Elizabeth (Elisheva in Hebrew) displayed no envy at Mary' arrival. Informed by the Holy Spirit Elisheva said in humility, And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? Elizabeth received her secondary role in God's redemptive plan with grace as would her son, John, years later at the Jordan. Could I have done that? I'm not certain it would have been any easy thing.

    I suppose its coincidental that the words ministry and vanity rhyme. The bible says - For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? (1 Cor 4:7 KNJV) Pride is a sledgehammer that demolishes ministry (both corporate ministry and personal ministry). Paul has taught us in 1 Corinthians 12 that the distributed gifts in the church are distinct but of equal value. The same is not necessarily true with ministry. Some ministry is huge and immediately fruitful for the Lord's Kingdom while others struggle to blossom, leaving us to wonder why. Elizabeth didn't waste time wondering. Instead she gave herself over to God's plan. Much time can be wasted struggling to accomplish under the power of self what God would have done effortlessly in the wake of a submitted heart. Pride focuses on human evaluation and recognition while submission focuses only on the Lord's leading and direction.

   Do you walk in an Elisheva Spirit of submission to God's plan for your life? Do you begin each day recognizing in prayer your need for God to accomplish His call on your life, or do you wave Him off each morning with an "I've got this one covered" attitude? In your heart do you believe..... that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her (you) by the Lord." Elizabeth received God’s will for her life as a blessing and His calling on her life as a privilege without comparison to Mary…and more….she rejoiced for her cousin Mary’s superior role as mother of God Incarnate, Jesus.

Today let’s thank God for His call on our lives and recommit to resubmit without regard for what the world (even the Christian world) thinks about it.