Casting Pearls before Swine? Or Not?

Matthew 7:6

⁶ “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

I was reading Mark 5:1-20 the other day, and thinking about it a lot. I mean, it seems like a really straight forward story on the surface, but looking deeper into it and thinking about Matthew 7:6 took me by surprise. Here is a bit of background information on the region of the Gerasenes. It was part of the Decapolis, which were 10 cities that during the Roman Empire were under self rule…kind of like city-states. They were Hellenistic in nature and worship…you know Ancient Greek Gods. The Gerasenes were typically eaters of pigs, and used them a lot in Idol worship. Another thing about the Greek Hellenists is that when Alexander the Great conquered the Holy Land, many of the Jews were forced into pig sacrifice to Idols. So when reading about the Gerasenes and their pigs this thought ran through my mind. Jesus knew how they used the pigs, so when the demons called “Legion” that he called out of the demon possessed man in the tomb, wanted to go into the pigs he allowed it. After all, the pigs were going to be used for an evil thing anyway…

**************************************

Mark 5:1-20 (NIV)

Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man

5 They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.^[a] 2 When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. ³ This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. ⁴ For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. ⁵ Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

⁶ When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. ⁷ He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!” ⁸ For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!”

⁹ Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” ¹⁰ And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

¹¹ A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. ¹² The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” ¹³ He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

¹⁴ Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. ¹⁵ When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ¹⁶ Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. ¹⁷ Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

¹⁸ As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. ¹⁹ Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” ²⁰ So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis^[b] how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

***********

So now another thought about the destruction of the pigs….Jesus was removing an obstacle from these people. An obstacle to their getting to know the one true God. Jesus demonstrated his power by casting the demons out of the man. He performed this miracle for this guy who had been so crazed that he was trying to destroy himself. He was wreaking havoc all over the place, screaming, yelling, cutting himself. Obviously, this demon possessed guy was very scary. Jesus healed him by removing the demons. He was sitting there all dressed and sane.

Were people paying attention to that miracle? No, they weren’t. All they thought about was how scary Jesus was that he was powerful enough to destroy their herd of 2000 pigs. They did not want any part of that at all! So they ask Jesus to leave their area, immediately!

Now, in their defense, they were probably in a considerable state of shock over the whole situation. Here comes this guy, who obliterates their main source of food and also sacrifice for worship. In other words, he showed them that their gods could not protect them at all! They completely ignore the miracle in their concern for themselves!

So, the Gerasene man who was healed from the demon possession wanted to go along with Jesus when he left. Jesus tells him, “No, stay here with your own people, and tell them what God has done for you…witness to them!”

Isn’t this amazing?!!! Jesus did not give up on the Gerasene people, even though they rejected him outright! He left them someone to witness to them. The Gerasenes were not Jews, in the eyes of the Jewish people of Jesus’ time these people were dirty, idol worshipping people, who had actually had a hand in tormenting the Jews and forcing some of them into idol worship. You could probably say that the majority of the people of Israel would have considered them to be the enemy of God.

They would have viewed these Gerasenes as “swine” who you don’t cast pearls to. However, we are told in John 12:47

⁴⁷ “If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

Jesus came to save the world. He did not give up on these people, even though they were not Jews. He came for the whole world, not just the Jews. This entire story is an illustration of that fact to us! Jesus does not give up, and he came for everyone! We do not have the capacity to judge when a person is “beyond redemption or not”…only God knows what is in a person’s heart.

In this story, we are shown that we should never give up on a person! Now, this doesn’t mean we badger them to death either. (Jesus did not stick around and keep beating the Gerasenes over the head….he positioned someone in their midst to minister to them and left.) It just means that we need to be patient, and understand that for everyone, the journey to know who God is, and turn to him is different and individual. Some journey’s take longer than others.

Ultimately, we are shown in Mark 5:20

²⁰ So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis^[b] how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

They Devour Widows’ Houses…

Being Misled about God

Luke 20:45-21:4 New International Version (NIV)

Warning Against the Teachers of the Law

⁴⁵ While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, ⁴⁶ “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. ⁴⁷ They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”

The Widow’s Offering

21 As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ³ “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴ All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

*******************************

Many times we see breaks in the Bible between verses or blocks of verses, such as the above heading “The Widow’s Offering”. We should be wary of these breaks as they can make us tend to ignore the verses before that heading and make us think that they have nothing to do with what follows. The headings in the Bible can be useful to us when it comes to quickly finding verses or areas of scripture that we are looking for, but we should not believe that the verses before or after the heading are separated in content and meaning from each other.

To put this in perspective, when we start in Luke 21, and just read until verse 4 we see and get an idea that the poor widow is being applauded because she “put in everything she had to live on” or “she gave it all to God”….I have heard many sermons on tithing and giving it all to God.

The thing is that God doesn’t need anything that we have! It was all and still is all, his to begin with…after all, he created everything! So, now that we have this thinking out of the way…let us go back to Luke 20:45 and read. It appears that Jesus was talking to his disciples, prior to getting to the temple, about how they “should beware of the teachers of the law” because those teachers are pretty much all working for the applause of man. Long public prayers to show that they are “holy”, lengthy robes to command respect, strolling around and putting on airs in the marketplace. In short they are full of self-importance. Jesus taught us to be humble, and in a “right” relationship with God. To love God and love each other.

Yet, these men, who are teachers of the law of God, do none of those things.

Jesus says that they “devour widows’ houses”, then in Luke 21 we see Jesus has been watching the people in the temple putting in their offerings to God. He sees the wealthy people putting in a bunch of money given from their wealth (as in, they won’t even miss what they are giving because they have so much wealth), and then he sees a poor widow (who will be missing every single coin she has put in because in order to live she is counting every coin…she has so little to begin with)…then following the previous conversation with his disciples about telling them to “beware of the teachers of the law”, Jesus says: Look at that widow…she is putting in everything she has to live on!

So is Jesus happy with the widow? Is he angry with her? No, he is not unhappy with the widow or angry with her….he is horrified, and saddened by the fact that these leaders, and teachers of the law, in their greed, had convinced the poor that to be in a “right” relationship with God they needed to give everything they had to live on. This woman was basically going to starve to death in order to meet the criteria she felt she needed to meet in order to be in good standing with God!

Now, then, this is really down right sad! This woman’s perspective of God is nothing like the God that Jesus was teaching his disciples and the people about! These teachers of the law were misleading people about who God was and what he wanted from them!

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

God loves us, and he provides for us. We are told that he has good plans for us. The woman was giving up the provision that God gave her to live on, in an effort to appease a God whom she thought must be appeased this way! It is not her fault, but this was what she had been taught, and she was doing her best to be in good standing with God based on that teaching.

This kind of thinking still happens today…people are still mislead about what God wants from them! We still have many wrong headed ideas about what is right and how to be in “good” with God. There are still false teachers today, that is why it is so important to read your Bible and to learn to read in context. The context of this set of verses about the widow is given in the previous chapter of Luke. Many times this is the case in scripture, things are taken out of the context and the meaning is changed to suit what the teacher believes, but may not necessarily be what Jesus was actually intending to convey to his disciples or to us.

There is an excellent book about reading the Bible, which I wish to recommend to you. It is called How to Read the Bible for all its Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart. It really is very easy to read, and gives very good information on the different parts of the Bible and some pointers to remember when reading them.

God Chastens those he loves

Read Hebrews 12

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

God Disciplines His Children

⁴ In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵ And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
    and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
⁶ because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”^[a]

⁷ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? ⁸ If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. ⁹ Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! ¹⁰ They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. ¹¹ No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

¹² Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ¹³ “Make level paths for your feet,”^[b] so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Warning and Encouragement

¹⁴ Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵ See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. ¹⁶ See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.¹⁷ Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.

The Mountain of Fear and the Mountain of Joy

¹⁸ You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; ¹⁹ to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, ²⁰ because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.”^[c] 21 The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”^[d]

²² But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, ²³ to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴ to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

²⁵ See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? ²⁶ At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”^[e] 27 The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

²⁸ Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, ²⁹ for our “God is a consuming fire.”^[f]

Footnotes:

1. Hebrews 12:6 Prov. 3:11,12 (see Septuagint)
2. Hebrews 12:13 Prov. 4:26
3. Hebrews 12:20 Exodus 19:12,13
4. Hebrews 12:21 See Deut. 9:19.
5. Hebrews 12:26 Haggai 2:6
6. Hebrews 12:29 Deut. 4:24

New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Recently I had an experience with my prayer life in that I was chastened by God about how I pray.

I have a list of people that I go through each night and pray for prior to falling asleep…though there are some nights that I fall asleep and wake up when my arms fall asleep too from leaning on them with my head!  I figure God knows how tired I am, so I just start over with my prayer and then finish up and go to sleep for real.  Sometimes we are tired and unable to focus or even comprehend all that we have to say to God.

Anyhow, one night I was prayer as usual, and when I got down to a certain person on my list..the Holy Spirit really pushed me to prayer intensely for this person.  I began to seriously pour out my heart about this person and how much I would like to see them drawn toward God and see them become a much more happy person in the way a person who truly knows that he/she is loved by God will be happy….contentment and peace.

The next day, I was doing my daily tasks and the Lord whispered to me, “Do you know that this person doesn’t have anyone in their life to show them the Love of Christ?”  “There is no person who loves them without expecting something in return….without wanting them to turn around and suit their needs, instead of just loving them as they are now.”  I suddenly realized that it was true.  This person whom we all love, but have not been loving toward because of their decisions in life.  I realized that I was guilty of being judgmental and condemning toward that person.

I suddenly realized that there was another guilt that I had…in my prayers I had been praying for that person to be “guide, guard and protected”, but had not been praying with any real expectation beyond preservation of their life.  I had been praying without expectation of any change in their life whatsoever.   This is a terrible thing to realize.

I had been looking down on that person as someone whom God could not do anything to help them.  Unconsciously, my prayers were tainted by my worldly opinion of the person.  So, of course, the prayer would have very little if any power in that person’s life.

I felt quite devastated to realize that, although Jesus gave his Disciples the authority over things in earth and in heaven as far as casting out….I had never actually accepted that authority….the authority of change through prayer.

I mean, in my own life, and whenever someone would ask me to pray about something I did.  I was really comfortable about that…I always through the years…have prayed that God would help me with this or that and then started looking for the help to happen and watching for how God would help me to deal with whatever issue I needed help with.

Unfortunately, in this particular person’s life I had no such expectation, so did not look.  This meant that I was not praying with expectation of an answer.  I was unconsciously saying, “God I don’t expect much because their life is really a mess!”  Even though, I have met many people whose testimony about their lives told me that their life had really been a mess also, but God helped them to do something about it.

Yet, here I was looking at this person with the condemning eyes of the world, instead of the loving eyes of Christ.  There is no where in the Bible which would uphold what I was doing.

Yes, there are people who chose to turn their backs on God, and yes they get condemned for it.  The thing is, we, humans, have no way of telling who these people are.  We do not know what God knows.  We can only see that the person appears to be making unGodly choices with their life, we cannot know for sure, if they will continue to make those kinds of choices, or if something will happen to turn their heart toward God, and make them a huge minister for others around them.

God looks at us with, “where there is life…there is hope, I am a God of the living, not the dead”…attitude.  “I love you, and I know the plans I have for you, to prosper you…” God is a good God always!

Satan looks at us with, “you are too bad to be saved, just rot in your guilt and sin…don’t expect anything else”

Our Pastor, in his sermons over the past 3 weeks, has been being used by God to help bring me to this knowledge of my own sin.

The thing is that the second I realized that I had been praying while looking down on someone, praying without expectation, I felt miserable, and really apologized to God for it, and promised never to pray in that manner again.  The second I made the realization and the apology…I felt this magnificent feeling of power run through my body from toes to head..rising up through me…it felt like a huge release of power from the Holy Spirit in a big giant “atta girl!  I am glad that you realize this!  Now we can accomplish things with your prayers that we have never been able to accomplish before!”

Incidentally, the person lives over 600 miles from me, so at first I was not sure what I could do other than pray to have someone come into their life who can show them the love of Christ…but I realized that I could send them a care package and a card occasionally to give them a small bit of the love of Christ..kind of hoping to chip away at the pain and ice and anger in the person’s heart that they have received from being constantly looked down upon and condemned.  It is not much, but I am hoping that it is a small start.  It should improve my relationship with them also over time.  I wrote to them and confessed my sin to them.  Hopefully, they will as God does, forgive me my faults.

I am now praying with expectation every night, and usually at least some during the day…soon it will be without ceasing.  I have a picture in my head of them living a wonderful life of joy….I am praying with expectation that this picture will become a fact!

Those whom God loves, God chastens….the thing is that the chastening is not the chastening of the world…the love in this chastening was evident immediately and it drove out the guilt.  It was like God telling me, “I am revealing this to you so that you can draw closer to me…not so that you can be brought down by your guilt…it is to refine you into the person I created you to be.  I love you.  Don’t be upset, rejoice in the fact that I love you enough to tell you when you are doing the wrong thing.”

God is specific when he tells you what you are doing wrong, and he is gentle.

Satan is vague and uses guilt continually to remove your joy.

That is how you can tell them apart when you are not sure of what is going on.

Read Proverbs 3:

Proverbs 3 New International Version (NIV)

Wisdom Bestows Well-Being

3 My son, do not forget my teaching,
    but keep my commands in your heart,
² for they will prolong your life many years
    and bring you peace and prosperity.

³ Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
    bind them around your neck,
    write them on the tablet of your heart.
⁴ Then you will win favor and a good name
    in the sight of God and man.

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.^[a]

⁷ Do not be wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord and shun evil.
⁸ This will bring health to your body
    and nourishment to your bones.

⁹ Honor the Lord with your wealth,
    with the firstfruits of all your crops;
¹⁰ then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
    and your vats will brim over with new wine.

¹¹ My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline,
    and do not resent his rebuke,
¹² because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
    as a father the son he delights in.^[b]

¹³ Blessed are those who find wisdom,
    those who gain understanding,
¹⁴ for she is more profitable than silver
    and yields better returns than gold.
¹⁵ She is more precious than rubies;
    nothing you desire can compare with her.
¹⁶ Long life is in her right hand;
    in her left hand are riches and honor.
¹⁷ Her ways are pleasant ways,
    and all her paths are peace.
¹⁸ She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her;
    those who hold her fast will be blessed.

¹⁹ By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations,
    by understanding he set the heavens in place;
²⁰ by his knowledge the watery depths were divided,
    and the clouds let drop the dew.

²¹ My son, do not let wisdom and understanding out of your sight,
    preserve sound judgment and discretion;
²² they will be life for you,
    an ornament to grace your neck.
²³ Then you will go on your way in safety,
    and your foot will not stumble.
²⁴ When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
    when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
²⁵ Have no fear of sudden disaster
    or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked,
²⁶ for the Lord will be at your side
    and will keep your foot from being snared.

²⁷ Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
    when it is in your power to act.
²⁸ Do not say to your neighbor,
    “Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you”—
    when you already have it with you.
²⁹ Do not plot harm against your neighbor,
    who lives trustfully near you.
³⁰ Do not accuse anyone for no reason—
    when they have done you no harm.

³¹ Do not envy the violent
    or choose any of their ways.

³² For the Lord detests the perverse
    but takes the upright into his confidence.
³³ The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked,
    but he blesses the home of the righteous.
³⁴ He mocks proud mockers
    but shows favor to the humble and oppressed.
³⁵ The wise inherit honor,
    but fools get only shame.

Footnotes:

1. Proverbs 3:6 Or will direct your paths
2. Proverbs 3:12 Hebrew; Septuagint loves, / and he chastens everyone he accepts as his child

New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Go and Sin no More…

Genesis 4:7  7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

Read John 8:1-11  The story of the sinful woman.

John 8 ¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

² At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³ The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴ and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷ When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

⁹ At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰ Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

¹¹ “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Read John 5:1-15

The Healing at the Pool

5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. * ⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

¹¹ But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

¹² So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

*verse 4 is in some versions that an angel of the Lord went down occasionally and stirred the waters.

If you look at these two stories in the Bible they both have something in common.  Jesus did not condemn the person, but the sin instead.  He showed love and understanding to the person, even while telling them the truth about their sin.  In both cases these people are apparently in a state of sin.  The woman is an adulterer, and we are not told what the man’s sin is, but it is apparent that he is in a state of sin from Jesus telling him to leave his life of sin before something worse happens to him. 

In both cases, these people are in a very lonely state.  We know this because, other than Jesus, there is no one to stand up for the woman who is about to be stoned…she has no friends.  In the case of the man who was paralyzed we know he also has no one who cares about him, as he tells Jesus that there is no one to help him into the pool to get healed.  In both of these cases, not only did their sin separate them from God, but also separated them from their fellow humans.  

So we can see that both in our heavenly relationship and our earthly relationships sin plays a big part.   That is why God laid out some rules for living in community with each other in the Old Testament.  Now, just because God laid out a rule addressing a situation doesn’t mean he is approving of the situation…sometimes the rules that God has laid down on a subject are there because he knows the situation is going to exist as long as mankind is separated from God.  Thus, God laid out rules about things like slavery, and divorce.  Even though, Jesus clearly tells us that divorce is not something that God wants to happen…God recognizes that such things will happen so he lays out a rule about it. 

Matthew 10:2-12

2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 

3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied. 

4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” 

5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 

6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’

7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 

8 and the two will become one flesh.’So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 

9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 

Now this does not mean that if you are divorced or your spouse is divorced that you are unable to be forgiven…though I have observed that frequently this issue is a big source of pain to Christians who have been divorced or are going through a divorce, or married to someone who has been divorced.  For some reason the issue of divorce is treated as some almost unforgivable sin among Christians.  Now, I can reckon that it is related to the idea that we connect Christ and the Church with the idea of marriage…but this is an analogy…that only works when you are dealing with good marriages.  Yes, in good marriages the two people are generally unified and like minded, but they are still individuals with individual thoughts and feelings and interests also.  If they were not individuals then there would be no need for a marriage…they would simply be like clones existing together.   The thing that Jesus wants us to know about marriage is that we are to treat each other as the most precious person who is like an extension of yourself…a person that you wouldn’t dream of ever hurting…either intentionally or unintentionally…someone to go through life with…a “help-mate”…who each helps the other to live a life which glorifies God.  Divorce is not an unforgivable sin…it simply happens to some people…for whatever reason…the person cannot go back and undo it, so as Christians we need to not hold it over their heads, or make them feel that it is being held over their heads….that is what Satan does…he holds forgiven sins over people’s heads and keeps them worrying and beating themselves up over it.

The same thing goes for slavery…God gave rules to govern it because at the time of Moses it existed every where! God did not approve of slavery…he just knew that it existed and so he laid out rules on the treatment of slaves.  Slaves had no rights at all prior to these rules….they had no hope for redemption…God’s rules were laid down to show that he recognized that the slaves were human beings who were his creations and they were to be treated a certain way with some dignity..and given hope for freedom from slavery.  God did not want or approve of bondage of any kind, just as he did not approve of divorce, theft, murder, sexual promiscuity, lying, or any of the other sins listed in the old testament. It would probably be more accurate to say that God was resigned to the fact that mankind, in general, is selfish and self centered and immature and without rules will govern things according to what most benefits himself…even if it is at the expense of others.  As long as man is separated from God, man needs rules to govern his relationship with others. These rules are a gift and should not be thought of as a punishment or a burden.

So, now, let us go back to how Jesus treated the people in the above two situations…the first thing to take note of again is that Jesus did not beat either one of these people over the head with their sins!  He didn’t ignore the sin either…after all Jesus said that he did not come to condemn the world, but to save it!  Beating someone who is in a state of sin over the head with their sin does not save them!  Jesus knew this very well…he helped them each in the way that they needed help, and then he said, “Go and sin no more!” 

The implication of this statement from Jesus is that we humans are capable of setting aside our sins…we are capable of self control…that God expects us to use self control in dealing with our sins!  God does not accept the excuse that “the devil made me do it!”

Now, this may be an idea that is hard to swallow, but Jesus is not a liar…so we have to accept that we are capable of living lives that are not full of daily continual sin.

Does this mean that we will never sin?  No, it means that once we know that something we are doing is a sin, then we have a responsibility before God to not continue to do that sin.  We all have sin in our lives that we are not even aware of…God is good to reveal our sins little by little as we go through life so that we are not overwhelmed by them all at once.  They are also revealed to us in such a manner and time that we are able to understand how that sin is hurting us, or hurting others around us.

Frequently,  our sin is revealed to us by our gaining more knowledge of the nature of God, and maturing more and more in our relationship with God by following Jesus.

For example:  A person who look at their horoscope in the paper each day, thinks to themselves that it doesn’t hurt anything to look at it and see how the “stars” say their day is going to go.  However, when that person starts getting to know God, they realize that God is clear about this kind of thing in the Bible:  Leviticus 19:31  31 “ ‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.

The person starts to understand from reading up on the subject in the Word that God does not want anyone or anything to stand in between them and Him.  So oops!  Suddenly, the person realizes that by looking to see how the “stars” say their day is going, they have fallen into a state of looking to an idol, looking toward someone or something that is not God.

Think about it, if the person finds that the horoscope is right, and on occasion it will be by the law of averages, and that they are actually written so vaguely that they can be interpreted to be able to impact anyone….suddenly, that person is not making a move without consulting their daily horoscope, or palm reader, or something like that!  That is a form of worship…God says not to worship anyone, but Him. (Commandment #1)

So here is this person who has been living in ignorance of their sin, thinking that it is harmless…who suddenly realizes as they seek after God, that this really is a sin, and it is a serious sin at that!  (Not that all sin is not serious…in God’s eyes sin is sin.)

Now, they have the option to continue in that sin with their new knowledge, or to do as Jesus tells the man and the woman in the stories above…”Go and Sin no more!”  Or another way to say it is, “now that you know what you have been doing wrong, stop doing that!”

Another two points to be made here:  1.) Temptation is not sin! (Jesus was tempted, yet he did not sin!), 2.)  We are not born already filled with sin because our parents were sinful-that idea of “original sin” was not introduced into the church until Augustine introduced it which was well after the time of Jesus and his Disciples!  Jesus and his Disciples believed in the idea of an “age of accountability” (Isaiah 7:14-16  14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.15“He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. 16 “For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.”)

We are not told what this exact age is, and from study, I have concluded that it is different for each person, it is dependent on the moment when a person realizes what is right from wrong…or what is good and what is evil…what is sin and what is not.  We all know that this is not an age set in concrete…even our court systems recognize this…that is why sometimes there are people who commit crimes, yet are found to not be responsible for their actions…we recognize that everyone is not the same in maturity…some folks may have mental disabilities that mean they can never be held responsible for what they do because they cannot understand right from wrong.

We can know that the idea of “original sin” is not a credible idea because if we were all born sinful because our parents were sinful, then Jesus would have been automatically been born filled with sin and he would not have been a good example to us, nor an acceptable sacrifice for us..simply because he was born of a human woman.  We know that Jesus was not guilty of any sin, therefore we have to reject the idea of original sin…we have to reject the idea of being helpless to stop sinning! That idea comes from the evil one’s desire to keep us in bondage to sin…after all if we cannot help our sin then we can simply claim we have no responsibility for ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong here, I am not saying that any person can get salvation for themselves without Jesus Christ…that is not the case…Salvation from sin comes through Jesus Christ and Christ alone…that is the forgiveness for sins…I am talking about the thought that we are helpless to keep from sinning on and on when we know something is a sin.  Jesus clearly tells us that we can stop sinning!

2Corinthians 5:21  ²¹ For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

I will leave you with this thought:  God loves you…you are his precious child.  In response to the love God has for you…turn away from sin….go and sin no more…take salvation seriously…glorify God with the way you live your life. When you become aware of a sin…repent promptly…asking his forgiveness in the name of Christ…and return to your task of living a life which glorifies God.  Don’t let the evil one bind you with a lie about who you are based on what you have done.

Romans 8:38-39 

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 

39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Your Opinion or God’s Standard?

Proverbs 14:12  There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

Read Acts 8:9-25 ⁹ Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, ¹⁰ and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” ¹¹ They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. ¹² But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. ¹³ Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

¹⁴ When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. ¹⁵ When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, ¹⁶ because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷ Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money ¹⁹ and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

²⁰ Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! ²¹ You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. ²² Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. ²³ For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”

²⁴ Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

²⁵ After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.

 

New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

This is the story of Simon the Sorcerer.  He thought that he could buy the gift of God with money.  Peter told him that he needed to get right with God and put aside his bitterness and become free from sin.  Simon was trying to have God by his own standards, and not live by God’s standards.  The thing about having God in your life, is that you cannot chose to accept some of his word, and reject the parts you don’t like.  Even when society wants you to believe that if you chose God’s way, then you are just being mean! 

We must do everything with love towards each other, and nothing in hatred.  However, do not get confused loving someone does not mean that you have to be okay with  everything they do and think that everything they do is good and correct.  That kind of thinking does not lead to a good relationship with anyone.  On the contrary, it will lead to bitterness and resentment toward the other person.  Bitterness and resentment eventually will lead to hatred. That is why God wants us to be forgiving toward others, but again, we do  not have to agree with their every action as being right, in order to love them.  Healthy relationships allow for a difference of opinion.

God allows us to follow our own way, our own opinion, but whenever we do this, we get further from God, instead of closer to him.  That is our choice…God gave us this free choice.  Just as we draw closer to the people we love whenever we are united with them in thoughts; we draw closer to God when we follow his way of doing things.

When dealing with people we have to have an “agree to disagree” ability on some issues.  Sometimes an issue needs to be set aside for a while and more information gathered then revisited.  The thing to remember in dealing with God is that God has all the information already and has already determined the best way for people to be in relationship with him and with each other.  We, here on earth, never have all the information.

People make mistakes and wrong choices through their lack of knowledge of God, or just willfully choosing to sin.  Jesus said, in Matthew 19:19 Honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.  If you love yourself, then you need to be honest with yourself as to what your faults and sins are and confess them to God. 

We do not have to confess all of our faults to others; they may not understand and may be judgmental and condemning of our faults.  People are very frail, emotionally, and we tend to be unreasonably judgmental toward others in their wrong doings…even though we all have wrong doings of our own.  Many times the person being judgmental just doesn’t have the correct understanding of sin, forgiveness and love…another way to look at it is that they may not be spiritually mature yet.  Sin can be kept between ourselves and God and left at the altar of our confession and repentance.

We do not have to unburden and shout our specific sins from the roof tops and tell the world.

Though depending on the sin, some things may need to be addressed to another person who is involved by way of apology to them…that is making amends with them as far as possible.

Proverbs 28:13 He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.

Remember, God’s forgiveness is complete and total…we can freely unburden ourselves to God and walk away from the altar knowing that he loves us and understands us… that he has all of the information about our guilt or innocence in every circumstance.  God is not forgiving us without understanding the totality of our sinfulness.

The thing is that in order to confess our sins we first have to realize in our hearts and minds what they are.  A peculiar thing that I have found as a growing Christian is that my realization as to what my sins are grows as I grow.  Some things that I have been sinful in doing either haven’t bothered me enough to address it, or I have not realized that it was a sin at all.

Psalm 19:12 Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.

That is kind of what the Bible verse means that talks about trying to get a splinter out of someone else’s eye when you have a big old fence post in your own eye. If you cannot clearly see your own sins to deal with them rightly, then how in the world are you going to be able to accurately figure out what someone else’s sin is and how to deal with it.  Another way to see that verse in more common terms would be like the “blind leading the blind”…it just doesn’t work…you both just bump into everything!

Luke 6:41 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

God is wonderful to reveal our sins to us a bit at a time so that we are not overwhelmed with how awful some of our actions are, in God’s eyes.  That is one of the most wonderful things about God’s love and viewing God as a Father to us…he is not in a hurry with us.  God has a lifelong plan for each of us and wants to mold us into the very best person that we can be day after day, year after year…drawing us ever closer to him.

All we have to do is to act in faith and faithfully believe in God and that God knows what is right and wrong.  We have to trust that what God says is right is actually right, and what God says is wrong is actually wrong.  We also have to study God’s word and talk to God so that we can come to understand for ourselves exactly what is right and what is wrong in God’s eyes…and how we can best live out our faith.

We need to stop making other people’s sins our business…and focus on our own. Whether someone drinks, smokes, cusses, dresses scantily, lives with their boyfriend, or girlfriend…those things are not our business to tell them about…unless they are a person who is saying that they are within the body of Christ…then as a fellow Christian who loves them it may be that there comes a gentle way to introduce the subject to them and remind them of God’s way being the way they have decided to follow in their lives and that they are off the mark.

However, not every fellow Christian needs to butt into other Christian’s lives and discuss these things…you have to be in a relationship with that person that is close enough for your words to them to be considered loving and to be accepted.  You cannot just randomly walk up to someone in your church whom you don’t have a relationship with and start telling them what they are doing wrong in God’s eyes.  All you will do is alienate them from both you, your church, and possibly from God…you will be seen as a hateful and judgmental and condemning person…not as the loving person that you intended to be.  If someone is not calling themselves a Christian then you cannot hold them to God’s standard of living.

Romans 12:18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

A person’s sin is always between them and God, not between them and us!  It is possible that God has not yet revealed or convicted that person about their sin being something that needs to be taken care of yet.  So we cannot go around like a sledgehammer banging them over the head with it!

This is a huge problem in Christian circles…we all want to go and fix all the world’s problems by shouting out…”That’s wrong!  That’s a sin!  They shouldn’t be doing that!”  If we take a look at how Jesus handled things we can see that other than him booting the money changers out of the temple…he was always very gentle and kind in dealing with people’s sins.  We as Christians need to remember that!  There are no people in this world who have ever and I do mean ever, been hated, or harassed into loving God.  Hatred and condemnation only gain more hatred and condemnation.  

Proverbs 3:30 Do not contend with a man without cause, If he has done you no harm.

Sometimes when we represent what God says is right in dealing with others we do it in the most wrong way possible…making the person feel that they have committed an unpardonable sin by going on and on about a specific issue will not lead them to repentance and into relationship with God.  It is more likely that they will feel rejected by both man and God.  Haven’t you ever done something and felt that it could not be redeemed so you said, “To heck with it then!”  and just continued in the same path feeling that nothing could be done about it?

Proverbs 10:12 Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs.

Our goal as Christians should be to bring others to genuine repentance and into a closer relationship with God, so that they can then bring others to genuine repentance and into a closer relationship with God…and so on and so forth!  Our goal is to become united in our relationship with each other and with God.

1Peter 4:8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Challenge: Get a jar, or some sort of container and make it a bank that every time you sin by trying to ignore God’s standard you must put a coin in the bank.  When the bank gets full, then you give the money to a Godly cause (not yourself!)…Remember God’s standard is a standard of love!  Sometimes the need for love in a person’s life actually trumps the letter of the law….that is what grace is about…loving someone and showing them love when they or we don’t deserve it at all!

1Corinthians 13:4-7 

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Seven Things God Detests

Proverbs 6: 16-19 There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

Read: Genesis Chapter 39  This is the story of Potiphar’s wicked wife who pretty much did all of these things which God detests.  Although she did not shed Joseph’s blood she did cause him to go to prison, which could have resulted in the shedding of his blood for sure…yet, he was innocent of all the things she had charged him with.  She is not a person of good character.  Despite her actions, and the harm 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.  Joseph being imprisoned…Joseph did not sin.  He did not say, “Well, whatever, everyone in the world is against me, so I might as well be the person that they have decided that I am!”  He did not engage in a self-pity party.  He decided to stick with God and just make the best of his circumstances.  In the end, his attitude of doing his best despite his circumstances turned out very well for him.  God blessed him for his determination to follow the Lord’s will with his character.

Now, although this is not a popular view in the eyes of the world…let’s consider Potiphar’s wife for a moment…she did all of these bad things.  The Bible clearly tells us that God hates these things….so can it be inferred that God hated Potiphar’s wife?  Absolutely not, God has a hatred of the things that she did, but not of the person of Potiphar’s wife.  She was still a person who was a well loved creation of God.

Most of us, as we go through life,  meet at least one or two people who have done the things that God hates.  It may even be ourselves at one time or another who have done these things…though we like to think not.

Yet look at these things one by one:

1.) Haughty eyes….this is someone who thinks too much of themselves, they think they are above others, and that the same tules don’t apply to them as to the “other folk”…that is the sin of PRIDE!  I believe that it can be said that we all at some point in our lives suffer from this sin.  If you have ever judged another person in a condemning way, then you have been prideful. That may seem harsh, but think about it…God did not make you the judge…Jesus Christ is the judge….

^{Matthew 25:31-46}

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all his angels are with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² The people of every nation will be gathered in front of him. He will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right but the goats on his left.

³⁴ “Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, my Father has blessed you! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. ³⁵ I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you took me into your home. ³⁶ I needed clothes, and you gave me something to wear. I was sick, and you took care of me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

³⁷ “Then the people who have God’s approval will reply to him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or see you thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you as a stranger and take you into our homes or see you in need of clothes and give you something to wear? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The king will answer them, ‘I can guarantee this truth: Whatever you did for one of my brothers or sisters, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did for me.’

⁴¹ “Then the king will say to those on his left, ‘Get away from me! God has cursed you! Go into everlasting fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels! ⁴² I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink. ⁴³ I was a stranger, and you didn’t take me into your homes. I needed clothes, and you didn’t give me anything to wear. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t take care of me.’

⁴⁴ “They, too, will ask, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or as a stranger or in need of clothes or sick or in prison and didn’t help you?’

⁴⁵ “He will answer them, ‘I can guarantee this truth: Whatever you failed to do for one of my brothers or sisters, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you failed to do for me.’

⁴⁶ “These people will go away into eternal punishment, but those with God’s approval will go into eternal life.”

GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)Copyright © 1995 by God’s Word to the Nations. Used by permission of Baker Publishing Group

2.) Lying Tongue…well we don’t need an explanation of this do we?  We have all done this….told a lie when the truth would do…sometimes, the lie is as simple as answering, “NOT ME!” when asked if you know who did something. (This particular answer is prevalent in all households with children…in fact, I was once cleaning one of my customer’s houses and one of the children had written it on the wall…I thought, “Oh, so “Not Me” lives here too!”)

3.) hands that shed innocent blood….now it is hoped that we are not guilty of this for sure…though..if it were applied to the blood of an innocent animal instead of a person..it would probably be more than likely that again a vast majority of us would be guilty.  After all, if you drive a vehicle then at some point you are going to probably hit one of those “Kamekaze Squirrels” (or some other animal) that runs out in front of you when they are already across the street…they turn back and go and run under your car’s wheels!

I do not know if God would apply that thought to animals, and I will leave it up to you to decide it.  I, personally, feel mighty upset when I know an animal is killed, though it doesn’t stop me from eating meat.  Scripturally, there is a basis for the idea of the animal’s blood being innocent blood as the sacrificial system of Judaism used animals to represent atoning sacrifice.  Though it was also understood that animal blood did not actually clean away anyone’s sin…it was a representation of the act of how bad sin was to God that blood had to be shed to atone for it. It was also a means to see to the feeding of the priests and their families.  Anyway, I will leave that to each person to decide whether this applies to the blood of animals or only humans.

4.)  A heart that devises wicked schemes…Wow! This is another doozy!  Have you ever decided to do something that you knew was wrong?  Well, here it is…a simple version of the heart that devises wicked schemes.  A wicked scheme is a plot to do something wrong…either to yourself or to someone else….it is a plotting out of a sin before hand.  For instance:  You decide that you want to go into an adult book store after work.  There you have it….you are at work, and you have decided to go and do something later that God would not approve of your doing!  That is a simple example of devising a wicked scheme!  In the world’s eyes there is nothing wrong with that action, but as a Christian you have to look at things from God’s perspective, and he tells us to avoid sexual immorality.  Our culture is full of it….and it is very popular…the television shows are full of all of these issues.

5.)  Feet that are quick to rush into evil… This is talking about a person who hears an idea that is to do something wrong, but jumps right into doing it anyway…not taking time to consider how that wrong will affect themselves or those around them.

It could be as simple as deciding to temporarily “borrow” something that is not yours without asking first even with the intention to return it.

There are many ways to be “quick to rush into evil” but the main thing is that we need to be alert to what God considers to be evil..even things that seem at first to not be evil can become so at times.  Gossip is a prime example of a way to be quick to rush into evil.

Gossip…is a very common weakness…a person or group of people can start discussing someone in what seems and has the intention to be a caring manner and it end up being a gossip festival instead.  Whenever, it goes from how is someone doing? into “he said,” “she said,” or “they said” or “I heard”…then it pays to be alert this may be turning into a gossip festival…instead of a caring conversation….gossip harms people because it is not the truth…it is a bunch of speculation…yet many times people don’t give it a thought and rush right into it instead of stopping and thinking first.

6.)  A False Witness – who pours out lies….Well, when I picture a person who does this…it is a very untrustworthy person.  After all, a person who lies once is hard enough to deal with, but picture how hard it is to deal with a person who lies so easily that the lies just run out of their mouth like water in a river.  This is a person who not only lies, but they lie in order to ruin someone’s character….they are uncaring about other people altogether. The thing is that one lie leads to another in order to cover up the first lie…after a while it is hard to keep up with all the lies that have been told.  At some point, the lie used to protect oneself can end up being a lie that hurts another person.

Have you ever worked for a company and had the managers tell you to  “tell this person or that person…that I am not here right now!”  whenever a person they didn’t wish to take time to speak with would call.  Now, I am sorry, but no matter how you look at it, this is telling someone to lie and that is not right behavior for a Christian at all.  We are not to lead others into sin.  The thing is when you look at this particular lie…it is an easy one to do…many people don’t think about it….it rolls right off the tongue as it seems harmless, doesn’t it?  Funny thing is that this kind of a lie can be altogether avoided and the situation taken care of very kindly by telling the person on the phone, “I’m sorry, that person isn’t available right now.  May I take a message?”  See, there is an absolutely truthful way to handle the same situation that doesn’t require anyone to do something that God hates.  There are always very truthful ways to handle things that people might lie about, and not even make the person feel bad.

I once heard someone suggest that it is hard to tell a friend that their dress is very ugly when they are of the opinion that it is because they don’t wish to hurt their feelings.  The thing is a person either likes an outfit, or they don’t.  You can always say that you are sure it will look good in the right setting, or that you don’t think it is quite their style.  Again, no lie needed, right?  You can be truthful without being as blunt as a rock with people.  The thing is to be considerate of other folks and make sure you protect their character and feelings as much as possible without lying.  That is just a way of loving someone.

Notice, that God mentions lying as two of the seven things that he doesn’t like?!!  That is because God is a God of Truth…so of course he hates lies of any kind!

7.)  A man who stirs up dissension among his brothers…(now this applies to women who stir it up amongst their sisters also)…Dissension is discontent, and disharmony, disunity, and disagreement…God does not like people who sow those seeds amongst others.  This is another situation you see quite often.  There is another way to say this…one bad apple ruins the barrel.  This is to say that you can have a group of people who are really in unity and they are working together with a common goal and a common loving spirit and in comes one person who doesn’t like something or someone.

Let’s use a clear example:  You have a club and they all have a common goal…to enjoy a certain activity together.  Each year you get people in the club who volunteer to be the officers.  One year you get a person who volunteers for one of the offices, and really seems very nice, and helpful and then one day they blow a gasket in the middle of a club activity.  What happened was that they had overloaded themselves, but didn’t gracefully know a way to back out of all they had volunteered to do and it was too much for them.  So after blowing a gasket and quitting in a very public way that person goes home and then sends out email, or gets on the phone and starts calling all the other members to bad mouth everyone else that they were working with in their club….pretty soon…everyone in the club is very upset…especially those who have been unfairly bad mouthed…then a lot of the club members quit…others have hard feelings…it takes years for that club to recover.

The person who blew a gasket was not causing dissension up until they started calling and emailing the other members and bad mouthing others…then they were stirring up dissension.  They were actively, purposefully, working at making others to be discontented within a group.

A person who goes about stirring up dissension is like a poison to a group of people.  It is an active wrecking of the peace which God is wanting us to have with each other.

There are certainly times when we disagree with each other, but there are correct ways to handle that situation.  Going behind a person’s back that you are in disagreement with and talking badly about them is not the correct way to deal with that.

^{Proverbs 16:28}

²⁸ A perverse person stirs up conflict,
    and a gossip separates close friends.

Matthew 5:23-24 (NIV)

²³ “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

The thing about making peace with someone is that you cannot do that behind their back…the only way to make peace with a person is in front of their face and talking to them.

To see how God promises to care for you when you have a right attitude, an attitude and behavior that glorifies him….read Matthew 5:1-16

5 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ² and he began to teach them.

He said:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.¹³ “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Now, if we are to be the light of the world, then we cannot do things that are done in darkness….otherwise, the light goes out!  All these things that God hates…they are things of darkness that are not done on the up and up with a good attitude…they are all done with the attitude of pride and hatred…not with humbleness and love of our fellow man.  Yet at any one time, we have all been guilty of at least some of these actions…haven’t we?!!  God still loves us, even then.  Just as he loved Potiphar’s wife, yet hated her actions.  So what can we do when we are guilty of these things?

Well, the answer is listed for us in the Bible, over and over…”repent and turn back toward God.”

Acts 3:19 ¹⁹ Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,

What’s Your Identity?

John 1:12  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—

What are you basing your identity on?

Note:   Many of the ideas in this entry can be attributed to a sermon I heard preached by my Pastor last Sunday….I take notes, and so from the notes I’ve written this blog entry and added some thoughts, explanations and examples of my own.  Sometimes, I tell him that I am going to use what I heard him preach on in my blog.  I really enjoy Pastor Jerry’s sermons, and learn a lot from him.  I hope you will enjoy this glimpse also.

Read Matthew 23:1-12  

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: ² “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. ³ So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. ⁴ They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

⁵ “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries^[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; ⁶ they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; ⁷ they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

⁸ “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.⁹ And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.¹⁰ Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. ¹¹ The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹² For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Footnotes:

1. Matthew 23:5That is, boxes containing Scripture verses, worn on forehead and arm

New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Jesus is pretty clear that his disciples should not be doing things that glorify themselves.  Funny thing is that he tells them to be careful to do what the Pharisees and the teachers of the law say to do, but not to actually do the same things they themselves do.

We all know folks who do this, and at any time we are all guilty of being “hypocrites” or “actors”.  Sometimes, it is unintentional, we simply get new information or change our minds about something that we felt/believed deeply in the past.  Jesus is not talking about the unintentional hypocrisy that happens in those cases.  For example, We have all used the phrase:  “I would never do……(fill in the blank)” and then we have proceeded to condemn someone else for doing that very thing….a few years go by and maybe we have done the thing we said we would never do.  Perhaps…we would “never stay out after midnight because nothing good comes of that….” then we find that we have a job which requires us to stay out after midnight.  This is a very mild example, but this kind of hypocrisy happens all the time.  The problem comes with the self-righteousness that comes along with those kinds of statements. The unloving and condemning/judgmental attitude that comes with the hypocrisy.

That is the very thing that Jesus was warning his disciples against…the “do what I say,  but not what I do” attitude that the Pharisees and the Scribes were filled with.  They were largely filled with their own righteousness, and filled with the need for gratification and glorification by mankind.  They were not focused on serving God, but they were serving themselves in the pretense of “doing it all for God.”

A very unfunny joke I heard last Sunday goes like this: Hypocrites in the church?  No, our church is not full of hypocrites….it is a long way from being full yet.

Yet this unfunny joke does describe many churches and the view of many people about Christian churches and the people who go to them.

This is a beautiful church I saw while traveling…I really enjoy looking at churches…people put their best into building them to honor God…we should also put our best into building ourselves to honor God.

Another way of saying this is said by Paul the Apostle in  Titus 1:16  

¹⁶ They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.

So Jesus realized that people want to be known as something – he knew that this is a need that people have..so he laid out clear instructions to his disciples about this..because if you are known for something then you can be known for the wrong thing….even something harmless can become harmful if it goes to your head.  The Old Testament is full of people who let their own ego take over and it ended up causing harm to themselves and others.  The thing is that some of those people such as King Saul and King David, were actually people who believed in God and attempted to follow God, but because of their self centered nature they failed to be obedient to God…they made the choice to glorify themselves instead of being true to God.

In God’s eyes we are called to be loving servants to others, instead of lifting ourselves up, we should be lowering ourselves down.

These are reputed to be the “bones of St. Mark”.  I find there is some irony in  that Mark would probably not appreciate the luxurious gold plated place where his bones have been placed…St. Mark’s basilica in Venice, Italy.  Though the place is beautiful to behold for sure.

Even though Jesus was God in the flesh, he emptied himself out and became obedient to the death.

So back to the question at hand…How do you identify yourself?

-by relationship? -by Education? – by position? -by skills? -by bank balance? -by residence?

The truth is that we spend a lot of time trying to figure out who we are in relation to others – “What do they think of me?”  We all do this to some extent.  Everyone gets a vote in who we are – even strangers – we give them smiles and politeness…or scowl at them if we are having a bad day…even the driver in the next lane forms an opinion of who we are to them….”I saw that really rude driver when I was coming home…”

People through out our lives will sometimes give us nicknames…some are very nice and some are really rude.  I remember that an office I worked in had a woman with really gigantic hair…so she (rudely) became known as “the hair lady”…we have almost all of us come across a person or two known as the “snob or the grouch”…then there are more affectionate nicknames such as “shorty, or cuteness, or pet names we call our kids or spouses.”  Nicknames also can come as short versions of your real name:  Vicky (Victoria), Lexis (Alexis or Alexandra).  Sometimes, nicknames can reveal something about us that we don’t wish to have the world know…such as “stinky”  (some unthinking Mom who said that at the wrong moment and the kid was tagged with it for life!)   I know that when we were going to have our first child I had a sequence of names that I really liked and it was a very nice boy’s name…however, my husband was more on the ball than I was…he said, “No we cannot name him that, if it is a boy, because the initials form the word “GAS”…that kid would be teased unmercifully for life!”  I was shocked to hear the initials. (You are laughing now for sure, but this is a true tale!)

Every day we come to this path choice and our choice is determined by our core longings…do we reveal the false self, the small self or the true self?

Core Longings (Dr. Robert B. Shaw) – Belonging, Purpose, Love, Understanding, Significance and Security.

If we don’t have our core longings satisfied, then we can get into trouble by searching for  ways to have these longings be satisfied.  This leads to creating a “false self.”

There is also the “small self” identity which comes from living below your privilege, living without prayer, living with false humility.

We, who are believers, need to understand that in order to continue to become mature in Christ and stay on the mark as Christians…we need to understand that God is the only “legitimate” source for the satisfaction of our core longings.

We should never get our identity from something that can be taken away from us!

Have you ever met someone who spent their lives so wrapped up in their job that they did nothing else…then they retired..or lost the job..that person is usually very lost emotionally.  They just don’t know what to do with themselves…it is like they lost their entire identity when they lost the job.  The same thing can happen if you use your relationship to identify yourself…what happens if your only identity is “Mom” or “Dad” and the kids do what you have raised them to do…grow up and move out and get independent…again…you can become very depressed… it is hard to see this happen to a person from the outside too. It is hard to help them.  It is hard to redefine yourself.

Here are some things to remember:

Ephesians 2:10  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

(This tells us that God has a plan for our lives, the plan was prepared before we were created!)

Ephesians 1:5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will–

(This tells us that part of God’s plan was for us to be adopted into his family through Jesus Christ…that it is his pleasure and his will that we be added to his family of children.)

1Thessalonians 1:4-5  4 Brothers who are beloved by God, we know that He has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit, and with great conviction—just as you know we lived among you for your sake.

(This tells us that God loves us and chose us, and he chose people to share the gospel with us, and that the Holy Spirit acts in accordance with the gospel to draw us to God.)

Philippians 4:19-20  19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.  20 To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (NIV)

 

So again…I ask…who are you?  Where do you get your identity from?

I am hoping that your answer will be that you are a “child of God”…that is the best and most valid identity any of us can have…and it cannot be taken away from us by anyone or anything…not even by death!

 

 

 

Holy One

This is at Yellow Stone National Park…who, but God could create something so beautiful and full of such color?!!

 

1Samuel 2:2  There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. (NIV)

Read Psalm 99 and Psalm 111 Both of these Psalms talk about the nature of God.

Read Isaiah 6  This chapter is where Isaiah is commissioned by the Lord to serve Him.   The Seraphs recognized God’s Holiness, loudly.  It was noticeably praiseworthy.

Can you just imagine being Isaiah and finding yourself in this situation?  Here he is suddenly confronted with the holiness of God, he looks and sees the Seraphs who are regularly in God’s presence are not daring to look directly at God or stand on the ground in His presence.  Isaiah expresses to us the idea, “I am certainly going to die!”  After all, no one can look upon the Lord and live!  Nothing can survive God’s presence if it is unclean! 

The marvelous thing about God is that He can make things clean….God is the only one who can clean things up that others would think are beyond saving!

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is an important prayer that the Jews say regularly:

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.

Note:  There is only one Holy One, and that is God. 

Psalm 89:5-7   Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

⁵ Lord, the heavens praise Your wonders—
Your faithfulness also—
in the assembly of the holy ones.
⁶ For who in the skies can compare with the Lord?
Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord?
⁷ God is greatly feared in the council of the holy ones,
more awe-inspiring than all who surround Him.

Psalm 89:5-7 mentions the “holy ones”, which means those surrounding God in heaven….this would be, most likely, God’s other creation…the angels, seraphs, and cherubim.

Being Holy according to Unger’s Bible Dictionary is to be set apart, or separate from something.  Truthfully, this definition falls far short of describing the Holiness of God.  We in our humanity have no way to describe God’s Holiness.  We are too self centered and judgmental.  The only valid guidelines we have for what God’s Holiness is like are God’s guidelines.  Since he is the Holy One and we are not, then shouldn’t we use his guidelines to establish what living a Holy life is to be like?  

Job 4:17-21  “Can a person be more righteous than God,
or a man more pure than his Maker?” If God puts no trust in His servants
and He charges His angels with foolishness,
¹⁹ how much more those who dwell in clay houses,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like a moth!
²⁰ They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk;
they perish forever while no one notices.
²¹ Are their tent cords not pulled up?
They die without wisdom.

Eliphaz the Temanite in Job 4 has a very tough picture in his mind of who God is, doesn’t he?  Yet, we know that God charged Eliphaz, and Job’s other friends with misrepresenting God to Job!  However, Eliphaz’ attitude is very similar to our attitude toward God.  We frequently charge God with characteristics that he does not have.  We blame God whenever things go wrong in our lives.  We blame God whenever things we have done, or others have done cause pain and suffering.  If we cannot understand what is going on, then we blame God for not stepping in and “fixing it!”  because he has the power to do so!  The truth is that just because someone has the power to do something doesn’t mean that it is the right thing to do!

God is the Holy One, he is the only one who actually knows everything that is going on…the full picture!  Only God knows when it is the appropriate time for him to step in and “fix things!”  We don’t!  We are not qualified to make that decision, as we are not the ones with all of the information.

God does not have the ability to sin…it is not in his nature.  Sin is not Holy!  Nothing that is unholy can be a part of God.  That is why Satan who was the most beautiful and glorious angel in heaven was cast down along with 1/3 of the population of angels who threw in with him and sinned!  God gave us free will and free choice, and he did the same for the angels in heaven.  Truthfully, there can be no such thing as love without choice.  Love that is forced is not love, but coercion.  God wants us to love him and choose him freely and genuinely.  That is the most Holy thing we can do.

It is true that God knows what choices we will make, but we don’t know what choices we will make. He didn’t give us free choice for his own benefit, but so that we may grow closer to him by our voluntary obedience to him.

In the Bible sometimes, men are called Holy men.  This means they have dedicated their lives to serving God, and living faithfully to follow God’s direction for their lives.  Even doing that we fall short of the Holiness of God. However, God loves us, anyway!  He loves when we choose Him.

Only Jesus lived up to God’s standard of Holiness, being God in the flesh.  That is what made him a perfect innocent sacrifice for mankind.  Jesus told us that the two most important commandments are to Love God above everything and everyone and to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves….our neighbor being our fellow man.  Jesus gave us these as the two most Holy things that we humans can do.  He said if we can keep these two commandments we won’t have to worry about any of the other ones.  That is because the other ones will take automatically fall into place in our lives if we follow these two.

 In Mark 1:21-24, during Jesus’ casting out of a demon from a man, the demon recognized Jesus’ Holiness and Authority as being that of God and in John 6:69  The disciples recognized Jesus’ as the Holy One of God.

Challenge: Make a personal scrap book, or journal of your journey towards being closer to God.  You may use, poetry, stories, magazine pictures or articles, bible verses, anything that  expresses your journey to know God.  We should pursue God’s holiness in our lives.

Bible Verses:

Isaiah Chapter 6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and His robe^[a] filled the temple. ² Seraphim^[b] were standing above Him; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.³ And one called to another:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts;
His glory fills the whole earth.

⁴ The foundations of the doorways shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵ Then I said:

Woe is me for I am ruined^[c]
because I am a man of unclean lips
and live among a people of unclean lips,
and because my eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of Hosts.

⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. ⁷ He touched my mouth with it and said:

Now that this has touched your lips,
your wickedness is removed
and your sin is atoned for.

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying:

Who should I send?
Who will go for Us?

I said:

Here I am. Send me.

⁹ And He replied:

Go! Say to these people:
Keep listening, but do not understand;
keep looking, but do not perceive.
¹⁰ Dull the minds^[d] of these people;
deafen their ears and blind their eyes;
otherwise they might see with their eyes
and hear with their ears,
understand with their minds,
turn back, and be healed.

¹¹ Then I said, “Until when, Lord?” And He replied:

Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants,
houses are without people,
the land is ruined and desolate,
¹² and the Lord drives the people far away,
leaving great emptiness in the land.
¹³ Though a tenth will remain in the land,
it will be burned again.
Like the terebinth or the oak
that leaves a stump when felled,
the holy seed is the stump.

Footnotes:

1. Isaiah 6:1 Lit seam
2. Isaiah 6:2 = heavenly beings
3. Isaiah 6:5 Or I must be silent
4. Isaiah 6:10 Lit heart

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.

Psalm 99

The King Is Holy (HCSB)

¹ The Lord reigns! Let the peoples tremble.
He is enthroned above the cherubim.
Let the earth quake.
² Yahweh is great in Zion;
He is exalted above all the peoples.
³ Let them praise Your great
and awe-inspiring name.
He is holy.

⁴ The mighty King loves justice.
You have established fairness;
You have administered justice
and righteousness in Jacob.
⁵ Exalt the Lord our God;
bow in worship at His footstool.
He is holy.

⁶ Moses and Aaron were among His priests;
Samuel also was among those calling on His name.
They called to Yahweh and He answered them.
⁷ He spoke to them in a pillar of cloud;
they kept His decrees and the statutes He gave them.
⁸ Lord our God, You answered them.
You were a forgiving God to them,
an avenger of their sinful actions.

⁹ Exalt the Lord our God;
bow in worship at His holy mountain,
for the Lord our God is holy.

Psalm 111 King James Version (KJV)

111 Praise ye the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation.

² The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.

³ His work is honourable and glorious: and his righteousness endureth for ever.

⁴ He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: the Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

⁵ He hath given meat unto them that fear him: he will ever be mindful of his covenant.

⁶ He hath shewed his people the power of his works, that he may give them the heritage of the heathen.

⁷ The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments are sure.

⁸ They stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.

⁹ He sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name.

¹⁰ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

Great is your Reward

1Corinthians 2:9  However, as it is written: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived — the things God has prepared for those who love him.

I find it to be interesting that the focus of many sermons is the rewards of following God…how we will be rewarded for our behavior or our faith when we get to heaven.  As if anyone who genuinely choses to follow Jesus Christ is doing so for the “rewards” that they might get!  Jesus called his Disciples his friends….now I don’t know about you, but I don’t approach my friends with any thought of what “reward” I can get from them.  The friendship is reward enough.

There are many many verses in the Bible that speak of God giving rewards to people, and we have many many pastors out there preaching about rewards.  This verse in 1Cor. 2:9 tells us that we cannot fathom all that God has prepared for us who love him.

That means that when we think of rewards we can probably cross off things of an earthly nature, from our thinking.  Not that God doesn’t care about those things that you need and desire in your life..he does.  However, face the facts…not every devoted Christian becomes endowed with worldly wealth.  My personal thinking is that if you need it to accomplish the purpose God has for your life, then he will provide it.  The main thing is to understand that having wealth is not a sin, but misusing it, or not recognizing that it is a gift (Even if you work for it, the abilities that allow you to attain it come from God… they are a gift…there are many people who work for it and yet never have it.)

So, lets look at this reward idea from another perspective instead of the material goods perspective.

What is the reward of being a Christian?  I know one of the first things we all think of is that we have been purified and salvation is ours.  While that is true, I don’t think of this as a reward.  Generally, we refer to that as a “gift” that Jesus gave us.  A reward implies something that we worked to earn in some way.  We all know that we cannot “earn” salvation, though there are many people that still try.

Proverbs 3:3-4  Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then you will win favor and a good name
in the sight of God and man.

So looking at Proverbs 3:3-4 we can see that one of the rewards of following God is that you win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.

Another way to put this is that you are viewed as a Godly, righteous person, both in the sight of God and in the sight of the people around you.  By living in love and faithfulness you become what Jesus told his Disciples to be….followers of Jesus…Fishers of Men…representing the loving nature of God to those around you…living witnesses to the message of the Kingdom of God.

Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Luke 6:38 is many times taken out of context, but the good measure spoken of here is connected to verse 37 which speaks about being judgmental and condemning of others.  We can just as well paraphrase this verse to say…”Give forgiveness, and love generously to others.”

Those who cook can understand the idea of a “good measure”…it means not to be skimpy in your measurement of an ingredient because it effects the outcome of the thing you are cooking.  So being generous in our measure of forgiveness to others and in our loving of others will effect how they respond to us as people…it effects how they respond to your claim of Christianity also.  God is telling us that we should be quick to forgive and generous in doing so.  Looking at this from a reward perspective…the reward for this is that God will judge your misdeeds with the same measure that you judge others.  If you judge others harshly then you can expect the same from God.  So the benefit of being loving and forgiving toward others is that God is the same to you, and also your earthly benefit is that you will have many more friends and loved ones, and when you tell someone that you are a Christian then they will be apt to believe you and perhaps wish to find out more about your Christianity.

Face it! There is no one who has ever been hated into loving God!

Jesus is the only one qualified to say where a person is going to end up.  He is the only judge.  The pressure is off! You and I are not required to fix the world by standing in judgement on others!  I think, what a relief!  What a reward!  God’s requirement for us is to love the person and show them who God is in our lives by the way we live and love others, and love God.

Please don’t confuse being the type of judgment spoken of here, (which is being condemning) and using good judgement in dealing with others.  

Another reward we have from following God is to be at peace with God, and to have God’s peace in our lives.  Gaining this peace comes from turning our lives over to God and submitting to him.  Part of that submission which leads to earthly peace is to learn to have a habit of forgiving others.  Forgiveness is like that…the more you do it…the easier it becomes…it is habit forming!  The more you forgive the more peace you have in your heart.

God tells us to forgive, not for the person who has done wrong’s benefit, but for our own benefit.  A horrible thing happens to us when we do not forgive….we have anger that moves through us at the thought of that person…until we are consumed with bitterness.  This is unhealthy and usually doesn’t make the other person feel bad at all.  We are not to wait for the person to ask us for forgiveness….we need to be working on it as soon as we have been wronged so that if they ever do ask, then we can be the person who can smile peacefully and sincerely tell that person that we already forgave them for that a while back!  I can tell you that this is a wonderful feeling to have because you don’t need to worry about your expression or anything…it is a feeling of freedom to be able to forgive people readily.  That is quite a reward….it leads to a peace that surpasses any worldly understanding.  A peace of heart.

Hebrews 11:6  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

I really have no idea what reward God may have for his believers in heaven, but I can tell you that for myself, I have found that living in relationship with God on a daily basis is reward enough.  It is a great reward to go through life and enjoy the pleasure of God’s company through good times and bad..to know that you are truly never alone…and also to be able to celebrate the salvation of another person as they learn and get excited to follow God..to watch their life of faith begin and continue…to be part of a larger family…as Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:48   ⁴⁸ He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” ⁴⁹ Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. ⁵⁰ For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

The reward that God gives us in this life is relationship…with him and with others around us.  There are many small gifts along the way  that God may give you (he is good to do that), but relationship is to my way of thinking the primary “reward” for following God.  In short, God’s idea of a reward does not correspond to the earthly ideas of position in society, lording it over others, or monetary rewards…his idea of a reward is relationship with him and with those around you…more love in your life!

I think the reward that most of us who are Christians want from God is said very well in Matthew 25:21

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

 

 

Yahweh, Jehovah, I AM

Commandment #3 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Exodus 3:13-15: Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name? Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.”  God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, “The Lord, the God of your fathers- The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.” This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.”

John 8:58 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born I AM.”

Notes:  In Unger’s Bible dictionary it says that the word Jehovah is a misspelling of the word Yahweh which in Hebrew means “He causes to be or He exists, or He creates.”  This explains why God uses the term I AM to describe himself.  I AM is a short way to say that he exists and has always existed, that God is not a created being.  He is the Creator of Everything.  The tradition of the Hebrews was to not say God’s name out loud in conversation.  This tradition probably has a lot to do with the fact that God’s name is Holy, and that misusing God’s name was punishable by death.   After all, if you don’t say it out loud, then you cannot misuse it accidentally or on purpose.  Historians believe that this is what led to the mispronouncing of God’s name Yahweh (Yahway) as Jehovah.  Since it was never pronounced out loud, some forgot how to pronounce, and spell it.  Also as you can see in John 8:58 Jesus describes himself with the traditional title that God used for himself with Moses.

Exodus 20:7  You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

Read Leviticus 24:10-23  The story of the Blasphemer.

¹⁰ Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. ¹¹ The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.) ¹² They put him in custody until the will of the Lord should be made clear to them.

¹³ Then the Lord said to Moses: ¹⁴ “Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him.¹⁵ Say to the Israelites: ‘Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; ¹⁶ anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.

¹⁷ “‘Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death. ¹⁸ Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution—life for life. ¹⁹ Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: ²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury. ²¹ Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a human being is to be put to death. ²² You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.’”

²³ Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did as the Lord commanded Moses.

Reading this story of the blasphemer who was put to death and the indictment that God laid on him is very hard.  There are many things that are hard to understand, but if you realize that God is a Holy God, and that he was in the process of making the people of Israel into a group of people who were to be living examples of the character of God to others on earth…then it can be seen that a person who did not respect the God who was providing for them and caring for them could not be tolerated.

I know, you are probably saying that they could have just thrown him out of the camp, but again, if you think about the environment outside the camp…a dry and desert environment…wouldn’t throwing this person out be the same as sentencing them to death?  There was a reason why people traveled in caravans in those days.  There was no city, no civilization…just their camp.

At the same time, it is shown in verse 21 that God was not giving this instruction lightly…the value of human life is of the utmost importance.  God also did not want anyone to believe that there was a separate law for the native Israelite and the one who lived in Israel but had an Egyptian Father, so in verse 22 he reminds them that the law is for both the Israelite and the foreign born.  The same law.

We have a lot of conflicting beliefs over the death penalty as a punishment, but the Bible clearly had laws regarding this, and considered that someone who took God’s name lightly or ran down God’s name should be treated to that punishment.  The punishment of death was not lightly given…but for very grave offenses, such as adultery, murder, and blasphemy.

There should also be an understanding that God was applying these laws to those who lived within the boundaries of Israel and with the Israelite people.  The 10 commandments were given so that people could understand how to live with each other….to have respect for each other, and the land of Israel was a Theocracy, not a Democracy.  We Westerners, as a rule, have a hard time understanding what a Theocracy is, and how people can live in one.  That is because we believe that the individual freedoms of people are more important than our individual beliefs about God….in other words, we are generally more self centered, than God centered.

The peculiar thing here is that the Pharisees used this law to try and trap Jesus.  They found that despite all the scriptures about the Messiah, they were unable to believe that Jesus, who was identifying himself with God…could be that Messiah.  All they saw was blasphemy.

Luke 5:20-21  20When Jesus saw their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” 21But the scribes and Pharisees began to consider this and ask, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemy?  Who can forgive sins but God along?”

If we were a strict Theocracy then we would be having everything in our lives revolve around God, and all of our laws would be looking to make God centered decisions.

Personally, I am grateful that we do not live in such a strict society; because even a strict theocracy is governed by human beings who are incapable of making good judgements about people.  In the days of Moses, God was in direct and certain communication with Moses…there wasn’t any doubt about this within the confines of the Israelite people.  God was their rescuer and Moses was the leader that God had given to them. Moses, himself, was under the punishment of God for misrepresenting God’s character to his people.  He was banned from ever entering the promised land for doing that.

God is a loving God, but we cannot forget that he is a Righteous and Holy God who is not to be taken lightly.  Whether in speech or in action.  The good news is that he is a loving God who is just to forgive us whenever we ask for it sincerely….If you look back at that story we do not hear that the blasphemer of Mose’s time was asking for forgiveness at all…it is not made clear to us…but if we look at the pharisees…even thinking that Jesus was a blasphemer they picked up stones to stone him..John 8:59  At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. 

The seriousness with which the Jews took this law of God and the Holiness of God’s name into their hearts was still in effect in Jesus’ time which was thousands of years after Mose’s time. The thing is that Jesus was who he was saying he was, yet the Pharisees could not see it!  They were blinded by their own self-righteousness!