Here is a pattern in the word that the Lord showed me one morning many years ago as I was reading about Moses and wondering why he could not go into the promised land. It is an excerpt from Crucified, Getting the Mind of Christ.
Let’s look at Moses when he was about to leave this world…just before Israel was about to cross over into the Promised Land. There is so much here that it is overwhelming; so much symbolism is here. I want to just illustrate some symbolism that is here for the church. Ok, first we see that Moses was told by God that he could not enter the Promised Land because he had disobeyed God in Numbers 20:12. Moses, representing the law, almost a personification of the law, is unduly harsh with the people when they ask for water.
Moses gets angry with them when God was not angry with them and therefore misrepresents the heart of God. He strikes the rock. Now there is so much here that I am going to try to be organized about it. I hope that works. Now the next thing we see is that the striking of the rock represents the necessity of the crucifixion of Christ (the New Testament is hidden in the Old Testament, and the Old revealed in the New…they are one, Augustine). The water that comes out of it is the life of Christ poured out for us because He was stricken.
Even though Moses is disobedient here, there is an intentional pattern to see that foretells of the crucifixion. This whole pattern that I am going to lay out tells us that the law is good in that it brings us to the realization of sin. But it cannot save (Galatians 3). The law then, Moses, misrepresents God’s heart. The law condemns, but the heart of the Lord is mercy. Oh, how beautiful this picture is!
Look how Moses asks God if he can PLEASE go into the Promised Land. God gets angry with Moses and says, in essence, I said no, Moses, don’t ask Me again. Oh my, this is so great that I am holding back the tears.
While Moses actually did these things, and it is not exclusively symbolism, because it actually happened, the symbolism that I am about to discuss is heart wrenching. Let’s for a moment view Moses strictly as the Law. Remove his personhood just for a minute so we can see something hidden.
Moses, in Deuteronomy 3:25 says to God: I pray Thee, let me go over.
This is the law asking God if it can have a part in salvation. Notice that God gets very angry with the law at this point and essentially says, I said no, Moses, don’t bring it up again. God explains how Moses can go up to the mount and look at the Land but only Joshua could take them in.
Now Joshua represents Jesus. The names are the same. Yeshua, is Jesus in Hebrew, which is also Joshua. God is showing how the law brings all the way up to salvation, but only Jesus can bring us in.
The pattern continues. The law is not abolished, it can only have no part whatsoever in salvation. Jesus said don’t think I came to abolish the law, but to fulfill it!
Now look at what happens next. Before Moses leaves Israel in Joshua’s hands who will be the one to lead them into the PL, he says this to them as a warning, an admonition: “After you have entered into the land (salvation) keep the statutes and the commandments I have taught you that you may live. Do not add to or take away from the Word of God. If you will do His Word, you will have wisdom and understanding. Keep your soul diligently, (Deuteronomy 4:1-9). We see that wisdom and understanding come as we obey. “If you will obey, you will know doctrine, if it is from God”.
What a pattern. Moses, the law, brings us all the way up to salvation, then Joshua, Jesus, takes us by the hand and leads us in. Moses cannot come. He must stay behind. (Paul said if it were not for the law, he would not know he was a sinner). But look, Moses’ voice is echoing after them as they march in…”Be sure to cling to God and keep His Word as you go in, that you may know wisdom and understanding. Keep your soul diligently.”
The law brings us up to salvation, Grace takes us in. By marriage to Him, we do not violate the law. ” Righteousness and peace have kissed!”
Wherefore my brethren, you have also become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead.”
Notice that God buried Moses. Dead to the law means I have a new Husband and am married to Christ. This means that the law has no power over me because I keep it in Christ. The law IS master over the sinner in sin. If he breaks it, it is his slavemaster, if he keeps it, he is a slave to righteousness…free. The law is GOOD. It is not bad. It just can have no part whatsoever in salvation. Can the law EVER form Christ in me? NO! It is impotent to do it.
I disagree with a lot of teachers who think Moses messed up here. I think it happened exactly as God wanted. The Holy Spirit loves to use pictures and patterns to teach truth…they are so much better than mere words sometimes.
If Moses did not hit the rock (this is Christ, the rock), then it would have been Moses who lead the people into the promised land. This would mean that the law saves and not grace…which is not possible. The law would have marched them in, Christ would not have been stricken and bruised, but there would never be salvation.
The law put sin to death. It crucified the Lord (and rightly so…Jesus died as that sin). The law declared a death sentence upon sin. Jesus came in and saved by becoming that sin. The law is angry with sin and rightly so. If Jesus would not have come and been sin for us, the law would continually condemn mankind. Moses would have led them in and mankind would have a continual struggle with sin and the law that rightly condemns it, with no remedy.
We see this continue through the whole New testament, in the Lord’s teachings and all the apostles. Look at Matthew 5. Jesus is telling us that the one who breaks the commandments (this means the heart of the word and not the 10 commandments…the word shows us that) and teaches others to do so, will be what? not lost, but least in the Kingdom. The one who keeps the word and teaches others to do so will be what? greatest in the Kingdom.
James explains how we should be doers of the word and not hearers only.
So the one who LOVES God, truly loves God, is not the one who is soft on sin and filled with compliance with the things God hates. This is a man centered gospel that elevates man above God and seeks to please man and not God. No, Jesus tells us Himself that the one who really loves God (and this is higher than knowing that God loves me) , keeps His Word. This is how it is seen.
We must love God with heart soul and mind before we can love our neighbors as ourselves. One comes before the other and the other is not possible without the former.
True Godly love leads others in the ways of God, not in the ways of man.
A believer who still fights the Word of God is a slave to sin. He is miserable. He is not free. “He has not yet received a love for the Word”. One who is free, IS the Word of God. He is one with Christ, hidden with Him in God. Remember that Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh. When we become one in Him, we will be a sweet walking gospel as well. But some things Jesus has to say are hard and many will walk away when he gets to hard things, John 6:66.
But Jesus said, look, if you cannot hear (believe, understand) earthly things, how then can you receive or understand heavenly things? We cannot.
“Behold, therefore, both the goodness AND severity of God.”
Love in Him,
Cheryl
The Bible is packed with the truth that one MUST repent of sin to receive Jesus Christ as Savior, hence being born again, or born of the Spirit. It is not possible otherwise.
The Bible is so filled with patterns that speak truth, in order for that truth to transcend time, language and culture; making it impossible for false doctrine to prevail. Patterns make it impossible to twist a word or its meaning. The pattern is there and can’t be removed…the brilliance of God!
I was in conversation with someone some time ago, who disagreed with me as I was stating this truth. She was adhering to the teaching that says we do not need to repent to be saved.
In response to this disagreement, as He supernaturally does, in His supernatural way, He dropped into my head this pattern that only He taught me and I have never read anywhere:
In the same way John the Baptist came as the personification of repentance, preparing the way for Jesus to enter the scene, so does repentance of the heart prepare the heart for Jesus to enter it. He cannot enter unless repentance has prepared the way.
I think people believe this because they have not repented and therefore may just have been converted in mind about salvation. If they had repented, they would know the elation of it and would long for others to know it. The reason they haven’t repented is because they are rebellious and want to hop in to the Kingdom another way and not through the gate of repentance.
True repentance is very joyful. I remember a day when seeing, in my soul, the crucifixion of Jesus, falling down onto my face and weeping with a deep well of agony over what He was handing to me…His broken, bloody, body which would give me life. I have never felt anything apart from that, that matches that, but can go back there every time I ponder His sacrifice. It was really something that can’t rightly be put into words. There was zero guilt or sadness, only pure agony of some surreal kind. I think maybe it was a glimpse of His glory and I couldn’t breathe. I never uttered a “sinner’s prayer” though I know some do and that’s great. I was flooded with thankfulness and I think I felt a birth. It must’ve been life for the first time entering my soul and it was rapturous; the death of death, through His death for my sin, and the life of His shed blood, all at the same time, and that’s the key, all at the same time. And this is what repentance is…it is not a series of scripted words that follows a prescribed method. It is a place in the heart that agrees with God over my lost nature and longs for forgiveness, redemption.
To tell someone that repentance is not necessary for salvation robs them of this. How can one push away repentance when it is so joyful. What a thief the devil is. Repentance is the most exquisite thing a human can know and multitudes are turning away from it because they have rebellious souls. Oh how I pray this message today is read and heard and considered. Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.
God bless you today!
Jesus Christ. He is the initiator and designer of my faith but also the closer, the finisher; the one who has obligated Himself to bring to completion that which He began in my heart.
I rest greatly in that. Really I am along for the ride once I have agreed with His verdict upon my soul, which is that I can choose life or death, or, that is, to remain in the death into which I was once born.
My goal then has been to do all I can to not resist the Spirit, who is transforming me, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, into the one He created me to be…second born, born of the Spirit now and not just born in the flesh.
Though My servant fall 7 Times, He will stand. For I will make him stand.
I rest in that, but something else is at work in me because of that word from God. I want to be an easy subject. I want God to smile when He thinks of me and not groan because I am so rebellious and difficult…slow to see and slow to just run hard after Him.
I wonder sometimes if part of His agony over fallen creation, might be that which He couldn’t give because we were just so resistant to Him.
In the end when the flesh has perished and we are complete and perfectly remade, living with Him in eternity, I want to make sure that nothing I did to resist Him affected anything He wanted to give to me but couldn’t.
The good thing is that this is not based on my performance or skill or special ability or talent. It is only dependent upon my heart. Will I submit to Him or constantly go my own way, causing God to have to constant put a bridle in my mouth and tighten up the reins. How exhausting that must be for Him.
How do we do this? It’s so simple: Here’s what Jesus said: “Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself, this is fulfilling all the law and the prophets”. Ha! How awesome is God! What a teacher He is!
My word to anyone who says to that “But how do I do that? Is this: Read the Word and do it. That’s it. Then let Him cleanse me, transform me and use me according to His glorious will. That’s when I can know perfect fellowship with Jesus Christ, the Creator of the universe and the very author and finisher of my faith.
Sent from my iPhone
When I first got saved, I remember reading Romans 7 and understanding it just as Paul meant it. At that point my reading of the Word was exclusively with myself and the Holy Spirit guiding me in understanding. I would find out much later that the established church of our day was locked into an entirely different meaning of Romans 7, and this understanding was universally excepted and still is, and in my opinion, wreaks havoc. I have since found that almost every Bible teacher teaches here what he or she has been taught, rather than teaching what is there. And almost every believer accepts what these teachers have taught them, rather than letting the Word reveal itself to the heart through serious study.
I remember in a Bible study some years later presenting the possibility to a group that Paul was saying something completely different. It was NOT well received. Many years later I remember reading the complete works of Oswald Chambers and found that he taught it exactly as I understood it. I believe that without the proper understanding of Romans 7, the Christian walk can be confusing.
I think that extreme calvanism has played a part in this distortion. I agree with someone who once said, stay away from isms… they are always man made. If we read WAY back, we find that Chambers was right. And I mean way back to Polycarp, John’s student, Turtulian, Iraneus (sp?) St. John of the Cross, St. Bernard of Clairveux (whom Calvin loved to quote, and Spurgeon and almost every other fabulous, Spirit led teacher of the Word) and so many others. I could list many.
I don’t see that Paul is telling the believer that he will always do what he does not want to do. This is a relatively contemporary concept that was absent until maybe Calvanism, I’m not entirely sure of the timing.
I would like to point out just a couple of things to hopefully show that we might need to look at Romans 7 in a new light…the light of the Holy Spirit, who teaches perfectly His own thoughts, His own truth.
We see that Paul has let us know here in Romans (this is one of my favorite books) that this is his gospel. He says it. If John is the gospel according to John, then Romans is the gospel according to Paul. Paul was given the task of unpacking the gospel. Jesus stated it, Paul explained what was stated.
Paul knows he is getting into very complex territory here. But he has seen something that he must communicate to his brethren. It is why he was born, and his love for the Lord and the Lord’s people insists that he do it. So, Paul establishes himself as one having the authority to teach such things. He even says, “I magnify my office” (that is the office of apostle…someone who has seen the Lord and is sent with a message) in order to hopefully open ears to what he has to say. Romans is the gospel. It is the story of the fall of man, the death of God in the flesh to atone for that fall, and the salvation of God’s precious creation, mankind exclusively and only by grace through faith and NOTHING else. Paul is speaking with the authority given him by God and he has to make this authority known, so we will “listen up”.
Now, Peter tells us that some things in the Word of God are HARD to understand. This is maybe one of the hardest. But it is critical to understand it. I would like to make just a couple of points very briefly to maybe spark the thought of the possibility that Paul is indeed saying something far different than what the contemporary church ( maybe the last several hundred years?) has thought.
In Chapter 6 we see that he has built his point up to a crescendo of sorts. He explains that the one redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, should live no longer in sin. He needs to be dead to sin. In chapter 7 we see Paul explain who he was BEFORE Jesus got hold of him. He says that before salvation he has one nature, after salvation, two natures (we know these to be the old and the new man). The two war against each other. But he says up until a point only (we will look at this point); that all the new man wants to do, he doesn’t do (the good things) and all that the new man doesn’t want to do, he does.
But then he finishes up this lengthy thought with this: “who shall save me from this body of death!” Then he answers himself…Christ Jesus!
Now let’s glance at what Christ Jesus does for him, or enables him to do. Because it is OUR doing IN Him. He won’t do it for us. If we wait around for Him to do it, it’ll never get done. He mentions a couple of things that are important to look at. He mentions his mind and that it is captive by sin.
Skip to Romans 12. Paul is telling us that we MUST be transformed by the RENEWING of our mind (this is the mind of Christ, by the way). We will see in 2 Corinthians 10:5 that it is done by taking every thought captive that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and making it obey Christ.
Maybe next, we will show how the mind of Christ is developed and not given at salvation. This is explained in 1 Cor. 1-3, very clearly…we have not understood it today.
So, in Romans 7, Paul says the mind is captive (this is the believer, but the still carnal believer), in 2 Corin. he says we must then take captive our thoughts and MAKE them obey Christ. Paul says in Romans 7 that his mind is what is captive. In Romans 12, he insists that we must be transformed by RENEWING our mind.
In Romans 12, Paul says if we will do this, and it is done by offering ourselves as a LIVING sacrifice on God’s altar, we WILL be a pure and holy sacrifice unto God.
Now, Paul gives us a critical picture here of the altar of God. Remember that only a lamb with no spot is allowed on the altar. So, a believer who is still hanging on to sin and self rule, is filled with spots and CANNOT get on God’s altar. He is indeed covered in the blood but his spots remain in a current sense until he dies to self rule. (He who saves his life will lose it, he who loses his life will save it…) “Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of God and His RIGHTEOUSNESS…” Why is the believer told to seek His righteousness? God finds us, we don’t find him. A critical truth is hidden here.
We are not discussing salvation here, this is a foregone conclusion. We are discussing maturity, holiness, blamelessness. The newly saved believer is blameless in a future sense, yes. That is because Jesus completes every work He begins. But Paul is beseeching (fervently pleading or begging) BELIEVERS, not unbelievers, to present themselves holy by renewing their minds, so they CAN be placed on His altar. If Paul were referring to the lost here, he would be preaching a works gospel. But he is speaking only to the saved, the indwelt. The unsaved CANNOT renew their minds. And the saved, evidently need to do something here.
Now, in order to present ourselves pure and holy to God, a death MUST occur. Jesus stated it, remember, now Paul explains it here. Jesus already was the dying Lamb, the slain Lamb. But we are also sheep. Because He already died on that altar, we don’t have to literally die…that would accomplish nothing. But we must have a death. It is death to sin. When we are dead to sin, there is NOW and now only no spot IN thee. Paul says we now can offer ourselves as a LIVING sacrifice on His altar. The sacrifice is death to the old man.
When trying to reconcile when this spotlessness happens in an actual sense, we have to look at the entire word to discern it. We also are wise to keep this truth in mind, and it is mentioned right here in Romans, of course. The Holy Spirit speaks of things which are not, as though they were. Why? Because if it will one day be, it already IS to Him. God lives in and speaks from the eternal now.
I will submit that God does not call a new believer, or a rebellious believer, spotless, who is still not yet walking by the Spirit. He will one day be spotless, this is inevitable. But until he has died to self and sin and God has declared it so (death frees us from sin Rom. 6:7), this is either actual physical death or death to our own will that comes against God, he walks in the flesh…always fighting the flesh, until it also is made holy. A believer’s rebellion is the only obstacle to this death. He is ruled by his soul still which is filled with me, myself and I and all I feel and want and touch and taste, etc. The soul and body are fleshly until they are made spiritual. This is the believer. His spirit is infused with God. But the soul and body are still under the control of the old man…he is a divided house, double-minded. But Jesus is away building us a house, right? This is it!
Remember Jesus saying two things to the woman caught in adultery: He expressed her salvation because she simply looked to Him (remember the pole in the desert), “Woman, neither do I condemn you” and her sanctification,or maturity, or death to self rule, “Now, go sin no more”.
People will rise only to the heights they believe are possible. But the authority of the Word of God overwhelmingly says and demands even, that we can and must be done with sin. God does not require of us what He has not equipped us for. But the Holy Spirit dwelling within the believer is all that is needed to walk in His fullness. But self must step aside first, and allow single-minded devotion and obedience to God to reign in his heart. Freedom is known at this point. The deliverance from this body of death Paul mentioned, is for here and now and not just then and there. Remember that in 1 Corinthians 3, we see believers arriving in Heaven having sent nothing ahead of them. Some will have sent much fruit, and some will have sent none. Both are saved, both in Heaven forever. The one barely saved, thinks he cannot here and now die to sin.
If every believer is dead to sin at salvation, and literally has to die to nothing (calvanism), then why are there believers in Heaven who barely got there? Jesus said believers must abide in Him to produce fruit ( fruit being a complex concept and not just good deeds). Some believers will arrive in Heaven having no fruit whatsoever. They were their own masters, living in the soulish flesh, ruled by emotions and refusing to submit to God, exercising their own will above God’s. How is a believer who always fights sin and the flesh free? He isn’t yet. He will be in Heaven, but what he doesn’t know because Satan has hid this from him, is that he CAN be free now. Not free TO sin, but free FROM sin.
Jesus will not look at them and say like He says to the Bride, there is no spot IN you, until they are freed from the body by actual death. But we can be free from the body of sin and death now, if we will allow our spirits to penetrate the soul and then the body. Jesus spoke of it in John 17, when He asked that each believer be one (body, soul and spirit agreeing, not a divided house, but single minded) and then hidden with Christ in God. In this instance, Jesus is NOT asking for the unity of the whole church, but the unity of each individual believer…He says sanctified, one in Him.
Now Satan has been very clever. He knows what the Holy Spirit is up to in every generation. He works his deception accordingly. The holiness doctrine is one that surfaces to confuse every time the Spirit decides to resurface this topic to His beloved church. The holiness doctrine teaches that we must obsess over outward things like speech, possessions OR the lack of them, what we eat, where we go etc., who we see, how often we attend church, how active we are in the many, many busy activities that are present today in the church but were absent in the first church…it goes on and on. It is binding, restrictive, of the flesh and has no resemblance to God Himself.
True holiness is rare and free and pure and simple and sweet and clean and lovely.
The fruit of the Spirit is all these things, and guess what…against these lovely things, there is no law!!!
I hope that sparks some consideration and maybe a new look at Romans 7.
The Lord bless you and keep you today!
Love,
Cheryl
Faith in its infancy is always taking. It’s center of thought and being is self and all that self needs to thrive. Its main focus is on how much God loves me. This is a necessary and good stage but one that God longs for every believer to leave behind in order to take possession of a higher love…lofty place or room, so to speak, where all I know is how much I love God. In order to enter into this knowledge the former must first be known, that God LOVES me.
If someone has truly come in through the Gate, the love of God for the believer has flooded his heart, the Holy Spirit bearing witness to this truth. This believer will rapidly begin to discern that there is something yet higher than knowing God’s love for me. And that is that I LOVE GOD!!!!! Remember that we love God because He first loved us.
This is pictured so well in Song of Songs. The bride is seen upon her bed, all snuggled in for the evening, basking in her new found romance with the Lover of her soul. She KNOWS that God really loves her. She is beside herself with deep joys. Yet strangely, when her very Beloved comes to her door to call her out, she doesn’t want to get up. She is comfortable and even lazy, having been lavished with the love of her Beloved, God Himself. She says that she has already taken off her robe and gotten settled, why does He want her to rise up? There is a closed door between them still. He is trying to open it but she must come to turn the knob.
Then, something in her heart realizes that there is something better than reclining in the glory of His love. She jumps up and runs to the door to get to Him…but alas, He has departed. He removed Himself from her for a moment to force her growth into a mature, consummated relationship with her Beloved.
She now will go through whatever it takes to get to Him. She is in the darkness of night searching, beaten by the guards (killing the flesh in her) but she takes no notice of it.
All she knows now is that she is consumed by the love in HER heart FOR God.
Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive. And it is indeed. It is also more blessed to love than to be loved. This is what God wants us to learn.
Let’s look again at Song of Songs. We can see a truth that is incomprehensible to us unless we have entered into the higher love that is God centered and not me centered… that is knowing that I LOVE GOD now instead of just focusing on the fact that He loves me.
It is God Himself pictured here in the Beloved who asks the Bride to turn her eyes from Him because He cannot bear her beauty anymore. He cannot bear her beauty anymore because she has become JUST like Him! She is all lovely and all beauty exactly like her Husband, Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom. She no longer takes and takes and takes satisfying the insatiable longing to be filled up with the love of God. She is filled to overflowing and perpetually overflowing. She now only gives. Just like Him!!!!
This is a sweetness that only God knows. He would rather love than to receive it. This is seen in the atonement. The beauty is this: once a believer has risen to this love, he now loves others whether they love him or not (love your enemy). And it is most glorious to do it. This love isn’t dependent upon how others treat me or how they behave or anything. This love is God’s love pouring through me.
So truly this is the perfecting of the believer ( “Leaving the elementary things of Christ behind now and moving on to perfection…that is, Christ likeness”), and Jesus said it so concisely, which is always His way. That is that I now DO love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my mind (that is, body, soul and spirit because we are also a trinity, made in His image), AND I am now able to love my neighbor as myself.
Thank You Lord,
Be blessed today,
Cheryl
Why was Jesus born in a stall?
Why were shepherds the first to see Him?
Why in Bethlehem?
It was more than because these are humble things; infinitely more. It is thought that Bethlehem was where Passover lambs were born. And who would be the first to see the lambs born but shepherds? and where are little lambs born? Not in an inn, but in a stall.
The word of God is packed with patterns that tell the gospel truth. These are amazing ones. Now here are some other questions? Should a Christian celebrate Christmas? Well, let’s look at its history and more importantly, the scriptures, to get an answer.
The incarnate birth of Jesus is told and prophesied of through out God’s word. So if we are studiers of His word, His precious birth will enter our hearts and minds in a celebratory way all year long. This is what I think God has in mind. A seasonal or yearly or even a days event is not only not seen anywhere in the word, but it is hidden forever…unknowable. Why does the God who reveals secrets rather than keep secrets, hide this? Maybe for the same reason He hid Moses’ burial place. Because men are bent toward idol worship and fall so easily into it. He knew the church would worship an event, a season, a day and miss the glory of His incarnation entirely…and they have.
We also know that Jesus is God. He is the Son of God but we know that He is Creator God, the Great I AM…He says so Himself (…because you don’t believe that I AM, you will die in your sins…) John 8:24). God had no beginning. Hebrews 6:20-7:1-3 says that Jesus was made our great High Priest after the order of Melchisadec who was King of Righteousness, King of Salem (Jerusalem) and King of Peace, had no mother or father and no descent, having no beginning and no end… who remains priest continually. God goes out of His way to help us to have in the forefront of our minds that Jesus had no beginning; He has always been.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:15-16 that now after Jesus has ascended back into His place of glory from eternity past, that because He died and rose again, we know Him after the flesh no longer.
I know that God is trying to pull the tentacles of Christmas out of the church, because it is an idol and a deterrent to deep knowledge of Christ. I also know that when a generation is so steeped in idol worship, it takes a generation to get it out. Very few will have a ready ear to hear God’s instruction on leading in such a way. Of the few who do hear, even fewer of them will have the strength to do it. It comes with tremendous backlash.
However, I have seen that nearly all of God’s great works, and even His ways in general, are only seen clearly way after the fact. It is in the looking back that we can see God’s hand all along. Only when something big is accomplished for the Kingdom can we stop, look back and say, I SEE!
So it is with getting the word out about this pagan holiday. One of the fears as a grand parent is this: But you are depriving your children/grandchildren of the sweet joy of the season, of the fun of gifts and anticipation, etc. he will have to look at his peers and see that he does not get to join in…
But the short-sightedness of man is seen here best. Do we ever stop to think on these lines: Maybe the fact that he misses all those things, makes him able to see infinitely higher spiritual things, that others can’t see, who have settled for a cheap counterfeit to true joy. Maybe just maybe he will be the new generation where the corruption of such a thing as Christmas is not an issue.
I am that stop-gap in my generations. It stops here, because I have heard from God. I’ll be the anvil upon which the blows of God’s refining hammer come crashing down…helping in some way the Lord form His beloved church into the very image of God.
Just a simple investigation into every single aspect of this holiday will reveal what it is.
What wonderful thing will the Lord reveal when the idol of such a pagan season is gone forever from the church?
A follow up on the love of God as Paul expounds upon it in Romans:
Romans 1-3 is critical to understand when studying the heart of God. In 2 and 3, Paul is explaining how God’s truth is written on man’s heart. God’s desire is that man’s heart be pure, like His. Then he will automatically keep His Word. It is that simple.
Paul explains that man’s tendencies are to keep the letter of the law (word) and entirely miss the heart of it. He says physical circumcision or uncircumcision mean nothing. In other words, what is done externally may mean nothing. It is what is on the heart (what God sees on the heart) that matters, and what truly guides outward things.
Paul explains this in the best terms he can (as a man). He is teaching very high spiritual truth and only has human language to express it. Its like trying to build a mansion using pebbles. He is asking the reader to come up higher with him and to not stumble on the limited language (don’t strain the gnat and swallow a camel). He wants us to let the word linger in the mouth and the scent of it to come up through the nose and the sense of smell, savoring what is really there. He is warning us not to gulp it down and miss the heart entirely….focusing on the letter and missing the heart.
Now Paul says that man tends to look to man to establish what righteousness is. He does this by using his highest understanding. But it is not high enough, so he falls short of true understanding.
In other words, a man may understand that God’s word has forbidden vengeance. But he looks at God and sees that God, even in the midst of mercy, often excersizes vengeance. Paul explains this apparent conundrum so well.
He says that man is tempted to look at harsh things in the word (I could list thousands), and say that God’s word is of no effect then. It doesn’t make sense (so he reorganizes it so that it makes sense to him). This always leads to cutting out the harsh things and grasping the soft things.
But Paul answers, “God forbid! Let God be true and every man a liar.” This is critical. Paul is establishing that only God establishes what is good, true, holy, pure, just, love. We don’t.
A believer who has not ascended here still determines truth by his human reasoning—which always leads to legalism, then liberalism. This believer is bound by many false doctrines, all man-made. He thinks he is free. He cannot think as God thinks yet. If it is the love doctrine, he is bound by all that is human love. This love doesn’t involve the heart. It obsesses over outward things—appearances, words, deeds, rules, etc.
But God is a consuming fire. He told Israel, the love of His heart, that He was the One Who wounded them with the wounds of a cruel enemy because of their sin. God’s love purifies. Man’s love is impotent, with no power to transform. It disappears like a vapor.
The man who has entered into agape, is truly free. He is bound by nothing, except his all consuming love for God (In all the world there is none but Thee oh God!).
This love for God inadvertently rules him, lures him by its sweetness, to do the perfect will of God. There is no regulating or compelling. It is the very air they breathe. He would rather die than to offend the Lover of his soul.
The man who has not risen to agape yet, is still bound by sin. He may have been forgiven, cleansed, but sin still binds him. He has an appearance of holiness (don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t this or that). But it is just that…an appearance. He is just like the Pharisee or the religious. He obsesses over things God never showed any interest in, tries to bind others according to this man made doctrine, but breaks every law he has himself set. He is first a legalist and then a liberal. The love of God eludes him. This is why Jesus said of them, “do what they say, just don’t do what they do.” He said they were white washed sepulchers filled with dead men’s bones. He was ruthless with these people who distorted God’s heart. How is the legalist a liberal? He is because he has first bound himself and others by so many rules and regulations that in order to prove to himself and others that he is not a legalist, he becomes visibly liberal.
Now here is where it gets even more complicated, but not beyond our understanding. Paul in chapter 3 describes the world (not the redeemed). He says there is none righteous, they are deceitful, full of cursing and bitterness, full of destruction and misery they have no fear of God. This is what the law gets them, and the ones bound by the laws of false doctrines.
Paul goes on to explain well here how the law (don’t this and that), is useful to show how mankind is sinful and in need of a Savior. He wraps it up that this Savior comes only by grace through faith in Christ Jesus! Paul expressed earlier that the prophets constantly and tirelessly taught the gospel of Christ. He reiterates that in Romans 3:21.
He ends chapter three by returning to how a man is saved. He is saved by faith in this Jesus who taught and teaches us to preach, repentance for the remission of sins, by and through His blood!
Where there is a believer who is ever holding the power of the cross and the resurrection in his heart, there is a free believer, bound by no man made doctrine, absorbed in the true love of God and equipped to pour that same love out to others according to the power that works within him. Where there is a believer who forgets the simplicity of the cross, he binds himself and others with all manner of regulation, falls for every wind of strange doctrine, sets rules and limits that are not in accordance with the simple word of God and lives a life without His peace, filled with very high highs and very low lows. There is no healthy steadiness about him.
Where true agape and peace are evident, then “Behold, the Kingdom of God is suddenly upon us”, and all of a sudden, all things are possible.
The Lord bless you and keep you!
Love,
Cheryl
Here is a wonderful truth that we see throughout all of the Lord’s teachings and the rest of the entire word. It is a consistent truth that is exhibited so well in one incident recorded in Acts. As I was reading this morning I was compelled to share it.
We know that Bible prophecy declares that as time goes on awaiting the return of the Lord, the world declines becoming more ungodly and the “church” follows suit (as in the days of Noah). God is always gathering His own but in the midst of that, tares settle in with the wheat, or, birds lodge in the branches of the mustard tree, and there is a woman working leaven (always means sin and deception) into the lump of bread (the lump of bread being the church).
One of the most prevalent ways this is done especially today is through a gradual dismantling of the true gospel. The only gospel that saves. Paul’s dealings with Felix in Acts exemplifies this truth.
Today, in general, it is unsavory to speak of the sin nature of man and his need for repentance leading to salvation. Instead, teachers are overwhelmingly assuming that a softer truth will serve us better and more gently reach the lost. But it is a theme found nowhere in the word of God, but everywhere in our churches today.
Most think we can love people into the Kingdom of God. That we can reach the lost by telling them how much God loves them. Here is why this doesn’t work:
Jesus told the disciples to “go and preach repentance for the remission of sins”. He never said that we should go and love others into the Kingdom. The love of God is only known to the repentant. The true love of God first preaches repentance and the remission of sins, but always in the most loving and lovely way. The loveliness of Paul’s dealings with Felix is a perfect example. It is not soft…but lovely. Where this truth is absent, so is the love of God absent. God loves the world , yes, so much so that He gave His only begotten Son to die. But in order to truly enter in to that love, sin has to be gotten out of the way. In other words, sin must be dealt with in order to know God’s love. So the first order of business when reaching the lost is to deal with and express our sin nature and the remedy for it. Only then can the love of God be poured forth by His Spirit into the heart of the redeemed! Look at the parable of the man trying to get into the wedding without a wedding garment. He has come in another way! He has not addressed sin and been covered by His blood!
I’m fascinated by Paul’s parallel life to Jesus’ (which the word says should also be ours). It’s fun to study it. Well, when he was taken to stand before Felix to plead his innocence, look what he said. Can we see that a primary reason that the Holy Spirit sent Paul to Felix was in order to save that which is lost, and then to spend the rest of his life writing the epistles, expounding , unpacking the gospel? but Felix declined the invitation. Paul didn’t butter Felix up at all. He immediately gave him the gospel, Felix trembled and sent Paul away.
The scriptures say that Paul spoke of the resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. Then later he reasoned with Felix in these areas and in this order, 1-of righteousness, 2-of temperance (self-control) and 3- of the judgement to come. Felix trembled and refused. In other words, the Holy Spirit brought conviction of sin which made him tremble, but there was no repentance. God goes to everyone, even when He knows they are not His…they are not sheep because they do not hear His voice. But He gives all the choice.
The word tells us that every conscience knows it is a sinner (Romans 1-2). The word says that if a man says he has not sinned he makes Him a liar (1 John); so every heart created has the knowledge that he is a sinner and in need of salvation…which causes him to want a remedy.
If we as a church come to the lost and say that there is another way into the Kingdom, over the wall, or in any other way, then the lost heart knows it is not true. He knows first and foremost that he is a sinner and needs a remedy. Lavishing love upon him won’t do it. We must lead them in through the Gate, that is Jesus. He is the only way in.
Jesus warned us of this. He showed us that deceivers will bring softer, more palatable “truths” to the world. He said, “Don’t think I came to bring peace, but a sword and fire, and how I wish it were already kindled!” We are to love peace and to be peaceable ourselves, but if we expect peace here, we are expecting something Jesus said will not come, until He returns. The false church is teaching that by being peaceful and loving, we will usher in the Kingdom and save all men. Jesus taught the opposite and was ruthless to those religious leaders who muddled God’s truth. He said there will be no peace until He comes and brings it. We cannot usher in world peace and salvation (the zealots thought this and were wrong). This is a Kingdom now doctrine and is priming many to follow antichrist. The appetites are being primed for exactly what antichrist will offer. It is a great deception, and all because of a misunderstanding and muddling of last day prophecy. Remember that Israel (as a nation) did not know prophecy either. That is why they missed Christ’s appearance.
Interestingly, in Revelation, those who will fall for anti-christ will be the very ones who are just looking for peace. They like soft things, only pleasant things. The church’s sins parallel Israel’s in astounding ways. The Israelites who refused to listen to Jeremiah and the other prophets, who were exhorting them to repent and go into Babylon, just wanted peace! Don’t give us this conviction stuff. They followed false gods, one’s that did not mention sin or anything harsh. But they were false. And they hated Jeremiah because he had hard truth to save them. The false prophets were teaching “peace, peace, when there was no peace”. Why? the scriptures say they were deceptive and light, preaching peace when there was no peace, because they wanted to be liked…approved of by man. Isaiah calls them dumb dogs that cannot bark to warn. Now the Word says that it is the Holy Spirit who spoke through Isaiah and the rest, so the Holy Spirit is calling the false peace prophets dumb dogs!
His kindness leads to repentance, but I can’t think of anything kinder than being willing to be placed in prison in the mire, like Jeremiah, like Paul, and hated by the brethren, in order to just lead them in the way of truth.
1 Thessalonians 5 explains how in the last days those who will be found asleep, those who will be deceived, those who will be overtaken as a thief overtakes unaware, are the very ones who are looking for and expecting peace and safety and all good things. Jesus said, I did not come to bring it. Here is our warning.
Jesus is gathering His flock, yes. He is transforming the redeemed into His image, yes. But is He bringing world peace and safety, no, absolutely no. Look at the warning of the giant, abnormal tree that was supposed to be a bush (mustard tree parable). It refers to the last day church that is huge but unnaturally huge. And it has birds, meaning wickedness and deception, lodging in it, being sheltered in it. Jesus said the way is narrow and FEW find it. Revelation shows us that the historic church and last day church, true church, is very small.
The amazing thing is that those who are trying to live the Christian life and have come into the Kingdom, so to speak, by another way, maybe through the false love doctrine, don’t know peace. They don’t know love. Peace and the love of God, agape, only belong to the redeemed and to no one else. The redeemed have been born again and possess the Holy Spirit within, Who is very peace and love Himself! God is love.
Bring the lost through the Gate (Jesus) and they will be flooded with the knowledge of this peace and overwhelmed with His love. Bring them in through softer ways and they will be forever groping for this elusive thing called the love of God. This is why church after church after church is abandoning the Word and its hard yet loved filled truth of deliverance and redemption. They just want peace, at all costs. But it never comes apart from repentance for the remission of sins. Where the word is absent, license sets in. Where license sets in, so do all manner of unclean things. Where there is a church that has lodged all unclean things, calling them holy because it “keeps the peace”, there is no deliverance. True freedom and deliverance come from a love relationship with the Bridegroom. But we must be the Bride of Christ to know this love.
If these things are evident to you and press you, I hope you’ll pass it on if you are so led. The Lord bless you,
In His love,
Cheryl
One more bit of wonder. As I thought of Mary’s song, I thought of the wonder in her heart over her selection to be the chosen of God. Then my mind went to the scripture where a woman in the crowd around Jesus as He was teaching yelled out, “Blessed is the woman who bore You…!
Jesus’ response is astounding in light of Mary’s chosenness. He quickly corrected saying, “Rather, blessed are all who love Me, for all who do My will are my mother, brother, sister, etc.
Aren’t we then, who have the seed of Christ in us, in our heart, blessed just like Mary!
Jesus said it.
Here is a neat pattern in the word. Think of the body of the believer being the temple of the Holy Spirit. We all know that the Temple and it’s pattern and implements and very existence for that matter is a picture of the heart of man redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
Now think of the parables and exhortations in the New Testament where we are advised to “come up to a higher room”. We are given this idiom as a picture of going higher with God in the knowledge of God or, of growing spiritually; ie. becoming more like Christ.
Well, if we look at the very clear pattern for the temple in Ezekiel for example, we see that the side rooms, or chambers, were stacked one upon another winding upward.
How amazing is this since we know that these chambers picture the hidden chambers of the heart of man and Jesus’ cleansing work in the heart of the redeemed.
Just thought I’d share.
Love,
C