Category Archives: My Blogs
Get Behind Me Satan!
In Matt 16, when Peter rebuked Jesus about the things he was telling them would happen to him, Jesus said something that has always bothered me.
Matthew 16:23
But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
Peter only had Jesus’ welfare in mind, why would he call him Satan?
Was Peter possessed?
We get a clue from the second half of the verse. “you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
Hmmm? If something is originating out of human thinking instead of the intentions of God, is that satanic?
Let’s take a look at how the Young’s Literal Translation words this verse.
Matthew 16:23
and he having turned, said to Peter, `Get thee behind me, adversary! thou art a stumbling-block to me, for thou dost not mind the things of God, but the things of men.’
The Greek word for satan literally means adversary. It is not necessarily, or for that matter ever, a name or title of an individual.
Think of this, Iran has called America the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan”. Do they mean that we all have horns and pointy tails and run around with pitchforks? No, the word means the same to them as it has for millennia, an adversary. We are the great satan because we are much bigger and more powerful than Israel and to them, we are their biggest adversary.
For Peter to tempt Jesus with a thought to avoid what he knew was coming and necessary meant that he had become an adversary, someone who was contrary to his agenda. He was not inferring that Peter was possessed but that he was putting on obstacle and an opportunity to fail in front of him. Peter was not considering the plan of God but his own desires. That is what made him an adversary to Jesus.
Any time we put our own agenda ahead of God’s we are falling into the same trap as Peter. We are not possessed but we are hindering what God wants to do. Even if it doesn’t make sense to our natural mind we have to remember that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways higher than our way.
There doesn’t always have to be a supernatural boogie man behind everything. Sometimes it is just our own limited understanding of what God is doing.
Blessings,
Jeff
God’s Plan A
The Law of Moses was never God’s first choice, it was Plan B
This was His plan A.
Exodus 19:3-6
And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”
Notice he said obey my voice and keep my covenant, not my commandments.
What covenant was God talking about? The covenant that he had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was already in place and it was the very reason God had heard their cries in slavery and delivered them.
A covenant is a relational agreement between two parties where both sides bring benefits to the other. Both sides have obligations to fulfill in the agreement, it is conditional on both sides keeping their agreement. But with Abraham God initiated the covenant, it was not up to Abraham to do anything, it was entered into by a promise of what God would do. This is the same covenant he was asking to children of Israel to enter into and keep.
He also said, if they kept his covenant, they would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, sound familiar?
1 Peter 2:9-10
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
This was the offer that was on the table for the nation of Israel when God called them to come to him at Mt. Sinai but they refused.
Exodus 20:18-21
Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.” So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.
The people rejected God’s offer, exit plan A!
This was plan B.
In rejecting the relational covenant and choosing instead to have a mediator (Moses and the priesthood) God then gave them the whole law. Since they would not listen to his voice and obey it they had to have a written law to follow.
Paul said in Galatians 3:19
What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed (Christ) should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.
What was the transgression? Refusing his first offer!
Then Paul says “Before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.” Galatians 3:23-25
So, Paul says that the law was added to guard us (enclose, shut in) and to tutor us until Christ would arrive but now, since Jesus has come, we are no longer under the tutor.
We are now back to plan A!
Now we hear his voice and obey. The only mediator is Jesus, not priests or pastors or anyone else, there is no one between us and our God. We enter into his covenant when we are in Christ, now the law is no longer necessary. We are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Going back to the law is to return to plan B, with one BIG exception, plan B is not available anymore. The written code is still there but the atonement provided for under the law is no longer available.
Hebrews 10:26
For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.
To sin willfully is to return to the Law, it is to reject the offering of Christ and to go back to a system that is obsolete and has been removed.
In the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD every single vestige of the sacrificial system of atonement was destroyed. Not just the temple but all the instruments that went along with it. AND the lineage of the Levitical priesthood that was required to prove the true priesthood. Regardless of what some people may think, there will never be a return to true Judaism. What is left is Rabbinical Judaism that has no atonement for sin.
That is why there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, that age is over and has been for almost 2000 years.
Thank God we have a better covenant based on better promises.
Hebrews 10:12-14
But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
Blessings,
Jeff Martin
Coming Out!
It’s time to come out of the closet!
All my life I’ve heard about a terrible time that would take place on the earth. A time of great suffering and world wide war, when a man called the Anti-Christ would come to power and rule the world, persecute and kill christians and bring great judgement on all mankind. All of this being either preceded by or followed by the rapture of the church by Jesus himself. This is known as the Great Tribulation or the Apocalypse.
While popular in some christians circles others mostly ignored this teaching, it wasn’t something that would happen any time soon. For those engrossed it eschatology (study of last things) it is a favorite subject and some preachers have made it the focus of their ministry. Some have become wealthy by exploiting the subject but it wasn’t until the “Left Behind” book series and then movies that this became a nation wide matter of attention. There are now countless books on how to understand and interpret bible prophecy, especially The Revelation of Jesus Christ and other apocalyptic scriptures but most of them interpret the bible using current headlines.
There are those that are well intentioned, I put many, many hours of study into it myself but there are also the opportunists, taking advantage of fear to line their own pockets. With the emergence of ISIS, ebola and any number of outbreaks of violence, economic upheaval and unrest it is easy to weave all this together into a convincing package that judgment is about to fall on the world and especially America.
Here is the problem with all of that, we are projecting history into our future!
I have had doubts about the application of some “end times” scriptures for a long time because obviously, to me anyway, they speaking to the people that would experience what was being prophesied. As far as the book of Revelation, who can say? Who could wade through all of that and come up with a convincing interpretation? I gave people with more experience than me the benefit of doubt because I couldn’t convince myself!
Now, because of my own doubts and the challenge of others I respect, I no longer accept the teaching of a time of tribulation ruled by the anti-christ, followed by the judgment of God on all the earth. I discovered that my doubts were well placed and that what we have feared of our future is actually found in the history of Israel.
I won’t go into theology or eschatology here but an examination of both scripture and the events in Jerusalem, starting with Jesus’ ministry until the year 70 A.D., are a fulfillment of everything prophesied by Daniel and Jesus himself. I still don’t completely understand the Revelation but believe most of it was speaking of those same events.
I don’t believe God is mad at America or that judgment is coming. I haven’t believed that for several years because I came to understand what the New Covenant actually means. In fact, the whole “end times” or “last days” phraseology in the bible has to do with the ending of the Old Covenant and the transition into the New Covenant.
What we have to understand is, not only was the Old Covenant fulfilled and ended, it was destroyed! The Temple, where the sacrifices were made, and everything having to do with the Law of Moses were completely destroyed by the Roman General Titus in 70 AD. The Jews were either killed, taken captive or dispersed, the priesthood disappeared and every means of keeping the Old covenant were obliterated. The only thing left today is Rabbinical Judaism that is absolutely unable to carry out any of the requirements of the Old Covenant. There remains only one sacrifice for sin!
When I finally came to the understanding that I had been mislead for so many years by so many christian teachers it rocked my world! I felt betrayed because so much trust in people I respect was pulled out from under me. I understand that most are just teaching what they were taught and with good intentions but it made me think “If they were wrong about that, what else are they wrong about?”
I have come to the conclusion that this is actually a very good thing! Gone are the days that I just accept something because someone I respect said it! I was never really that way anyway but even more so now. This all came about because I was challenged a couple of years ago by a prompting from the Lord to read scripture without the filter of church tradition. What I mean is, very often we’ve known something for so long that when we read scripture we project what we think we know into what we are reading. I was taken aback by what is NOT in the bible that we hold as sacred!
All of that is for another time but my challenge to you is, take another look at the whole end times frenzy. Where did it come from? What did christians over the last 2000 years believe? You will find that a coming time of tribulation punctuated by the return of Jesus is a fairly new doctrine!
This will result in more questions than answers but they are questions that need to be asked! I truly feel that there is revolution coming to church as we know it! Revival is great for a while, The Reformation was a wonderful thing but it only slightly changed the way we do church. Revolution will alter our understanding of what church even means!
Blessings!
Jeff Martin
Labels
When I was a kid I remember wanting one of those label makers. You know the ones, they had a self adhesive colored strip and you turned the dial to the letter or number you wanted and squeezed the trigger to make an impression on the strip. I thought they were so cool! They used them at school to make labels for different things. My friend’s mom, who was a teacher, had one and we would make labels for our stuff. That only made me want one even more and I don’t remember how but I finally got one of my own. I think I labeled everything in my room plus some other stuff.
As a society we tend to label everything, especially people. As individuals we tend to label people the moment we meet them. We see rich and poor, fat and skinny, black and white, normal and strange. (The funny thing is, the normal ones are those like us and the strange ones are those that are different.)
We have become a nation of hyphenated people because of labels, i.e. African-American, Asian-American, Disabled-American or any other group that wants to label themselves. The odd part of this is that originally the term “hyphenated people” was as disparaging remark but now, because of political correctness, we embrace the it.
I have come to despise labels because they separate us from one another and divide us into groups. Whatever happened to the great melting pot of America? It used to be that when immigrants came to America they came to become Americans but these days assimilation is like trying to make oil and water mix. We are completely divided as a nation and I believe it is because of political correctness. Sure, it’s great to maintain our ethnic heritage and not allow our individual uniqueness to be lost but the polarization of differences is killing our nation.
There is something about actual labels, like badges, that really gets under my skin too. Now I know that our law enforcement officers have to have badges to identify themselves and it is necessary but can you honestly tell me that you feel the same comfort level around a cop in uniform and a cop in street clothes? I’ve had friends in law enforcement and it’s just not the same when they are behind a badge. There is something about physical labels that inserts a barrier between people.
The same thing exists in other settings too but in a more subtle manner. Whether its the workplace or church, labels establish a hierarchy of who is on top and who isn’t. It doesn’t matter if that is the intention or not it is what happens in people’s emotions the moment they see any kind of badge that identifies someone as a “somebody” in that establishment. Maybe the person behind the badge is immature and puffed up because they have one, most folks pick up on the attitude. Maybe it’s because the person without a badge is lacking self esteem and feels inferior without one, it doesn’t matter which it is because it is the label that is creating the tension.
Anyone with any observational skills whatsoever can quickly identify who has authority in a place and who doesn’t, so why do we need badges to tell us that. Just look for the person that is actively doing something and not passively watching others. If they don’t know the answer they will know someone who does.
Here are Paul’s thoughts on labels: 1 Cor. 4:6-7
6. Dear brothers and sisters, I have used Apollos and myself to illustrate what I’ve been saying. If you pay attention to what I have quoted from the Scriptures, you won’t be proud of one of your leaders at the expense of another. 7. For what gives you the right to make such a judgment? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?
Now you’d have to read the three chapters before to know that Paul didn’t like them labeling themselves as followers of one particular leader but the principal is the same, labels establish division and division has no place in the church! I especially like verse seven where he is basically saying “If everything you have is from God, why do you act like you did something by yourself!” But that’s how badges make some people feel, like they’ve accomplished something, like they are above someone else. They can also intimidate those that don’t have them. I know these feelings may not be right but they exist and will continue to exist as long as there are labels.
My point is this, sometimes labels are necessary but when they are not, why use them? We have enough that separates us without adding to that unnecessarily, so must we assign labels to people for the appearance of order when the structure exists without the actual label? Does the badge bring order or does it actually create a separation between leadership and those we wish to help?
These are just some thoughts and questions that I hope people in leadership take into consideration, regardless of the type of organization, but I think especially in our churches where we are attempting to connect with folks on a personal level when they walk through our doors.
This is just a good start on what I think about labeling people in general, whether its in a positive or negative way but I’ll stop here for now.
Blessings,
Jeff
What’s Your Word?
John chapter 1 verse 1 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
We know that John is talking about Jesus Christ, he is the Word of God. But what exactly does that mean? We also know that he is not confined to the pages of a book, or an iPad or iPhone or whatever you use as your Bible. So what does it mean when we say that Jesus is the Word of God?
My second question, actually two questions, before we answer the first one, is “If God has a Word and we are created in the image do God, do we have a word?” and “If God’s word is Jesus, what is ours?”.
Ok, so when we talk about the word of God we’re not talking about a book, we’re talking about a person and what that person represents but to understand what is meant when Jesus is called the Word we have to dig into the Greek meaning. The Greek word for “word”, as it’s used in John 1:1 is logos, logos is a very interesting word and used several different ways because of its meaning, which is – something spoken, a reasoning, a computation or accounting, the sum total of ideas.
Logos has the meaning of the full expression of thought, something that has been carefully considered and expressed to convey everything that needs to be said about the subject. So, when we say that Jesus is the Word of God, we’re saying that he is God’s complete expression. Everything that he wanted to convey to us about himself and his nature he expressed through his son, Jesus Christ!
When Phillip desired to see the Father Jesus answered him “Have I been with you so long , and yet you have not known Me , Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) Jesus himself knew that he was the exact representation of God the Father and that if there’s something we want to know about God we have to look no farther than Jesus.
Now on to my second question, if we are made in the image of God, do we have a word or logos? The answer is yes, we have a logos but I’m afraid that our’s hasn’t been as carefully considered and expressed as God’s has.
To prove this I’ll take you to a portion of scripture that used to scare the crap out of me until the Lord gave me some insight into what it really means.
Matthew 12:36-37
But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Wow! Talk about putting a load on you, for every word that comes out of our mouth, we are going to have to stand in front of God and explain the things we said! I would be better off if I was mute because I’m sure there are things I’ve said that God is not going to be proud of and I’m sure I won’t be proud of either. This verse is even in red, Jesus said it so it has to be true! (There is a little sarcasm in that last sentence because I believe all the Bible is true, not just the words in red.)
So, if Jesus says we’ll be judged by our words, what does that mean and how does it fit with what we’re discussing? It all comes back to the Greek meaning and the English translation. To start with we have two Greek words for our one English word for “word” and we have two English words that are translated differently from the same Greek word. Confused? Hopefully you wont be in a minute.
Remember that I said that the Greek the word translated as “word” is logos. Well, in this passage we are introduced to the other Greek word for “word” and that is rhema. Rhema has a little different meaning than logos and that makes a lot of difference here. Rhema means something spoken but it is more focused than logos, rhema is a specific subject or topic, it is a word for the moment.
Here is a simple little illustration that may help.
The Bible is the word of God, from cover to cover it contains everything he wanted to say to us. That’s logos!
John 3:16 tells us why he sent Jesus to us. That’s rhema!
In Matt.12:36 Jesus says “for every idle word”, ok, this time it’s rhema, not logos, so he is talking about a word of the moment. On top of that he narrows it down even more by saying every “idle” word. This little addition of an adjective changes your understanding of what he is really saying.
When I hear the phrase “idle word” I think of things we say nonchalantly or casually, just joking around or even as a reaction, like if you mash your finger and a little cuss word slips out. That’s why this verse used to bother me so much because I’m not always as careful with my words as I should be. I found it unfair to be judged eternally for words I put little thought into but that is not what Jesus is talking about here. Do we need to guard our tongue and be more intentional in what we say? Absolutely! But Jesus has something totally different in mind when he says that for every idle word we speak we will give account at judgement day.
It comes back to the word “idle”. To me, when I think of idle I think of just sitting around, doing nothing or a car that’s running but not in gear. So, an idle word is one that is produced out of a mind that is not engaged, it’s said without much thought and therefore carries little meaning or weight, there’s not really any purpose behind it.
That’s really not the meaning behind the Greek word, it has more to do with what idleness produces than the state of being idle itself. Think about what comes from idleness……….. that’s right, nothing! Idleness is unproductive, it causes barrenness. If someone is idle they are going nowhere and the potential that lies within them remains untapped, unrecognized and useless. So an idle word is one that causes barrenness, unfruitfulness and a person’s potential to go unrealized.
If the two words are combined, like we have here, an “idle word” becomes a specific word spoken that’s purpose is the bring about barrenness. The word itself isn’t idle, in fact, just the opposite. When the word is spoken it begins to produce unfruitfulness in the person it was said to.
Here are a few of examples of idle words.
“You’ll never amount to anything.”
“You’re so stupid!”
“Can’t you do anything right?”
Get the picture? These are the things that we say that cause others to feel unwanted, unloved and worthless. Some people would call these “word curses”. This type of comment attaches itself to the person’s perception of themselves and causes them to pull back, to retreat into a safe area where they refuse to attempt anything for fear of failure. Failure becomes the enemy to avoid at all costs so productivity and creativity are abandoned and replaced with something that is comfortable and safe, where success is virtually assured or they won’t even try. When repeated often enough, for some it crushes completely and they never recover.
That’s the kind of idle word Jesus is referring to, those are the type of things that we need to guard against at all cost. When we say things that are intentionally hurtful, degrading or embarrassing to others, those are the type of things we will be judged for. Those are the things for which we will have to give an account. Which brings me back to our word logos.
My second question was “Do we have a logos?” and this is where we find that yes, we do have a logos! We just finished finding out that we will have to give an account for idle words and when you dig a little deeper you find that the word “account” here is actually logos. When we go before God at the judgement we will present our ‘word’ or our logos. Jesus then says “for by your ‘logos’ you will be justified and by your ‘logos’ you will be condemned.”
Since logos is the complete expression it is made up of our rhema, our words for the moment or circumstance. I honestly don’t believe that the Father is going to bring up every unkind thing we have ever said, although that is a part of our logos. I believe that God is looking specifically for what we have said about his son Jesus. If we have confessed Jesus as our Lord and Savior, if we have said that we believe in his death, burial and resurrection, then we are under the blood of Jesus and the rest of our logos is covered by the forgiveness that he paid for. If our logos contains the right confession of Christ we will be justified!
On the other hand, if our logos does not contain a confession of Jesus, then all those hurtful words will count against us because there is no forgiveness outside of the blood of Jesus Christ. If that is the condition of our logos on judgement day then we will be condemned.
I hope I have answered my own questions in a way that makes sense and since we do have a ‘word’, as God does, we need to be more intentional about what makes up that word. Especially when it comes to what we have to say about Jesus but we also need to make sure that it doesn’t contain “idle words”, our complete expression shouldn’t be one that causes others to become unfruitful. On the contrary, we should have “zoe rhema”!
Words of life, that make up the bulk of our logos.
Blessings!
Jeff Martin
Lavish Grace
How would you feel if an extremely wealthy person took a liking to you for some unknown reason and because they liked you so much they offered you an extremely privileged position in their business, let’s say “Sr. Vice President of Public Affairs and their personal ambassador to everybody”? I’ve never heard of a position like that but just go along for the sake this discussion. Then they begin to use their wealth and influence to do things for you that are way outside of what bosses usually do for their employees. They treat you so well that it’s kind of embarrassing because you know you haven’t done anything for them that would facilitate this type of lavish treatment. Then you discover that this position is not only permanent but a lifetime appointment!
You begin to wonder what your friends and family think about all this and then you find out….some of them have the same position as you! It turns out this guy likes everybody! And he doesn’t mind using his wealth to bless anyone that decides they like him too.
Sounds to good to be true? Well, it is if your looking for a wealthy person that treats people that way but it is exactly how our Heavenly Father treats us. In fact, instead of a lifetime position it’s an eternal position and he wants to spend an eternity showing us how much he loves us. I’ll prove it!
Ephesians 2:4-7
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Anytime a verse starts out with “But God” you know it’s going to be good!
Without going into the whole “saved by grace” discussion (I’ll save that for another time), I want to concentrate on how much God loves us and how he has planned to show that to us. Notice it says that he has raised us up (out of our position of death) and caused us to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ. This is a position that God has elected to place us in simply because of his love and mercy toward us and it is a place of great privilege. I won’t go into too much detail with this but it’s like being in the top position in a large company. You sit next to the boss at every meeting, you have authority to carry out the bosses business plan, you can evict those that are causing distress or harm to those who are a part of the company and you can write checks in the bosses name! This is just a brief example but you get my drift on just how awesome it is to be in this position.
The best part of the whole deal is the reason he has placed you there, look at verse 7 “That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace”. Wow! That’s why he put you there, so that throughout eternity he can lavish the riches of his grace on you. God doesn’t just talk about his goodness he demonstrates it! Just in case you haven’t gotten the full extent of what we’re talking about, let me break verse 7 down a little further.
Paul says “in the ages to come”, the Greek word for ages is “aeon” and it’s where we get our English word eon. It means a vast period of time, sometimes referring to eternity. Most people think of eternity as the afterlife, when we get to heaven (or wherever your destination might be) but we are living in eternity right now! Eternity encompasses all of time past, present and future and God uses all the ages of time to demonstrate his goodness to us, it will never ever end! If you trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation then you are in position for the overwhelming goodness of God.
In verse 6 the phrase “made us sit together” is present tense, this is not in the sweet by and by, it’s right now! So don’t think of this as some reward in heaven for all your good deeds, this is a current position for the purpose of God showing his love to you and through you and it’s by the exceeding riches of his grace so it’s nothing you’ve earned.
There’s another great phrase “the exceeding riches of his grace”! I’ll barrow a term from the psalmist David, Selah! Just stop and let that soak in a little bit, meditate on it a while. Before reading any further, ponder what that means to you.
Ok, I hope you really did meditate on that, now let’s break it down in pieces. First we’ll take the word grace and since you may not have read any of my other articles on the subject I’ll explain that grace is unmerited divine favor, something we didn’t earn and don’t deserve but it is so much more than that. Strong’s dictionary defines it as “the divine influence on the heart and it’s reflection in the life”. Grace is not just favor or God’s forgiving our sin, it does something to us, it changes us and empowers us. Paul said that by the grace of God I am what I am. In other words it was grace that turned Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of Jesus and his followers into Paul the Apostle of Christ who took the gospel to the gentiles and wrote over half of our New Testament. That’s the power of grace at work! It’s not a weak excuse for weak people who invoke grace every time they wallow in the same sin that’s held them down all their life. Grace is a powerful medium of change!!!
Since we’re talking about the exceeding riches of his grace, we know what riches are, an abundance of possessions right? Lots of stuff. Well, God has lots of stuff! Not only does he have lots of stuff, he has exceeding amounts of lots of stuff!
I want to take a look at the Greek word for exceeding. It’s one of Paul’s favorite adjectives. Here he uses “hyperballo” in other places he uses “hyperbole” both are variations of the same word meaning to throw beyond, to excel, abundance. Our English word hyperbole is just a transliteration of the Greek. In other words we just use their word instead of coming up with our own and pronounce it in an english way. In many places that Paul uses the word it is a translated as abundance, meaning beyond measure. We use the English word hyperbole to mean something that is an exaggerated overstatement to the point being ridiculous.
To some people the goodness and riches of God’s grace may seem overstated, exaggerated, even ridiculous because they can’t imagine that God is really that good. They see him as an overbearing totalitarian that wants everybody to toe the line or else. They can’t imagine that he loves them so much that he wants to take an eternity revealing his kindness to them but the truth is that there is no measure to the riches of his grace, it’s beyond anything we can imagine. Paul uses the strongest language he has available to describe the goodness that the Father wants to lavish on you and he has positioned you in a place with Christ so that you can receive it.
The Father desires for you to take full advantage of the position he has placed you in, it breaks his heart when we don’t receive the grace prepared for us. Jesus went to the cross and died so that you could be there and to say that you don’t deserve it is to say that he didn’t do enough! Please receive the exceeding riches of his grace today!
Blessing,
Jeff
Grace Guarantees the Promise
Romans 4:16
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
God has set things in order so that the promises are available to everybody, no one is excluded because of something done in their past, or yesterday for that matter. Anyone who has the faith to take God at His word and persevere will receive the promises! But, there is something we have to understand about receiving the promises of God, the righteous are the ones who receive. There is no contradiction in what I am saying but a misunderstanding of righteousness that has permeated Christian thought for centuries.
Matthew 5:20
For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
As a quick side note, please keep in mind that the “kingdom of heaven” is NOT the sweet by and by, Jesus taught and told his disciples to preach “the kingdom of God is at hand”, meaning that it was here. Jesus said “The kingdom of God is within you.” Many other verses attest to the truth that the kingdom of God or heaven came with the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God. The promises are our inheritance from our Father God and they come through his kingdom. This is a whole other subject but it is important to the discussion. Ok, next verse.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
As you can see, those who choose their own way over righteousness are disqualified to share in the kingdom of God. It makes no difference what our opinion is concerning the list of behaviors that Paul lays out in 1 Cor. 6, only what God has to say about it matters and he says that those things will keep you from the promises of God. I can believe with all my heart that in the end these will make it into the kingdom of God because he is a loving and merciful God but that won’t change his mind. He is not talking about saved people who backslide or fail in an area, although those things can greatly hinder his purposes, he’s meaning those who make it a lifestyle. In Romans 1 & 2 Paul refers to those who practice such things, in other words a deliberate choice to ignore what God says and live according to our own morality, these will be prevented from receiving the kingdom.
Then you have the Pharisees from Matt. 5 whom Jesus himself said could not receive the promise of the kingdom either. These were ultra-religious Jews who carried out the law of Moses to the extreme. They even made up extra rules to make themselves more righteous in appearance. Paul the apostle was a Pharisee in his life before conversion and he said that according to the law he was blameless but he considered all of the that a pile of crap compared to the righteousness of God that he received by faith.(my paraphrase of a portion of Philippians 3). Everything they did was for outward appearances, they really weren’t concerned about God, they wanted to be held in high esteem by those around them and to be judgmental and condescending to those they deemed below them.
These are two ends of the morality spectrum and neither of them will be qualified to inherit the promises of God. You can’t be unrighteous(sinner) and you can’t be self-righteous(Pharisee), there is only one type of righteousness that counts with God.
You see, there are two kinds of righteousness. There is the righteousness of obedience and the righteousness of faith. One comes from the law and one comes from God, one is lacking and one is complete. The righteousness of obedience is lacking because we will never be 100% at keeping the law and because the motivation of the heart is not considered but the righteousness of faith is complete because it comes from God himself and is not determined by our ability to follow the rules!
Here’s a little story about the righteousness of faith!
Abraham had been given the promise from God at 75 years old that he would become a great nation and through him all the families of the earth would be blessed. (Please keep in mind that these guys lived well into their hundreds at this time) Then, at 85, God promised him again that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. There was only one problem, he had no children! It had been ten years since the first promise and at 85 it seemed even more unlikely. Abraham let his own reasoning and his wife talk him into producing a son through his wife’s maidservant, Hagar but God spoke again and told him it would be a son from his wife Sarah that would be his heir. He would have to wait another 14 years, when he was 100 years old and Sarah was 90, before the promise was fulfilled. By that time it was no longer just improbable but impossible for them to have children, that’s when faith had to move past human understanding and lay hold of the promise.
Abraham had the righteousness of faith. We know this because Romans 4:22 and several other places tell us that Abraham’s faith was accounted to him as righteousness, therefore faith=righteousness as far as God is concerned. He even deposits righteousness into our account. That’s what it means when it says that righteousness was imputed or accounted to Abraham. It is an accounting term that means to consider, count or number something as it actually is so if God says faith and righteousness are the same thing then they are the same. And Romans 4:24 says that it will be imputed to us also, if we believe! Now, if we have had righteousness deposited in our account then we are qualified to receive from God and it is grace that has made sure we qualify because it didn’t come through our works.
Faith operates best when the improbable becomes the impossible, when all our resources and understanding have been exhausted and when we have been forced to either believe God or give up. Some will just abandon the promise because of a lack of perseverance but some will hold on until they receive. Although, once we have experienced the faithfulness of God, it becomes easier to disregard our own understanding and man’s ability and move directly to faith in order to acquire from God the things we see in His word, the promises of the kingdom.
It is the righteousness of faith that comes because of God’s grace that qualify us to inherit the things of the kingdom. Grace truly guarantees that possibility for everyone to be qualified to receive the promises, it’s up to us to believe!
Blessings,
Jeff
Moron Grace! Sorry, More On Grace!
1 Timothy 1:8-11
8 But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 9 knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust.
For those of you who insist on being under the law of Moses and (I cringe as I write this) that includes the Ten Commandments because they are part of the law, you must be willing to take your place among this list of offenders. If the law is not made for righteous people then you can’t achieve righteousness by keeping it, therefore you assign yourself to the place of the sinner when you measure yourself by the law and not according to God’s grace.
Paul said that the law is good……IF…….it is used lawfully. To use the law lawfully you apply it to the law breakers, along with the punishment prescribed by the law, and they include all those who rebel against God by refusing to be reconciled to Him through the blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore, those who have believed in faith and been reconciled to God have been excluded from the law. In fact, in Colossians 2:14 Paul says that the handwriting of requirements (which is the law) have been wiped out and removed from us because they were working against our relationship with God, so he took it out of our way and nailed it to the cross! If you have been exempt from a requirement you couldn’t keep, why would you insist on trying anyway? You would have to be a moron!
It blows me away to think of how easily we slip back into the thinking that we have to perform at a certain level to be okay with God, that if we just try really hard and do all the right things God will be happy with us. The worst thing is that most of our christian teaching will help send you back down that road. We are an achievement based society and without the law we think we don’t have a way to gauge our progress.
Here’s how it would go for most of us: Am I keeping the first commandment, no other gods before Him, check! Well, unless you count the fact that I put most of my time and energy into acquiring and maintaining a bunch of stuff instead of into my relationship with God. Okay, maybe half a check. Second commandment, no engraved images, no idols, check! I don’t worship idols, uh, unless you count money because I have to have it to buy all that stuff I don’t really need and I’ll do almost anything to get it, oh and there are images engraved into all our coins. Okay, uncheck. Third commandment, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, check! I would never do that as long as you don’t count all the OMG’s and other times I invoke the name of God with no honor or the respect that is due to Him. Okay, I think I’ll quit while I’m behind, before the hole gets any deeper.
That’s a hole you’ll never dig your way out of!
There is a way to determine if you are making progress, Paul calls it the “fruit of the Spirit”. Galatians 5:16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law…….22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self- control. Against such there is no law.
This is something that is produced out of a relationship with God, not by our own attempts to gain His favor. The fruit is produced by His character being infused into us through constant dependence on His goodness and grace and if you can see evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in your life then you are making progress. If not, don’t pull out the ten commandments and try harder, change your focus to Jesus and what he has done to remove that burden from you. Spend time just soaking in the freedom that is in Christ and enjoying the fact that you have already been accepted through grace. (Eph 1:6)
Does that mean that we can just do anything we want because we are under grace? Shut up! I’m sick and tired of that argument, it clearly says that we should walk in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit. If we are allowing the Holy Spirit of God to lead and guide our steps do you think He will lead us into sin? The very title of “holy” should give you a clue, uh no, he will lead us into righteousness. In fact, Jesus said he will lead us into all truth and bring to our remembrance every thing he taught and I don’t think he taught anyone to sin. Plus, the Holy Spirit has the ability to change our heart, something the law could never do. The law produces hard, rigid and unfeeling people, the Holy Spirit produces loving, kind, gentle and self-controlled people.
The law is a strict taskmaster because you have to keep every single requirement or you are guilty of being a lawbreaker, even if it is the least of the rules. The law requires perfection! And since we aren’t perfect we have to suffer the guilt and condemnation that accompany failure when under the law. So which is better for us, the law or the Holy Spirit? Which one would you rather be under? I know what my choice is because I’m not a moron!
My point is, if you have confessed Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and have been made righteous through the work of the cross, the law is not for you! Rejoice in the fact that you are under grace and you can let someone else worry about all the Thou shalt nots!
If you have never trusted Christ you will be judged by the law and each one will be found guilty under the law. The penalty? Death and an eternity in hell. Sorry, there is no way around it so the best thing to do is get your exemption while you still have the chance! It’s easy, just agree with God that you are a sinner and confess that you believe Jesus died for your sins and that God raised him from the dead and voilà, you are forgiven of your sins and exempt from the law.
Blessings,
Jeff
Casting out Ishmael
This is not so much a blog but a word from the Lord that I received on 11/3/2011 during an intercessor’s meeting and the analysis of that word after I had time to read the passage in Genesis 21:1-12. I believe it is a Rhema word for the Body of Christ at this time. Please take time to allow God to give you revelation into this word and how it applies to your spiritual life.
It is time for Ishmael to be cast out of the camp. Ishmael was Abraham’s attempt in the flesh to obtain the promise of God. The time has come to stop attempting to obtain the promises of God and our inheritance by the works of the flesh. They may look good, sound good and seem like the right things to do but they are man’s plans and ideas to get God to bless what we are doing and to obtain the promises.
Below is my analysis of the word, I had not read this story in quite some time and had to go back and read it again to allow the Lord to show me the things he wanted me to see.
There were two heirs in the camp, one produced by the will of the flesh and the other by the will of God. Sarah saw Ishmael mocking on the day that Isaac was being celebrated and she said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.” Abraham was very displeased with this but God told him to listen to his wife. I believe it is time, collectively and individually, that we begin to identify those things that are Ishmaels in our camp and to put them out, no matter how difficult that is to us. There cannot be competing heirs in the Kingdom of God! Only that which has been produced by the Spirit will inherit the things of the Kingdom.
We all have Ishmaels in our lives because we have all attempted things in the flesh that should have waited on the Spirit. Again, they may look and sound very noble and receive praise from men but they are, in fact, our own endeavors and not something initiated by the Spirit. God is calling us in these days to shed our human understanding of how things work and to participate in what His Holy Spirit is doing at this time. And not only that but to cast out the things which our flesh has produced.
This is a very preliminary and condensed version of what I think God is saying here.
Blessings,
Jeff
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