Thursday
The God Who Never Changes!
Responding to “Melchizedek Means You Must Tithe!”
The OTHER Benefit of the New Covenant
The Commandments of Christ
The verse is thrown out as a prooftext: "You have to follow the commands of God!" though nobody's expected to follow all the commands: they don't promote blood sacrifices or stoning sinners. It's just an attempt to coerce believers into submitting to their own favorite part of the Law.
This is an attempt at control: whether from ignorance or malevolence, this is an attempt to wield the Law, as it has always been wielded, to exercise control over you: "You must do what I say you must do, because of this verse!" This is part of "the curse of the Law." And implicit in it is "If you don't do what I say, you're guilty!" and this is the rest of "the curse of the Law."
Let's look a little closer, shall we, at what Jesus said? Jesus doesn't say, "If you love me, keep all the commands of the Law," or even "If you love me, keep this particular group of the Law's commands."
What does he say? "Keep MY commandments." Keep the commandments that Jesus has given. Not the commandments of the Law: the commandments of Jesus!
What did Jesus command? Let's pull out a concordance and look, shall we?
Jhn 13:34
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
Jhn 15:12
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Jhn 15:17
This is my command: Love each other.
You're welcome to look it up yourself (http://nwp.link/1HpK278); these are actually the only commandments that Jesus gave. It's pretty clear that, while he has commanded it several times, he only gave one command: love each other.
So yeah: if you love Jesus, keep the commandments he gave: they're all about love each other. That's it. This isn't about obeying the law, or about religious traditions, or about dietary requirements or even a command to "do good works."
It's about loving each other.
It probably is appropriate to point out that love - true ἀγαπάω love - is a pretty big topic. It's all about pursuing their good over your own good, and that's a costly love that will itself require much of us. But the command is love; the command is not about submitting to the Law, either the Old Covenant Law, or the rules that someone is trying to control you with.
Brothers and sisters, the Law is dead. Long live the command of love.
Fixing Our Eyes on the Good.
(This video does a pretty good job of explaining this. The first 5 minutes give you the basics.)
The physicists’ conclusion: “The very act of observing [subatomic particles] caused the wave function to collapse and create the existence of matter.” In other words, observation creates real matter.
This has epic implications: what we observe becomes real. In fact, physicist Anton Zeilinger declares that “What we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure [or observe].”
Let’s describe this in Kingdom vocabulary: it clearly suggests that sons of the Most High create reality not merely by their words, but also by simply paying attention.
This gives greater understanding to passages like Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”
Applying quantum physics to Scripture, this explains WHY we are directed to dwell – to observe, to fix our attention on – good things: because our observation of them causes them to manifest more completely in the physical realm.
By extension, the reverse is also true: if we do NOT give our attention to things that are negative or evil – we call them “bad reports” – then we do NOT help those things become reality. What we don’t pay attention to never becomes as real as the things we do pay attention to.
So one of the ways that we accomplish our task of “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” is in Hebrews 12: “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
But the current research in quantum physics has learned even more: just observing subatomic particles not only causes them to actually exist, but it causes them to have already existed, prior to observation (around the 7:00 point of the video), or sometimes, in the future.
I hear this as both a powerful encouragement to focus our attention on good news, on things that are “worthy of praise,” and a clear articulation of WHY we need to pay attention to good things.
As Dr Zeilinger says, This is “a very, very deep message about the nature of reality, and our role in the universe. We are not just passive observers.”
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Feeding from the Old Testament
I don't recommend trying to understand God from the Old Testament any longer UNTIL individuals demonstrate they've got a handle on the first three verses of Hebrews, the letter written to the people of the Old Testament, which declares,
"In these last days [God has] spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things,... being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person..."
Until you can recognize that Jesus is the "express image" of God, until I learn to interpret whatever I read from the Old Testament through the revelation of the Father that is Jesus, then I WILL misunderstand God's nature. You will too.
Personally, I no longer listen to Bible teachers who haven't figured this out. Whenever someone shouts, "God is like this!!!" and points to the Old Testament to declare something about Him that is not in the revelation of Jesus, then I smile and nod, and I delete them from my Facebook Feed, or put their books in the Goodwill bin.
I won't drink from that polluted well any more. There's no life in it.
Good Treasure, or Evil?
Reflecting on the repeated word “good.” (Principle: when the Book repeats something, it’s worth paying attention to!)
The word for “good” is ἀγαθός, and it “describes that which, being “good” in its character or constitution, is beneficial in its effect; it is used
(a) of things physical, e.g., a tree.
(b) in a moral sense, frequently of persons and things. God is essentially, absolutely and consummately “good. (Vine's Dictionary of New Testament Words)
This tells me something that I don’t actually want to know: what I say (and presumably what I write about on FB) reveals my heart. If I’m talking about things that are beneficial in their effect, if I am pointing out that which is good about things, then this verse declares that I am a “good man” and I have “good treasure” in my heart.
But if what I say (and presumably what I write about on FB) is talking about things that are faults, or problems, or failures, or complaints or even just drivel, then this verse declares that I have “evil treasure” in my heart.
Certainly, I wish to apply this to myself: I can judge my own heart by watching what I say. Are my words revealing good or evil in my heart?
But I probably need to take this a step further as well: who am I reading, who am I following. If they’re speaking things that comfort me or challenge me or cause me to dig deeper into God, if they’re declaring what is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous or praiseworthy (see Philippians 4:8), then I can safely judge the fruit: this is “good treasure” coming from a good heart.
But if I’m listening to people or reports that are bringing fear, or outrage, or self-pity, or resentment, or entitlement, or powerlessness, or reports that are stirring worldly desires (“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” 1 John 2:16), then I can – and must – judge that report as “evil treasure,” and recognize that it is coming from a motivation that has evil toward me in it, whether those speaking it mean for it to or not. (I’m not judging their heart; I’m judging their words.)
May I tell you a secret? That’s why I stopped watching the news. Father showed me this, and he called it my “devotional with the world.” I don’t hide from the news, but I get my news on my terms now, not on theirs.
I intend to judge fruit. I choose to be a fruit inspector. I choose to filter the fruit that others give me, to receive the good, and reject the evil.
Offense at God Stops the Promises
Thoughts About he Word of God
before you start picking up stones and coming after me. I’m reporting what I’m seeing. If you’re not seeing them, that’s cool. (Now, if you’re not willing to look, that’s another story, perhaps.)
Monday
A Biblical Perspective on the Bible
I believe God is calling his Bride [hear me carefully here] to stop treating the Bible as a limitation, and to employ it more as a launch pad.
To which I answer: Of COURSE we’ll get it wrong! Of course we’ll make mistakes! We’ve never gone this way before. We’re rookies, for pity sake! We are NOT experts at this! But we’re not afraid of mistakes; we embrace them because they show progress. I’ve made a bundle of mistakes already, and I’ll bet you I’m not done yet. (Wonderfully educational things: mistakes.)
I’m comforted knowing that Jesus faced people who were content to judge him, and he didn’t listen to them either. They were so content with their system that they opposed, and then they killed, the King of Glory. They murdered a whole bunch of His followers, too. Those are not the people whose counsel I will be seeking in this race.
Wednesday
Learning From the Book and Beyond
I’ve been talking with a bunch of very cool people about the Gospel of John recently. It’s important to me to be fresh with what I’m talking about, so I’ve been burying myself in the first part of the book recently, more listening than reading this time, just for a new perspective. And indeed, I’ve heard things I’ve never seen in there.
The real issue with Nicodemus was that the Spirit alone can unlock scripture; Nick’s head knowledge could never reveal mysteries of the Spirit. You know, I really don’t want Jesus saying to me, “You’re my child, and you still don’t get it?”
Tuesday
A Gift to Remember
A Gift to Remember
Friday
Discerning the Times
Let’s discuss some theory and practice of discerning the times, discerning our times. We live in interesting times.
First, Let’s establish that discernment is a good thing. The Book addresses the topic. First, the Bible celebrates these particular boys who had good discernment:
“… sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what
Jesus is more forceful on the topic.
“When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.” Matthew 16:2-3.
Yes, he’s chewing out some religious leaders, but the reason he is chewing them out was because they couldn’t discern the times. Specifically, they couldn’t discern what God was doing, and the Son of God rebuked them for it.
It is that important that we discern what God is doing in our day. In these outrageous times, I am convinced that it is more important than it was in previous generations that we understand our times, that we discern our times correctly.
I want to set something of a foundation for where we’re going. Let’s start with Jesus. He’s a pretty good foundation.
“1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” John 1.
I feel the need to re-emphasize some basic truths from this passage. There’s nothing new or controversial here.
· Jesus is the Word of God incarnate.
· He was alive before the beginning of creation.
· Jesus is God.
· Creation happened through him.
· Apart from Jesus, there was no creating going on.
One of the stones of this foundation that we’re laying is this: Jesus is the Creator. My point is this: Jesus is that it is well documented that Jesus is creative. I would argue that he is the source of all creativity, the fountain from which all of his creation draws from in their own creativity. Creativity was in Jesus’ blood before he had blood, before blood was invented, before the molecules that would eventually make up blood had been formed.
The New Testament adds to this:
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8
If Jesus was creative for that very first week of creation, then the Book says that he remains unchanged. He is still creative. The guy who declared, “Let there be light!” is still that guy. Creativity is a part of him.
“Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? Isaiah 43:18,19.
God identifies himself as a God who does new things. We could get technical and point out that “I will do a new thing” is an Active Participle, which “represents an action or condition in its unbroken continuity.” In other words, it could quite accurately (and more clumsily) be translated, “I do new stuff. That’s who I am!”
Then he adds, “You’re going to know it! You’re going to experience my new stuff!”
This is pretty basic: If God does new stuff, then he is doing new stuff. If Jesus – who is unchanging – is creative, then he is still creating, still doing new stuff. If this is who he is, then it’s who he is.
Therefore we should expect new stuff to happen. We should expect God to do new stuff. New stuff in us. New stuff around us. Things that nobody has ever seen before. (The Hebrew word חדש speaks about something that’s brand spankin’ new, and is contrasted with other words that mean rebuilt or renewed.)
I’m making a strong point about this because it seems that whenever someone says, “God is doing something new today!” someone crawls out of the shadows and snarls, “No he’s not!” Their justification for their narrow mindedness generally comes from Hebrews 13:8 (quoted above), or from their own self-centeredness: “I ain’t never seen that before, so it can’t be God.”
It has often been pointed out that the greatest persecutors of the latest move of God are very often the members of the last move of God. But it is to us specifically that God says, “Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old!”
“Quit measuring things by the past. Stop looking back to what I did before. That is not what I’m doing now.”
Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. Exodus 34:10
OK. God is doing new things in our day, things that have never been seen on the earth before. But God isn’t the only one who’s doing things that we have never seen before. How do we discern between the unfamiliar thing that is God and the unfamiliar thing that is not God.
This is the rabbit trail that God led me on this morning. We must be able to discern our times. We must be able to discern that which is God from that which is not God.
Here’s where it got awkward for me, where it became unfamiliar to me: I cannot use my mind for that task. “But I have a good mind! It works well!” I argued. He agreed, and added, “but your mind is limited to what it knows, what it remembers, what it has seen before, and – from that – to what it can imagine. That’s insufficient. You must discern these times with your spirit.”
If God is doing new things in our day, things that have never been seen on Earth, then we must use a tool that is capable of working with things that are new, never before seen on the earth.
May we learn to discern well, to rely on our discernment, and to receive the new and different and unusual things that God is doing.
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9