Tag Archives: Christian Life

Truth That Transforms

10 Monday Jun 2024

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Welcome, Readers, to Renaissance Woman and another installment in my study on the Whole Armor of God.

I am still firmly planted in the first part of verse 14 of Ephesians Chapter 6: “Stand, therefore, having girded your waist with truth…”  I had intended to see what all I could glean from studying “having girded your waist” but, as I continued to read the entry for “truth” in the Dictionary of New Testament Theology, I read a few things that struck me:

“Paul believes in the power of truth…To encounter the truth as it in in Jesus leads on to transformation of life, in which the believer turns away from old deceits (Eph. 4:21, 22)”…Paul’s statement in [2 Corinthians] 13:8, ‘We cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth’ may just possibly refer to truth as a synonym for the gospel, as R. Bultmann maintains, but more probably conveys the idea that the power of truth is such that openness to truth, whatever its consequences, can only further the cause of Christ and the gospel.  Truth is demanded of the Christian as a corollary of his union with Christ and status as a new creation.  In 1 Cor. 5:8 the Christian celebrates the festival of the new life with sincerity and truth, banishing all impurity and deception or dishonesty, just as the Jews banished the old leaven from their houses at Passover time…The new life is to be untarnished; free from anything that spreads corrupting influences by virtue of its impurity or duplicity” (Brown, Pg. 886)

I have only quoted bits from the entry but I think the point the writer is making is clear: we who know we are in Christ are to live differently.  I don’t know of any believer who would disagree with that.  I don’t disagree with that.  However, as I read through this entry, I found something important was missing.  Further down on page 886 I did read “because the believer has put on the new nature” but that was the only reference I found that remotely referred to what Paul expressed when he wrote, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).  This got me thinking: what do we mean when we speak of a transformed life? 

I think every believer is in agreement that Jesus Christ is the absolute truth.  I do find there are two ways in which believers relate to the truth that is Jesus.  These can be summed up as those who live from and those who live to.  “From” and “to” affect how one defines living a transformed life.  As I read through the entry for truth in my dictionary, I find letter c: “the quality of being in accordance with experience, facts, or reality; conformity with fact.”  For those living “to”, a transformed life is one where we have done our best to align ourselves with the teachings of Jesus and the way the Bible says to live.  Those living “to” are living for the day when they will either die and go to heaven to be with Jesus or receive their reward when He returns to establish His kingdom here on earth. 

I use to live “to”.  I can only speak for myself but I found it be a life-draining struggle of attempting to modify my behavior to be acceptable to God.  Not Jesus, because He died for me so I was already accepted by Him.  The Father was iffy though and there was always a chance I wouldn’t behave well enough nor put on enough of the new man that I’d escape the Father’s wrath.  Perhaps I’d squeak my way into heaven but my garments would be smoking.  There was no definitive answer given to the question “can a person lose his/her salvation” and so I lived with the sneaking suspicion I could blow it bad enough that not even Jesus would speak for me. 

This time of my life was spent with no understanding of the Holy Spirit.  Lip service was paid to this…entity but there was no understanding of who He was, how He was at work in my life, and I had no idea how beloved I was.  I can still remember the day when I sought out my mother and said how much I desired to learn about the Holy Spirit.  She replied, “me too!”  Of course, neither of us had any idea how to go about it other than to start reading passages about the Holy Spirit in the Bible but our ignorance was no deterrent.  Everything Jesus said about the Holy Spirit in John 14:16-17 & 26 and John 16: 7 & 13-14 is absolutely true: the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, the Helper, the Comforter, the Teacher, the Guide, and the One who abides with us forever. 

Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and you are not your own?” (1 Cor. 6:19).  The Holy Spirit witnesses from inside of us this is so.  The Holy Spirit is our constant companion.  There is no separating ourselves from the Holy Spirit and therefore there is no circumstance or situation we can experience where we do so alone.  The Holy Spirit is our teacher and Jesus’ words are the truth: the Holy Spirit does not speak of Himself or on His own authority but teaches us who Jesus is, glorifies Jesus, and shows us the truth that everything that belongs to Jesus is also ours.  The Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the Oneness that is our God and is also ours in Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit teaches us to live “from”: from the life of Jesus Christ within us because, to quote Paul again, we are joined to the Lord and one spirit with Him. 

That is how I define living a transformed life.  It is not behavior modification but is rather a life transformed as the Holy Spirit continues to open my eyes to all that Jesus is in me and I in Him.  This is the meaning of a transformed life I find in the Bible:

Romans 8:29: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be confirmed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

1 Corinthians 15:49: “And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.”

2 Corinthians 3:18: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Galatians 4:19: “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.”

Ephesians 4:13-15: “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ”

Ephesians 4:20-24: “But you have no so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

Colossians 3:9-10: “Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”

I agree with the statement “To encounter the truth as it in in Jesus leads on to transformation of life, in which the believer turns away from old deceits” but would rephrase it like so: Encountering the truth which is Jesus Himself revealed to us and in us by the Holy Spirit results to a transformation of life as our lives are conformed to His.  Perhaps some of you reading this have spent your Christian lives living “to” something that will happen at some future date and have never thought of living “from”.  Perhaps you are like my mother and me and have no idea about the Holy Spirit.  No matter.  Ask and the Holy Spirit will teach you.  You may find the Holy Spirit has already been teaching you: you simply haven’t recognized it. 

There’s a scripture in James I love: “or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ‘The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?’” (James 4:5).  The truth of Jesus-risen, ascended, and dwelling is us-is not something reserved for special people who have made some sort of commitment or are extra holy in some way.  This truth is for you.  The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously for us to know the Father is in Jesus, we are also in Jesus, and we have been brought to complete unity.

Until next time, may the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ open the eyes of our understanding-flood us with light-that we may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in us and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.

May we live transformed!

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References                         

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume 3, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967, 1971, Page 886

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s new World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1972, 1976

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Walker, Allen G., Koine Greek Textbook, Volume II/III, 2014-2018

No Limits in Sight

15 Monday Apr 2024

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Hello and Welcome to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am continuing my study on the Whole Armor of God with my focus on the Helmet of Salvation.

My previous posts on the Helmet of Salvation have focused on the protection, saving, healing, and renewing that takes place in our minds.  This was a useful avenue of study for me but I have been pondering the passages of scripture that speak of Jesus as the head and us as His body and wondering if it wouldn’t behoove me to spend some time on how those passages of scripture relate to His being a Helmet of Salvation.

The passages I’ve been pondering are these:

Colossians 1:18: “and He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence”

Colossians 2:18-19: “Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he had not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God”

I’ve also been pondering Paul’s writing his hope that we “may grow up into all things into Him who is the head-Christ” which is found in his letter to the Ephesians and, along with all of these passages, there has been a fragment of scripture floating through my mind but one where I could not remember where in the Bible it was located.  I did some research and found it in Psalm 133:2 which says, “It is like precious oil upon the head, Running down on the beard, The beard of Aaron, Running down on the edge of his garments.”

I felt as though there were something important here to see but, beyond the obvious (Jesus is the Head and we are His body) no clear picture was coming together.  I thought I’d let it simmer on a back burner in my mind for a bit and return to it in a few months but then I read two things which caused my out-of-focus mental picture to sharpen.  The first was Psalm 133:1.  Verse 2 picks up in mid-thought so I was curious what the context of “it is like the precious oil…” would be.  The Psalm opens with, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

The second thing I read was a statement in William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour:  “Be very careful of giving thine enemy hand-hold.  Wrestlers strive to fasten upon some part or other, which gives them advantage more easily to throw their adversary; to prevent which, they used-1. To lay aside their garments; 2, To anoint their bodies” (Gurnall, Vol 1. pg 120).

Reading this statement on the heels of having studied Colossians 2:15 which says, “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them…”, I saw with clarity how, joined as we are to the Head Jesus Christ, protected and nourished by Him, partaking of His divine nature and thus His same anointing, of course no enemy can get a grip on us!  I was reminded of Hebrews 7:25: “…He is able to save to the uttermost…” and I amused myself for a bit imagining all enemies attempting to snag a hold merely sliding off into a puddle at my feet. 

However, it was Psalm 133:1 which struck me.  I read verses 1 & 2 together and thought about how difficult it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.  In fact, if I take a long look at our society, I would say it is impossible for us.  But then, maybe it was never expected for us to try to live in unity.

If this study on the Whole Armor of God has showed me anything it is that this Christian life is all Jesus Christ.  It is not we who live, it is Christ living in and through us.  We do not love in our own strength, His love fills us and overflows out of us to the world around us.  We do not do our best to believe and have faith, our faith is His faith.  We do not strive to be righteous, our righteousness is His.  We do not stand and fight the enemy in our own strength, we are made to stand in His covenant love and life and rest in His victory.  When it comes to living in unity with the brethren, it is not left up to us.  We are not to strive to be like Jesus Christ but are to live in the realization that we are IN CHRIST is He is IN US.  Unity.  True unity is found in Jesus Christ and everything He is and has is ours through the working of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible makes clear the Holy Spirit is the anointing that was upon Jesus and is upon us.  Acts 10 tells the story of Cornelius the Centurion and Peter’s Vision and also records Peter saying, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (verse 38).  1 John 2:17 says, “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”

I think it’s important to keep in mind Jesus’ description of the One He would send during His conversation with His disciples at the last supper (found in chapters 13-17 of John’s Gospel) when reading 1 John 2:17 because John is not describing some thing as the anointing but rather a Person.  That Person is the Holy Spirit and yet we do not merely have an experience of the Holy Spirit without also experiencing the Son and Father.  I think we have been taught to think too much in terms of separation when it comes to God.  It’s like we’ve been taught to believe we have one relationship with Jesus, another with the Father, and yet another with the Holy Spirit assuming we have belonged to denominations that believe the Holy Spirit is still at work today rather than having ceased with the death of the last Apostle.

The being of God is unity which is a subject I don’t have the space to elaborate on in this post.  I will share two passages of scripture.  The first is also found in 1 John 2 where the Beloved Apostle writes, ““he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (verse 33b).  The second is 2 Corinthians 3:17: “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”  We are filled with the fullness of God and that’s all of Him: Father, Son, and Spirit.

In His letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul writes, “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, will all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.  But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift…for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ-from whom the whole body, joined and knot together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:1-7, 12-16).

Paul ends this letter with “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.  Amen.”

I wonder if we would not begin to see brethren dwelling in unity if we began offering grace to all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity because it is Jesus alone who is the Head.  The passage in Colossians 2 warns us not to be cheated of the reward we have in Jesus Christ by those who have not held fast to the Head.  Let us not only hold fast to Him who is the Head but grow up in all things into Him who is the Head.

The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance.  Where are the boundary lines to that inheritance?  Is there ever a moment when we would hear, “this far and no further” or could it be the words of C.S. Lewis are accurate and there is only “further up and further in”?  Let us cease being afraid to leave behind the “discussion of elementary principals of Christ” and “let us go on to perfection”.  What is there to fear?  We are made complete in the One who is not only the Head of all principality and power but has disarmed all principalities and powers having made a public spectacle of them (See Hebrews 6:1-3, Colossians 2:15).  May the anointing Holy Spirit open our eyes for us all to see that we abide in the One who is perfect love and who thus casts out all fear.  May we see that because we abide in Him and the Father is also in Him, we have been brought to complete unity.

Above all, may the Holy Spirit bring us to see that, as we abide in His love, we put on the love which is the bond of perfect unity! It’s all Jesus Christ and there are no limits to His love!

Hallelujah!  Amen.

 Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Gurnall, William, The Christian in complete Armour, Volume I, Seventh Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2021, Page 120

Lewis, C.S., The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, HarperCollins Publishers, Barnes & Noble, Inc. New York, New York, 2009, Pages 753-760

The River Within

05 Monday Feb 2024

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Hello Readers and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman and another post on the Shield of Faith!

I had thought last week’s post would be the last on the Shield of Faith but, as I received some feedback on last week’s post, I found one more post was necessary.

What is the Shield of Faith?  The Old Testament refers to God Himself as our shield.  Genesis 15:1 records the word of the Lord coming to Abram in a vision and saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”  Deuteronomy 33: 29 says this: “Happy are you, O Israel!  Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help…”  There are passages in various Psalms that describe God as our shield.  I want to focus on three separate passages that stood out during my study.  The first I’ve already touched on in last week’s post: Psalm 3:3 says, “But You, O Lord, are a shield for me” and the Hebrew word translated “for” could accurately be translated “around me” or “about me”. Indeed, the New American Standard has “about me” and the New International “around me”.  This Hebrew word (#1157 in the Strong’s Concordance) also carries the meaning of “within”: a thought I will return to in a moment.

The second passage is Psalm 91:4.  Some translations render this passage as “his truth shall be thy shield and buckler” while others have it as “his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart”.  The Amplified covers all its bases and has this verse as “His trust and His faithfulness are a shield and buckler.”

The third passage appears in three different books of the Bible.  The first is 2 Samuel 22:31: “As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.”  The second appearance is Psalm 18:30: “As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.”  The third is Proverbs 30:5: “Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.”

John 1:1 states “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  In John 14:6, Jesus describes Himself as “the way and the truth and the life.”  Holding this in mind, I return to the passages of scripture I’ve shared and wonder if they aren’t saying something far and above anything I’ve ever heard before.  Are these passages expressing separate thoughts?  The way of the Lord is perfect, His word is proven, and He is also a shield or is it saying The way of the Lord is perfect, His word is proven, and then the “He” that is a shield and buckler is the He who is the way and the word?  Is the truth and faithfulness that is a shield and rampart some attribute He bestows on us or is the shield and rampart He who is faithful and true?

I listen a great deal to Malcolm Smith and one of the points he stresses over and over is 1 John 4:8; “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”  “He does not have love”, Bishop Smith says, “He is it!”  I think of this when it comes to these passages of scripture and Jesus.  Jesus does not have the word: He is it!  He does not show us the way: He is it!  He does not simply tell us the truth: He is it!  He does not have faithfulness: He is it!  He does not give us a Shield of Faith: He is it!

And, He wasn’t all of these things sometime in the past and then will be these things again sometime in the future.  He is all of these things in us now.  How is this possible if He is seated at the right hand of the Father, received by heaven until the times of the restitution of all things? (See Ephesians 1:20, Acts 3:21).  If Jesus is in some far off heaven somewhere and we are down here waiting for His second coming, how is He all of these things now?  Doesn’t the Bible say our inheritance is reserved in heaven for us? (1 Peter 1:4).

Yes, it does.  However, the Bible also says we are established in Christ, sealed, and given the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee (or earnest, or downpayment-2 Corinthians 1:21-22).  This Spirit is the Spirit described by Jesus in Chapters 14-17 of John’s gospel.  There is another promise in John 14:23: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”  “We love,” John says in his first letter, “because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19) and “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5).  I can’t help but to quote 1 Corinthians 6:19 again: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” 

In John 14: 18-20 Jesus says, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.  A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me.  Because I live, you will live also.  At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”  The rest of the New Testament tell us of all that is ours because we are In Christ and Christ is in us.  Now.  This moment.  He is in us and we are in Him! The Father and Son have made Their abode in us!  How?  Because we are joined to the Lord and are of one spirit with Him!  (Back to 1 Corinthians 6).

Our Shield of Faith is Jesus Christ and we know this is the truth because the Spirit bears witness in our hearts it is so which brings me back to my thought at the beginning of this post.  The Hebrew word in Psalm 3:3 translated as “for”-thou art a shield for me-also carrying the meaning “within”.  In Christ we live and move and have our being.  If we believe that, it is not too difficult to picture Him as a shield surrounding us.  We are hidden in Him and His life quenches the fiery darts of the wicked one.  But there is another picture I admit I am just coming to see and understand and that is that Jesus Christ is a shield within us.  Jesus says, “’He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’ But this He spoke concerning the spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive;  for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7:38-39). 

The river is a symbol I find throughout the Old and New Testaments.  One of my favorite passages is Psalm 46:4: “There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God”.  I find this same river in Revelation 22:1; “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”  The River also appears in Ezekiel 47 where the prophet is first brought in up to his ankles, and then his knees, and then his waist, and then he must finally swim in it. 

There are passages of scripture where both the word and the Spirit are likened to water (See Isaiah 44:3, John 4:14, 1 Corinthians 12:13, John 15:3, Ephesians 5:25-27).  Faith is our response to who God has revealed Himself in Jesus.  The scriptures are of immense value in that revelation but, the Word is alive in us now.  We live in union with Him via His Spirit in us who speaks what He hears.  That word is energizing vitality.  It is living water within us, water that fill us to overflowing and flows out to the world around us.  I cannot say it too many times: our Shield of Faith-that Shield that is Christ Jesus Himself-does surround us on every side but it is also a river of life within us.

When the fiery darts of the wicked one come seeking to shake our faith and to convince us our God is something different than the One revealed in Jesus Christ, the river of living water that wells up from within us and flows out from us not only quenches them but I daresay sweeps them away. 

There is so much more to be said on faith and the word and I anticipate unearthing even more treasures as I move on to study the rest of the Whole Armor of God.  Until next week, I close with Paul’s prayer in his letter to the Ephesians: “Therefore, I ask…the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith: that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Hallelujah!  It is so! 

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References     

The Comparative Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

Strong, James, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN, 1990

Comfort and Joy

25 Monday Dec 2023

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Happy Christmas, Readers! 

Monday is my usual post day and, this year, Monday happens to be Christmas Day. 

I am still in the midst of my study on Ephesians 6 verses 10 through the first part of verse 18.  This is the passage where the Apostle Paul describes the Whole Armor of God.  I have not yet moved on from the Shield of Faith and did wonder what sort of post I could create for Christmas Day that would continue to reveal the true definition of faith.

That might seem silly because of course Christmas is all about faith for Christians.  I find that “faith” in this respect is used to mean “a religion or a system of religious beliefs” which is definition 3 of “faith” in my New World Book Dictionary.  Those who use “faith” mean the set of rules and regulations set down by their denomination, the theology stamped approved by their denomination, and the fiercely held but not always audibly expressed idea that the faith of their denomination is the True Faith: all others are mistaken and have fallen short of the truth.

I suppose I ought to admit I am rather ambivalent about Christmas.  On the one hand, there is everything I have learned about Christmas traditions.  Would it shock you to learn that there is no Christmas movie (that I can bring to mind) that accurately portrays the birth of our Lord and Savior and that the Nativity Scenes where the animals gaze benevolently at the newborn Christ, the Shepherds bow down in worship, and the Three Wise Men offer their gifts, directly contradicts the Biblical story?

Only the Shepherds were there to see the Baby Jesus.  The Wise Men-and there had to be a great many more than three visitors from the East-didn’t arrive until Jesus was a child and, when they visited Him, they did so at the house where He, Mary, & Joseph were living (see Matthew Chapter 2).  There is every reason to question whether His birth occurred in December and there is also reason to question whether the place He was born ought to be translated as “stable”.  All of these things as they are celebrated during Christmas are traditions and are “faith” only in the respect that they are the traditions of a belief system accepted by a wide group of people.

All of these things I can take or leave.  If I have the opportunity to partake of these traditions, fine; if not, equally fine.  It is the people I am partaking with who are important.  I also admit there are some aspects of Christmas I thoroughly enjoy.  Some of the Christmas music is the most beautiful I’ve ever heard.  So beautiful, I don’t always save these songs for Christmas.  You can find me singing “Joy to the World” and “O Holy Night” at any time of the year.  And, accurate or not, I do like the Nativity Tableau because it is a picture of what the Hebrew words translated “remember” and “remembrance” mean.  The two words are spelled the same but are pronounced with different vowels.  Remember is zakar and it means “to mark-so as to be recognized-to remember, to mention”.  The Strong’s also defines it as “to be male” which makes this word worth a devoted study.  The word translated as “remembrance” is zeker and isn’t all that different than zakar being defined by the Strong’s as “a memento, recollection, commemoration.”  The Strong’s also includes the word “scent” and “to burn incense” in these definitions and I like the idea of all of our senses being involved in our remembering.

Remembrance in the Biblical sense of the word is not an intellectual exercise.  The meaning can be seen in these Christmas celebrations: acting it out as if Jesus was being born this very night, celebrating the Word made flesh, recognizing our likeness in His face, and reveling in the indescribable love of God.

Unto us a Child is born.  Unto us a Son is given.

But, this remembrance is not our faith.  We are not acting out a mere belief system.  We are celebrating-or ought to be celebrating-the revelation of God Himself in Jesus Christ.  This revelation of God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, the humility in the heart of God in that God became one of us-limited in every way as we are, tempted in every way as we are-is the catalyst for a response in us and that response is the definition of faith.

I read J. Preston Eby’s teachings and only recently discovered he’d written a short series on faith.  I am currently on page 3 of the first study but have read enough that there is plenty to ponder.  Mr. Eby opens his study series with this definition of faith: “Faith is the mental attitude of confident response which is evoked in you by what another person reveals himself to be.”

Mr. Eby goes on to write, “The very first thing that you will surely observe about this definition is that it declares that your faith is not something that you decided to exercise.  Rather it is a response produced in you by someone other than yourself!  True faith never accrues to the praise of the one who possesses it, but rather, to the glory of the one who evokes it!  Then, in the second place, the “mental attitude of confident response” known as faith is totally dependent upon revelation, that is, the uncovering or unveiling of another person’s inner being in such a way that he may be seen as he really is.”

Does Jesus have December or a September or an April or some other birth month?  Was He born in a stable or some other type of room?  I do enjoy reading what others have to say on these subjects.  I don’t have time for arguing about it because, whatever the facts may be, the truth is we have an unpredictable God who, maker and ruler of all things, did not choose to be born in a way that fitted His station.  He was born to poor peasant parents, had a manger for His bed, and while angels filled the skies with song, only shepherds were there to mark His birth.

Tomorrow will be December 26th.  Perhaps many of you will begin taking down decorations and packing them away until next year.  Perhaps many of you will find tomorrow to be a bit of a letdown.  Perhaps you sought the Magic of Christmas and needed Santa and Elves and Flying Reindeer in order to find it.  But then, you probably stopped believing in all of that years ago.  You try to create magic for your children but deep inside you know magic is nothing more than illusion and sleight of hand.

None of your days have to be a letdown.  We don’t have to try and stir up some sort of holiday spirit and try to keep it going into the cares and trials of our daily lives.  Jesus is not just the reason for the season, He is the reason for everything that exists: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through Him and for Him.  And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” (Colossians 1:15-17).

I follow the blog Hebrew Word Lessons and a recent post addressed Christmas.  The point was made about the unlikelihood of Jesus having a December birth but also pointed out the beauty of celebrating His arrival with lights during the darkest time of the year.  The author also writes, “This Messiah (Anointed One), who would come as a child, would be an awe-inspiring, mighty, eternal, peace-bringer.  And He would be a counsellor…an intimate advisor for every human heart.”  John 14:16 refers to the Holy Spirit as the Comforter and the Amplified expands that word with “Counsellor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby”. (See also John 14:26-28).  

Today is the day chosen to be the commemoration of God’s coming to earth through His being born a human being.  However you choose to mark today, if you do so choose to mark today, I hope it is a day full of the comfort and joy that belongs to each one of us.  Because that baby is no longer a baby.  He is the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ, sitting at the right hand of the Father, with all authority in heaven and on earth His, ever living to make intercession for us, dwelling in us in and by His Spirit. 

When we experience the vitality of us in Christ and He in us, all substitutions pale in comparison. Our reality is we have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us.  Emmanuel, God with Us, has become God in Us.  Our very bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit not just today but every day.  He is our Comfortor and His fruit is joy.  The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, will open our eyes to the magnitude of what it means to live in union with Christ in us: we only have to ask.  And then, having opened our eyes, this same Spirit will strengthen us to live our lives in response to all we have seen: a life of faith.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

THE LAW OF FAITH Part 1 by J. Preston Eby (godfire.net)

Revisiting COUNSELLOR ‹ Hebrew Word Lessons ‹ Reader — WordPress.com

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1953, 1976

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

The Future is Now!

04 Monday Dec 2023

Posted by in Studies, Whole Armor of God

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Hello Readers and welcome to a new post on Renaissance Woman!

I want to open with a quote from Andrew Murray’s The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer: “…’As Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life’ (Romans 1:6 KJV).  It is the Risen One who says to us, ‘Get up!…and walk.’ He gives us the power of the resurrection life.  It is a walk in Christ: ‘As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him’ (Colossians 2:6 NKJV).  It is a walk like Christ: ‘He who says he abides in Him ought to walk just as He walked’ 1 John 2:6 NKJV).  It is a walk in the Spirit and after the Spirit: ‘Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh…walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’ (Galatians 5:16, Romans 8:1 NKJV).  It is a walk worthy of God and well pleasing to Him: ‘That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work’ (Colossians 1:10 KJV).  It is a walk in love: ‘Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us’ (Ephesians 5:2 KJV).  It is a walk of faith, its power coming from God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: ‘We walk by faith not by sight’ (2 Corinthians 5:7 KJV).

How many believers regard such a walk as an impossible goal?  So impossible that they do not feel it a sin to walk otherwise.  Therefore, they do not truly desire this walk in newness of life.  They have become so accustomed to the life of fruitlessness that the life and walk in God’s strength has little attraction.  There is no expectation of attaining it.” (Murray, 80-81).

This struck me: especially the part about Christians thinking the Christian life so impossible there is no real expectation of attaining it.  I think I honed in on that portion because it is impossible for me to be seeking an accurate definition of faith without looking at Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  I have never performed a thorough study on this passage and so, curious what those who had done such study had to say, I looked at various commentaries.  I was amazed at how many spoke of those things hoped for as being things belonging to the future.  These commentaries had very little expectation of an immediate experience of “things”.  No, they were of God and therefore eternal and waited for us in heaven.

There were a few who suggested it was faith that made these future things “as though they were already present” (quoting Meyers NT Commentary).  The Expositor’s Greek Testament (quoting Dr. Hatch) says, “Faith is the ground of things hoped for, i.e. trust in God, or the conviction that God is good and that He will perform His promises, is the ground for confident hope that the things hoped for will come to pass…So trust in God furnishes to the mind which has it a clear proof that things to which God has testified exist, though they are not visible to the senses.” The Expositor’s then goes on to say, “The words thus become a definition of what faith does, not of what it is.  Substantially the words mean that faith gives to things future, which as yet are only hoped for, all the reality of actual present existence; and irresistibly convinces us of the reality of things unseen and brings us into their presence.”

Well, okay, but I find I am not satisfied.  If we are to stand firm in this present evil day, having put on the Whole Armor of God and taken up the Shield of Faith, defining that faith as giving to yet future things the reality of actual present existence is a definition I find lacking.  Something with-if I may use the same word as the writer to the Hebrews-substance in order to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

I found my first real glimmer of substance in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges: “The object of faith from the dawn of man’s life had been Christ, who, even at the Fall, had been foretold as ‘the seed of the woman who should break the serpent’s head.’ The difference between the Two Covenants was that in the New He was fully set forth as the effulgence of the Father’s glory, whereas in the Old He had been but dimly indicated by shadows and symbols.”  This was one of the few commentaries that suggested Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament and that the things hoped for were tangible in Him rather than things reserved for some later time.

Now, there is a passage found in 1 Peter 1:3-4 which says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.”  “Reserved” does sound as if our inheritance is a future one but the Greek word translated “reserved” here is tereo (G5083) and means “a watch, to guard from loss or injury by keeping the eye upon.”  This does deserve further study but I cannot see that the definition of the word warrants the pushing off of all “things” to either a future date or as something reserved for us which we cannot experience until we get to heaven.

There is the passage in Ephesians 1:13-14 which says, “In Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”

I am not saying I utterly disagree with the commentaries: this passage in Ephesians speaks of a time of redemption and Acts 3:21 speaks of a time of restoration of all things.  There’s this passage in Romans as well: “For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.  For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope: because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.  Not only that, be we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.  For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.  Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses…” (Romans 8:18-26a NKJV).

I wonder if a lack of both seeing and understanding the work of the Spirit isn’t the explanation for the lack of expectation described by Andrew Murray and still so prevalent among Christians today.  Not one commentary mentioned the Holy Spirit.  There are denominations who declare there is no longer any work of the Spirit: He ceased activity with the death of the last apostle and now we have the Bible to help us get into heaven.  And, going to heaven after death appears to be the pinnacle of expectation among far too many Christians.  They have no expectation of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, there is no understanding of having the fullness of God in us through Jesus Christ, and there is no understanding of our inheritance in Jesus Christ.  All of this due to an unfamiliarity with the Holy Spirit for it is He who takes what belongs to Jesus Christ and declares it to us. 

The Old Testament did point to a coming Day but, for us, that Day has already come.  We don’t have to have to trust that God will keep His promises because all of His promises are YES! in Jesus Christ to the glory of God through us (2 Corinthians 1:20).  Without the Holy Spirit teaching and interpreting for us, we can’t begin to understand the New Testament for it speaks of a covenant ratified by the blood of Jesus but made reality in us by Spirit and ministered to, in, and through us by Spirit.  If you do not know the Holy Spirit is poured out in YOUR flesh, then you are missing the inheritance that is yours in Jesus Christ sealed in you by the Holy Spirit and experienced by you in the Holy Spirit.  Is there more to come?  Absolutely! But, do not have what is yours in Jesus Christ stolen from you by denominations who teach there is no longer a working of the Holy Spirit or teach you that you must come to God through their leader.  The Spirit is for you.  There is an inheritance each one of us can experience right now of which the Spirit is the down payment-or firstfruits-but what a firstfruits!  The full harvest was not of a different type than the firstfruits neither was the firstfruits a belief there would be more to come.  The firstfruits were the promise there was a coming bounty but they were full, mature fruit able to be feasted upon and enjoyed.  Do not let the fact that there is more to come keep you from enjoying the firstfruits now.

The Christian life is so much more than going to heaven when you die.  It is life now.  Eternal life is knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ (John 17:3) and we don’t have to wait until we die in order to experience it (1 John 5:13).  The Holy Spirit is lavished upon us and enables us to know our God now right from where He dwells in the secret place of our hearts.  Since He is the guarantee of our inheritance, I do not think I stretch Hebrews 11:1 too far when I say He is our faith.  He brings all that Jesus gained for us into our present reality while at the same time showing us the glorious future of all creation set free from bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  Amen.

References

Hebrews 11:1 Commentaries: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (biblehub.com)

Murray, Andrew, The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer, Bethany House Publishers, Bloomington, Minnesota, 1981, 2003

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990