Tag Archives: Increase

Our Increasing Inheritance

31 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

This week I continue looking at the Hebrew word bara and, as I have conducted this study on Isaiah 45:7, I found I haven’t been able to look at bara without also looking at bereshiyt.  I’ve felt I could spend the rest of my life just looking at Bereshiyt bara, the first two words of the book of Genesis or the Torah.  The deeper I look the more I find I am in fathomless depths.  There is so much more to be seen and learned and I may never find a bottom.

Which is fine by me.  Being taught of the Holy Spirit is a never ending adventure of discovery.  As my God is infinite and I am finite, I can delight in knowing there will always be something new to discover about Him.  I will grow into Him, come to know Him more and more, and our relationship will continue to grow and evolve.  I find it interesting that the English word “create”, which is almost always used to translate bara in scripture, comes from the base kre which means “to grow”.  We Believers speak of “growing in the Lord” but I don’t think I’ve ever thought of that in terms of create/creating.  This is a truth I do not hear spoken of in Christian circles near enough: “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you”.  That’s Romans 8:11 and I do think it’s worth some time to ponder that: the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead lives IN us.  The Spirit we see hovering over the face of the waters in Genesis 1:1, the Spirit who is sent forth creating (Psalm 104:30) dwells inside of us. 

It doesn’t seem possible, does it?  It seems too good to be true and yet this is what scripture tells me is true so all I can do is ask that same Spirit to open my eyes to see it, believe it, and then strengthen me to live it.  The same Word who brought all things into being lives in me-and each one of you-through His Spirit.  How can we help but grow!

I do have to admit I always believed that, while there couldn’t help but be growth as long as I lived here on earth in this body, one day I’d go to heaven and then I’d know everything.  There’d be no more growth: just singing and dancing on golden streets in the presence of Jesus for all eternity.  I used to sing those very words during worship services and yet there’s a passage in Isaiah that always use to frighten me because it seems to say something different.  It’s found in Isaiah 9:7 and echoed in Luke 1:33: “Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end.  Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice, from that time forward, even forever.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” 

No end?  The very idea used to terrify me.  If there was no end to the increase of His government and peace, what about me?  My early-church days had instilled in me the certainty that once I got to heaven that was it.  I would have-both literally and metaphorically-arrived.  This passage appeared to be telling me that wasn’t true.  If there was really no end to His increase, that meant I had no idea what “going to heaven” meant nor what to expect when I got there.  This passage deserves a dedicated study but, as I sought out a definition for bara, found there were some who thought it ought to be translated as “to fatten” or “to fill”, and then learned “create” contained the idea of growth, I couldn’t get this passage out of my mind.  What correlation could there be between bara-as it is translated “create”-and never ending increase?

When it comes to the dictionary definition of “create”, at first glance there doesn’t seem to be any.  The Webster’s dictionary goes on to define “create” as: “to cause to come into existence, bring into being, make, originate, to make or design (something requiring art, skill, invention, etc.), to bring about, give rise to.”  However, there is a further definition of “create” in the Webster’s dictionary that caught my attention.  It is, “to invest with a new rank, function, etc.”  This fascinates me because the Hebrew word for “increase” in Isaiah 9:7 is marbiyth (H4768) and it means “multitude, offspring”.  

I quoted Romans 8:11 before.  It is crucial that each one of us know the Holy Spirit lives within us because it is the Holy Spirit Himself who bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:16).  Because the Holy Spirit lives within us, we know we are born from above (or born again).  John 3:3 says, “Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God’”.  What is the kingdom of God?  It is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). 

The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come and He answered them: “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For, indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).  Some translations say “in your midst” but the Greek word used is entos (G1787) and it means “inside, within”. 

If we don’t believe what these scriptures are saying is true, if-as some denominations say-the action of the Holy Spirit stopped with the death of the last apostle; what is a Christian life?  Being a moral person?  Adhering to a list of do’s and don’t’s?  There certainly is no life.  Without the Spirit of God within us, there is no heart of flesh given us in place of the heart of stone, His law is not written in our hearts, and there is no enablement to walk in His statutes and do them (Ezekiel 36:26-27). If the kingdom of God is not righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and we do not know we have that kingdom inside of us now through the witness of the Spirit within us, if everything is indeed reserved until after we die and go to heaven; why do we pray the Lord’s Prayer?  Why say “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth…” if we have zero expectation of His kingdom actually coming and His will actually being done on earth?  I cannot believe when we pray that we pray for a future kingdom because the rest of the prayer is for now.  We ask for our daily bread and we pray to forgive others as we too are forgiven.  If that portion of the prayer is not reserved for some far off future, I cannot think praying for His kingdom to come and His will to be done would be.

While I do believe we have the kingdom within us, I also believe what the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians: “In Him (Jesus Christ) 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.”  While I believe what the Bible says is true, that the kingdom of God IS righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, I also believe what we experience is merely a down payment on our inheritance, as this passage is rendered in the Common English Bible.  There is coming a time of greater things, what this passage calls the redemption of the purchased possession.  But, we do have the down payment and what a down payment it is!

Every time the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of someone’s heart to see who they are in Christ, who Christ is in them, and the peace of Christ rules in their hearts, they begin to see the kingdom.  I also think it’s fascinating that the admonition is to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15) because it is peace that is juxtaposed to evil in Isaiah 45:7:  “I make peace and create calamity (or evil)”. His government and peace increases.

We are the dwelling place of God.  His peace which is part of the fruit of His Spirit rules in our hearts even in the midst of calamitous or evil circumstances.  Moment by moment, day by day, “from glory to glory”, His life is formed in us.  His Spirit is sent forth and we are created.  I am no longer frightened but rather I delight that “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.”

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!

Amen.

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

References

Green, Jay P., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew, Greek, English, Volume 4, Authors for Christ Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 1976, 1984

Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, Williams Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1970, 1976

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

Abdicating My Throne

23 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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I have spent this last week probing deeper into thoughts I expressed in last week’s post specifically the difference in how I felt when I was keeping my Self as the focus of my thoughts compared to when I turned my focus to Jesus.  The difference can be expressed by contraction and expansion which got me thinking about the presence of black holes in a universe that is expanding.1  

Bear with me.

With my Self as the focus of my thoughts, I could feel my thoughts spinning tighter and tighter around this core of Self.  The more I reflected on what I had done during the week, what I had said, what had been said-or potentially said-about ME, the smaller my thoughts became.  I was quickly slipping into thoughts of poor me, people just don’t understand how difficult it is to live with pain and a brain injury, it isn’t fair for anyone to have such expectations of me, and then my mind wanted to dredge up every hurtful thing ever said or done to me so Self could brood over it.  I am amazed at how my Self focuses on being a victim.  I have had both good and bad things happen to me at every place I’ve found myself in over the years and yet Self focuses on the pain rather than the joys.  I do not know why that is and, perhaps, is a subject I will tackle at a later time.  While thinking about everything I’ve just written, I was reminded of black holes.

What is a black hole?  According to NASA’s website, “A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out.2” This is exactly how I felt.  The longer I had Self as my focal point, the more my thoughts were squeezed until there was no room for anything but Self.  More than that, I felt it only right that because I had suffered in the past and continued to suffer, such suffering should be realized and recognized by anyone that came into my orbit.  Black holes have what is called an Event Horizon.  It is a boundary that marks the limit of a black hole and where the escape velocity is equal to the speed of light. What this means is nothing that enters a black hole can get out or even be observed from outside the event horizon.3  Except, scientists have observed stars that have blundered too close to a black hole and the gravitational force rips the star to shreds.4 

Hurting people hurt people.  I have heard this quoted so many times in so many different places and who can deny the truth of it?  How many times has a fellow human being blundered into my orbit, had no idea that I slept badly and have a blinding headache or am smarting from a cruel word spoken to me, and been ripped to shreds?  How many times has it happened to me because my fellow human beings also have a Self at their core?  While conducting this study, I came across binary black holes5 and was fascinated.  Not only because they exist but because what happens when two black holes cross paths is an apt description of interactions between human beings.  I’d like to write more about the gravitational waves of binary black holes but will have to leave that for another time.  For the sake of this post, let me say that I have had to forgive and have had to ask for forgiveness.

What then?  Are we doomed to damage others and be damaged in our turn?  If left to ourselves, no doubt we would be.  We are not left to ourselves!  We see Jesus who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8, RSV). 

I wanted to close last week’s post with Philippians 2:5 which in some versions is translated “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”.  The RSV says, “Have this mind” while the Phillips says, “Let Christ Jesus be your example as to what your attitude should be.”  The New English Bible says, “Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus” and the Amplified has, “Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus–Let Him be your example in humility–“.  When I went to the Interlinear Greek, I found that the passage is literally “This think ye among you which also[was] in Christ Jesus”.  I realized this passage was too massive to be used in closing and that I would have to do some study.

I looked up “mind” in the Strong’s Concordance and found there are 17 different Greek words all translated “mind” in various scriptures.  This is why it is so important to study, not just read or memorize the scripture.  Not all of these words mean the same thing yet our minds do not immediately grasp the differences because we read the same English word in every passage.  Even the Greek word in the passage I am looking at this week, phroneo (G5426) is translated by different words in the King James Version: think, regard, mind, and savour to list those used most often.  My point is, what we read in any of our English translations ought to be a jumping off point because there is so much more than first meets the eye.  Okay, enough on the importance of study…for now.

The word “mind” in Philippians 2:5, phroneo, means “to exercise the mind, to entertain of have a sentiment of opinion, to be mentally disposed more or less earnestly in a certain direction…regard, savour, think.”  This meaning is made clear by the rest of the passage.  I recommend reading the entire epistle of Philippians for complete context however, for the sake of space, I will quote Chapter 2 verses 3 & 4: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind (G5012) let each esteem others better than himself.  Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” And then verse 5: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”.

These verses are the expectation of our behavior towards others.  If it is an expectation, it must be possible to live this way. How? Because of verses 6-8 which I’ve already quoted.  And then, because Jesus did empty Himself, humble Himself, and was obedient unto death, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (verses 9-11). 

Being a Self isn’t bad.  I am created in the image of God who says of Himself “I AM.”  So too am I capable of saying “I am.”  The problem is when that Self seeks to usurp the rule over and be the center of my life.  That place belongs to Jesus.  It is His by right of His having created me but he doesn’t come to me as The Creator God and force Self to give way.  He comes as Saviour.  He comes as Redeemer.  He comes as Love.  He opens my eyes to see He has born my afflictions, my sufferings, and all my sorrows (Isaiah 53:4) and they are no longer my burdens to carry. It is His goodness that leads me to metanoia (Romans 2:4).  I see Jesus in all His beauty and I choose to not only make Him the center but to turn over the rule of my life.

How could I do otherwise?  I have experienced the mess of Self-rule and been mired in the pain and death it creates.  I have tasted the fruit of the Spirit and the life contained therein.  I abdicate.  I choose life.  I choose His life knowing that, ‘of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7).

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References:

  1. What Might Be Speeding Up the Universe’s Expansion? | Quanta Magazine
  2. What Is a Black Hole? | NASA
  3. event horizon | Definition & Explanation | Britannica
  4. Black holes caught in the act of swallowing stars | Science | AAAS (sciencemag.org)
  5. NASA Visualization Probes Light-bending Dance of Binary Black Holes | NASA

Other References:

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

The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Reprinted 1970

The New Testament in Four Versions, Christianity Today, Inc., Washington D.C., 1965

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