Children of God without fault

 

Philippians 2:15

so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world

This seems like a tall order – how can we be blameless, innocent, uncontaminated, without fault - while we are living in a morally corrupt and spiritually perverted generation? Without spots or blemishes while we are living here on earth in our natural bodies, as the above verse seems to suggest?

To understand this verse, we of course must read it in the context of what was written before it. We read in verse 12 that we have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. This does not mean that we must earn our salvation, but that we have to do our very best to live our lives in such a way that all areas of our lives show evidence of God’s presence in us. This will be the case if we have a respectful reverence of God - the fear and trembling being the result of our awesome encounters with the living God, not our fear of God because we feel guilty about our sin. We have to persistently refuse to live like the world around us dictates, making the right choices over and over again, never yielding to ungodly pressure to do otherwise.

Verse 13 shows us that God takes immense pleasure in energizing us and creating in us the power and desire to both will and work for Him.  This is not a reason to decide to do nothing on your part because He is doing it all inside you. If you understand His Lordship and presence all around you, it motivates you to be more dedicated to Him.

Paul gives practical ways to accomplish his entreaty, in verse 14. We have to stop complaining and disputing, and according to Spurgeon this means to stop complaining against the providence of God (let Him do what seems good to Him); against one another (do not raise controversy amongst your brethren); and against the ungodly world (of non-Christians).

This then leads into our verse 15. With God’s help inside us, we are ever preparing ourselves and working at it to be seen as people that are completely unable to harm or devour; no ungodly actions can be attributed to us; we follow and obey our Shepherd with total commitment; we refrain from complaining and bickering. Christians and non-believers alike cannot find evidence of wrongdoing in our lives; and our God does not judge us because we are under the covering of atonement through our faith in Jesus. Who then remains to condemn and find fault in us?

 Among whom you shine as lights in the world. This is not an instruction to shine; it is a statement of fact. We are shining lights. What do lights do? Lights expose things; they show the way; they are used to alert you of danger; they bring goodwill and cheer; they are used to make sure that things are safe.

Points to ponder:  Being in a dark place is a greater incentive to shine. How brightly are you shining? Which areas in your life are in darkness, and you are not letting God shine through?

 Shine Jesus shine

Experiencing God

 

Gen 3:9

But the LORD God called to Adam, and said to him, “Where are you?”

Ever since time began, God wishes us to have a relationship with Him, to have a divine connection with Him, to experience Him. The evidence for this abounds throughout both the Old and New Testaments.

In our quoted verse, God did not ask Adam where he was because He did not know - He was asking Adam why he was hiding from Him. He was showing Adam His willingness to re-establish the connection between them, no matter what had happened to break it off. It was now up to Adam to decide how close to God he wanted to live his life.

God never intended for us to know Him on a purely intellectual level, He is always longing for us to know Him through unique personal experience. Regarding this we can learn so much from Moses, who had such a remarkable walk with the Lord.

He had an intimate relationship with the Lord:  Deut 34:10 “There has never been another prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.”

He experienced intimate communion with the Lord: Ex 33:11 “Inside the Tent of Meeting, the LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend…”

This gave him special intimate privilege:  Num 12:5 “Then the LORD descended in the pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the Tabernacle. “Aaron and Miriam!” he called, and they stepped forward. And the LORD said to them, “Now listen to what I say: “If there were prophets among you, I, the LORD, would reveal myself in visions. I would speak to them in dreams. But not with my servant Moses. Of all my house, he is the one I trust. I speak to him face to face, clearly, and not in riddles! He sees the LORD as he is. So why were you not afraid to criticize my servant Moses?”

How then are we to go about knowing God in this new, fresh and life-giving way? We must approach Him in humility; willing to learn; with childlike faith because the deeper things of God are beyond our mental capacity to understand. He wants our love more than anything else, which will ensure that we spend time with Him; waiting on Him, and not just squeezing our meeting with Him somewhere in between our rushed daily schedule of activities.

Someone who knew very well what an intimate walk with the Lord looked like, is Walter Beuttler.  Here is his description of one of his personal encounters with Jesus: “As soon as I did this, the Lord walked through the door into the room where I had been waiting upon Him. I did not see or hear Him, but it was so real that sight could not have made it any more real. The Lord walked in, and His presence followed behind Him, which was as a Royal Dignitary walking to His Throne with a long robe following, which spread throughout the entire room.” May this recollection inspire us to move ever closer to God!

Points to ponder:  Refocus. Put Jesus at the centre of everything you do!

Turn your eyes

Those who hate peace

 Ps 120:6-7

Too long have I lived among those who hate peace. I search for peace; but when I speak of peace, they want war!

If we look at current events, these words seem to come from Israel’s collective soul throughout history! The roots of the Jewish people in the land of Israel spans thirty-five centuries, and their presence there has been unbroken during all this time. Even after Rome destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, renaming the region Palestine and exiling a portion of the population, some Jews remained. In the roughly two thousand years after this, many different empires came to colonize and rule Palestine, disappearing again, while Jews remained there during all these changes. This fact notwithstanding, when the modern great return of Jews to the land began, the Arabs living there had developed a Palestinian nationalism and a desire for independence, and they rejected the right of the Jews to self-government.

The mediation process to establish a two-state mandate in Israel started in 1936 and has been ongoing ever since. In that year, the British Peel Commission offered the Arabs 80% of the disputed land. Israel voted to accept their portion of 20%, the Arabs rejected this offer and continued their violent rebellion against British rule. This has unfortunately been the pattern for no less than four subsequent offers from mediators up to now, where the Jews voted four times to accept a mandate of having two independent states in Israel, which the Arabs rejected outright four times and then followed this up by waging war or initiating terrorist actions against Israel.

In Gen 16:10-12 we read that the Angel of the Lord gave a glimpse into the future of Ishmael, son of Abraham by Hagar, and ancestor to the Arabs of centre, western and North Arabia. It says: …  “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude. He will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” The Angel foresaw the scenarios playing out between the Arabs and the Jews in Israel, thousands of years ago.

Is there a solution to this problem? Yes there is, and the solution does not lie in dividing up the land of Israel. God warns very clearly in Joel 3:2 “I will gather the armies of the world into the valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will judge them for harming my people, my special possession, for scattering my people among the nations, and for dividing up my land.”

The answer is a Man, Jesus! He is the Messiah the Jews are longing for, the Redeemer of all other nations on earth, including the Arabs. In Him, Jew and Arab will unite as one new man, operating out of His love, joining hands, and making Israel prosper among the nations!

Points to ponder:  Pray for all inhabitants of Israel to accept Jesus, as the peace of Jerusalem will only come when Jew and Arab together call out: “Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem

And then the end will come

 Matthew 24:14

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

This verse is most often interpreted as being a prerequisite for the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Which of course it is, but the time of the fulfilment of it is later than most people realize – in the time of the last few years on planet Earth, called the Tribulation.

This becomes clear when we study the context of the verse where Jesus spoke these words. He was answering His (Jewish) disciples’ question about what the sign of His coming and the end of the age would be. Keep in mind that Jesus was speaking to Jews about the end of the age here, warning them about what they as Jews would be facing during what He called a great tribulation. You can pick up the clues proving this as you continue reading in Matth 24 about “those who live in Judea”; “those on the housetop” referring to the booths built during the feast of Sukkot; “pray that your flight is not on a Sabbath”.

That the Tribulation is meant for Jews primarily is further confirmed by two Old Testament prophets:  Jeremiah 30:7 “How awful that day will be! No other will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob (meaning Israel), but he will be saved out of it.”  And also the angel Gabriel explains to Daniel in Daniel 9:24 “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city…” where Daniel’s people of course are Jews and his holy city is Jerusalem, and the last (or seventieth) week referred to here, is the seven years of the Tribulation at the end of the age.

Back to our verse 14 quoted above.  In verse 15 following right after it, Jesus starts with “So”, connecting the two, and thereby placing verse 14 in a specific time frame.  He then speaks about the appalling sacrilege Daniel warned about, which is when the coming Antichrist will set himself up in the Holy of Holies in the third temple, declaring himself god, and demanding that all peoples everywhere worship him. He did not need to explain what he was referring to as His disciples - being Jews – knew the writings of their prophet Daniel. We know from reading Daniel that the timing of the event Jesus spoke about here, is in the middle of the Tribulation, right before God executes His final judgment through the seven bowls, leading to the end of the age.

When the book of Revelation speaks about this same time, we find our verse 14 of Matthew 24 being fulfilled, as we read in Rev 14:6 “Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people.”  The next events Revelation describes as happening on earth after this flying angel, are the seven bowls judgements, and then the visible second coming of Jesus.

It would seem that the end of opportunities to proclaim the gospel to all nations before Jesus returns and the end of all things then comes, lies here - in the middle of the seven-year Tribulation.

Point to ponder:  We have limited time!  When the bowl judgements start, it spells the end of God’s grace with mankind.  How can you increase your involvement in winning souls for Christ – ask Holy Spirit to show you new, creative ways to tell/show others Who He is!

The Gospel