WOULD GOD DIVORCE HIS WIFE?

“I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.” (Jeremiah 2:2)

The covenant people of God are his wife. They have often been faithless and broken the marriage covenant. Would God — could God — divorce his wife? No!

I will betroth you to me forever, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord. (Hosea 2:19–20)

But what of her horrible adulteries? Surely divorce is legitimate here! Israel is an “adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband” (Ezekiel 16:14).

Now what? Separation? Judgment? Yes: “I will give you into the hand of your lovers . . . and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces. . . . I will make you stop playing the harlot” (16:39).

But is that all? Is the separation final? Does he divorce her? No!

Yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant . . . . I will forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord God. (Ezekiel 16:60, 63)

But is it not wrong to take her back after she has lain with so many others? “You have played the harlot with many lovers, and would you return to me?” (Jeremiah 3:1).

Ah, but what a husband he is! Incredible in grace! “Return, faithless Israel, says the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, says the Lord” (3:12).

God will not divorce. “I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel” (Malachi 2:16).

God is wholly committed to saving and enriching his marriage!

Are you?

POWER THROUGH KNOWLEDGE

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. (2 Peter 1:3)

I am amazed at the power that the Bible gives to knowledge.

Consider 2 Peter 1:3: “God’s divine power has granted all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.”

Literally, all the power available from God to live and be godly comes through knowledge! Amazing! What a premium we should put on doctrine and instruction in the Scriptures! Life and godliness are at stake.

Not that knowing guarantees godliness. It doesn’t. But it seems that ignorance guarantees ungodliness. Because, Peter says, the divine power that leads to godliness is given through the knowledge of God.

Here are three implications, a warning, and a promise.

1. Read! Read! Read! But beware of wasting your time on theological foam and suds. Read rich doctrinal books about “the one who called you to his glory and excellence.”

2. Ponder! Ponder! Slow down. Take time to think about the Bible. Ask questions. Keep a journal. Let yourself be humbly troubled by puzzling things. The deepest insights come from trying to see the unifying root of two apparently antagonistic branches.

3. Discuss. Discuss. Be a part of a small group that cares passionately about the truth. Not a group that just likes to talk and raise problems. But a group that believes there are biblical answers to biblical problems.

Warning: “My people perish for lack of knowledge!” (Hosea 4:6).“They have a zeal for God, but it does not accord with knowledge” (Romans 10:2).

Promise: “They shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:11–12).

SHREWD FOLLOWERS INVITED!

The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
—Luke 16:8-9

One of the parables I have struggled with most is the parable of the unrighteous steward in Luke 16. I suggest you read the entire parable. Yeshua clearly commends a dishonest manager of a rich man’s possessions for his shrewdness. How can this be?

Culturally, the word shrewd has a negative connotation implying some sort of trickery or craftiness. Why would Yeshua commend this man? Well, notice Yeshua never commended the sinful actions but the manager’s shrewdness. So what is shrewdness and why would Yeshua commend it? Shrewd in the Greek language has the connotation of being forward looking. This man evaluated the future well. He saw a future without a job. He knew of his inability or unwillingness to do the work. So he acted in the moment in light of that coming day without a job. This is being shrewd; looking forward. How he chose to act was wrong, but his forward thinking was to be commended.

Shrewd is translated in Matthew 7:24 as wise. “Everyone who hears these words and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” It is not the popular word for wisdom in the Greek but can be translated wise.

The idea of this word is to be wise, mature, forward thinking in how we live today. Know what tomorrow will bring and live in light of that today—that is being shrewd. In this parable, Yeshua is showing His disciples that people of the world are more shrewd than His followers. How sad is that? We of all people know the future. We know Christ is returning soon. And we know who wins.

I have a Martin Luther quote on my wall that has rocked my world, “There are two days in my calendar: this day and that day.” Beloved, are you shrewd in living this day in light of the absolute fact of that day? The church must wake up and stop wasting so much energy, time, and resources and get intensely focused on sold-out living this day in light of that soon-coming day. This is what Luke 16 tells us our Master commends. Live today as a shrewd disciple for His glory!

Almighty Father in heaven, thank You for the reminders that when I came to You in faith through Your Son, I didn’t leave my brain at the door. You commend me when I live in light of the future. Forgive me for living as a short-sighted follower, and help me by Your Holy Spirit live with Your victory and heaven in mind. In the name of The Holy One and True One, Yeshua, Your Beloved Son, Amen.

CONSIDER YOURSELVES DEAD!

Since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. (1 Peter 4:1)

First it puzzles. Did Christ have to cease from sin? No! “He committed no sin” (1 Peter 2:22).

Then it clicks. When we arm ourselves with the thought that Christ suffered for us, we realize that we died with him. “He bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). When we die with him we cease to sin.

It’s just like Romans 6. “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. . . . So consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ” (Romans 6:6–7, 11).

Peter says, “Arm yourselves with this thought!”

Paul says, “Consider yourselves dead!”

The weapon for our vacation is a thought/consideration.

When the temptations of Satan come — to lust, to steal, to lie, to covet, to envy, to retaliate, to put down, to fear — arm yourself with this thought: When my Lord suffered and died to free me from sin, I died to sin!

When Satan says to you, Why deny yourself the pleasure of lust? Why deal with the mess you could avoid by lying? Why not go ahead and get that harmless luxury you covet? Why not seek justice by returning the same hurt you received?

Answer him: The Son of God suffered (really suffered!) to deliver me from sinning. I cannot believe he suffered to make me miserable. Therefore, what he died to purchase must be more wonderful than the pleasures of sin. Since I trust him, my susceptibility to your allurements has shriveled up and died.

Satan, be gone! My mouth doesn’t drool any more when I walk by your candy store.

Then....Drop The Mic....and live HOLY!

A Venti Soy Latte on me!!

PRIDE...WON'T!

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6–7)

Why is anxiety about the future a form of pride?

God’s answer would sound something like this:

I — the Lord, your Maker — I am he who comforts you, who promises to take care of you; and those who threaten you are mere men who die. So your fear must mean that you do not trust me — and even though you are not sure that your own resources will take care of you, yet you opt for fragile self-reliance, rather than faith in my future grace. So all your trembling — weak as it is — reveals pride.

The remedy? Turn from self-reliance to God-reliance, and put your faith in the all-sufficient power of future grace.

We see anxiety as a form of pride in 1 Peter 5:6–7. Notice the grammatical connection between the verses. “Humble yourselves . . . under the mighty hand of God . . . [verse 7] casting all your anxieties on him.” Verse 7 is not a new sentence. It’s a subordinate clause. “Humble yourselves . . . [by] casting all your anxieties on him.”

This means that casting your anxieties on God is a way of humbling yourself under God’s mighty hand. It’s like saying, “Eat politely . . . chewing with your mouth shut.” “Drive carefully . . . keeping your eyes open.” “Be generous . . . inviting someone over on Thanksgiving.”

One way to be humble is to cast all your anxieties on God. Which means that one hindrance to casting your anxieties on God is pride. Which means that undue worry is a form of pride.

Now why is casting our anxieties on the Lord the opposite of pride? Because pride does not like to admit that it has any anxieties. And if pride has to admit it, it still does not like to admit that the remedy might be trusting someone else who is wiser and stronger.

In other words, pride is a form of unbelief and does not like to trust in God’s future grace. Faith admits the need for help. Pride won’t. Faith banks on God to give help. Pride won’t. Faith casts anxieties on God. Pride won’t.

Therefore the way to battle the unbelief of pride is to admit freely that you have anxieties, and to cherish the promise of grace in the words, “He cares for you.”

YOU GET "GOD!!!!"

HAVE YOU EVER ASKED WHY GOD’S FORGIVENESS IS OF ANY VALUE?

Or what about eternal life? Have you ever asked why a person would want to have eternal life? Why should we want to live forever?

These questions matter because it is possible to want forgiveness and eternal life for reasons that prove *you don’t have them.*

Take forgiveness, for example:
You might want God’s forgiveness because you are so miserable with guilt feelings. You just want relief. If you can believe that He forgives you, then you will have some relief, but not necessarily salvation.

If you only want forgiveness because of emotional relief, you won’t have God’s forgiveness. He does not give it to those who use it only to get His gifts and not Himself.

Or you might want to be healed from a disease or get a good job or find a spouse. Then you hear that God can help you get these things, but that first your sins would have to be forgiven. Someone tells you to believe that Christ died for your “sins, and that if you believe this, your sins will be forgiven. So you believe it in order to remove the obstacle to health and job and spouse. Is that gospel salvation? I don’t think so.

In other words, it matters what you are hoping for through forgiveness. It matters why you want it. If you want forgiveness only for the sake of savoring the creation, then the Creator is not honored and you are not saved.

Forgiveness is precious for *one final* reason: It enables you to enjoy fellowship with God.

If you don’t want forgiveness for that reason, you won’t have it at all. God will not be used as currency for the “purchase of idols.

Similarly, we ask: Why do we want eternal life? One might say: Because hell is the alternative and that’s painful. Another might say: Because there will be no sadness there. Another might say: My loved ones have gone there and I want to be with them. Others might dream of endless sex or food. Or more noble fortunes. In all these aims one thing is missing: God.

The saving motive for wanting eternal life is given in John 17:3: “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

If we do not want eternal life because it “means joy in God, then we won’t have eternal life. We simply *kid ourselves* that we are Christians if we use the glorious gospel of Christ to get what we love more than Christ. The “good news” will not prove good to any for whom God is not the greatest good.

Here is the way Jonathan Edwards put it in a sermon to his people in 1731.
Read this slowly and let it waken you to the true goodness of forgiveness and life.

The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God Himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; he is the portion of their souls. God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling place, their ornament and diadem, and their everlasting honor and glory.

They have none in heaven but God; he is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death, and which they are to rise to at the end of the world. The Lord God, he is the light of the heavenly Jerusalem; and is the "river of the water of life” that runs, and the tree of life that grows, in the midst of the paradise of God.

The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another: but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them."

The Gospel is Good News because You Get GOD! GOD IS....THE GOSPEL!

“O God, that treasures the One we know.
Let us experience the gospel in its fullness, which is Christ crucified and risen for sinners to bring us home to You.
In Yeshuas name we pray. Amen.”

HOW TO BE PREPARED!

The apostle Paul suffered. Did he ever.

He was imprisoned. He was beaten, often near death. He took 195 total lashes from his Jewish kinsmen on five occasions. He took three pummels with rods. He was once stoned — and then also shipwrecked three times. Then there are the endless dangers of travel in the first century, plus countless other experiences mentioned and unmentioned in the New Testament (2 Corinthians 11:21–33).

It doesn’t take long until we wonder how in the world he did it. How did he take so much pain? So much loss? How did he prepare for suffering?

The answer is in Philippians 3:7–8.

Counting Everything As Loss

Their is great significance in Paul counting his gain as loss. Basically, the apostle took a long look at his life apart from Christ. All the things that he valued — his Jewish pedigree, his place in the upper echelon of religious society, his law-keeping — he took a long look at this list and wrote “LOSS” over it with a giant Sharpie.

And then we went a step further.

It wasn’t just the past values of his personal life. It wasn’t just “whatever gain he had.” Paul looks out into the future and declares everything as loss. Everything out there that could pass as positive. Everything good that he has yet to experience and everything which he will never experience. Compared to Christ, everything is loss.

This Is Normal Christianity

And lest we think this puts Paul on a pious pedestal, that he is at a spiritual level we’d never reach, let me remind you that this sort of reckoning is normal Christianity (Matthew 13:44; Luke 14:33). To consider Yeshua better than everything else in the world is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

It may be worth reading that last sentence a couple more times, until it feels uncomfortable. 

Many of us are so quick to console our hearts when the least bit of unsettling winds blow through. But what about conviction? It’s a good thing not to be comfortable with a watered-down Christianity foreign to the Bible. It’s not works-righteousness to say that saving faith in Yeshua means we have to really love him. It’s works-righteousness to think that our really loving Him is the reason we’re saved. Paul said that everything is loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Yeshua. Paul said that and so should we.

And that’s how Paul prepared for suffering. He saw Yeshua as superior to everything else. Look at it this way:

Suffering is nothing more than the taking away of bad things or good things that the world offers for our enjoyment — reputation, esteem among peers, job, money, spouse, sexual life, children, friends, health, strength, sight, hearing, success, etc. When these things are taken away (by force or by circumstance or by choice), we suffer. But if we have followed Paul and the teaching of Yeshua and have ALREADY counted them as LOSS for the surpassing value of gaining Christ, THEN we are prepared to suffer.

This means that if we treasure Christ, then every aspect of suffering in our lives is losing something we have already declared as loss. (Selah)

If, when you become a Christian you write a big red “LOSS” across all the things in the world except Christ, then when Christ calls you to forfeit some of those things, it is not strange or unexpected. The pain and the sorrow may be great. The tears may be many, as they were for Yeshua in Gethsemane. But you will be prepared. We will know that the value of Christ surpasses all the things the world can offer and that in losing them you gain more of Christ.

Loving Him Today

None of us knows the sorrows that may meet us today and are sure to meet us if Yeshua tarries. We don’t know what hardships God will call us to walk through. But even though we don’t know them, we can prepare for them. And the way we prepare for afflictions then is by gaining Christ now.

It will not minimize the pain. Not at all. But we will know, even in the darkest night, that Yeshua is our God and that He is our Rock and treasure, that He is enough.

The way we suit up for our sufferings tomorrow is by cultivating our love for Yeshua today.

Intimacy (more like "In-to-Me-See") with Christ.

2 Cups of Coffee: Black, No Sugar Added! 

NOTE TO SELF...

“They do all their deeds to be seen by others . . . and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.” (Matthew 23:5–7)

The itch of self-regard craves the scratch of self-approval. That is, if we are getting our pleasure from feeling self-sufficient, we will NOT be satisfied without others seeing and applauding our self-sufficiency.

Hence Yeshua’s description of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:5–7.

This is ironic. Self-sufficiency should free the proud person from the "need" to be PRAISED (approved of) by others. That’s what *sufficient means. But evidently there is a void in this so-called self-sufficiency.

The self was never designed to satisfy itself or rely upon itself. It never can be sufficient. We are only *in the image* of God, not God himself. We are shadows and echoes. So there will always be an "emptiness in the soul" that struggles to be satisfied with the resources of self.

This empty craving for the praise, recognition, and approval of others signals the "failure of pride" and the "absence of faith" in God’s ongoing grace. 

Yeshua saw the terrible effect of this itch for human glory. He named it in John 5:44, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” The answer is, you can’t. Itching for glory from other people makes faith impossible! Why?

Because faith is being satisfied with all that God is for you in Christ. And if you are bent on getting the satisfaction of your itch from the scratch of others’ acclaim, opinion of you and praise, you have turned away from Yeshua.  Whether you realize it or not.

But if you would turn from self as the source of satisfaction (repentance), and come to Yeshua for the enjoyment of all that God is for us in Him (faith), then the itch would be replaced by a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14).

And you would feel .... Secure and Satisfied....though no one ever said another word.

Oh the wonders of His love.
Good to the last drop!

SWING the Sword, Save Your LIFE!

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)

When Paul says to put to death the deeds of the body “by the Spirit” (Romans 8:13), I take him to mean that we should use the one weapon in the Spirit’s armor that is used to kill. Namely, the sword. Which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:17).

So when the body is about to be led into a sinful action by some fear or craving, we are to take the sword of the Spirit and kill that fear and that craving. In my experience, that means mainly severing the root of sin’s promise by the power of a superior promise.

So, for example, when I begin to crave some illicit sexual pleasure, the sword-swing that has often severed the root of this promised pleasure is: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). I recall the pleasures I have tasted of seeing God more clearly from an undefiled conscience; and I recall the brevity and superficiality and oppressive aftertaste of sin’s pleasures, and with that, God has killed the conquering power of sin.

It is a beautiful thing to be the instrument of God’s word-wielding power to kill sin.

Having promises at hand that suit the temptation of the hour is one key to successful warfare against sin. But there are times when we don’t have a perfectly suited word from God in our minds. And there is no time to look through the Bible for a tailor-made promise.

So we all need to have a small arsenal of general promises ready to use whenever fear or craving threaten to lead us astray.

-a small cup to share with a friend! Smile.