2008-01-18
Good Morning Cherish of God,
Once again, the Holy Spirit instructs me to go on comparing Christ's Sermon on the Mount words on mammon in MT 6: 24-34 with the ideal person described in PR 31: 10-31. Remember that mammon in the common, active usage means "that in which much trust is placed," not the original, passive meaning of "that entrusted to others." You'll remember that this passage was originally written to describe the ideal wife, but for the sake of this discussion, we are applying these ideals to both sexes without regard whether a person is married or single. So far in PR 31, we have seen these traits, symbolized by these letters of the Hebrew alphabet: aleph, valuable; beit, trustworthy; gimmel, righteous; dalet, industrious; hay, values family; vav, organized; zayin, decides wisely to prioritize God's Kingdom first, chet, hard worker, strong; tet, wise and diligent; yod, helps oneself; kaf, generous to the poor and needy; lamed, has peace of mind; mem, productive for self and family; nun, known for the right reasons; samech, produces more than family needs-efficient; ayin, strong, respected, not afraid of the future; peh, wise and gentle speaker; tzaddi, responsibly occupied; koph, brings good reputation through family's praise and appreciation. Today, we will look at PR 31: 29-30, "He [her husband] says, 'Many women are good wives, but you are the best of them all.' Charm is deceptive and beauty disappears, but a woman who honors the Lord should be praised.'"
Resh: If a person who is obediently faithful to God and has a good relationship with his Creator, then the opinion of him held by others who know him well is really valuable. Our ideal person earns the respect of others in his life. One such person who comes mind is Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth who lived around 1210 BC. JG 4: 4-5, "Now Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, was a prophet, and she was serving as the fifth judge for the Israelites at that time. She would sit under a certain palm trees between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel would go there for her decisions." Deborah was also a warrior quite central to the Israelite victory over Jabin, the Canaanite king [JG 4: 23]. While not the genteel lady presently valued, Deborah did a lot of good for her people in her time. Another person who eventually earned respect as one of the greatest of all apostles was Paul. This man, raised in a Jewish home to be an intellect, was chosen by God to have a tremendous and undeniable role in spreading Christianity beyond the confines of Jerusalem. With God's tremendous intervention, referring to Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus [AC 9: 1-6], this very learned and passionate man who endured enormous persecution in his life, is remembered for his faithful obedience to God. We all can't be the best at everything, but we can try be as good as we can. If we look around us, we can find people in our lives who deserve the reputation for being the kind we would like to emulate, people who are faithfully obedient to the Lord and who encourage others by their example to take that "hard path through the narrow gate" [MT 7: 13-14]. I believe my own husband, Peter Johnson, is one of those people.
Shin: This 21st letter of the Hebrew alphabet is very special. It's the first letter of God's name, the one that when added to Abram makes it Abraham. An overview of Jerusalem topographically shows it's mountains to conform to shin's three-pronged shape. I believe each prong stands for a personality of the Trinity and places God's stamp on this city as His "city on a hill." Our ideal person is praiseworthy and has lasting inner beauty. We each have two kinds of purposes- our immediate one and our cosmic one. The immediate one is normally the use of our talents to serve God, e.g. someone with teaching ability being a Bible teacher, or someone with the talent to care for others being in the medical field or shepherding a congregation. The cosmic purpose is one we usually don't know we have and can only fulfill if we are obediently faithful to God. For example, Abraham had no idea God intended for Him to give rise God's chosen people, the Jews [GN 15: 5], or that he would, through Isaac [GN 17: 19], establish the royal line of David out of which our Lord Jesus would be "the Shoot which came up from the stump Jesse" [IS 11: 1], "the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" [IS 9: 6]. The only way our ideal person can fulfill both his immediate and cosmic purposes for God that he is faithfully obedient, lives righteously, and places God at the center of his life. Real beauty is found in God's word, something which our ideal person sees as a treasure in his life. Real beauty endures just as the word of God endures [IS 40: 6-8]. The treasures this person stores up are treasures in heaven, not just ones on earth [MT 6: 19-21]. People that have gone on to be with the Lord and lived this way are remembered long after they have answered God's call home to heaven. We can all think of people in our lives who fit this profile. My own material grandmother who helped to rear me is one.
PRAYER: O Lord, all of the ideals for a person that You have given us are like nuggets of information to help us to know Your will for us. Your word really is eternal, just as is Your love for us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice of His life on the cross, we are able to be saved by repenting of our sins and having faith in Him [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25; HE 10: 10]. This and the gift of Your Spirit are the greatest gifts You have given us [JN 14: 16-18, 26]. We thank and praise You for loving us and being there for us the way You are. You teach us there is another kind of mammon, "that in which must trust is placed," in addition to material wealth. That is Your word, something eternal, not just of this earth. JN 1: 1-5, reveals to us the connection between Your Son and the words in the Scriptures which allow us to know You and Your will. This connection is supernatural. "Before the world was created, the Word already existed; He was with God and He was the same as God. From the very beginning the Word was with God. Through Him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without Him. The Word was the Source of life, and this life brought light to mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out." Such a description doesn't fit the limits of Newtonian physics or Einsteinian relativity, but it is real, and You, Dear Father, forged it. We remember PS 1: 1 in the description of the ideal person. "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night." Meditation includes observing how Your teaching applies to our lives, both in thought and practice. By our salvation, justification, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, You alone have given us the chance to stretch toward being this ideal person. We are sinners and not perfect by far, but Your love for us is so great that You want us to know You better [2 COR 5: 17; COL 3: 9-10] and give us the means to do that. You are to be eternally praised and thanked for Your marvelous traits, Your loving presence in our lives, and Your bold, courageous deeds for us. Hallelujah! In Christ's holy name, we pray. Amen.
Next week, the Holy Spirit leads me to conclude our comparison with the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet, tav, which in this case represents, PR 31: 31. If we take each ideal discussed and go back to all the words of advice and teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, we will find perfect consistency of a kind only God could produce. In the handling of earthly material wealth, we find careful, consistent advice that goes right to the heart of an individual's motives. God knows the content of our hearts. When we conform to the ideals discussed here, we can rejoice in knowing, experiencing, and feeling God's peace and love. We have a dynamic and satisfying personal relationship with Him, something He badly wants us to have. When our heart is full of deceit, wicked human-crafted motives, we will know shame and hatred for God. Our relationship with Him is troubled or non-existent. Remember that sin is defined as separation from God. A sinful lifestyle leads to certain spiritual death. There is no time like the present to reform our lives, bringing them closer to God's ideals. RO 12: 2, "Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by the complete renewal of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God-what is good and is pleasing to Him and is perfect." It is my belief that when we do this, we open ourselves to the greatest gift of all, eternal life in bliss and sweet fellowship with our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Every day, we should thank and praise our loving God for making such a relationship possible.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn