2010-11-19
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Last week, we began looking at security in covenant. There isn’t a one of us who doesn’t need to feel some security in their lives, even the most self-confident of people. For example, there are surgeons whose work tests their expertise in every procedure done with a human life depending on it, who are deeply devout believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps we begin believing for pragmatic reasons like the assurance that our spirits will live on after physical death in an idyllic place like heaven. However, as time and spiritual maturity advance, the Holy Spirit works a deeper and more abiding faith in our hearts that won’t be lost in the crush of a test. We need only look at Abraham poising his knife over Isaac tied up on the make-shift altar that God orders in GN 22: 12. What a foreshadow that ram Abraham found caught in the bush as he hears God’s voice stopping him from sacrificing his beloved son in verse 13. What believing Christian can miss the obvious sign of another beloved Son who will be a perfect substitute sin sacrifice [HE 10: 10] for all of mankind on the cross, taking our sins with Him?
At this point, we are ready to look at what a covenant relationship with God gives us. EPH 3: 16-19, “I ask God from the wealth of His glory to give you power through His Spirit to be strong in your inner selves and I pray that Christ will make His home in your hearts though faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you together with all God’s people may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep is Christ’s love. Yes, may you come to know His love –although it can never be fully known-and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.” This is huge! It accounts for an “inward transformation and renewal of the mind” [RO 12: 2] which the Holy Spirit brings about in the person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. It allows that person to recognize spiritual things, so that the teaching of the Holy Spirit directly from the Father is not mere nonsense, but sets the motivation for that person’s whole life [1 COR 2: 14-16]. There can be no earthly source for this kind of faith and confidence that is seen in the true believer. No human alone, no matter how smart, faithful, or profound a believer he is can account for this power over himself or another person. Only the Holy Spirit can be at the very root of it. The person who has this faith is strongly desirous of living in accordance with God’s teaching. He can’t take any credit for it, for it is a manifestation of God’s grace alone. And the good deeds the believer is inwardly motivated to do are already prepared for him to do by the Father [EPH 2: 8-10].
Even a power as strong, conniving, and wily as Satan can’t beat the person who is joining with the Holy Spirit to live out a life of true faith. There are good reasons for this, and they are seen in places like JOB 1: 12, “’All right,’ the Lord said to Satan, ‘everything [Job] has is in your power, but you must not hurt Job himself.’ In this we see that God is defining the extent of what Satan can do to Job in this bet that He and Satan have that Job’s faith can not be broken. Another place it’s seen is in RO 8: 38-39, “For I am certain that nothing can separate us from His love; neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or power, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below-there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.” And finally one more place that puts the cap on this issue is, REV 12: 12. “And so be glad you heaven, and all you that live there! But how terrible for the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, and he is filled with rage, because he knows that he has only a little time left.” Yes, Dear Ones, we make the decision to be on God’s team, knowing full well that it’s the only winning team. God’s power is even greater than that “roaring lion who wants roam about in an effort to devour us” [1 PET 5: 8], that cunning father of all lies and murderer [JN 8: 44], Satan himself. One message is left for us to believe. We must be on alert at all times, well-versed in God’s word, and thus, looking carefully to recognize what is Satan’s work and what isn’t. We can’t be apathetic!
Real love is never at the root of what Satan does. However, it is the basis of what God leads a true believer to do through the Holy Spirit. The world never knew what love was once the original sin [GN 3: 1-6] took place. It is God, Who through His Son and the Holy Spirit, Who teaches mankind what love really is. Those of us who live out our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ know his new commandment, of JN 13: 34-35. “And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are My disciples.” When He said this, it was really nothing new at all. The Father had been teaching us this principle of stated in such verses as LV 19: 2 [LV 11: 44-45 and 1 PET 1: 16], “Be holy because I am holy,” and LV 19: 18 [MT 5: 44-45a; MT 19: 19, MT 22: 38-39; MK 12: 30-31: LK 10: 27; RO 12: 9-10, 19-21; GA 5: 14; JAS 2: 8], “Do not take revenge on another, but love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Does it surprise us that the same concept is repeated in so many places in the Scriptures? It shouldn’t, because it is so foundational to all of God’s teaching. The basic difference between God and Satan is in the motivation for all thought and action. Satan wants nothing evil above all. And, of course, God in His three persons, wants nothing more than to show the superior power of His motivation, love. It’s as simple and complex as that! We want to be on the winning team!
PRAYER: O Lord, we need to understand the love that is at the very foundation of all You teach us. How it is shown, what it can do for us, how it changes us from our natural selves controlling our thoughts and actions to the Holy Spirit directing them- all these things are a part of what we need to understand and believe. There is nothing that will produce greater inner peace and self-confidence than asking for and receiving Your leadership of our lives. We stand in awe of Your constant love, the love that makes us unselfish and strong enough to overcome the establishment of evil strongholds in our lives by the devil. It is this love that motivates us to enter in to a mutually-loving covenant relationship with You. It is this love which propels us to care about the welfare and happiness of others around us. It is this love which leads us to want to testify to our faith in You and the redemptive reasons for Your Son’s great sacrifice on the cross [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25]. It is this love that makes us want to establish friendships, ones You have forged, which strengthen our faith, give us opportunities to serve you, and bring us out of the snare of lives which are only self-serving. ECCL 4: 9-10, “Two are better than one. If one falls down, his friend can help him up.” Each of us praying this prayer can recall times when this passage applied in his experience. We can testify to Your love for us as manifested in Your response to our plea for mercy. PS 69: 16, “Hear me, O Lord, for Your loving kindness is good; turn to me in according to the multitude of Your tender mercies.” You are a loving, kind, and caring Lord. We thank and praise You every day, because of Who You are and what You do. In Christ’s holy and mighty name, Amen.
NEXT WEEK: We will begin with a short word study to lead into another feature of security in covenant, which is how covenant takes the veil off truth. In the meanwhile, I have no idea how I personally could face each day of my own earthly life with its trials, except for the security I have in my own covenant relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not often that a Jewish person can say that, but I am blessed to be born as a traditional Jew who was given the opportunity to hear the truths of the NT and to accept them. That changed me in the ways discussed above, making me a Messianic Jew. I can take no credit for that, for it was strictly an unmerited gift of God’s most excellent grace. Why I was chosen to be given that faith and then to have the ministry I do today won’t ever be clear to me while I’m on this earth. But, I’m determined to carry out this call to serve God with all I have. This doesn’t make me special, because every single true believer, whether born Jewish or Gentile, male or female, has the same call to serve God using the talents he or she is given. That means that every person reading this devotion has the same call and has been given the same grace I was. We, who have a covenant relationship with God, are just as motivated as I am to mature in our faith and let God lead us in our lives. God’s power in us is the same power He gives to Christ, the same power Christ gives to us. All too often when faced with a test, we forget that. Please believe each of us is given the same power that God used to raise Christ from death to eternal life to battle Satan and be victorious in Christ’s holy name! [EPH 1: 18-20]. Praise and thanks be to God!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15