2011-09-16
Good Morning Dear Ones,
As I mentioned last week, the medical truth of the mind-body connection also has its spiritual applications. Psychosomatic illness is an example of the mind-body connection. When a person is under heavy-continual stress, the adrenal glands produces excesses of their hormones, and the fight or flight physiological changes take place. This would involve speeding up the heart rate, raising blood pressure, etc. Over a period of time, this on-going flight or flight reaction would eventually lead to a heart attack, stroke, or other stress-related illness, if it were allowed to exceed the physiological limits of the body. Now, let’s look at the spiritual connection with the mind-body connection already mentioned.
God means for us to experience a covenant relationship with Him. In the most ideal of circumstances, our parents would teach us to learn to love the Lord and want such a relationship with him from the onset of rearing us in their homes. Because of the way such children are raised, God’s presence in the household, prayers to Him, church attendance, and all the other normal things of a believer’s lifestyle would quickly become familiar. The huge Jim Bob Dugger family of Springview, AK, whose lives we get to see in the “Nineteen Children and Counting” TV series on the Learning Channel, certainly seem to be a depiction of that lifestyle. Many of us aren’t blessed to be reared in such ideal circumstances. Please believe me when I say that having 19 children isn’t entirely ideal unless you have the Dugger’s resources. Some people don’t know the Lord until they decide to marry a committed Christian. It is necessary to make up for a childhood of missed learning, missed opportunities to become acquainted with the Lord. It isn’t easy, but it can be done. There are as many different ways for people to come to Christ as there are circumstances in which they can find themselves. Observation of a sense of calm in others who have the Lord is sometimes motivation for a potential believer to want to understand what gives them this very different approach to adversity. The beginning of learning to love the Lord may come at the time of the death of a loved one when one observes the difference between the way the believers approach it and non-believers. It might be at a time of decision, as it was for Ruth, a Moabitess who decided when her first husband died that she would remain in Israel with her mother-in-law, Naomi rather than return to her idolatrous homeland, RU 1: 6-18. Maybe the establishment of a friendship, like the one between David and Jonathan in 1 SAM 18: 1-4, might provide motivation for greater faith in God.
In my own experience, I had lived in a continuously stressful situation due to emotional dysfunction in our family, where the traditional Judaism in which I was raised did nothing to help me. My own observations of people who were much happier than I was around me propelled me to look for that kind of inner peace. The same thing happened with one of my siblings, and in my own eagerness to solve my problem, I went headlong into his solution and found it was not right for me over the ensuing few years. An ulcer which was surely a byproduct of years of stress began to plague me at the age of 24, something that should have never happened. What I didn’t realize is that God was calling me to a covenant relationship with Him the whole time, and He was keeping His eyes right on me. JN 15: 16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask for in My name.” How very shocked I would have been had I understood the extent of the love our God has for me! How long He had been allowing things to happen in my life with the purpose of awakening me to my need for a covenant relationship with Him!
O. Palmer Robertson in his book, The Christ of the Covenants, asks, “What is a covenant; define the covenantal relationship of God to His people?” He answers, “God is sovereign and institutes a life and death bond in blood. God institutes the covenant, and we only agree to it. The blood shed for us is represented by the wine of communion.” This agrees with what has already been written in previous devotions in this series. Robertson goes on to present three characteristics of a divine covenant. 1) It is a bond between a Person with another person, where the Person involved is the same God that is One in three persons, and is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel. God is the more powerful Participant in this covenant, the Institutor, while man has only agreed to participate. 2) it is a bond in blood. God never enters into a casual or formal relationship with man. The issues extend to ultimate life or death. When Christ died on the cross, His blood was shed to make such a covenant lead to salvation and eternal forgiveness [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25; 1 JN 1: 9]. 3) There are symbols throughout the Bible of this kind of covenant. The pledge of Ruth to remain in Israel and believe in one God [RU 1: 16-17]; God’s bringing Boaz into Ruth’s life [RU 2: 1] and the events that ensued which brought Ruth into the genealogical line of the Lord Jesus [RU 4: 1-3, 5-10, 13, and 17-22]. The symbol that set this off was the giving of a sandal to indicate the cutting of a covenant. From the time of GN 15: 17, the actual cutting of a the Abrahamic covenant, thought the giving of Christ’s physical life on the cross, the once-for-all Covenant of Grace-there has always been some symbol of a very special relationship possible between God and mankind that has huge implications for the future.
PRAYER: O Lord, we approach Your throne with the confidence You alone can give us that You will hear us and share Your wisdom, compassion, and perspective with us. EPH 3: 12, “In Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” We are indeed the weaker partner in the Covenant of Grace. We recognize our need for Your intervention and wise advice in our lives [MT 5: 3]. We are spiritually poor alone, but rich when You are leading us. It is You, Who leads us through the “narrow gate that leads to the hard path to eternal life” [MT 7: 13-14]. The kind of inner peace we seek, we know can only come from You. PS 62: 5, “Only God gives inner peace, and I depend on You.” Dearest Abba, we are but sojourners on this earth, taking the hard path that leads to our permanent home in heaven. To meet the challenges and trials we face, we must have Your help. When You give us Your loving patient help, we are able to calm down, see Your greater perspective, and be an example for others who want a covenant relationship with You- a relationship cut in blood and unto death. All of us will experience physical death because of the original sin of the first man and women [GN 3: 1-6], but with faith and obedience to You, there is no reason why we should ever experience spiritual death. You want us to open our eyes to the blessings You bring into our lives and around us, so that we will be sufficiently motivated to remain firm in our faith and an example of why a covenant relationship with You is essential to our happiness and eternal life. Thank you and let us offer You praise, for being the loving and awesome God You are. In Christ’s holy/mighty name, we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: We will begin looking at a subject that fits in with what has already been discussed, “Approaching God on His Terms.” There are reasons for us to understand for why we can trust God and thus open ourselves fully to Him, in a way we cannot do with other humans. We need to understand that not only can we trust God, but we can look back on our history with Him to see the blessings He has been bestowing on believers all along. PS 107: 43, “Whoever is wise let him heed these things and consider the great love of the Lord.” We must place our hope in the Lord. PS 146: 5, “But happy are those who have the God of Israel as their Helper; whose hope is in the Lord.” All of us want happiness, and an active, dynamic prayer life, daily study of His word, obedience to Him, and deep, abiding faith in Him; and these are the way to it. We have learned from PR 9: 10, “ To be wise you must first have reverence for the Lord. If you know the Holy One, you have understanding.” Once we see the link between mind, body, and spirit, we will understand why having a covenant relationship with the Lord is a goal for everyone who wants to live in peace and contentment. All of us face trials and a certain amount of suffering, but none of us have to feel that we are alone, without God’s help or His love. He wants all of us to grow up in our faith in Christ and be happy. We are live in harmony and peace. May the God of love and peace be with you all [1 PET 2: 2-3; EPH 4: 15]. Our Lord deserves our eternal praise and thanks!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15