2011-12-16
Hi There Loved Ones,
Last week, I was led to continue discussing MK 8: 35, “’For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for Me and the for the Gospel will save it.” While at first this statement of Christ’s seems confusing, it really is saying that those who live in faith in Him will be saved for eternal life, and those who reject Him as a lifestyle will die spiritually. Rather than to cease to exist, they will endure conscious and eternal torment in the lake of fire [Gehenna] without any avenue of escape. This group will be cut off from the blessings of eternal life of joy and fellowship with the Lord Jesus in heaven. And that’s a sad fate indeed! No human being is wiser or more righteous than the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Those humans insisting on independence from God rather than dependence on Him will pay a horrific price for this.
We must ask: What good does it do for a man to gain this world and forfeit his soul? I know many people around me who make the decision to make gaining material wealth and possessions their reason for being [raison d’etra]. They compete against neighbors, push people aside, and build excessively fancy mansions for themselves. They wear their wealth on their sleeves. Are they really happy? I think not. Does this mean that all wealthy people are greedy and unhappy? No, because I could give you examples of people who gained their wealth honestly and use it to benefit their fellow man. One such person is helping me to have a housekeeper once a month, something I badly need and can’t afford. Another funds charities and supports others in need; his name is Bill Gates. And he is not the only one. But then there are the Bernie Madeoffs, Tom Petters, Jeff Skillings, and others of this world who wallow in their greed and are made to pay high prices in God’s judgment for it. Independent humans think only about their life and comforts on earth. One who dependant on God is able to see the bigger, eternal picture in better focus. He thinks about storing his treasures in heaven and helps with the needs of others. MT 6: 19-21, “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where you store your treasure is where your heart will be also.”
You’ll remember that earlier in this “Our Covenant” series, I wrote about entering into a covenant is entering into a walk unto death. That death is of human independence, and it begins the minute we begin accepting God’s grace. I also mentioned that entering into this covenant meant leaving the leadership up to whatever personality of the Trinity is involved at the time, understanding that each personality, the Father, the Son, and/or the Holy Spirit are three personalities of One amazing God. When we entered into the Covenant of Grace, we gave the Trinity the right to be present with us always and to intervene in our lives at any time. This is the yielding of independence in a very powerful way, to our always-righteous, always perfect God. It denotes our God-given spiritual power and wisdom, not our weakness. It means we recognize our poverty of the human spirit alone –without God. MT 5: 3, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” It can’t be more important than that, and that is important indeed! We enter into the knowledge given in 1 PET 5: 9-10, which I’m honored to cite again. “Resist him [the devil], standing firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, Who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.” Our Covenant-Partner supplies us with salvation, eternal forgiveness for past sins, a final judgment of “innocent”-justification, and the gift of the Holy Spirit eternally.
There are two related issues to what has already been written here: the cost of being a disciple [LK 14: 26-33] and Christ’s story of a young rich man from MT 10: 16-23. I plan to discuss them both at the behest of the Holy Spirit and with His leadership beginning next week, as they relate well to the issue of yielding human independence and becoming dependant on God. Let me encourage us to read these two passages in preparation for His leading what I write about them then.
PRAYER: O Lord, this morning You bring us to some powerful reminders. We must understand the choice we have made not to remain independent, but to rely on You. Our need for You in our lives is so great that it causes our fate to hinge on the choices we make [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25; MT 16: 27; 2 PET 2: 17-21]. While we know we are saved by our faith in You, we must learn along the way how to place our treasures in heaven instead of on earth. This isn’t easy for us, because it goes against our human nature and its desires. It brings us out of sole focus on ourselves to a balance between taking care of our needs while also helping with the needs of others who can’t do it for themselves alone. This brings great blessings and adds new, wonderful relationships to our lives that You, Dearest Abba, forge. You have told us that continual rejection of You is a huge mistake. You have described the fate of a continual rejecter in Hades, that place he will go to wait until the great and final judgment [the White Throne Judgment] in REV 20: 12b,15, “Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books…If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Hell, also known as Gehenna or the lake of fire, is described in MK 9: 48, LK 16: 22-24; REV 14: 9-11; REV 16: 10. You tell us these things, so that we have the reconnaissance needed to make the upright and wise decision to have faith, hold on to our faith, and look to You for leadership of our lives. We are very grateful to You, Lord, because You care about our eternal interests and want what is best for us. We thank and praise You for all You are and all You do. Your presence is welcomed in our lives, and we are honored to have You alive and living with us as full-time Resident of our homes. These things we say in the holy/mighty name of the Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: The Holy Spirit is guiding me to discuss the cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ and His story of the rich man. These both relate well to the issues in holding on to human independence or yielding it up to the Lord and becoming dependant on Him. For the first 25 years of my own life, after having been reared in a traditionally Jewish home, I rejected the Lord Jesus and thought my choice for life would be human independence. But things happened to me, including a 15 year disastrous first marriage, efforts to find a belief system that would work for me since traditional Judaism didn’t, and other very negative experiences. I was lost, about to go through a nasty divorce, and couldn’t really see clearly any happiness in my future. That was the end of myself, that place where the Lord, Who unbeknownst to me always had me in His sights, deliberately allowed me to go, the place where He could finally reach my hardened heart through the Holy Spirit. I wonder how many others must come to the end of themselves before they finally are willing to listen to the truth of Christ’s life, death and resurrection-to begin to understand what it means to finally be salvageable? For reasons He best understands, He wanted me to become a completed Jew, accepting Christ as my personal Savior and becoming a Messianic Jew. I am forever grateful, as I believe all who come to Christ are-whether Jewish or Gentile, whether born into the Christian domination they accept or not. Each of us must come to the door marked “Faith” and decide whether or not to open it and go into living “in Christ” within. I claim today, COL 3: 3-4, “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Your real life is Christ and when He appears, then you too will appear.” I also claim COL 3: 1b-2, “…Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” As God has let me discover Him and still undergo sufferings [chronic illness, being partly disabled, falls, rejection by some people once close to me, and the deaths of loved ones], He has strengthened me, given me direction, given me a ministry that serves many people, and has allowed me to know the love of Christ. I tell my story, so that each person reading this will realize that a decision to become dependant on God is righteous, wise, brings love into our lives, and allows us to travel that “hard path from the narrow gate” [MT 7: 13-14] that leads to eternal life. It’s not the easy path, but we don’t travel it alone! Praise and thanks to God for all He is and all He does!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15