Prayer and the laws of God

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. (Galatians 6:6-8)

Most of us would think twice about asking God to cancel the law of gravity. Why? Because, unless we are somehow facing imminent death, such a request would border on insanity.

We somehow understand that all the laws of God are interlinked and designed for our own good and protection. It is not that He is unable or unwilling to override these, but He knows that it is best for us to learn to cooperate and hopefully thrive within His designed world. Yet, when it comes to the economic laws of God many Christians somehow does not know nor believe that the same applies.

Much prayer is offered in a hope that the economic laws of God may be cancelled and that that which we have sown would not be harvested. Or, more often, that we may reap where we have not planted.

We all know that God sometimes on our journey to maturity overrides these laws. These are rightly called miracles, but must be understood as exceptions, and gifts of grace. The norm we must accept and embrace is that we can only expect a harvest where we have planted good seed in season and laboured with diligence in accordance with His laws.

This is God’s will and way. I also believe that it is His highest and best for us, instead of miracles and free gifts. Why?

Miracles and free gifts might teach us about God’s power and grace, but it does not train us in obedience, maturity and stewardship. And the maturity of God’s sons are far more important than the temporary impact of gifts of grace. This fact has been proven countless times during Israel’s journey through the desert. Some would contend that miracles are for the glory of God. This is obviously true. But, we are currently living in the dispensation of the revelation of the sons of God. These he desires as His demonstration to the principalities and powers in the heavenlies. His intent is that the church might grow into the fullness of the statue of Christ to demonstrate to the devil and the world that love and life has triumphed over fear and death. It is also in preparation for His coming, where after we will rule and reign with Him.
Most of the parables of Christ teach us regarding the seeds of the kingdom. Stated differently, these teach us regarding the required inputs in order to see the rule of God extended in our own lives and the world we live in. These teachings are not intended to teach us right and wrong, but to train us how our actions may usher in God’s will and ways.

Some of these lessons teaches us regarding following the leading the Spirit, giving, stewardship, compassion, obedience to civil law and being an vessel for His use. We will do well to embrace this inputs not as mere good deeds, but indeed as seeds sown towards the extension of His rule and reign. When we practise these we begin to build a life in accordance with His design. It is when we align our lives in accordance with this design that we reap the blessings of His kingdom or rule in our lives.

The same applies to the economic laws of God. Without such practises as honest labour and honest wages, serving others, taking initiative and stewardship of our own and others’ resources we cannot expect to become prosperous. And the more we align ourselves with His design, the more He will be able to entrust to us.

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. (2 Corinthians 9:5-7)

The Lord desires for us to be stewards of His resources and examples of His design towards a dark and dying world – also economically. Therefore regarding prayer it is wiser to seek understanding and wisdom regarding His ways and the grace to follow it, than to continually ask for God’s intervention during times of trouble.

Growing in wisdom

Wisdom means to have the will to do God’s will.

A wise man continuously decides to walk in God’s will and ways. Due to the path he follows, he learns over time the what, why and how of the will and ways of God. The way of God therefore becomes his way and he becomes wise himself.

A foolish man is someone who is ignorant of the way of God or wilfully rejects it.

All the paths of God lead to life and liberty. As such the wise man finds and enters life and liberty while the foolish stumbles due to his ignorance and rebellion.

Lord, may we see and follow You. May we learn your ways.  Make us willing and able to keep in step with You, and thus grant us wisdom.

 

Finding the Path

What is the essence of the Christian life? Or what is the main thing God wants of me today, tomorrow or the rest of my days?

Important to understand is what He desires to see come out of my life versus what he expects me to personally action in my life. These two are different since most of what He wishes to see flow out of my life will be a result of His grace – thus His ability working on my behalf producing what He desires.

For example loving God and loving people is His will for us. Yet, all our love is the result of Him loving us and that love overflowing in our lives. Likewise holiness is the result of His light and holiness being reflected from our lives.

The key change from the old to the new covenant is that He gave each us the ability to personally journey with Him in our hearts. He gave us the Holy Spirit as the guide for this journey. Love, holiness and purpose are all by-products of this journey with the Spirit of God. None should be pursued as goals lest it become works of self leading to religious self glorification. No, what must be produced in our lives must be by Him, through grace alone.

Therefore, what are the things that I must action on this journey? Firstly, I must daily seek Him and His Path. This involves speaking and listening – basic communication. Don’t do this religiously. Do it naturally as part of everyday life. The path is not found through religious activities, but is rather discovered in everyday life. It is here in daily living where He desires to spread His love, light and holiness to others.

Secondly, when I come to a crossroad where my own desire and that of the Spirit differs, I must learn to yield to Him. I must learn to submit to His leading since He is both the Path and the Light for the Path. He is both the Beginning and the End of every Path, and knows all things.

Wisdom chooses His way. Wisdom follows Him for He is Wisdom. When I follow the Path, all that I might think He desires from me is being fulfilled. As I stay on the Path, I experience His ability (grace) empowering me to fulfill His desire. This yoke is easy and its burden is light because His ability is fulfilling all requirements. It is the life-giving Spirit that becomes my righteousness, holiness and power.

When I miss the path or go my own way, I experience darkness, loss and frustration. These are not the signs that God is angry or disappointed, but that I am not following the correct path. What I must do is to speak to Him in seeking to find Him as the Path. Many might seek Him at such times for relieve or to somehow please an angry and distant God, without realizing that what He desires to give them is a different path of life. In all cases He will answer with the call to follow Him.

This call to follow is not one of work, purpose or prosperity. It is the basic call to relationship and the Way of Life. Along the way we all do things for God, but this is not the purpose for the call.

No, He calls us to follow since it is His way of leading us through all of life, teaching and training us in His ways and transforming us into His image.

Seek the Path as if your life depend on it. It is the Path of Life and the only way life will ever make sense.

Courage to all!

The essence of being a Christian in this world

The essence of being a follower of Jesus who lives under His rule and reign is that we are called to share Christ within us to this world. This has typically been taught as being a witness of Christ with an emphasis on evangelism. Yet, being a witness of His rule is much more than sharing the good news – it must involve being an example or a living epistle.

 

For too long Christians hid behind a type of evangelism that once they shared the good news or invited someone to a meeting, they could retreat into the safety of their own, feeling that their job was done. Yet, this approach leaves the world without the much needed influence of Christ in its midst as a continuous witness and light.

Kingdom living calls for full integration with the world we live in!

Jesus was certainly accused of the same in being called a friend of prostitutes and tax collectors! He was in fact rejected by the religious of the day because he refused to conform to their “God pleasing practices”.

Jesus prayed in John 17: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. “

In the parable of the yeast it is clear that Christians are to become part of the whole lump (world) in order to see the whole come into its full purpose.

Also in the parable of the wheat and the tares it is clear that it is His will that we must co-reside with the sons of evil until the end of time.

This is the essence of being a witness – living out the Christian life by following the Spirit in simple day by day obedience. Whether this seems significant or not is of no consequence. What he desires is the witness of his light and life through our lives in very simple ways.

Jesus has never asked any of us to be successful or significant. He simply asked us to follow Him to the places and people he would lead us and then do His works. This is true witnessing – whether it be to prostitutes, tax collectors, politicians or Pharisees.

Ultimately we will become trees planted by waters of life, and the world will feast from the fruit we bear and experience His life through us.

This is the ultimate witness of the defeat of the enemy in this world: that the sons of sin and evil have chosen to become the sons of God as witnesses against the evil one.

Ephesians 3:10-11 “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Let your kingdom come, Lord Jesus!

A Conversation.

Conversation between Two Monastic Believers.

You don’t have to answer this! In it I say nothing different than what I always say. It is a theme that revolves constantly in my mind. Every time I open my mouth to speak, the same thing comes out, even to my closest friends in the Church. This morning, reading Amos, I have just came to the verse 5:13 that you mention — “Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.” The Commentary I have says of it: “The reign of terror puts an end to freedom of speech, and people are governed by a prudent expediency rather than truth. the uninfluential man, who knows that were he to take his case to court he would get no satisfaction, is obliged to keep silent in the face of the unredressed wrongs of others”. And in another place it says: “The rulers of the day have effected a great transformation, and none can rebuke or halt them. There is One against whose flashing destruction neither the strong man nor the strong place (fortress) can offer the least resistance. What a vision for faith this is in a day when ungodliness is rampant and the godly man is chiefly aware of his own impotent silence.” The tirade of the Prophet Amos is against the people who are God’s own people. The sin is in the people; it is not the Church that sins, but the people in the Church. The big rulers of our churches have taken control over the lives of the people and even if I take my case to ‘the court of the church’ it will not be heard, or so it seems. Therefore do I sit in silence in my ‘monastery’ and I prophesy out into the wind of the world wide web with the prayer that the Spirit of God will take it as He blows where He listeth, and it will find a home in some listening ear. >>>>> I really hear you loud and clear on this.  We are involved with several people who are basically church people, and it is like speaking a different language.  I have come to the conclusion that the churchianity realm does not have the ears to hear, and that it has become another religion and there is no point to connect.  But still, there may be a remnant and something happening in an unseen realm, but having said that, I also think it is time to be silent to that realm, and the silence will be a speaking. >>>>>> My problem is practical: all ‘good people’ cry out against the corruption and crime, against the atrocities committed in our beautiful country, against the carnage on our roads due to human unconcern for the lives of others. We cry out but do we see only these BIG wrongs  that make the headlines while we are blind (deliberately?) to the little foxes that corrupt the whole structure of our own Christianity? —  ”Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes”. (Song of Solomon 2:15). So are we, who take offense and cry out, really ‘good people’ who hate crime at all levels, or do we fail on godliness? >>>>> I think we cry out because we see these things as a bigger picture of the judgment to come and actually the darkness has increased to the point that it seems like the night which comes in which no man can work.  And then we enter our chambers (Is. 26:20) and hide ourselves, and hopefully examining our own hearts because the interior shaking won’t let us do otherwise, and we have the desire to want to be ready and able to open to Him immediately when He comes.>>>> Then the question is ‘What constitutes godliness?’ How is godliness defined other than as ‘the way of God’? What must a human be in order that his or her actions will conform to the way of God other than that his or her actions must always be completely ethical and,  when there is a lapse, which there always will be, there is immediate conviction of having done wrong? >>>>> We must realize our heavenly calling and our place being in Him, hidden in Him, that we are called as those who have their citizenship in heaven.  We sever our connection to the things of the earth, and even the turmoil and perplexity of the world, and seek those things which are above.  It is not perfection in ourselves, He is our life.  Beholding Him (and nothing else) we are changed from glory to glory.  Our path is not always clear, but as we set Him always before us we draw our life and breath from Him, moment by moment and He directs our paths in that way.  I think we are all realizing that is the only way because we have come to the end of knowing anything by our own abilities, and also because of the chaos of the times we are in. It is just a seeking to maintain that abiding in Him as the source of our life and our leading.  I know that sounds rambling, I hope it makes sense.  >>>>>>>> If I was to identify  wrong action (sin) by it’s outworking,  I would say it is any action (or word or thought) committed by a human being that will cause evil (harm) to another person (or which is detrimental to the Creation which is the environment for all beings) unless the act is deliberately performed in order that good may come of it (but be careful here because only God is perfect and knows when evil will produce good in the long run). Any such action is mostly marked by selfish unconcern for another or others, whether the selfish unconcern is consciously held or unconsciously it is the outworking of a selfish spirit. Always the Spirit knows, and so will we also know if we will but heed His voice. “The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:8). Is the Lion not roaring in our land? Is the fact that God allows the corruption, the crime, and the carnage on our roads to continue, is not that the roaring of the Lion? Why then will we of the Church not heed it and look into ourselves to find the cause? And repent so that God will heal our land? >>>>>  Lately I have had a sense of urgency and that the time is short and am in amazement that people are not fearful of what is coming and seem to have no awareness of the shaking that is happening.  All things are being shaken to the core.  Who is aware of it?  Where are the people who tremble?  This urgency I sense is overwhelming.  But I don’t see anything corresponding to it except with a very few. >>>>>>>>>>>> <><><><><><><><><>>< From Jessop.

Old versus New covenant – Has God changed?

No, God has not changed. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Yet, through Jesus our ‘seeing’ of God has radically changed. Also our access to and relationship with God has been radically changed through the work of the cross.

Being ‘inside’ instead of ‘outside’

Jesus opened the path for us to live ‘inside’ God’s domain (kingdom). This positional change has a very radical effect on our view, relationship and access to God. Yet, more than a positional change, Jesus made us like Him. Through the new birth we are now the sons of God and part of His family.

Therefore our access to God is now unrestricted. Also there is nothing we can do to alter this. We are only required to boldly enter our Father’s house. No sin can alter our sonship. Neither can my sin keep me from access to the Father. This is what I believe the prodigal son teaches us.

The problem of sin being the barrier between us and God has been removed through the cross. The only barriers that remain are those of fear and choice. Many who are entitled to live ‘inside the house’ do not enter due to fear and false religious training. Also many sons who are called to live with God, choose to live independently from Him, and therefore by their volition experience God as One afar.

Punishment?

Does God not punish us for our sin? No, I do not believe He does. The punishment for our sin and failure was placed upon Jesus. The account for mankind’s sin has been fully paid for at the cross. Yet, Father does discipline us. The purpose of discipline is not ‘punishment’, but to teach us the path we are to walk in. Father disciplines us (teaching us His ways), in order for us to mature and fully grow into the image and stature of the firstborn Son, Jesus. Through this discipline we also learn who God is. We learn to see things from His point of view instead of our own or that of the world.

Judgment of the wicked

At the end of this age God will judge (weigh) all things. All things created have been created through and for Jesus and will be judged in relation to Him. At that time every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. For those who have accepted Him as Lord this will be a glorious time. But those who did accept His gift of grace and are therefore not of Him, will be weighed and found wanting. God’s righteous indignation will burn away all that is not aligned with His Son so that only that which is perfected through the Son will remain.

The consequences of my decisions

God instituted laws in the earth which are applicable to ALL mankind. These laws are things like gravity and sowing and reaping. Father does not take away from me the consequences of my decisions. Jesus also prayed that Father would keep us in this world – not take us out of this world. For me this means that God will keep (preserve) me even when I need to walk out the consequences of foolish and sinful decisions. This is part of Father’s way to teach us His heart, ways and principles. Thus our experience of ‘bad consequences’ is not God’s punishment or judgment, but merely the outworking of His universal laws applicable to all mankind. This is why the prodigal ended in humiliation amongst the pigs.

Where are we?

The unfortunate state of the church is that few of the sons of God live together with their Father. Most are journeying along a dry and hot path in the pursuit to ‘keep God happy’. Many others are on self-induced campaigns to religious significance, pleasure or wealth. All of these paths have there own religious doctrine to validate their position ‘in Him’, yet the true freedom we have been made to live in only comes when we yield to our Father and choose to live where He lives – in His love…

Faith likened to marriage

I have previously mentioned the relationship between faith and
relationship. This is not to say that relationship is faith, but the
comparison does help us to understand faith. I actually want to take
the comparison a bit further and liken faith to marriage.

I do believe that there is a strong biblical case for such a
comparison since our faith in Christ is expressed through the church
being the bride of Christ. Also the culmination of our faith is union
with God.

Therefore what is the purpose of faith? Why did God design something
like faith? Why does He require faith in order to please Him? I
believe faith is necessary in order to relate to God. Without faith we
can have no relationship. And without relationship we cannot please
Him and we sin (means ‘missing the mark’). Therefore is God angry when
we miss the mark (sin)? Is He angry when we choose not to believe
(relate with Him)?

No, I do not believe He is angry. Although it does not please Him, I
believe His displeasure is more focused upon His lack of relationship
with us than Him being displeased with us. I believe that this is what
the parable of the Prodigal Son teaches us. The Father was not a bit
angry, although he was saddened by the younger son’s departure and
long absence and also the elder son’s lack of understanding why he was
not angry.

Marriage is about relationship. A good marriage is built through the
elements of love, trust, communication, friendship, intimacy,
labouring together, to mention a few.

As in marriage the purpose of faith is union. It is to be united in
all things. This union with God is not easily achieved since it
involves learning to yield to Him as He leads us on the journey of
life. And thus I understand Heb 11 in this light. Without the pursuit
of union with God (faith), it is impossible to please Him. It is this
restoration of their union that pleased the Father so much at the
return of the prodigal son. It is also this very fact that the older
son misunderstood regarding his Father’s intent.

And therefore I test whether I am ‘walking by faith and not by sight’
through my union with God. Am I being moved and led by the Spirit? Am
I remaining in His love and rest? Am I yielding to His leading? If I
can answer ‘yes’, I believe that I am walking by faith. But when I
walk through the impulses of the natural (soulish) man, I become
selfish and fearful and take matters into my own hands. I depart from
His leading (union) in order to ‘make things happen’. At this point I
believe that I am no longer walking by faith, but by sight.

Often times we become discouraged when we view faith as a formula in
order to obtain something from God or to ‘keep Him happy’. As such we
are then prone to look for signs that the ‘formula is working’ and
that God is pleased. We then reason that when He is pleased we will be
blessed by Him. I believe this is the viewpoint of a slave – not a
son. It was indeed also the mindset of the prodigal as he journeyed
back home. Yet, what a surprise when he was reunited with his loving
Father, who was not in the least interested in his formulas, sacrifice
or good works.

Father’s only interest is union with His son…