Sorry that other necessary events have prevented an earlier denouement of this short series. The necessity also has an important corollary result for each disciple.
The payment of the half shekel, about 1/5 of an ounce of silver, demanded in Exodus 30:13-16 for tabernacle maintenance, offered a symbol of the Self-Denial Jesus commanded as essential to Christian discipleship. Sinners can become church members without it. They can hold church offices without it. They can be preachers without it. But only Self-Denial qualifies individuals to be Christ’s disciples Matthew 16:24-25. Now…a corollary of becoming and being such a person produces two very great benefits-in brief. First, the discipline necessary to become and remain that kind of follower of Jesus has positive effects that:
Second, it delights in being a continuation of what Jesus perfectly modeled—using difficulties, sorrows and sufferings—as the means of spiritual conquest, not defeat. An idea strange to that culture, and stranger to our Christian culture, which sees only Joy, Celebration, Victory as proofs of Christianity. Hebrews 2:10-18 relates to Biblical truth. The Holy Spirit empowers us to do our duty as willingly as we do our pleasures. Empowers us to remain patient and positive when life gets mean with us. Empowers us to endure adversity as easily as we enjoy victories. Indeed, in Kipling’s words, “If you can meet both Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same,” we will not only be mature people, but more Christ-like than we have ever been. And that will be our greatest success ever! Fini
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Believing in Christ as a way to escape life’s tantrums introduces to Christianity a prosperity theology applicable only to Israel under Moses. Indeed, “it was fitting that God…should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering” Hebrews 2:10. Since our Lord accepted suffering, though perfect, how can we seek to elude it while forgiven sinners?
Indeed, I Peter 4:1-2 stresses the Master’s suffering as the paradigm of our discipleship. With this fortuitous result: that we do “not live…for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.” The apostle continued through verse 6 contrasting the redemptive value of having the body disciplined with the dissolution effect of pleasure-seeking. Adversity can have negative effects on us. It can:
Why would the objects of salvation allow any of the above, or worse, when God ordained suffering to FINISH our LORD’S PERFECTION End, Part III The experience of the Knott’s in their 3-year-odyssey in desert farming has particular lessons for Christians. First, God knows what load in life we can fruitfully handle. Consider two examples from the time of Christ’s arrest and his Via Dolorosa experience. Two men, close to him, one at least an acquaintance, and likelier a friend, the other a total stranger.
A young man looked on at Christ’s arrest. One of the Sanhedrin’s thugs saw him, noticed his linen sheet and reached to grab it. It terrified Mark and he fled, leaving the sheet behind Mark 14:51-52. The second man, Simon of Cyrene, passing by the procession when Jesus fell beneath his cross-bar Mark 15:21. The soldiers seized Simon and, unable to flee, he found immortality by carrying the heavy beam behind Jesus all the way to Golgatha. That experience had such an impact on Simon that he became a believer in Christ and the father of Christian sons. Two men associated with Jesus, one who avoided adversity and one who couldn’t. Both had good results from their experience. The principle to learn is: God allowed John Mark to lose his sheet without further loss. He didn’t allow Simon to escape his burden. Leaving us with two possible promises from God. One, he knows what we can bear in adversity, being but flesh, Psalm 78:39, and will allow avoidance of what we can’t. Two, when we face a burden we can’t escape, God provides strength and grace to carry it. End Part II Walter and Cordelia Knott, the couple who founded and funded Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, had a string of difficulties on their way to world-wide fame.
Walter noted that adversity can make us tough, not bitter. It can build character without weakening faith in God. It can rouse an aggressive “never-give-up spirit”, rather than an “I give up” defeatist surrender to trials. Their experience in desert farming tested their perseverance but couldn’t keep them from continuing to try. Where many others failed to last the three years to qualify for a free 160 acres, they, by-a-co-operative “can-do” effort succeeded. Indeed, he concluded, their experience made them tough enough that no challenge would ever be a threat to them again. End Part I Christiane Salts, Cordelia Knott – Pioneering Business Woman, page 27. The Merriam Webster Dictionary, Tenth Edition, defines culture as “the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education.” Page 282. Note: “intellectual and moral faculties….” Why is it, then, that the San Diego Union-Tribune “Arts and Culture” weekly section special advertises stage-plays, musical entertainment and movies—the edgier, raunchier the better—as “Arts and Culture”?
Theodore Bikel, Jewish actor declared himself spiritual, but not religious, spiritual being his interest in and mastery of music. So in many lives, spiritual replaces religion. Because spiritual means anything the person has as an interest. In the Bible sense, spiritual begins with GOD, not mortals. He authors the word, as he authors the word holy. All kindred words also originate in him. The Bible believer knows it all has a Biblical basis—and the more Biblical it is, the deeper the morality and more uplifting the music, teaching, politics, benevolence and education. It doesn’t matter that in centers of higher learning today the Bible isn’t even considered cultural, let alone the basis of culture, including morality and spirituality! At least three reasons can account for personal adversity: mis-spent lifestyle, humanity’s fallen state and God’s will. At least three! God’s will accounts for Job’s trials, with Job the object of God’s approval and Satan’s accusation. God’s will, the unknown factor in Job’s sorrows, leaves us with a helpful principle when counseling those under stress. When tragedy strikes:
We need to be aware that a time exists for everything in life. For example, counseling those with sickness or disease, health decline or death near means being there, with the person or family. With few words spoken—and any spoken pacific, hopeful and positive. Where death has taken a loved one, God’s Grace offered the Living. Where no sense can be made of the circumstance, God’s Peace offered with empathy, and accepted without explanation. Where faith in God is weak, assurance of the Spirit’s presence making it stronger. Where faith in God is strong, like Job’s awareness of losing what has meant most of all to him: his confidence in God, his mainstay in life, and his sense of God’s disfavor catastrophic to his intellect and emotions. ONLY FAITH suffices. Other times exist for investigation. Israel’s present fight for survival with Hamas—who knows who else?—an example. The essence now: fight to win, to destroy Hamas. For later, investigation: how could the intelligence services of all western nations, and of Israel, been so blind to the preparations for war against her? Intelligence failures being common in history, hard questions need to be asked. The lesson from Job’s sorrows is: the Golden Rule in place: offer the person God’s grace and peace, prayer and comfort. Exactly what we want and need at such a time. Fini Knowing that a time exists in every experience for:
So far, so good. Then, when in his opening speech, Job took his sorrow:
Leading to:
Leading to:
Leaving untouched:
Furthermore, leaving untouched:
End Part III Conclusion tomorrow. V In each cycle of speeches, a hardening of positions occurred. The helpers:
While Job:
Until feelings grew so alienated that Job considered the friends:
And they considered Job:
Nevertheless, neither Job’s pain nor his friends’ orthodoxy could resolve the issue debated. Each ignorant of the source of Job’s condition, they all acted the part of blind men leading the blind. All of them, including Job, needed correction. Only God’s scorching declarations of sovereignty convinced him 38-41:1-6. ` Whether it persuaded the friends remains unknown. However, since God expressed anger at the friends, and ordered them to offer sacrifices to be forgiven, MAYBE they sinned by forgetting the principle Paul would teach when dealing with believers with sorrowful experiences Galatians 6:1-2. End, Part II: Part III: Lessons we can learn from the book of Job, 10/16/23. Eliphaz, comforter of Job, certainly understood humanity’s vulnerability. “Yet, man is born to trouble as sure as sparks fly upward” Job 5:7. The existence of adversity—in whatever form it afflicts mortals, necessarily followed when our common parents disobeyed God in Eden.
They had known labor, but not hardship, while cocooned in Eden. They couldn’t have known how hard life would be in “the jungle” outside. They soon learned. Labor in Eden cost them nothing. Outside, “the sweat of their brow.” That sad beginning has continued since Eden and will until Jesus returns. Job 2:13 provides the key that unlocks understanding to the cycle of disagreements, truths and false charges in the book. “Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.” Had that empathy been engraved on their minds, lasting at least through Job’s first speech, the result could have been different. But, true to themselves as traditionalists, though false to Job’s need, their responses ignited his resistance, argument and debate. End Part I Madame Guyon, intense French Mystic, wrote of the difference in wanting God’s graces, but not God. For example, we treasure love, but not the God who LOVED SO MUCH!
We love his gifts, but not God’s priceless GIFT:
Indeed, WHO “though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” II Corinthians 8:9 Why would we so perversely shun, fear and deny God:
Could we be so spiritually dense and depraved that we consider his gifts blessings:
They soothing our spirits:
We desiring the results of God’s creative genius:
We love God’s daily gifts of oxygen, sunshine and regularity of seasons:
While He remains forever. Will we wait till it’s too late to learn When Jesus is All We Have, Jesus is All we NEED? Just thinking! |
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