113. THE “ABCDE” OF BECOMING MORE OPEN TO GOD FOR HIS BLESSING. “B” for Believing.

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Jim Holbeck

There is all the difference in the world between believing about and trusting in. James brings that out in his discussion about the true nature of faith in James 2. He states that true faith has an outward expression, Jas 2:17  So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. He added that even demons believe that God is one and shudder in fear. However true faith is shown in those who personally trust in God, not just believe in His existence.  Trusting involves believing and acting on the words of the one trusted. In this article we will look at a couple of promises that came from the lips of Jesus to see what might happen if we believed Him and acted on them.

 Promise No 1. God will supply our needs (if we get our focus right in life). Mat 6:24-33. Jesus lived in this world and He knows about all the temptations that humans face. Very often they are temptations to fulfil legitimate needs. But they have to be fulfilled in godly ways and not in ways contrary to the will of God. In Matthew 6 He taught that the people of God need to get their focus right in life. They can focus on mammon, meaning money or possessions which ultimately don’t bring fulfilment. Or they can focus on God, living in the way He wants them to live and allowing Him to give them what they need to live for Him. As He put it in verse 24, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

He proposed that His people should live a life focussed on God. (Mat 6:25)  “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Anxiety arises when one’s focus is wrong, when it is focussed on the material side of life and not on God Himself. The word “anxious” probably comes from the word merizo meaning to divide. Anxiety comes from a distracted or divided mind. Focussing on the material things of life does lead to distraction. Focussing on the Lord brings peace knowing that He has promised to provide the necessities of life when we do so.  Jesus promised, (Mat 6:31)  Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32)  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33)  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

 Sometimes people ask me “What does the kingdom of God mean?” I tell them that it refers to God’s rule over His world and over His creatures. We can submit to Him or we can refuse to make Him Lord of our lives. Other people have asked, “What is His righteousness” in the same verse 33.  I tell them that the shortest definition I can give is this, “Righteousness is ‘what God wants’.” So “seeking first the kingdom of heaven and His righteousness” is making it a priority in life to do what God wants in every situation in life. Indeed for every moment in life. It means living one’s own life to the glory of God and not for oneself. It means seeking to build up God’s kingdom and not one’s own kingdom, or anyone else’s kingdom.  When we are actively seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness we become more open to receive His blessings.

Promise No.2.  God will answer our prayers which are prayed in faith. Mk 11:24, Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  The first thing to note about the verse is its context. Jesus had cursed a fig tree and Peter had expressed his surprise that it had withered so quickly. Jesus had answered, Mar 11:22  And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23  Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Then comes our verse 24, Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Are there any conditions to this promise? One of the prerequisites we saw in the previous article was “abiding” in the Living word, Jesus, and in the Written word, the Bible so that we are praying according to the will of God.  Now here in this verse there is the emphasis on “believing”.  Believing in a promise involves two  things. It involves trusting that the promise can be fulfilled. It also means trusting in the character of the person giving the promise. If I step out to claim the promise can I trust the promise-giver to be able to fulfil the promise! There is after all a big difference between believing in someone’s promise and really trusting that person to fulfil it. That comes out in the stories told of the famous Frenchman Blondin who could walk across the Niagara Falls on a tightrope. He performed one day and then said to a English nobleman who had been watching him, “Do you believe I could carry you across the Falls in this wheelbarrow?”  “Oh yes”, said the Englishman. To which Blondin reputedly replied, “Well hop in!” The Englishman quickly said that he thought someone else should have the privilege! He believed outwardly that Blondin could perform the feat, but got cold feet himself about getting into the barrow.

God wants us to trust Him. To believe His promises and to act on them.  What does it mean when Jesus said, “believe that you have received it and it will be yours?” Some manuscripts have the present tense “you have” and others have the aorist (past) tense “have received”.   At the very least it means that it was ours from the moment of asking. Or it could have become ours when Jesus cried out “It is finished!” as He hung on the cross, bringing His work of redemption to an end.  Or it could have been ours from all eternity in the foreknowledge of God who knows the end from the beginning. It probably means all these things. So what we can do in praying for blessing and healing is to believe Jesus, believe His promise of answers to prayer and pray something like this, “Lord I ask You to provide this need which I present to You.  I claim Your promise from Your word that it is now mine. Help me to pray with watchfulness and thanksgiving to see just how and when You bring the answer. In the meantime I will thank You by faith for the answer I have until I can thank You by sight.” AMEN.”  I know of hundreds of people who prayed in words like these at our healing services, who received instant healing or experienced the beginning of ongoing progressive healing. God’s promises are true because He is truth.

Blog No.113.  Jim Holbeck.  Posted on Sunday 10th March 2013

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112. The “ABCDE” Of Becoming More Open to God for His Blessing. “A” for Abiding

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Jim Holbeck

Recently I was teaching at a seminar on Healing. I was thinking about concluding the seminar by looking at how we might become more open to receive God’s blessing and healing. I thought a simple A,B,C might be a good way of covering some of the basic truths involved. However it soon appeared that I should look at the A,B,C,D and E to give a better coverage. We will look here at the first of those topics, the “A” for Abiding.

The Healing Ministry is not simply about techniques for praying nor about special kinds of faith that have to be developed.  Nor is it about special people who can heal while others can’t.  Healing is what God does. That’s why we need to have a close relationship with Him so that we can receive what He has to offer us, or what He has to offer through us as we pray for healing and blessing for others. Like everything else in the Christian faith, healing is about relationships. Pre-eminently our relationship with God.

If God is a loving powerful God of grace, how can we receive the blessings that flow from His grace, especially for healing?  The answer is by building up our relationship with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It is amazing what God can do in people’s lives as they open themselves to His mercy, grace, love and power. I saw that happen on many occasions. However there was one occasion when what He did really amazed me. It was during one of our Cancer Weekends in Sydney when we invited those with cancer and their carers to come to our Healing Centre for teaching, fellowship and to receive individual prayer from our team. As I walked in to begin the first session, I was shocked to see a young woman lying on the floor. I discovered later that her body was riddled with cancer. She had only weeks to live at the most.

As we taught on forgiveness she appeared to devour the teaching. She learned how to forgive. She acted on the teaching and began to forgive many of those who had deeply hurt her over the years. Instead of dying soon after that weekend, she returned to the next Seminar some weeks later. Again she acted on the teaching and as a result knew more release and healing. Some months later she was pronounced as being completely free of cancer. She had heard the Bible being taught as the word of God, and she had accepted it as the word of God. She acted on it as though it was the word of God. The result was quite miraculous. She had learned something about the ABCDE of becoming more open to God.

The Bible does says, “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” It sounds too good to be true. However not everyone receives the answers to prayer they had hoped for. There must be some other factors. What then are the conditions for that statement to become real in people’s experiences? The first of those factors is learning to “abide”.

 

A).       ABIDING. 

Jesus said, John 15:7  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  It’s the people who learn to abide who see answers to prayer. Jesus here speaks about abiding in two different ways.  People must abide in Him. Then they must abide in His word.

a).        Abiding in Jesus, the Living Word.  If you abide in me. This means remaining in close fellowship with Jesus as a person. Abiding means communicating with Him as a living Person. He is alive. Part of that communication should be thanking Him for what He has done for humans on the cross. He bore the penalty for human sin and rebellion and we can be forgiven through receiving Him as our own personal Saviour and Lord. As Paul wrote, Rom 5:10  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.  But Paul in this verse adds another dimension to the saving grace of Jesus, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. So we can ask for His help in living as we should because He lives in us and we are being saved from the power of sin by the power and presence of His life within us.

Jesus is a friend to those who love Him. He said so. Joh_15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. He can reveal the Father and the Father’s will to us, Joh_15:15  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. We can communicate with Him as a trusted Friend, with whom we can share everything. He knows all about our human situation. He can help us to live in a difficult world. He can help us overcome temptation, Heb_2:18  For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. He understands our temptations, Heb_4:15  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

 So the first aspect of abiding is learning to abide in Jesus as a living friend, as well as our Lord. The second aspect should be a natural consequence of the first. It is to take seriously the words Jesus spoke and to act on them.

 b).        Abiding in the words of Jesus. Abiding in the Bible, the written word.  Jesus said, If you abide in me, and my words abide in you. It means reading the Bible which contains Jesus’ words and absorbing their truth. It means meditating on His words, coming to understand them, and then living them out in daily living. James wrote about the written word of God and said it had to be put into practice. Jas 1:22-25, (22)  But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.(23)  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.(24)  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.(25)  But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. The word (parakuptō ) used here for “looks into the perfect law” is only used 5 times in the New Testament. Twice it refers to Peter stooping to look into the tomb of Jesus. It is also used of Mary Magdalene stooping to do the same thing. The other occurrence is in 1 Peter 1:12 where Peter writes about the desire of angels longing to look into the truth of the good news of  Jesus. It can be seen that the word implies time and commitment. Believers must make every effort to understand the word of God and to put it into practice.

It’s marvellous how you can remember things which became very precious to you in former times. As a brand new believer I was introduced to Scripture Union Bible Reading Notes over 50 years ago. They had a wonderful method of making sure you really read the Bible and applied the truths you learned.  I made up a mnemonic to remember the method. It was PRARP. Firstly you Prayed a prayer before reading the Bible such as the words of Psalm 119:18  Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. Then you Read the Bible portion for the day. Following that you Answered the questions they suggested such as What does this passage teach me about God―the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit? What does this passage teach me about the Christian life? Is there a command to obey, a promise to claim, a warning to heed? Is there an example to follow or an error to avoid? What is the main lesson of the passage? Having answered the questions you then Read the Notes commenting on the passage.  The final step was Praying it in. It was a great method for learning to abide in the word, as you had to think deeply about the words and their application for everyday living.

The more we learn to abide in Him and in His word, the more deeply we come to know Him. The more we come to know him, the more we come to know and understand His will. The more we understand His will the more we can pray in accordance with His will. These are the prayers that are answered. As the apostle John wrote, 1Jn 5:13  I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. 14  And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

What a different world it would be if we all learned to abide in Jesus and to abide in His word. More believing prayers would be prayed. More wonderful answers would result. More healing would take place. And God would be glorified in the lives of many more people. We owe it to the world to learn to abide in the living word (Jesus) and in the written word (the Bible).

Blog No.112. Jim Holbeck. Posted on Sunday 3rd March 2013

 

 

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111. “Healthy Christian Living.” James 1:19-27

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Jim Holbeck

It isn’t easy living in today’s world with all its pressures and tensions. However the people to whom James wrote lived in a much more difficult world than the one we live in. In this letter James writes to tell his readers how they could live healthy Christian lives in the midst of adversity and even persecution. He spelt out for them how they could win victory in spite of all the pressures around them. In chapter 1 he reminded his readers that they had to take control of their lives and submit their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ.

 1. GOD REQUIRES THAT WE BE IN CONTROL OF OUR LIVES. Jas 1:19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires.

a). In Listening And Speaking.   When James writes about being quick to hear, he means being eager to hear, ready to receive helpful input. He uses the terms to be “slow to speak”and “slow to anger”. To be “slow to speak” doesn’t mean that one has to speak with a slow pronounced drawl. Rather it means that we are to think about what we are about to say before saying it. The passage here is similar to Ephesians 4:20-32 which we will look at in a later article.

What damage has been done to you by people who didn’t watch what they said to you or about you? Older folk might remember the warning notice in the time of World War 2 about passing on confidential information by gossiping. The slogan “Loose lips sink ships” was prominently displayed in public places. The imparting of secret information can cause disasters to happen. Any sort of inappropriate speech can bring hurt, pain, division and destruction. Human enemies can be guilty of this. Certainly Satan will use available humans to use hurtful speech as a means of damaging God’s people.

b). In Controlling Anger. James 1:20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires. We don’t help the cause of Christ by giving way to angry speech. It can be a way of intimidating someone or bringing them under our control. But the Christian way is the way of love. It involves bringing release into people’s lives not binding them or destroying them.  We need God’s wisdom and His righteousness to have victory over our tongues otherwise they cause much evil, Jas 3:8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

Do you need to repent before God of the things that you said in anger that have damaged the person to whom you said it, and damaged you as well? If you have been guilty, then you need to confess it before God and ask for His forgiveness in Jesus. Then you need to pray that the person may be healed of the damage you caused them.  If appropriate, you might need to ask for their forgiveness as well.

On the other hand you might have been the recipient of evil, angry, poisonous, hateful words and you feel contaminated, hurt, angry, bitter and terribly sad. If so, you need to do some forgiving of those who behaved towards you in these ways.  You also need to ask God to forgive you of any bitterness and to heal you of the damage those words brought to you. Words have power. As the writer of Proverbs 18:21 put it, Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Human words can build people up and encourage them. Human words can damage and help to destroy them.

2. THE ATTITUDES REQUIRED TO RECEIVE THE WORD OF GOD. 1:21

a).  Ceasing from evil. 1:21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.  To be removed are filthiness and rampant wickedness. These are the things that God sees as deliberate and ongoing evil. He sees them as repugnant and contrary to what He wants. If our minds are filled with evil or bitter thoughts we are not receptive to the word of God. If our hearts are not right with God and with one another we cannot receive what God would say to us through His word.If we deliberately speak evil or do evil, we are not open to God’s correction or blessing. All that is evil must be “put away”.

b).  Receiving it in humility. 21. receive with meekness the implanted word…..  “Meekness” is a strong word. It was used of the breaking in of wild animals. It is strength under control. It is submissive strength. Strong people are those who are humble, who learn to receive the word of God in their hearts and let it bear fruit in their lives. We need to get rid of all the rubbish in our lives so that God’s word can take root and bring changes to our lives. We need to be good soil as seen in the parable of the Sower as Jesus said, Mark 4:20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” Hear, accept, bear fruit. The word that is received and acted on will bear fruit.

3. OBEYING THE RECEIVED WORD OF GOD

a). Hearing AND doing. (22-25). (The word as a mirror into which we look.)  The word of God is described as a mirror. There are two ways of looking into a mirror.

i). A quick glance which brings no change. (Glancing /hearing). 1:23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  It is like when we are going out and have a last look in a mirror. We quickly check to see if we put on all the clothing we meant to put on; whether our hair (if we have any) looks respectable. Just a brief glance but no more. Such a cursory glance at the word of God brings no spiritual growth.

ii). A deep search to see what is there and how to act on it in obedience. (Searching/ obeying). 1:25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.  The word to “look” here can mean to stoop to have a good look at something. Eg., Peter and John and Mary Magdalene stooped to look into the tomb. Luke 24:12, John 20:5, 11. We are meant to be those who delve deeply into God’s word. Wee are to learn to understand what it is saying. We are to put it into practice in our every-day living.

b). Pure religion means self-control. (26-27)

i). In speech. 26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless). We saw before that the mark of a mature believer is that he can control his tongue. The tongue of the person out of step with God is an unbridled tongue, a restless evil, spreading poison.

ii). In concerned action towards others.  True religion is not just focussed on oneself but in humility is focussed on the needs of others.

  •  27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction. 
  • The supreme example of humility was seen in Jesus in Philippians 2 and verses 5 to 8. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. It is living for others, not simply living for our own interests.

iii). In separating from evil. James 1:27, Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. We have to be squeaky clean! No stains, no spots, no mixed or hidden motives, but open before God as we seek to love and obey Him. 

 Healthy Christian living is not just an unrealistic ideal towards which we unsuccessfully strive. Rather it is playing our part in being open to the grace of God in every area of our lives so that He can be glorified in and through our lives as believers.

Blog No 111.  Jim Holbeck. Posted Friday 8th February 2013  

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110. Forgiveness. How God Gets Rid Of Human Sin. Micah 7:18-19.

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Jim Holbeck

We don’t need to carry a whole lot of guilt as believers, yet many people do. The truth is that God has removed our sins from us so that we don’t have to carry guilt any longer. We see that even in the Old Testament and especially in these verses from Micah 7:18, 19 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. 19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

There are tremendous truths in just these two verses. They speak of God’s steadfast love and compassion. They speak too of how His love is able to bestow forgiveness. He pardons (Hebrew = nasa) iniquity and passes over transgression.  (“Nasa” is used for “forgive” in several of the 600 plus occurrences of that word in the Old Testament. It refers to the lifting up or removal of sin leading to forgiveness.) [see my articles on “nasa” in articles 008 and 009.]

 In God’s compassion He deals with the sin of those who turn to Him for pardon. Micah used figurative language to describe what God does with sin. He will tread our iniquities under foot. Kabash is the word for “tread under foot” and means to “subdue, to remove, to crush” iniquity. God destroy its power in His people. He takes it away. Pardon is available as a result.

The other expression in 7:19 “You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” powerfully describes the magnitude of the grace of God in forgiveness. There are a couple of ways of looking at this verse. One is that God takes sins from penitent people and buries them in the depths of the sea, totally out of sight. He takes them away to a place where they can no longer be seen.  In the expressive words of Matthew Henry, He casts them into the sea, not near the shore-side, where they may appear again next low water, but into the depth of the sea, never to rise again. All their sins shall be cast there without exception, for when God forgives sin he forgives all.

Another way of looking at this verse comes from seeing how the phrase depths of the sea is used elsewhere. There is an interesting passage in Psalm 68 that has similarities with Micah 7:18.19. Psalm 68:22 The Lord said, “I will bring them back from Bashan, I will bring them back from the depths of the sea, 23 that you may strike your feet in their blood”.  The Egyptians had once pursued Moses and Israel into the Red Sea but the pursuers were buried in the depths of the sea and God saved His people. Now in Micah 7,  the enemies of Israel who sought to hide from the judgment of God could not escape from Him. He would bring them out from the depths of the sea (where they were trying to hide from God) to face His judgment. His people would have victory over their enemies as their feet “struck” or “waded” in the blood of their enemies. This would be an expression of His pardon in forgiving His people and enabling them to have victory over their enemies. The theme of freedom from enemies could also be seen in the only other reference to the depths of the sea, in Isa 51:10, with its allusions to the crossing of Red Sea.  Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?

What wonderful truths we see in these 2 verses in Micah 7. Notice how 3 words for sin are used in the passage, iniquity, transgression and sin. These signify the breadth and depth of His forgiveness. God pardons iniquity. He passes over transgression. In His compassionate love He gets rid of sin by crushing it underfoot and by casting into the depths of the sea. Someone once said that when God cast our sins into the depths of the sea He also erected a sign saying, “No fishing!” We are not to focus on our sins by dragging them up from the depths of the sea where God has buried them in order to focus on them again (a self-imposed guilt trip). Rather we are to focus on Him, recognising that He has done something about human sin in His forgiving love. As forgiven people freed from guilt we should look to Him for the grace to have ongoing victory over temptations to sin as we seek to live for Him day by day.

Blog No.110.  Jim Holbeck. Posted on Saturday 26th  January 2013. 

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109. Forgiveness And Life For Those Who Turn From Sin To God. Ezekiel 18:21-23.

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Jim Holbeck

The young fellow smiled as he said, “What I would like to believe is this. You can do whatever you want to do in life and then just before your last breath, you can say, ‘Please forgive me God’, and He will forgive you. If I do that I can go to heaven. Am I right in believing that?” Sadly he was mistaken. It is true that there such a thing as “a death-bed repentance” where someone just before he or she dies repents of their sins and asks God to forgive them. But such incidents are rarer than people think. Very often the attitude to God that people have throughout life remains the same as they draw closer to death. Indeed no one can ever be sure they will be in a position to be able to make any decisions in the moments before they die. What light can this passage from Ezekiel cast on the situation, “But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 22 None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. 23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?

Notice what Ezekiel wrote. The people are here called “wicked” in verse 21. The Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, uses the word (anomos) which means “lawless one”. It indicates that such a person does not seek to live by God’s laws. He has committed “sins”, verse 21. He is guilty of “transgressions”, verse 22. He has run his life, “his way” and not God’s way, verse 23. A similar outlook on life is encapsulated in the words of the famous Frank Sinatra song, And now, the end is near, And so I face the final curtain. My friend, I’ll say it clear, I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain ….. I did it my way. The problem with such an outlook on life is that the person who lives by that philosophy (doing one’s own thing in life) is ultimately a creature who is rejecting the Creator’s plan for him or her. In other words, they are in rebellion against their Creator.

What is involved for humans to know God’s grace in forgiveness? The previous verses provide an answer. They have to turn away from all their sins. This means a total re-orientation in life. Again the Greek version helps us. The word for “turn” is (epistrephō). It is used in the Bible for turning around, for moral change among other things. They are turning their backs on the sins they once committed in turning back to God and His laws. Not only that but they need to be committed to keeping God’s statutes. They need to keep on doing habitually what is right and just in God’s eyes.

If they make that commitment then God declares what will happen. They will not die spiritually but will find life in God. Not only that, God declares they will be forgiven as they learn to be righteous in His sight. God forgives them as seen in the statement “none of the transgressions they have committed will be remembered.”  Again this is similar in thought to Isaiah 43:25 and Jeremiah 31:34 where God promises to remember the sins of the penitent no more.

In verse 23 God declares His heart through Ezekiel’s words, 23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? He wants people to turn from their sins back to Him so that He can forgive them. He desires that they turn from their way, doing their own thing in life, to instead walk in His way. He derives no pleasure from the death of those who fail to turn to Him. He longs for them to find life. This concept is taken up in the New Testament in 2 Peter 3 where Peter writes about the loving nature of God, The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2Pet 3:9. Every day brings us another opportunity to get right with God by turning from our sins back to Him. Every day also brings us the chance to turn from doing our own thing in life to turn to Him to know His grace to enable us to live in the way He wants us to live. But it also means that as each new day arrives, there remains one less day to make that commitment to Him before it is too late.
Blog No.109. Jim Holbeck. Posted on Wednesday 23rd January 2013

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108. Forgiveness. God Casts Our Sins Behind His Back. Isaiah 38:17

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Jim Holbeck

George was suffering from a deep sense of guilt. He had hurt a lot of people during his life. But he had repented of all he had done and had asked God for forgiveness. He had also contacted many of the people he had offended and asked for their forgiveness. He had known a real sense of release by doing so. Many had freely forgiven him. Others were not willing to do so. But he had done the right thing in apologising to them and asking their forgiveness. Yet there still remained an ongoing sense of guilt about some aspects of his past.

He was introduced to a verse from the Bible that brought him a deeper sense of release from guilt. It was this verse from Isaiah 38:17, Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.  This is another of those word pictures God gives us in His word to enable us to grasp the reality of His forgiveness.

The phrase “behind your back” is found only a few times in the Old Testament. It can refer to people rejecting God by taking their eyes off Him and as a result casting Him behind their backs. Such was God’s charge against Jeroboam’s idolatry in 1 Kings 14:9)  but you have done evil above all who were before you and have gone and made for yourself other gods and metal images, provoking me to anger, and have cast me behind your back.  A similar charge was levelled by God against the people of Jerusalem in Ezekiel 23. The people had turned away from God as verses 29 and 30 indicate, Your lewdness and your whoring 30  have brought this upon you, because you played the whore with the nations and defiled yourself with their idols.  God declared His punishment on them,  Ezek 23:35,  Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences of your lewdness and whoring.”  It is a foolish and dangerous thing to turn one’s back on God. He notices!

 What a contrast then is this truth in Isaiah38:17. Hezekiah the king had repented of his sin against God and had been forgiven by Him. Hezekiah wrote, Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.  When people turn to the Lord, He does deliver their lives from the pit of destruction. In addition He does something about their sins. He deliberately casts their sins behind His back. In this way God is conveying the truth that those sins are no longer before Him; He no longer looks at them; He no longer sees the penitent as being guilty of them. He will not bring those sins back against them again.

When George read those words he realised afresh that God’s forgiveness was based on His amazing grace. George knew he could never earn such a release from his sins. He acted on that objective truth in God’s word that God had cast his sins behind His back and began to affirm to himself that he was forgiven. That objective truth in God’s word became an inward reality as George continued to affirm that truth.

It reminds us that all the promises of God are eternally objectively true. But it is only as we come to know them AND act on them that they become true in our human experience as believers. There are so many of God’s promises that people have heard about. But it is only as people believe them and act on them that they became personally real in their subjective experience.

Do you have a niggling sense of guilt about anything in your life? Then confess whatever it is and ask God to forgive you. Then thank Him for doing so in Jesus, and begin to affirm the fact that you are forgiven and that God has indeed cast your sins “behind His back”.  George did and it transformed him. You can too because God’s grace extends to all who believe and act on His promises.  “He hides our sins behind His back”.  What a blessed thought! What a relief! What a gracious God!

Blog No.108.  Jim Holbeck.  Posted on Tuesday 22nd January 2013. (47th Wedding Anniversary. I remembered! Praise the Lord!)

 

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107. We Need To See Ourselves As God Sees Us. Seated With Christ! Ephesians 2:4-7

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Jim Holbeck

As Alice sat in the doctor’s waiting room her mind began to imagine the highly invasive medical treatment her body was about to endure. This was last resort treatment! Radical! Unknown in most countries! She faced treatment that might or might not work! She needed a deep assurance of God’s love and presence. As she thought about her God and her relationship with Him, a passage of the Bible came into her thoughts. As she meditated on the passage she was filled with an incredible sense of peace as she later described it. All fear and trepidation vanished and she was ready to face the coming medical assault by the grace of God. What was the passage that brought her such a sense of security and peace? Might it help us in the difficulties we face?

In fact the passage has brought great peace to millions who have begun to live by its truths. There are many sensitive people in the world who are very conscious of their own failures. Many of them wonder how God could put up with them when they feel that they keep on failing Him. They think, I have been a believer for so many years now, but I don’t seem to have matured a great deal. I still face the same difficulties and temptations and they are still hard to overcome. Or they may begin to think that they are being hypocritical in not living more victorious lives. The enemy, Satan the accuser, uses the opportunity to get them to doubt their commitment and their motives. The hymn writer Canon Henry Twells put it so well in his hymn, “At even ere the sun was set”. One verse describes those who are sensitive in nature about their short-comings and explains in his words, And they who fain would serve Thee best, Are conscious most of wrong within. It is those who want to draw closer to God and to have more victories in their lives who are the most conscious of their own short-comings and sin. On the other hand those who are far from God and have no desire to draw closer to Him are not really conscious of their sin. It just doesn’t matter to them. How then can the passage we have in mind help sensitive people who want to have more peace in their lives?

The passage which helped Alice and can help people today is from Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 to 7. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– 6  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Alice had been taught that she had to see herself as God saw her. What she came to understand from these verses was this. She understood that God saw her as sitting at His right hand “with Christ”. She initially didn’t feel that to be true.  However she also had come to understand that reality is how God sees things, not as we see them or feel about them. The objective truth was that Alice was sitting in the doctor’s reception room as she meditated on this passage. But she recognised another objective truth. At that very moment God saw her sitting at His right hand with Christ. So as she sat in the waiting room she “practised the presence of God”, and turning to her left she said, “Father, I thank You that I am in Your presence. I commit my whole future to You”.  She experienced a deep peace in His presence. The more she thought about the passage and affirmed its truths to herself, the more they became a part of her. The peace remained following the invasive medical procedures. As she continued to picture herself sitting with Christ at God’s right hand and handing all her concerns over to God she experienced what Paul described in Philippians 4:6-7 as the peace of God, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 What does it mean for the believer today that they are “seated with Christ” in the heavenlies through their faith-union with Christ?  It means three things in particular.

1).        It means they are seated in the place of honour.  Christ had perfectly fulfilled the will of His Father through His life and death. God had honoured Him by raising Him to life and seating Him at His right hand.  He was and is now in the place of honour. But so too is the believer who is seated with Christ.  God honours those who honour His Son by raising them with Him in His sight.   There are few on earth who honour Jesus as they should. That is why God honours all those who take the gift of His Son seriously. Jesus is precious to His Father. He sees those who trust in His beloved Son as precious because such commitment to Jesus is so rare. Believers bothered to take Jesus seriously. God takes them seriously and has honoured them by seating them in the place of honour with His Son.

2).        It means that they are seated in the place of acceptance with God. God accepted all Jesus had done on earth as sufficient for His plan of salvation. The law of God had been fulfilled by Jesus’ life and obedience. Human sin had been died for by Jesus. Believers who accepted Jesus as Saviour were in turn accepted by God. In other words God accepts all those who accept His Son.  There can be no greater acceptance than to be in the place of acceptance with God, at His right hand with Christ. Believers may do many things to become more available to God in His purposes, but they can never become more acceptable to Him than they already are through their faith-union with Christ.

When believers really understand this truth it means the end of trying to become more acceptable to God through trying to do more and more things to please Him. People are either accepted by God or they are not. All those who become believers will be accepted. All those who refuse to accept Christ as Saviour will be rejected.  It also means the end of mental self-flagellation. We can so easily mentally punish ourselves for not meeting our own expectations, let alone what we imagine God’s expectations to be for us. To understand that God has raised us up with Christ and has already seated us with Christ means He has accepted us as we are. Our striving to live only for Him will be motivated by our love for Him and not by a desire to become more acceptable. We never can be! We are accepted now!

3).        It means that they are seated in the place of authority. Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God to be the King of kings, the Lord of lords and the ruler of this universe. Believers have the privilege of praying in His name, calling on His authority. This authority was given to believers in the Great Commission in Matthew 28,  18  And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  It means that believers can experience victory in their personal lives as well as in their work or ministry for God. They are not struggling for authority in life. They have it through their relationship with Jesus in whom all authority resides.

Every believer is going to have a difficult time living in a difficult world. There are times when we may feel that we are trudging through mud, so slow is our spiritual progress. At other times the enemy Satan (as the accuser) tries to get us to doubt God’s love for us. He may feed into our minds thoughts that suggest we don’t measure up. That we are hypocrites. That we will never have victory in some areas of life. That we are not very nice people. Or he may try to put fear into our minds that we are not yet ready to meet God.

But as Alice proved in the most extreme situations, it is possible to know God’s peace and power to cope when you know you are already seated with Christ in the heavenlies. She began to base her whole life on the assurance of her acceptance by God. She often visualised herself sitting with Christ in the heavenlies in the place of honour, acceptance and authority. It meant she could trust Him for every moment of her life. In the opinion of her close friends, she did! Continually!

But this truth was not just for Alice to reflect and act on. It is true for ever believer and has been from the moment they believed. There is no need to struggle for acceptance with God. Believers ARE accepted by Him. There is no need to keep on hoping that one day God will accept us. No, He tells us that we are accepted in Christ. From the firm basis of our acceptance we reach out to Him to give us the grace we need to live for Him. This is what St Paul had in mind in Philippians chapter 2. He said we were to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling”, 2:12. He didn’t say that we had to work FOR our salvation. Rather from our sure security as believers seated with Christ in the heavenlies we are to work out in practice what God Himself is working in us in the power of His Holy Spirit.

So today as you read these words what might it mean personally to you if you believed and acted on the truth that you are, as a believer, already seated with Christ in the heavenlies?

Blog No.107.  Jim Holbeck.  Posted on Sunday 13th January 2013

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106. Another New Year Resolution? Or A New Beginning? 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Jim Holbeck

What makes us tick? What do our lives revolve around?  Perhaps some of us have never found the answers to those questions. That’s why we keep going around in circles getting nowhere except getting more unhappy and more unsettled and perhaps more unwell. That’s why we keep making New Year resolutions every year in a determination to be different “from now on”. Finally after many years of frustration we finally make a New Year resolution that remains the same every year. A resolution not to make any more New Year resolutions! We lose hope that life can be different. Paul in this passage in 2 Corinthians 5 gives us hope. Hope that life can indeed be far different from what it is for us at the moment. Here he gives us some powerful motives for living in today’s world. We need all of these motivations to live lives of joy, peace and deep personal meaning.

  1. 1.        The Right Fear Of The Lord. 5:11. 

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.   The wrong sort of fear can be debilitating and dangerous to our physical and emotional health. Especially the fear of death which the Bible says can keep us in life-long bondage to the devil, Heb 2:15,(Jesus) likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15  and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. But Jesus came to set us free from that wrong sort of fear.   The right sort of fear can be very healthy. It makes us wise. Prov 9:10  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.  We all need wisdom and insight in a world that is not always as it appears to be. Having a healthy respect for the Lord enables us to get things, situations and people in true perspective. The right fear of the Lord gives us security,  Acts 9:31  Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers. The right fear of the Lord is not a cringing fear that makes us afraid of God. It can be the sense of awesomeness we have of a righteous, holy God whom we know also to be loving and gracious to those who love and obey Him. To have such a healthy fear of the Lord means that we lose our fear of other humans. If He is on our side, who can be against us, writes Paul in Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  He commits Himself to those who commit themselves to Him.

 

2. The Compelling Love Of Jesus. 5:13-14. 

13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died. “Controls” can also be translated, “surrounds, hems in, rules, constrains.”  It can refer to Christ’s love for us.

i. The love of Christ = Christ’s love FOR us.   This was seen in His coming to earth to become human. It was seen in His willingness to suffer misunderstanding, rejection, mocking, and ultimately death on a cross for our sakes.  It is indeed a wonderful thing to see the transformation in people when they come to realise how much God loves them.

ii. Or the love of Christ IN us.  The love Christ has placed in our own hearts by His Spirit. When we open our lives to the Risen Christ, we are able to love others with God’s love.  Paul wrote in Romans 5:5 that the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. His Spirit motivates and empowers us to love with His love. It is agapē  love, God’s love, a love for the undeserving, the unworthy and the unattractive.

To know Christ loves you can be transforming. To experience His love flowing through you is even more transforming. I saw the incredible difference it made to an unattractive man many years ago. Unattractive because he was a real “sour-puss”.  I was asked by a Christian woman leader if I would talk to him. He was a boarder in her home and was a grumpy depressed alcoholic, never able to hold onto a job. As we talked he angrily told me he had grown up in the 1930’s in Germany and was appalled that many of the leaders of the church youth groups had become leaders of the Hitler Youth Movement. He had been so appalled that he had given up on God and on Jesus for the 30 plus years since. He felt it was all so hypocritical. I said to him, “Hey! you’re on God’s side. He thinks it’s hypocritical too.”  It’s as though I hit him across the head with a bit of 4 by 2 (inches) timber as we say in Australia. It woke him up. It just blew his mind that he was on God’s side! On His side against evil and hypocrisy. He was so shocked by the thought, that he let me pray for him that he might draw nearer to the God whom he had been rejecting for over 30 years. Later he booked himself into a clinic to get “dried out”. He made a deeper commitment to Christ. He was tremendously changed by coming to know that Christ loved Him. He was filled with love for Christ and with the love of Christ. He became a completely different person. If you are a romantic person you might like to know what happened next! He and his very godly ex-missionary Christian landlady fell in love with each other! They married! The last time I saw them they were joint managers of a Christian bookshop. He had no hesitation in telling people about his love for Jesus and about Jesus’ love for him and for others like him.

3. A Deep Sense Of Gratitude To God. 5:15. 

 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. That’s what my German alcoholic friend discovered. He was extremely grateful for the fact that Jesus had died for his sins and for the sins of the whole human race. The result was that nothing would be too much for him to do for Christ.

But it is also God’s purpose that we should live for Him. If for our sake He died and was raised, then God’s purpose is that we live for Him rather than for ourselves from now on.  Who or what is the centre of your universe? Is it you? Or is it your health or even your healing? Is it your prosperity? Is it your own plans for your future, or is it Jesus?  Paul says the same thing in Romans 12:1, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (or your reasonable service.) It is perfectly logical that if Christ as the Son of God and the Messiah died for you and me that we should now live for Him in presenting all we are to Him.

Has God’s purpose in the death of Jesus for you been fulfilled in your life or are you still in control and not Him? You cannot go against the purpose of God and not suffer. If Christ is not the Lord of your life you are out of His will for you.  There is no real abiding blessing being outside the will of God. The big challenge for you and me is not the question of whether we will give ourselves completely to God or not. We have to do that because that is His purpose for us. The challenge is, just when we are going to do it. Each day we keep Him outside our lives is a day in which we are going against His express purpose for us. And missing out on the experience of His love.

Why not, at the beginning of a New Year, give Him YOU. That’s what He wants. Not just your time or your praise or your money. He wants YOU! If you are a sensitive person you might think, What if I make that commitment to Jesus and give Him ME, can I keep on in obedience to Him? I don’t ever want to be a hypocrite.” The answer is “Yes!” as Paul goes on to indicate. You can live as a committed believer with expectancy that life can be vastly different by the grace of God.

4.  An Expectancy That Life Can Be Different. 5:16-18.  

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Paul as a brilliant man had got it all terribly wrong before he committed himself to Jesus. He had once regarded Christ as just an ordinary human, an impostor, a blasphemer. He had put Jesus into an ordinary human category, until he met the Risen Jesus on the Damascus road, and he knew Jesus was what he claimed to be. He was the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. He had to change his viewpoint, and indeed his whole way of life. He himself had become a new creature and he knew that old things were passing away and all things were becoming new. He also knew it could be so in the lives of other people. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. How new can you and I be? Paul had a choice of 2 words to use for “new” when he wrote this letter.  One word neos mean recent or a brushed up version of the old. But he used another word kainos which means radically new, new in form or character. Christ can make us brand radically new and can keep on changing us to be more and more like Him.

Paul had also written of the transformation that can take place in humans as people’s minds are renewed through an ongoing commitment to God, Rom 12:2  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God–what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Our attitudes can be transformed as our minds are renewed. We can believe that nothing is too hard for God.

Our expectancy can be deepened as our minds are renewed. We can believe that God can fulfil His promises even in our own lives.  We begin to expect and to see more answers to prayer as we act on those promises.

We can become more open to what God wants to do in our lives as we trust Him more.

We can even be set free from the categories we put on ourselves, or allow other people to put on ourselves. We refuse to be negative. We no longer say these things about ourselves, “I couldn’t do that.  It would be too hard.” Or “I’m really quite ill. I can’t expect to get better. “ Or “I suppose when you get to my age you can expect all these things to go wrong with your body”. We unconsciously begin to fulfil our own prophecies. We bring things on through fear and anxiety or because we expect to be afflicted in certain ways. Commitment stops that wrong thinking.

God wants us to open our minds so that they are not shackled by old ways of thinking.

We need a renewed understanding of Him, His word, His promises.

In Christ we become brand new creatures.

We have a new nature. 2 Peter 1:4, we become sharers of the divine nature.

We have a new love, the agape love of God Rom 5:5 shed abroad in our hearts.

We have a new focus in life. We see ourselves as having been “died for” by Christ. So now we live for Him for every moment of our lives.

We can see our lives revolving around Him rather than around ourselves or one another. We are centred on Christ because God the Father is centred on Him in His purposes.

We can see ourselves being healed by Him as part of His purpose to enable us to live for Him.

You need to give Him You, so that He can give you what you need to live for Him, whether it is healing, guidance, or some other blessing.

The challenge is when? Paul concludes this chapter with a challenge to his readers to get right with God. (2 Cor 5:18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19  that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 6:1 As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2  For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!  

Our commitment to Him is not to be a well-intentioned New Year resolution, “Next Year”! Nor is it to be “Tomorrow!” Rather our commitment is meant to begin “Today!”

Blog No 106.  Jim Holbeck.  Posted on New Year’s Day 2013

 

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105. The Challenge of the Christ of Christmas. Galatians 4:4-5

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Jim Holbeck

Over the last week millions of people all over the world went to Christian services to celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. What was so significant about His coming into the world at this time almost 2000 years ago?  What does His coming tell us? Paul reminds us in Galatians 4:4-5.

 1.   GOD’S TIMING IS ALWAYS PERFECT. Verse 4. v.4, “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son.” The time was right, from God’s point of view, for Jesus to be born as a human baby at that first Christmas.  We can say humanly speaking, it was an ideal time for Jesus to come to earth. The different cultures had prepared the way for His coming. For example:-

A.  The Roman Empire. The communication system was highly developed. Roads had been built throughout the Roman Empire. It was safe for trade to be conducted in various places, for the Roman army kept watch over the main trade routes. Because of the Pax Romana, the Roman peace, there was political stability in the world under the Roman Empire. It was a relatively safe time in which to live and to travel.

B. Greek Culture. The common language of Greek was known and understood by most people. The Old Testament had been translated into a Greek version so that many could understand the way God had been active in history in the lives of His people. Even New Testament documents were written in the common language of the day, so that most people could understand them.

C. Jewish Culture. The Dispersion meant that many of the Jews had been scattered throughout the world. Synagogues had been established even in small towns where the Jews could gather together to read and study the Old Testament Scriptures. Many Jews were praying and expecting their Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, to come.

BUT, there was a spiritual vacuum.  The gods of the Greek and Roman cultures hadn’t satisfied. The Jews felt restrained by the law. It pointed out what was right and wrong but did not give power to do the right. They were not free politically either. They were subject to the Roman authorities, and not just to God. They didn’t like it one little bit. People were looking for something to happen. In many ways it was a time similar to our own day, in which we’ve become disappointed with the things of the world. In human terms we despair at the seeming incompetence and apparent arrogance of world leaders. We are amazed that humans could so easily thumb their noses at God in rejecting His rule over their lives. Many today too are looking for something more real and satisfying than what they are presently seeing and experiencing.

IT WAS AT THIS TIME THAT GOD SENT JESUS INTO THE WORLD.   Here was the power of God and the love of God in action. Jesus came into the world He had made, in the form of a baby. It wasn’t easy for the people of that day to recognise who Jesus was as the Messiah and the Son of God. They failed to see how God’s purposes were being fulfilled in the birth or the death of Jesus. A crucified Messiah? Foolishness to the Greeks! Crucified in weakness? A stumbling block for the Jews! Paul quoted the scripture from Deuteronomy 21:23 when he wrote in  Gal 3:13  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us–for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”. If Jesus had been crucified, then of course He must have been under the curse of God in their eyes. He was, but it was for our human sin not for His. Paul put it in Romans 5:6, “while we were yet helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.” And Peter expressed it, 1 Pet 2:24, Jesus Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross that we might die to sins and live to righteousness. ” The death of Jesus was planned from all eternity and happened at exactly the right time in human history.

But note:  We see these truths now in retrospect. We see the way all things came together at that particular time for the Christ to come. However the people of that day may not have seen it at the time, as we see it now. The coming of Jesus back then may have been on an ordinary day in an ordinary year for most people.

You and I don’t always see the significance of what God is doing at any particular time. Some people came to the Healing Service in the Cathedral in Sydney, not realising that their lives would never be the same again as God ministered to them in love and healing power. It can be the same when the people of God come together in many different places around the world. He can touch their lives so that they are changed forever. It could be on a very ordinary day that you have an encounter with God. In retrospect you may see it as the most significant day on your life. But why did Jesus come?

2.   WHY GOD SENT JESUS. V.5

i. To set us free from the condemning law. Gal 4:5  to redeem those who were under the law.   “Redeem” means to set at liberty those who were previously bound. The law of God promised life to those who perfectly obeyed it. It also promised condemnation to those who disobeyed it in any way. It said “Do this and you will live” and promised death to those who didn’t obey it perfectly. But Jesus came to fulfil the law by living a perfect human life, and by dying a perfect human death for sinners. Christ redeemed them by His death. Now we are able to come to God through Him. The writer to the Hebrews put it, Heb 10:19  Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20  by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. Now through Him we are able to live in a personal loving relationship with God

ii. To enable us to be adopted as His children. Gal 4:5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Jesus died for us that we might receive adoption as His children, through faith in Him. He came and died so that we might live in a relationship of love, not law, with God Himself.  John wrote of the coming of Jesus that He came to bring light, life and acceptance to the world,  John 1:9  The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12  Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God– 13  children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Grace! Freely forgiven and accepted in Christ. Truth! Reality! The real God offering real love to real people as they opened up to Him.

At that first Christmas Day God sent His Son into the world as a gift to be received by faith. Millions throughout the world and through the ages have done so over the succeeding years. But the number of Christmas Days is coming to an end. Jesus will return to pass eternal judgment on all who have ever lived and on those who are alive at His coming. The basis of the judgment is what they have done with God’s gift. Those who have received God’s gift of Jesus will live with Him in bliss for ever. Those who have ignored God’s gift will not.  A frightening prospect! But one that can be averted by putting one’s faith in Christ.

As I write these words it is New Year’s Eve. 2012 is coming to an end in about 2 hours. It is a very special time for me. It was at this precise moment in 1958 that I was struggling with the question, “What should I do with Jesus? Should I continue to reject Him? Should I humble myself and invite Him to be my Saviour and my Lord?” I made a decision. It was the most important decision I ever made or will ever make! I decided to repent on my sins and to ask Jesus to come into my life to be my own personal Saviour and Lord. There in that little flat in Griffith Street, Tweed Heads-Coolangatta in Australia I knelt beside my bed and prayed asking God to forgive me and inviting Jesus to come into my life. Life has never been the same since. Different! In every way! Coming to understand the written word so much more clearly. Coming to love the Living word, Jesus, more and more dearly. Knowing that the Almighty God has a plan and purpose for me in His world. Knowing His strength to be able to do it. Knowing I am loved by the God who so loved the world (including me) that He gave His only Son to come and die for me so that I might have life, in abundance! I received God’s Christmas gift back in 1958 and have never regretted it. But a question for you to  answer. Have you received God’s Christmas gift, the gift of His Son to come and live in you by His Spirit, so that you can become part of the family of God? It’s a question that only you can answer. And answer it you must! Soon!

Blog No.105.  Jim Holbeck.  Posted on New Year’s Eve, 2012.

 

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104. Who is the Jesus Christ of Christmas? Part 4 of 4. Jesus the JUDGE

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Jim Holbeck

Jesus the judge! Surely an oxymoron! Surely those words cannot stand together in the same phrase! Jesus in His teaching encouraged the needy to look to Him for help. But He also warned those who were rejecting His teaching, of the dangers of doing so.  In fact He often spoke of Himself as being the eventual judge of humankind. We look briefly at the subject of judgment in the Bible and specifically at the role of Jesus as judge.  You see, judgment is not a topic we can ignore in the Bible. There are over 200 references to “judgment” in the Bible and over 250 to “judge”. The vast majority refer to divine judgment. We now look at many of those references to see to what extent the role of Jesus includes judgment. Coming to a deeper understanding of the truth about Jesus during this Christmas season might just mean that we really have the best Christmas ever as we learn to appreciate Him more and more!

 1).        GOD’S JUDGMENT IS ALWAYS JUST AND THOROUGH

Abraham had a sense of the justice of God as he said in Gen 18:25  … Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” Meaning of course, that which is just in the eyes of the all-seeing and all-knowing God.

David likewise saw God as just, Psa 9:7  But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, 8  and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness.

Solomon reflected on the nature of God and on the meaning of life. He recognised that God set the rules for humans to live by and that in His judgment He would miss nothing.  He concluded, Ecc 12:13  The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14  For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

 2).        JESUS ACTS AS GOD’S AGENT IN JUDGMENT

As we come to the New Testament we see that God has delegated judgment to Jesus His Son. As Jesus said, (Joh 5:22)  The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. He added, Joh 5:27  And he has given him authority to execute judgment.

Judgment was a joint responsibility. The Father and He would pass judgment,  (Joh 8:16)  …it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. Paul also recognised that shared responsibility in judgment, and saw Jesus as God’s agent in judgment, (Act 17:31)  because he (God) has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man (Jesus Christ) whom he has appointed. Also in (Rom 2:16) Paul says that God judges but He does it through Jesus, on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by (dia = through) Christ Jesus.

 3).  EVERYONE WILL STAND BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF GOD

Paul shows the accountability of all humans before God in these verses, Rom 14:10 …For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; …12  So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Judgment will be just because Jesus will judge on the basis of the true knowledge of good and evil. 1Co 4:5  … the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. And also in 2Co 5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, .. good or evil.

Jesus’ judgment of people will include those who die before His second coming and those who are alive at the time, 2Tim 4:1  I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: This is what Jesus taught regarding His second coming and the resurrection that would then take place, Joh 5:29  all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

All humans must die and face inevitable judgment, Heb 9:27  … it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment

 4).        THE BASIS OF JUDGMENT

A).       One’s Attitude To Jesus and His words

Jesus taught that condemnation is a present reality for those who have rejected His message, Joh_3:18  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Such people need to believe in Christ to avert condemnation, as Paul wrote in Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Jesus’ words form the basis of His judgement, (Joh 12:48)  The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

At His second coming Jesus passes judgment on those who have rejected His teaching, 2Th 1:7 … when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8  in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Jude in his epistle also refers to the second coming of Jesus and says His judgement will be executed on those who are ungodly and who spoke evil of Him,  Jud 1:14  …Behold, the Lord comes … 15  to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness … and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

 B).       Ungodly Behaviour And Speech

On the day when Jesus establishes His kingdom, judgment will take place on the lawless, Mat 7:22  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Marriage is to honoured and not defiled through sexual immorality or adultery. Such guilt will be punished.  Heb 13:4  Let marriage be held in honour among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

 C).       Refusal to repent

People in Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum would be judged because they had failed to repent in spite of seeing Jesus’ miracles, Mat 11:20  Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.,

Hard impenitent hearts lead to judgment, Rom 2:5  But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

God shows no partiality but is just in His judgment,  Rom 2:6  He will render to each one according to his works: 7  to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8  but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. 9  There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10  but glory and honour and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11  For God shows no partiality.

A refusal to repent is not an option. People are commanded to repent of sin, Act 17:30  The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent 31  because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed

 5).        WHAT HAPPENS IN GOD’S JUDGMENT?

A).     The Separation Of Good And Evil

In the parable about the sheep and the goats, Jesus saw people as guilty if they failed to follow His teaching and to care for one another. The “sheep” are rewarded for caring Mat  25:40, and the “goats” are punished for not caring. Mat 25:45  Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” “Eternal” marks the seriousness of God’s judgment.

 B).       Punishment On The Unrepentant Wicked

Jesus executes eternal judgment on those who refuse to refuse to know God and on those who disobey the teaching of Jesus. 2 Thess 1:7 … when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8  in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9  They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might

 C).       There Are Rewards For Those Who Trust And Obey

Believers have passed out of judgment into life through trusting in Christ for salvation. However there is still a judgment leading to rewards for believers who faithfully build on the foundation of Christ, 1Cor 3:12  Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw– 13  each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.

Paul looked forward to a reward for his faithful service, indeed a victor’s crown, (2Ti 4:8)  Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day,

 6).        HOW TO AVERT JUDGMENT

One can only do it in the way God has appointed. That is, through repentance and trust in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, Joh 5:24  .. whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

It means becoming someone “in Christ” through believing in Him, Rom 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

By living a righteous life in the sight of God, Joh 5:28  Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29  and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

 7).        DOES GOD WANT PEOPLE TO FACE HIS JUDGMENT?

The “delay” in the second coming of Jesus is not due to weakness on His part. Rather it is the evidence of His mercy in giving people time to repent of their sins and turn to Him for forgiveness, 2Pe 3:9  The Lord is .. patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. How surprised some people might be who scoff about Christianity and at the second coming of Christ if they were to discover that He is waiting for some of them to repent before judgment comes. But the time for people to repent is coming to an end. He knows the day of His coming. We don’t!

God so loved. Jesus loved. Jesus died for sinners so that people might be spared judgment by trusting in Him, Jn 3:16, he (God) gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. People perish because they continue to reject the love of God and the gift of forgiveness and new life in Jesus.

 8).     THE JESUS TO BE THE JUDGE THEN, WANTS TO BE OUR FRIEND NOW

A).       We become friends of God by trusting and obeying Him

Abraham trusted. He trusted in God and His promises. (Jas 2:23)  “Abraham believed God, … and he was called a friend of God.

Jesus encouraged His followers by calling them His friends, (Joh 15:15)  No longer do I call you servants… but I have called you friends

B).       Jesus can help us as no other friend can.  He gave this invitation to all those in need, Mat 11:28  Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He wants to help us as we live for Him, 29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

C).       Jesus wants to be our close friend.  We need to abide in Him and in His words.(Joh 15:7)  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. AND (Joh 15:9)  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

D).       We can be confident when He comes again. Those who are friends of Jesus can look forward to His coming without fear,  (1Jn 2:28)  And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.

 Summing up.  We have seen in these 4 articles discussing the Jesus Christ of Christmas, some important truths about Him that we need to recognise and act on. He is no longer wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. He is sitting at the right hand of God in glory. He is not a victim dying on a cross. Rather He is the risen triumphant Lord. Indeed the Jesus whom we worship at Christmas (and for every moment of our lives) is none other than Jesus of Nazareth. But He is also the Creator of this universe. He is the Saviour of the world for all those who will receive Him into their lives. He is the Lord of the universe and of the church. His will must be sought and done. He is the One who is coming to judge. But praise God, by the mercy of God, this Jesus has become my friend and I trust He is your friend as well.

IN BRIEF, JESUS-(CREATOR-SAVIOUR-LORD-JUDGE) – AND OUR FRIEND BY THE LOVE, GRACE AND MERCY OF GOD.

Blog No.104.  Jim Holbeck. Posted on Tuesday 18th December 2012

 

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