Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Re: Stress, worry, fear etc & the Christian

Now let's look at the next passage and bit of devotional:

2 Peter 1:5-7 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.

Quote:
You have inherited the Divine nature, says Peter (v. 4), now screw your attention down and form habits, give diligence, concentrate. “Add” means all that character means. No man is born either naturally or supernaturally with character; he has to make character. Nor are we born with habits; we have to form habits on the basis of the new life God has put into us.
Everything this devotional and the passage says, confirms what we were just talking about. Now though I'd like to take it one step further and really break down that passage to show you again that this is really something God expects of us.

The passage above starts out by saying "for this very reason" we are to do these things. What reason is that? Let's look at it in context to find out:


2 Peter 1:3-11 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Did you get that??? God has given us everything we need so that we can live godly lives here and now. Where do we find these things? We find it "
through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness".!!! And where do we get that knowledge? Has it been magically planted in our sub consciousness? Of course not! He has given it to us in His Word! Not only that however, but this says that when we study His Word and learn it and really know it, then we can actually "participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires." In other words we are changed to be more and more like Him and enabled to live a godly life without the corruption of the evil thoughts and emotions caused by the world! An intimate full knowledge of Jesus and His Word is the source of our growth and spiritual power!

Then what does it say:

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness;

Faith is given to us by God, but once He has given that to us, He wants us to do certain things to support that faith. The word translated "add" actually means to "support" or even to "finance" something. He is telling us to put all we are and have into supporting our faith. We are not to ignore it and think that it's going to be fine left to it's own devices. Just as a plant needs water, as our bodies need food, so our faith needs certain things to support it so that it will be nourished and grow strong.

The first thing we're told to support our faith with is "goodness". The word translated "goodness" means literally moral excellency or virtue. In other words, it's not enough to just have the head knowledge of our faith, but we must also obey and live our faith.

Next we're told:

and to goodness, knowledge;

This isn't talking about worldly knowledge or intellectual pursuits. This is talking about spiritual knowledge. Now where do we get such knowledge from? Yes, again, from God's Word! This is why I say over and over again that just "reading" God's word isn't enough. We have to study it, and reflect on it, and most of all ask God to give us wisdom to understand it.

Then:

and to knowledge, self-control;

Self control! How often have we talked about that? It is by using self control that we take our thoughts captive and bring them into obedience to Christ! Now what's the main thing that we always find when we're dealing with taking our thoughts captive? It takes time, it takes practice and we can't give up. Oh Satan would just love it if we'd give up and he's going to encourage us to, so what do we need to use-the very next thing on the list:

and to self-control, perseverance;

We are told over and over in His Word to persevere. Being a Christian isn't easy, and anyone who ever said it was, didn't know what they were talking about! It requires work, self control and perseverance on our part. Thankfully we have the Lord to help us and to enable us to be victorious! Remember, we're not doing this on our own...we are using the self control and we are persevering because we are working together with God. This is a partnership. we are not alone! Not only that, but He tells us that we are "yoked together" like a team of horses would be. A yoke is a device used to link two animals together so that they will walk in step with each other. Jesus tells us that's how we are with Him when we are working on these things. But He also says that He is carrying the larger load, which is why we can be victorious!

Ok, then what do we add next:


and to perseverance, godliness;

Again, as we do these things we are being changed to be more and more like Him. We are nurturing our relationship with Him and we are becoming mature in Christ. This all leads to godliness, just as James says.

James 1:4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Next we add:

and to godliness, brotherly kindness;

This too should begin to come naturally as we've worked on things. This isn't talking about how we feel toward others, it's talking about our actions. This is more having concern for others needs. Again it's acting our our faith and being obedient to God.

Finally we're told:

and to brotherly kindness, love.

The word translated "love" here is the agape type love. We are to love others the way God loves us. We aren't to just love those who are lovable, but to love even those who aren't. This is what God did for us when He sent Jesus. For when He sent Jesus, we were still sinners, we were His enemies. But because He loved us anyway, He sent Jesus and we were saved. Now He tells us that we are to strive to love others in this same way.

Now before we all start to say how impossible this is, let's remember again that we aren't doing this alone, we're doing it in partnership with God and He will enable us to be successful. I have to tell you though that before we are successful, we must first obey. In other words, we must put forth the effort to obey Him before He makes it possible for us to succeed. Obedience always comes before understanding and before success or victory.

To end this, I'd like to have us read the rest of that passage to find out why God wants us to have these qualities in ourselves:

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

I don't want to make this any longer then it already is, so we can talk about this final part tomorrow.

Read the whole study here

Re: Stress, worry, fear etc & the Christian

Today I'd like to talk about the last two devotionals I posted here. Let's look at them closely because they show again why it's so important for us to bring our thoughts and emotions under our control and that God expects us to do so. I'm hoping that by posting these tid bits here that you all will know that this whole bringing every thought into captivity isn't just something I made up, or that I'm the only one "preaching" it. (although I'll admit that I didn't know others did until I read them myself; but discovering that all the great teachers of old as well as those we hold in high regard now, all preach it, was a great confirmation to me.)

John 15:4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

Quote:
The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by the Atonement, then I have to construct with patience the way of thinking that is exactly in accordance with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus, I have to do it myself; I have to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. “Abide in Me”— in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. It is not a bandbox life.
The above verse and bit of the devotional is telling us what we've said before. God is not going to magically turn you into something that you're not. Before we were saved, we formed habits and formed our characters by the things we thought about. It's a lot like a computer and that current saying, "If you input garbage, you're going to output garbage." Or as the Bible says:

Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he

When we are born again, God gives us a wonderful new nature. I remember the moment I was born again...I remember thinking that I felt "brand new" and so I was. It's like getting a fresh start. God wipes away all your past and says, "Ok, now you can start over and make something new that's good". So along with our eternal salvation, God gives us the chance to start over fresh and make our lives what they should be instead of what they were.

Like any good parent, He doesn't do the work for us though. Instead, He gives us the tools to use and the directions on how to use them. (they're all found in His Word, the Bible) Again, like a good parent, when He sees that we are not doing what He asks of us, then He disciplines us and He allows us to experience the consequences of our actions (or more likely, our"inaction" to use the tools He's given us.)

Over and over and over we are told to "abide" in Jesus, to "remain" in Him, to "hold to" His teachings. What does that mean? All of these are talking about our relationship with Him once we're saved. We need to nurture that relationship and grow it, and this is where so many of us fall down. Jesus is to be the focus of our lives, not something boxed away and pulled out when we think we need Him. Everything we think, do, and say should be focused on Him. There is only one way we can do that, and that's through constantly being in communion with Him.

Now please tell me how, if we are constantly in communion with Him, we can have thoughts of worry, doubt, fear, depression, etc? We can't! So it's really easy to see how much work we have to do on our relationship with Him, but how much of those kinds of thoughts and emotions we have to deal with on a day to day basis.

Now don't start to get down on yourself if you find your relationship with Him needs a lot of work. We've all been in that place at one time or another--every one of the apostles has been in that place at one time. This is where we learn to work out our salvation.

Philippians 2:12-13 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

No, that does not mean that we work "for" our salvation, but rather that we work as partners with God to change our lives into the kind of godly life He intended for us to have. God enables us to do this and He works with us to do it, but He will not do it for us. As the Bible Knowledge Commentary says, "Divine enablement and human responsibility are involved in doing God's work in us". It is our responsibility to obey God and use the tools He gives us. He enables us to do it, and then gives those tools divine power to change us and help us. But we first must obey and use them.

I'm going to end this here and finish this in my next post so that those who don't want to do it all at once will have a place to stop so they can absorb what's been said so far.

Read the whole study here