Why should we read/study the Old Testament?

Why should we read/study the Old Testament?

I've heard this from a number of Christians over the years and have actually known some Christians who have never read anything in the Old Testament. This just totally shocked me when I first heard it, and I guess it still does. So I decided that it was time to explain why the Old Testament is so important and why we need to read and study it every bit as much as the New Testament.

The bible was written by God. Yes He used men to do it, but the words themselves are His, not mans. God is the very best teacher there ever was or ever will be. He designed His Word for us to learn from and every single sentence in it is in the exact place where He knew it would do us the most good and teach us the most.

When you read a regular book, you don't start in the middle and finish it, you start at the beginning. No one would even consider leaving the beginning out of a regular book. Why in the world would you ignore the beginning of God's Word then?

Prophecy is progressive--it has a beginning, a middle and an end. If you do not read and study the Old testament, you cannot know the beginning and middle of the meanings of prophecy--any prophecy! And the bible is 2/3rds prophecy!

When the apostles taught people about Jesus, they taught them from the Old Testament! If that's what they did and if that's how the first new Christians learned, shouldn't we learn the same way? Especially considering it was how God wanted them to learn?

These passages are speaking of ALL of God's Word, not just the New Testament; remember, when this was written, there was no "new testament yet:

2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Do you see that? All scripture, which includes the Old Testament, is to be used for teaching and training in righteousness.

Keep in mind, God doesn't change. He is still the same God as He is in the Old Testament, nor are any of His Words void and without meaning for us.

Matthew 5:17-18 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Here Jesus Himself is speaking specifically of the Old Testament and assuring His followers that it is still of utmost importance for them! The Old Testament is not dead, it's not "finished" or "over", it's there to teach us every bit as much as the New Testament. The Old testament fulfills this next passage every bit as much as the New Testament does:

Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

God commends the Bereans for searching the scriptures to discover the truth about Jesus. Most of us know that, but what we often fail to realize is that they were searching the Old Testament!

Acts 17:11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

As I said, God doesn't change. If He commends them for studying the Old Testament, He will also commend us for doing so!

When you read a secular book, the first part of the book is generally concerned with introducing the major characters of the book, introducing the plot, and building the background of the characters so you can get to know them. This is true in God's Word as well. The Old Testament sets up the whole thing for us. We learn all about God and Jesus in the Old Testament, as well as a lot about the Holy Spirit. Without this basic knowledge of their characters, we can't hope to really understand what's being said in the New Testament. Every word of the New Testament was written with the understanding that the person reading it would have a good background in the Old Testament already!

Do you know that Jesus Himself shows up a bunch of times in the Old Testament? He does and it's fascinating! So does the Holy Spirit! When children are little, they are first taught their ABC's, then little by little they learn to read. The Bible is like that too. The Old Testament is our ABC's and without it we cannot possibly understand or know our Lord very well.

What about the times we're living in right now? What about all that's happening in the world and even all that's happening to us individually in our lives? The Old Testament addressed our times too! No, that's the wrong way to put it...the Old Testament teaches us about the times we're living in right now and the New Testament ADDS to what the Old Testament teaches us about it, not the other way around.

What about our future lives? What about our lives in heaven and/or during the millennium? Guess where you can find information about that...yep, the Old Testament!

Reading the Old Testament also reveals a LOT about our very selves! It teaches us who we really are and how God sees us as well as how He loves us.

Finally, if the Old Testament was important enough for Jesus to learn well and to teach His disciples, then I think it's more then important enough for us to learn well. Jesus set us an example with everything He did and said, and He had a reason for all He did and said, unlike us regular humans. We need to follow His example and part of that is to read and study the Old Testament.

Without the Old Testament the Bible would be incomplete. Without studying the Old Testament, our learning is incomplete. God didn't write it to be a decoration or a paper weight, He wrote it to inform and guide us. The New Testament contains many references to the Old Testament and without having studied it, we can't understand that reference. Look at what Paul says here when he's talking about Abraham in the Old Testament:

Romans 4:23-25 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

This alone tells us without any doubt that the Old Testament was written for us who are born again! He also says speaking of the Old Testament:

Romans 15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Again speaking of what is written in the Old Testament, Paul said:

1 Corinthians 10:6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.

1 Corinthians 10:11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

These were all written in the New Testament for us because God knew that some would be tempted not to study His complete Word. Finally to cover that He says:

2 Peter 1:19 And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

This isn't just a nice poetic thing to say, he is saying that we need to pay attention to the Old Testament and that it will be important to us right up until Christ returns again!

God wrote His Word for us in a manner that He knew was the very best way to teach us. This verse from psalms shows that it is the "unfolding" of His Word that gives us knowledge, wisdom and understanding. By "unfolding" it means "to reveal gradually", "to develop in order". This is why we need the Old Testament.

Psalm 119:130 The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.

And here, Jesus is again referring to the Old Testament:

Mark 12:24 Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?

I truly hope that I've been able to show you why we need to read and study the Old Testament as well as the New. It is so very important for our growth! Besides which you simply miss out on some of the best reading in the world if you don't read it!

 

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Stress and the Christian

Stress and the Christian


Do you remember the story of Mary and Martha when Jesus came to visit them? In that story Martha is running around like any typical housewife today, trying to get her house in order and dinner ready for all her company, most especially for Jesus as He’s a very important person. While Martha is doing all of that, Mary simply sits down with Jesus and listens to every word out of His mouth. She doesn’t want to move for fear of missing something He might say. Martha of course realizes that she’s not getting any help and goes to Jesus to complain. She’s probably thinking that Jesus will not only back her up but that it will cause her sister to feel guilty enough tat she’ll get up and help her. But Jesus once again does the unexpected and says:

Luke 10:41-42 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I can just imagine the look on Martha’s face at that moment! Pure shock! And Mary was probably in the process of getting to her feet even as He started to speak, and her face probably was a mirror of Martha’s as she sank back down to the floor! Now the Bible doesn’t tell us anymore of what happened, but we know for sure that Jesus made sure Mary was allowed to learn all she wanted to. My guess is, since they both remained close to Jesus is that Martha also realized what was important and joined her sister at least for awhile.

More importantly though, exactly what was it that Jesus was saying was important here? What is the thing that was “needed” and “better” that our Lord said would not be taken from Mary? It was “listening to His Words”. That is what is so much more important then any of the daily busyness of life. Jesus talks about this same thing in the parable of the sower that I believe we looked at earlier.

Luke 8:14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.

This is showing the trap that Martha had started to fall into. Martha was being more concerned about life’s every day busyness and worries rather then being concerned about what was much more important, the Word of the Lord. We know from the Bible that she changed her ways because she continued on with Jesus and matured. Those who don’t make their relationship with God and His Word their priority in life, putting Him above everything else, won’t mature. Their spiritual life is choked by life’s worries, and every day activities. Jesus warns us of this again in Luke when He’s talking about the end times. He says:

Luke 21:34-35 “Constantly be on your guard so that your hearts may not be loaded down with self-indulgence, drunkenness, and the worries of this life, or that day will take you by surprise like a trap. For it will come on all who live on the face of the earth.

He’s telling us that if we don’t examine ourselves regularly, and make sure that nothing has inadvertently become a higher priority for us then Himself and His Word, that we can wind up not being ready for His return and instead be taken by surprise. He is not saying that we’ll lose our salvation, but that we won’t be as prepared as we would have been otherwise. Let’s look at how He puts this elsewhere:

Mark 13:35-37 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’ ”

Jesus is quite obviously telling us that we need to stay alert, pay attention and keep ourselves “in the faith”, by keeping Him and His Word as our number one priorities in life. When we don’t do that, it doesn’t affect our salvation but it does affect our future rewards and what our place of ministry will be in His coming Kingdom. When we are saved, God commands us to be faithful to Him. He is is our husband and when we put anything in our lives above being in communication with Him, and studying His Word, then we are committing spiritual adultery; we are allowing the cares and busyness of life to come between us and Him just as Martha did.

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

Haggai 1:5 Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.

Join us at FH for this study on Stress!

Stress and the Christian

Stress and the Christian

Let’s take a look now at what God says our response to the storms in our lives should be.

 

Romans 8:28-31 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

2 Corinthians 5:7 We live by faith, not by sight.

I know we’ve all heard and read those words many many times, but today let’s see what they’re really saying to us.  There are really only two ways we can choose to react or respond to any situation in our lives.  We can respond with fear or we can respond with faith.  The problem lies in that until we really and truly know in our deepest being that God really does love us, care for us, and will provide for us no matter what, and that He would never ever do anything to cause us harm, then we will act out of fear.  For us humans, living in this world of sin, many of us didn’t have good earthly fathers or even a father figure to learn what paternal love really is, and so that also makes us fearful of the Lord.  It’s not the good kind of “fear of the Lord” that we are supposed to have though—it’s the bad kind because it’s saying, “I don’t trust you”.   All fear and worry have their roots in a lack of trust in the Lord and that lack of trust has it’s roots in not knowing Him very well.  Even stress is a form of fear. 

There are just so many things in our lives that are based on fear that it can be mind boggling when we begin to realize it.  For example, many relationships are based in fear—they are based in the fear of being alone, or the fear of not being able to make it financially alone.  Vanity is the fear of being unwanted or unloved, the fear of being alone because no one will look at us because we’re “ugly”.  Greed and/or hoarding things come from the fear of being poor or not having enough when you need it.  Even anger is often really just fear disguised—fear that the person doesn’t love us or trust us, fear that they will leave us and we’ll be alone; etc. On and on it goes.  Fear is not from God, we can know that for sure because He tells us so.

Romans 8:15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Fear is sin as are it’s complements- worry and stress.  They do not come from God, they come from our flesh, our sin nature and even sometimes attacks on us from Satan and his demons.  How can I say for sure that they are sins?  Simply because they do not come from God and also because they are the outward sign that we are not trusting God 100% and that my friends is a sin.  The Lord tells us though that when we know Him well we will know His love and His love will cast out that sin of fear.

Romans 8:12-17 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Do you see that He is saying that we have an obligation once we are saved to live each day, each moment, in the control and power of the Holy Spirit?  There is only one way we can do that, and that is to be in constant communication with the Lord all the time. (and to have time daily that we can study His Word)  It is our relationship with the Lord and knowing His Word that gives us the victory over fear, worry and stress.  It is knowing Him intimately. 

We all know that the difference in being a real Christian and a fake one is that the real Christian has a personal relationship with God while the fake Christian is just going through the motions of ritual, tradition and religion.  The difference then in someone who is born again and living their life in victory as opposed to one who is floundering is the depth of their relationship with Him.  It’s how much they trust Him.

 

Now when I say “living in victory”, I do not mean what the heretics say about living lives of wealth and ease, of always being healthy, having all you could want etc.  No.  What I mean by living in victory is living a life that places God as the most important thing in the entire world to them.  They consider their lives worth nothing without Him and they spend all their time with Him.  No, not with their noses buried in their bibles 24/7; but instead, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, they are with Him, talking to Him, experiencing their life through Him all the time.  Those who do that are able to go through their lives without fear, without worry and without stress.  So in reality the deeper, the closer your relationship with the Lord is, the less fear, worry and stress will be in your life and the more victory over sin you will have.  For when the sin of fear is stripped away all that is left is faith, hope and love just as our Lord says!

I haven’t reached that prize yet myself, but as Paul says,

Philippians 3:13-16 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.

Join us at FH for this study on Stress!

Stress and the Christian

Stress and the Christian

So we’ve learned now that in order to have a strong foundation it’s imperative that we are in constant communication with the Lord.  I know I often use the term “spend time with the Lord daily” but I realize now that’s really misleading because it gives the impression that there are times during the day when we’re not in communication with Him.  I think I first became aware of what Paul meant when He said “pray continually” when my oldest daughter was diagnosed with Hepatitis and was fighting for her life.  I literally stayed in contact with the Lord every waking moment from the time I was given that news until the day when her life was no longer in immediate danger.  Two years after she was first diagnosed, she discovered she had been miraculously healed by the Lord and that was the day she recommitted her life to Him.  For me however, having spent several weeks in contact with Him every waking moment was a real revelation.  I grew more in those weeks then I had in several months before that, so I knew I had hit on something and I (of course lol) talked to Him about it.  He then continued to teach me why staying so close to Him was important in my every day life.  That’s what I’m trying so hard to share here with all of you.

You see, for some reason we humans simply refuse to really learn things when times are good and everything is going smoothly.  If we do happen to learn something (which isn’t often) it’s not a well remembered lesson and is often forgotten later.  However, when we are in the midst of a storm and we see the Lord sustaining us, working in our lives, then we learn and we remember!  It’s the storms of life also that bring out who we really are inside.  I know we’ve all heard and probably experienced the fact that when the times are really hard is when you find out who you’re true friends are.  Well it’s when the times are really hard that you also find out what you’re really made of and just how much (or how little) you really trust the Lord and rely on Him.  It’s during these hard times that we also discover just how good a friend (and sometimes the ONLY friend) that the Lord is to us as well.

These storms in our lives wash away any pretense in us or in our relationship with the Lord.  We’re given the choice of trying to stay afloat by our own power or by climbing into His arms where it’s safe.   These storms that the Lord allows into our lives either will make us pliable, soften our hearts, make us merciful and allow us to empathize with others, and increase our faith and trust in God, or they will cause us to become bitter, harden our hearts, angry, full of doubt and unbelief.  Both ways of reacting are entirely up to us.  It depends entirely on which way we choose to react as the storm rages on around us.

Those who have constant communication with the Lord as their anchor will always choose to be pliable, bending under the weight of the storm and leaning on the Lord, counting on Him to get them through it no matter the outcome.  Those who don’t yet have that anchor of constant communication with Him are often tossed back and forth by the wind and rain of the storm just as this verse tells us that this is what happens to those who are still not mature in Christ:

Ephesians 4:13-14 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.

Yes, that passage also brings us right back to studying God’s Word as well as being in constant communication with Him.  Both are vitally important and those who start out with just the communication part are inevitably pushed and prodded toward His Word by the Holy Spirit because that’s often how He chooses to speak back to us and it’s an invaluable tool for learning more about the One we love and owe our very existence to.

I still have much I want to share although I realize that this is getting long already, so those who need to can stop here  and take up the next portion after a break.  I will make the next part of this a separate post, although I’ll post them both today.

Join us at FH for this study on Stress!

Stress and the Christian

Stress and the Christian

I hope though that everyone is beginning to see that the transformation that was begun at salvation is continued daily as we interact with Him, and study and reflect on His Word. As we are transformed, we begin to feel our sins more deeply. It begins to hurt us more when we sin and because of that we are quick to confess them and repent. Pleasing Him becomes more and more important to us and the world in general becomes less important. Each day as the Lord teaches us, we realize that we are absorbing more in a single session with Him then we did in years of sermons or Sunday School! Another part of the transformation is the transformation of our emotions. We discover that we are now having strong reactions to things that never bothered us before, or that we never really thought about before. One day when we are confronted with circumstances that would have worried us in the past, or stressed us out, we discover to our amazement that we aren’t worried about it! Instead when we analyze our feelings we discover that the reason we’re not worried or stressed is because we know it’s going to be ok, because the Lord is in control. It’s no longer “just words” to us, it’s reality! This doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen. It comes from knowing God personally, and knowing His Word and understanding it. Of course the only way we can really know and understand God and His Word are to spend time with Him and to really study His Word with His help every day. Jesus talks about this in the parable of the sower too, so let’s look at that today.

Matthew 13:18-23 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.But since he has no root, (foundation) he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Did you notice right away that the seed that fell on the rocky places failed because it had no foundation? Jesus is giving us a huge clue right there on how to be spiritually healthy. He says that when trials came these people floundered because their faith had no foundation. They hadn’t dug deep, and they therefore didn’t understand why these bad things were happening to them or what God expected of them. They fall away because as far as they’re concerned, God didn’t give them what they wanted and it wasn’t worth any effort on their part to look any further.

His next clue comes with the seed that falls among the thorns. He says it is the worries of this life that make it fail. He isn’t saying that worry, in and of itself, causes us to fail, it’s when that worry stops us from making Him our priority, or when that worry causes us to doubt, that it makes us fail. When we allow “the worries of this life” to take precedence and then say we’re too busy to take time to study His Word with Him every day, then again the foundation can’t be built, the transformation isn’t complete and we fail.

The seed that falls on the good ground however is the seed that produces much fruit because that is the person who hears and understands God’s Word! That is the person that spends time daily studying His Word with Him and stays in constant contact with Him throughout the day. It is only through His Spirit that we can understand His Word. Therefore, those who spend time with Him daily studying His Word, are the ones that “hear His word and understand it”. Not only that though, God loves to give us more then we ask for even so to those who respond to Him in this way, He gives even more understanding! That is what He is saying here:

Matthew 13:11-12 He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.

God is promising us that if we will make Him a priority in our lives and spend time with Him in His Word that He will give us an abundance of understanding. The opposite also holds true however and that is another reason why so many fall prey to false teachers today. Those who don’t spend time with Him this way, will have even their initial understanding taken from them. Our Lord has never been one to tolerate apathy or being lukewarm, but He always gives us more then we deserve, ask for or earn. This abundance of understanding is what will build that strong deep foundation for us and what will make us stand firm and strong during trials. This is what will keep us from being worried or stressed out, and will make our faith become stronger every day.

Please feel free to ask questions and we'll talk more about it tomorrow.

Join us at FH for this study on Stress!

Stress and the Christian

Stress and the Christian

Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

As we study and reflect on God’s Word, we are changed, we are transformed. The transformation that began with our salvation is continued as we study His Word. The study alone isn’t what does it though, it’s the study of His Word along with spending time with Him.

Now, I’m not talking about carving out 15-30 mins a day to pray when I say “spending time with Him”. That’s often what others will tell new Christians but unfortunately it becomes a “duty” or a ritual way to often and there’s little feeling or companionship in it. It becomes a dry recital of a list of wants way to often. When I speak of spending time with the Lord, I mean for us to interact with Him all the time throughout the day just as though He actually was with us. The reason for this is because He really IS with us, and most of the time He’s pretty much ignored or treated like an unwelcome guest at best.

So when we’re studying His Word, we should be talking to Him as well, at the same time. Who better to get understanding of the Bible from then the one who wrote it? Then as we continue our day, we should continue to converse with Him throughout the day about what’s going on with us—again, just as though He was really with us—because He really is!

It’s this combination of interaction with Him and the study of His Word that brings about our transformation to be more and more like Jesus. Our lives do not belong to us any longer as we were bought with a price. So our lives now are our sacrifice to Him, which He purifies and transform daily so that we become more and more like Him, making us holy, sacred and acceptable to Him.

1 Peter 2:5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Each day as we interact and study His Word with Him, deepens and solidifies the foundations of our faith so that when the storms come, we can stand firm, and we won’t collapse under the stress. It’s as though He makes His Word a part of us as He transforms us.

Are you wondering what all this has to do with overcoming worry and stress? Think of it this way; have you ever noticed God being worried or stressed out over things? Of course not! In fact, He’s the one that tells us not to worry! So you see, the more we are transformed by Him to become more like Him, the less we will worry and the less we will be stressed out. Things like worry, depression, stress, and fear won’t be an issue for us anymore because we will have built such a strong solid foundation on the Truth that the lies of the enemy won’t be able to take hold of us like they do unbelievers.

We’ll discuss this a little more tomorrow.

Join us at FH for this study on Stress!

Stress and the Christian

Yesterday we discussed that the secret is that the foundation has to start with Jesus, and must be dug deep.  We learned that digging a deep foundation requires time and commitment from us which is why Jesus told us to “count the cost” before beginning.  Digging a deep foundation isn’t something that can be done easily or quickly, it’s something that takes time, and a lot of it.  Let’s take a closer look at some of those other verses we had yesterday to see what else we can learn about the foundation.  I’ll post them again for you:

Ephesians 2:19-22 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

From the passage above we learn that although Jesus is the cornerstone of our foundation, it’s also built on the apostles and prophets.  This lets us know that we need to turn to both the old and new Testament to gain the materials we need for our foundation.

Isaiah 33:6 He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

This next verse is talking about Jesus and it says that He is a rich store of salvation, wisdom and knowledge.  It also indicates that this treasure of salvation, wisdom and knowledge can be ours if we have a way to open it.  It sounds like it would be the perfect material for our foundation, but how do we get it?  We’re told the way to get that treasure is to have the fear of the Lord.  We’ve discussed this in other studies so we won’t go into it at length in this one.  However I do want to say a little about it as it pertains to this study.  Let’s look at a few other verses that speak of this.

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Here we see that knowledge of God can help us understand things.

Proverbs 2:3-6 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Ahh!  Now here is what we’re looking for!  How to get the fear of the Lord!  We need to seek it as hard as we can and we know that the place to look is somwhere we can attain knowledge of God and then He Himself will give us the wisdom and knowledge we need to build our foundation.  It reminds me a lot of the verse that says that when we seek for the Lord with all our heart, then we will find Him and He will answer us.  So this is beginning to sound to me that the material we need for our foundation is only going to be found if we put all our hearts into the search and look in the right places.  This leads us right back to one of the other passages from yesterday:

Hebrews 6:1-3 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.

Here we have another good hint at what we need for our foundation.  This is telling us that the foundation needs to include the basic principals of our faith. In other words, we need to know what we believe and why we believe these things.  We already know that God has called us into a relationship with Him and isn’t interested in us just having “book learning” and head knowledge.  So this in turn brings us full circle right back to Jesus:

Matthew 11:27-28 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

The long and short of it is that our foundation is our relationship with the Lord and our knowledge of Him and His Word.  Both these areas of the relationship take time and energy.  We are told over and over in the bible that we are to study to show ourselves approved, study to become mature in Christ; that we are to pray continually, and give thinks in everything.  This then is our foundation.  It’s more then just “reading the bible every day”.  It’s reading, studying, and reflecting on the bible every day and spending time talking to the Lord (prayer) every day.  It’s talking to Him when you’re studying His Word, talking to Him when you’re at work, when you’re at home,  when you’re at a ball game, etc.  It’s knowing that He really IS with you all the time and it’s not polite to just ignore Him.  It’s wanting to know Him better so you read and study all about Him.  That my friends is our foundation.

It’s not easy.  It take a  lot of time and commitment from us.  The cost is high the way the world sees it, but is it really so much to give to the one who died to give you eternal life in a perfect body with no sin nature?  I don’t think so!  Now tomorrow I’ll try to explain more of how and why this foundation is so necessary and how when we have this foundation and build on it, things like stress and worry become less and less of a problem for us.

Join us at FH for this study on Stress!

Stress and the Christian

Stress and the Christian

 

Luke 6:46-49  “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

1 Peter 2:5  you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:13-16 Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

I’d like to start this study looking at the above scriptures and discussing what they mean to us.  Once we are saved, we are told that we are being built into a spiritual house,  to be a holy priesthood for God.  Often we are told to “be holy” just as God is holy.  Usually we brush over those verses though because we know that’s impossible for us.  Unfortunately when we do that, we often wind up not even trying, and when someone calls us on it, we get indignant and tell them they’re being legalistic, and that we’re not under the law anymore.  Of course that’s true, we’re not under the law anymore, we’re under grace, what we fail to realize is that God can and will give us the grace we need to do what He has called us to do.  In this case, the calling is high—to be holy.  It’s much easier to deal with though when we realize that being holy is the outcome of many little steps.  It’s the goal, it’s what we are to strive for each day, one little step at a time, one decision at a time.

Now let’s look at what Jesus said in the passage in Luke.  He asks  His disciples why are they calling Him Lord when they’re not obeying Him.  He then proceeds to explain to them and to us, why we need to pay attention to Him and obey Him.  Notice that He gives two examples in this passage; and example of the person who obeys Him and an example of the person who doesn’t obey Him.  In both examples however the newly built house is hit by a flood and torrent!  So obedience doesn’t mean that we won’t have problems, that’s for sure!  The obedient one’s house was hit just as hard as the other one!  So what was the difference?  Keep in mind now that we are the house.  The house of the person who is disobedient collapses and  is totally destroyed while the house of the one who obeys wasn’t even shaken!

So now we have to ask ourselves, which ones are we?  Are we collapsing?  Are we shaken?   Or do we stand firm when the flood of hard times or calamity hits us?  I’m afraid that I had to admit that I was someone who pretty much collapsed.  I still believed, but I was always worried and stressed out.  This  told me that I had some work to do and so I began to pray.  The first thing I wanted to know and that we all need to know is what do we do if we realize that we’re not able to stand firm during the storms of life?  That same passage gives us that information too.  Read it one more time.

Luke 6:46-49  “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Here we see that the secret is the foundation has to be right, the foundation must be built on Jesus and must dug deep.  I don’t think it’s a surprise to any of us that Jesus is the foundation and that it must be Him or it won’t work, but what does it mean to “dig deep”?   To answer that, let’s look at the opposite first, which would be shallow.  Something done shallowly is something that has been done in such a way that it lacks depth of intellect, knowledge or intelligence.  So to dig deeply we need to supply knowledge and intelligence.

Let’s look at what a couple of other verses say about this first before we get into it so we have a little more to go on:

 

Ephesians 2:19-22 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Isaiah 33:6 He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

Isaiah 28:16 So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

 

Hebrews 6:1-3 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.

Digging a deep foundation on Jesus requires time and commitment from us.  It’s not something done quickly or with little thought.  That really does make sense though since the ultimate outcome is quite important.  In fact, it’s so important that Jesus tells us to count the cost of it before we begin.

Luke 14:28-30 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’

Since this is already getting quite long, I’d like to stop here and let you reflect on all of the verses we discussed today and all that’s been said so far before we continue tomorrow.

Join us at FH for this study on Stress!

RE: The Study on Stress and the Christian:

I don't want anyone to get the idea though that I myself have totally overcome this because I haven't. The Lord has shown me and taught me long enough that I have been able to do away with a large amount of stress, to the point of it being something that is rare for me instead of being a daily thing like it used to be. However, He is still teaching me and I'm still learning; plus at times I still sin and fall off the bandwagon in this area and then the Lord has to pick me up, dust me off and set my feet back on His path once again. So much of what I'll be sharing with you all is from my own personal experiences with the Lord, but all totally based on His Word and nothing else.

Join Us To Read and Respond to this Study On Fresh-Hope.com

Stress and the Christian

I know that so many of us are feeling so very stressed right now and it just breaks my heart for each one of you. I've been praying for you each but I really wanted to do more. I wanted to help some how...but wasn't sure how I could. I've finally decided that perhaps the best way I could help was to share what the Bible says about stress and how God expects us to overcome it. I hope anyway that everyone here knows that the Lord loves them and that He doesn't want us to feel stressed, not even in the midst of the severe trials that we've all been going through.

Most of the time we tend to think of God not wanting us to be stressed the same way we think of our parents or another loved one telling us that they don't want us to be stressed. That's all very well and good, and we're glad to know they don't want us to be stressed but it doesn't do anything at all to prevent it! Thankfully though, unlike other humans, God can and does give us a way both to prevent it and to stop it cold if it's already happening. This is what I hope to share with everyone.

I'm not ready to actually start this today, but I will tell you that God's way is both as easy as breathing (assuming you have healthy lungs lol) and as difficult as algebra is for those of us who don't like math. It's something that small children do naturally when they are born to loving parents, but as adults our hearts have been hardened by the world and we've been taught by the world things that are the opposite of what God says which undermine our ability to not be stressed.

So I will be studying His Word and praying that He will give me His Words to share with you all that we might all learn to give up our stress and live the way He intended for us too. I would ask that you too would pray for me that I will be able to do this, as I really, really want to be able to help. Pray too that the Lord will help me to keep my posts short LOL! (I'm serious LOL)

I realize I have other studies already on going, and I will attempt to keep up with those as well. Perhaps I can alternate on them or something...but one way or another, I really want to do this one!

Read and  Reply to the study on Stress here

Speaking in Tongues

Before we go further and discuss what the Lord says about tongues, I want to point out that tongues can be faked and often is. False teachers have taught for a long time that everyone that’s saved must speak in tongues and that if they don’t, then they really aren’t saved. There is absolutely NO scriptural evidence for that teaching. It IS heresy. As we have already seen, God’s Word says that He gives different gifts to different people, as He desires. Nowhere does it say that everyone speaks in tongues! In fact it’s quite obvious that everyone doesn’t speak in tongues:

1 Corinthians 12:29-31 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way.

The obvious answer to each of his rhetorical questions is “no”, everyone doesn’t. Plus we’re told to eagerly desire the gifts and you can’t desire something that way if you’re already doing it.

I discovered something as I was preparing for this study that surprised me and I wanted to share it with you. We all know that Satan loves to mimic whatever the Lord does. I’ve always assumed that fake tongues was something that Satan had started doing after Pentecost, but apparently that’s not true. Let me quote from one of the commentaries concerning this: (this is verified in a number of commentaries but I’m only going to post the one)

1 Cor 14:21–25 Tongues or ecstatic utterance was a common religious practice in pagan religion for centuries prior to this. A portion of the confusion about “tongues” may result from two different cases being discussed in the N.T. In effect, Corinthian ecstatic utterance was a poor imitation of the gift of tongues given by the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 at Pentecost. Verse 21 quotes Is. 28:11, 12, which clearly has reference to the speaking of a diversity of known human languages. There follows an apparent contradiction between vv. 22 and 23. In v. 22, tongues are a sign “to unbelievers.” But in v. 23, “the uninformed” or unbelievers are likely to conclude that insanity exists in one who thus speaks in tongues. But there is no contradiction. Verse 22 has reference to the actual gift of tongues as in Acts 2. There, the unbelievers heard the gospel in their own dialects and were both amazed and convinced by the sign. However, v. 23 warns that the exercise of the Corinthian imitation, which was only the frenzied concoction of sounds, would have an effect of repugnance on unbelievers.
Believer's Study Bible

Interesting isn’t it? Amazingly the description of the Corinthian imitation is exactly what is happening in many cases today! Let me post the scriptures themselves so we can read it and see what they’re talking about. (by the way, since chapter 14 is all about tongues, we’ll be discussing this chapter in much more detail later)

1 Corinthians 14:21-25 In the Law it is written: “Through men of strange tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me,”says the Lord.Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers.So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all,and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”

The false teachers will tell people that have trouble speaking in tongues and haven’t been able to do it yet, that all they need to do is “pretend” and practice pretending. Now if that doesn’t send giant red flags up in a persons mind, they had better get out their bibles and start reading them as hard as they can because that is about as unbiblical as you can get! Think about it for just a moment—In either the Old or New Testament, do you ever recall reading where God told people who wanted to be prophets that all they needed to do was pretend for awhile and eventually He would speak through them??? Of course not! When Jesus warned us that we would be persecuted and even arrested for telling others about Him, did He tell us to just practice what we were going to say to defend ourselves and we’d be fine? No! Here is what he said:

Matthew 10:19-20 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say,for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Later when telling us about the end times He say:

Luke 21:15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.

Again we don’t see any suggestion that we should “practice”! Nor do we ever see any instructions to “practice” any of the other gifts of the spirit until eventually the Lord causes them to “work right”.

Look even deeper now because if we need to practice these gifts in order to supposedly force ourselves to “let” the Holy Spirit speak through us in tongues or whatever, then who are we really relying on? We’re relying on ourselves, not God! Does that honestly sound biblical to you? No! Over and over and over from Genesis to Revelation, we are told NOT to rely on ourselves, but rather to rely on Him. God is more then capable of speaking words out of our mouths even if we didn’t want Him to! Oh I know they tell people that it’s themselves they don’t trust, not God, but that’s simply another lie we tell ourselves so we don’t have to face the truth.

Numbers 22:28 Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”

Now, do you honestly believe that the Lord can put words in a donkey’s mouth and cause the donkey to speak in a known human language, but He can’t or won’t put the words in your mouth if He desires you to have that gift? To lay the final blow to that nonsense, let’s look at what actually happened the very first time God gave someone the gift of tongues:

Acts 2:4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

I don’t see anything at all about any of these fishermen or peasants needing a practice session. Just ordinary every day kind of people and yet the Lord “enabled” them to speak in other tongues immediately without any special preparation.

I hope you can see from this that everyone does not speak in tongues and that it most certainly isn’t necessary for salvation. I hope you can also see that anyone who tells you to “practice saying nonsense syllables” is preaching a doctrine of Satan, and is not speaking the Truth. Don’t fall for it!

Speaking in Tongues

Today we’re going to talk about the other aspect of tongues often called a prayer language. Again this is a very emotionally charged topic for many people and a very controversial one. For the purposes of this study we’re going to look at what God’s Word actually says about it and what it doesn’t say, so that we can draw our conclusions based on His Word and not on what we think the answer is or what we feel it should be etc.

Ephesians 6:18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

It is the Holy Spirit within us that both prays for us (which we discussed yesterday) and also enables us to pray, and at times prays through us (tongues). When I say He enables us to pray, I don’t necessarily mean He causes us to pray in tongues. What I mean is that He guides us and leads us in how we should pray or what we should pray etc. if we listen to Him.

Galatians 4:6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”

Romans 8:26-27 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

We can see from the other verses that being told to “pray in the spirit” is another one of those verses that are often trotted out to “prove” that people should pray in tongues, and yet it really isn’t saying that at all. At the very most we could say that it doesn’t exclude praying in tongues. Mainly what it is saying is that it is the Holy Spirit that will guide us and help us pray in God’s Will.

Another verse that is also taken out of context for this purpose is this one:

1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

This is the beginning of Paul’s famous speech about love. Some people want to take his line about the tongues of men and angels and turn it into another description of the gift of tongues. Yet this doesn’t make sense. Why would we take that particular portion and say he meant it literally and yet he wasn’t speaking literally in the other portions of this? He is quite obviously using metaphors (language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects.) to get his point across that love is of more importance then any of the “gifts”. Let me quote it in context so you can see what I mean:

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

So once again people are jumping to conclusions they shouldn’t be and putting words in God’s mouth. Don’t despair though, God actually does have quite a bit to say about this subject and we’ll discuss that tomorrow. I just wanted to get these verses out of the way first so we could then concentrate on what He DOES say about it.

Speaking in Tongues

I've been asked to do a study on this subject so I thought it was time to stop putting it off and get on with it. I'd like to start with showing you a verse that is commonly thought to be talking about this subject, when in truth it has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Romans 8:26-27 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

This verse isn't talking about what we pray, it's talking about the Holy Spirit praying for us, not "through" us. Let me share what the commentaries say about it:

Quote:

This has nothing to do with praying in tongues, as some suggest. The groaning is done by the Holy Spirit, not believers, and is not stated in words. The help the Spirit gives (v. 26) is His interceding. “Intercedes” translates hyperentynchanei, which occurs only here in the New Testament; it means “approaches or appeals to someone.” The One who searches our hearts is God (1 Sam. 16:7; Heb. 4:13), and He knows (oiden, “knows perceptively or intuitively”) the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes (entynchanei; cf. Rom. 8:26) for the saints in accordance with God’s will. Even though the Spirit’s words are not expressed, the Father knows what the Spirit is thinking. This is an interesting statement about the Father’s omniscience and the intimacy within the Trinity. The Lord Jesus continually intercedes for believers in God’s presence (v. 34; Heb. 7:25) and the Holy Spirit also intercedes on their behalf! Though believers are ignorant of what to pray for and how to voice those requests, the Spirit voices their requests for them. The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures

The reason I wanted to start the study this way is because too often people seem to get the idea that all believers MUST speak in tongues if they are saved, or if they are baptized with the Holy Spirit and that simply isn't true. That would be like saying that all believers must perform miraculous healings or they're not saved! No, tongues is a gift of the Spirit given to some believers, not all of them. We see that in this next passage:

1 Corinthians 12:7-11 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
So we see from the above passage that tongues are given for the common good to whoever God determines should have that particular gift.

Speaking in tongues, simply means to speak in another language that you haven't learned of your own effort. There's an example of this in Acts that is the perfect example of this gift in action for the common good:

Acts 2:4-12 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

This aspect of the gift is given to believers so that they can be witnesses for Christ regardless of the language barrier. There are many stories like the above one even today of this happening. It's really amazing when you experience something like this, because it is quite obviously the power of God and not the persons own language skills that is at work in the situation.

There is another aspect of this gift that deals with speaking in an unknown or "heavenly" language. It is this second aspect of the gift of tongues that confused many people. It's also often called using a private prayer language to speak to God. We'll talk about that part of it tomorrow.