HOLEY REVELATION

“Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.”
Hebrews 12:10

At one time I always tried to spend a little time reading before bed each night. Some nights I waited too long and the minute I laid down I was out. Last night, trying again to pick up this habit, I was able to get a few pages read before the book crashed onto my face. It was in my reading that I found a revelation. I guess it was something I had known all along, but the freshness in the way it was said made sense. The author spoke of a young boy who had found his daddy’s tool box. Inside he found all sorts of things. Seeing his daddy hammering nails before, he immediately grabbed the hammer and the box of nails and went to town. His father arrived home from work a few hours later to find the shed door peppered with nails driven through it and poking out the other end. After the dad’s frustration subsided, he called his son out and told him that as his punishment he would now have to take each nail out. Two hours later, with sore hands and wrists, the boy finished. As both he and his daddy examined the shed door the son began to cry. His father questioned what was wrong, thinking it was the pain from his pulling the nails out or such. The son responded, though, “I can still see the holes from the nails.”
I read a book recently concerning the twelve sons of Jacob. The men who became the twelve tribes of Israel were first simply sons, like me. They quarreled, got into mischief, and most of the time came to one another’s defense. But as these brothers gathered around their father for a blessing in his final moments, they did not all hear the happy words they were expecting. One such son and brother was Reuben. It was he who Jacob declared was as stable as water, and that history shows never produced a prophet, king, or anyone of significance. He did have the intention of saving Joseph, which was to his advantage in God’s eyes, but it was he who also slept with Bilhah, one of his step-mothers. In the good and bad, Reuben could not change his past, and it defined his future.
While not one of the sons of Jacob, I want to look at another man in the Bible. We all know of David, the giant slayer become king. Most people will remember that David had an affair with Bathsheba and then had Uriah, her husband, killed to save face. But think on this with me. Bathsheba gave birth to a child. What happened to him? He wasn’t Solomon. In fact he is not even given a name in the Bible. Hebrew tradition states the name was given on the eighth day. This un-named son died shortly after birth (II Sam 12:18-23), on the seventh day. For that one moment of sin, David lost his son.
So what do a holey shed door, Reuben’s future, and a dead baby all have in common? They are the effects of sin. God’s Word is clear that if we confess our sins He will forgive us. But it is the effects of sin that must still be carried out. The holes from the nails were still there even though the nails were removed. The lack of much good in Reuben’s future was still played out even though he had been forgiven for sleeping with his step-mother. And the child was still taken from David and Bathsheba even though David repented, and even fasted. These stories only prove to us that sin does carry a price. The encouragement of Hebrews 12:10 should then be for us to learn from our mistakes so that they are not repeated. In God’s mercy and grace for us we are forgiven. In God’s love for us we are disciplined.

BE STRONG IN THE LORD

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
Ephesians 6:10-11

I have always been one who was fascinated by the Armor of God. Truth be told, this is probably my favorite Biblical topic. And why not? Are we not soldiers in His army, and as such much fit ourselves in His gear. But before we are even given gear, we are given something else. Do you know what it is? It is a command. We are given the command to be strong in the Lord. Why? Well let’s take a minute to look. Looking at Ephesians 6:10-11, we find that the ‘how’ of this challenge is answered by the putting on of the armor. The ‘why’ is answered by the taking of our stance against our enemy. But how is it then that we move into a place of being strong in the Lord? To answer this we must define what ‘strong in the Lord’ really is.
The word for ‘strong’ in the text here is the Greek word ENDUNAMOO, which translates as being strong, endued with strength, or increasing in strength. It is composed of the words EN, meaning with or in, and DUNAMOO, from the root DUNAMIS, meaning might or power. And who are we to be strong in? We are to be strong in the Lord. The Greek word found here for ‘Lord’ is KURIOS, meaning the possessor and disposer of a thing, the person to whom things belong, or the one who has the power. In essence, we are to be strong and mighty in the One who already has all the power in His hands. It is because of His mighty power, His strength, His force, and His deeds of dominion, that we can only be made strong. As John 15:5 tells us, “…apart from Him we can do nothing.” Our personal might is honestly no match for the enemy. But mixed with the might of God, the enemy then stands no chance whatsoever.
Now we move to the next step of the armor itself. The scripture tells us to “put on the full armor of God” as it is in this clothing that we are able to stand against the enemy. The Greek word for ‘put on’ is the word ENDUO, which literally means to sink into a garment. The garment we are to be sinking into is the armor of God, or PANOPLIA in the Greek. This word is derived of two additional Greek words, that being PAS, meaning all, and HOPLON, meaning utensils, tools, or weapons. Only when clothed in the full tooling and weaponry of God Himself are we then able to stand against the enemy.
And this term ‘stand’ is the Greek word HISTEMI, meaning to be established, appointed, or firmly set. With a proper garment of weaponry we are then able to firmly set our feet on the Rock while we battle against the methods, METHODEIA, also meaning trickery, or traps along a journey, that the enemy, the devil, DIABOLOS, meaning accuser or slanderer, may put in our path. Let’s face it, without this armor, we are sitting ducks.
Our weapons and warfare, though, are of a special type. In II Corinthians 10:3-4, Paul tells us, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” Would you like an example of this? How about the way in which David defeated Goliath? In real life would you have walked out to the battlefield with only a slingshot, against a warrior whose trophy collection was probably bigger than your house? How is it that David won this battle? He won because he fought with God’s weapons and not the weapons of this world. Think about it, in I Samuel 17:38, Saul attempts to dress David in his own armor. Have you ever wondered why? There are two reasons. First, Saul was afraid to be shown up by a youth, so he dressed him in his royal armor so the men would think it is Saul finally standing up to Goliath. But secondly, Saul was under the assumption that the warrior had to wear carnal armor and fight with a carnal sword. But that is not how God works. Although David had a slingshot, it was with spiritual weaponry that David defeated Goliath. How so, you ask. Because Goliath spoke against God, blasphemed God, and came out from any chance of protection against God’s weapons.
God has given us the armor, yes, but He has also given us His power. Will we dress ourselves in His might? Will we allow our ability to be the ability of God through us? Remember, we can do nothing apart from God. So then, this challenge is for you just as it was for David, and for saints of old. We are to be strong and mighty in the One who already has all the power in His hands. We are to be strong in the Lord alone.

THOUGHT SHIFT

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.”
Romans 7:15-17

Here is a question for you to ponder. Why do we run to and from the opposite of what God is calling us to run to and from? It may be safe to say that the answer lies in a shift in thinking. But it is true. As I have come to realize that I can do nothing without Christ, I am also coming to realize that my thoughts are not always, or even half the time, the thoughts that He has. My thought pattern is tainted, skewed, and quite honestly lacking good sense many times. The words Paul wrote in Romans 7:15-17 were custom made for me I am sure.
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Rom 7:15). Paul and I are sharing the same idea here in saying that we know the right response, the right character to own, and the right way to live, but why then do we find ourselves doing the exact opposite. Where the sign reads to go left, I find myself wanting to go right. If the sink is putting out clean water I find myself still drinking from the toilet. And if the skull and crossbones are printed on the label marking the bottle toxic I still find myself unscrewing the cap to take a sip. Why do I find myself like Jonah, running from the very command that God has given me?
God has given us His law. As a parent I can respect this. I lay down the rules for my kids and I expect them to be obeyed. Failure to obey them leads to consequence. Are we so naïve to think that when we step outside God’s law that we will not find consequence? True, we will find forgiveness when we repent, just as I offer to my children when they fail to obey, but there still is consequence.
We need to make a shift in our thoughts. We need to pull ourselves away from our ‘self’ and replace the self with God. For instance, one of the methods that I used in pulling away from my addiction was to imagine God sitting right next to me while surfing the internet or watching movies. With the idea that I was sitting next to God, my thoughts changed from ‘myself’ to ‘my God’. The sin that was living in me was beginning to be replaced by a desire to obey God. But without even allowing my mind to be changed, and my thoughts in line with God’s thoughts, I was doomed to be no better than I was. I would have spent my life living in that lukewarm place and running from God.
The change in mindset produced a change in spirit which began a true change in character. It is only because of this change that I am now beginning to be able to do the right type of running, that like Joseph who ran when temptation came looking for him. It was against God more than anyone else that Joseph knew he would be sinning against, and he was not about to fall into that lifestyle. This should be our resolve as well. Instead of me running to sin and from God, I want to be found doing the opposite and running to God and what He is calling me to and running from the sin that longs to take me down. I have resolved to make the thought shift needed in this hour. Will you as well?