Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is special at our house, for a couple of reasons.  First, it is my husband's birthday. And second, it is the day that we adopted our dog, Charlie.  I like to describe Charlie as having been a "Wal-Mart special".

It happened on Valentine's Day afternoon, four years ago.  Younger Son and I had gone to the Wal-Mart shopping center on an errand.  As we pulled into the parking lot he pointed out people milling around an old pick-up truck with a sign on it:  "Free Puppies".  He asked if we could stop and look. Our former dog, Max, had died a few months earlier.  Max had been quite the "handful", and I was not eager to get another dog.  I said, "Maybe on the way out."  After completing our errand, we headed home.  I asked, "Do you want to just stop and look?"  "I guess so," was the reply.

There were several puppies in the kennels, but I was drawn to just one.  As I gathered this Aussie shepherd/blue tick coon hound mix in my arms, I knew I never wanted to let him go.  On the ride home, I've never seen a more terrified dog.  He was drooling from anxiety (a habit he continued for several months).  Hubster was stunned to receive a puppy as a birthday present!  Younger Son had told me at the pick-up truck, "I bear absolutely no responsibility for this!"  Well, Charlie has become a tremendous blessing to all of us.  He is dearly loved.

This family story reminds me of my place in God's family.

4But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, 5so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"…
Galatians 4:4-6

This is love!  Don't you see how adoption is at the heart of it?  We did not first love God, but He first loved us.  We were "mutts".  We were not His "natural-born" sons/daughters, or His "only-begotten" sons/daughters. We are His through adoption.  Hallelujah!  This is the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who Is The Best Valentine.

But God demonstrated His own love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

There is a rather erotic movie which opened recently.  It is the sequel to an even more sickening movie of similar name which premiered right around Valentine's Day two years ago.  In fact, both of these movies are an insult to true love.

But, God does not merely illustrate or typify love - - - He IS love, in all its beauty, in all its glory. His love poured out on us truly is "the greatest love of all".   You may be facing a lonely Valentine's Day. In fact, the holiday may itself be repugnant because of all the emphasis on romantic love when you are not "there" right now.

Regardless of your present circumstances, on this Valentine's Day, you can reach out and experience God's love.  It is never-ending and always available.  Don't turn away.  Whether you would be reaching out to Him for the first time today for eternal salvation or whether you are already a disciple of Jesus Christ and needing a reminder....He is there for you.

https://youtu.be/Fla6EO07I3E

Happy Valentine's Day!

Dear Father, thank you for the gift of Your Son, Who is Love personified.  Today, I celebrate Your love, which is incomparable.  No one can ever or will ever love me like You do.  To be loved, adopted, cherished, made new by the God of all the Universe is both inconceivable and unfathomable.  I don't pretend to understand what caused you to do what you did for me.  My love for You is paltry in comparison.  Give me a Valentine's heart - - a Christ-like heart. Help me to love more like You do, precious Savior! It is in Your name, Lord Jesus, I pray, amen.

The Fix Is In

Today I learned that one of my beloved ones received some disheartening news.  He is discouraged about it.  I wish that I could "fix things" for him in this situation.  It hurts my heart to see him suffer, even though some of it is of his own making.  Especially since that is the case...

When I was a child my daddy would sometimes get a "switch" (a small tree branch for you uninitiated out there) and give me "a switchin'".  I never wanted it, always deserved it (being quite the headstrong child) and still remember it, all these days later.  The sting of the switch was short-lived, but there is one thing about those occasions that lives on in my memory.  My daddy would almost always say, "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you."

I never believed him then.  In fact, it made me mad, because I thought it a ridiculous statement!  But, as a parent now, I truly understand.  It hurt him to see me suffer, even in that small way.  It hurt his heart more than the sting of the hickory switch hurt my little, scrawny legs.

When Adam and Eve so horribly messed things up for all mankind in the Garden of Eden, don't you know it hurt God's heart terribly, even though He knew they were going to do it?  And, don't you know that He said to Himself, "One of these days I'm gonna fix that."  In fact, He proclaimed that He would, as early as Genesis 3:15.

Many, at Christmas, find the seasonal celebrations unbearable because they have been separated from loved ones.  Sometimes a loved one has died, for instance.  When man sinned, a horrible breach occurred between God and man.  The pain we feel when separated from a loved one is only a taste of the pain God felt when our sin destroyed the fellowship He had formerly enjoyed with mankind.  Oh how He must have grieved that loss...after all, our race was created for fellowship with Him.   And, we had so broken, so blemished that relationship.  Not even "a switchin' " could fix it.

When it was time for Jesus to be born, do you think God may have said something like, "Finally, the time is now right for the ultimate, total solution to be given!"  All those centuries between Eden and Bethlehem, God interacted with mankind in various ways, knowing that only one way could fully reconcile all mankind to Him.  Jesus' birth was the commencement, in our time-bound world, of that eternal plan.

I watched a good, but weird, movie today.  A friends of many decades and I get together every now and then for a meal.  Today, it was a movie and a meal.  Anyway, the movie was weird in that there were aliens (weirdness assured when aliens are involved).  Beyond that, though, there was an aspect of the movie in which Time was fluid.  Time was not the linear, orderly, irrevocable thing to which we are accustomed, to which we are bound in this earthly life.

God is not bound by Time.  For God - - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - - the "fix was in" before creation occurred.  Before Time was created, God had decided "I'm gonna fix that."  At Advent, we celebrate The Fix that came, as we anticipate each year the birth of our Savior, Christ, the Lord.  I'm so glad He came and made things right.

4But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

Galatians 4:4-6 KJV

Hallelujah!  The "fix" is in!

The World's Richest People

Have you ever inherited anything?  I'm not talking about physical, genetic inheritance of X and Y chromosomes, such as having large ears.  I'm talking about tangible, physical possessions.  Have you ever inherited "riches"?

Both of my grandmothers have now passed on to be with Jesus.  They were of different temperaments, but both of them liked pretty jewelry.  From each I inherited a ring, one white gold, the other yellow.  I wear one of them every day, on the fourth finger of my right hand.  To me, those rings are "riches", not because of their material worth, but because of whom and what they represent. They represent the wonderful memories of my grandmothers, a unique "belonging".

I wear two other rings every day:  my wedding rings, on the fourth finger of my left hand, and a Pandora "betrothal ring" (in the sense that Jewish brides of ancient times wore betrothal rings) on the index finger of my right hand.  This last ring signifies that I am betrothed to Jesus Christ.  All of these rings are treasures to me, because of the love they represent.

In Ephesians 1, Paul begins to describe the vast wealth every Christ-follower, every Believer, possesses, not by his or her own virtue, but by virtue of what God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have done for us.  As children, heirs, of our triune God, we inherit these riches by faith; and then, we invest our spiritual wealth through our resulting good works.  We are the world's RICHEST people!

Some of the themes in today's passage I wrote about this past January, when we were studying Galatians; among them were Calvinism, Arminianism, election, free will, and adoption as sons.  The posts are linked below, and I'm not going to "plow that ground over".

http://resplendentdaughter.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-galatian-oreo.html

http://resplendentdaughter.blogspot.com/2016/01/heirs-by-adoption.html

What I am going to do in our study of Ephesians is to borrow heavily from the great Warren Wiersbe1 to look at some of the terms in this passage more deeply and to focus on our great spiritual inheritance.

3Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. 4For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. 5He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will – 6to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. 9He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ – the things in heaven and the things on earth. 11In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, would be to the praise of his glory.13And when you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation) – when you believed in Christ – you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:3-14 (NET)

Looking at this passage is sort of like "reading Jesus' will".  He wrote a will, died to make it so and now reigns at the right hand of God the Father as our Advocate (attorney), to ensure that the terms of His will are carried out!  What do we inherit from and through Christ, as Believers, His children?

1.  We were chosen to be Christ Jesus' heirs.
Again, I've covered this elsewhere, but I want to mention Wiersbe's distinction between "election" and "predestination".  He describes "election" as God seeking the lost sinner.  This is the first beginning of salvation.  The lost person, left on his or her own, cannot seek God.  So, He initiates the process.  Salvation begins with God alone, which means it is totally of His grace.  Because He chose us before the foundations of the world were laid is a testament to His unfathomable foreknowledge.  In the Bible, "election" is always TO something; there is always a purpose.  In this case, the purpose of our election is for us to then exercise our free will and accept God's salvation through Jesus Christ, which God knew we would do.  He does not make our choices for us, but He always knows what we will choose.
By contrast, Wiersbe characterizes "predestination" as being a word used to refer to those who have already accepted Christ by faith.  You will never see this word used in scripture in connection with a lost person, someone denied the opportunity to choose salvation.  Predestination is also a word that refers to purpose, namely the "investing" of our inheritance by the good works born from saving faith.
Confused yet, Bible Nerds?  :)  Well, I found Wiersbe's explanation of these terms interesting, and I hope you did also.  It is difficult to explain them, but we certainly cannot ignore them.  Remember, we will not have perfect understanding this side of eternity, and maybe not even then!  That's ok.

2.  We were accepted by God and adopted as sons.
These themes have to do with our legal standing in the sight of God, because of Jesus Christ.  He could have just "accepted us", saved us from Hell, and left it at that.  That blessing of regeneration, of new birth, alone would have been much, much more than any of us deserved.  But, He did not leave us as a relative who was "left" only $1.00 in the will.  He did not leave us as a "red-headed step-child" or a "poor relation", as we Southerners are wont to say.  No.  He went on to adopt us.  What does that mean?

We'll explore this more in tomorrow's post.

Father, I bless Your matchless Name and celebrate Your great grace, by which my riches extend far beyond rings, houses, lands or even beyond the more dear earthly blessings such as human love or physical health!  All of these pale in comparison to Your amazing grace and love, by which You chose to extend salvation to mankind, by which You chose me.  Thank you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Amen.  

Source:

Wiersbe, Warren W. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: The Complete New Testament in One Volume. Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2007, p. 586. Print.

 

Heirs by Adoption

It is popular to say, "We are all God's children", in reference to humanity in general.  While that may provoke warm, fuzzy feelings, it is not a true statement.  We are all created in the image of God, but simultaneously born with the taint of sin deeply imbedded into our natures.   The sin nature, resulting from the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, prevents us from becoming God's children by our birth.  Therefore, it could be said that we are God's creation, His "offspring" even, but not His children, in our unregenerate state.

God has only one "begotten Son", and that is the God-man, Jesus Christ (John 3:16).  Why, then, does Paul elaborate on the truth of Christ-followers, Believers, being "heirs," "sons"?  He makes the distinction in Galatians 4, that we are God's sons by adoption.

Now, the Jews believed themselves to be God's children by birth, by virtue of the fact that they were descended from Abraham in the physical sense. While the Jews are His chosen people, a fact established millennia ago and not negated in the Church era, this does not confer on anyone, Jewish or not, spiritual "sonship".  It is plain in Paul's inspired writings that sonship is conferred in the spiritual by God's grace, specifically and exclusively through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. (Ephesians 2:8-9)  Unbelievers know nothing of this grand adoption.

It is important to note that the entire Trinity is present in our becoming sons/daughters of God.

4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

7 Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Galatians 4:4-7 KJV

Do you see Them?  The Father began the process of adoption, reclaiming those whom He foreknew before time began would choose Jesus.  The Son, Jesus, obediently put on flesh and came to earth to fulfill the Father's redemption plan.  The Spirit is sent by God into the hearts of all who accept Jesus, the Son. The third Person of the Trinity completes the circle of love.  It is He who bears witness that we belong to God, to Christ, by His intimate cry of "Abba", the most personal name for the Incomparable, Incomprehensible One.  (See Romans 8:15 for comparison.)

"The Bible uses adoption as a picture of what God has done for us. We were dirty, diseased, impoverished street urchins, with no one to care for us. We were not there as helpless victims, but rather because of our deliberate rebellion against God. But one day He showed up at the cardboard shack that we were sleeping in and in love chose us to be in His family. He cleaned us up, removed our rags, clothed us in the righteousness of Christ, fed us with the nourishing truth of His Word, and guided us in His paths of righteousness and wisdom. He brought us into His family, where we have brothers and sisters to share our burdens and our joys. And He made us His heirs, so that throughout eternity we will enjoy the unfathomable riches of Christ."2
Steven J. Cole

God the Father chose to adopt us, as fathers and mothers may choose to adopt a child who is not biologically theirs.  It was not something He had to do.  He could have chosen to make us "foster children", perhaps.  But no! Our adoption is something ONLY He could do, something His very nature compelled Him to do, that aspect of His infinite, unfathomable love.

Now, what is our inheritance in Christ?  What are our riches as adopted sons/daughters?

Here are a few.  I am sure there are many of which we have no knowledge, as yet. The inimitable Charles Spurgeon said, "No man living has ever realised to the full what this means." In general, I am listing them from my memory as a daughter, without scriptural references.  I may come back and add scriptural proofs later.

1.  Justification
Being made right eternally with God, as He confers Jesus Christ's righteousness upon us
2.  Freedom
Being set free from the bondage of working to earn salvation (which cannot be earned)
Being set free to worship, adore, revere and serve the Boundless, Limitless Lord from a heart overflowing with love  ("For the love of Christ compels us...." 1 Cor. 5:14)
3.  Access
Having unlimited and unrestricted access to the heart of God through prayer, as a result of our Father/Child relationship.   The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts facilitates this.
4.  Sanctification
Being molded more and more into the image of Jesus Christ
5.  Blessings, Promises Covenants of God
Receiving all of them, revealed in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation
6.  Citizenship in Heaven
Anticipating our "forever home", with Him

"Abba, Father" ... Spurgeon points out that the Hebrew word is "a babe's lisping", as it even sounds like the first sounds a baby makes, and that it represents how we are allowed to be natural and informal with our Father God.  It is a warm, affectionate, loving word which some have said is more like "Daddy" than "Father".  The same cry of the Savior to His Father in the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36) is the cry the Spirit of the Son makes from the heart of the Believer, of the child of God.

No longer servants, but Sons, Daughters, Heirs, Children of the Highest!  From servitude to sonship! Praise His name forever!



Sources:

1   http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/1435.htm

2   https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-48-adopted-heirs-god-romans-817

Grafted In

I hope you all had a great Christmas.  These days between now and New Years are some of my very favorite.  Not exactly "downtime", they are nonetheless much less hectic than my usual pace.  Ahhhh!
So, the picture above is of a branch of an olive tree.  Why I chose this photo will become clear later on.

Ezra 8 is today's central text.  It begins by listing the names of the families who left Babylon with Ezra in this wave of dispersed exiles, to return to Jerusalem.  To Ezra's surprise, he found no Levites among the group. So, he sent a group of trusted men to a place called Casiphia, where some Levites were living.  It was important to take Levites (a branch of the Jewish "family"), because they were the only ones specified by God to be the ministers in the temple.

I've had a bit of confusion about the difference between priests and Levites; so, I looked it up.  In short, all priests were from the tribe of Levi (thus being Levites).  However, not all from the tribe of Levi were priests.  Levitical priests were charged with the most "holy" tasks of the Temple. They were allowed to handle sacred objects and perform sacred rituals.  Other Levites served in the Temple, doing non-priestly duties, assisting the priests.  They were still highly esteemed because of their service in the temple, but not as highly esteemed as priests.

After gathering together from Casiphia (which no one seems to know the exact location of) 38 Levites and 220 temple-helpers (adopted Levites, you might say).  This latter group was called the Nethinims, a group I'd never heard of.  So, I did a little digging around.

The name "nithinim" is a derivative of the verb "nathan", which means to "set apart" or "consecrate". It is believed that these people were descendants of slave people, captured as the Jews conquered the promised land.  See Numbers 31:47.   We find in Ezra 8:20 that, during David's reign, he had commissioned a number of these foreign people to assist the Levitical priests in the service of the temple.  Since Ezra could only come up with 38 "true Levites by birth" for the priesthood, his advisors also invited along 220 from the group with the general title of Nithinim.  Ezra was perpetuating the example set by David.

Bible scholars agree that King David was a picture (a "type") of the coming Messiah.  I've mentioned before in this blog how it is recorded in the New Testament that David was "a man after God's own heart".  It is interesting to me how these pagan slaves were more or less "adopted" in to the Levitical class and "grafted in" to serve in the temple.  When we find them in Ezra 8, there is no indication that they are now slaves, but rather, treated as family members.

All this is a picture of the gentiles in the Church of Jesus Christ.  The Nithinim are a foreshadowing of the gentile peoples who were invited in to the early Church.  You may recall that it was a rocky road to get the Jewish believers of the early Church to accept that God wanted to include gentiles (non-Jews). This was a radical change.  But, God, in His mercy and holiness, made a way of salvation for ALL people through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.

Paul explains this in Romans 9:33 - - -

"They are Israelites, and to them belong the glory, the adoption, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the worship and the promises.  To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen."

But, he goes on to talk about grafting in of gentiles in Romans 11:16-24.  He refers to the whole Church as an olive tree, and to the gentile members as "wild olive branches" who were grafted in.
In Romans 1:16, Paul affirms that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been made available "to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (the Greeks being a prominent group of gentile people).

Peter affirms this in his first book, 1 Peter 2:10 - -
"Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."

There is a passage I love - - John 15.  Here, Jesus is talking about His Church, with Himself being the "true vine" (or you might say, the tree trunk) and we are the "branches".

I'm a wild olive branch, how about you?  As someone with gentile blood, I am so glad that Jesus' redeeming sacrifice was not only for the Jews. Hallelujah!

Father, thank you for extending your offer of salvation and peace to all people.  As a "Greek", I am so grateful!  And, I thank you for this picture you paint in the book of Ezra to show that your mercy has been abundant from generation to generation, as evidenced not only here in Ezra 8 but also in the example of Ruth, Rahab and others.  When we come to you for salvation, we leave our pedigrees at the door, because we all come to you on an even footing - - - dirty sinners, in need of washing in Jesus' blood.  We praise you today for your marvelous foreknowledge, mercy and grace!  In Jesus' name, amen.