August 24, 2006   FIX YOUR THOUGHTS

Still mulling over Hebrews....

Back in Hebrews 3:1, Paul says, "Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess."

Your circumstances and resulting feelings can influence the way you think. You have to keep your eyes on Jesus and your thoughts on Jesus. Who is Jesus? Jesus is the Word made flesh. To fix your thoughts on Jesus is to fix your thoughts on God's Word. His Word is the standard by which we measure everything. Measure your thoughts against the Word. Do they match? Or do adjustments need to be made?

According to 2 Corinthians 10:5, we should "cast down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." The Amplified Bible breaks it down like this: "we refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One)."

"Arguments and theories and reasonings..." Don't you know your mind can go to arguing and theorizing and reasoning, and many times those lead away from the TRUTH of God's Word ("the true knowledge of God"). We've got to lead every thought away from those false reasonings, back to where they line up with and are obedient to Christ, the Word of God.

The result is peace. Isaiah 26:3 reveals the result of fixing our thoughts upon Him:

You will keep him in perfect peace,
      Whose mind is stayed on You,
      Because he trusts in You.

August 21, 2006  ENTER HIS REST

Reading through Hebrews again recently ... Not finished yet. It's like driving by awesome scenery--sometimes you've got to stop and just take it all in. If you drive by too fast, you miss stuff.

So here I am reading Hebrews, the first 3-4 chapters. And as He tends to do, the Holy Spirit shows me a new dimension. Sure, I've read it bunches of times before. I even have lots of it underlined and highlighted. But guess what? There's always more.

So here's what I got...

Hebrews 2:1
"We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away."

The Amplified Bible puts it this way: "Since all this is true, we ought to pay much closer attention than ever to the truths that we have heard, lest in any way we drift past [them] and slip away."

First of all, in order to correctly divide the Word, we must see what precedes this verse. As someone said, when you see the word "therefore," you should stop and see what it's "there for." The Amplified starts, "Since all this is true..." All WHAT is true?

Well, the first chapter of Hebrews talks about the superiority of Jesus, the Son of God, to the angels. "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word," writes Paul in chapter 1 verse 3. Again, the Amplified Bible magnifies it beautifully: "He is the sole expression of the glory of God [the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine], and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God's] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power."

OK. So, since all this--the greatness of the Son of God and how God has exalted him and his name above everything--is true, we must pay more careful attention to what we have heard...WHY? So that we do not drift away.

A couple of weeks ago we were out on Toledo Bend Lake on a barge. We stopped the barge in a large open area in the "middle" of the lake and jumped off and began to swim around. After floating and talking and treading a bit, we suddenly noticed we were farther from the barge than we realized. We had drifted away. It was so gradual, we didn't notice it at first.

This is how it is with God's Word. We hear it. We need to pay more careful attention to the truths we have heard so that we do not drift away. That means we can hear the Word and if we DON'T pay careful attention, we might suddenly find we have drifted away from what we heard.

Interestingly, in chapters 2-4 of Hebrews the word "hear" or "heard" is used six times. Three of those times (Hebrews 3:7, 15; 4:7) Paul is quoting an Old Testament verse: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts...." (Psalm 95:7-8)

Paul is referring to the children of Israel. In spite of the fact that God freed them from oppressive slavery, sent them out healthy and wealthy (Psalm 105:37), parted the Red Sea through which they walked on DRY ground to escape Pharoah's army, gave them shade and "air-conditioning" in the daytime desert heat and light and heat in the nighttime desert chill, daily manna to eat and then meat when they complained about THAT, and on and on...In spite of all that, they hardened their hearts. They heard God and rebelled (Heb. 3:16). They EXPERIENCED His goodness, and they rebelled. So God finally said, "They shall never enter My rest." (Heb. 3:11)

Hebrews 4:1 again warns us to "be careful"--"Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it." It's apparently something that can happen to us if we don't pay attention. Verse 2 continues: "For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith."

Well, there it is in a nutshell. Hebrews 4:11 says we should "make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience." How do we enter that rest? When we hear the Word of God, we should give attention to it by mixing what we have heard with faith. In short, hear and believe. Hear and obey. Hear and do.

We have that choice. What will we do when God's Word comes to us through reading the Bible, through that preacher's message, through the simple encouragement or admonishment of a friend? Hear and believe? Hear and obey? Hear and do? Or hear and rebel? Hear and ignore? What choice will we make? Whichever choice we make will determine whether or not we enter His rest.

August 9, 2006   CAST THE CARE AND LEAVE IT THERE

Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully. (1 Peter 5:7 Amplified Bible)

I remember one summer when I was about eight years old I went to Vacation Bible School and we painted a plaster plaque with this verse: "Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you." This is just one of those verses that, if you've been a Christian for very long, you've heard time and again. The danger in hearing things time and again is that they seem to lose their value to us. It becomes a trite phrase. "Oh yeah, I've heard that. Cast all your care on Him."

Problem is, it is very easy NOT to cast our cares upon Him. Why? Because we become so accustomed to trying to solve all our problems. Sometimes involving God is a last resort. Or, if not, we pray and then before long we are consumed with the worry of it again.

Interestingly, verse 7 of 1 Peter 5 is not a complete sentence. It actually begins in verse 5: "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."

When you DON'T cast your care on Him, you are actually operating in PRIDE, assuming that you can take care of things independent of God. And God RESISTS the proud. Casting your care upon Him is a sign of humility, an admission that you can't handle it on your own. Well, maybe you could, but you wouldn't do as good a job as God.

And the thing is, if you DO cast your care, you've got to leave it there. Too many times we pray and give it to God, only to pick it back up again, sometimes without even realizing it. It's not easy. But when you do it, oh, the PEACE!