Psalm 119:27  
Make me understand the way of Your Precepts,
and I will meditate on Your wonders.  

    When we pray "make me understand", we are asking for the creator of our minds to interfere with our thinking processes in a positive way.  We are asking Him to do two things:
 1)  Remove obstacles to our perception;   
 2)  Compensate for our mental deficiencies.
    If you think about it, this is really major interference we are requesting- not in terms of God's ability, but in terms of our inability.  The granting of perception would be like Jesus unstopping a blocked ear and restoring a shriveled arm- removing an obstacle and generating something where it did not exist.
    When we 'realize' something, we tend to think that we would have 'gotten it' sooner or later, so we fail to give credit to God.  It is true that He gave us the capacity to think on our own, and that that capacity can naturally increase.  But when a spiritual truth "comes together" (root meaning of one Greek word for understanding), we ought to thank God.  Plus, the granting of one perception should incite us to ask for another.
    Implicit in all this- and the point of our meditation for the day- is that asking for understanding implies hunger for knowledge.  Understanding is a filling of that hunger.  
    The best indication that God is going to grant us understanding is the presence of hunger for understanding in our souls.
    It should go without saying that hunger for understanding is not satisfied in a Knowledge Trivia sort of way.  A true hunger for understanding wants to know God better, wants to understand the working of His kingdom better, wants to know the mysteries of the human soul so as to better be on guard against temptation, etc.  To understand something just for the sake of having mastered it will only lead to pride (and can only have come from a motive of pride).
    Do you pray "make me understand"?
    Do you realize what you are asking when you do?

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1 John 2:16  
because all that is in the world--
the desire of the flesh,
and the desire of the eyes,
and the ostentation of the life--
is not of the Father, but of the world,


    Worldliness is divided into three categories by John.  The third category, the "ostentation of life", is the one least understood by most of us.
    "Life" is from the Greek 'bios', having to do with the external aspect of our lives.
    "Ostentation" could also be translated "swagger", "boastfulness", "presumptuous confidence".
    When we put the two terms together, we are talking about an attitude that we manifest as creatures whose lives are suited to the earth.  The idea is how naturally we carry assumptions about our earthly existence.  Also implicit in the phrase is how our earthly existence naturally carries along those assumptions, as on the crest of an undying wave.  Of course, our earthly existence itself is not to blame for this, being impersonal (though through it we can definitely admire God's original wisdom in adapting man's soul to his surroundings).
    The Swagger of Life, as we might call it, takes God's amazing correspondence between earth and its dominant creature, man, and separates  it from God.  Even when a man is mindful of God, he does not make a complete connection between his own existence and God's design.  His own existence organically blocks the connection out.  It says, "I am alive", with an emphasis on the "I".  It says "I am alive today as I was alive yesterday.  I didn't need an explanation for my life yesterday; that's proof enough that my life was sufficient unto itself.  My life remains self-sufficient today."
    Therefore, every aspect of life becomes merely a reinforcement in our minds of our self-sufficiency.  It is not something we reason out; it is an assumption.  Furthermore, it is an assumption we can barely escape.  We operate by the Pride of Life.
    A Christian, then, has not experienced much of a deliverance if he still operates by this Bravado of Existence.  Hopefully, his conversion-understanding of man's total obligation to his Creator has done much to break the dominion of his Bravado.  But the assumption is implicit in our earthly souls.  It is in our bones.  "I exist because I exist.  My life moves along on its own.  Plus, I'm holding the rudder what directs me!"  And in a certain sense, this is perfectly correct.  God created us to function on our own (as much as any part of the Universe does).  Unfortunately, with the sin in our members, our 'automotive' motif becomes an 'independent-of-God' posture.
    THEREFORE (and here's the big point of this meditation), it is much for our good when our earthly confidences are shaken.  Flattering assumption we make about ourselves, the way others regard us, our relative good health, our ability to fashion solutions to life's difficulties:  one or more of these are dealt a painful blow, perhaps a mortal one.  We are rocked to our foundations.  We are angry more than helpless-feeling; irritated more than humbled.  That's how much the Pride of Life was in charge.
    But if we will be thoughtful, we can gain wisdom.  Why was I counting on that?  There may have been an injustice involved in its removal.  Another person may have unjustly dealt me the blow.  But being reduced to Self without Bravado is only a good thing.  It feels horrible, and it's embarrassing; but it is challenging a natural, sinful assumption of ours in a way that that assumption wills not to be challenged any other way.
    So how will you respond to irritations today?   - even the most 'inconsequential' ones?  Their cumulative affect can go a long way in breaking our Corporal Conceit if we are receptive.

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Psalm 54:5  
He shall reward evil to my enemies;
cut them off in Your truth.


    Someone who is against me is not necessarily my enemy.
    In the psalmist's outlook, God is expected to be against his enemies.  An enemy is someone against me, and it is assumed that anyone who doesn't take kindly to me ALSO doesn't take kindly to my Father, whose traits I presumably manifested to irritate my enemy.           
    But a fellow believer who is foolishly working mischief against me should, by definition, not  be my enemy.  He has my same Father.  He has just lost sight of his lineage for the moment.
    Nevertheless, if he behaves unjustly- as an enemy would- our mutual Father will certainly discipline him.  Whatever his actions called for, that is what God would do.  God's attitude in disciplining His child would be different than His attitude in requiting an unbeliever, but He does not let unrighteous behavior go in either case:

 Col 3:24  knowing that from the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance. For you serve the Lord Christ.  But he who does wrong shall receive justice for the wrong which he did, and there is no respect of persons.

    Paul is obviously talking about Christians, and they will not get off the hook on the basis of God's grace.
    So if a fellow-Christian is acting as an enemy, would I pray, "Cut him off" as in the Psalm?
    There may be a special application of God "cutting off" a straying believer.  Many Corinthians had died because of selfishness, according to 1 Corinthians 11.  They had been "cut off".  Christians towards whom they were behaving badly may well have prayed for justice.  Church discipline wasn't operating properly at the time.
    Still, having allowed for this possibility, we would yet be unable to truly categorize a fellow Christian as an enemy.  If God has made us both friends with Himself, then He has made us friends with one another, too.  If one of us has to be "cut off" in some way for unkindness to the other, the victim would still be hoping for the prodigal's  restoration.
    There is always, of course, the disquieting possibility that an unkind 'brother' is really a stranger to God's love and is a brother in name only.

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2 Corinthians 3:6  
[God] who also made us
able ministers of a new covenant,
not of letter, but of Spirit.
For the letter kills,
but the Spirit makes alive.


    The Old Covenant was basically a statement.  It said, "This is what is good and right and what God expects."  That is what Paul calls "letter".  It communicated a standard but did not guarantee the power to keep that standard.
    The New Covenant does not merely state something.  The New Covenant is personal, and the personality involved is the Holy Spirit.  Paul calls the New Covenant "Spirit".  It is the Holy Spirit's direct communication, so it is not merely statement, but understanding imparted.  It guarantees understanding.  It confers power to keep the standard communicated.
    This is definitely not saying that Old Covenant saints missed out on the Spirit's ministry.  The Holy Spirit did communicate to Moses.  He did make David understand, as well as Abraham, ad infinitum.  So you might say that many Old Covenant saints enjoyed features of the New Covenant.  In fact, any Old Testament saint we meet in Heaven will have been a recipient of the same basic Spirit's ministry we received in the New Covenant.  There is no other way into the kingdom of Heaven.  The Spirit must guarantee it to us.
    So in comparing the Old Covenant to the New, we might say that the Old Covenant was basically external with applications to the internal (i.e., it outwardly spoke the standard to all in the covenant, but only sometimes witnessed change in their inner  man).
    The New Covenant, conversely, is basically internal with applications to the external (i.e., it makes inward change to all in the covenant, and does work short of the new birth in some on the periphery of the covenant- specifically, mere churchgoers.  Sometimes the impermanent changes become permanent later; especially in children of believers).

2 Corinthians 3:7, 8  But if the ministry of death having been engraved in letters in stone was with glory, so as that the sons of Israel could not gaze into "the face of Moses" because of the glory of his face, which was to cease,  how much rather the ministry of the Spirit will be in glory!

    The Old Covenant was more glorious than anything Man or Angel could ever devise.  Yet it was still only a ministry of death, because it could only give us the 'Ought', not the 'Aptitude'.  The New Covenant gives us the Aptitude.
    And there is nothing wrong with a covenant of Ought!  If that's all God wanted to give us, it would have been perfectly sufficient.  God was not obligated to give man any more than the standard.  Of course, He did freely plan to give more all along.  The Old Covenant was preparatory for the New.
    Now that the New Covenant has been enacted- not just as an adjunct to the Old Covenant, but as its replacement /  fulfillment- it would be a big mistake to go back to the Old Covenant in any way.  That was the warning Paul was giving the Corinthians.  False apostles had crept in and ensnared them by devious use of the Old Covenant.  Therefore, much of Paul's remedy involved correct teaching on the natures and relations of the Old and New Covenants.
    So the Old Covenant was engraved in stone, though for many it was also engraved in their hearts.
    The New Covenant is engraved in the heart, but for many on its borders, their hearts remain stone, and only the 'stony' word (the law- God's do's and don't's ) will be spoken to them; and only as a standard- not as power.

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Proverbs 29:15  
The rod of correction gives wisdom,
But a child left to himself
causes shame to his mother.


    The primary application of this verse is to child discipline.  Children allowed to do as they please become causes of shame for their parents.  The remedy for this is to keep after the children with spankings, thus indicating that we are actually paying attention and seeing their misbehaviors.
    There is also a spiritual application to the verse.
    Every Christian parent has the duty to put himself  to death:

 Col 3:5  Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness (which is idolatry)

    This sacrifice of personal pleasures, angers, improper attitudes and desires is very difficult.  It is like cutting off one of our own "members"- an arm, say.  These evils are so much a part of us, putting them away from us is a definite kind of self-execution.  Of course, it is execution of those parts of ourselves we don't really need; parts which, in fact, are killing us.
    But many Christian parents, while making some progress in this 'mortification of the flesh' for themselves, make virtually no similar progress in their children.
    For some parents, the problem is their theology.  They operate on the principle of pietism- that man's spiritual state is highly personal and individualistic and cannot be directly influenced by others.  For them, Christ can only be taught to their children with the hopes that the children will become converted and desire to obey Him on their own.  Unwittingly, these parents are 'leaving their children to themselves'.
    Whereas, it IS a parent's responsibility to apprise his children of their responsibilities towards God, and parents cannot change their children's spirits to comply with God, yet part of the parent's responsibility is to enforce the Christian lifestyle on his children:

 Proverbs 22:6  Consecrate a child in the instruction of His way; even when he is old, he will not turn aside from it.

    The word for "consecrate" above is the same word used when Solomon "dedicated" the Temple.
    Would any good Israelite have tolerated the misuse or negligent use of the Temple?  No, it was consecrated to service for God.  Regularity of proper services was required.
    The same principle is true for our children.  We must dedicate them to God.
    We must make the assumption that God has called them into His service, and we are simply equipping them so that service may be its best.
    It is usually harder for parents to sacrifice their children to Christ than it is to sacrifice themselves.  We tend to think, "I've made my own choice.  The life I could have lived is left behind.  But my child still has his life to live.  It's unreasonable to force my level of commitment on him."
    And so our children are 'left to themselves'.  There is no better face to put on it.
    And if sacrificing them to Christ is too good for our children, we have made idols of them.
    We should teach them the personal joy of service to Christ; but if we do not treat them as God's own possessions obligated to serve Him, we have abandoned them to themselves.  Our proverb assures us we will regret that.

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Titus 2:3 - 5  
and that older women likewise ...
may train the young women ...  
to be ... workers at home


    The Greek word Paul uses for "workers at home" is 'oikourous', a compound word meaning, literally, "home guards".
    In most past cultures, women were mostly expected to be based in their homes.  This made it much easier for Christian women to "guard" the "home".
    In our modern culture, women routinely leave the house to pursue other interests and livelihoods.  This makes it exceedingly difficult for them to be "home watchmen".  
    In fact, one wonders if a woman employed full-time outside the home can possibly be described as a "home guard".  The very nature of the term seems to refute the possibility.  As hard as they may work when they come home, they cannot have been guarding the home while devoting attention to another business or hub of activity.  
    Can a soldier assigned to guard the fort do his duty while elsewhere?  He may have very important business out in the field or at another fort, but if elsewhere is where his business lies, he is not really a guard.  Whoever stays at the fort is the guard.  Of course, the fort can simply be left unguarded;  and that is the condition of most American homes today.  Either that, or the team member NOT assigned the duty of home-guard, the husband, stays home.
    The sad thing is that the supposed objective of bringing more money into the household is not being accomplished on the whole.  But most women make no pretense of supplementing the family income as their primary motive.  They simply want to pursue their own goals.  Personal fulfillment is the endgame.
    The role of home-guard is  a role of sacrifice.  Most families do not see the sacrifice as necessary.  What is the woman really accomplishing by staying at home?  How many times can she vacuum the rugs?
    But the Biblical woman is much deeper than that.  She is very  busy fulfilling the tasks necessary for her own family and then body of Christ .  
    According to Paul, the woman has a definite full-time job at home.  After saying that women cannot teach or exercise authority over men, Paul ends with this:

 1 Timothy 2:15  but she will be saved through her child-bearing, if they continue in faith, love, and sanctification with sobriety.

    Paul had just given one reason women can't teach in church:  Eve was the one "thoroughly deceived" (a strong compound word Paul used), not Adam.  Apparently, gender characteristics are passed down.  Women, when not in proper submission to men, are very gullible spiritually.  In the verse above, Paul gives the 'answer' to this.  The woman is to develop her spiritual maturity for a round-the-clock 'pastorate'.  She is to 'pastor' her children.  She will be "saved" (in the sanctification sense; used again thus in 1 Timothy 4:16) if "they"- she and her children- remain under her quality spiritual discipline.  
    With the assumption that women are staying at home, the Bible also lays on them a task perhaps more for development after their children are out on their own- the task of being the main managers of good works flowing from the Church:

 1 Timothy 2:8 - 10  Therefore, I desire that men pray ...  In the same way also, I desire that women adorn themselves ... with good works, which befits women professing godliness.

    This assignment would have come very naturally to women of previous cultures in most places in the world.  They already used home as a base for service.  Satan has done a very good job through 'women's liberation' of freeing today's Christian woman from the shackles of service to Christ.

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Ezekiel 33:11  
Say to them:
As I live, says the Lord Jehovah,
I have no delight in the death of the wicked,
except in the turning of the wicked from his way,
and so to live.
Turn, turn from your evil ways;
for why will you die, O house of Israel?


    God's 'wish' for men to turn from their wickedness is a factor of His goodness.  He takes no pleasure in the pain of others.
    On the other hand, He has no regret in inflicting the pain of justice, the Lake of Fire, for instance.
    There is something peculiar to the Covenant  in God's response to reprobate men.  Jesus said this concerning Israel:

 Luke 13:34  Jerusalem! Jerusalem! the one killing the prophets, and stoning those having been sent to her; how often I desired to gather your children in the way a hen gathers her brood under the wings, and you did not desire it.

    God always had a good will towards His covenant people.  Even when He brought destruction on them in Old Testament times, He always spoke of the merciful dealings He would have on them afterwards.
    But consider the Lord's relationship to Sodom in Genesis 18, as He talks to Abraham about the city.  God's only concern is with the righteous in the city.  He would spare the city for a certain number of righteous therein (of course, He was always planning on getting them out anyway).  He does not say, "O Sodom, Sodom.  How often I desired to gather you ...", because they were not chicks of His brood.  This should claim our attention.
    Jerusalem was only nationally  elect, but she was still in special relationship to God.  Yet God has no problem punishing wicked individuals from among the nation Israel:

 Luke 19:27  But these hostile to me, those not desiring me to reign over them, bring them here and execute them before me.

    It is only the individually elect, Jew or Gentile, whom God will bring to Himself and keep, not allowing their ultimate departure from Him.  This covenant is described in Jeremiah 31:31 - 34, and is quoted in both Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10 as the covenant we are in.
    There is yet another covenant that allows us to see the 'stretch' and varied dimensions of God's dealings with men.  The covenant with Noah was a covenant with "all flesh"- with men and with animals.  So there is a covenant of mercy that all  men are under while they live on earth; a covenant not to flood the earth again.  
    All men are in a specific covenant of mercy then.  The Jews are under a more specific, but still broad, covenant as well.  Their covenant does not allow God to forget His mercies towards them.
    By these covenants, God shows that He has a general type of good will towards all men.
    By His covenant with the elect, He shows His saving  good will.  He specifically targets those, Jew or Gentile, upon whom He will have mercy to the uttermost, ultimately saving them from all harm- the final harm being the Second Death.  
    It is a gargantuan goof-up to confuse God's dealings in the more general covenants with His dealings in the New Covenant (the name for the covenant with the elect in Jeremiah 31), even though we can infer God's goodness from any of the covenants, even though there is crossover in His mercies from one covenant to another.
    This is a good example of the need for "rightly dividing (literally, 'cutting') the Word of Truth".

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Galatians 6:7  
Do not be deceived,
God is not mocked.
For whatever a man may sow,
that he also will reap.


    Sin is like the coil and recoil of a yoyo.  In its downstroke, the yoyo uncoils with gravity's help.  Likewise, most sins are entered into with relative ease; downhill, you might say.  
    Then comes the recoil, when the finished downward motion actually helps the yoyo climb back up against gravity.  This motion is like the backlash of sin.  Its coiling around the core again is like sin wrapping our heart in a deadly grip.  We are its prisoner and slave.
    Any sinful 'downstroke'- accusing another, a self-justification, bitterness of heart, inclination to fornication, some other distorted appetite-  guarantees an 'upstroke'.  The upstrokes are the thorny ramifications of our sinful choice.
    Paul says, "Do not be deceived".  That is because we are always prone to see only the downstroke without considering any upstroke.  Something in our minds tells us that downstrokes don't lead to upstrokes.  Down is down, and up is up, after all.  We are very deceivable.  
    It is only by force of attention that we keep the 'Yoyo Law' before us.  When we do, we measure our every thought, word, and deed.  We ask, What kind of upstroke will this downstroke bring?

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Jeremiah 10:23  
O Jehovah,
I know that the way of man
does not belong to man;
it is not in man who walks
to direct his steps.


    If a man's way does not belong to himself, then to whom does  it belong?

 Proverbs 20:24  Man's steps are of Jehovah; how can a man then understand his own way?

    How much freedom, then, does man have?
    The main point of the above two verses is that God is the ultimate disposer of all destinies.  His freedom to dispose comes first.  Obviously, if He has disposed things a certain way, our attempts at disposing our own paths will be held in check by His master plan.  That is why we often end up confused.  We thought things were going a certain way, but we didn't have God's blueprint before us.
    Some people are irritated by the above and other similar verses.  They can only see man as a machine if these verses are true.  These verses do not rule out man's freedom, though.  They only assert God's ultimate freedom.  Only one being in the universe can have ultimate freedom; either that or existence would be a constant vying for dominance- God's against everybody else's.  Such is not the case.  The Bible says God is dominant.
    But God is also wise: infinitely wise.  He was able to create such that man has maximum freedom consistent with God's own freedom.
    The question of man's freedom is secondary with reference to salvation, though.  In salvation, the main question is man's spiritual condition.  If man is spiritually dead, as the Bible declares, then he could have as much freedom as he pleased and he would never choose God.  Man's freedom would only allow him to make his natural, self-assertive choices.
    Are unregenerate men free to choose God, to choose salvation?  Yes and no.  In terms of God's restrictions, God is not saying, "No, you can't choose Me."  Man is free.  But in terms of man's nature, he is bound by his own sinfulness.  With his heart of stone- his enmity against God- he will never choose God.  Man is his own prisoner; so he has no freedom.

    When a man is regenerated, he still lacks God's blueprint.  Even if we had it, we couldn't read it.  It is as infinite in scope as God Himself is.  Christians are still the recipients of God's internal and external 'meddling'.  We still don't understand our way.  That fact makes us pray:

 Psalm 141:4   Don't incline my heart to any evil thing ...  

    The psalmist knew that God searched his heart and responded to it according to its attitude towards Him.  If he was regarding idols, he knew that God would put him deeper in the idol's grip as payment for his foolishness and as a means of forcing a choice between Himself and the idol.  So the psalmist is asking for idols to be exposed so he can purify himself of them.  
    That is the best way to respond to God's sovereignty.  Mix it with His goodness and pray accordingly.  What we don't understand won't hurt us if we are seeking His paths.

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Matthew 9:14  
Then John's disciples came to him, saying, "Why do we
and the Pharisees fast often,
but your disciples do not fast?"


    The Pharisees have a justifiably bad reputation in our day.  Jesus paints them as religious monsters.
    But their type of hypocrisy is not what the average Christian envisions.  We can nearly picture men who turn the corner into their citadel with a sneer of fiendish pleasure at how easily they were duping the masses with their fake religion.
    As we can see by the verse in the box above, the Pharisees had a good reputation, even among good men.  They were the religious heroes of Israel.  Remember what a problem the Israelites had with idolatry in the Old Testament?  The Pharisees (their forbears) were mainly responsible for ridding Israel of idolatry.  Despite the Roman occupation, they held closely to Biblical teaching.  There was probably a time a couple or more generations earlier, at the inception of their group, when the Pharisees were a humble, commendable group.
    In our day, any time someone develops a strict attitude about some Biblical command or idea, we call him a Pharisee.  That's all Pharisee means to us- someone who is overly exacting in his service to God.
    But did Jesus ever say the Pharisees were too obedient?  Think about it.  Even when He critiqued their strict observances, He corrected them as a matter of balance:

 Matthew 23:23   Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and you have left aside the weightier matters of the Law: judgment, and mercy, and faith.  It was right to do these, and not to have left those aside.

    Wow!  How could Jesus resist blasting them for their seemingly ridiculous tithing practices!  Certainly a modern Christian would've made fun of them.  "You think God cares whether you gather every tenth plant out of your pathetic little garden?"
    But Jesus, far from berating their tithing, manages to commend  it, while still rebuking them.
    You see, Jesus had too much respect for God's commands to criticize the keeping of them.  Tithing was right.  Herbs were part of the Pharisees' possessions.  It was right for them to tithe so particularly:  "and not to have left those [the tithing practices] aside" was what Jesus said.
  It was only their neglect of more significant matters in Scripture that earned Jesus' censure.
    For the most part, our generation doesn't really understand what was wrong with the Pharisees.  Jesus never rebuked them for being too strict or too Biblical.  Whenever they negatively appraised His Sabbath practices, Jesus always corrected their Biblical understanding.  He never said they were too obedient in their Sabbath observance.  They were simply unBiblical in it.  Jesus claimed to have kept the Sabbath perfectly on every occasion.  (In fact, if He hadn't, He would have been a Law breaker and would have been disqualified as a sacrifice for sins.)
    Ironically, those who use "Pharisee" as an epithet for their enemies are probably the most like the Pharisees in our day.  They have their own approach to Scriptures which is self-evident to them, but which is actually greatly unbalanced.  So they are likely to accuse someone of being a Pharisee who touts ideas or doctrines which, in reality, restore the Biblical balance they themselves have removed.

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2 Timothy 1:13  
Hold fast a pattern of sound words
which you heard from me,
in faith and love in Christ Jesus.


    In this verse Paul commends to Timothy the need to be a systematic theologian.
    The word for "pattern" is from a verb meaning "to outline".  Timothy was to be able to outline his beliefs.  Hence, he was to develop a systematic way to think about and explain them.  Considering all the contrary doctrine he had to deal with (read through 1 and 2 Timothy), he needed a very tight and Biblically demonstrable system to defend the true faith.
    Whenever we explain our belief concerning a certain verse or a certain subject in Scripture, we always naturally do so according to our overall beliefs that we have inferred from Scriptures in general and from many verses in particular.  That's all a systematic theology is.  It is not only the professional theologian who systematizes his beliefs in Scripture, then; every Christian does it.  We do it well or badly or somewhere between, but we all have a system that informs any particular  verse or subject we handle.
    If we are wise, every particular  verse we consider also offers us fine tuning to our system.  Most Christians fail miserably here.  We have no facility in working with our system, so we simply keep our system and discard any particular notions to the contrary which arise.  
    This is ironic, because the Christians who complain the most loudly about people who 'overly' systematize their beliefs and are too doctrinal are the very ones who are the most rigid in their own systems!  Of course, they are assuming that they themselves are 'system-free'; that they hold solely to the testimony of Scripture with no added comment or arrangement.  Again, as we have said, this is impossible.  We all have an arrangement that holds Scriptures together in our thinking.  It is agreeable with Scriptures to a greater or lesser degree, but an arrangement is what we operate by.  
    The biggest ignoramus is the one who says, "No theology but the Bible; no creed but Christ."  Of course  every Christian assumes his 'summary of the faith' is Biblical and that his 'synopsis of Scriptures' properly represents Christ!  Of course it is our goal to have only a Biblical theology and only the true Christ as a result!  But it is flat dishonesty to deny that our approach to Scripture is  a theology, that our belief about Christ is our Christological creed (though there's no necessity to use a 'theological' term).  Worse, it is the height of arrogance to imply that my belief simply IS the embodiment of Biblical teaching.  Could any claim be more blasphemously ludicrous?
    Pastors are definitely to be good systematic theologians.  Christians without teaching gifts are ordinarily not expected to be able to outline their beliefs as well as the elders over them, but they are  responsible to recognize, for instance, errors in current theologies.  
    Christians in a congregation should be adopting the system of their teaching elders.  It is an assimilation that fairly well cannot be avoided.  So they should be praying for wisdom for their shepherds and  be coming to them with particulars they have problems fitting into the system.  Thus they will be good Bereans (Acts 17:10, 11), and pastors will be challenged to improve their systems.

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Psalm 66:13  
I will go into Your house
with burnt offerings;
I will pay You my vows


         The psalmist says he will meet at the saints' meeting.  God's house for this meeting is ultimately His people:

 1 Timothy 3:15  But if I delay, that you may know how to behave in the house of God, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

    The psalmist says he will come to the meeting with burnt offerings.  The Christian comes to the meeting of God's people with the ultimate burnt offering- that of Christ, who fulfilled the burnt offering (and the other four basic offerings of the Law found in Leviticus) in His death on the cross.
    The psalmist says He will pay to God his vows.  A vow is merely a specific promise.  The psalmist had made these vows in certain circumstances of his life:

 Psalm 66:14  those which my lips have uttered and my mouth has spoken in my trouble.

    The psalmist had been in some difficulty and had apparently made specific promises to God on the hope of God delivering him out of the trouble.  Notice that the psalmist isn't embarrassed about having 'made a deal' with God.  All this 'deal' was was thanks to God in advance.  "If you get me out of this difficulty, I will be presenting you this particular means of thanks."  There is nothing in such a vow that cheapens our relationship with God.
    Actually, vows are a way of insuring that our relationship with God does not become monotonous.  We are going to be giving Him certain expressions of thanks on a regular basis in our regular meetings with His people.  When we make an unusual offering, we shake up the natural sleepiness that surrounds things we do with great regularity.
    We we make a vow, we also give expression of God's ownership of us in a refreshing way.  All that we regularly give Him is good, but again, we can lose the fresh sense of His ownership of us through what we regularly give.  A vow out of the ordinary places His ownership of us in our thinking in a very authenticating way.  We need this kind of help to see things rightly.
    Vows, as extraordinary ('beyond the ordinary') gifts to God, challenge in a positive way the sincerity of our daily, ongoing, ordinary gifts to God.

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Ecclesiastes 12:13  
Let us hear the conclusion
of the whole matter.
Fear God,
and keep His commandments.
For this is the whole duty of man.


    The conclusion of the whole matter?  What whole matter?
    Well, what area of life had Solomon left out in Ecclesiastes?
    He defines his range of subject matter as everything "under the sun" (using the phrase twenty-seven times in the book).  But he is certainly seeking to find a unifying factor  for everything under the sun.  Apparently he has found it in this second to the last verse of the book (giving the reason for it in the last verse- that is, that God will judge everything everyone does).  The factor that unifies all of life is man's fearing and obeying God.
    So what about everything previous to this Final Conclusion?  Is it just so much useless overture to provide some buildup to his climax?
    No, indeed!  Every word of the eleven preceding chapters is a careful examination of all of life, comparing its features precisely while tentatively commending an Intermediate Conclusion- this to prepare us for his Final Conclusion.
    Solomon's Intermediate Conclusion has seven 'incarnations' in chapters one through eleven.  Each one advances his overall case one step further until we are left with the inevitable certainty of his Final Conclusion to fear and obey God.
    Here are the seven Intermediate Conclusions, so you can better track through them the unity of the book:

 1)  Eccl 2:24  There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God.
 2)  Eccl 3:12, 13  I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice, and to do good as long as they live.   Also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all his labor, is the gift of God.
 3)  Eccl 3:22  Therefore I saw that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who can bring him to see what will be after him?
 4)  Eccl 5:18 - 20  Behold, that which I have seen to be good and proper is for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor, in which he labors under the sun, all the days of his life which God has given him; for this is his portion.   Every man also to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to eat of it, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor -- this is the gift of God.   For he shall not often reflect on the days of his life; because God occupies him with the joy of his heart.
 5)  Eccl 8:15  Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be joyful: for that will accompany him in his labor all the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.
 6)  Eccl 9:7 - 10  Go your way -- eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.   Let your garments be always white, and don't let your head lack oil.   Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.   Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.
 7)  Eccl 11:9  Rejoice, young man, in your youth, And let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, And walk in the ways of your heart, And in the sight of your eyes; But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

    If you read the seventh Intermediate Conclusion, you notice a definite tone of sarcasm.  "Go have a great time in life; do as you please! ... but, oh yes- God will be judging you for it."
    Then if you read the sixth one, you can see that it has its sarcastic element too by inviting joy in the "days of your life of vanity", all your "days of vanity".
    The fifth Intermediate Conclusion introduced the first sarcastic ingredient by holding out the good things of life to those whom God "has given the power to eat of it".  In chapter six, Solomon then says that no one is guaranteed the power to eat.
    So by the increasing sarcasm of the seven Intermediate Conclusions, Solomon is already alerting the reader that eating, drinking, and enjoying his labor is not  the answer to life's puzzle, though it is  better than anything else at hand under the sun.
    Now he has us ready for the Final Conclusion.  Nothing sarcastic about this one.  Nor is it something based in earthly life, in our existence under the sun.  The answer to this life is to live it in relation to the One 'above the sun'- the One looking down here 'below the sun' on us, evaluating everything we do.
    These elements of Ecclesiastes- the vanity ruling the world, the need to fear  God, the need to obey Him- are all corroborated in the New Testament (if we needed such corroboration); Rom. 8:20; 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Jn. 5:3.
    We ought to be living as those who have ruled out all other conclusions to life.  We have either found it to be so ourselves, or we have simply learned from Solomon's testimony.  
    Most Christians don't do any comparing of conclusions.  They think that would indicate doubt.  Ecclesiastes is certainly not a book of doubt.  Solomon weaves a philosophy of life consistent with what's merely under the sun SO THAT he can discard it in favor of the true philosophy.  If we think the case through with him, we are all the stronger.  Doubts arise from refusing to look and analyze.

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Genesis 3:1  
Now the serpent was more cunning
than any beast of the field
which Jehovah God had made.
And he said to the woman,
Is it so that God has said,
You shall not eat
of every tree of the garden?


    Satan's basic approach has never changed.  He always asks, with every temptation, "Is it really so that God has spoken?"  It may come in the probing form of, "Are you sure you heard Him right?"  Or he may want us to wonder, "Is that all  God had to say on the matter?"
    Every act of disobedience is an act of unbelief.  Any time we sin, we have called God's truthfulness into question.  If we really believed Him, we wouldn't have done what He said not to.
    There is more than enough unbelief in each human heart to void the necessity for any Satanic temptation at all.  We do not need any devilish whispering to incline us toward self-indulgence; our own desires do that for us completely.  All Satan had to do was ask Eve a simple question:  she did the rest on her own.  And this was when she didn't have a sinful nature to start with.
    When we want to affirm the truthfulness of God's Word- now that  is when a demon is likely to step forward.  Whenever we seek to employ a Biblical principle in our lives, demons will be looking for ways to cause either our renouncing of it or our discouragement from continuing in it.
    And so the question- from our human unbelief or with the added urgings of Satan's minions- stays fairly well formed in our hearts:  "Has God spoken?  Surely He didn't really mean you couldn't do this ?  Surely He will not be terribly upset if you follow this course of action."
    Any continuing disobedience in our lives is an ongoing testimony that we don't believe God.    
    How does God put up with such blasphemy?  Actually He doesn't.  There are always consequences for unbelief and the resultant disobedience.  Small degrees of straying continued  turn into greater degrees.  Three New Testament books have in their last chapters procedures for recalling those who have strayed:

 James 5:19, 20  If anyone among you goes astray from the truth, brothers, and anyone turns him back,  know that the one turning a sinner from the error of his way will save the soul from death, and will hide a multitude of sins.

 1 John 5:16  If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask; and He shall give life to him, to the ones not sinning unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he should ask about that.

 Galatians 6:1  Brothers, if a man is overtaken in some deviation, you, the spiritual ones, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, that you not also be tempted.

    These authors knew that there would be straying.   They knew that a certain number of Christians would develop unbelieving habits sufficient to require retrieval.  When we cannot affirm it for ourselves- "Yes, God did speak that and He did  mean it"- we need a brother to affirm it for us.  We also need to be the brother who can do the affirming and retrieving.  
    The Galatians passage talks about a spirit of meekness.  Meekness simply acknowledges that we are just as to prone to stray as they are.  If we have managed to avoid the need for major recall so far, may the grace of God continue to work mightily in us.

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Hebrews 13:5  
Set your way of life without money-loving, being satisfied with present things;
for He has said,
"Not at all will I leave you,
not at all will I forsake you, never!"


    Contentedness.
    It is commanded.
    An unshakable contentedness consists of at least three factors:
 1)  Relationship;
 2)  Place; and
 3)  Function.
    Relationship is my personal interaction with others.  My contentedness in relationships will be manifested by my security in who I am and in my ability to love others freely.  I will love God first and then accord my neighbor the consideration for his good that I would and do accord myself- or which I wish accorded to me.
    Place is my sense of myself relative to my environment- both time and space.  I have a place in the kingdom of God as a Christian and I have a place in my community as a human.  In both, I must again have a secure feeling that God has made no mistakes.  I am where I am because He wants me here.  I both have things to offer and things to learn.
    Function is my awareness of my abilities.  God has given me certain capacities and certain commands.  I am content when I know His supply is sufficient for my obedience.  I know where I am common with all men.  Where I am unique, I know that God will develop me at a natural pace.  He accepts me as a satisfied recipient of His pruning.

    These three factors shape one another and interact with one another.  None of them really operates in isolation from the others.
    DIScontent is merely a challenge to one or more of these factors.
    DIScontent is, then, a call for me to improve  my understanding of my Relationships, my Place, my Function, or some combination of these three things.

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1 Corinthians 14:35  
But if [your women] desire to learn anything,
let them question their husbands at home;
for it is a shame for a woman
to speak in an assembly.


    Why would it be a shame for a woman to speak in a worship assembly of the saints?
    First of all, let us notice that  a woman's presence is not shameful.  Nor is woman shameful because she speaks.  It is only a shame for a woman to speak 'in church' (and 'church' just means assembly).
    Paul had just greatly reduced overall participation from the norm in the Corinthian worship service.  They had been having a veritable 'variety show' :

 1 Cor 14:26  Then what is it, brothers? When you come together, each one of you has a psalm, he has a teaching, he has a language, he has a revelation, he has an interpretation. Let all things be for building up.

    Paul does not cite this as normative nor  as acceptable.  What ensues in his directions brings about the curtailing of the Corinthian 'variety show':

 1 Cor 14:27  If one speaks in a language, let it be by two, or at the most three, and in succession. And let one interpret.
 1 Cor 14:29  And if there are two or three prophets, let them speak, and let the others judge.
    From their original 'free-for-all', Paul's 'censorship' reduced participation to a maximum of SIX- three tongues-speakers, and three prophets (teachers).
    "But what if the Holy Spirit tells me to say something after the sixth person has spoken?"
    Then He is testing you to see if you are obedient or self-willed.  Obviously, the Holy Spirit is not going to contradict Himself, and He is not going to rewrite Scriptures to allow seven speakers.  Paul indicated that two was a preferable number for each category.  From what he said in the rest of the chapter, one prophet explaining Scriptures would be fine for a whole service.
    Anyway, the point is this:  was anyone but a prophet or tongue-speaker allowed to speak?  No.  Therefore, any other speaker would have been shameful.  So a woman was only one category of shameful speakers in church.  Paul was merely adding the instruction about women after saying essentially the same thing about most other categories of people.  There are only a limited group of people whom God has gifted to lead in worship.
    The Corinthians were a group who were very confident in their spirituality (5:2), though in reality they were only babies (3:1).  Paul knew that the arrogant spirit in some of them would question his new dictates.  Therefore he precludes any debate by saying,

 1 Cor 14:36 - 38   What?  Was it from you that the word of God went out?  Or did it come to you alone?  If any man thinks himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him recognize the things which I write to you, that they are the commandment of the Lord.  But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.

    The Corinthians acted as though they were the new definition of a real church.  Paul says, "Really?  It all started with you, eh?"
    Many churches are the same today.  They have read 1 Corinthians, and they have left it as ignorant as they came.  They are confident the Lord is pleased with their worship.  What more can be said to them?

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Luke 9:45  
But they did not understand this saying,
and it was veiled from them
so that they might not perceive it.
And they feared to ask Him about this word.


    Jesus had just predicted His betrayal unto death.  The disciples, showing their usual spiritual acuity, failed totally in putting His saying together.  Furthermore, they were an average class of students:  no one dared to reveal his ignorance.
    But notice that the understanding of the matter was "veiled from them".  God was at work.  If we understand- He has granted light; if we fail to understand- He has withheld it.
    It wasn't time for them to understand these things yet.
    What's more, Jesus was prophesied to be isolated from human help in His work of redemption:

 Mark 14:27  And Jesus said to them, All of you will be offended in Me in this night, because it has been written: "I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." Zech. 13:7

    For Jesus to be cut off from any human help or even sympathy, His friends' minds had to be 'closed' on the subject.  God saw to that.
    More often, man's ignorance is a matter of God's judgment on him:

 2 Thess 2:11   And because of this, God will send to them a working of error, for them to believe the lie

    Scary stuff, eh?  Choose ignorance and receive ignorance multiplied.  This wouldn't work any differently in principle for a believer.  As long as he disbelieves something God said, he is calling increasing darkness on himself.
    The withholding of comprehension is an important part of Christian humility.  When the "great woman" came to Elisha, Elisha didn't know her problem, as he normally would have:

 2 Kings 4:27  And she came to the man of God to the hill, and she caught him by the feet. And Gehazi came near to push her away. And the man of God said, "Let her alone, for her soul is troubled within her. And Jehovah has hidden it from me and has not told me."

    It is critical for us to understand what a blessing light is and that the Lord is the one who gives or withholds light.

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2 Corinthians 5:20  
Then on behalf of Christ,
we are ambassadors,
as though God is exhorting through us,
we beseech on behalf of Christ,
Be reconciled to God.


    Why do we implore men to be reconciled to God?
    Is it because God wants them so badly?
    This reason does not seem Biblical:

 Psalm 18:41  They cried, but no one is there to save; to Jehovah, but He did not answer them.

    The God of evangelical Christendom would never pass up an opportunity to save someone.  The God of the Bible apparently would.  What's at the bottom of this?
    The supposed automatic love of God towards all men is not consistent with the eternal residence of many in the Lake of Fire.  God is righteous to all men because He is righteous, but He does not love all men because He is love.  God's love is a choice- it is not automatic.

    So, again, why do we invoke men to turn from their hostility and become friendly with God?
    It is because reconciling is what is right for the creature man to do.
    It is wrong for man to be unreconciled with God.  It was wrongdoing that made us God's enemies and wrongdoing that keeps us God's enemies.  It is a sin for man to be turned away from his Creator.  
    God's goodness is certainly an incentive in the equation- that He will receive all who call upon Him; but the reason we plead with men to give up their rebellion against God is because they should.  It is the HIGHEST of all man's shoulds in life.  The onus, in our persuasion, then, is on man.  
    How we have spoiled the gospel by representing God as the one apparently bearing the onus!  Men cannot see their own responsibility properly when we are trying to convince them of how badly God wants them back.  
    Did the apostles evangelize that way in the book of Acts?  No.  They never presented a God who pled with men.   THEY pled with men to accept the unconditional surrender terms of an offended God.
    What is God actually pleading to men through our pleading?

 Ezekiel 18:23  Do I actually delight in the death of the wicked? says the Lord Jehovah. Is it not that he should turn from his ways and live?

    We have mentioned two factors within God Himself:  His righteousness and His love- how they weigh differently in the matter of evangelism.  Now we consider God's delight.  When it comes to judgment, God does His job as judge.  He doesn't regret it a bit, but neither is it what gives Him joy.  Judgment glorifies Him, but seeing men's pain does not contact the pleasure centers within Him.
    So God is pleading with the unbeliever, "Why would you be so foolish as to continue in the path of destruction?"  He is not seeking to increase His own joy by gaining more converts.  He has infinite joy in even one conversion (a conversion which must be brought about by Himself).  He is merely facing rebellious man with the insanity of his own wickedness.  "You're only hurting yourself.  I don't get any thrill out of tracking you down and bringing you to justice."
    As far as we're concerned, though- "Blessed are those who mourn."  If God lacks joy in man's judgment, we should be positively saddened by their state.  We will be comforted one day when we finally see how completely they hated God; but until then, we should be deeply burdened that our fellow creatures- creatures just like us in every way; creatures related to us- are in such a skewed state.  Their resistance to God should give us greater and greater inner compulsion to persuasively reason them out of this dreadful state.

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Psalm 96:9  
Oh worship Jehovah
in the beauty of holiness


    Holiness has a beauty that is unique to it.
    "Holiness" simply means being set apart.
    Being set apart from the world to God is the appropriate state in which to worship.  When we are truly set apart from the world to God, this  is  beauty.  Our worship, then, is enveloped in the general cry, "I do not belong to the world anymore, O God!  I belong to You!"  Every other part of our worship is properly an extension of our acknowledgment of God alone as our  God.
    Conversely, our worship lacks beauty when it cannot be a sincere expression of our abandoning the world and embracing God.
    Our worship might be ever so sincere while we express it, but if worldliness directs any area of our daily lives, our worship is hypocrisy.
    If our worship is a cry for more holiness, this is acceptable to God.  But a true cry for holiness does not wallow in sin.
    Simple holiness.  
    Holiness must be simple-  no complicating issues:  I am sold out to God.  I want only Him.  I am listening to all that He is saying.  I am obeying and not making excuses.  I am accepting and not complaining.
    By the way, most of the frothy stuff that passes for worship today is shown in its true shabby colors when we merely read the rest of the verse:

 Psalm 96:9  Oh worship Jehovah in the beauty of holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth.

    The worship that treats God like my romantic interest fails to come before Him with trembling.  Part of the beauty of holiness' garb is the apparent shimmer actually caused by our shuddering before a holy God.

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Psalm 119:11  
I have hidden Your Word in my heart,
that I might not sin against You.


    When we think of this verse, we usually think of resisting temptations which would draw us into sin.
    There is another place we should also think of sin being negated by having God's sayings committed to memory:  PRAYER.
    Prayer is supposed to be a dialogue:  a two-way conversation.  Most men treat it as a monologue.  Words go up from me- mostly requests- but nothing God says directly enters the milieu.  It is simply assumed that He wants to hear a list of needs.
    We all pray according to our impression of God.  For many, God has no personality at all.  They have never 'fleshed Him out' by gaining a concept of Him through Scriptures.  Prayer will be pretty meaningless for them.  A 'grocery list' will be a maximum offering.
    Amazingly, though, even people with a significant body of Scriptural knowledge do not come to prayer with a Scriptural concept of God.  Their comprehension of Scriptures has been channeled in other directions.  They never calculate how the Scriptures they're learning will relate to prayer.  
    This may be one good definition of someone who is too theoretical.  If he only learns the Bible to grow a theology and solve conceptual problems, he has perhaps missed the main point.  The Bible is information to acquaint us with God.  If the information does not succeed in bringing us into His presence, then it was counterproductive information; i.e., we have misused the information.  Here we are, thinking we 'got it', while we have gained no skill in relating to God.
    On the other hand, many who are very free in their conversations with God have a rather flimsy foundation on which to build their supposed rapport.  They are making maximum application of their knowledge of God, but they are betraying the actual thinness of it in their talking to Him.
    To be very practical about this, here are some pointers:
 1)  Some Scriptures should be memorized for us to specifically bring before God in prayer;
 2)  Many Scriptures should be committed to memory.  All of them should be the subject of thoughtful meditations which can then turn into prayers; perhaps just asking God questions about them, seeking wisdom;
 3)  Psalms should be memorized and repeated to God as private prayer, seeking to 'adjust' our souls to convey the same thought and spirit as the psalmist;
 4)  Other Scriptural prayers should be thus memorized and utilized (Daniel 9, etc.);
 5)  All Scriptures we consider should be assimilated into prayer.
    All these pointers have as their objective making prayer a conversation:  a two-way street.  They also have as their objective keeping me from sinning through ignorance when I pray.
    Nor is prayer a loose type of conversation.  We are not 'shooting the breeze' with God.  We are speaking to Him on one level as a servant submitting to a master and on another level as a child submitting to a father.  But servants and children must both know what their superior says before they can return meaningful words  to him and carry out meaningful service to him.

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Luke 7:47  
For this reason I say to you,
Her many sins are remitted,
for she loved much.
But to whom little is forgiven,
he loves little.


    There's not a whole lot of value in coaxing our souls into a posture of total submission to Christ if we do not know:
 1)  What services Christ performs, and
 2)  Where our souls are in need of those services.
    Much religion today presses believers towards total commitment to Christ.  The implicit assumption is that the ONE missing ingredient in our relationship to God is total surrender.  We're holding back, not completely trusting Him all the way in everything; THEREFORE we are not experiencing God the way we should nor peace in our hearts.
    In all the exhortations in all the epistles, there is nothing like this emotional desperation towards surrender.  It is assumed that a Christian is a Christian because he has found Christ to be all in all.  The shortcoming of 'lack of surrender' in not dealt with at all.  This supposed shortcoming is actually a misidentification of the problem.
    Like the woman in Luke's story, the normal Christian has already discovered a maximum in two areas:
 1)  He has found himself  a complete sinner;
 2)  He has found Christ  a savior for all his sinfulness.  Christ is a complete savior.
    If we are foundering and casting about as to how to take hold of Christ more completely, then our understanding has failed to reach a maximum in one of those two areas; almost certainly the first.
    Of course, this problem is fostered by the conditions we have set up for initial conversion.  They are quite shallow conditions and do not address man at a real level.  In an effort to make the gospel 'easy' for men, we have made subsequent 'commitment' nearly impossible.  We are backtracking in commitment but unable to reexamine its foundation in our doctrine of conversion.  We assume that commitment should be as easy as conversion.  We just decide, right?  Well, it took some emotional swaying to convert us; it may just take continued emotional appeals to get us committed.
    The unrealistic conditions we create for conversion also create a lack of correlation between us and Christ.  He who is forgiven much loves much.  Therefore, he who takes a shortcut and misses the whole part about his utter sinfulness will also be missing an ocean of gratefulness to Christ.
    The Christ of modern salvation is usually saving only a tiny part of our lives.  Oh, He's getting all of me into Heaven, but the only area He actually had to touch was my rejection of Him.  Now that that's fixed, I'm alright.
    So we have a stunted Christ.  The other areas He can minister to me are optional.  We gave up the Biblical view of our total sinfulness, so we put holiness on hold too.  After all, who wants to hear sermons about our awfulness?
    We have a stunted 'us' as well.  There wasn't much for Christ to heal, so there's not much for Christ to renew.
    Big gyp, eh?  All beginning with a very sincere attempt to make salvation more accessible for everyone.  
    When God's doing the saving, we just can't afford to mess with the formula.

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Colossians 3:10
and having put on the new man  
which is being renewed
in full knowledge
 according to the image
of the One creating him


    A Christian is being recreated in the image of God.
    Man was originally created in God's image.
    If we were originally in God's image but are later remade in it, it follows that we lost part or all of that image in the meantime- through the Fall, of course.
    Whose image did we assume in the meantime?  That can be answered two ways:
 1)  The image of Adam- meaning, simply, fallen man:

 Genesis 5:3  And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years and fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and called his name Seth.

2)  The image of Satan- mirroring his self-love and rebellion:

 1 John 3:10  By this the children of God and the children of the devil are revealed: Everyone not practicing righteousness is not of God; also the one not loving his brother.

    This doctrinal information is important to internalize.  It lets us know who we were and who our unbelieving neighbor is.  
    It also gives us a tool for self-examination.
    If I know that I was previously imaging only sin and Satan (whatever might have remained of the image of God in me as an unbeliever was still being twisted to ungodly purposes), I can now take stock of myself by asking, "Who am I more reflecting presently?  Adam and Satan, or God?"  That's another way of asking, "How far along is my transformation into the image of Christ?"
    As long as sin remains in us, any honest introspection will shine back Adam and Satan's face to us.  But it should be a matter of deep shame if our actual walk  is reflecting them more than Christ.

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Psalm 87:2  
Jehovah loves the gates of Zion
more than all the tents of Jacob.


    God loves the gated arrangement surrounding His gathered people more  than He does their tents radiating out into the countryside.
    The implication is that He loves both- gates and tents; but He loves one more.  It is actually a little surprising to hear God comparing His loves, isn't it?  It somehow smacks of favoritism to our ears.  If He is love, doesn't He have to love everyone and everything equally?
    God being love actually has no bearing on whom He loves or how much.  God being love merely means that in Him is all the love there is.  If love exists anywhere outside Him, it had to come from Him.  
    The love within God still functions in conjunction with His volition, though.  Since He made creatures who can sin, and He hates sin, He is obviously not obligated to love the sin His creatures commit.  Psalm 5:5, 6 reveal that God even hates sinners themselves.  Once we establish that whom or what God loves is a choice, He might hate everything He made with no ill bearing on His character.  He is still love, and whom He loves or doesn't is still consistent with that.
    God's love must also be consistent with all His other attributes.  God is not a one-dimensional being; He is more than just  love.  Scriptures reveal that God is light, God is a consuming fire, God is jealous, etc..  All this is consistent with His being love.  He can no more contradict these other characteristics than He can contradict His love.  It remains for us to determine from His revelation of Himself how His attributes function together.
    Probably the key factor in coordinating the revelation of God's attributes is realizing which ones guide the others.  For instance, God can either love or hate, but can He be either righteous or unrighteous?  No.  God can never vary from His righteousness.  This tells us that He is being righteous both when He loves and when He hates.  His righteousness is a guiding characteristic, then.  His love is guided by His righteousness and His hate is guided by His righteousness.  Neither can contradict His righteousness.
    Anyway, this is a long explanation to cover the fact that God can love one thing more than another.
    And why does He love the city of Zion's gates  more than He loves Jacob's tents?
    The main contrast between gates and tents is that gates speak of a permanent dwelling and tents speak of temporary ones.  
    Most commentaries see the contrast as one between God's gathered people and His people in their individual dwelling places.  The extended lesson then becomes the relative importance of corporate worship over individual and family worship.  This is a valid point as established from other passages, but is it what Psalm 87:1 is teaching?
    Again, the actual comparison between city gates and peoples' tents is permanence versus impermanence.  Therefore, God loves Zion's gates because they represent His people in their permanent standing- their eternal standing.  God still loves all His peoples' tents, but the tents themselves speak of temporary dwelling AND temporary relationships.  Not ALL the people in those tents will ultimately be gathered within the gates of the heavenly Zion.
    Note that we have not inferred that the people in tents who will eventually be in Zion are loved less than the ones in Zion right now.  There is one perspective by which we could see all  the people- tent and city dwellers- in their ultimate state.  From this perspective, they are all citizens of Zion and all loved.  Indeed, the Psalm does not compare God's loves for His peoples at all.  It compares His love for their dwelling places.  God, then, is longing for the final consummation, when our temporary is done away and our permanence has taken its place.  However necessary our difficulties are for our final entry, God is still looking with anticipation to the other side of them.  God is not time-bound, but He experiences each moment genuinely.  While we  are groaning in these tents (2 Cor. 5:4, 2), His  sympathies groan with us.
    What an intriguing verse this Psalm 87:1 is!  
    By it, may we 'catch' God's excitement at our meeting at the end of the line.  The journey from here to there IS a line, but it will not be a straight, well-run one if we do not have this hope.

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1 Thessalonians 5:14  
... giving comfort to the feeble-hearted, supporting those with little strength,
and putting up with much from all.


    This is from the Bible in Basic English, which is a fairly paraphrased version; but in this instance it captures the Greek better than the more literal versions.
    We are to "comfort" the feeble-hearted.  The Greek is to "relate near".
    The "feeble-hearted" are literally the "small souls".
    "Supporting" is literally "holding oneself opposite to".
    "Those with little strength" are literally "strengthless"
    "Putting up with much" is literally "long-tempered".

    So laying out the verse according to its literal translations:
"... relate near to those of small soul;
   hold yourself across from those with no strength;
   be long-tempered with all."

    Now with this understanding going back towards more of a paraphrase:
"... get on the level of those with stunted souls;
   get a firm grip and don't let go of those who have lost all strength;
   give the maximum benefit of the doubt all the time."

    Interestingly, the first thing Paul had said in the verse was to "admonish the unruly."  He moved very easily from dealing sternly with hard-heads to dealing tenderly with soft-heads.

    Now here are the items pressing for out attention in this verse:
 1)  There are Christians whom Paul thought it right to characterize as mini-souled;
 2)  There are Christians whom Paul had no problem describing as powerless in some sense;
 3)  The more stalwart among us are to be a crutch for these feeble Christians.
    Paul would probably not approve of actually referring to the weak Christians as "small-souled" or "weaklings" publicly, even though they are.  Their condition requires extra attention because there is something deficient about them.  But we don't refer to physically or mentally deficient people as "gimpy" or "retard".
    How did these people wind up deficient in soul?
    In our day, this is the '$64,000 question', though it oughtn't be.  Many in our day would say that Satan has a hand in every deficiency.  But God said,

 Exodus 4:11  ... Who has made man's mouth?  Or who makes the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Is it not I, Jehovah?

    God ultimately takes credit for all inborn deficiencies.  This is not to say that men bear no responsibility when, for instance, women take drugs during pregnancy and harm their children.  But God still has a plan for those children, just as He still has a plan for those who are harmed by injustices outside the womb.  
    Some people were born with good strong souls, but through great difficulties in their lives, they 'cracked' and will never be the same again.  Does God commit to healing each one of them in this life?  Obviously not.  Paul doesn't say, "Pray a healing prayer for the small-souled."  Just as, instead of assuming Timothy's physical infirmities could be fully healed, he prescribed 'medicine' to curb their dominance:

 1 Timothy 5:23  Be no longer a drinker of water only, but use a little wine for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities.

    Jesus said the same thing about poverty.  "The poor you always have with you."  
    There is no intention on God's part of ridding the world of its variety of deficiencies yet.  He heals and relieves as often as He pleases, and we may ask for these blessings; but He also definitely plans to leave many crippled people among us- even spiritually crippled... the 'small-souled', for instance.
    But our challenge is not merely to accept the presence of the feeble; our command is to be their strength!  That would appear to be sufficient reason for God to leave them infirmed- so His body can manifest His love toward its members.
    This command can be very difficult to obey.  The weak are most often out-of-sorts.  They sense their deficiency, just as someone with an ulcer feels it gnawing within.  They can tell that they are not 'normal'.  They have probably already been minimized by others or treated outright rudely.  Most people can't help having an initially negative response towards them.  It is only by the empowering grace of God that we render the correct response of compassion.  But, again, it is very hard to be compassionate to someone who is either irritable or whiny or both.
    The dwarf-soul can sense when someone does not relate to him.  We are commanded to "relate near" to them.  This comes more naturally to some than to others, but we all have the capacity to imagine that if thus and such happened to me, my soul also might be sapped of confidence and strength.
    Every Christian should develop the capacity to sense quickly when he is dealing with a 'peer' or when he is relating to a shrunken soul.
    We must be very careful.  There are angry souls who are angry because they are shrunken, or because they are shrunken and mistreated.  Their smallness is very easily overlooked in light of their anger.
    This gives us good light on the truth that "love covers a multitude of sins."  When in doubt, should we assume the angry fellow is merely angry?  Of course, he has no excuse before God for his anger, but do I have an excuse for dismissing him hastily?  Am I not bound to postulate a possible ache in his soul that needs soothing?  Of course, in so doing, I may initially invite even greater anger from him.  The command to love is a difficult one when it is followed all the way.  It helps us see just a little of the great gap God crossed in reaching us.  The strongest of us is still a broken vessel that is being repaired.
    If God has provided me a 'size normal' soul, one reason is surely for me to provide strength to the less whole.  I'll stand in need of such strength many times myself.

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Psalm 80:18  
... make us live,
and we will call on Your name.


    The psalmist recognized that without God's enlivening power, neither he nor the rest of the people of God would call on God's name.  
    "Make us live," he says, implying that life was presently lacking.  Altogether lacking?  No, or else he could not even have made this request.  But life was definitely lacking.
    How can life be lacking in a creature made alive in Christ?  Two ways:
 1)  Until our glorification, death remains in us as sin remains in us.  Life 'seeps out' of an area of our lives as sin's vines creep over it.  There is always a need for infusion of life so that righteousness may be the dominant principle in our lives.

2)  There are specific deficiencies in our spirit that need attending.  
    a)  We choose to dwell in a certain sinful activity, attitude, or imagination;
    b)  We fight against a certain sin but never seem to gain practical dominance over it;
    c)  We struggle with the spirit of the age- lack of love, lack of holiness, outright worldliness, etc.

    Note that we will call on God's name WHEN He makes us alive.  Therefore, if I am not calling on God's name, I am lacking life in some definite and dangerous way.  Any of the above-mentioned swayings of sin can have their way with me if I am not calling on God's name.
    One last observation:  The validity of our calling on God is verified to a great degree by its constancy.  That is, our calling is real if we keep it up.  If we have a momentary panic at our spiritual peril, we may call on God and experience momentary relief.  But if we correctly perceive our need, we will set about a long-term calling on God that will develop into a pattern.

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Psalm 119:18  
Open my eyes
and I will see
marvels from Your Law.


    Beyond heart and mind, yet encompassing and directing both, is SEEING.  Perception, particularly spiritual perspective and insight, defines us.
    What  the eyes are opened to, we operate by.
    When we say that we were blind as unbelievers, we are saying that we had no starting place for operating by God's kingdom.  Jesus said:

 John 3:3  ... Truly, truly, I say to you, If one is not generated from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God.

    The word "perceive" would go just as well in place of "see".  Until the new birth, we are blind to the kingdom of Heaven and cannot operate in it.
    After the new birth, our eyes can still go dim.  After linking an eight-fold chain of Christian characteristics, Peter tells us how we may foolishly unlink them:

 2 Peter 1:9  For the one in whom these things are not present is blind, being shortsighted, taking on forgetfulness of the cleansing of his sins in time past.

    When we forget the Cross, we lose our spiritual eyesight.  The Cross, therefore, is the best spiritual eye medicine.  With the Crucified One before our eyes, the ground is laid for all godly characteristics blooming within us.
    What did Christ die on the cross to open our eyes to?  Reality.  Scriptures are Christ's description of God's perspective and kingdom: reality, that is.  When we ask with the psalmist that God opens our eyes to Scriptural truths, we are asking to be taught reality.
    We lost the view of the real world in the Garden.  We saw a make-believe world where we could assume God-like prerogatives, we could be kings.  Christ's blood purchases the straightening of this bent perspective on reality.  We see again who is  God.  We see that we are not  God.  We see why we are here.  It is for God and not for us.  Ironically, things finally work 'for us' when we see God, not us, as the focus again.
    What we see is who we are.  
    All attention must be paid to keeping our vision clear.

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Romans 7:15  
For that which I do,
I do not own:
for not what I will,
this I do;
but what I hate,
this I practice.


    Paul's struggle with his sinful nature- a nature at war with his righteous nature- puts him in a reflective and almost poetic mood.  The wording in Romans 7 may be Paul's most delicately intricate.  There is a definite pathos in his 'diary' here.
    The fact that Paul is writing about the a Christian's struggle with sin rather than chronicling a non-Christian's custody in sin is evident by his references to the law:

 Romans 7:22  For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man

    No unbeliever delights in God's law (Rom. 8:7).
    Again, the language of Romans 7 is very rich.  Consider the verse in the box above with a more literal rendering of some of the words :

Romans 7:15   For that which I am thoroughly working out in my life, I do not recognize/acknowledge as from me: for not what I determine, this I practice; but what I detest, this is what I perform.

    Some of the grammar is hard to put into English very literally.  "For not what I determine, this I practice" may be paraphrased to good effect:  "For something that arises apart from my willing it ends up being my routine of life."  
    The sinful routine Paul confesses is not uncontested or even dominant in his habit, though.  It is merely ever-present, ever-annoying, and ever-tainting.  For a blameless man, his sinful routine cannot be dominant.  It is  dominant in its extent, though.  Its voice cannot be quieted, though its suggestions can be denied.
    The question we would like to raise today is this:  Can the pervasive inward affect of sin make us morally irresolute?  That is, we may not have actually compromised righteousness in our behavior, but we are not really inwardly resistant against unrighteousness.
    Or, on the other hand, does a blameless position demand that we be morally resolute- that though sin is tugging and tainting, our true desire is for righteousness?
    Paul confesses to doing what he hates.  Is he saying that the hateful deeds are always more or less surprise attacks?  That they were never the fruit of premeditation?  How far would Paul have to trace back his motives to find sin?
    Paul does not seem to be denying premeditation.  He is, however, safeguarding an opposite premeditation and inclination towards righteousness.
    Paul actually has two "I's" in Romans 7.  Both are he, but both are not permanent.  The uneasy coexistence of these two "me's" is settled at the end of the chapter:

 Romans 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then I myself with the mind truly serve the Law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin.

    Paul doesn't start this section with a definition of "I myself" and 'the fleshly me'- rather, he works towards and ends with it.  "I myself" is obviously "the real me"- the new man created in Christ.  This "me" is permanent and will win in the end.  'The flesh in me' is still 100% me, but it is destined for destruction and has no direct power to order me as a Christian about.  It can throw mud on my acts and motives, but it cannot change their basic righteous nature.
    But if it is 100% "me" throwing mud on "me", this becomes a very debilitating condition.  How can I vindicate my motives?  Could it be the real me who wants to sin?
    Paul's answer seems to lie in which "me" is dominant.  Dominance is often undetermined until after a long struggle.  There will be areas in our lives where we will alternately be wrestling from a position of advantage and then of disadvantage.  Paul's point is that we need never yield.  If we yield, we willingly chose to yield.  Sin never "makes" us do wrong against our wills.  Smudges our motives with dirt-?  Yes.  Causes our good efforts to come out wrong-?  Yes; but makes us  choose an act of sin (word or deed)-?  No.
    Therefore, we must be morally resolute.  We must not think that we have been mastered because our motives are mixed.  Even when a sinful motive seems to be in the ascendancy, until we have carried out  the suggested act, the issue has not been decided.  Of course, there are some areas in our thoughts where sin is defined by our dwelling on the thought.  But even then, there comes a point when we either give in or not  to letting the thought settle in our minds.
    Be morally resolute.  Be decisive.  Yes, it's really me that wants the unrighteous thing.  But it's even more the real me who's deciding right now to think and do right according to Christ.

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Psalm 87:3  
Glorious things are spoken of you,
O city of God.


    This statement is actually a completion of a contrast made in the previous verse:

 Psalm 87:2  Jehovah loves the gates of Zion more than all the tents of Jacob.

    We considered this contrast five devotions earlier.  Gates are permanent; tents are temporary.  God longs for our permanent state.  He grieves over our temporary state.  We wisely grieve with Him.
    The verse in the box above follows the contrast with a praise of the permanent- this time of the whole city which the gates give entrance to.
    By implication, our temporary tents are not praiseworthy.  Of course not.  They are vestiges of the Fall.  Yes, our bodies are also vestiges of God's original creation, but since the Fall, we look to God's REcreation of all things as the main hope for our corruptible bodies.
    Hence, some 'angst' here is a good thing.  "Angst" is a term for a pervading sort of anxiety.  If we can detach it from its original technical usage, it aptly describes the general dissatisfaction a Christian should have with this fallen world and with his own fallenness.  The present world should make us a bit 'antsy':

 Romans 8:23  And not only so, but also we ourselves having the firstfruit of the Spirit, also we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly expecting adoption, the redemption of our body

    With this anxious backdrop, then, we can be stabilized by thoughts of what is permanent, what is to come.
    So far, simple enough.
    But why is it so hard to keep such an attitude within us?  Why can't we constantly bear our anxt in mind unto its transformation into hope for the future- infusing us with present courage?
    The reason is that the world argues so loudly and effectively that IT is permanent.  It looks like it is permanent.  Our experience of it agrees that it is.  It is our future state that seems unreal.  Only our faith informs us otherwise.
    Also, because anxt is unpleasant, it seems somehow illogical to use it  to arrive at a hopeful state of mind.  It does not naturally occur to us to use our angst to a positive end.  Again, such use is only apprehended by faith.
    Glorious things are spoken of you, O permanent city of God!  I  will be one of the ones who speaks such things of you!  I will do so in spite of my impermanence!  I will do so because of my impermanence!

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Proverbs 21:15  
It is joy to the just
to do justice

    Adam was originally just.
    When a just spirit is returned to us, holiness should flow with what is originally and truly human in us.  Justice should be a joy to us.  Goodness should be agreeable to us.
    There should be a 'naturalness' to our holiness.  Our holiness should not have a forced feel to it.  Righteousness was the original way man worked.  Our personality and holiness should be a perfect fit.

    On the other hand, who do you know who doesn't have a discrepancy between his knowledge of holiness and his practice of it?  
    How can we arrive at the practice of holiness without 'forcing' ourselves to advance from where we are to  there?  We cannot be satisfied with a natural demeanor that is lacking true holiness.  We must rise and develop through awkward stages.  Better an honest attempt at true holiness through a stilted personality than a natural personality with worldliness.
    So there is an interplay between our striving and our arriving.  But this does not mean that we must have an unnatural or forced holiness until we have arrived at a natural one.  Our piety may be less natural as we mature, but we should always seek to see a genuine humanness in our practice of Christianity.  We should never, for instance,adopt a harsh and severe manner, lacking heart.

 Ezekiel 36:26  And I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give to you a heart of flesh.

    We're sort of like Pinocchio who finally gets to be a real boy.  A Christian is being reintroduced to true humanity.  He finally gets a real human heart, a "heart of flesh".  But that heart is beating righteousness for the first time.  It simply must learn how righteousness assumes a fullness of character and personality.
    Maturity is not freedom from struggle, though.  One sign of our maturity, in fact, is when we are no longer surprised by the struggle with our sinfulness; when the depths of our sinfulness no longer really shocks us.  Holiness will never feel at home with the sin that is native to us.  The seasoned Christian also knows he will never have the complete upper hand on sin.  His naturalness is not simply 'doing what comes naturally'.
    Righteousness is how a human is supposed to be.  It is not really an add-on and should therefore not be artificial.
    The search for holiness comes first and, if necessary, must be our sole concern, even at the expense of a relaxed personality.  But ultimately the return of our whole humanity must involve the full and pleasant agreement of our spirits with the ways of God.  There should finally be a fit, an ease, and a grace that could never have been there before.

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Proverbs 3:21  
My son,
do not let them
depart from your eyes;
keep sound wisdom and judgment,


    "Do not let them depart from your eyes."  That is, do not let the wisdom and knowledge that come from God turn aside from your eyes.  Always have them before you.  Always be regarding them, thinking on them.
    There is a mandate that wisdom can have no lapses in our life.  Wisdom must become our constant companion:

 Proverbs 7:2, 3  Keep my commands and live, and my law as the pupil of your eye.  Tie them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

    Any way in which we deal with wisdom only occasionally will certainly mean that we are acting by foolishness  the remainder of the time.  We can afford to have no lapses of wisdom in our lives.

    There is another sense, however, in which we can further say that wisdom learns from its lapses.  When we have committed to keeping wisdom before us, we will find that we are still subject to many stumbles.  We may greatly reduce lapses in our attention to wisdom, but then our attention is so weak and imperfect that we still manage to stray into foolishness often.  Our very application of wisdom is often misguided enough to come out foolishness.
    In his lapses from wisdom into folly, the wise man has at least one thing:  He has the tools on hand to learn from his missteps.  He comes to realize that his most valuable teacher is often his hindsight into his own untrustworthy character.  He missed wisdom by overconfidence.  He assumed he understood when his learning had been approached too hastily.  His lessons did not truly distill into his soul.

    Wisdom can have no lapses.
    Wisdom learns from its lapses.
    Is the fear of the Lord your aim in life?  Then these two maxims will surely be your mottos.  In His Instruction you will "meditate day and night."  From His presence you will not depart, but you will "pray without ceasing."  
    Your on-the-job training will give you many a skinned knuckle; but you will always have salve on hand for your healing.  You will have unintentional lapses, but you will remember the pocket from which to draw your jar of salve.

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1 Timothy 4:10  
for to this we also labor and are reproached,
because we hope on the living God,
who is Savior of all men,
especially of believers.


    God is the savior of all men.
    Will all men end up in Heaven?  No.  Therefore, He is not saving all men's souls from the penalty and power of sin.
    Hence, there is another sense in which God can also save men.
    What does "savior" mean?  It means one who delivers.  Is deliverance from sin the only kind of deliverance?  No.  If God is preserving men's lives to continue living daily upon the earth, He is most certainly delivering them from death.  As long as we understand that men do not have independent power to draw breath, we should thereby understand that God is their physical savior every moment.
    There are other lesser senses of salvation we could talk about as well.  Mankind deserves to be judged and wiped from the face of the earth for its sins.  God mercifully withholds judgment for the time being.  Man is not delivered from sin, but is delivered every day from the judgment he deserves.
    One theological question we can ask in terms of the lesser forms of salvation is whether or not one of God's universal salvations (physical preservation or withholding of judgment) is dispensed in terms of a covenant.  The answer is Yes.  God's covenant with Noah is a covenant with all mankind and guarantees deliverance from deserved judgment and guarantees preservation of life.

 Genesis 9:11  And I have established My covenant with you, and all flesh shall not be cut off again by the waters of a flood; nor shall there ever again be a flood to destroy the earth.

    Does the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31 - 33) contain any lesser kind of salvation for any of its members?  No, all in the New Covenant are saved to the uttermost.  In the Old Covenant, some were saved to the uttermost, while others only enjoyed the national type blessings of Israel.  In the New Covenant, those who experience only peripheral benefits are outside the Covenant.  They may be in the 'suburbs' of the Covenant by being in the church community, but they are not 'saved' in any other sense than men outside the Church are.
    We might make provision for a lesser sense of salvation inside the church for those who escape the world temporarily, but their case seems to be one which is more of judgment than salvation:

2 Peter 2:20  For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

    Paul wants us to see God as a saving God per the verse in the box up top.  He wants us to see God saving every man every day- though not in every way.   He is the Savior "especially" of believers.  The salvation of believers is in a separate and higher category- infinitely higher.  From the platform of this greatest salvation, though, we have the best vantage point to appreciate God's lesser, yet magnificent and magnanimous, forms of salvation.  By these we, with a good will, testify to men of a saving God.  He expresses a good will towards them by preservation and longsuffering.  We express good will towards them by compassionate persuasion.

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