Possessing, Not Receiving, The Promises of God

My post from earlier today, although only a few minutes old, got me to thinking about how often we encourage people to "receive" some gift or promise from God. As I wrote earlier I used the phrase "possess the promise" of God. I don't know why I wrote it that way, and I have no clue why I started thinking about it, but we must encourage people to possess the promises of God instead of just receive the promises of God.

"BLASPHEMER!" I hear you say. I know I am flying in the face of what we customarily practice in many corners of Western Christianity, but at least give me two minutes to make my case.

The Promised Land was called the Promised Land because it was promised by God. (duh) For the descendents of Israel to recieve the Promised Land they had to possess the Promised Land. The difference between possessing and receiving is that the former is active while the latter is passive. To receive something is to wait on someone to give something to you. To take possession of something requires one to take action.

If by "receive" we mean "believe", then I would agree that we must receive the promises of God. However, for the promises to fulfill their value to us we must possess them as well. The Jewish people could have "received" the Promised Land for all eternity, but the full value and enjoyment of being the recipients of that promise was not theirs until they possessed the land - until they possessed the promise.

What promise from God have you received that you are not possessing? What words of hope and encouragement has he spoken to you that you are passively waiting on him to fulfill? It is time for you to quit waiting on circumstances to change. It is time for you to make whatever changes you need to make, to take the action you need to take, to set aside the things that are hindering you, and POSSESS THE PROMISE OF GOD!

"Be Strong and Courageous"

Hebrew is not my forté, neither is Greek for that matter, but I have at least studied Greek enough to know some of the basics. Never the less, I felt impressed to explore the meanings of some Hebrew words today, for the only thing that jumped out at me in today’s reading was the word “strong” in Joshua 23:6 . It only shows up once today, but whenever this word shows up in the context of possessing the Promised Land, it seems to get my attention. I decided to do a little study of the word in the book of Joshua. Here is what I discovered.

Simply put, the word means "be(come) strong, strengthen, prevail, harden, be courageous, be sore (meaning be severe)"[1] The Hebrew word shows up eight times in the book of Joshua. Five of those times the word “courageous” shows up with it. Courageous means "be stout, strong, alert, bold, be solid, hard."

Most interestingly, it shows up four times in the first chapter as Joshua is receiving instructions and encouragement from the Lord about leading the people into the Promised Land. Three times God tells him “be strong and courageous.” ( Joshua 1:6-9 ) The fourth time the encouragement comes from the people Joshua will be leading. (Joshua 1:18) The context tells us the exhortations are not just about the battles that are waiting to be fought. It is more about adhering to the covenant made between God and his people with the battles being an extension or manifestation of keeping the covenant with God. The exhortation to “be strong and courageous” is an exhortation to be unwavering in one’s application of God’s instructions – His Word.

There are several important implications for us.

1. It takes effort on our part to fully receive and enjoy the benefits of God’s word to us. God may promise it, but we have to possess it.
2. Possessing the promises of God is not for the faint of heart. The effort that must be made needs strength and courage. This is because we are to act on our conviction of God’s promises to us in spite of what the physical circumstances appear to be. There were fortified cities and warriors of great stature in the land, but the people of God were to act on the basis of God’s promise rather than what the physical circumstances might seem to dictate. However, the good news is the Holy Spirit lives in us making it possible to perceive and act on the promise of God in spite of the our circumstances.
3. Obedience to God is important. It seems that full-time obedience is a pre-requisite for winning the incidental battles we fight. I don’t mean to imply we “earn” God’s good favor and therefore he grants us a “win” here and there. I think it’s more akin to positioning ourselves to be a conduit of God’s grace. Where God’s grace flows there is power. Willful sin somehow gums up the works and impedes the exercise of that power. Now you must treat this idea with caution as I am not sure I am right, but I put it out there in hopes of getting some feedback which, one way or the other, will help me as I wrestle with this thought.

She Left Her Jar: Questions Every Heart Asks

John 4:4-29, 39-42

A few days ago, I posted some thoughts on John 4. Having given it some more thought, there were four subconcsious questions driving the women's interractions with Jesus. These four questions are in the heart of every person as they move toward a life with God. I shared my thoughts with the New Life Alamosa congregation this morning. If you find the outline below intriguing, you may want to go to www.newlifealamosa.org where podcasts of the messages presented on Sunday mornings will soon be available.

Why Would You Have Anything To Do With Me?
She was a Samaritan
She was a woman
She was an outcast

Can I Trust You?
She wondered about Jesus' motives.
Are you greater than Jacob?
Jesus was focused on the spirtual while the woman was mired in the physical.

Where Can I Find God?
Jesus confronts her with the truth of her situation.
In response, she wants to know where she can go to connect with God.
She is still rooted in the physical
Jesus helps her move to the spiritual

Can You Help Me?
She speaks of the Messiah
Jesus reveals that he is the Messiah.

A Woman Transformed
The woman makes the leap from the physical to the spiritual
She leaves her jar
She moves from being someone who goes to draw water when no one else would normally be there to one who is intentionally engaging others.

As the people of God we not only ask these questions, we must embody the answers.

Why Would You Have Anything To Do With Me?
Is your life an open invitation?
Are you assertively building relationships?

Can I Trust You?
Are you a safe person?
Will you be shocked by my sin?
Will my sin illicit grace or judgement?
Will you see past my insecure behavior?

Where Can I Find God?
Is Jesus alive and well in you?
Is Jesus alive and well in your church?

Can You Help Me?
Will you invest time with me?
Will you help me connect with other Christ followers?
Will you tell me about Jesus?

One of the most interesting visuals in this encounter is the woman's jar. She brought it to the well with a focus on meeting her physical needs. Her encounter with Jesus causes a shift in her focus from the physical to the spiritual, from the temporal to the eternal, from the mundane to the transformational. What's in your jar? What are you so focused on that it is distracting you from the truly imporant? Maybe it's time for you to leave your jar behind.

God Will Do What He Says He Will Do

Joshua 21:45 (NIV)45 Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.[1]

God always does what he promises. He will always do what he says he will do. If someone thinks God has failed to deliver what he promised to deliver, they might be better served to question their interpretation of what they believe God said, rather than question God. God's Word is wholly reliable and without error. Our interpretation and application of it is not.

[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

“Get To” not “Got To”

Jesus says “…do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set.” (John 5:45 NIV)

Many of us are confused about the relationship between the law of God and the grace of Jesus Christ. Very often we treat the grace of Christ as if it supplanted the law of God, yet Jesus himself said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17)[1] While many of us know this academically, practically we overemphasize the law, or grace, which leaves us an unsatisfying life with God and an inaccurate witness.

The New Testament teaches us that the law has at least two purposes; to lead us to Christ (Galatians 3:24) and to teach us how to live in love (Matthew 22:37-40 ). In many respects, the law actually foreshadows the kind of life God wants us to have, but the law, by itself, was incapable of producing that life. It was only capable of exposing our need for a savior while giving us a hint of what life could be.

Unfortunately, we are still left with a dilemma. How do we reconcile the law of God with the grace of God? I think Kevin Myers, a pastor in the Atlanta area frames it best. He basically says we “get to” rather than we “got to.” We “get to” live the life of God. Earning a life with God is no longer a “got to” proposition. Through the grace of Christ we “get to” live the life of God with God.

The work of Christ not only provides an avenue of forgiveness for our sin, but a conduit of power propelling us toward sin-free living. That conduit is the Holy Spirit, God, living within us. When we are living a truly spiritual life, that is to say living by the Spirit, then we fulfill the law of God. (Galatians 5:16-18 ) The Law becomes a guide, a measuring stick, to which we compare our lives. The degree to which our lives measure up indicates to us how well we are nurturing our relationship with Christ and experiencing the joy of living in his grace.

We are still expected to fulfill the law of God, but the difference is found in how we fulfill it. Do we fulfill that law as a goal through our own efforts? Or rather do we fulfill the law almost as a by-product of nurturing the life of Christ within? The former is from the outside in while the latter is from the inside out. I believe the latter is God’s plan, and it is even found throughout the Old Testament books of the Law. To cite one example, in Deuteronomy we read, “The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.”[2]

© 2007, Ed Wandling

[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Take Jesus at his word, and...

John 4:50b (NIV)50 …The man took Jesus at his word and departed.[1]

These words jumped out at me as I read today. The son of a royal official was ill. The Father went to Jesus and begged him to heal his son. Instead of going with the man, Jesus told him that his son would live. At that, “The man took Jesus at his word and departed.”

Two thoughts come to mind. The first has to do with how we seem to struggle with accepting the idea that God will do what he says he will do. The anxiety and worry with which we approach some of life’s situations betray our lack of trust in him.

The second thought keys off of what the man did. He believed…and departed. What would we do if we truly believed? Jesus said, “…if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”[2] I’ve heard the question put this way. “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” In my own life in the lives of those who have trusted their thoughts with me, more often our actions are shaped by our fears of what we cannot do than by our belief in what Jesus said we can do.

God places dreams in the hearts of every man and woman – a desire for something to be better tomorrow than what it is today. But when we fail to take God at his word regarding what he wants to accomplish in and through our lives, we allow our fears, anxieties, and insecurities to keep us from fulfilling the destiny God has planned for us.
It is time we stopped defining our world and our existence in our own limited view. It’s time for us to take God at his word, and…

© 2007, Ed Wandling

[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

How do People Begin to Believe in Jesus?

In John 4 we find Jesus traveling through Samaria, a region Jews regularyly avoided in New Testament times for fear of coming in contact with a Samaritan and thus becoming "unclean." He ends up having a discussion with a Samaritan woman. She, along with many Samaritans from her town, eventually "believed in him."

Is there a pattern of realizations here that are common to people in their journey toward "believ[ing] in Jesus?"

1. John 4:9 - Do we find it hard to believe that God might speak to us as the woman found it hard to believe a Jew would speak to a Samaritan.
2. John 4:11 - Do we share the same disbelief about God being capable of doing what he says he can do as the woman had about Jesus's ability to draw water?
3. John 4:15 - Do we misunderstand the promises God makes to us, seeking less than what he is able to deliver just as the woman misunderstood what Jesus was offering.
4. John 4:17 - Are we even more surprised that God wants to know us, when we discover the depths of his insight into who we are?
5. John 4:19-24 - While this contains more about what Jesus says than what the woman says, I think this interchange is about making the leap from physical to spiritual realities. Surely the statement about worshipping in truth was part of what led the woman to make her next comment.
6. John 4:25 - OK. I know this is reading between the lines a bit, but I think the woman is suspecting that Jesus is the Messiah. He has just taught her something. He has just explained something. She responds by saying the Messiah will "explain everything" to us. Is she saying, "I think I know who you might be but I'm not sure yet?"
7. John 4:29 - She, even though she may not be sure yet herself, invites people from the town to come meet this man and suggests, in a question, he might be the Christ.
8. John 4:40 - The people from the town want to spend some time with Jesus, and urge him to stay. He stays two days. Isn't it natural to want to spend time with him as you begin to realize who he is. In 4:41 it says monay more came to believe in him because of his words, presumably words he was able to speak during the extra time.
9. John 4:42 The people come to the place where they believe in Jesus based on their own relationship with him verses the relationship someone else has with him.

What do you think? Am I on to something here, or have I pushed thing too far? What would you add? What would you say differently? If this is the progression that some people go through, then I believe there are implications for how the church should engage people. Maybe I can deal with that in a future post. In the mean time, feel free to make your own suggestions.

© 2007, Ed Wandling