Shalom Aleichem...
Reflections is a weekly Christian Teaching Ministry. Each week we will talk about the Bible and lessons we can put to use in our daily life. We will try to, on a weekly basis, provide to you stories, thoughts, and just easy ways to live your life on a straight path.
THIS WEEK'S TEACHING....November 5, 2018
Faith is marked by a paradox.
Sometimes we appear to lose in order to win!
What are the Two Faces of Faith?
- the Crown and the Cross
Scripture for this week: Hebrews 11: 13, 32-40; 12: 1-3
What an inspiration to faith we have found in this 11th chapter of Hebrews! It’s one of the great passages of the Bible, worthy of a commitment to study and meditation. I hope you that the Word has fired up your faith. In these messages we’ve met --
∙ Abel whose faith caused him to offer a pleasing sacrifice to God.,
∙ Noah whose faith led him to believe God’s command and to build an ark which saved his family,
∙ Abraham, the father of the faithful, who clung to the promises of God when impossibilities were all that he could see on life’s horizon,
∙ Moses, whose faith led him to seek the eternal treasures of heaven without a single glance backwards at the treasures of Egypt where he had been a prince!
In the great stories of the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction Jericho, we learned that God led His people into places where all they could do was look up... and see His deliverance. And when they responded in faith, they saw God working mighty miracles on their behalf. My prayer that is you have looked up often this week.
The greatest evidence of a living faith is an ongoing dialogue with God. IF we love and trust Him, we will inevitably share our lives and needs with Him. IF faith is just a concept, a novel idea to us, we will have to be reminded and prompted to prayer and praise. Have you turned to Him often this week, praying as naturally as you breathe? By that measure, are you a person of faith?
In this final teaching on faith, we come to the paradox of faith – that which seems to find no response from heaven. In the text that we will read in a moment, we learn that there were people of great faith whose prayers for deliverance were not met with a spectacular miracle. It’s easy to trust God when the sea is parting, when the walls are falling, when His voice is clearly coming through to our spirit. But what about those days when He falls silent?
We can all identify with the Psalmist who wrote of God’s wonderful acts for others but who wonders where God is at the present. He, in a time of spiritual agony, cries... Psalm 44
We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago.
2 With your hand you drove out the nations and planted our fathers; you crushed the peoples and made our fathers flourish.
. . . 9 But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies. 10 You made us retreat before the enemy, and our adversaries have plundered us. 11 You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations.
. . .17 All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. 18 Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. 19 But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness. 20 If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, 21 would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart? 22 Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
23 Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. 24 Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression? 25 We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. 26 Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love.
In the Scripture this week, we see that there are two faces of faith. One is triumphant, the other patiently enduring suffering. One is the face of Jesus of the Cross, the other the face of Christ, the Crowned King of Heaven. We love the latter while fearing the former. Who wants the suffering of the cross? We all want the triumph of the Resurrection.
There is a popular form of Christianity loose in America today that is focused on faith a ticket to the American dream. Emphasizing just one face of faith, the preachers of health, wealth, and happiness tell their congregations: “Claim your rightful place as King’s Kids. Claim your healing now. With enough faith, you can unlock the treasure house of God and live rich and successful lives.”
And there is enough truth in this kind of preaching that it isn’t immediately detected as the heresy that it actually is. Faith IS a key to receiving God’s blessings. Faith is a personal choice, a response I can choose in times of difficulty that often leads me to healing and success. However, it is a real mistake to think of God as a vending machine of favors that releases His gifts to us IF we just believe enough! Such ‘faith’ is centered on me, myself, and I rather than on the purposeful, plan of a loving Father God.
On the other side, there is a practice of Christianity that expects little from the God worshiped. The role of suffering is so emphasized, that the Believer does not pray for deliverance or healing. A kind of desperate resignation to fate is mistaken for genuine faith. God becomes a remote, even cruel deity, that abandons His children to tough it out through life. This practice is as wrong as the first though at first glance it seems to be very spiritual and deep, it is – in reality – a serious deviation from Biblical, world-changing faith that wrestles with the sin and suffering in the world.
Faith is a way of life that surrenders to God and allows Him to do as He wills with us and for us. Genuine faith trusts Him to accomplish His eternal purposes which are sometimes beyond our finite ability to understand. It allows for periods of time when there is no outward evidence of God at work. Yet, genuine faith causes the Believer to continue to resist temptation and to overcome the Evil One.
Faith has two faces... the cross and the crown. They are inseparable parts of the whole of faith.
What we’ve just read is so very difficult for us to accept, indeed, to even understand given our success oriented culture. We evaluate most things quite pragmatically... Does it work? What’s the end result?
So we develop a half-understanding about faith.
∙ If we pray for healing, but do not recover... we generally assume that something is wrong with our faith.
∙ If we pray for a wayward child or spouse and that one does not change, we think our faith must be weak
and ineffective.
∙ When our financial situation does not turn around, somehow we conclude that our faith and prayers were
wrong.
AND many, many times that is absolutely true. Jesus was unable to many miracles in his hometown. Why? Matthew 13 says it was because the people didn’t believe in Him. The people’s faithlessness blocked the work of God among them! James says that our prayers go unanswered because we “ask with wrong motives.”
In Psalm 66:18 we are warned that sin destroys the effectiveness of our faith, breaking our close connection with the Lord. So it is important to understand that the way that we exercise faith does have some significant part in the response of God.
HOWEVER....
In light of our text, we also must understand that there are times when no matter the quality of our faith, no matter our careful surrender of motives, no matter that we have examined our hearts and lives for unworthy thoughts and actions; our prayers will seem to be unheard and unanswered. [ re-read v. 13, 16, 39 ]
Twice the Holy Spirit inspired the writer to remind us that even men and women of great and real faith suffered and some died only hoping for the promise of God.
So...Why?
Verse 40 gives us insight into the mind of God. “God had planned something better. . .” In His wisdom and purpose, He looked past their immediate comfort and desire. How hard it is for us to accept that our immediate comfort is not the highest priority in God’s will. Yet, each of us knows that there are times when a greater good prevails.
What good parent enjoys seeing his son or daughter in a tough time in life? When I see my kids wrestling with the consequences of an unwise decision, my first desire is to rush in and make it better. BUT, if I do that all the time, they never learn. The pain can produce character, the experiences can produce wisdom. So our Father in heaven sometimes allows us to go through difficult moments when HE does not rush in with a fix.
In this text, God allows us to see that there is a future place... a heavenly home that we all will share.
∙ In eternity there is no deferral of promises to the future, for there is no future!
∙ In heaven, there are no lessons in faith for we will have perfect knowledge.
∙ In heaven, there are no consequences for sin, for sin is banished and we are perfectly holy.
∙ In heaven, our Father no longer has to say no to our requests for our minds and His mind are one and all our requests of Him will be perfectly in synch with His purposes!
So, how does this understanding that faith has two faces.... one triumphant, the Crown; one suffering, the Cross ... effect us? What is our response?
Go back to the text once again.
This conclusion urges us to stay the course regardless of short-term moments of doubt and of frustrations. The whole reasoning of chapter 11 rests squarely on this passage.
The Christian life is set in the metaphor of the athletic competition. The writer asks us to imagine ourselves in an arena, running a race surrounded by tiers of enthusiastic fans that once were runners themselves. These people are urging us on to complete the race. They offer their experience as testimony that God is faithful. Look at our lives, look at the way things worked together for good for us... and don’t quit. “Don’t give up just because you don’t see the finish line yet! Stay the course!” they yell to us.
∙ The experience of Abraham on Mt. Moriah when he obediently took his son for a sacrifice, only to find a ram caught in the thicket to offer as a substitute, should teach us to recognize God as Yahweh Yireh – the LORD, our Provider! Abraham urges us on in the race from the bleachers of heaven.
∙ Moses is there too. He wrestled with the tough decision to reject his princely fortune in Egypt to become the leader of a new nation. He traded a privileged life for 40 years of intense struggle, but he also brought us a completely new understanding of the nature of the holy God. He urges us to live with eternity’s values as our goal and guide.
Each of the heroes who went before us offers their life story to show us that living is about choices. Picking up one thing means laying down another. Whatever hinders the growth of faith needs to thrown to the side of the track, so we can run swiftly. Listen friend. YOU cannot say “YES” to Jesus Christ without saying “NO” to someone/something else.
Before we see the triumphant face of faith, the Crown.... we will experience at least some of the suffering face of faith... the Cross. There is some dying to do before we gain eternal life.
Paul declared....“I die every day.” 1 Corinthians 15:31
Jesus said “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:24-25
We do not only have the example of the men and women of the Bible. We should also know the lives of faithful Believers through history. Read the story of Martin Luther who struggled with a religious system and helped to return Christianity to a personal faith in Jesus Christ.
Get a book about Dwight L. Moody, the great revivalist preacher who lived at end of the last century, a man who sold shoes for a living until God challenged him to take up another calling.
If you’re serious about serving God, you’ll be inspired by the journal of Jim Elliott, a brilliant man. He was a normal college in the post-WWII years here in the US. He loved a good time, loved a great practical joke and being with people. He liked pretty girls and wrestled with his desire for fame and wealth. And he ultimately let God guide his life. When he was just 30 years of age, he was killed by the Amazonia Auca natives he went to share the Gospel with.
Read the story of LeTourneau whose brilliance in designing construction machinery made him a fabulously wealthy man. Yet he remained deeply committed to Christ and invested millions of dollars to build Christian colleges and support Christian ministry. He eventually choose to live on 10% of his income and to give 90% to ministry!
But am I suggesting that we need a steely grit, a determined set to our jaw to be successful for Christ?
Don’t hear it that way, family. The secret to faith is not just guts! It is spiritual transformation. It is allowing the Spirit of God to live in us, to give us a new vision of life’s meaning.
It is the experience of the Lord Jesus is offered as the greatest model for us. He lived out His challenge. By faith, he embraced the will of His Father that took him to the Cross. He ‘scorned its shame.’ He took no note of the shame of dying as a condemned criminal and of the horror of becoming a sinner for us WHY?
Because he had the joy of a greater goal than comfort, ease, or immediate pleasure in his sights. The Spirit of God showed him that beyond the Cross was the Crown.
Consider Him! The Message says, “When you find yourself flagging in your faith, go over the story again, item by item. Remember all the hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenalin into your souls!”
The secret of a life that embraces both faces of faith – the cross and the crown – is found in v. 2. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.” Do you have Him in site? Is he the pace-setter in your run for Heaven? OR have you started to look around so that you are distracted?
Let’s not have a half-understanding of faith.
Don’t be seduced in your thinking by that presentation of faith that proclaims only the health, wealth, and spectacular miracles of God’s intervention. By contrast, don’t be misled by the proclamation that only allows for endurance of painful suffering with no expectation of victory.
Instead, invite the Spirit of God to work in your mind so that you are steadfast hopeful in the fullness of faith. Invite Christ to inspire you and to live in you.
Then you will live in faith and be able to say
For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Amen. -Philippians 4:11-13
In my Devotions this morning, I prayed this prayer for all of you...
Father God, we thank you for a living Jesus who, unlike the heroes of our text, is no distant person.
You are our living Lord. Help our hearts and minds to be open to the Spirit who brings us your Presence.
Strengthen the resolve of faith in us. You are all that we need in every hour. Give us focused spiritual vision that keeps you always in sight as our pace-setter.
When we are times of abounding and triumphant faith, help us to remain faithfully committed to your work. When we are enduring suffering and self-denial in your will, keep us from moaning and complaint. May we always live with the desire to see your Kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
I pray in some small way, these past several weeks that we looked at faith in a Christians life, you have taken some important things to ponder and use within you life. I love you all.
DID YOU EVER WONDER???
He was a retired union leader, tough and blunt and charming. She was bright, small, agile. Both were golfers, and when he retired he built his wife her dream home in a golfing community near Sacramento. She was 80 and he was 84 when my story starts.
They'd been married over 60 years and were one person: they moved together with practiced grace, sharing dozens of small physical gestures of endearment. He called her "the Boss." She called him "He," as if there were no other men. I learned early in our 15 years together to see them both at once, no matter who had the appointment, for they answered for each other better than they did for themselves.
"How are you doing?" I'd ask her. "She's getting clumsy," he'd say. "Any problems with you?" I'd ask him. "He's going deaf," she'd reply.
If I called their home, they'd both be on the speakerphone, each telling me their concerns about the other. He'd had a childhood osteomyelitis that left him with a limp; he also had asthma and had had a coronary bypass at age 76. She'd had some arthritis. But they were mostly robust, golfing every day.
Then her game got worse—and worse. Her left hand grew weak, her speech soft and slurred. She began to fall. Her animated face stilled, became mask like— except for her frightened eyes. Within a year of her first symptoms, she was in a wheelchair. Her body stiffened and was racked by cramps, which he would try to massage away through endless painful nights. Swallowing became deranged, and she was repeatedly hospitalized for pneumonias.
Her neurologist was not sure but guessed she had an odd form of Parkinson disease. Multiple therapies gave no pause to her inexorable decline, and we finally resorted to botulinum toxin injections when she ripped her hip from its socket in one great spasmodic contraction of the muscles of her upper leg.
Each time she was admitted, her husband came in with her. He sat and slept in a big chair by her bed, never leaving her side. He fed her, bathed her, turned her, talked to her. The busy nurses loved him for his love of her and nonintrusive helpfulness to them. When I told him how much the staff admired him, he was nonplussed: "Isn't this what husbands are supposed to do?" he asked.
He modified their house for her: ramps, grab bars, stair lift, bed sling. And when even this was not enough, he reluctantly persuaded her to leave the home they had built together ("Just until you're better," he told her—and she, seeing his despair, pretended to believe him). They moved into a single story house near their granddaughter, who checked on them each day. Home nurses visited, did what they could. Yet he still himself would lift her, bathe her, help her to the toilet. Often now they fell together, each taking the other down. His arthritis worsened, and his heart began to fail.
Over his prideful protest that he could take care of his own wife, the family hired a full-time live-in helper, a strong Tongan woman. She was deeply sympathetic, as sometimes is the gift of those themselves oppressed. She was the sole parent of a 6-year-old girl, and finding a job that allowed them to stay together had been hard. However, the old couple welcomed the active child, who brought joy to them both with her radiant vivacity and affection. Still, the old man continued to lift and turn his wife at night, though the live-in helper slept near them. "The helper needed her sleep," he said. He refused hospice when the nurse told him that he'd have to promise not to rush his wife to the hospital in an emergency, but call the hospice nurse instead. Neither he nor his wife wanted to be in the ICU or to have CPR, but he'd too often seen her pulled back from the brink by intravenous antibiotics and pulmonary toilet in hospital to surrender these options yet.
The call finally came as I knew it must: She looked bad, he said. Should we get the paramedics? "If you want to," I told him, "or you can wait for me; I'll come now."
"It's hard to know what's right," he said.
"Yes, it is. Call your family. I'll be right there."
"It's really bad this time," he said, and hung up. I drove like a fury, but when I arrived, the ambulance, siren screaming, was pulling away. He and his granddaughter were in the driveway.
"She had trouble breathing," he said, "so I called 911. I thought maybe they could just give her some oxygen here, but they said they couldn't do that, that they had to take her to the nearest hospital." He and his granddaughter got into her car to follow the ambulance.
I had no privileges at the hospital to which she'd been taken, but the triage nurse knew me from a lecture I had given and let me into the emergency room to see my patient. She'd had massive aspiration, was febrile, pale, and obtunded. The pulmonologist was an older man who—once he'd heard the story and spoken to the family—readily agreed to palliative care and antibiotics only.
She died 3 days later, her husband holding her hand. Although there were many family with him in that hospital room, at that moment he was truly alone: it was in his face as he stroked her hair. I knew then that he would die soon, and that it would not be his heart but his aloneness that would kill him. Half of him—her—was already dead. For 60 years the other half had been, above all other things, her husband, her protector. It was his role in life, and it lay dead with her. What was left?
A week after the funeral I phoned him. "How are you?" I asked, and was unexpectedly startled to hear his voice reply—not hers, as had always been the case before.
"Okay," he said.
"Just okay?" I asked.
"Well . . . my arthritis is better." No surprise. He no longer lifted her.
"Good."
"And the swelling in my ankles is gone."
"Fine."
"My breathing's better, too." His heart was being less stressed by exertion now.
"Doctor?" he said.
"Yes?"
"Do you think I could try that Viagra that everybody's talking about?" I was stunned.
"Viagra?"
"Yeah. Will my heart take it?" I thought perhaps he was confusing Viagra with some new anti-inflammatory.
"Viagra—you want it for . . . ?"
"What else? Performance! You know . . . it's been a long time, what with the Boss so sick and all. Now a lady's asked me out to dinner, and I don't want to embarrass myself." "Do I know this lady?"
"Don't think you ever met her. She came up to me at the Boss's funeral. The Boss and I used to play golf with her and her husband a long time ago. She told me she'd decided way back then that if her David died—he keeled over last year—and the Boss died, that she'd come after me." He laughed. "Isn't that something?"
"That's something!" I said. Then I just had to ask, "How old is this lady?"
"About my age," he said.
I prescribed the Viagra. A week later, I called again. He answered.
"How are you doing?" I asked.
An unfamiliar female voice came loudly over the speakerphone: "Great!" she said. "He's doing great!"
BOOKS OF THE BIBLE...A TEACHING
This week we look at the Book of the Psalms...
Who wrote the book?
Psalms, a collection of lyrical poems, is one of only two Old Testament books to identify itself as a composite work containing multiple authors (Proverbs is the other). Some psalms name their author in the first line or title. For example, Moses wrote Psalm 90. David was responsible for many of them, composing seventy-three psalms. Asaph wrote twelve; the descendants of Korah penned ten. Solomon wrote one or two, and Ethan and Heman the Ezrahites were responsible for two others. The remainder of the psalms do not contain information about their authors.
The book was originally titled Tehillim, which means “praise songs” in Hebrew. The English title of “Psalms” originated from the Septuagint’s Greek title Psalmoi, also meaning “songs of praise.”
Where are we?
Individual psalms were written as far back in history as Moses’s time, through the time of David, Asaph, and Solomon, to the time of the Ezrahites who most likely lived after the Babylonian captivity, meaning the writing of the book spans one thousand years. Some of the psalms attributed to David have additional notations connecting them with documented events in his life (for example, Psalm 59 is linked with 1 Samuel 19:11; Psalm 56 is connected with 1 Samuel 21:10–15; Psalm 34 is associated with 1 Samuel 21:10–22:2; and Psalm 52 is linked with 1 Samuel 22:9).
The psalms are organized into five books or collections. They were probably collected gradually, as corporate worship forms developed along with temple worship. It is likely that by the time of Ezra, the books of the Psalter were organized into their final form. Each section concludes with a doxology, with the entire Psalter capped by Psalm 150, a grand doxology.
Why is Psalms so important?
The psalms comprised the ancient hymnal of God’s people. The poetry was often set to music—but not always. The psalms express the emotion of the individual poet to God or about God. Different types of psalms were written to communicate different feelings and thoughts regarding a psalmist’s situation.
Psalms of lament express the author’s crying out to God in difficult circumstances. Psalms of praise, also called hymns, portray the author’s offering of direct admiration to God.
Thanksgiving psalms usually reflect the author’s gratitude for a personal deliverance or provision from God. Pilgrim psalms include the title “a song of ascent” and were used on pilgrimages “going up” to Jerusalem for three annual festivals. Other types of psalms are referred to today as wisdom psalms, royal psalms (referring to Israel’s king or Israel’s Messiah), victory psalms, Law psalms, and songs of Zion.
The psalms include unique Hebrew terms. The word Selah, found seventy-one times, is most likely a musical notation added by worship leaders after the Israelites incorporated the psalm into public worship. Scholars do not know the meaning of maskil, found in thirteen psalms. Occasionally, a psalm appears with instructions for the song leader. For example, we see instructions such as “For the director of music” (occurring in fifty-five psalms [NIV]); “To the tune of ‘Lilies’” (similar references found in Psalms 45, 60, 69, 80 NIV); “To the tune of ‘The Doe of the Morning’ ” (Psalm 22 NIV); “To the tune of ‘Do Not Destroy’ ” (Psalms 57–59, 75 NIV). These and others can refer to melodies used with the given psalm or perhaps to suggestions for liturgical use.
What's the big idea?
The book of Psalms expresses worship. Throughout its many pages, Psalms encourages its readers to praise God for who He is and what He has done. The Psalms illuminate the greatness of our God, affirm His faithfulness to us in times of trouble, and remind us of the absolute centrality of His Word. As the Psalms present a clear picture of God lovingly guiding His people, the responses of praise and worship to God are never far from the psalmists’ pens. The portrayal of worship in the Psalms offers us glimpse after glimpse of hearts devoted to God, individuals repentant before Him, and lives changed through encounters with Him.
How do I apply this?
Read Psalm 1, then Psalm 150. Thank God for allowing you to express your deepest emotions to Him. If you are hurting, use Psalm 13 as a guide and write your own lament to God. If you are rejoicing, meditate on Psalm 30 and echo the praise found there. No matter your circumstance, the psalms contain a corresponding word that will help you share your heart with the Lord.
HAVE A SAFE AND BLESSED WEEK:)
Ho'omaikaʻi ka Pua iā kākou