Tag: scripture reading

Posted on

Let-us Gathering: Fear!

“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.” (NIV)

“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” (KJV)

“Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.” (NASB)

I found it interesting that in this verse we are told to fear something. It got me to thinking about 1) what we are to fear, and 2) how often in scripture (well, at least the New Testament) we are told to fear something or someone. There are many passages where Jesus or the writers of scripture tell us not to fear, and I take courage from them to “not fear.” But there are also definite things we are to fear. One is here in Hebrews chapter four. There are others but you’ll have to look them up yourself. I’m going to focus on what we are to fear.

Since we are to fear something, what does that mean? Or more to the point, what did the writer, by inspiration of the Spirit of God, mean by the word used? Bottom line: What is God telling us? These are his words to us.

“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” (ESV)

In the first three chapters of the book the writer of Hebrews had been building an argument for taking heed to (hearing and doing) God’s Word, which had been spoken in the past by prophets and finally through his Son, Jesus Christ (Heb. 1: 1-3). He presents evidence that Jesus is greater than the angels, those spirit-servants of God, because Jesus is God (1: 4-14). So then we should anchor our lives to what we have heard so we do not slide away from the truth into sin and the penalty of disobedience (2:1-18).

Then the writer makes a comparison between the position of a servant in a household to that of the builder of the house who is, in fact, the builder of everything: God. Moses was a faithful servant in God’s house, but Jesus is greater because he is the faithful Son over God’s house. And we are that house of God over which the Son resides, “if it be that” we “hold fast or maintain our confidence and the hope of which we boast firm unto the end” (3:1-6).

So in light of that, and the fact that there is still a Rest of God open to us, we are not to be like the Israelites who refused to believe God’s word and therefore could not and did not enter that rest (3:7-19). (There is a whole study in itself on the Rest of God, but I can’t go there now; you’ll have to jump on that yourself.)

We are all too much like those Israelites; we have the same sinful, fallen nature they had. But we also, like them, have the freedom to choose to believe God—or not. They heard the words of God, we have heard the words of God. Will we believe and obey (for to believe is to obey)?

“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” (ESV)

The word “fear” in this verse carries the sense “to be fearfully anxious.” It is a strong admonition. This is not to be taken lightly! There are dire consequences to ignoring and disobeying the word of God. Look at the Israelites (Numbers 13-14).

How did the Israelites “hear,” and how are we expected and warned to “hear”? They didn’t believe God and live by what he said. They heard the same good news which has been handed down to us, and which we have now heard as well. Do we believe God? Do we believe and obey him in the hard times as well as the easy times of our lives?

This is how we are to differ from the Israelites in the way we “hear” the word of God: do not harden our hearts; hear with the intent of obeying. We must humble our hearts (3:12-19). We are to be fearfully anxious that we do not allow our hearts to become hard to the things God says. And miss out on his promised rest.

And not just for our individual selves, but we are to “encourage one another” (3:13).

Peter put it another way, a more positive way, as a command to action to intentionally add to what we already know and do (II Peter 1:3-11; 3:18). Paul said it another way as well: work out your salvation with fear (same root word) and trembling, for it is God who is working in us (do we know that?) to do his will and that which pleases him (Philippians 2—the whole chapter is gripping).

The more I think about it, the more I see the Spirit of God saying the same things throughout scripture. It is all of a piece.

Hebrews 4:1 is one of the Let-us commands: Let us fear. We are to be fearfully anxious that we not allow our hearts, individually and corporately, to become hard against God by lightly dismissing his word, by not being intentional to carve out time to read/hear and obey it, by ignoring it, by refusing to obey it.

I’ve only begun to scratch at the surface of the riches of this one verse. There is so much here in this book of Hebrews!

What will we do with the Word of God? Anchor our lives to it or cast off and drift away from it?

 

See also Interlinear for the rest of us: the reverse interlinear for New Testament word studies, by Wm. D. Mounce, published by Zondervan; and Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible by James Strong, published by Hendrickson Publishers.

Scriptures taken from Bible Gateway https://www.biblegateway.com/

Posted on

Chapter 3: On Prayer–Prayer: just do it … but how?

For years I struggled with praying to God in a heartfelt, meaningful and appropriate way. I say appropriate because after all, I was coming to the Lord and Creator of everything, who is also my heavenly Father.  My heart yearned to communicate with God sincerely, yet I usually ended up feeling frustrated, feeling I was falling short. Though I had read the Psalms and other prayers in the Bible, I hadn’t picked up on elements of approaching God in prayer which were within those portions of scripture.

I remember when I was introduced to a simple way of approaching God, easy to remember, one that was rooted in the scriptures, called the ACTS of prayer (prayercentral.net) . You could use four fingers on one hand to remind yourself of the acrostic, which stand for the following:

 A is for Adoration. Approach God in humility, reverence and awe and worship Him for who He is. We learn about Him as we read and study the Bible. He is Holy and we must approach Him as such (Luke 11: 2).

C is for Confession. Sin acts as a wall between us and God, effectively blocking our prayers (Isaiah 59:2). We need to be sensitive to God’s Spirit on a daily basis, as He speaks conviction to us, and confess and repent of all known sin as soon as we are aware of it (I John 1: 8, 9). That way, communication with God remains open.

T is for Thanksgiving. The greatest acceptable sacrifice we can make to God, along with laying our lives at His feet as a living sacrifice, is that of thanksgiving and praise (Hebrews 13: 15).  Our prayers are to be seasoned with them.

S is for Supplication. This is the part we normally think of as prayer: asking God for something (Luke 11: 9, 10).  Our requests must be couched in the reverence and worship due God, seeking first His will in the matter, purged of known sin through confession and repentance,  wrapped in trust and infused with thanksgiving.

The disciples of Jesus apparently had feelings and experiences with prayer similar to mine for they asked Him to teach them to pray:

“Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’

So He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’” (Luke 11:1-4, NKJV)

In this prayer we can see quite well the elements of the ACTS of prayer: Adoration, Confession, and Supplication. Though Thanksgiving is not obvious in this prayer, thankfulness is clearly taught throughout the Bible in such passages as:

“Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.” (Psalm 100:4, NKJV)

“[D]o not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6, 7, ESV)

Another is:

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you were called in one body; and be thankful.” (Colossians 3:15, NKJV)

The scriptures are full of psalms and prayers and from them we can learn the proper manner in which to come to God, and what to pray for. We need to look for and carefully study them as we read our Bibles.

Practice coming to God in a way similar to prayers in the Bible, psalms and the way the simple ACTS acrostic teaches us. This is not formulaic prayer, it is prayer learned from God’s word itself. This type of approach to God is what I am trying to learn and do. It has been working for me, guiding me into the presence of God in a manner worthy of Him. There are other similar, biblical approaches to prayer. Find one which resonates and use it. They are only means to an end: Prayer— just do it!

 

Posted on

Chapter 2: Importance of the Bible–Good Habits

During my fight against cancer I remember well my struggles with fear and pain and uncertainty every day, crying many tears to God. I can see myself sitting in the bedroom we occupied in my son and daughter-in-law’s home while I went through a year and a half of cancer treatments. Though my husband was able to be with me a few months of that time, most of that year and a half he was back in West Virginia working, while I was in California. Every day I turned to the Bible and poured out my heart to God in prayer as I read His Word. I once wrote in my blog:

The scriptures, God’s words to us, sustain me daily. They are our life. They bring the only light to this dark path.

I meant it then and I believe and practice it today. My routine of reading the scriptures, which I continued through cancer treatment, stood me in good stead by getting me back into the Word of God. It nurtured me daily, calling me back to the foundation of my life, giving me not only encouragement and hope, but perspective. The scriptures acted like a compass guiding me through the wind and waves of the storm in which I found myself. Even when I couldn’t see farther than my own hand, so to speak, the compass of God’s Word enabled me to continue to move in the right direction, in hope and trust in the Lord. It gave me that which was beyond me, beyond my limited vision and understanding.

In the midst of trials we can lose perspective. Pain and suffering tend to make us look inward and our world, as a result, contracts. It becomes very small, since it consists of and revolves around only “me”. Me, myself and I can be very poor company. We need that which pulls us up and out beyond ourselves because in suffering we are in danger of sinking into the morass of self-pity. Self-pity is nothing to trifle with; it is destructive and from the devil, that old deceiver. It must be dealt with immediately and ruthlessly.

Posted on

Chapter 2: Importance of the Bible–The Source of Hope

We have the idea we can pray for patience as though it is a commodity God gives us, like our daily food. But patience, or perseverance, is an attribute which is developed in us by choice and use, in the midst of difficulties. Like practicing to become proficient on a musical instrument, we must practice patience. We must persevere. It isn’t handed to us like a piece of toast, but when we choose to persevere God comes alongside us and helps us.

When we persevere through difficulties and gain encouragement from the scriptures, hope is produced in us. What do we say of someone who gives up, who quits, who doesn’t persevere? We say they have given up hope, they become hope-less. It is through hearing what God has to say through His Word that we are encouraged to go on, to persevere; hope is renewed.

Many people have commented on how strong I am and have been through all that has happened to me. Let me be the first to say, I am not strong.  But I thank God I know who is: Jesus Christ, the living son of God, my Savior. I cry out to him in prayer and listen to Him speak to me in the Bible and there is where I find strength and comfort, the encouragement I need to persevere. From this I gain hope. The source of hope is not within me; it is in communicating with the living God, reading His words and talking to Him in prayer, that I find grace and strength to help me get through each day. I wrote in my blog:

Today I begin chemotherapy. I am nervous, apprehensive, I do admit. Lord, take my fears and anxious thoughts. I need your peace now.

“I am in pain and distress, may your salvation, O God, protect me.

I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.

This will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs.

The poor will see and be glad—you who seek God, may your hearts live!

The LORD hears the needy and does not despise his captive people.” (Psalm 69:29-33)

 

And God gave me peace.

Posted on

Chapter 2: The Importance of the Bible–Not by Myself

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:8)

Opening my Bible, I turned to the next Psalm in my daily reading, which began, “Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart…” (Psalm 111:1) and my heart said, no, I don’t want to, I don’t feel like praising God. I feel like I’ve just been punched. I’d rather demand why this is happening to me. I have a heavy weight someone just dumped on me and I definitely do not like it, especially since it can kill me.

It was the day after I received a diagnosis of breast cancer. I was sitting in the bedroom of our son’s home, 3000 miles from our home in West Virginia. My husband and I had been on our way to the airport the day before, stopping at the doctor’s office to get the results of my biopsy on our way out of town. We were heading to California to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays with our children and grandchildren and had been anticipating this time with great delight; it is hard being a continent away from the ones you love the most in the world. Now not only did we have to absorb and manage this news of cancer for ourselves, but we had to share it with our two sons and their wives. It seemed extra difficult to find the right time because it was the Christmas season.

As I read the Psalm that morning with these feelings and thoughts of hurt, confusion, anger and fear steam rolling through my head and heart, another part of me simultaneously acknowledged, “Yes, I will praise the LORD, because I know that is just what I need to do, it is what I must do”, especially since I was so hurt and didn’t want to do it.

I already knew, from years of living with MG, a severe muscle weakness, how important it was that I do choose to praise God in the face of these conflicting and dark feelings. If I only praise God in the sunny meadows, when life seems nice and comfortable, but refuse to praise Him in the dark valley where fear and pain stalk, I would be a hypocrite. Besides, it makes no sense to turn my back on God, cutting off my only source of comfort and strength and hope right when I most needed these things.

That moment, I chose to praise God; a sheer act of the will. Let me tell you, my emotions were not on-board at that point. This was not an easy decision. It was a struggle. But I knew that if I chose according to how I felt at that moment, I’d end up in the depths of despair and would have a long hard battle to dig myself out of that pit. This was not academic head knowledge. I had been on the edge of that dark pit of depression many times. I knew from experience not to go there.

When I made the decision to praise God, turning my back on that dark, deep pit of anger and fear, it was really the decision to submit to His Sovereignty in my life, just like my dad did when he gave me up to God. All the rest of my decisions have been shaped by that initial choice, and my emotions trailed along behind. The Bible played a key role in this decision and the consequences flowing from it.