Mind of God, Heart of God

The previous week was a long one for me. Between emotional upsets with close family and friends, the busyness of work and school, and thoughts that seemed to spiral into personal regrets, by today, the Sabbath day, I felt exhausted. I wandered out to a lone pond wondering if the portent image of seeing several black crows and cloudy skies meant something ill was approaching. Yet my main thoughts revolved around my circumstances, not my God. He had been mainly lost in what I felt was more important: the tasks and people of the week.

In Matthew 16:21-23, Jesus was reminding his disciples of his impending death. The miracles he had performed, the people he had influenced, and the ministry he had lead on earth were all important aspects of why God had sent him to earth, but the end result was not events and work, but portraying entirely (and finally) the glory of God through his sacrifice on the cross. Peter, distressed at Jesus' talk of death, questioned Jesus leaving behind the "importance" of wordly commitments in favor of death, but Jesus knew his long-lasting perspective was clearer than Peter's confusion. Adamantly, he declared to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of man"(Matt. 16:23).

The verse stood out to me significantly. Christ still accomplished his purposes on earth. He was always faithful to his ministry, always attentive to his people, and always persevering in his actions, yet his viewpoint sought God and looked beyond the temporary to the eternal. He drew away into the recesses of God's heart while accomplishing the tasks set about in God's mind.

Just as Christ modeled God's mind, the men and women who went before him echoed and personified himself and his Father. I am reminded most of Hebrews 11 and it's "Hall of Faith", especially the passage in Hebrews 11:13-16, as it highlights the eternal perspective of the people of God:

 "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

What does it mean to live with an eternal perspective? It means to pray---daily. It means to read his word---daily. It means to think of his decrees and worship him in the small things---daily. It means sometimes reminding oneself to forget about the brevity of this present day in the beauty of his forever.

The Face Off of Trinitarian Vs. Unitarian

I was in a discussion with a good friend of mine this week who is a Mormon, and she pointed out that she personally believes that Jesus was not fully God and fully man---that he has aspects of God, which made him perfect enough to redeem us as humans, but that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all separate beings. The 'egg concept' (God as the shell, Christ as the yolk, the Holy Spirit as the white) I had been taught growing up as the Trinity being 3 in 1 seemed to float around in my already befuddled head as I tried to grasp this Unitarian concept.

Although Mormons wouldn't associate with the Unitarian church in any way, shape, or form, Unitarians have a similar idea. I found this the weird way by googling information about the Trinity. I was actually shocked to hear Bible believing Christians disbelieving Jesus' divinity! To me, it has always been essential that Christ was fully God, because to view him as anything less would not only seem blasphemous to me, it would seem as if his sacrifice was nullified by his only half shrug at divinity.

I did some research of my own to see what Scripture said about the issue. One of my favorite verses I found was 1 John 5:7 (KJV): "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word [which, when referenced to John 1, is Jesus], and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

Colossions 2: 9- 10 (KJV) also states, "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form...", supporting  following verses in Col. 1:15-20. Christ himself declares, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:29-30).

These were just a few verses I used for my Trinitarian point of view.

My prayer as I talk to my Mormon friend, and all other religious people I know, is that I don't forget they are intelligent people who have reasons and culture of their own to believe what they feel is correct. Although I disagree, I need to find my own reasons to support that disagreement and back up my points. I remember doing this once about a year prior when a friend was protesting at the church's lack of acceptance of people with homosexuality. A homosexual minister made a Youtube video crying foul play on certain verses and their Hebrew context, but when I looked the same verses up, it became clear to me he was botching them to suit his own purposes for his decision to sin. The same goes for other religious viewpoints. Even if it is not sin, is it preventing this person from grasping the true nature of God? Is it telling them a Gospel message that could be flawed? If so, the glory and wisdom of God is being maligned, and we as Christians are called to search and find the precious treasure of truth.

Father, Discipline Me

I was talking to a good friend the other day about if it is a wise idea to save up funds in order to help your child go to college debt-free. My thought process concerning it was that children should have to work themselves to gain the funds--and incentives---to pay for their own degree. Their hard work and discipline, though not pleasant at the time, would pay off with a good career and a solid foundation, teaching them certain financial responsibilities and mature decisions without daddy or mommy footing the bill for them to get there. Even though me and my friend disagreed in the end about my opinion, it made me think about how God views our process of perseverance in the Christian walk.

Hebrews 12: 4-13, Paul discusses how God views are journey towards holiness, the shedding of sin in our life through the production of his discipline:
"In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
    and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 

 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,”so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed."

 Even though our discipline as Christians is not the material gains of this world, God places circumstances in our life so that we, the sons and daughters of a perfect Father, can gain steps toward abolishing sin: having hope in trying times, working in a difficult job in order to have joy in him, and being rebuked for an anger issue by a Christian brother or sister. Even though we can feel beat down, discouraged, weary, and just plain annoyed, God is putting us in the time out chair to give us an understanding of how to deal with life's eventual ups and downs with holiness instead of the sinful nature. 

I've always loved the verse in Prov. 24:10 because it so greatly represents the man or woman who has forgotten God's presence and his NEED to discipline through hard work and difficulties, "If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength!"

God, like the loving Father he is, knows that discipline is necessary for the production of new fruit. He prunes the dead branches to make room for the blooms.

Mistress of His Fate

What would you say if you found out you were a queen? How would you treat the king? More than likely, with knowledge of your command. You would suddenly have more influence, and if you were a wise queen, you would wield that influence on your husband for the advantage of the kingdom: and perhaps yourself.

As I started a new year with my NKJV version Bible, I decided to highlight all of the mentions God made of women. I wanted to see how much they pervade the Bible, what women were positive examples, and which were negative; I even wanted to see how much God used females for his purpose. Did you know that the dove God sent out from the ark after the Flood was a female? She carried the message of wet or dry land back from either the olive branch or her absence. God could have portrayed her as a male dove, but it seemed unusual he decided on a female.

Obviously, God's mention of females in the Bible doesn't just associate with doves. Some of women's greatest mentions are associated with their powerful influence over some very significant men. The Genesis account of Eve offering the tempting fruit to Adam---and his response to almost automatically accept it---seems like the most startling (Gen. 3), but as Genesis continues, women continue to play a huge role of influence. The daughters of men influence angels to come to earth to be with them (Gen. 6:1-2), and even minor characters like Lamech had something to admit to his wives (Adah and Zillah) that he felt were close enough confidantes and people of influence: the murder of a man (Gen.4: 23-24). Before Sarai became the mother of nations as "Sarah", she held sway not only over Egyptian kings who desired her for her beauty, but also over her husband to a great extent. Abram had already heard that God would bless him through Sarai's children, but Sarai seemed to overpower even God's voice in Abram's head by telling Abram to take Hagar, her maidservant, as his wife and bear a child with her. Abram, like his distant relative Adam, obeyed his wife's influential voice (Gen. 16).

In 1 Peter, even though Peter is discussing women with non-Christian husbands, he seems to echo well this knowledge that women affect the men they are with.

"Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives" (1 Peter 3:1-2).

What has been most fascinating to me in this verse is recalling the negative influence of women in Genesis and yet the ability and power we have as positive influences! Whether it is a husband, brother, friend, or father, the reverence of our lives and the way we treat men can greatly effect their decisions for or against the kingdom of God.

Lost Things

I've been losing things a lot lately. A flash drive. My phone going dead on me for a solid week. One of my friends. An earring here, another earring there. A bunch of files from an old computer. A story I wanted to read. I'm normally such an organized person, losing anything used to drive me insane until I found that object again. I would literally stomp around my room (or wherever I happened to be), getting irritated at everyone around me and even crying if I couldn't find the object I was missing. "It's gone forever!" I'd bewail, allowing my human sinful nature to get a hold of me as I lashed out at innocent bystanders.

I think God knows when it's time to give his children a lesson. He chose to target the very things I hold precious---like my pair of favorite feather earrings, and the zipper on my favorite leather jacket not working so I couldn't use it. The more things I unintentionally the lost, the more I began to find it somewhat odd, even humorous, that God kept tossing those things off my materialistic radar and making me more patient. Now, when I lose something, like yesterday when I lost (yet another) earring, I looked around for it for a few minutes and then just shrugged it off. God really knows me well; he was disciplining me even in small things.

The verse that popped into my head when I was thinking over this post was Luke 12, Christ's parable of the rich fool:
    "The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God" (v. 13-21).

In our lives, we may not intentionally think this selfishly---we are generous people, prone to give rather than get, tithe rather than take---but we build our own barns by focusing on the gadgets, gizmos, clothing, and objects that are only temporary comforts here on earth. When we think of the larger picture, if we lose something, we know longer think of it as so severe: it is our training for looking first to the Giver before going wild at the loss of the gift. Many people and things will pass through our lives, but we shouldn't mourn over their monetary value. We should thank God for having them, and then express in our lives a better thought process of patience when we do have to let them go.

My favorite part of Luke 12 is the preceding verse to the parable. A quibbling sibling tells Jesus that his brother won't divide an inheritance with him, and Jesus calmly replies, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions" (v.15). Even if it is not something as great as an inheritance, we are not meant to focus on the abundance or quality of our possessions, but the richness and life of glorifying God (v. 21). What is our mindset with our material blessings? Where do we find our worth and our treasure store? 

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt. 6: 19-21).

Models of Christ

I was recently watching a show about America's top runway models, when I happened upon 1 and 2  Peter in my personal Bible study. In shows with models, the most important thing is maintaining beauty, while personal moral lives seem cast aside for gaining money and fame on the road to a high profile career. Although modeling is an extreme example of women pursuing beauty or career instead of character, even if we as women are not models, we can play the same game in our lives with our dissatisfaction for our looks and the way we forget what God is truly looking for.

In 1 Peter 3: 3-4, Peter points out: "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."

In Peter's time period, wealthy women were following the Gospel message, but were still following the ways of the world. Their extravagant plaited, knotted, and braided hair styles often took hours to complete, with weaving in of pearls in strands of hair in order to present themselves as flashy; the same went for their gold jewelry and rare clothes: everything pointed to the abundance of their possessions and their focus on something other than God. Yet God calls for us as women to dig past these temporal surface layers of beauty and cultivate the beauty of our inner person in order to truly emulate him.

I like how the KJV translates verse 4; instead of calling it 'your inner self', this version uses the term, 'the hidden man of the heart'. The people of this world who do not know our Savior falsely think that the best way to succeed TODAY is to become beautiful externally. The thought is tempting and even addictive. I know I struggle with this daily, every time I look at pictures of myself, other women, or flip through magazines of airbrushed models. Yet 2 Peter 3:17 paints a different picture of these 'false prophets' of today, with their appearance of godliness but their rashness of truth (2 Tim. 3:1-5):

"They promise [the weak-willed] freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved."

Have you ever seen a model enslaved by an eating disorder, unable to break free from the sad bondage of their illness and deprecating self image? Perhaps even less extreme, have you ever felt that very bondage yourself of needing affirming messages and 'likes' from friends before being content that you look okay? We seek it by posting new pictures, wearing new clothing, telling others we look terrible without make-up, and attaching ourselves in addiction to fashion shows.

God, instead, sees the highest form of beauty as the woman who turns her eyes to his glory and finds herself lost in his creation and holiness, gently submitting to others in servanthood and the meekness of the 'hidden man of the heart'.

Pepsi Lessons

The other day, I attended a movie premiere and brought with me a Pepsi (my drink of choice). During the evening, I ate a lot of the gummy candy I'd brought along, but the Pepsi was mostly forgotten. By the end of the evening, my loyal 16 ounces were hardly consumed. When I headed home, I put the Pepsi down on my desk and forgot about it.
A few days later I was faithfully cleaning my room when I found the Pepsi again. I was almost certain the carbonation would have gone out entirely, since I hadn't put it in the fridge. However, when I took a swig to try out my theory, the Pepsi was surprisingly fresh, fizzy, even cool from my room! Without knowing, I had screwed the cap on well enough a couple of days before to maintain the carbonation.
The thought of this Pepsi reminded me of Hebrews 2.
"Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today", that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end."
I am, as a believer, like the Pepsi. If I maintain my 'carbonation'---my connection to Christ---I will be fresh, like 'streams of living water' to those in the deserts of this world. However, if I go flat, hardened by sin, I will end up being very unproductive for the Gospel I originally held to in professing Christ as my Lord. My brothers and sisters in Christ are like the person who tightens my 'cap' again to maintain my obedience and freshness in God; without them as well, I would become flat.
The same could be said for us encouraging our fellow brothers and sisters. What can we do to be there for them? Do we pray for them, but also tell them we have been praying? Do we offer them a listening ear? Do we send them an uplifting message? Write them a letter? Give them a gift? We as brothers and sisters in Christ are called to be an example to the world of how Christ has treated us; by supporting one another and keeping their freshness for the Lord's work in their life, even if that calling is not like our own.