SHACKLES BY MARY MARY

 

Replacing the Shadows

 

Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. (Hebrews 8:1–2)

The point of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, has not just come to fit into the earthly system of priestly ministry as the best and final human priest, but he has come to fulfill and put an end to that system, and to orient all our attention on himself, ministering for us first on Calvary as our final Sacrifice and then in heaven as our final Priest.

The Old Testament tabernacle and priests and sacrifices were shadows. Now the reality has come, and the shadows pass away.

Here’s an Advent illustration for kids — and those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like. Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don’t know which way to go, and you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom. It makes you really hopeful. But which is better? The hopefulness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner and it’s really her?

That’s the way it is when Jesus comes to be our High Priest. That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing: Mom stepping around the corner of the aisle, and all the relief and joy that gives to a little child.

THE BEST WAY TO LIVE IS TO SURRENDER TO GOD!

EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

MONDAY DECEMBER 12, 2022. 

SUBJECT: THE BEST WAY TO LIVE IS TO SURRENDER TO GOD!

Memory verse: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." (Romans 12 vs 1.)

READ: Luke 9 vs 23 - 24:

9:23: Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.

9:24: For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life My sake will save it.

INTIMATION:

God wants us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices and be totally devoted to Him. He desires that we daily lay aside our own desires to follow Him, putting all our energy and resources at His disposal and trusting Him to guide us, embracing what He does for us as the best thing that can  happen to us. This is because He has good, pleasing,  perfect, and best plans for us. Devoting ourselves to Him is reasonable, and the most proper thing to do knowing that He created us for His own purposes. Also, for Him to have given His only Son to make our new life possible, we should joyfully give ourselves as living sacrifices for His service.

Surrendering your life is not a foolish emotional impulse but a rational, intelligent act, and the most responsible and sensible thing you can do with your life. In our memory verse the apostle Paul calls surrender a "your reasonable service." Another version translates it "the most sensible way to serve God." Who can best know a thing than the producer and owner of that thing? Nobody can know your life and manage it better than the Creator and Owner of your life. Therefore, surrendering to the Owner and best Manager is the most reasonable thing to do. 

The apostle Paul, being conscious of this fact, says, "..We must make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him." (Second Corinthians 5 vs 9.) Your wisest moments will be those when you say yes to God. 

The Owner of your life designed it for worship to Him, and if you fail to worship Him, you will eventually create things (idols) that are gods to you, and you give your worship or life to them. God also allowed us the freedom of choice. You are free to choose what to surrender to, but you are not free from the consequences of that choice. There is freedom before worship, but no freedom from the consequences after worship. 

Everybody eventually surrenders to something or someone. If not God, you will surrender to the opinions or expressions of others, to money, to resentment, to fear, to your own pride, lusts, ego, self-defeat, or pity, and so on.

If you don't surrender to Christ, you surrender to crisis. Why? Because without Him you can do nothing! (See John 15 vs 5.) Inability to do anything is real crisis! Since outside of Christ is crisis, the only way to live life devoid of crisis is surrender to the Owner. Nothing else works. All other approaches lead to frustration, disappointment, and self-destruction. 

Sometimes it takes years to discover this most sensible way to live. When this happens you eventually discover that the greatest hindrance to God's blessing in your life is not others, it is yourself; your self-will, stubborn pride, and personal ambition. You can't fulfill God's purposes for your life while focusing on your own plans. The time of the discovery in your life is immaterial, the important thing is that you have turned to your Owner. You need to discover yourself, if God is going to do His deepest work in you, and it starts from this discovery.

Give all of you to God: your past regrets, your present problems, your future ambitions, your fears, dreams, weaknesses, habits, hurts, and hang-ups. Put Jesus Christ in the driver's seat of your life and take your hands off the steering wheel. Never you be frightened; nothing under His control can ever be out of control. You may not understand the circumstances you are in with Him, but it is the best for you, because all the things He does, work together for your eventual good, and in line with His purpose of your life. (See Romans 8 vs 28 - 30.)

When you are mastered by Christ, you can handle anything. You will be like the apostle Paul who said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4 vs 13.)  

Our place, time, and how we surrender differs. The apostle Paul's moment occurred on the road Damascus after he was knocked down by a blinding light. For others, God gets our attention with less drastic methods. Regardless of how, surrendering is never just a one-time event. Paul said, "I die daily." (First Corinthians 15 vs 31.) There is a moment of surrender, and there is the practice of surrender which is moment-by-moment and lifelong. 

Remember, when you surrender, you become a living sacrifice, and the problem of a living sacrifice is that it can crawl off the altar, so you may have to re-surrender your life several times a day. You must make it a daily habit. Don’t be tired or ashamed. He understands you, and sympathizes with your weaknesses (Hebrews 4 vs 13). In the passage we read today, Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." 

Let me remind you: When you decide to live a totally surrendered life, that decision will be tested. Sometimes it will mean doing inconvenient, unpopular, costly, or seemingly impossible tasks. It will often mean doing the opposite of what you feel like doing. 

Have you surrendered to Christ? Or are you still arguing and struggling with God over His right to do with your life as He pleases? If you have not, now is your time to surrender to God's grace, love, and wisdom; and receiving His Nature!

Prayer: Abba Father, thank You for my adoption as Your son, planned even before the foundation of the earth. I now live, and move, and have my being in You. Give me the grace to live in total surrender, obedience and trust in You, turning my life totally to You for Your desired use, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD! 

THE BELIEVER’S UNUSED ABILITIES!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SUNDAY DECEMBER 11, 2022.

SUBJECT:  THE BELIEVER’S UNUSED ABILITIES!

Memory verse:  "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." (First Peter 2 vs 9.) 

READ:  Second Peter 1 vs 3 - 4:

1:3: As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 

1:4: by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

INTIMATION:

Many Christians still have not understood fully the finished work of Christ for them, haven made available to them the power of God as “partakers of His divine nature.” The finished work is like undeveloped resources in the African Continent. The finished work still remains the only source of our ability to live for God, have a relationship with Him, and obtain and harness all the promises of God to believers, live a prosperous life and have good success. 

 

Notice carefully, in the passage we read today, that He has given to believers all things that pertain to life and godliness and that they have become the partakers of His very nature—divine nature, that was lacking in creation. This nature is called “Eternal life,” the power of God to live forever. That life is the substance and being of God. He allows the believers to be "partakers of the divine nature" in order to keep them from sin and help them live for Him. When you are born again, you are born of the Spirit, therefore, you are spirit. God is Spirit, and by His Spirit, empowers you with His own moral goodness.  

Who has imagined or knows what it might mean, or what it means if that nature of God is fully harnessed, and  utilized by every human who has received it. This nature of God comes with the operation of the Spirit of God in us. The Bible in Romans 8 vs 11 says, "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you."

The Spirit grants believers the creative ability manifested in creation. The miracle-working power that was manifested in Jesus is imparted to the believers. In fact, all the nine gifts of the Spirit are made available to believers. It is for this reason that Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and they may have it more abundantly." (John 10 vs 10.) In new creation, you are born of the Spirit, and you are spirit (John 3 vs 6). You have been born of incorruptible seed through the Word of God which lives and abides forever—Eternal. (First Peter 1 vs 23.)

Not many Christians have realized that they have in them divine ability. You then ask, "How can this be utilized?" It is acting upon His Word, living the Word life, knowing that all His promises are real and for you to receive if you believe. Knowing that you have your inheritance in Him as is expressed in Colossians 1 vs 12, "Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light." Believers take Him, by grace, to lead them into all the fullness of their inheritance.

Believers will know that Philippians 2 vs 13 is real and at work in them, "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." God is at work in the believer, thinking through their minds, operating through their recreated spirits. He has actually taken them over. Let Him Rule! While He is at work in the believer, they, as theatre of His marvelous works, should show the excellencies of Him. The Scriptures in our memory verse, made that clear, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, [God's] own purchased, special people, that you set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of Him, Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." (First Peter 2 vs 9 Amplified Version.)

Here is the gold mine. The believers are an elect people. They are God's own possessions. He set them apart that they may unveil the hidden treasures of grace of God at work in them. He is illuminating them, leading them into all the truth and reality. 

In Colossians 2 vs 3, the Scriptures says; "In Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden." And He has given the believers light and ability to know what these treasures are: The knowledge of what He has done; knowledge of what He is to do in them; knowledge of what they are; knowledge of what they may do with His ability. And He has also made available the wisdom to utilize all these varied knowledge.

It is therefore, a sin for believers to be commonplace. It is wrong for them to be weak. It is a lack of wisdom for them to depend any longer upon simple sense knowledge when they have the ability of God to put them over. They only perish when they lack this knowledge (Hosea 4 vs 6). 

Now, imagine what will happen if all these divine abilities available to the believer are fully harnessed by the believer, displaying the virtues and perfections in Him. Such life will be exceedingly glorious. It’s for the believers to live, but it has been substantially underutilized.

Prayer: Abba Father, in all the earth there is none like You. You have graciously imparted in us Your divine nature.Give me the grace to live in Your fullness, manifesting Your divine abilities, utilizing fully the huge treasures of wisdom and knowledge revealed to us in redemption, and in the adoption of us as Your children, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Why Jesus Came

 

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (Hebrews 2:14–15)

This, I think, is my favorite Advent text because I don’t know any other that expresses so clearly the connection between the beginning and the end of Jesus’s earthly life — between the incarnation and crucifixion. These two verses make clear why Jesus came; namely, to die. They would be great to use with an unbelieving friend or family member to walk them step-by-step through your Christian view of Christmas. It might go something like this, a phrase at a time:

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood . . . ”

The term “children” is taken from the previous verse and refers to the spiritual offspring of Christ, the Messiah (see Isaiah 8:18; 53:10). These are also the “children of God” (John 1:12). In other words, in sending Christ, God has the salvation of his “children” especially in view.

It is true that “God so loved the world, that he gave [Jesus]” (John 3:16). But it is also true that God was especially gathering “the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:52). God’s design was to offer Christ to the world, and to effect the salvation of his “children” (see 1 Timothy 4:10). You may experience adoption by receiving Christ (John 1:12).

“ . . . he himself likewise partook of the same things [flesh and blood] . . . ”

This means that Christ existed before the incarnation. He was spirit. He was the eternal Word. He was with God and was God (John 1:1; Colossians 2:9). But he took on flesh and blood, and clothed his deity with humanity. He became fully man and remained fully God. It is a great mystery in many ways. But it is at the heart of our faith — and what the Bible teaches.

“ . . . that through death . . . ”

The reason he became man was to die. As God pure and simple, he could not die for sinners. But as man he could. His aim was to die. Therefore he had to be born human. He was born to die. Good Friday is the purpose of Christmas. This is what most people today need to hear about the meaning of Christmas.

“ . . . he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil . . . ”

In dying, Christ de-fanged the devil. How? By covering all our sin. This means that Satan has no legitimate grounds to accuse us before God. “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33) — on what grounds does he justify? Through the blood of Jesus (Romans 5:9).

Satan’s ultimate weapon against us is our own sin. If the death of Jesus takes it away, the chief weapon of the devil — the one mortal weapon that he has — is taken out of his hand. He cannot make a case for our death penalty, because the Judge has acquitted us by the death of his Son!

“ . . . and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

So, we are free from the fear of death. God has justified us. Satan cannot overturn that decree. And God means for our ultimate safety to have an immediate effect on our lives. He means for the happy ending to take away the slavery and fear of the Now.

If we do not need to fear our last and greatest enemy, death, then we do not need to fear anything. We can be free. Free for joy. Free for others.

What a great Christmas present from God to us! And from us to the world!

SAVIOUR IS BORN BY CLAUDGOD

 

Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh

 

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:10–11)

God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25). The gifts of the magi are not given by way of assistance or need-meeting. It would dishonor a monarch if foreign visitors came with royal care-packages.

Nor are these gifts meant to be bribes. Deuteronomy 10:17 says that God takes no bribe. Well, what then do they mean? How are they worship?

Gifts given to wealthy, self-sufficient people are echoes and intensifiers of the giver’s desire to show how wonderful the person is. In a sense, giving gifts to Christ are like fasting — going without something to show that Christ is more valuable than what you are going without.

When you give a gift to Christ like this, it’s a way of saying, “The joy that I pursue (notice Matthew 2:10! “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy”) — the joy that I pursue is not the hope of getting rich by bartering with you or negotiating some payment. I have not come to you for your things, but for yourself. And this desire I now intensify and demonstrate by giving up things, in the hope of enjoying you more, not things. By giving to you what you do not need, and what I might enjoy, I am saying more earnestly and more authentically, ‘You are my treasure, not these things.’”

I think that’s what it means to worship God with gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. Or whatever else we may think of giving to God.

May God awaken in us a desire for Christ himself. May we say from the heart, “Lord Jesus, you are the Messiah, the King of Israel. All nations will come and bow down before you. God wields the world to see that you are worshiped. Therefore, whatever opposition I may find, I joyfully ascribe authority and dignity to you, and bring my gifts to say that you alone can satisfy my heart, not holding on to these gifts.”