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Moments of Inspiration
Volume 23 September, 2015
To God be the glory for providing all that was neededour Jehovah Jireh
Dedicated to all the ones, living and deceased, for making a difference in my earthly journey. Harry Bain 2
I “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13*) Sometimes God allows us to use the power available through Himself, and during those special times, we know that, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13 *). The danger is that we tend to forget God is doing “all things” and not us! Deep within ourselves, we know; without God, we are nothing. One scholar explained it this way, in the middle of s-I-n is the big “I." We are told that “For by Him (God) all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things have been created by Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16 *) The creator God is the One, who can and does work through us to do “all things." We get in trouble when we forget that it is God, and not ourselves Who gives the strength and all that is needed to get the job done. With God’s help, it may be wise to drop the “I” and understand that is really “we," Christ in us. As an ancient nation was having a rough time, a prophet told them trouble was on its way for the King, who held them captive. The King represented the evil one.
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The prophet explained the attitude of the King in thinking equality with God. Listen as the prophet tells the evil one, “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations!” (Isaiah 14: 12*) We stand to lose when we forget to give glory to God, and give the praise to the big “I." The account continues, “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’” (Isaiah 14:13, 14*) “Nevertheless, you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit. Those who see you will gaze at you; they will ponder over you, saying, and ‘Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms ((Isaiah 14: 15, 16*) The one thinking equality with God, preoccupied with the big “I” and forgetting to give God the glory suffered the consequences of his misguided self-honor. Why should we experience the same fate? During their first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas were careful to remember that it was God who worked through them to help the people. “And it came about that in Iconium, they entered the synagogue of the Jews together, and spoke in such a manner that a great multitude believed, both of Jews and of Greeks…Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands" (Acts 14:1, 3*). The apostles gave God the glory and things were working well with them. Our reliance on God and giving Him the glory will give us the same results. There is a little saying on your servant’s desk, “Not I but Him” that serves as a reminder of this great truth.
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Later during the same missionary trip, the two apostles were tested. They healed a man who was born lame in his feet. This aroused the crowd so that they were ready to make Paul and Barnabas gods and give them glory that was not theirs to receive. “The gods have become like men and have come down to us…But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their robes and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, and saying, ‘Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you in order that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, Who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them.’” (Acts 14: 11, 14 *) The apostles were quick to recognize that they were not the ones who healed the man! Paul didn’t say, “This is great, look at what I did” No, they quickly stopped the whole process and turned the attention of the crowd to the Living God. Before starting that first missionary effort, Paul and Barnabas had met the Great I AM and knew that without Him, they were nothing. The words spoken by Jesus were always with great meaning. His words were so powerful during the night of the greatest betrayal of all time, that the ones gathered to arrest Jesus were knocked off their feet! We are not told the exact number, but the ones gathered in the middle of the night included soldiers, (perhaps numbering in the hundreds), military officers, religious officers, church officials and the one who betrayed Jesus. “When, therefore, He said to them, ‘I am He’ they drew back, and fell to the ground" (John 18:6 *).
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Think of it! Jesus spoke only a few, but very powerful, words. The two words Jesus spoke to identify Himself to the crowd (I AM) contained more than enough power to control the physical actions of the crowd. (A careful reading of the verse will let the biblical scholar know that the word ‘He’ was added by the translator and was not necessarily in the original language.) On another occasion, Moses was tending sheep on the back side of the desert and had an encounter with the same I AM. At the time, Moses was living with his father-in-law, son and wife in Midian. One day while tending sheep, Moses saw a bush burning, but it was not consumed. He said, “I must turn aside now, and see this marvelous sight, why the bush in not burned up” (Exodus 3: 3*). As he stood, Moses talked with the voice from the fiery bush and learned he was to be used of God to deliver a nation from affliction. Moses asked, and the One to whom he was talking, identified Himself. “And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’ …and He said to Moses, ‘Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14 *) I AM, the eternal and always existent God, cares about how we respect His name and titles. Did not God say and does He not mean, “My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 48:11*) We can tell those who will listen, that “I did it” imitating the evil one and suffer the consequences. Perhaps the better way is to follow the apostles, who turned attention from themselves and gave all glory to the Living God; I AM WHO I AM. Amen. *New American Standard Bible
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Teamwork “Go the ant, O sluggard, Observe her ways and be wise:” (Proverbs 6:6*)
It was a warm day as the man sat quietly in the shade of the old walnut tree. A gentle breeze added to the perfect weather. As he looked up from his Bible, he saw a group of ants moving along the ground. One line of ants was marching emptyhanded to the place where someone had dropped some food. The other line was moving in the opposite direction with bits of food on their back. The man remembered that some time had passed since he read the Scriptures regarding one of God’s smallest creatures. He knew ants are indeed small creatures but also a great example of teamwork. Alone with his thoughts, the Holy Spirit caused the man to turn to the middle of the Bible and read the advice given by one of the wisest men who ever lived. “Go to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise, which, having no chief, officer or ruler, prepares her food in the summer, and gathers her provision in the harvest.” (Proverbs 6:6-8*) 7
The man quietly thanked God for giving us His creatures to observe and “be wise.” Perhaps we could learn by watching how the little ones go about their God-directed duties, using teamwork. If the job was left to one ant, the work may eventually be done. On the other hand, it would take a long time to complete the task of moving the food bits to the ant colony. With a whole army of ants working together, the job is done quickly and smoothly. Each member of the ant army has their job to do.
When each does his part, great things are done in minimum time. Small wonder that the man writing the advice told us to “observe her ways and be wise”. God’s word warns the one who would shirk his duty (a sluggard) to be a working part of the team. The wise king tells of the sluggard’s lot, “How long will you lie down, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little holding of the hands to rest—and your poverty will come in like a vagabond, and your need like an armed man” (Proverbs 6: 9-11*) Instead of getting up early enough to attend the Sunday service, a person may say, “I really need the rest; it’s been a tough week”. Many people have such weeks, but still manage to get going in the morning. . …”a little slumber, a little holding of the hands to rest”. The body may get the rest, but at what cost to the feeding of the spirit?
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We ponder our choice to join in and help the team achieve its mission. Perhaps the team is struggling to keep the mission moving and one more pair of hands or feet may be the thing needed to overcome the next obstacle. The business world uses a term,”synergy”. It means a joint effort of people so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of individual effects. One plus one, in effect, equals three. The idea works where teamwork is needed. In another place, we are told about other little creatures, and their wisdom, “Four things are small on the earth, but they are exceedingly wise; the ants are not a strong folk, but they prepare food in the summer; the badgers are not mighty folk, yet they make their houses in the rocks; the locusts have no king, yet all of them go out in ranks; the lizard you may grasp with the hands, yet it is in the king’s palaces.” (Proverbs 30: 24-28*) By way of the proverb, is God telling us to prepare provision for the future as we are able, to build on solid foundations, to work as teams to accomplish that which He will have us do with the result that we might share a king’s reward? The locusts represent another example of small creatures using their God-directed actions to get things done through teamwork. They, “all go out in ranks”. Have we ever seen the results of a group of locusts after they have gone through an area? As a team they accomplish what seems impossible to a casual observer.
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We may recall the Bible account of God using armies of locusts to make known His power to the Egyptian king. The account tells us that the whole ground was covered with locusts that cleared the land of all its green leaves. There is a lesson to be learned in teamwork from the little creatures.
Teamwork by the locusts got the work done that Almighty God planned. Using the locusts as an example, what mission needs doing with a team working together? What mighty work could our team do with each doing a little part to help? Strong people may need to slow down a little (which can be difficult for some) to allow weaker ones to keep up. The result of pulling together as a team at work, or at play or in the Lord’s work, can make life so much more fulfilling and harmonious. It can also get us to where God wants us to go. Without this unity, we spend lots of energy accomplishing little. With practice, we can learn to work as a team and pull together. If the ants and the locusts can do it, so can we! We can be thankful for the opportunity for blessing that God gave our team. Dear God, please help us to be team players at home, at work, within Your church, and in the work You have prepared for us to do. Thank you
* New American Standard Bible; i.e., NASB
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God Has a Plan! “He, who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Luke 8: 8 *)
God, who can fail in nothing, has a plan! An important part of that plan is that it includes us and every aspect of our life! The Psalmist believed it when he wrote, “The Lord will accomplish what concerns me" (Psalm 138:8 *). things for me" (Psalm 57:2*).
God, Who accomplishes all
The Apostle said it another way, “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1: 6*). It may help, on the days when we feel that everything and everybody is against us to remember that God cannot fail. Others may fail and disappoint but God has said in His holy book that He will accomplish in our lives all that is in His plan for us. The challenge comes in accepting that promise and, by faith, believing that God meant what He said. We have the choice of listening to what others say – or – believing God. Let us look to Jesus as our example. He had a definite purpose in coming to earth Where He did, When He did and Why he did. All that Jesus did was driven by a divine purpose.
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That purpose was established before the foundation of the earth. Lacking purpose, Jesus’ ministry may have been aimless and resulted in complete confusion. His strategy was to choose and train a small number of men who, in turn, would be equipped to carry the Gospel, eventually, to the whole world. All regarding Jesus, every word, every action, was for a predetermined purpose. Our Father has a plan today! You and I are part of the same plan and necessary to fulfilling Its purposes. All that we do must have a purpose. Else, our actions can be lost in aimlessness and confusion. To understand, even to any extent, the scope of God’s plan for all mankind, the Whole of scripture must be accepted and consulted regularly. It has been said, “All is part of the whole, and the whole is incomplete without every part.” Jesus never lost sight of his objective, and that provides us a reason to keep moving toward our ultimate goal in our service to Him. God has a plan. That plan has been around since the beginning of the world. Jesus was a part of the plan as are you and I! The accomplishment of the plan is dependent upon our discovery of it and then taking all the resources at our disposal to help God to bring about its total fulfillment. God did not leave the plan to chance. Jesus had no wasted energy, no wasted words. He was on fire for God, and we pray that He will light a fire under us to move us to follow that plan as He reveals it to us. Jesus gathered men around Him in whom He saw potential leadership. They were honest men who were teachable, men who were willing to confess their needs and who had a sincere yearning for God.
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Jesus invested a great part of His life in those He was training. He could not afford to have his closest disciples miss the boat! The men had to understand the truth, and be sanctified by it, else all was lost. Jesus prayed long and hard for the men given to Him by God. Everything depended on the men’s faithfulness as others believed on Him, “through their word”(John 17: 20*) Jesus needed men who could lead multitudes. What good would it have been for His objective to arouse the multitudes to follow, if the multitudes received no instruction and were not supervised? We could say that Jesus’ immediate objective was not to save the world, but to devote Himself largely to the few disciples rather than the multitudes, so that the multitudes ultimately would be reached with the truth and be saved. Everything that Jesus did with the few was for the salvation of the multitudes. The principle of selection with concentration is working all around us and will bring results. Our founder was known to say that “the only part of ourselves that lives on to influence others is the part that we invest in others.” While speaking to the multitudes, Jesus spoke in parables. “All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable” (Matthew 13: 34 *) One day Jesus spoke to the multitudes with the parable of the sower and the seed. Note Luke 8: 4- 8. He concluded on that occasion with the opening verse in this issue, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Later, Jesus explained the parable to the disciples. “Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God" (Luke 8: 11 *). Any seed is a lifeless, dry thing that is a by-product of that from which it came.
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History tells us that grains of wheat have remained lifeless and useless in the burial places of kings for many years. When taken out of their imprisonment, subjected to light and planted in the earth, and supplied with water, they have come to life and reproduced more of the same! Perhaps we have seen someone save a few melon seeds. They lay upon a saucer for months in the cupboard and nothing happened to them. We may have been inquisitive enough to break open one of the things and examine it. There wasn’t much to see as long as the seed remained in the cupboard. One day we took the seeds out into the garden and placed it in the freshly spaded soil. In several weeks, something began to happen. A small green shoot grew into a long green vine along the ground. A large yellow blossom appeared and where it fell off, a melon began to grow. As we watched it grow, we waited eagerly for the day when it would ripen, and we could eat it. It looked just like the one we had helped to eat the year before – the one the seeds came from. What made the vine? Hidden within the little white seed is a spiritual force we call life. That spiritual force reaches out of the seed and transforms the dark earth into a green vine, a yellow flower and a large melon! The melon does not come from the seed, but is created by the spiritual force within it. “The seed is the word of God” As long as the Bible is left on the shelf, nothing happens. However, when God’s word is taken and read, believed and implanted within us, things begin to happen in our lives, and others see the difference! We begin to fulfill our part in God’s great plan.
* New American Standard Bible
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The Power of Three “On the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed. “ (Deuteronomy 19:15*) It was Passover time in Jerusalem, and Jesus had just chased the moneychangers out of the temple with his hand-made whip. His actions must have caused quite a ruckus because the church leaders, hearing the commotion, quickly arrived on the scene. “What sign do You show to us, seeing that You do these things?” (John 2: 18*) Perhaps the leaders were concerned with their image, should they ignore what had taken place. Perhaps they were concerned with the increased insurance costs that may occur as the result of the physical damage to the building. They might have been notified by the temple police and needed to display their authority to maintain control over the people. Jesus, speaking in the spiritual, answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Verse 19) There followed a discussion on how Jesus would be able to duplicate in three days what it took master builders forty-six years to complete. The leaders missed the point entirely, and it took some three years, before the disciples present at the time, to “get” what Jesus was saying.
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Jesus used information from the then-existing Scripture to reveal a great truth. Later in His ministry, He would refer to the account of Jonah and his stay in a great fish’s stomach for three days and three nights. (Note Jonah 1:17) Jesus’ body would be in the rich man’s burial site for three days. As Jonah later saved a great city from its own sin after he was removed from the fish’s stomach, Jesus would offer forever, the way to save oneself from sin, after His resurrection! It is worth noting that Jesus deliberately chose the account of Jonah and its use of the number three in dealing with the church leaders, the disciples and those present that fateful day during the Passover. God’s word is filled with many examples of the power of three. Samuel was ministering to the LORD before Eli, the priest. It was apparently a time when the nation was not close to God as the account tells us that the word from the LORD was rare in those days. (Note I Samuel 3:1) One night the LORD called Samuel, and it was only on the third call that the priest recognized that it was, in fact, the LORD calling Samuel. During the long ordeal that Job suffered, God used his three friends to bring about Job’s deeper understanding of himself. It took much time and discussion for Job to see his own weaknesses in the sight of God. Job was knowledgeable in many subjects, including the creative power of God. We are just now discovering some of the truth that the three men and Jonah discussed so deeply in that day. One may ask himself why three, and not four friends or more friends. God wanted us to understand the power of three. Job continued, “Therefore, I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…. Therefore, I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes" (Verse 3, 6). The happy end of the story is that Job prayed for his three friends, and all of Job’s fortunes were restored.
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At Jesus’ birth the magi presented three gifts and worshiped the young child. They presented gold, pointing to the future kingship of Jesus, frankincense, used in worship and myrrh, used to anoint the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. During Jesus’ earthly ministry, He took three of the disciples to a high mountain to share precious truth with them. One wonders why just three, but therein rests testimony to the power of three. Peter and the brothers, James and John were present with Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mountain. Just in passing, note that the whereabouts of Moses’ Body is still disputed to this day, and Elijah was bodily taken by a whirlwind into heaven. Jesus was transfigured before the disciples on that occasion and His face shone like the sun while His clothes became as white as light. The transfiguration (metamorphose) is an important point to believers. It is a place and time where human nature met with God and where the temporal and eternal came together. Jesus was the connecting point; the bridge between heaven and earth. Jesus, during our sojourn on earth, is our connection to the Father! The three disciples, still in the flesh, wanted to build three tabernacles, one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah. When the voice of God thundered out of heaven for the men to listen to Jesus, they fell on their faces and were afraid. It was necessary for Jesus to touch them to restore them to normalcy. One wonders our reaction if we heard an audible voice from above and felt its impact on our bodies. Oh, then to have Jesus touch our lives! We know that God possesses three virtues. At any given time, He is. Omnipresent – everywhere at the same time Omnipotent – all powerful, and Omniscient – all knowing. God is Trinity, three dimensions simultaneously. He is:
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God, the Father. God, the Son, and God, the Holy Ghost. God has made mankind a triune being; body, soul and spirit. The Psalmist presents Jesus in three positions; as the suffering servant in Psalm 22, the good shepherd in Psalm 23 and the coming King of Glory in Psalm 24. “Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of Glory" (Psalm 24:10*). At Jesus’ crucifixion, he hung between two criminals as He filled the third cross. The men on either side of Him most likely had violated the laws of the time, and one could say they were paying the price. Jesus came to earth, knowing His end would be to pay the price and make a way for us to find our way back to the Father. The prophet advised the people, “He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before him. “ (Hosea 6: 2 *) Jesus prepared the way for the third part of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost, to come and dwell within us so what we may be lifted up to live in His presence! Space and time will not allow more examples; with God’s help we just need to consider more carefully the power of three. * New American Standard Bible
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