Learning God's Precepts

 

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

In the beginning God created Adam and Eve, and they were good. He put them in the Garden of Eden and gave them everything they needed for life and living. Life was good – life was perfect, but in the middle of the garden were special two trees. One is the “tree of life”, the other the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. God told them they could eat from all the trees in the Garden except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God wanted them to eat from the tree of life, that’s why He told them that it was special and that they could eat from it, but God being God and perfect didn’t want to command it of them. He wanted them to make a conscious decision to choose life – life with Him forever.

But Adam an Eve either by ignorance or a lack of understanding never quite made it to eating of the tree of life. Before they could get to it, they were deceived by Satan, and they disobeyed God ate of the tree that He told them not to eat of – The tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.

I don’t know about you, but the clue was right there in the name – who wants to know evil? Not me. But apparently Eve and Adam didn’t quite get it, and I guess if you’ve never seen or experienced evil you won’t know just how bad evil is. They were deceived and they ate of the wrong tree and with that sin came into the world. And since Adam and Eve were the only humans existing that that point, they had effectively chosen not just for themselves but for everyone else that would descend from them – thanks guys.

God had also told them that the day they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that they would die, because you see if you don’t choose life, you’ve chosen death. And on the day they disobeyed God, something in them died and in it’s place sin took over.

What is sin? Who is this sin?

Simply put, sin is the producer of sins. Sin is the producer of evil and all its products like shame, and fraud and lies and strife within us and in others. And since they had chosen evil, they had welcomed him into their lives instead of Life. And sin took over.

Now this posses a problem. God is holy and perfect and good. In Him is no sin or evil. His eyes cannot behold sin. He cannot commune with sin. And this effectively separated us from God and His protection, and his cover. And since that day sin has a free reign. The world we have today is all the evidence we need to know what happens when sin has free reign.

But thankfully nothing, not even sin can separate us from the love of God. Because God loves us even when we are sinners. And God in His love decided to give us another chance to chose Life. The life we should have chosen in the Garden of Eden.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

But in order for us to be able to receive life, we need to first eject sin from within us. Unfortunately, sin said that the only way to release us is by death, for the wages of sin is death. The only payment sin is willing to collect in exchange for a person is death. Unfortunately, dead people cannot choose life because after death the only thing man has to look forward to is judgment. So there has to be another way – what if someone else died our death? What if someone else paid sin for us so we didn’t have to?

But how would that work? Since Adam and Eve effectively chose for us all, this means that sin lives in all of us, so if anyone dies, they’ll be dying for their own sin. They’ll be paying sin what they owe him so their death would serve no real purpose for the rest of us. Their death would not be able to save us. We needed someone without sin, that way their death would not be for them but for us.

This is where Our Lord Jesus comes in.

Jesus was born without sin because He wasn’t born of the seed of Adam. Mary carried the first surrogate pregnancy recorded in history because she became pregnant not because she had sex but because the seed of the life of God was implanted into her womb and she gave birth to Jesus Christ our savior. Finally, there’s hope for humanity. We now have a man born without sin, who sin had no hold over, who death had no claim on, if He died, his death would not be His. It could be ours.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

Jesus is our second chance to choose life. The life that Adam and Eve should have chosen in the Garden of Eden but didn’t. But God is still God, He hasn’t changed. And because He hasn’t changed, He won’t force us to choose Him. He’s giving us the same choice He gave Adam and Eve in the beginning to choose life, to choose Him.

How?

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

We must be born again. I know it may sound weird cos no one is really born twice. Especially not an adult. But the wages of sin is death, and that death must be paid. The only way around it is if someone dies in our place. He receives our sin and dies for us and in exchange we receive His life. In this way sin dies in us and we get new life, Jesus’s life. This is how we are born again.

How do we give Jesus our sin and receive His life?

even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

By believing and by asking. It’s really that simple. You don’t need me to tell you what to say, use your own words, from your heart. Cry out today. The Father’s been waiting a long time to welcome you home.

If you've been a Christian for more than a couple of days then you've probably heard of the parable of the prodigal son, and if you haven't read it yourself don't worry, I'll post it here so take a few minutes to read it, and even if you've read it before read it again, its only about 21 verses. 

Luke 15:11-32 NKJV

Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So, he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 

But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. 

“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’ 

“And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry. 

“Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So, he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.’ 

“But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore, his father came out and pleaded with him. So, he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’ “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’”

 

Now as the title suggests, I will not be focusing on the entire parable, I will only be focusing on the road to the Father's house and based off of that, I'd like to highlight a couple of things.

1. It's The Same Road; You see, It’s the same road the prodigal son took out of the Father's house that he took on his way back; it's the same road that leads to the Father's house that also leads away from it. So, for those of us on earth, that are traveling down that path on our way back to the Father, what does that mean for us? Since it's the same road that leads to and from the Father's house. 

First, on that road we're going to meet a lot of people, we need to careful about the people we decide to travel with. That we meet them on the road to the father's house does not mean that're on their way to the father's house, they could be on their way out. So, ask yourself, "what direction is this person facing?" And you know the scary part? the prodigal son looked better on his way out of the Father's house than he did on his way back, so appearances may deceive us.  On his way out he had all the trappings of the father's house, the goods, the looks, the whole package. He could probably quote the Father profusely having lived with Him. But on his way back he only had a humble heart crying out for help from the Father - he looked nothing like the Father's son.

Secondly, it should also serve as a heart check for us. That we're on the road to the Father's house does not mean we're actually facing the Father's house - so ask yourself, what direction am I facing? No one thinks that they're the on their way out, and since this is not a physical road but a spiritual one, we need to check our hearts - Have we started taking ownership of the gifts and the trappings of the Father's house? Remember, these gifts were from the Father, they were not given or collected from the devil. On the way out of the Father's house the prodigal son was an owner, but on his way back, he was returning with the heart of a steward.

2. Forever Stewards; continuing from the last point - if you are born again, then welcome sibling! By virtue of new birth, we have become sons of God and as sons we have an inheritance in Christ, but by definition of the word inheritance, you only come into ownership after your parent (the owner of the goods) dies, but what happens when person does not die? You see, we are sons of a Father that'll never die, so what does that mean for us as sons that have an inheritance? It means that even though we'll always have access to everything the Father has, because He has made them available by His mercy, it'll always be owned by Him - we'll never be owners. And this is the best way really, this way all sons have access to everything without any one person laying claim and denying others access. 

But seeing as we're humans, and we love recognition and ownership, this has repercussions for us. You see many of us don't mind being stewards for a while, but after some time something starts itching within us to claim ownership. We want to put our name on things and people and results, even if they're from God, and so also did the prodigal son. We don't know how long he lived in his Father's house happy to be a son who had access to all the father had. He wasn't always disgruntled, there was a time when he was happy to live off the Father and enjoyed being known as the Father's son, but after a while he wanted goods with his name on some of it. He wasn't even greedy - he didn't want it all, just that which was due him. 

It's time for us to stop and take a look at our lives. Have we started putting our names on the things that belong to God, including ourselves? Or are we itching to put our names on the things of God? Things like this generally start small, like wanting recognition for the things God does through us and being annoyed that no one is giving it to us. Again, I'm going to say that no one wants to think they're facing away from the Father's house, but some of us are, but if we let the Word of God do its work in us, there's hope. There's always hope. Maybe we haven't done a full 180 yet, maybe we're just beginning to turn and have only turned 20 degrees, cry out to the Savior, His grace is sufficient, His mercy is always available, and His blood is capable. 

3. Let Them Go; Finally, let people go - even if they're our kids. Sometimes we think it is virtue to hold down people who want to leave the house of God by all means necessary, but even the Father let the son go. This doesn't mean that we don't help people, to quote the book of Jude verse 23 "save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh." but you can only help those that know they need help.

The Father didn't stop the prodigal son from leaving, in fact He gave him exactly what he asked for and watched him leave. He didn't go and drag him back when he started living recklessly, He didn't run to him when famine hit the city, He didn't go to him when he was feeding swine, He only ran to him after he came to his senses and turned towards the Father's house. At every other point on this journey, before he came to his senses going to him (the prodigal son) may have looked like help, but it wouldn't have been real help, because before he came to his senses, he probably thought that all he needed was more goods, not to return home. 

Imagine how the Father must have felt, imagine what must have been said about Him when His son was living a reckless life. He would have been the brunt of endless jokes, but He endured because he had his eyes on the real price, a changed heart for His son, not just his presence or good behavior. 

May the Holy Spirit guide us to give people the help they truly need, not the help that makes us feel good. Amen.

4. Take Advantage Of Everything In The Father’s House: I find this to be the problem, or one of the problems of the elder brother. He’s in the Father’s house but not really enjoying the things of the father. He’s working for the father and just assumes that his receiving from the Father would be automatic, so instead of asking the Father for the things he wants and needs, he’s instead toiling away and waiting for the father to give the things he wants - without his asking. 

But Jesus has told us that we should ask, and we will receive, seek and we will find, knock and the door will be opened to us – or as the book of James put it, you have not because you ask not. What you don’t ask for you’re not likely to receive, and if you spend your life not receiving but instead being a spectator of life where you watch everyone else receive the things that you yourself want, it won’t take long for bitterness to begin to take root in our hearts. 

Maybe he didn’t ask because he thought the Father wouldn’t grant him his request, and a lot of us are like this, we think we should only go to God with serious or “pious” things, and we feel guilty about asking God for the things we’d like – please throw that guilt away – open your mouth and ask. The Father delights in granting us our hearts desires – He will not give you stone instead of bread or snake instead of fish. 

When I am sad, I cry

When happy, I dance

Angry, I vent

And when confused I sit still

All in the presence of the One Constant in my life.

The invariable One, whose presence I never lack.

When I sin He fixes

I lose my way, He brings me back

Confused, He clarifies

Ignorant, He teaches

Weary, He shows up in His power

My ever present love, 

The One who never lets me go, who takes great care of me.

Recently, we had a death in the family, and in the midst of my brokenness, the Lord led me to read the book of Job and two verses stood out to me

Job 42:5

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees You.
Therefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 9:33

“Nor is there any mediator between us,
Who may lay his hand on us both.”

 I think about all that Job went through, and all that he suffered, and yet when He saw God his response was “I Repent”. Never in my wildest imaginations would I have thought that after being put through the worst things that could ever happen to a person on earth, that Job’s response would be I repent. Burying one child is hard enough, but burying ten? And his response was still I repent?

It was in this moment that I really came to realize that no matter what we go through in life, no matter the hardships, and the number of questions that come with them. When we meet God, our response will be I repent. No one thinks they “deserve” to bury their children, no one thinks they “deserve” to have loved ones die suddenly and prematurely, no one looks at themselves and concludes that they “deserve” the hardships of life that they are going through. Our prayer is that it never happens to us, and when it’s in the horizon, that God saves us from it. And when it does happen, while we are in the midst of pain that cannot be described, we cannot understand how or why this is happening/happened to us, and this leaves us with more questions than answers.

But at the end of the day, we will realize like Job that “we have uttered what we did not understand, things too wonderful for us, which we did not know.” And we will repent, despite our pain and suffering.

Realization is not the same as understanding though, but I have accepted that these are things too wonderful for me to understand, and I have made peace with it.

Now to the second verse.

This verse emphasizes something that I have always thought before now when reading the book of Job, and it’s that Job needed a mediator to stand before God for him, someone to draw a line for humanity, someone to plead our case and pray for us. Maybe if there was someone there to stay the mouth of the accuser, so that the effects his accusations were limited. Maybe Job’s sufferings would not have been as intense. And this leads me to Peter’s temptation.

And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” Luke 22:31-32

This is Satan again, asking for a Child of God to sift. And even though we don’t have details of the encounter where Satan asked for Peter, when we look into the process of sifting wheat in Jesus’s time, you’ll discover that it was a very rigorous process. Now, when I compare what Job went through with what Peter went through (His denial of Jesus) it doesn’t seem commensurate. But then I remember one great factor that differentiates them both.

Jesus said “But I have prayed for you”.

Jesus praying for us makes all the difference in our sifting. Find rest in this.

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins – Mathew 25: 1-13

¹ “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ² Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. ³ Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, ⁴ but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. ⁵ But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.

⁶ “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom [a]is coming; go out to meet him!’ ⁷ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. ⁸ And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ ⁹ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ ¹⁰ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut.

¹¹ “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ ¹² But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

¹³ “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour ^[b] in which the Son of Man is coming.

Have you ever wondered why the 5 foolish virgins are called foolish? I too have often wondered if calling them foolish was a tad too harsh because they had more similarities than differences with the wise virgins. They were all virgins, both sets of virgins had lamps, they both had oil in their lamps, they all went out of the city, they all came to see the groom, they were all waiting for the groom, both slept off, both had to be woken up too and all their lamps had gone dim and needed more oil.

The only difference between the foolish virgins and the wise virgins was that the foolish virgins did not have extra oil. It's not that they didn't have any oil at all, they did. They just didn't have extra. So, I begin to wonder, what is it about extra oil that will make one person foolish and another person wise.

We know from the bible that the lamp represents the Word of God (Jesus Christ) and oil represents the Holy Spirit. This means that they all had the Word and the Spirit, and when we get born again, we too get both the Lamp – Jesus dwells in us by His Spirit - and when we are baptized with the Holy Spirit we get the Oil.

We get the Word and the Spirit simply by believing, there’s nothing we had to do to get It. And though God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6), our salvation/our new life in Christ and being filled with Holy Spirit was a gift and not a reward.

But then Jesus told us in Luke 11:9 - 13

So, I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

¹¹“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for f a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

This means that we are expected to ask and seek for the Holy Spirit. And this is where I come back to the parable of the 10 virgins.

All 10 virgins had a lamp - they did not need another lamp. This means that they all had decided to follow Jesus, they believed and received the lamp, and were all waiting on His coming. Also, all lamps had oil in them – this means that had all been baptized with the Holy Spirit. You cannot be baptized twice, but we are to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit. We are to continually be filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18, Acts 4:31).

When the 5 foolish virgins realized that they need oil, the first thing they did was to ask others for it – they looked outwards, and this might just mean that this is the way they know to acquire oil. Not buying it, but just receiving from the overflow/excess of others. And this is a perfect representation of us in the body of Christ today.

We’re always on the look out for where the Spirit is moving so that we can be a part of it. We’re always looking for someone who is full of the Spirit to lay hands on us so that maybe some of it rub off on us. We hop from one conference to the next hoping it’ll fix us. Because outside of others, we do not know how to buy oil for ourselves.

The five virgins had the money they need to buy oil, but they didn’t buying. They knew where to buy oil but didn’t bother going. It was easier to not bother. The wise virgins did the work to buy extra oil, but the foolish ones thought they could coast by, by doing the bare minimum.

Isn’t this most of us with our walk with God? Doing the bare minimum and consoling ourselves with phrases like “Jesus understands”. Well, this is Jesus Himself sharing this parable.

Revelation 3:16 says - So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

In the above verse, Jesus is taking to Lukewarm Christians, and He says He'll spit them out. This means they're already in His mouth, you can’t be in His mouth if you’re not in some way a follower of Christ, but like the foolish virgins will be spat out/ not let in to the house if you’re not doing the work to be set on fire/acquire new oil.

I have made this mistake too – and I only began to understand this parable when I began to see signs of lukewarmness/foolishness in my life.

I can pray more but why bother? I can study the Bible better but that’s too stressful, and I'm only human after all. God understands. Plus, God loves me and I am following after him, it should be enough. I didn’t say I wasn’t praying or reading the bible, but I was doing just enough to get by. Just enough to keep the lamp burning, but absolutely nothing to increase the oil in my lamp. I had learnt how to light the lamp, I had learnt how to use the lamp, and how to manage the oil in the lamp.

But I didn’t know how to buy oil. And if I don't know how to buy oil, I will always be in danger of running out, and I’ll never have enough to overflow unto others.

A lot of us give our lives to Christ and we receive the Lamp and Light that is Life, and after a while it seems like our fire dies out. And we don't know what to do. The thing is that we are too busy managing the oil we received instead of buying more oil. But no matter how much we manage the oil, it will only last so long before it starts burning out and we'll need refilling – and at this phase, we'll have to do the buying instead of collecting from others. Because if we do not do the work of buying oil, we won't have any to refill with.

Isaiah 55:1-2 New American Standard Bible - NASB 1995 (NASB1995)

“Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight yourself in abundance.