Learning God's Precepts

 

Isaiah 9:6 – For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. KJV

 

Before experiencing God as my peace, every time I thought of peace, I associated it with external situations, i.e. if this and this happens, then I’ll have peace, or if people around me behaved better, then they wouldn’t irritate me so much and then I’ll have peace.

But when I was about 16 years old, I was in a very bad place mentally, (isn’t everything the end of the world when you’re a teen?). I zeroed in on what I thought was the cause and unfortunately, it was something out of mine, or anyone else’s control, and for the first time in my life I went to God, unable to help myself or find help anywhere else.

And God did something I didn’t even know was possible – he poured His peace into my heart. I had no idea that that was even available! The end result of that gift was that I changed and came out of that mental space. And most surprising of all, the thing I thought was the source of my sorrow was still true, but it had no hold on me anymore and could not dictate my mood.

God can, and does give us the gift of peace, even as we are inside the storm.

I have discovered since that time that whenever I’m in the middle of a storm, the situations don’t change first, but God works on me, and when I grow/change, these situations then change.

With God – it’s always works from the inside out, not the other way around. Cos if God only changes the situation, every time we find ourselves in similar scenarios, we’ll be right back at that bad place. But if God we can receive from God what we need for that situation, we’ll find that we’ll never go back to that place again

True Dominion right? God is Good!!

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. - Romans 13:14 NASB

Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; - 1John 3:7 NASB

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthian 5:21 NASB

 

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably asked yourself – Since I have already received Christ Jesus and He dwells in me, why then am I asked to put Him on? And how does this “putting on” work? Plus, won’t this be works?

I’m going to be frank and say that this really confused me for a while and no matter how hard I tried, I kept getting the same “Christianese” answers that did not help or provide any clarity. But now that the Holy Spirit has helped me to understand, I feel the need to put it out there.

So, I have before me a bottle of liquid laundry detergent, it’s opaque, and full of detergent. (Feel free to go pick one up right now, and if you don’t have one, any opaque bottle would do).

Let’s imagine that this bottle is who we were before we were saved by Jesus Christ. One day, we’re your everyday regular shmegular bottle of detergent, and then then we get really lucky and meet Jesus and what does He do? He pays for us, empties out our detergent content, (Romans 6:6) replaces it with clean water, and puts us back on the shelf to come back for us later.

To everyone else, we still look the same. And even to ourselves! We know that something has happened, but like the bottle, we can’t see what really happened within us, we just know that something has happened. But knowing that something has happened is not the same as knowing exactly what happened and what it means for us.

Now, this water represents the new life that we have received – Christ Life – and though we have received this water, we do not know how to be a bottle of water, we only know how to be a bottle of detergent. We need to unlearn everything we know about being a bottle of detergent and learn how to be a bottle of water.

So, when someone comes by and tries to pick us up, we let them know that we do not contain detergent, and we have been paid for by someone else (we refuse to submit ourselves to them).

In this analogy, the process of unlearning the habits and behaviors of a bottle of detergent is how we put to death the deeds of the flesh (Romans 8:13), while the process of learning the behaviors and habits of being a bottle of water is how we put on Christ, manifest the Life of Christ Life and practice the righteousness that we have already received.

We practice righteousness because the life we received is righteous. If you say that your detergent has been poured out and replaced with water, if anyone pours you out, water not detergent should come out, no matter what your bottle looks like. This is why our fruit is the only significant sign of who we really are. (Matt 7: 16-20)

To conclude, as with all other things we must start with Jesus – the author and finisher of our faith, therefore the first step is Knowing and believing – as far as that scenario is concerned – the finished works of Christ. Once that is out of the way, the rest becomes possible. 

Because, if Jesus is not the beginning, how then do we expect to finish?

This week, while reading through the acts of the apostles (the goal is to read it all in 7 days), I came across this phrase in acts 6:5 " they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit" and it stopped me in my tracks. Now, this is not the first time I've read this scripture, and it's definitely not going to the last but this time, I got there and I couldn't seem to get past it. In my heart, it got me asking - who will people say I am in Christ? How does God see me? Am I full of faith? Growing in faith? Full of the Spirit? Or like later said of David in Acts 13:22 "a man after Mine (God's) own heart" 

I couldn't give an answer 

This takes me back to a few months ago when I was reading a devotional by Francis Chan where he posed a question that has been central to the turn around of my Christian Life. It goes - If you get offered heaven for eternity, everything you've ever wanted and the same for your loved ones, but without Jesus - will you take it? Will you accept this deal? I was shocked and couldn't believe that I didn't immediately say no. How do I say I love God when I could just give him up like that for the "good life"? How can I be a person after God's heart when He's nothing but optional for me? How can I be full of the Spirit when I didn't feel connected enough to quickly say no when the option was offered? How do I see my relationship with God if He's not one of my "loved ones"? 

Why was He so disposable?

Back then, I felt such great heaviness in my heart and then I tried to imagine how God felt about it. God loves me completely but He's optional in my life. Imagine wasting time praying and struggling through bible reading (real struggle) but not truly loving him. Imagine me asking and asking for blessings and favor, asking Him to show up for me but not loving him enough to chose Him in addition to others - not even above all. 

I was shattered.

But being shattered is not enough - the Holy Spirit led me to that devotional then, and these bible passages now for a reason, it's time for a real turn around. Sure, I may love Jesus enough that my answer when asked to chose heaven without Him has changed, but do I love Him enough to live so completely for Him that the world identifies me by Jesus?

Lord, as the deer pants for water so do I pant for you - I don't just want to be near You, I want to be connected to you, plugged in and I want to truly encounter you in ways I never imagined, I want to be so into you that the world and all it offers take second place. I want you more than anything else, please help me to grow in my love and trust of you - give me fresh encounters, I want to be full of faith and of the Spirit, I want to be a woman after Your own heart.