A Monthly Reflection

This month we sought to be surrendered by the transformation of the Holy Scriptures.  When we are immersed in water, we stay wet, when we leave the environment – we eventually dry out and there is not any evidence most likely that we were ever soaked.

Such is the need to stay in the Living Water, to be continually refreshed, renewed, and at home in the Word.  When we as humans start to take on a wrinkled, water-logged appearance you can tell quite clearly that we are in the water or just got out.  When we review this from the spiritual aspect – the same happens, we take on a new form, we are a new creation becoming even more beautiful than we were previously.

Problem is – it takes work.  It takes work to swim.  It takes work to study and meditate on the Scriptures.  When you love to swim like I did when I was a child it was fun.  I looked forward to splashing around, doing cannonballs, playing games, and just enjoying the different tactile responses.  When you love the Word, you look forward to the next verse, the next word, the next “aha” moment that you did not have the last time you read a portion.  You long for more.  You are being fed, nourished to your innermost core. 

Again though the problem is exacerbated by the need or lack thereof of this nourishment.  It’s easy to know when you are physically hungry as it sets in, and you hurry to fill the void.  I think there are 4 stages of this in a spiritual sense:

1. Prior to conversion – innate internal feeling that you are missing something, you just don’t yet know what it is.  The adage – there is a hole that only G-d can fill.
2. After conversion lethargic – you’re starving but you are also at the point where you have been this way for so long that you either don’t really remember feeling hungry or you might just not care as the pain is minimal-to-none.
3. After conversion emphatic – you need it, you want it, you gotta have it.  You are addicted.  You chew on the Word, and it penetrates deep within welling up eternal life.
4. After conversion hopeless – You walked away.  Something hurt you.  You say this is not for me and you turn and run.  You face life head-on again by yourself for yourself.  Sad.

We must pony up to the line.  Where are we now?  Where do you want to go?

The truth is – you are already on a fast-running horse.  One of the Beloved’s own.  He is leading and guiding you to that fresh spring of water.  You just need to stay on the horse and hold on.  Well that is if you have made the decision to embrace real reality.  What really matters.

You can find this within the pages of the Bible.

What can a few letters do you ask?

Who knew that a few letters could:

1. Ellicit hope
2. Give peace
3. Inspire change
4. Powerfully direct
5. Tenderly humble

And that’s just scratching the service.  These are those puzzle pieces missing in your life that our Father wants to give us.  To make us complete, to lead us to that victory tape.

Using James 1:22–27 as inspiration, Katara Patton wrote in Our Daily Bread this month:

“Who’s in the mirror?” the psychologists conducting the self-recognition test asked children. At eighteen months or younger, children don’t usually associate themselves with the image in the mirror. But as kids grow, they can understand they’re looking at themselves. Self-recognition is an important mark of healthy growth and maturation.

It’s also important to the growth of believers in Jesus. James outlines a mirror recognition test.

The mirror is “the word of truth” from God (James 1:18). When we read the Scriptures, what do we see? Do we recognize ourselves when they describe love and humility? Do we see our own actions when we read what God commands us to do? When we look into our hearts and test our actions, Scripture can help us recognize if our actions are in line with what God desires for us or if we need to seek repentance and make a change.

James cautions us not to just read Scripture and turn away “and so deceive [ourselves]” (v. 22), forgetting what we’ve taken in. The Bible provides us with the map to live wisely according to God’s plans. As we read it, meditate on it, and digest it, we can ask Him to give us the eyes to see into our heart and the strength to make necessary changes.

We are more mature, yet we need the Scriptures to show us who we are in Christ and how to live wisely.  We need to see our spiritual reflection and how He is chipping away at our faults, habits, issues and more to make us sparkle a little brighter in that mirror.  Scripture changes us.

Here is a great example:

Jonathan Edwards was never accused of being an emotional man. Even when he preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” it was given with few gestures and with sober dignity. When his wife, Sarah, got caught up in the emotion of the Great Awakening, he was suspicious. But as the great theologian carefully analyzed his wife’s experience, he was amazed at her “constant sweet peace, calm and serenity of soul.” He decided that because his wife’s experience focused on Jesus Christ, it had a lasting effect on her.  – One Year Book of Psalms (OYBPS)

It does not cover up our mistakes – it removes them. It is not lipstick on a pig.  It is a suit on a handsome man or a dress upon a beautiful woman.  And the Word prepares us to be ready for the next great event – the cherry on top – the completion of when we are raised anew and changed because of Jesus. 

Though for us, while on Earth, as we put on one pant leg at a time, one sleeve at a time, take one bite at a time, we need to also take one spiritual bite at a time.  Once you consume a little the next step is to ponder it.

If you have the Word in your mouth only, it shall be taken from you. If you have it in your book only, you shall miss it when you need it most; but if you lay it up in your heart, as Mary did the words of the angel, no enemy shall ever be able to take it from you, and you shall find it a comfortable treasure in your time of need.”  WILLIAM COWPER

There is truth in that statement.  You just don’t taste it, even though it tastes amazing.  You just don’t have it lying on your office or living room shelf – though it is a sight to behold.  You read and you take it in – you let it soak deep within.  It penetrates.

The challenge is how.  The mode, the manner, the desire.

Honestly, there is a weird mystery to me on this.  I have tried and succeeded somewhat in reading the Bible around the time of high school and college, yet, it never really was a thrill, an excitement to be continued, a showstopper that I need to read the next volume as in a series or watch the sequel.  Sure, I learned things.  Sure, it helped, and I am glad I did spend some time reading but the Word’s power, its sweetness, its way to pull you back to reading and studying more – only has hit me within the last couple years.  And to say that I know why I started and why it is more sticking this time – I really can’t say.  I know it is not me by my strength.  Sure I try to get up and read in the mornings.  Sure I think there is a good thing going with a healthy routine, but I could just be going through the motions.  Are you?  Or do you look forward to reading more, studying more.

To me, it’s amazing how there is a trifecta of power and sustenance between prayer, reading, and worship.  They all complement and support each other.  The more you read the more the Scriptures influence your prayer and the more you pray the more you understand the Word.  Then there’s worship.  Worship is both the others because these are dedications to the Father.  He wants our time and our hearts.  He wants our love and our devotion.  He wants our hurts and our victories.  He wants our strengths and our weaknesses and when we view the man-in-the-mirror as previously stated we get to behold the list of qualities above.  We live out His commands and we learn strength to know even more of what pleases Him.  It really is a never-ending cycle of sanctification.

Later, as he preached on Ps 119, he focused on verses 20,28: “I am overwhelmed continually” and “I weep with grief.” He admitted that he longed for more holiness. “My heart seemed to be full, ready to break, which often brought me back to the words of the psalmist in Ps 119.” These emotions of “godly sorrow” and “holy thirst” are what Edwards later called the distinguishing traits of true saints. “Godly sorrow and brokenness of heart is peculiarly acceptable and pleasing to God” and “Holy thirst is a condition of participation of the blessings of eternal life.” (ibid, OYBPS)

Do we thirst like Edwards with a holy thirst?  Do we have a G-dly sorrow with a broken heart? …….

Let’s slightly move the diner swing door to the other side.  Well sort of.

This month I did push back or got pushed back.  I was struck right in the face.  Lectio Divina.  Not my cup of spiritual tea.  I was shocked.  Sure I did not study it too immensely, but it just seemed to be less practical and of spiritual truth – that I decided to guard my heart a bit. 

These days there is YOLO – you only live once, or you do you.  Pretty much anything goes, and truth is being lost or forsaken.  Lies are being embraced for truth and deception and debauchery abound even more.  In this world for now there is an evil influence and given the concepts of the angel Moroni and the burning in the bosom with the LDS movement and how the devil portrays himself as an angel of light – I hope to not walk down those roads with His strength.  I don’t want a mystical experience or an enlightenment.  I want solid meat.  Scripture food.  Pure, wholesome, tried and true.

Oswald Chambers states this clearly in bolded font (10/10/22):

Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father…that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.” —Matthew 11:25

We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step— we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin— “But if we walk in the light,” we are cleansed “from all sin” (1 John 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.

All of God’s revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God’s truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don’t say, “I suppose I will understand these things someday!” You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the “wise and prudent.” “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17)

Well said Oswald.  Well said.  Yep obedience.  Sure that means three fingers pointing back but this is a way better approach that through philosophy or some “special reading” method.  And guess what, Scripture, I believe, backs this up in this month’s

Psalm 119 section:

⁹⁷ O how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
⁹⁸ Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies,
For they are ever ^[a]mine.
⁹⁹ I have more insight than all my teachers,
For Your testimonies are my meditation.
¹⁰⁰ I understand more than the aged,
Because I have observed Your precepts.
¹⁰¹ I have restrained my feet from every evil way,
That I may keep Your word.
¹⁰² I have not turned aside from Your ordinances,
For You Yourself have taught me.
¹⁰³ How sweet are Your ^[b]words to my ^[c]taste!
Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
¹⁰⁴ From Your precepts I get understanding;
Therefore I hate every false way.

Notice the bold – every statement talks about either a personal challenge to obey or the benefits of being obedient.  Yet of course I need help to obey, so do you.  We need the Holy Spirit to help us with this as we are weak.

And Lectio Divina – truth be told – scares me.  Again I might not know all the intricacies of the finer points of the method but why do I need to?  On one in end of the spectrum you can try to reason with intellect away from G-d and diametrically opposed is the idea of being led away with some whim, fancy, or the next cool thing – being led by the heart.  I believe there should be a devoted happy medium between the two where the head checks the heart, and the heart checks the head but where the Holy Spirit through His true discernment leads the way through the valley and onto and by that narrow road.

In favor of my hesitancy, a few Scriptures popped up front and center:

Colossians 2:2–3 (NASB95)

²that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 2:8 (NASB95)

Also 1 John 4:1 and “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”

Colossians 2:18–19 (NASB95)

¹⁸Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 

¹⁹and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.

2 Corinthians 10:3–6 (NASB95)

³For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 

⁴for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 

⁵We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 

⁶and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.

Continuing, Richard Sibbes, I think sums it up better in a more practical way:

“When we hear any promise in the Word of God, let us turn it into a prayer. God’s promises are his bond. He loves it when we wrestle with him by his promises.”

We should wrestle in prayer about the promises we read.  This, I will suffice it to say, sounds like it could be similar but to me it is not us doing the thinking – it is us doing the praying.

So while I appreciate the concept of yielding to gain better contemplation and/or interpretation – I have some reservations and I would much rather have truth be told or shown to me from being convicted, disciplined, corrected, loved, encouraged, challenged – as we learned about in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.   Wait, hold up.  Let’s not forget to yearn for that holy thirst, that unquenchable love to sacrifice our lives for Him. 

Let’s pray, read, learn, study and obey.  Rinse and repeat.  Daily.  Often. 

My prayer could be and should be like these two Psalms:

Psalm 119:139 (JPS 1917)

¹³⁹My zeal hath undone me, because mine adversaries have forgotten Thy words.

Psalm 119:144 (Tanakh)

¹⁴⁴Your righteous decrees are eternal; give me understanding, that I might live.

And take this home.  We won the prize at the fair.  Thanks Papa. We get the big stuffed animal.  We can take it home and snuggle with it and allow its companionship to comfort us.  

For me, this could mean to take the time to stop or at least slow down and read less in a session and to think about it more.  Or maybe I can make some cards to place around some spaces in the house or car I frequent to remind me of a verse or two.   Perhaps it could be more in-depth study on a particular word, i.e. “blessed” which I found out from a today’s reading in “Under the Vine: Messianic Thought through the Hebrew Calendar” – Cheshvan 6, 5783 (today in the Hebrew Calendar)

You see, the word blessing in Hebrew is b’rachah ברכה, which is the same word used for an immersion pool. In this sense, Abraham becomes an immersion pool for the Gentiles to repent and turn to the God of Israel. Of course, this is what is called in Hebrew a midrash מדרש, or a creative interpretation to explain a spiritual principle. Yeshua, Paul, and all the writers of the Apostolic Scriptures generously indulged in the use of such a literary tool.

Here is another midrash, also related to our subject. The Hebrew word for ‘shall be blessed’ in our Genesis verse is nivrechu נברכו. This verb is in a conjugated form of the verb levarech לברך, to bless, from which many other words derive. The word for knees for example berkayim ברכים, is a derivative from the verb to bless and speaks of the position in which we bless or are blessed. Another derivative of levarech is the term mavrich מבריך meaning “to intermingle,” or “to graft.” This latter derivative is quite amazing because in his midrash about the nations entering the Covenant of Israel, Paul speaks of the Gentiles’ inclusion into Israel using the concept of grafting (Romans 11).^[1]

A few more partying thoughts:

Holy Bible, book divine, precious treasure, thou art mine;

Mine to tell me whence I came; mine to teach me what I am;

Mine to chide me when I rove; mine to show a Savior’s love;

Mine thou art to guide and guard; mine to punish or reward.

JOHN BURTON

Who can tell the pleasure, who recount the treasure,

By your Word imparted to the simple-hearted?

O that we, discerning its most holy learning,

May always love and fear you, and evermore be near you.

HENRY W. BAKER