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November 2014

Daily Bible thoughts 741: Wednesday 5th November, 2014:

Psalm 108:6-13

It has been pointed out that in the Lord’s Prayer, the repeated word ‘’your’’ comes before the repeated words ‘’us’’ and ‘’our’’. The very order of the prayer shows that God’s concerns take precedence over our own. It’s a case of God first!

Interestingly, a similar pattern is found in Psalm 108. Each stanza contains a prayer: first that God will be honoured (5); secondly that His people will be delivered (6), and finally that they will overcome in the fight. (12). Again, God’s glory is put before human need, however pressing the latter may be.

So this psalm emphasises something important about how we order our prayers.

But it also shows that prayer gets its confidence from truth about God, and each stanza brings a particular truth to the fore:

  1. God’s ‘’love’’ (4) is constant. His ‘’faithfulness’’ is comparable to the highest reality we observe, ‘’the skies’’, but His love is even ‘’higher’’: ‘’…his loving commitment to us is the supreme reality of all. Hence we can face a crisis with a steadfast heart, with vocal and public praise and with prayer that in this situation he will prove himself to be what he really is (1-5)’’ Derek Kidner: ‘New Bible Commentary’, p.559.
  2. God’s promises cover this crisis (7-9). The Lord had already spoken about the subservience of Edom. We can pray with great assurance when we know our Bibles; when we are clear about what God has said. Prayer, resting on divine promises, possesses certainty. Let’s ransack our Bibles for every promise we can stand on. ‘’Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, and looks to that alone; laughs at impossibilities, and cries, ‘It shall be done’.’’ The story of George Mueller of Bristol is one of faith knowing the promises of God and being prepared to plead them. Mueller read the Bible through, on his knees, over and over again. It is said that he developed a way of praying that was like a lawyer in a law court arguing a case. Humbly and reverently, but boldly, he would say, in effect, ‘Lord, you must, because this is what you have pledged in your Word.’
  3. His power alone is sufficient for the crisis (10, 13), and in answer to prayer He will bless His people with the needed help (11, 12). As we saw last time, the psalm opens with singing, and worship goes hand in hand with warfare.

‘’This is the best way to fight. Keep quietly in fellowship with God; and when the enemy draws nigh, look up to your ever-present Friend…The heart must be fixed in an attitude of consecration and devotion…Moab, Edom, Philistia, are synonyms for fierce hostility, and recall our besetting sins, our virulent foes, which fall before us when we are in alliance with the Almighty.’’ F.B. Meyer: ‘Great verses through the Bible’, p.233.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the significant truth that victory over every enemy is possible through you. Help me to trust in you alone, and draw from you all the resources I need for this day.

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Daily Bible thoughts 740: Tuesday 4th November 2014:

 Galatians 5:1-6 (why not have a listen to the talk on Galatians see talks page)

Here are two balanced points to hold together in our understanding:

  1. Faith does not need the addition of works to save a person: The Judaizers were saying to the Galatian believers, ‘You need Christ plus circumcision to be saved.’ Paul’s reply was adamant: ‘No, you need Christ only.’ Paul’s message was about ‘’grace’’ (4) and ‘’faith’’ (5). A person becomes a Christian because of God’s grace (His undeserved favour) and through faith. God doesn’t ask you to be circumcised to belong to Him, or to do anything else, but to trust in Christ alone. It really is that simple. Paul saw that their pre-Christian lives under the Jewish law had been one of carrying a heavy burden – ‘’a yoke of slavery’’ (1). Having been set free by Christ from trying to earn God’s favour, he urged them not to return to ‘the land of bondage.’ Keith Green recorded an album some years ago which was entitled, ‘So you wanna go back to Egypt?’ That was Paul’s question!

 

  1. Faith without works is dead (as the apostle James would say, verse 6): You don’t need to add any good works to faith in order to become a follower of Christ, but, (and here’s the subtle, nuanced balance we need to maintain) as a person of true faith you will manifest this in good deeds (Ephesians 2:10). You’re not trusting in the good deeds to get you saved; but as a saved person you will do good deeds. Faith in Jesus will be accompanied by the fruit of Jesus’ own character reproduced within. We will see more of this shortly. Faith will express itself ‘’through love’’ (6; see Romans 5:5 and James 2:14, 17). People of faith in Jesus have a growing love for God and for others, by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament law is fulfilled in them. It is written on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). They are not trying to keep the law in order to get right with God, but they do keep it as the overflow of God’s life within them.

The point has been well made that to fall ‘’away from grace’’ (4) does not mean to lose your salvation. It means to move out of the sphere of grace and operate in the realm of law. It is to substitute regulations for a living relationship with Christ. Beware of any teaching that bases your acceptance with God on any kind of religious performance.

As the hymn-writer said: ‘’Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy cross I cling.’’

Prayer: Lord, I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that what I do can make me more acceptable to you. Today I am reminded that my acceptance with you is all because of you. It is based on faith in the finished work of Christ, and even that faith is your gift. Thank you for your amazing grace! But I also ask that you will keep me from falling into the trap of thinking that it doesn’t matter how I live because you accept me. I recognise that it does, and that by the power of the Holy Spirit I will go on being changed. I want to fully co-operate with you in this work of transformation.

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Daily Bible thoughts 739: Monday 3rd November 2014:

Galatians 4:21-31

In this next section ‘’Hagar’’ represents the Old Testament law, and Sarah stands for the new covenant of grace. The challenge for the Galatians lay in this: would they return to slavery, trying to be made right with God through works of the law; or would they maintain the freedom of trusting in Jesus alone for salvation? Would they substitute human effort for faith? There are at least two key ideas here

  • Promise (23, 28): We might say that Abraham ‘worked’ for the son he had with Hagar, ‘’the slave woman’’. Ishmael was born because of human reasoning and effort. ‘’The son of the slave woman was born by human connivance…’’ The Message. On the other hand, Abraham ‘believed’ for the son he had with Sarah. It was biologically impossible for him and Sarah to have a child, but he believed God’s promise that they would, and they did! (Romans 4:18-25). A son was conceived and born ‘’by the power of the Spirit’’ (29). Christians are Abraham’s true children because they also believe God’s promise that they will have a right standing with God if they put their trust in Jesus. Through faith in Him the impossible happens: we are forgiven our sins and made right with our Maker. So ‘’like Isaac’’ we ‘’are children of promise’’ (28). We can try to get saved and fail, or trust for salvation and enter into it. Hagar (and Abraham) represent trying; Sarah (and Abraham) represent trusting. Paul saw clearly that to go back from trusting to trying was a return to religious slavery. That really should not be seen as a viable option for anyone in Christ (30). We want to put distance between ourselves and any form of slavery (30; see 5:1; Genesis 21:10, 12-14). As Abraham ‘got rid’ of Hagar, Paul says the Galatians should rid themselves of the Jewish false teachers (and their teaching) who were wanting to take them back to the law and bondage.
  • Persecution (29): The persecution of Isaac by Ishmael was a foreshadowing of the difficulties (in Paul’s day) created for true believers by the Judaizers (those with a message of ‘works righteousness’.) Paul taught ‘believe and you will receive’. Salvation is by faith in God’s promise. But his opponents taught the need for human effort for salvation. Faith alone was not enough. It had to be supplemented with certain good deeds, such as circumcision. So the Christians were experiencing this painful antagonism: ‘’Isn’t it clear that the harassment you are now experiencing from the Jerusalem heretics follows that old pattern? The Message.

‘’God’s promise – that is, His word – is powerful. It is a living word. It gives life. Through God’s word Sarah gave birth to a child, Isaac, even though she was ninety years old! In the same way, through God’s word of grace, THE Galatians have been born by the power of the Spirit (verse 29). They too are citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, the true offspring of Abraham, not by natural descent but by the grace of God. Why should the Galatians now turn back and seek to live like children of Hagar the slave woman?…Let us not throw away the grace of God by putting our faith in the works of any law or any religion. Let our faith be in Christ, and in Christ alone.’’ Tom Hale: ‘The applied New Testament Commentary, p. 715. ‘’…to live by grace, through faith, gives one a free and fulfilling Christian life…you and I need to beware lest Ishmael and Hagar have crept back into our lives. If they have-let us cast them out.’’ Warren W. Wiersbe: ‘The Wiesbe Bible Commentary’ (NT), p.570.

Prayer: Thank you Lord that our salvation does not depend on works. We could never know if we had done enough good works. I am so grateful for the freedom that simple trust in Jesus brings.

 

 

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