Adopting Grace Policy of Joint Agreement

If you’re willing to "spend and be spent," you’re willing to say then, "I’m willing to love you and I’m willing for you to take advantage of that because that’s my commitment."

And if you’re not willing to get there, you’re always going to live at a level that’s real shallow because it’s intimacy that "opens" you, explains Richard Jordan.
 

David, when he was confessing his sin, said, "Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom."

Paul writes in Colossians, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."

Give your loved ones permission to tell you the truth no matter what. You teach each other to lie when you identify areas that when you tell the truth, you get whacked.

If you’ve taught someone to lie to you because they know there are areas where they can’t tell you the truth because of fear of punishment . . . I don’t just mean physical; I mean psychological punishment; the shame, the rejection, the demeaning, the ridicule, the anger. They’d rather not tell you the truth, and then brood over it, than be open to you because of the reaction.

Tell yourself, "It’s more important for me to minister to them than it is to be ministered to." Grace allows acceptance; it’s the only thing that does. With performance systems you’re always going to fail.

*****

There are four negative interactions that will poison your relationship if you let them run rampant. I call them the Four Horsemen in reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who, in Revelation 6, go out and bring destruction in the earth.

I can list them for you because they’re so common. It has nothing to do with anything unique about you. They’re common to your old sin nature and they’re typical strategies that NEVER work. They destroy; they don’t build up. And yet they are a part of our arsenal; almost instinctively by nature because our ‘taker rule’ expresses itself with them.

They are: 1.) Selfish demands. 2.) Disrespectful judgments. 3.) Angry outbursts and 4.) Independent behavior. You’ll see them in any person; any Believer who’s in reversion.

They’ll be making selfish demands. They want it their way. When they don’t get it, they make disrespectful judgments, blaming someone else. It will escalate into anger. And then it will seemingly resolve itself. It doesn’t resolve itself, but it brings a modicum of peace and withdrawal.

Instead of searching for mutually acceptable solutions, abuse wants to impose a solution to the other person’s disadvantage so we can have our advantage. And, friend, the only issue there is control. You just want to be in control—behavior, attitudes, opinions.

Again, a perpetrator rarely acknowledges it. You hear all kind of excuses, all kind of justifications. But when you hear them, something that’s justifying one of those Four Horsemen—your "taker" self starts talking you into believing that you have a right for it, you’re looking out for the interest of the other. You think, "Really they’re to blame anyway; I’m innocent."

If you’re the other person, just don’t believe that stuff. Just say, "By faith, I know that ain’t true!" and don’t buy into them.

Put off selfish demands. I mean, who wants to live with a dictator anyway?! Bossing you around?! Here’s a definition: "Commanding someone else to do things that would benefit you at their expense with the implied threat of punishment if refused." Do you do that?

As a way to solve problems, selfish demands sure make sense to your "taker rule." And if your (friend or loved one) is in the "giver mode," you know what they’re going to do? They’ll reward you because their rule is, "Make you happy even if it makes me unhappy."

So if you’re in "taker mode" and the other one’s in "giver mode," WHEW! You’re going to get what you want so demands look like they work. That’s WHY they seem to work so often! And they’ll work often enough that they’ll become a habit. And it’s a habit that’s almost impossible to break.

So, think about how do you ask others for favors? Do you just tell the other what you want them to do? Do you just order them? "You should do this!" or do you say, "Could you do that?" See the difference between should and could? You’re just changing one word in your vocabulary. You think about how you do it.

The instinct of making demands when you’re frustrated, and the habit of making demands even when you’re not frustrated, makes them real difficult to break. Now if your (friend or loved one) is in the "giver mode" . . but what happens if they’re in the "‘taker mode"? Whoa! World War VI breaks out because your (loved one) isn’t ready to quit.

They say, "You want what you want; I want what I want," and you go to war. But you know the fight that results won’t stop your taker mode from making demands the next time. Why? Because your taker mode lives by the rule, "I need to be happy, and if I’m not happy, make (the other person) make me happy," and you take whatever you need to take to be happy.

So, if I got to fight someone else’s taker mode, well, then, "I just need to be a better fighter than they are," so I develop skills—not at solving problems, but at winning wars. You think that’s gonna work?! When it comes to fairness, you can never trust your taker mode, so what do you trust?

I suggest that in Philippians 2 there’s what I call a "Grace Policy of Joint Agreement." I’m going to tell you, you need rules to force yourself into confronting these things and making choices.

Faith is an action you take out of a positive volition. It’s a positive choice and there’s time in your life when you need to have situations that force you to make choices so that when you come to that, you’ve caught yourself; you’ve checked yourself.

The habits aren’t just mindlessly flowing through your life. "Boom, here’s a choice!" and you can consciously bring yourself back under control. It’s called "a belt of truth."

That girdle of truth Paul talks about where you take truth…the soldier’s robe would flow out but he put that belt on and got it all under control. But you can’t just carry the belt; you got to put it on and cinch it up.

Philippians 2 says, "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." WHOAH!

Proverbs 13:10 says, "Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom." So don’t let anything be done by strife or vain glory just to get your way. That is lowliness of mind.

Where’s your mind work? In your emotions or . . . ? What are you doing? You’re esteeming. You’re developing a value system that tells you how you think and how you make decisions. And what is it? "I’m going to esteem others better than myself." Now does that sound like the taker or the giver? Who is it really? It’s the new creature!

But see how close the giver can be to that? But when the giver does it, why is the giver doing it? So he can feel good about doing good? When the new man does it, why does he do it? Verse 5: "Let this mind be in you which is Christ Jesus."

You see why it’s so much of a catch thing there? And the reason why that is, is when you fail, what does your new nature do? It doesn’t cast you into psychological guilt and shame and rejection. It says, "Wait a minute." You get objective guilt. You say, "I made a mistake; it was wrong and now I can fix it because the Cross has equipped me to."

You can successfully deal with failures under grace, where with the giver mode, all the giver mode does is what it did with Adam and Eve. It sends you into all the psychological guilt. Things that paralyze you and make you unable so now your taker mode takes over because the giver mode—he comes to his/her rescue to say, "Come on, I’ll take care of you. I’ll make you happy."

And when you put off all that thinking process, it becomes, "I’m going to esteem others better than myself because that’s what Christ teaches me to think."

Innermost recesses

"Work hard, trust in God, and keep your bowels open."--Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)

From last night's study at church:

Paul writes in II Corinthians 6: [11] O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. [12] Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.

When something is straightened, there’s no room. There’s no room in the heart of the Corinthians for Paul; not just Paul the person, but Paul and his ministry, explains Alex Kurz.

When something’s straightened, it’s restrictive; it’s narrow. Instead of there being room and space in their bowels, they fail to see what the Apostle Paul here is trying to do.

Paul writes to the Philippians: [8] For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

He likens his ministry as an extension of the Lord Jesus Christ because he is the Lord’s spokesman; he’s the officially appointed agent by the resurrected Lord.

When Paul conducts his ministry, he does it, as he describes it, in the bowels of Jesus Christ. It’s really a beautiful description here. Paul is functioning in Christ’s stead.

What Paul’s saying is, “Listen, the very thing that fills the heart of Jesus Christ has filled my heart.” He’s challenging the Corinthians, “Enlarge your heart. Open up your heart.”

The use of the word bowels is more than, “Well, it’s just a reference to the heart.” No, the Bible uses the word heart. The Bible uses the word kidneys and liver and belly and inward parts. The word bowels, historically, is used in reference to the inner core of the inner man. The word expresses something far more intimate; far more sensitive.

Look at its use in Song of Solomon 5:4: [4] My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.

If you read Song of Solomon, without question it’s a very descriptive book that deals with two lovers. There’s this intense passion that is expressed and there are some words and pictures that are pretty intense.

In this verse, there’s this intense passionate reaction the woman is having for her lover. It goes beyond, “Oh, my heart was aflutter.”

The bowels encompass the entire realm of intimate affection and passionate sensitivity. Frankly, it’s used in a sexual context and that’s all I’m going to say.

The point is, the word bowels is a far deeper use of the English language; it refers to the inner man, to the inner life, to the inner soul.

*****

Here's part of a study by Richard Jordan.

Paul begins Philippians 2, “If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.”

Life starts out of, as Jesus Christ says, “the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” (Luke 6:45). Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

Your life proceeds forth out of something inside of you. The outward activities are just the expression of something that’s inside, and this passage is talking about what’s inside that is to be working in and through you.

“Bowels and mercies.” People say, “What’s that?” Paul writes, “For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.” Obviously, he’s using a figure of speech or a metaphor. The bowels of something is the innermost recesses. Bowels of the cave; bowels of a ship.

Isaiah 16:11 says, “Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kir-haresh.”

He’s talking about, “I’m going to have some groaning way down in the depths of my inner man; my inward parts,” and he’s not just talking about his physical anatomy; he’s talking about his soul.

I John 3:17 is another place that helps you: “But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”

He’s talking about the innermost part of a person’s soul. By the way, the issue about the bowels of compassion—that’s where compassion comes from.

If there’s something that can go right down into the depths of your soul, where life really comes from . . . is there any of that? It’s all in Christ. Now, he says, “If all this identity, and these things you have in Christ are true, here’s the mindset it’s going to produce.”

He encourages in Philippians 2:2, “Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” He’s saying, “Here’s the thing I’m trying to get done in the ministry.”

Paul goes on, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. [4] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. [5] Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”

“In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves”—that’s the whole key!

To know Him is to . . .

God’s glory gives you a hope that is steadfast and sure; you have a future connected with that glory. Colossians 3: [4] When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

The idea of glory is the outshining, the manifestation, the demonstration of His excellence, explains Richard Jordan.

God’s glory is not just that He wants you to brag about Him. It’s that He wants you to see why He’s WORTHY of being honored. He wants you to see the facets of His character that make Him someone to stand in awe of. He wants you to understand how He thinks, how He responds, how He lives. The reason for that is in John 17.

This is the Lord Jesus Christ the night before He dies: [1] These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
[2] As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

Now, here’s a good verse—you need to remember this one. You want to know what eternal life is? The gift of God is everlasting life to every one who believes. You want to know what you got when you got saved? This verse tells you:

[3] And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

That word know in the Bible doesn’t just mean, “Hey, I know that person; what’s their name?” It's used back in Genesis 4 when Adam knew his wife. They had a personal, intimate relationship where they knew one another. That’s that word.

To know God is to have the ability to personally know Him in a personal, intimate communion and way where He becomes your friend; lover, if you want to put it that way.

Eternal life is to know Him in an intimate, personal way so that you have a connection with the Father through the Son. It’s not just living forever; you’re going to live forever anyway. Heaven, hell, lake of fire, you’re going to live forever.

*****

In John 1, when it says “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” Jesus Christ has come as the one who will accomplish the ultimate intention of God in His creation and He's going to come as Emmanuel, God with us, dwelling among men as man, for the purpose of accomplishing the purpose, the plan of the Father.

That's why it says what it does in verse 14: [14] And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

When you listen to that verse it sounds different than when you read it and I'm conscious of that every time I quote that verse.

There's really two issues about the dwelling. One, He dwelt among us full of grace and truth. That's an issue about the moral glory; the essence of the character of who He was.

But there's another issue about His glory. “We beheld His glory.” There was a manifestation of His glory, and it was the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.

Glory is the outworking of the plan and the purpose the Father had, that He would dwell and come and share His life.

To know Him is to enter into an understanding of who He is and what He's planning on doing; His purposes, goals.

God-likeness is to be able to enter into an understanding of what God's doing so that you can begin to labor with Him, work with Him in it. But it gets to the place where you begin to not just know what He's doing and labor with Him, but you begin to be excited about what He's doing.

You come to delight, you come to rejoice. Jesus said, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.”

That's not a bad thing; it's a good thing. I'm consumed with what excites God and His plan. The old A-Team TV show used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Underlying Paul's 'stories'

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he was dealing with a Greek culture that placed a tremendous emphasis on the human wisdom of its philosophers—Socrates, Plato, etc.

An epistle is not just a letter. In the 1^st century in the Greek world, when an epistle was written it started with the name of the teacher, the topic and the subject and it was a formal communication from a teacher to his students. There’s this form in which they come, explains Richard Jordan.

People say about Paul’s writings, “Well, these were just letters he wrote.” These are letters, but they’re really letters from an authoritative teacher to communicate information and doctrine.

When you’re dealing with Paul’s ministry and the other epistles really, you’re dealing not just with stories that represent the doctrine but the doctrine that underlies the stories.

In Paul’s epistles there’s a fascinating thing. They’re not just syllogistic dissertations of doctrine. He takes the doctrine and wraps it in the experiences of the people he writes to, or his own experience. So, there’s this doctrine being communicated, but it isn’t like point A, B, C; 1, 2, 3.

Some people get frustrated and say, “Well, why does a book of theology look so different than these books of doctrine?” It’s because Paul doesn’t take the information out of the context of real life.

He’ll communicate the teachings in ways that always permeate the lives of the people he’s talking about—and mainly his own life.

I’ve said to you that II Corinthians is the most personal of Paul’s epistles. You can see into him the most, and he tells you something key about himself in verse 5 of the first chapter: [5] For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.

He’s saying, “Just like the sufferings of Christ, the things that come upon me when I suffer things because of the work of Christ, if I suffer then there’s a consolation that comes to me. There’s a comfort that I receive from God in those sufferings.”

[6] And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
[7] And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.

You see how Paul recognized that he was made “an ensample” of what God wants us to understand about suffering? When he suffered, it was to be an example to you about how to handle that. And when he was comforted, it was an example for you about how God comforts the saints.

Paul’s Christian life was lived in an exemplary manner for us; it was lived out for our benefit as a pattern. So, when I read Philippians, he’s not laying out his testimony about his life just to tell you about him. He’s laying it out as a pattern for us.

Philippians 3:10: [10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

I want to know Him, and again, it’s not just come to know Him initially. I want to know Him more intimately, more fully. The greatness, the infiniteness of God.

You’re going to spend eternity getting to know more and more and more and more about Him because you can never come to the place where you say you know Him fully, completely, and there’s nothing more to discover.

50 courses to teach this one verse:

Romans 1: [11] For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;

[12] That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.

Paul says, “I don’t want you tossed to and fro, carried about by every wind of doctrine. I want you to get established; I want you to get stabilized.”

What does that mean? Go online and look it up. You get 50 different people trying to sell you courses. I can save you some money. Read the next verse!

Paul says, “What does it mean to be established? Well, let me tell you.” That’s in verse 12, says Richard Jordan.

Paul says, “Believe the same things I believe and you’ll be established.” The mutual faith means something we share in common. When you share and believe what I’m teaching and what I believe . . .

You remember how he starts II Timothy 2? [1] Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
[2] And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

Same thing. He couldn’t come to them in Rome, so you know what he did? He wrote them a book. He was all hot and bothered because he couldn’t go down there and look what God did. God said, “I don’t want you to go down there; I want you to write them a book.” Why? “Because there’s some dudes in 2012 (and beyond) who are going to need that book. It’s going to be a part of my Word.”

That’s interesting, isn’t it? People are always so interested in telling God what He ought to do with their life.

So Paul writes the Book of Romans—I hate to say Romans is “milk” because it’s advanced doctrine to a lot of people. But it’s designed to be the nourishment that teaches you what God’s done for you at the Cross, and it orients you to God’s grace.

Grace is all that God is free to do for you through the finished work of Jesus Christ. There’s the justification, there’s the sanctification, there’s the change of identity from Israel to the Body of Christ and then there’s the practical application of it all.

By the way, Ephesians gets to talking to you about your walk half-way through the book and Romans waits until chapter 12 before it ever talks to you about the Christian life.

You get the average preacher in denominationalism and there’s a little slogan preachers use: “You win ’em, you wet ’em, you whip ’em, you work ’em and you watch ’em.”

Down South they used to say, “Three, Ten and Out.” That was their prescription for the successful Christian life. What does that mean? Go to three services a week, give ten percent of your money and pass out tracts.

There’s people Down South watching on the internet right now that know exactly what I’m talking about and who says it.

You know what that will do? That will make a good religious clone of you, that will put you on the treadmill. Over there they’ve got all the beads and that stuff for you to do, with the ceremonies and the liturgy and all that correctness and stuff. Whatever. Get you on that religious treadmill. You know what that will do? Nothing. Just get you more confused.

Weak, losing? One of the greatest lessons

II Corinthians 6: [8] By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; [9] As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;

You’re going to be as unknown. Why would that be? In II Corinthians 12:9-10: [9] And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
[10] Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

You see, if you have the mentality that gain is godliness, you don’t want to be weak. Because weakness is not getting more; it’s having less. It’s not being known; it’s being unknown, explains Richard Jordan.

If your definition of success is more (meaning gain), what are you going to miss? It’s in my weakness that my strength is made perfect.

Remember, in that weak appearing, you look small but what did the verse say? “As unknown and yet known.” You will have an impact spiritually far beyond your apparent size. But you will only see that by faith in some verses. Write that in your mind because that’s how you have to think about your ministry.

So, when you’re trying to be more effective, it’s not going to be with more money and with more people and more buildings and more clout and more notoriety. It’s going to be with truth and the preaching of the truth.

Listen, true Bible-believing Christianity has always been an underground movement. When you study church history, what Paul preached in the 1^st century starting at Antioch there, there is a representation of that message all the way through; in every century of church history you can find your kin folk.

If you go through northern European history you’ll find in the 600s Bible versions that translate verses and the translation they use are in your Bible today. That’s why it’s called the Received Text.

Where are we church history? We’re not there in the books because the people who write church history are Roman Catholics and Roman Catholic-sympathizing Protestants. They’re the institution. When you study church history, you study the institution. That’s not the real church.

The real church has always been an underground movement. What’s coming ahead for you and me is we’re going to be an underground church, but we’ve always been that.

But when you don’t understand God’s Word rightly divided and you think you’re supposed to be out there (gain is godliness) and that’s your whole perspective, that is the whole perspective of the system because it is destitute of the truth. It is proud and knowing nothing. Why? Because they don’t consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.

*****

One of the greatest lessons learned under grace is it’s okay to look weak; to look as if you're losing. 

Paul writes in II Corinthians 4, [11] For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

What that’s talking about is what Romans 12’s talking about; how it happens.

Romans 12 begins, [1] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
[2] And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

There are three checkpoints in the issue of presenting your body to the Father for Him to use. In I Corinthians, Paul says [19] What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
[20] For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Your soul is the issue of where your will is. He says glorify God in your spirit (obey God’s Word) and your body (that’s where it lives out). And it’s based on “the mercies of God.”

When he says, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice,” God desires a vehicle. He purchases you, puts His Spirit in you in order to dwell there and manifest the life of His Son in you. So our bodies are important vehicles.

You’re buried with Him and then you’re raised with Him to “walk in newness of life.” So what you really are is, “I’m crucified with Christ nevertheless I live.” We're a LIVING sacrifice. How did you get to be a living dead person? That’s part of the provision God made you in His Son. It’s ALREADY who you are.

All Romans 12 is telling you is just live in the reality of who God's already made you. He’s not telling you to do something so you can be something. He’s telling you, “Go be who you are.”

He's saying, “This is who you are so yield yourself to that.” Romans 6:13 says, [13] Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

He’s not saying, “Go make yourself these things.” He’s saying, “That’s who you are so just let that be what the reality of your life is.” You make a personal choice to say, “I’m going to make this what’s real with my body.”

You need to have your own personal convictions about your life. “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” is the issue of taking an understanding of God’s Word and APPLYING it.

And as you walk in the truth of God’s Word about who you are in Christ, it’s not a bunch of rules and regulations where, “If I do this I get there.” It’s just, “This is who I am,” and you’re transformed.

Again, Romans 12:2 says, [2] And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

By the way, the world wants to conform you to its mold. How does it do that? Paul tells you in Romans 1. There’s a thinking process that produces conformity to the world.

There’s a long passage in II Corinthians 3 comparing the glory of the Mosaic Covenant to the glory of the New Covenant and Paul says the glory of the New Covenant is so much bigger and better than the glory of the Old Covenant.

Paul ends the chapter by saying in verse 18, [18] But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

The law won’t transform you, but you get transformed when you’re changed from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of God.

Galatians 5:18 says that the Spirit will not lead you to be under the law. The Spirit of God leads you to be under grace.

*****

When you make the choice to “present your body,” you make a choice to use your body for Him: “I’m going to let Him be the vehicle through which His truth lives and functions. I’m going to be filled with the fruits of righteousness.” Fruits are the inward life and product of His righteousness unto the praise and glory of God.

When you move from law (or performance-based acceptance where it’s what I do that gets me accepted and gets me blessed) to grace, it’s, “God’s provided it for me and I’m just going to let that be what lives and I’m going to yield to that. I’m going to present that as my thinking process.” That’s where the transformation is; that’s where the changing is.

Here’s why you want that. When Paul says “that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God,” that’s not a “good, better and best” kind of a thing. Something that’s good is valuable.

You know what you discover when you do what that verse is talking about; what the will of God is? People say, ‘Well, if I present my body a living sacrifice and tell God to just use it for His glory, I’m going to miss out on a lot.”

No, you know what you discover the will of God is? It’s a treasure; it’s valuable. And when you treasure Him, you make choices in life because you value Him more than anything else. That’s really how you make the choices.

What do you really choose to make the most valuable in your life? That renewed mind gives you the capacity to prove and demonstrate, to say, “There is the thing that is of greatest value and treasure to me.”

The way Jesus Christ is glorified in your life is when people see what you see. When others see that you value Him more than all these other things, that will make you different than everybody else around you and it will make you different for the right reasons.

It’s the essence of maturity. It’s the demonstration of what maturity is really all about. Absolute, complete, maximum fulfillment is when I take my life and function in a way that produces all that.

One on one

(new article tomorrow. here is a post from 2013:)

Pope Francis being named Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" has just added to the attention paid to his "one God for all" message. 

The website "American Dream," for instance, asks, "Does Pope Francis intend to help the global elite achieve their goal of uniting all of the religions of the world under a single banner? Will he be instrumental in establishing a single global religion for the glorious 'new age' that the global elite believe is coming?

 

" . . . In one recent address he made it a point to say that he believes that Muslims worship and pray to the 'one God' that he also worships. This 'all roads lead to the same God' philosophy is a hallmark of the one world religion that the global elite have been slowly building toward for decades.

 

"The global elite know that even with a one world economy and a one world government, humanity will never be truly united until there is a single global religion. Unfortunately, this one world religion that they are seeking to establish is diametrically opposed to the Christianity that we find in the Bible."

 

*****

 

As we know, at the Tower of Babel “the whole earth was of one language.” Genesis 11:6 says, “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”

 Jordan explains, “I read that chapter and I think, ‘Wow, that is so true! Man can accomplish and achieve anything he sets his mind on doing unless God intervenes, as He did here.’ They had one world with one language and in verse 4 they tried to create a one-world religion. It was globalism at its best.”

*****

Biblically, the number 1 is associated with unity; it’s the number of God. No. 2 represents division and is the testimony of one divided. No. 3 brings one and two back together and gives completeness. No. 4 is the number of the earth. No. 5 is the number of death and No. 6 is the number of man.

Now, given that, here’s a great example from Jordan in the Book of Revelation on just how God ingeniously displays His number meanings in His Word.

From Revelation 20, we know that when Christ comes back at the Second Advent and sets up His kingdom, the first stage of the transition into the eternal kingdom will last for 1,000 years (the millennium).

The term 1,000 years is used six times in Revelation 20 and the first reference is in connection with Satan being taken off the earth. Jordan reasons, “If you get rid of Satan on the earth, you got rid of the conflict, didn’t you? And you brought harmony. Now they’re can be unity in the earth because Satan the deceiver is gone.”

The second reference has Satan cast into the bottomless pit for 1,000 years. He’s divided from the earth for a thousand years, shut up with a seal set on him “that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.”

Then, as John reports in Rev. 20: 4-6: “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
[5] But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
[6] Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

*****

Jordan explains, “When they live, that’s the first resurrection, so the third reference to 1,000 years is in regard to the first resurrection. The fourth reference in verse 5 is to the rest of the dead who don’t live. They’re lost people. Where are they? They’re in hell. Where is hell? It’s in the heart of the earth. Not just the grave, but in hell.

In verse 6, the fifth appearance of 1,000 years occurs with a reference to the second death. The last reference to 1,000 years, starting in verse 7, reads: “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”

Jordan says, “Six is the number of man, and Satan’s let out and you know what he finds? He finds a ready audience among mankind to serve him still.

“Well, when I read through a passage like that and I see these numbers, I say, ‘You know, there’s not ANY way under God’s heaven that a man wrote that! It just doesn’t make any sense.’ That’s why I tell you, the more you study your Bible from a believing point of view—just give it the benefit of the doubt—the more you’ll find that it will confirm itself to be God’s Word.”

*****

Jordan continues, “If you want to learn something about really believing, come back to Genesis 1. Your Bible will prove itself.  The number 1, the number of God and the number of unity, is the foundation for all other numbers because every other number is a multiple of one.

The number 1 is a fundamental, foundational number, which makes sense why it would be God’s number. It first occurs in the text of Scripture in Gen. 1:9: “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.”

“The waters He scattered out and now they’re gathered to one place. The idea with one is a gathering together in one place. In Deut. 6:4—the great confession of Israel—Moses writes, ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.’ ”

*****

In Genesis 2 you see that the number 2 is a number of division. It’s interesting that it’s in Genesis 2 that Adam is divided. Genesis 1 says, “He created man and in the image of God created he.”

“Well, when did Adam become a ‘them’? In Genesis 2, God put Adam asleep, opened up his side,

took out a rib and out of that rib He formed a separate person, Eve. Now there’s two.

“I’ve often thought about what it would have been like when Adam woke up from that sleep. I’ve never been anesthetized but once in my life and that’s when they did the radiation implants, and when I woke up from that I looked down at my feet and there stood a nurse with a Geiger counter. I said, ‘What are you doing?!’

“Well, when Adam woke up there stood Eve. I don’t know what you think he might have said—‘Whoa, where have you been all my life?!’

“And verse 24 describes what God did: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’ We like to say, ‘Baby, I’m stuck on you.’ Do you see that word one there? It’s about uniting together.”

Counter-Reformation alive and well

One of the things you have to understand about the Protestant Reformation is that it sparked a thing called the Counter-Reformation.

When the Catholics woke up and realized they were losing their grip on about 70 percent of Europe, they started what’s called the Counter-Reformation.

You’re familiar with Ignatius Loyola. These guys started a Counter-Reformation in order to push back the influence of Protestantism. One of their chief methods was to say the Protestants practice “bibliolatry.” That’s a Roman Catholic-derived term to downgrade the Protestant commitment to Scripture alone, says Richard Jordan.

Here’s a statement from a historian: “Revisions at moderate intervals of 50 years (revising the Scripture every 50 years) will keep alive the idea of man’s limited acquaintance with the original scripture in all the fullness of its meaning and prevent superstitious attachment to the letter; bibliolatry.”

When you hear people tell you that you can only find the Bible in the original languages, that’s the Catholic Counter-Reformation. You understand how serious that is?

Put it another way. They ask, “How do you know that you really have God’s Word? You don’t have the originals. Where are they? They’re lost.”

You see, the notion that the originals were the only thing inspired and inerrant originated with the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

When you look at a Protestant church today, since the turn of the 20^th Century, where even fundamentalism began to say, “We believe the Bible in its original writings were inspired of God,” that’s pure Roman Catholic doctrine designed to overthrow Protestantism.

I told people that back in the 1980s and got ex-communicated from one of the largest grace organizations in the country, the Berean Bible Society, by one of the most prolific grace teachers, Cornelius Stam, and his associates.

And you’re out. Why? Because you’re saying that the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation doctrine is wrong; that it’s not right to say the Scripture is confined only to the original manuscripts or the original languages.

The distinction between inerrant autographs and inerrant copies was first made by a guy named Richard Simon (according to Philip Schaff and his church history), who was a Roman Catholic monk, a priest, who sought to counter the Protestant doctrine of “the Scripture alone,” by arguing that only the lost originals were inspired and therefore Catholic traditions were necessary to interpret the Scriptures.

His point, in his words, was to “utterly destroy the Protestant principle of Scripture alone.” So when you hear people say that, understand what they’re saying.

When I stand here and tell you that all the new bibles on the market today—they don’t do them every 50 years, they now do them every two years, because every publishing house has to have its own, and they’re all using a set of Greek manuscripts that are exactly what Rome put out. Rome’s happy with you when you put out there’s.

The Council of Trent anathematized anybody using a King James Bible. Did you know the Roman Catholic Church has an official anathema on you if you have a King James Bible? Yeah, that’s a serious matter.

Now, in America they didn’t do anything about it because they didn’t have the political clout, but in Europe they did, and they burned people at the stake because of it.

Incarnations of copying

(new article tomorrow)

As a deadline news reporter in the ’80s, starting in college and then in a sports-writing gig at the Cleveland Plain Dealer followed by my first real job as a bureau chief for the Elmira Star-Gazette in upstate New York, I can remember the torture of having to write breaking news stories on deadline in longhand on note pad paper and then quickly orally repeat my sentences to an editor over the telephone.

In Old Testament days, the scribe’s painstaking job of copying by hand the exact words (including every jot and tittle) of the prophets had to have been absolutely unreal by comparison. I figure their backs must have ached terrible and I can’t begin to imagine the carpal tunnel problems!

In Ezekiel 9:2, one scribe is described as being “clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side.”

According to a Reader’s Digest encyclopedia on the Bible, the inkhorn, or writing case, consisted of a “reed pen that was either frayed at the end to create a brush or trimmed to form a nib; a metal stylus, perhaps, for scratching writing onto hard surfaces; a knife for cutting papyrus sheets and excising mistakes; and an inkwell in which he would mix his dry ink with water.”

The scribe first had to make black ink from mixing powdered carbon with vegetable gum and red ink from iron oxide and gum!

 

Some scribes had to scratch onto stone and inscribe text onto wooden slabs coated with wax or stucco. They also wrote on clay pots and used pottery shards as scrap paper.

*****

In an article appearing in the Sunday New York Times Book Review section about how “Twitter and Facebook are just the latest incarnations of a tradition that dates back 2,000 years,” is this interesting passage:

“Today we equate media with conglomerates and moguls: Time Warner, Viacom, Rupert. But far more representative in media history may have been Cicero, who like other upper-class Romans got his news on papyrus rolls that were copied, annotated and passed from person to person.

“Speeches, books, even personal letters were read aloud by slaves and sent on to friends and acquaintances. This distribution system made early media social; by sharing in this fashion, people were able to do what people do in such situations: signal their interests, define their personas and strengthen their ties with others.

“Literacy fell with the Roman Empire. For all but the ecclesiastical elite, media took a 1,000-year holiday. Not until the advent of the printing press did people have much reason to read again.

“Once they did, Standage (author of the new book “Writing on the Wall”) says, their behavior reverted to that of the early Romans. Social sharing could produce electrifying effect: The 95 Theses Martin Luther posted on his church door in Wittenberg, printed and passed from hand to hand, spread rapidly across Germany and within a month were known across Europe.

“Two and a half centuries later, Thomas Paine’s inflammatory anti-British pamphlet “Common Sense” coursed through the American colonies in much the same way. People read it aloud in taverns and coffeehouses; they debated anonymously in newspapers. When it was published in January 1776, independence was all but unthinkable; on July 4 it was declared.”

*****

From the Old Testament, we know it was the responsibility of the Levite priests to preserve the Word of God—get it copied and distributed and see that it was perfectly maintained.

Jordan says, “There’s an interesting thing all through the Old Testament about the Word of God. It’s called ‘the book.’ It begins to be written by Moses and then it is added to from time to time, and it’s added to and it’s added to, and those priests—those Levites—are in charge of it; they collect together this scripture and the writings.

“The nation of Israel had vast archives of writings. You look in I and II Chronicles and I and II Kings and you see constant references that it’s written in ‘the book of this’ and it’s written in ‘the book of that.’ They had tremendous written histories available to them and those priests selected out of the writings the things that were the Word of God and put them in the ark and identified them.”

*****

When Jesus came on the scene, He told the people repeatedly to look at their copies of the Book for remembrance of that which was spoken by Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, etc.

“They don’t have the original autographs of Daniel but He says, ‘When you read that copy you’re reading what Daniel said back there.' He quotes a copy of book of Isaiah and says, ‘This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.’

“What’s the criterion for something being scripture? II Timothy 3:16 says, ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God.’

“We’re talking about preserving it not just in any kind of copies, but copies that preserve the inspiration that was in the original. How does it do that? It happens over in the WORDS, because that’s the issue in inspiration!

“In that synagogue at Nazareth in Luke they had copies of the Word of God that Jesus Christ could go in there and pick up and read and say, ‘This is scripture.’ Not, ‘This contains scripture.’ Not, ‘This is scripture with a few mistakes and errors in it.’ Not, ‘This is a fairly reliable copy.’

*****

In Acts 8 we’re told about “a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians,” who was reading out of the Book of Isaiah when the Holy Spirit told Philip to go to the man and ask him if he understood what he was reading.

As the passage reports, “And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
[31] And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.
[32] The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:

[33] In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth.
[34] And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?
[35] Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
[36] And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?
[37] And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

“This dude’s got his own personal copy of the Word of God down in Ethiopia. You see he’s got a copy? Folks, the copies are being made available. Now God the Holy Spirit is going to use that copy to do something in that man’s life.

“Verse 32 says, ‘The place of the scripture which he read was this.’ God the Holy Spirit, writing in Acts 8, called the copy of Isaiah the eunuch in Ethiopia had a copy of the Word of God. God called it Scripture! That’s an amazing statement about how God preserves His Word in copies!

"In verses 35-37 you see the Holy Spirit take those copies to produce change in this man’s life. He gets the man saved by having Philip preach the Word of God to him and verse 37 is a verse that every new bible on the market says you ought to axe and throw out. You know why? There’s a verse that gives testimony to the fact that God the Holy Spirit generated faith in the heart of that man by using a COPY of the Scripture!

“Faith comes by hearing God’s word and God used a copy and the man said, ‘I’ll believe.’ That shows you the power and authority of the Book you got in your lap!”

*****

When the Apostle Paul commands the Thessalonians in I Thess. 5:27, “I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren,” he is by no means simply telling the Believers there to distribute his letter in Thessalonica.

“Paul writes that thing down and he says, ‘Listen, you’ve got the original autograph but I want you to make copies of it and give it to the brethren here, and then take copies over there to Ephesus and give it to them, and while you’re there you get a copy of the (letter) they’ve got and you bring it over here and you guys collect these epistles together.’ ”

“This is exactly what they’re doing in II Peter 3:15 when it says ‘even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you.’ The order is, ‘Collect them together and distribute them and study 'em!’ They knew what they were handling and they’re getting them out! By the way, all that takes place in Asia; modern-day Turkey. Not down in North Africa. They’re left in Asia Minor, up in Syria—up in what became the Byzantine Empire.

“I believe in Romans 16 where Paul refers to ‘the scriptures of the prophets,’ that’s exactly what he’s talking about. I’m convinced the prophets identified that Canon and put those collated books of scriptures in the hands of the Church the Body of Christ—in the hands of Bible-believing, Bible-teaching people, and the Word was committed to local assemblies for its teaching, distribution and maintenance.

“You see, ‘the church is the pillar and ground of the truth’; not the university, not the scholars. And my dear friend, if you study church history, you’ll find that in the very 1^st Century and in the 2^nd Century they were doing with the Word of God exactly what you and I are doing today!

“Did you know in 170 AD there was already a Syrian translation of a Greek text that matches the text your Bible came off of and it was in use all over Syria?! There was a Latin translation that was all over North Africa and up into Italy and that Latin translation matches your Bible right in front of you!

“There were local corruptions—Origen, Clement, those fellows around in Caesarea and Alexandria—of scripture but those (authentic) texts were there! And those men in the local assemblies of the Body of Christ in the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd Century were doing exactly what you’re doing!

“Realize the Wycliffe translators aren’t doing anything new. These missionaries (translating the Word into obscure languages) all over the world aren’t doing anything new. They’re only doing what the church has done from Day One.

“Think about the little-bitty short Gothic fellow by the name of the Little Fox who went up into the Gothic territory—they didn’t even have a written language! And he wrote down the language and translated it into their language. And he translated that same Bible you got into their language.

“It’s interesting to me that God takes His Word and places it into the hands of the true church—Bible-believing, Bible-teaching people who’ve made that Book the authority in their lives. They’re the ones who’ve maintained that Book unbroken down through the centuries. It’s interesting to me that God’s always had a people.”