For verily he took not on him the nature of angels
Hebrews
{2:15} And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
{2:16} For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
{2:17} Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto [his] brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
{2:18} For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.
Fear of death.
Just recently I was talking to someone and the subject of death came up and how they'd like to die, of course a typical answer is 'in my sleep'. It would be nice to die easy, who wants to suffer before or during death? Then instead of answering another person said simply that they don't want to die, period. That they've been thinking about it a lot lately and they just don't want to die. That too is something we all want, not to die at all, to live forever.
Fear of death. We are in bondage to that fear all our lives. One certainty in life is death, it's the only certainty really. Just like the only alternative to aging is death as well. As we get older we can tend to think of death more often, it's natural. The fear of death can mount as well the older we get.
'Deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.'
Through fear of death we are subject to bondage. Subject to knowing there will be an end to us. It is bondage, we are a slave to dying, there is no escape, none.
Jesus alone will deliver us from that fear with the promise of eternal life.
Jesus didn't take the nature of angels...
What is the nature of angels?
Spirits and yet able to take human form. Able to live in heaven with God and travel to earth. Jesus didn't take on an angel's form. He didn't become an angel. Men were made a little lower than the angels, Jesus was made lower than the angels.
Jesus himself suffered being tempted and because he lowered himself to become man and put himself into temptations way He is able to save us.
Yes, we have fear of death now, but we have hope in Jesus, hope because He became one of us and knows what it is to be tempted.
We need to cling to the hope in Jesus, cling to His love and mercy now and always. He will save us, we have hope of a much better life and all those who would have us believe Jesus is just a myth, a fairytale, well, I feel sorry for them because they don't have the hope of eternal life, their only hope is in this world, this ugly sin filled world.
Through Jesus we hope, through Jesus we live now and forever by His Grace.
Amen.
12/11/09
Psa 40:8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
Psa 143:10 Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.
Mat 6:10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Mat 26:42 He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
Luk 11:2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
Heb 10:7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
Heb 10:9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
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God's will be done. Not our will, but God's. Jesus came to fulfil the will of His Father. Just imagine Him saying this--
'O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.'
He spoke to His Father and submitted to His Father's will doing something that He really would rather not do. How often are we called to do things we would rather not do? And how often do we simply not do it rather than submit? Sure it'd be easier if things were clear cut, but we know how God would have us be. How Jesus came to reveal God to us, to reveal His will that we should love one another and all that entails. We don't love each other, not really. We don't even like each other the majority of the time. Why? Because we are so focused on ourselves and our own feelings, our own desires, our own opinions, our own ways. We are selfish, totally selfish and we put ourselves first before God's will- all the time.
With David we should pray-
Psa 40:8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
Psa 143:10 Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.
Teach us God, teach us to do Your will.
In and of ourselves, left to our own we can't know how to do God's will. We must surrender to God's will and when we find ourselves totally self-absorbed and considering our own selves, our feelings, our wants, our needs, we have to stop and consider whether or not what we want is what God wants.
Jesus taught us to pray and pray- Thy will be done, not our will be done.
Please Lord, open our hearts and minds to Your will whatever it is. Let our will be that your will be done, always. Teach us, help us, through the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who prayed Your will be done.
Amen.
12/11/09
Psa 119:133 Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
Such a prayer. This prayer should be one we all pray shouldn't it? 'Order my steps in thy word', we want our lives to be led by God don't we? If our steps are ordered in His word we are following His ways aren't we? We are following the path He would have us take. Adding to that; 'let not iniquity have dominion over me.' we are saying that we don't want sin to rule us. Sin does that, doesn't it? It rules us. It controls us, it dominates us in so many ways. We fall victim to sin and then it starts to consume us. Any addict will tell you the depths of depravity that an all consuming, domineering sin has over them. The craving to sin is intense, the longing to give into the sin to find relief from the pain of not sinning is so intense. Of course then the guilt creeps in after the offense and the self-loathing reigns and the cycle starts all over again. Is it any wonder that David wrote those words- 'Order my steps in thy word and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.'
For those who don't believe sin can have dominion over a person they are wrong. The chains of sin are so strong, so binding.
Luk 13:11 And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.
Luk 13:16 And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?
Satan bound that woman 18 years! 18 years! It doesn't matter if Satan is binding a person physically or mentally, perhaps emotionally, the thing that matters is Satan does have the power to bind a person and sin can have dominion over a person. We are fools to think otherwise. Fools to look at a person and think that their binding sin is trivial just because it's not a sin that tempts us or tries to bind us.
We need to pray that sin doesn't have dominion over us. We need to pray for Jesus to set us free.
Jesus read from the book of Isaiah-
Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.
(Found in Isa 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound)
Deliverance to the captives, liberty to them that are bruised, liberty to the captives, opening of the prison to them that are bound.
In Christ we are all made free even if we are suffering afflictions here and now. We can be freed from the dominion of iniquity and make no mistake Satan tries to get dominion over each and every one of us using sins that are particular to us as individuals.
Set us free Jesus, set us free in You, in Your love. Fill us with Your love so that when we are freed from our sins we aren't leaving ourselves open to even more domineering sins to take over. Help us Lord. We pray the words in Your Holy Word--
'Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.' Help us seek your word, let your words fill our lives and please Lord, keep sin from ruling us, ruling our lives.
By Your grace and mercy O Lord, now and forever.
Amen.
12/11/10 David's Fear
12/11/11
Jas 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations
Joy.
Counting it joy when we fall into different temptations is not easy.
What is the purpose of being tested? When a person is tested they are given a chance to reveal their knowledge. The harder the test the more knowledge you are expected to have, yes? Is this at all appropriate to this verse? Well if we think about it we are being perfected aren't we? The trials and temptations we face are given to us so that our faith is tested. It's not that we will succeed through every trail we face but we MUST learn from the trials we are given so that if we face a similar trial we will not be overcome by it. We are gaining faith, we are gaining understanding, we are gaining knowledge through every single trial we face. When we fall in to different temptations our faith is being tried, we are face to face with difficulties and we are being tried in fire as gold is tried in fire to perfect it.
We cannot hope to escape trials and tribulations. Trial and temptations of ALL different sorts will come to us, this we have to expect and not just occasionally but often. In fact a lot of times we are barely through one temptation when another will rear up and we are brought face to face with something equally or worse than before. We are being worked! We are being molded! We are being fashioned and we are told as we come to these temptations we are to COUNT IT ALL JOY.
Count it joy. Not count it acceptable. Not count it okay. Not count it painful, depressing, sad, anger-filled, anxiety ridden. We are so used to falling victim to wallowing in the disappointment and pain of the horrible trials we face that we can't imagine truly counting our troubles joy.
There is a huge lesson here that we need to study so that we can count our difficulties joy and not pain.
I'm so tempted to say it's impossible, but it's not. I'm so tempted to say that it's ludicrous to believe that something painful and trying should be counted joy. My Bible tells me that it's not impossible. My Bible tells me that it is not ludicrous. I have to believe, I have to have faith in the word of God. I have to learn from the word of God.
We generally can't plan for temptations, for situations, for trials that come our way. We don't want to plan for the, do we? Who wants to anticipate sickness, pain, despair? How can we plan for the unknown? A lot of people plan for "rainy days', they make financial decisions that will provide for those under their care should something happen. People make contingency plans for situations should things go wrong. They get insurance on cars, houses, valuables just on the off hand chance something will happen, something bad.
So, if we are so incredibly focused on planning for bad situations, why can't we take the time to plan for trials and temptations that we know we are prone to facing? We can't ignore the fact that often Satan goes after us in our known weaknesses. We aren't shocked as a general rule, when a trail comes at us over something we have difficulty with. We might be fed up with ourselves for falling victim time and time again, but we aren't shocked. We aren't however calling it joy when we face these known temptations, are we? We lean towards despair not happiness.
We know that there will be plenty awful situations that come at us completely unexpectedly and throw us for a loop- plenty of them. We know that the shock of those sorts of situations will rip joy from us in a heartbeat, even though we are still to count them joy. We need to fill our minds with the knowledge that it is what God's wants from us- to call it joy when we face trials and temptations. We have to - all by the grace of God- understand that the next time a temptation comes at us we should TRY to count it joy! Seriously, we have to do this, we are told to do this and we need to begin to do this if we haven't done it yet.
Joy.
Out of that joy we should give thanks and praise to God for what we are going through. We need to be aware of the joy. It's so contradictory to us isn't it? Just the mere thought of facing a trial and being joyful sounds very, very odd.
Why do you suppose we are to be joyful in facing different temptations? What does the joy mean? It's not to make us appear insane to others is it? No. The joy is what then?
The joy comes from realizing we ARE being tried, we are being PERFECTED by God! We are HIS! We are under HIS love, His law, His grace, His mercy! This brings us the joy. We don't find the joy in ourselves but IN HIM, wholly in HIM. He is WORKING IN US! This knowledge needs to bring us joy! We aren't to be happy that we are so far from perfection, we are to be happy in knowing we are being perfected. Only that knowledge will bring us true joy.
More on this tomorrow by the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
Amen.