The Son who Serve
…. Let my son go, that he may serve me……
(Exo 4:23)
This was the message to Pharaoh which Moses brought. No other complications, just to be set free from our sinful past and bondage to the devil to serve the Father. The danger for Christians is to think that there is a need to serve people because that is the ‘natural’ response to meeting the needs of people around us. Here we see our primary call to fulfill God’s need to serve Him as a son, which is ‘to the Lord, and not unto men ‘(Col 3:23). He saved us that we might serve Him in love and in deep gratitude for our salvation. If the intent is responding purely to human needs than we are in danger of missing the point for our salvation and because in our human weakness people may see the servant clearer than the Father, if people are in the light of our well doing they will glorify our Father in Heaven (Matt 5:16). There is a fine line between serving Father and serving men. Our service has to be light to others not mere fulfilling human needs. Not able to see is the absence of light, there is only one seeing, that seeing is toward the Father.
Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
(Exo 19:4-6)
The Israelites were saved from their bondage from one king to the King of kings thus living in the Kingdom of God. Our service to our King is basically two fold. Firstly is to obey and secondly in our ‘being’. As the Israelites were saved than given the laws, so we are saved by grace (Rom 3:20, 24) to able to fulfill the spirit of the law because we live not by the flesh but by the Spirit (Rom 8:4). The sequence of the Israelites salvation by grace and the giving of the law to live in the Kingdom is the same, save first then presented with the law. Jesus went further to give the spirit of the law in Matt 5 (‘ye have heard that it was said by them of old time…..’), so the Old and the New Covenants don’t contradict each other.
Secondly, our being is seated with Christ (Eph 2:6), our spiritual position. Our spiritual being is heavenly but our purpose on earth is salt and light (Matt 5:13-16). We can’t afford just to be heavenly but of no earthly use. The call of Israel to serve the Father is to be a declaration not isolation. Peter adds to ‘show forth the praises of Him’ who called us (1 Pet 2:9). Declaring the virtues and excellencies of His glory. If we don’t live in obedience to the laws of the Kingdom, how then can we be citizens thereof? What rights have we to declare God’s praises if the vessels don’t reflect the call to be a holy nation.
And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: …….
(Luke 15:29)
In our call to serve the Father we must continually take heed that we serve with meekness and love for the Father. We have nothing to boast about in our service (‘these many years do I serve thee’), but we in the cross of Christ (Gal 6:14), that the life we live, we live by ‘the’ faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us (Gal 2:20), the redemption that led to our calling to serve the Father. May we long to wait for our Savior’s welcome into His Heavenly Kingdom after our task on earth is done…. ‘Well done my good and faithful servant’.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
As a Weaned Child
Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child. (Psa 131:2)
In the light of the world’s economy spiraling down, it is a good time for us to check where our heart is. Jesus spoke very plainly in Matt 6:19-21 where to lay up our treasure and He warns us about the dwelling place of our heart. Interesting that He put it this way, ‘where our treasure is, that is where our heart will be also’, indicating that our heart can leave its rightful place.
For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: (Php 1:23)
Luther said ‘What a man loves, that is his God’. The Apostle Paul knew where his heart is. He again said the same thing earlier in 2 Cor 5:8 to be present with the Lord. It is then possible to attain to this attitude that our citizenship or being is heavenly and this life that we live is a faithful race we are running looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith (Heb 12:1,2). May we have the revelation as our spiritual forefathers’ had, desiring ‘a better country, that is, an heavenly’ (Heb 11:16).
For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. (Psa 84:10)
The Psalmist echoed the same thing as Paul. Let us not deceive ourselves, can we sincere say that to be in His Presence we have experienced fullness of joy (Psa 16:11), unless we have not been there ourselves but only read or heard about such a thing. This is a test if we have been truly been weaned from carnality and living the Kingdom of God. David declared that he is as a weaned child. David goes to say that a weaned child is one that is knows how to behave and is quieted, two characteristics of being weaned.
What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. (Rom 6:15)
We will know that we have been weaned of the world and carnality if we know how to behave because our minds are no longer controlled by the flesh but by the Spirit of God (Rom 8:4) and this Spirit led life is evident in the fruit unto holiness (Rom 6:22). Are we still struggling with moral misbehaviors or at least started on the journey of yielding ourselves to God that He might work in us according to His good pleasure (Php 2:12)? Remember it is God's work to save us and translate us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, ours is just having faith that He will do so.
The second thing about the weaned child is there is a quieting of the spirit for ‘to be spiritually minded is life and peace’. In Matt 24 Jesus warns us that economic downturn is the least of our concerns. Worrying won't add a single hour to our life. There will be pestilences, political upheaval and natural disasters unheard of. Worst of all is deception, because Rev 20:10 warns us that the deceived will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. Therefore consider the latter of greater importance that losing things.
Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. (Matt 24:32-34)
In May 14, 1948 Israel became a nation. We have been reminded recently at our small community of believers that we are the generation that have witnessed of the budding of the fig tree (the Israeli nation) and we are the generation that will live through the fulfillment of all Jesus said in Matt 24. May we not be ignorant of the second coming of the Lord and may we be found with established hearts that are blameless before God (1 Thess 3:13).
Let us then be encouraged not to be lofty in our earthly pursuits, neither aiming for anything high or great, but allowing God to wean us of carnality. As it is the mother who weans the child, so God will wean us in order that we will be prepared for the Day of Jesus Christ, therefore yield ourselves totally to Him for His working in our lives.
Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child. (Psa 131:2)
In the light of the world’s economy spiraling down, it is a good time for us to check where our heart is. Jesus spoke very plainly in Matt 6:19-21 where to lay up our treasure and He warns us about the dwelling place of our heart. Interesting that He put it this way, ‘where our treasure is, that is where our heart will be also’, indicating that our heart can leave its rightful place.
For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: (Php 1:23)
Luther said ‘What a man loves, that is his God’. The Apostle Paul knew where his heart is. He again said the same thing earlier in 2 Cor 5:8 to be present with the Lord. It is then possible to attain to this attitude that our citizenship or being is heavenly and this life that we live is a faithful race we are running looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith (Heb 12:1,2). May we have the revelation as our spiritual forefathers’ had, desiring ‘a better country, that is, an heavenly’ (Heb 11:16).
For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. (Psa 84:10)
The Psalmist echoed the same thing as Paul. Let us not deceive ourselves, can we sincere say that to be in His Presence we have experienced fullness of joy (Psa 16:11), unless we have not been there ourselves but only read or heard about such a thing. This is a test if we have been truly been weaned from carnality and living the Kingdom of God. David declared that he is as a weaned child. David goes to say that a weaned child is one that is knows how to behave and is quieted, two characteristics of being weaned.
What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. (Rom 6:15)
We will know that we have been weaned of the world and carnality if we know how to behave because our minds are no longer controlled by the flesh but by the Spirit of God (Rom 8:4) and this Spirit led life is evident in the fruit unto holiness (Rom 6:22). Are we still struggling with moral misbehaviors or at least started on the journey of yielding ourselves to God that He might work in us according to His good pleasure (Php 2:12)? Remember it is God's work to save us and translate us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, ours is just having faith that He will do so.
The second thing about the weaned child is there is a quieting of the spirit for ‘to be spiritually minded is life and peace’. In Matt 24 Jesus warns us that economic downturn is the least of our concerns. Worrying won't add a single hour to our life. There will be pestilences, political upheaval and natural disasters unheard of. Worst of all is deception, because Rev 20:10 warns us that the deceived will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. Therefore consider the latter of greater importance that losing things.
Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. (Matt 24:32-34)
In May 14, 1948 Israel became a nation. We have been reminded recently at our small community of believers that we are the generation that have witnessed of the budding of the fig tree (the Israeli nation) and we are the generation that will live through the fulfillment of all Jesus said in Matt 24. May we not be ignorant of the second coming of the Lord and may we be found with established hearts that are blameless before God (1 Thess 3:13).
Let us then be encouraged not to be lofty in our earthly pursuits, neither aiming for anything high or great, but allowing God to wean us of carnality. As it is the mother who weans the child, so God will wean us in order that we will be prepared for the Day of Jesus Christ, therefore yield ourselves totally to Him for His working in our lives.
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