thirsting for God – Page 2 – Alaska Bible Teacher

Only His Fire

“Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”

Isaiah 33:14

Perhaps we can become too casual in our intimacy with God? Becoming close is obviously needed, but it must be done with certain precautions. (Bear with me as I try to explain.)

He asks for us to see Him with an awareness of His holiness. It’s important to Him, and it is vital for us. We must honor Him as the One who is supremely holy. But seeing that we can walk with God in a new way.

“For our God is a consuming fire.”

Hebrews 12:29, ESV

The closer we come, the more significant our response. I believe the Holy Spirit carefully monitors us to see what we will do after we confront the reality of Him. He insists that we should honor Him as ‘holy.’ He passionately desires and requests that we do what is appropriate and honorable as we meet Him.

Giving Jesus honor is critical to all we say or do.

It should be the first thought of every man or woman who presses in to know Him. Honoring Him as holy is not regarded as an option to be debated or brought out for consideration. It is essential to follow Him faithfully.

He is like a tiger whom we have grabbed by the tail, we have but a few options. One is to release our hold and face the consequences. The second is too hold on to Him with all our strength. He loves those who make the second choice. Grab hold of the Lord Jesus, and hang on for dear life!

He is dangerous, but in a good way. Intimacy is important, but so is having a healthy fear of Him.

We should anticipate Him coming and disrupting our Sunday services. Perhaps we need our ushers to hand-out ropes and life-jackets before the service starts? We should expect Him to explode in our congregations in a whirlwind of holy love. He wants us to anticipate His presence.

In Isaiah 33:14 there is something that is needful and mandatory for us to understand about our Father. Often we’ll discover that entering and abiding in His presence requires us to honor His holiness. When we do so, we find we will trigger a response from the Lord, which will it turn be a true blessing to our own souls.

“The moment you come to realize that only a holy God can make a man godly, you are left with no option but to find God, and to know God, and to let God be God in and through you.”

Major Ian Thomas

Hagah, To Meditate

“But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.”

Psalm 1:2

Meditation has gotten a bad rap among some Christians, largely due to a connection with Eastern mysticism. This is really unfortunate for it has a critical place in the development of your discipleship. I believe it’s vital (and maybe even mandatory?)

Hagah is the Hebrew word for ‘meditation’ and it fascinates me.

It literally means to “moan, growl, utter, muse, or mutter.” Some have suggested that it contains the idea of ‘rumination,’ like a cow who chews a cud. The grass goes in, and it’s regurgitated several times, extracting every bit of nutrients and vitamins.

Hagah, or to meditate is the way we assimilate God’s Word into our lives. It’s critical that we do this in our walk as disciples that belong to Jesus.

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate [hagah] on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Joshua 1:8, ESV

It’s an interesting command isn’t it? Joshua’s ministry is to lead God’s people and requires his deep connection to God’s promises. He needs to hagah God’s words, to purposefully think about them over and over and over.

It’s interesting to me that when Joshua meditates and carefully responds to the Word then he will receive success in his life and ministry. The word ‘success’ means “wisdom, comprehension, insight with prosperity.” I need that desperately.

And if Joshua needed to do this, might not we?

Start small and simple. There are over 8,000 promises in the Bible–pick one and ruminate on it. Hagah on the Word and try to extract the spiritual nutrients that it contains. You will grow, bless others, and walk in victory, defeating your enemy.

“The amount of time we spend with Jesus – meditating on His Word and His majesty, seeking His face – establishes our fruitfulness in the kingdom.”

Charles Stanley

Am I Ignitable?

“Who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire.”

Hebrews 1:7

Jim Elliot was a Christian missionary martyred by the Auca Indians of Ecuador in 1956. He was just 29 years old. This quote was found in a journal he kept, and it was found after his death. There’s much here to process.

“He makes His ministers a flame of fire.” Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of ‘other things.’ Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul – short life? … Make me thy fuel, Flame of God.”

Jim Elliot, “Shadow of the Almighty”

A wonderful and intense quote. Passionate. Maybe we should dismantle it and consider what he was trying to say. There are some great insights to be found here.

First, he writes of asking God to be saturated with the oil of the Spirit. Jim Elliot wants to be set on fire with his life, heart, and spirit becoming the fuel.

Second, he writes of “dread asbestos.” Almost 2000 degrees F is needed to melt this down. Now regarded as a carcinogen but because it’s basically fireproof it was used often. For the person walking by faith it illustrates the power of sin.

Third, he writes about the brevity and shortness of his life and his need to live in the bright light of eternity.

O.K. Let’s switch metaphors.

The ponderosa pine needs fire to propagate. Their seeds are fire-activated.

Fire activates the cone that holds the seeds. Looking we see a tight little bundle which is covered in resin. To germinate they must be burned. Fire melts the exterior and the pine cone and releases the seed; and actually they can lay dormant for several years just waiting for the heat.

The believer needs heat to grow.

I don’t think there is any other way. The Word and the Spirit, combined with the heat of the circumstances we face, creates a blaze that is often seen by others. The furnace is God’s way to bring lasting change to His people. I wish it were different.

“They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”’

Walking with Jesus to Emmaus, Luke 24:32

“Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”

Isaiah 33:14

God, Have Mercy On Me

Luke 18:9-14

“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else: ¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like other people—greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’”

¹³“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

He despised others. As a Pharisee he prided himself as a holy person; he stood before God and congratulated himself. I believe that self-righteousness has many levels. You can be blatant and obvious about it, or it can be subtle and hidden. But we must understand that the father sees and knows. Notice the “we all” here in Isaiah 64:6–

“We are all like one who is unclean, all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in your sight. We all wither like a leaf; our carry us away like the wind.”

(Hmm. Is that what He sees? A menstrual rag? You got to be kidding!)

We often advance ourselves by demeaning those who struggle hard with their sin–there are those who see and somehow know that they’re superior. We don’t come out and say so; but we’ve arrived— but guess what— God (and scripture) tell us something radically different.

But we’re not dealing here with a hidden self-righteousness. The Pharisee truly believes that he is special. He stands and doesn’t kneel. He feels comfortable and confident in the holy presence of God Almighty. He’s not like the others. He is sure that he’s holy.

Look though, the tax-collector was being brutally honest.

He didn’t need anyone to tell him how sinful he was—he understood his own wickedness. Jesus’ story reveals God’s love for those who know that they’re twisted inside. Notice the heart of the tax-collector:

“He stood afar off” which showed his awareness of his separation from God.
“He wouldn’t even raise his eyes to heaven,” which declared his humility in the presence of God.
He kept “striking his chest,” which tells us of a deep pain over his sin against God.
He prayed, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ This describes his desperate heart.

These both came to pray, but that is all they had in common.

The Pharisee came to the temple to show off his righteousness, the tax-collector out of a terrible despair. It strikes me that the text in verse 11 says the Pharisee “began praying to himself.” It seems that his prayer never really met God—he was proud and showy, doing the things God hates (Prov. 29:23).

Things really came obvious in verse 14. That’s the critical point of the entire story—“one went down to his house justified rather than the other.” Wow! What a statement. One professionally religious man, sure of his holiness, the other a sinful sinner, who came humble and broken. One showed off his faith—boasting with a legalistic swagger. The other desperate and desolate, completely undone.

But it was the tax-man who became righteous in the eyes of God.

Humility is the foundation of the kingdom of Jesus. In Matthew 5:3-4 makes a lot of sense—to be “poor in spirit” and to “mourn” are the bedrock of a Christian’s discipleship. To be justified (made right) was a gift. He didn’t try to earn it, and there wasn’t a probationary period. The tax-collector now became righteous; the Pharisee carried his sin.

God wants us to have a broken-heart. He rejects everything else. I suppose that the question is this: Do you mourn over your sin?

“The Lord is near the brokenhearted;
he saves those crushed in spirit

Psalm 34:18

Art by Eugène Burnand

The Holy Club

“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.”

John 8:31

Being a disciple of Jesus is serious business. We’re learning to walk in His footsteps, and we do this through God’s grace and mercy. It takes discipline, and that can be hard. In 1729 a group of Christian believers started meeting at Oxford University with the intention of becoming more accountable in their walk.

They became known as the “Holy Club.”

Here are 22 questions they asked themselves in their private times with Jesus.

Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
Can I be trusted?
Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
Did the Bible live in me today?
Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?
Am I enjoying prayer?
When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?
Do I pray about the money I spend?
Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
Do I disobey God in anything?
Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
Am I defeated in any part of my life?
Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?
How do I spend my spare time?
Am I proud?
Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?
Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
Do I grumble or complain constantly?
Is Christ real to me?

“We have suffered from the preaching of cheap grace. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. People will take anything that is free, but they are not interested in discipleship. They will take Christ as Savior but not as Lord.”

Vance Havner

I sincerely hope that this blesses you.

His Joy is Yours Now

“Then [Ezra] told them, Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet drink, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. And be not grieved and depressed, for the joy of the Lord is your strength and stronghold.”

Nehemiah 8:10, Amplified

The people of God are grieving; they are filled with sorrow. They are fully aware of their sin, and understand how awful they have become. They’re overwhelmed, and can’t really accept what God was doing.

Nehemiah and Ezra have their hands full.

Grief often turns into depression. Joyless living opens us to the pressures of Satan, and he tries to manipulate us to do his work. Now this is a terrible thing, and it’s also a sad way to live. Nehemiah understands what is happening.

Sometimes our emotions drive us, and we can see nothing but our sin. Our hearts are filled with melancholy and introspection. They closed their hearts to thankfulness and joy. Instead they wept, they could see little hope when Ezra read the Word from the pulpit.

Galatians 5:22 tells us that the Holy Spirit is residing within–it’s called “fruit” and it grows in the heart of an obedient believer who has submitted himself to God. It is not just a good attitude. Joy is never contingent on circumstances.

A few things to remember.

Joy is the evidence that He lives inside us.

We need a devotional life.
Known sin must be renounced and forsaken.
We must abandon the “works of the flesh.” (Gal. 5:19-20)
We must ask Him to fill us with His Spirit.
We must learn how to worship authentically.

A key for me, I want to emphasize this, as I’ve finally seen this in my own discipleship– I need to pursue Jesus, and not joy itself. If I think that I will find joy apart from knowing Him, is wrong and perhaps a bit dangerous.

I will end this with something that must be thought through. I hope you will.

“To say that it is the Christian’s duty, his moral obligation, to be joyful. That means that the failure of a Christian to be joyful is a sin, that unhappiness and a lack of joy are, in a certain way, manifestations of the flesh.”

RC Sproul

Walking With Him in The Garden

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“When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the manand his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees.”

Genesis 3:8

I honestly have never had the wonderful experience of strolling a lush garden with my Father. At least not totally. But when I’m engaging the Word, pressing in to comprehend a passage, it’s as if I’m truly walking in His orchard with Jesus.

But there is something more to this.

This word “pardes” is also an acronym. The rabbis taught that there are four levels of understanding as we peer into a passage.

P’shat–the surface or literal meaning of a verse or passage.
Remez– the symbolic or applied reason of the Word. How it connects with my daily life.
Drash–how it fits into other parts of the Bible, forming a purposeful teaching.
Sod–a hidden meaning that resides “underneath” the verse. This seems when the Holy Spirit gets really involved in the way I live. (Some would say “mystical.)

Now I’m not sure that every passage reaches the “sod” level. (Maybe we’re not really aware?)

When we truly study God’s Word it’s as we walk in the garden. He reveals Himself to us. The Genesis story shows us where we can find Him. The important thing I suppose is trying to hide from God’s presence. We can’t.

We must come to our Father, and learn to walk with Him. The Bible is the best way to fellowship with Him.

“Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Genesis 3:9

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We See So Little

“Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
But the thunder of his power who can understand?”

Job 26:14

Job’s suffering has led him to this point. He realizes how little he understands God. I guess pain can have a powerful effect on how we see things. Job has learned the immensity of God.

In verse 14 he speaks about the “outskirts” the word in Hebrew means the mere edge, or fringe. One translation of this verse reads like this: “These are only a few of the things that God does. We only know about a few small things. If he used all of his power, we could never understand.“

“That being the case, let’s consider God’s capacity for just a moment. He’s not only “high capacity”, He’s “infinite capacity.” He never sleeps or slumbers. He is perfect in all His abilities. There isn’t a single thing that He doesn’t know, and there is no one more powerful than Him. And unlike humans who can only be in one place at one time, He is everywhere at the same time. This is amazing, and just like the Psalmist said in Psalm 113, “Who is like the Lord our God?” The answer, very simply, is no one.”

John Piper

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12)

I’m thinking about Moses who asked to see God’s glory. Moses was called “the friend of God,” but he wanted to see more. God’s response was that He couldn’t because it would kill Moses. But provision was made for him to see the backside of God as Moses was in a cleft of a rock. (Exodus 33.)

The Bible doesn’t reveal it all. But we’re given enough. Job told us that only the outer fringes can be seen by men and women. We see His periphery, but we must understand our limits. We’re told that we will see Him someday–but not yet. But at the moment of death, we will see Him.

The Lord Jesus came to show us the Father. “In [Christ] all the fullness of deity dwells bodily.” When we see Jesus we see the Father. Reading the Gospels we are encountering God, because Jesus reveals Him fully.

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”

Hebrews 1:3

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

Romans 11:33

The Giant Goliath, and Sexy Bathsheba

I have wondered about this. It strikes me that there are two giants that David encountered in his walk with God. Granted, there are many other events and people that he experienced, obviously. But there are these two that stick out:

The Goliath showdown, and the Bathsheba fiasco.

These seem to be hinges or pivot points that would change the entire course of king David’s life, and his faith in God. They’re to be an encouragement and warning to us, as both are incredibly significant.

Goliath, 1 Samuel 17

This is a powerful chapter, for it reveals David’s spectacular faith in God. When the boy David killed Goliath it changed the entire future of Israel. One stone from his sling was all it took. Israel routed the Philistine army. David’s faith was the spark that made victory real.

David became a hero that day, and quickly ascended into Saul’s favor. It was both a military and a political development that Israel needed and king Saul welcomed it, the kingdom thrived. The boy David became the man of the hour, a national hero which everyone talked about.

I’d like to point out that David had already been anointed by Samuel to be the next king. This, combined with David’s celebrity status pushed king Saul over the edge–Saul developed a deep resentment that became insanity. David handled this adroitly, fleeing into the wilderness (with his faith) for years.

Bathsheba, 2 Samuel 11

At this point David is now king and is fighting the Ammonites. The Israelites were besieging Rabbah, the capital city of that country, and it seems like it’s an intense battle. But interestingly enough, David remained in Jerusalem. (And I can’t figure out why.) David can’t sleep so he paces the rooftop and it’s then things get crazy.

David spies Bathsheba who is cleansing herself from her monthly cycle. She is a very beautiful woman, and king David inquires about her. He lusts after her which results in him more or less raping her, commiting adultery and then murdering her husband. This is all very disturbing.

Bathsheba is the wife of Uriah, one of David’s mighty men of proven valor. He has him murdered after committing adultery with her.

(2 Sam. 11:14-15.)

When David had sex with Bathsheba it set in motion the ugliest chain of events imaginable. It seems that up to now David has taken the intiative of events, and then, after this great evil, his story shifts and for the rest of his life he becomes acted upon, a “victim.” He reacts, but doesn’t act anymore.

For the rest of his life he will struggle. All because of lust.

In 2 Samuel 12 David is confronted by a prophet for these sins. Samuel speaks with a parable that penetrates David’s heart. The king responds, “he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity,” (v. 6). And interestingly enough, David would indeed pay fourfold. There would be four major incidents after this that he would now face.

Summary

David faced two “giants” in his walk with God. They were very different but both life altering. He killed Goliath but was not able to destroy his lust with Bathsheba.

Sometimes one “giant” is not enough. It would be nice if that was the case. David walked in victory for a period of time, but failed both himself, his family and his kingdom. Lust always is an act of the will, a deliberate decision that destroys all that it touches. David would be forgiven, but the damage was already done.

There would be dire consequences for everyone.

I believe that our giants were meant to be slaughtered. That is their function and purpose for the faithful believer. There can be no compromise. They’ll take different forms and will often approach you in peculiar ways. Paul tells us to wear God’s armor in Ephesians 6:11-18. I don’t think that protection should be taken off–you dare not only wear it only on special occasions.

Brother, sister–you must be covered all the time.

King David is a lesson for us. There is tremendous pain for us if we deliberately choose to compromise with the giants in our lives. Some of you already understand this; others will. I promise you.

“Many of us suffer from temptations from which we have no business to suffer.”

Oswald Chambers

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Being a Friend of the King

“A Christian is not a person who believes in his head the teachings of the Bible. Satan believes in his head the teachings of the Bible! A Christian is a person who has died with Christ, whose stiff neck has been broken, whose brazen forehead has been shattered, whose stony heart has been crushed, whose pride has been slain, and whose life is now mastered by Jesus Christ.”

–John Piper

^“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

John 15:15

It seems that the purpose of life is not to find our freedom. It’s really meant to find our Master.

Yes, the idea of being a slave to anyone is repugnant. We chafe at this, and yet man was never meant to be separated from the Lordship of Jesus. We’re instructed repeatedly with the New Testament idea that “our life is not our own” Over and over God proclaims Himself as the King.

That troubles us somewhat.

Not so much when life is fairly good, granted, but in those hard moments when a decision must be made between enjoying the titillating “lusts of the flesh,” or accepting the fruits of the Spirit. This is one of those “lordship moments.” They come and go, and they show us exactly who we are.

If you’re really going to be authentic–a legitimate and real disciple, then you must determine who is going to be in charge, and this isn’t one of those casual decisions. Your decision must become a settled issue.

You must securely fix it in your heart.

The thief on the cross knew salvation, he was promised an eternity with God simply by faith. But I submit to you that he put himself under the Lordship of Jesus. He recognized the sign, “the King of the Jews.” I believe he saw and understood its implications. Jesus was King! He realized he was in the presence of royalty.

This is a very hard word for some, but so many of our personal issues hang on this.

I know this first-hand. It’s a monumental struggle at times. You must admit to not only having Jesus as your Savior, but you also must put your life under His total Lordship. You need to pick up your cross daily in order to follow.

We need to learn how to kneel.

I’ve chosen a crown to open up this post–it’s done on purpose. I simply want you to understand the supreme call He has on your life. Here’s Bob Dylan, and he nails this idea down:

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

You must learn here and now how to kneel before the Sovereign King.

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