Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

The topic of "Believing" is vast! It is a topic I am teaching soon. A tie-in  to believing is the verse about the first and greatest commandment in Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  What keeps us from that?  The culprit tends to be the mind.

I can love someone with all my heart, but at times, the trust isn't fully there.  The lack of trust is in my mind.  My young son can tell me a story and at times I find myself saying, "Is that the way it really happened?"

Throughout the scripture, God is persuading belief.  He is making things happen, miraculous things happen in the least expected people and places.  It's encountering the living God!  Following big displays of His God-ness, He often has people do big things.  Things they wouldn't have otherwise already done if they hadn't been moved to believe Him.  Even Mary, who swiftly believed and was considered blessed for it, was visited and told by an angel what she would do.  That's big persuasion.

There are still the stragglers.  Saul was given the Kingship by God. He was also given God's Spirit upon him.  It says in 1 Samuel 10:6-8 that the Spirit came upon him in great power and that God changed his heart.  Following this, he was told what he was supposed to do. 

Saul failed miserably in a variety of ways.  Not seeing himself as God saw him, not believing what God told him, pride, asking others their thoughts instead of asking God His and flat out disobeying.

Even though Saul had the Spirit of God upon him, he did not walk in it.  His heart was changed, but his mind was not.  He didn't fully believe, trust or yield.  Walking in the Spirit will guide us well.  When we ignore it and walk in our own ways it will often lead us right into a corner.

The words came strong today during additional preparation time for this study, "Betray not your heart."  So often our minds can betray our hearts.  Living in the place of the LORD's heart and Spirit, there is peace. David, who was later made king by God, was said to be a man after God's own heart.  I also felt the words, "Peace leads, guides and instructs.  Fear, stress and worry are enemies to My ways."

When a word is pressed upon me that stands out, I usually look it up or do a little more research on it. I looked up the word "betray" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.  It is defined, "Be disloyal to (one's country, organization, or ideology) by acting in the interests of an enemy."  Betray not your heart.

Joyce Meyer wrote an entire book called, "The Battlefield of the Mind."  Negativity binds us from embracing the positive.  Many people find peace in meditating.  It is the clearing of the mind of negative thoughts and stress.  Meditation isn't just an Eastern culture idea.  David says in Psalm 119:15 I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. David knew the power of God and reminded himself over and over again Who God is and who he himself was in God.  One of the times is in Psalm 118.  It brought his mental state into one of joy and strength.

Believing is an action verb and it does take our effort to turn our thoughts to Him.  As the scripture says in John 14:1 Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 

More Than Nails

 

Most people know the basics in the comprehension of the events at the cross.  A cross, nails piercing Jesus' hands and feet to that cross and the crown of thorns placed on His head in mockery of the King of the Jews.  Later; a piercing in His side.  

As Jesus was taking upon Himself the sins of man, only His blood was without sin to be the sacrifice instead of years of animals sacrificed without blemish.  Jesus was without blemish.  This is Who was  worthy enough to cover our sins.  One had to die in place of us, because our sin separated us from Life with God.  God's holiness in justice was that sin must be removed.  It had no life with Him.  The wages of sin is death.  By the purity and holiness of Jesus, this sacrifice needed to be made one time only.  And it was finished.  There is more that came before.

The leading up to Jesus, as the Old Testament and the Law foretold, reveals much more of this incredible event at the cross.  Jesus became it all in our place.  From the curse out of Eden and the separation of God, God came to us in Christ. 

The bread, His body, as He said, "Take, eat and remember me." Luke 22:19 Finding the bread in the Old Testament, the place of the Holy of Holies in Exodus 25 is the Bread of the Presence that is to be kept before him at all times.  Jesus is God made man, present with us as He claimed that He is the Bread of Life. John 6:35  In His presence is Life and no more hunger. 

The city of Bethlehem means, House of Bread, in Hebrew.  This is where God first came to us as a baby born. And His name shall be called Immanuel...God with us.  God revealed His presence in providing bread in the days where the Hebrews wandered in the desert and every morning there was manna.  It was a symbol of His daily presence as well as provision for life.  It was daily because His desire was for us to be in a daily relationship with Him, receiving from Him and trusting Him at all times. 

From the Fall in Eden also came the curse upon the land.   "Cursed is the ground because of you. It will produce thorns and thistles..."  Genesis 3:17-18.  As Jesus wore a crown of thorns, He bore the curse. 

In the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, is a series of descriptions and actions that needed to be taken when someone sinned or were considered unclean in order to be made clean or redeemed.  If someone had a flesh disease or unclean flesh; Leviticus 14 gives us an incredible series of symbols that points to Jesus. 

They were to take two ceremonially clean, live doves and kill one of them over a clay pot filled with fresh water.  He is then to take the live bird and dip it into the blood of the dead bird along with the scarlet thread, the cedar and the hyssop.  He must be declared clean and the live bird is released into the field.

The clay pot is symbolic of man.  2 Corinthians 4:7" But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."  The fresh water is understood in John 4:14 "But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life."

The scarlet thread in Hebrew symbolizes sin.  The cedar and hyssop represent internal and external truth.  There is more to these as well.  The cedar is believed to be the wood that the cross was made of.  The hyssop branch held the sponge dipped in bitter vinegar and brought to the mouth of Jesus as he took it and He hung on the cross when he said that He thirsted.  John 19:29. 

Looking back to when the Hebrew people were in the desert in Exodus 15, they came to a place and complained that the water was bitter and they could not drink it.  God told Moses to put a piece of wood in it.  The water became sweet and good to drink.  David says in Psalm 51:7 "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow."

Also, while in the desert, the people again needed water.  God provided water out of a rock that split open in Exodus 17.  This event is told in Numbers, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Psalms and referenced in the New Testament.  After Jesus had said, "It is finished," and surrendered His Spirit, the soldiers made sure He was dead.  One pierced Jesus' side.  From it poured out water and blood. John 19:34.

1 Corinthians 10:3-4 "They all ate the same spiritual food 4and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ." NIV

The two birds had to be used in representation of death and a new life.  The one bird was sacrificed.  The other flew free after having been dipped in the blood of the sacrifice.  With Jesus' death and resurrection, these things are fulfilled in Him.  Leviticus also gives many other examples that symbolically point to Jesus. The dove has appeared as times of representing His Holy Spirit.

 There is much more and I hope that this bit blessed you to know some of these additional parts to what we look forward to in celebrating the redemption through Jesus and His conquering of sin and death.  His love for us continues today.  He wants to be with us.  To be a part of our every day.  To be our Savior, our daily bread, our Life.  John 3:17 "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."