Why the Hand of God was on Ezra (and how it can be on you.)

"...for the gracious hand of God was on him.  For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel."  
Ezra 7:9b-10

Whenever I read about a powerful man of God, I want to know how he became so powerful.  Usually the scriptures give the answer, and thus an example for me to follow.  Ezra is the example I'm focused on.  An example of what to do for the hand of the LORD to be upon you.  I see three devotions as conditions:  Bible study, Bible observance, and Bible teaching.

BE DEVOTED TO BIBLE STUDY
Ezra dedicated and committed himself to studying scripture.  He focused his mind on reading, memorizing, and deeply understanding God's written word.  We of course can't understand or memorize before we read.  And we can't even read if we aren't committed to the God who inspired the Bible.  The test of commitment is our obedience, which leads to the second devotion.

BE DEVOTED TO BIBLE OBSERVANCE
This means meditation for the purpose of application.  We keep God's written word in mind so that we're careful to do what it says.  God promises us peace, stability, and success when we do this.  He also promises effectiveness as witnesses of Jesus, as teachers of God's word.

BE DEVOTED TO TEACHING THE BIBLE
Whether you're a pastor, Sunday school teacher, or simply a believer, when we use scripture as our measure of truth and wisdom, having studied and observed it ourselves, our lives and words will have the Spirit's power.  God's hand will be upon us.

Starting now, I'll follow the Spirit, no matter the consequences.  This will change my present, past and future.

It will change my past because I will be--now--what I should've been--then.  I'll be a new son, brother, cousin.  I'll be the son, brother, and cousin I should've been then, erasing then in the now, and for the future.

I'll be a new husband and father, doing now what I should've done then.  I'll be forgiven by God, my wife, my children; my sins will be forgiven and forgotten as if they never happened.  (This will be the case for me as a son, brother, and cousin also.)

I'll be a new Team Leader, a new Counselor.  (Monday is my first official day anyway.  I've always believed that each day is literally a new realm, where I can be a new me, and I can act is if the old me, the me from yesterday, wasn't real.  I can either ask for forgiveness, and the old me can be forgotten.  Or I can just act like I don't know what people are talking about when they talk to me like I'm the old me.)

Each moment can be a new moment.  Each day.  Each birthday.  Each holiday. All I have to do is be forgiven and my past will be forgotten as if it never happened.  Jesus made this possible.  He made rebirth possible. 

So starting now, I'm reborn through faith in Jesus.  When He died, I died with Him.  The old me was crucified with Christ.  My old body that was enslaved to sin was destroyed.  I am no longer a slave of sin or sinning.

How to be strong (Part 2)

SAVE ISRAEL OUT OF MIDIAN'S HAND.
Gideon had a specific mission.  And for this specific mission he had strength.  I've learned that we only have strength to do what we're supposed to do right here and now.  So we need to not only know the strength that we have right now, but also what we're supposed to be doing right now.  What do you KNOW you're supposed to be doing right now?  (Or after you read this blog!)  Whatever that is, you have strength from God to do it.  And this is the key to it all:  Is God sending you just as he sent Gideon?

AM I NOT SENDING YOU?
Whatever you know you're supposed to be doing right now is exactly what God is "sending" you to do.  Your personal "Midian" is your duty and responsibility for God's glory.  Whether you're a husband loving your wife, or a wife respecting your husband.  Or if you're a child honoring your parents, or a parent lovingly disciplining your child.  You may be at work.  You may be in school.  Whoever you are, and wherever you are, there is something you KNOW you're supposed to be doing right now. 

And if you don't know what you're supposed to be doing, then finding that out is your mission.  So the strength that you have, right now, is to find out what you're supposed to be doing right now.  Your context will make that easier than you think.  If you're at home, what needs to be done more than anything else, right now?  Or at work?  Or at school? 

Whatever that is, wherever you are, whoever you are, all God expects is for you to do whatever you're supposed to be doing--in the strength that you have right now.  We don't have to focus on our weaknesses, because God doesn't require us to do anything we don't have the strength to do right now.

How to be strong (Part 1)

"Go in the strength that you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand.  Am I not sending you?"~God to Gideon

I hate feeling weak.  More than that, I hate my when my weakness is witnessed.  Maybe you do too.  Or maybe you hide your weaknesses better than I do.  But what if you didn't have to hide or fear weaknesses?  What if you only spoke and acted with strength?

You can!

God, who made you, gave you at least one strength.  And I have good news for you:  He only expects you to do what you can do!  He only expects you to act not only in the strength that you have, but that you know that you have.  I'll show you what God showed me through His words to Gideon, the judge who delivered Israel from the Midianites.  I'll show you by breaking down God's words to Gideon.

GO IN THE STRENGTH THAT YOU HAVE.
First, go.  Take a specific course of action.  And when you take that specific course of action, do it only in the strength, or ability, or talent, or skill that you have RIGHT NOW.  In the strength that you HAVE.  If you don't know what that is, then don't GO.  Don't speak.  Don't act.  This is where I've gone wrong in the past.  I spoke or acted from a place of weakness or inability.  For example, there is a scripture that says that Jesus spoke "what he knew and testified what he had seen."  The same thing is said about the apostles:  "that which they had seen and heard, they declared."  But how many times have we talked about things we don't know, haven't seen, or haven't heard?  When that happens, we speak from a place of weakness.  Yet whenever we talk about what we personally know, what we've personally seen, and what we've personally heard, we speak with strength--the strength that we have.  And we're usually speaking about a specific thing for a specific reason or purpose, which leads to the next point we learn Gideon.


Click HERE for part 2.

Spiritual letters

To Matthew, my spiritual son,

From the time you were 5, you believed in the Lord.  Your faith was real.  I've seen it grow as you are becoming a man.  You've always wanted to know how to follow the Lord perfectly, which is rare.  I only know one other believer, my spiritual brother, who wants what you and I want:  to be perfectly pleasing in the sight of God for the day of judgment, and to know that this is so in the present.  Because we want the same thing, though I'm your spiritual father, I'm encouraged and strengthened by you.  I want to encourage and strengthen you with what God showed me today in the scriptures.

I've been reading about the kings of Israel.  It's sometimes discouraging because they seem inconsistent at best in their relationships with God.  Most of them were evil and did evil.  With each king, more evil is done.  From father to son, more evil is done against the Lord.  But every now and then in the scriptural accounts of Hebrew Kings, a good king comes to the throne.  But he either leaves God at some point, or his son undoes every good thing he did.  I've only found one king so far in my readings who was faithful to God from beginning to end.  This king reminds me of you because he started following God as a boy.  You were 5 when you began with Christ.  He was eight.  His name was Josiah.  This is what the Spirit said about him:

"Josiah was 8 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for 31 years.  He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed in the ways of his father David, not turning to the right or to the left."

Like you, Josiah was single-mindedly focused on the Lord from the time he was a boy, following the example of his father David, as you are following in my example.  Keep doing what you're doing Matthew.  Don't turn to the right or the left.  Stay focused on God, like Josiah did.

"In the 8th year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David."

The 8th year of Josiah's reign would've made him 16 years old.  You're about to be 16 Matthew.  You've already begin to seek my God.  To seek Him means to pursue an intimate relationship with Him.  You're studying the scriptures and meditating on God's words.  You do this to learn not only what God thinks, but how He thinks. You are seeking to understand and know God.   Keep doing this Matthew, and you will be like Josiah.

"Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did--with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength, in accordance with all the law of Moses."

At first I thought Josiah had an advantage over us--that he had the law of Moses, which gave the Israelites exactly what they were supposed to do in every area of their lives.  You seem like you want these kinds of divine instructions Matthew.  I understand if you do; I used to want the same thing.  But I now see that the Spirit is our law;  His will and mind are written on our intuition and conscience.  So all you have to do to be like Josiah is turn to the Spirit as Josiah did--with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength, in accordance with the leading of the Spirit.  In other words, completely focus on following the Spirit.  Obey the Spirit with all of your heart, soul, and strength, not doing anything He doesn't lead you to do.

I hope my words strengthen and encourage you.  Let me know what you think as you pray about my words.

I love you my son in the Spirit,
Your spiritual father.

The lie about the "sinful nature" (Part 3)

This is what it meant for "sin to crouch at Cain's door" with a "desire to master him," with him able to "master it":

Cain didn't have to kill his brother, no matter how strong the murderous desire to do so.
He didn't sin because of a sinful nature.

According to the word of God, this is how sin happens:

"When tempted, no one should say 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.  Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death." James 1:13-15 NIV

Here it is again:  Evil desire leads to sin, and sin leads to death.

But even here, there's something else to consider from the scriptures:

"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.  And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide you a way out so that you can endure it."  1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV

So, we're tempted when we give in to our own evil desires.  But we're never tempted in a way that no one in history has been tempted, nor beyond our ability to escape, endure, or resist.

There's no mention of a "sinful nature" during temptation that makes it impossible to resist sin.  The reason it's not mentioned is because sin doesn't come from a sinful nature.  We know this for three reasons:

1. Lucifer and the angels that rebelled against God didn't have a sinful nature when they sinned.  
2. Adam and Eve weren't created with a sinful nature, yet they sinned.
3. Christians, according to the apostle Paul, have a "new nature," and are "no longer slaves to sin." But they can still sin, even with a new nature, even though they're set free from sin. (See Romans 6-8.  See also Ephesians 1-5)

In all of this, we have good news and hope.  The good news is that before and after salvation, we're under no obligation to sin.  (How could we hold anybody accountable for anything if they're "just born that way?")  The good news this:  before their salvation people can accept Jesus,  who will save them from their sins; and after salvation, they can live by His Spirit, who saves them from sinning again.  We can be forgiven for the sins of our past (that we didn't have to commit) and enjoy freedom from sins in our present (which we still don't have to commit.)  This is good news, and hope.

I've heard some say in response to this, "Yes, we don't have to sin, but we're going to sin."  Which is really another way of saying we have to sin.  To make sin inevitable isn't freedom from sin.  But Paul said, "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God."

I've heard others say in response, "What about Romans 7?  Doesn't Paul teach that we continue to sin 'because of the sin that's in us?'"  No.  He doesn't.  Paul does teach that God's law exposes sin instead of saving us from sin.  His point is that we aren't bound by sin (Romans 6) or the law (Romans 7).  Sin is no longer our master (Romans 6.)  The law is no longer our husband or overseer (Romans 7, Galatians 4.)  As Paul said, we have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God.  Christ is now our husband (not the law) and the Spirit is now our master (not sin.)  

But if we strive to achieve righteousness by keeping the 10 commandments, instead of by faith in Jesus Christ alone, we are seeking self-righteousness, which is a selfish desire.  And when we have two selfish desires, the strongest selfish desire wins out.  For example, if a man is striving to not commit adultery against his wife in order to establish himself as a good husband (instead of out of love for his wife), and he's tempted to commit adultery, his selfish desire for adultery will overrule his  selfish desire to be a good husband. But if he loves his wife, then he won't commit adultery.  As it is written, "Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love fulfills the law."

So Paul in Romans 7 is continuing the argument he started in Romans 1:  that true righteousness comes by faith in Christ, and continues by faith in the Spirit of Christ.  Faith in Christ Jesus saves us from our past sin and from present sinning.  This is the good news.  Glory to God.  Praise the Lord.  Praise the Spirit.

The lie about the "sinful nature" (Part 2)

"Sin is crouching at your door.  It desires to master you, but you must master it." 
~God to Cain, before Cain murders Abel

Last time, I talked about the lie I learned in church:  that we were "born sinners."  The idea is that Adam and Eve sinned, their nature became "sinful," and they passed their sinful nature to their children, which includes us.  If this is true, then if anybody had a sinful nature, Cain did!  He was born after Adam and Eve sinned, and he committed the very first murder in human history.  Did he murder his righteous brother Abel because he had a "sinful nature?"

Look again at what God said:

"Sin is crouching at your door.  It desires to master you, but you must master it." 

Let's break it down:
1. "Sin" crouched at Cain's door.  What does this mean?  The picture is of an animal crouching waiting to pounce.  "Cain's door" symbolizes his heart, or will; it symbolizes an opportunity that was before Cain--an approaching situation God made known to Cain.

2. It (sin) desired to master Cain.  We already know what this sin is because we know Cain's story:  the sin was murder.  So we could substitute the word "sin" for "murder," or even "murderous hate," as Jesus taught much later.  Murderous hate desired control over Cain.  Clearly it hadn't mastered him yet because of what God said next.

3. "But you must master it."  This is key.  God didn't say, "But you must let me help you master it."  God also didn't say, "But you can't master it--unless I do a work in your heart-- a work that you're too sinful to even want me to do--so I have to do it for you."  This is what God said: "You must master it"--Meaning the sin that crouched at Cain's door.

So whatever sin means, whatever the sinful nature is, it can't mean that Cain had to murder his brother because of his sinful nature.  It can't mean that.  It doesn't mean that.  So what does it mean?

Read here for the answer and conclusion.