Well, we made it through. This Christmas was the culmination of a year of knitting for me, when all that wasn't household necessity got replaced with constructing socks, baby gear for twin nieces, more socks, hats and mittens and scarves for my children, shawls, and more .....socks. Right up to Christmas Eve afternoon, the last sock was being finished.
I find myself wiped out, with the weight of the family's anticipation and my inadequate mood to match it. What I'm trying to say, without admitting it, is that I've been the grump this time around. When I was growing up, we had Christmas once a year, and it was a whole day of drawing out all the festivity (and respite from farm chores) as long as we could. There was no company, no travelling out, just Mom and Dad and brother and sister, at home with the loot and the special food and piles of Christmas cookies. And that's what I always wanted to replicate for my own family. To have one special, nuclear family day, that doesn't have to get compared to other versions before and after The Day. This is one of the greediest desires of my heart, I suppose. But there it is.
How do I get myself back on the upside....let me count the ways.
Jonathan (3) and Landon (7) helped me to bake some of the cookies. They are all helper, no question about it. At Christmastime I find myself involved in recipes that require chilling, rolling, cutting and then the decorating after baking. Jonathan can handle a cookie cutter with the best of them, dipping it expertly in flour each time. When we were on the sugar cookies, he even tried rolling out some dough, reducing it to a veneer on the kitchen island, so we started over. He and Landon unwrapped all the chocolate kisses to put on top of peanut butter cookies, and then even stayed around to place the kisses on the first two trayfuls. One of the signature cookies I do every year since I discovered the recipe, is candy cane cookies. The dough gets divided and one half tinted pink. After chilling, I portion out teaspoonfuls of each color to be rolled into even little ropes, and twisted together and curved into a candy cane before baking. This is fun but laborious work. Jonathan tried his hand at shaping some, and it was so heartening. His sometimes looked like knobby worms, and we used them anyway, because I felt I'd like to see his stamp on the baking this year.
I think that more than half of the gift giving this year was the children giving things to each other. That amazed and gratified me, I can tell you. Jeffrey sometimes gives the older children who do barn chores, some spending money...and they are pretty careful to hoard most of it for important occasions. It translates into more shopping trips, but there is also a fair amount of hand-crafting still going on, I am happy to say. Hannah knitted cozy cowls that she adorned with fabric yo-yos, for her sisters. Ella made washcloths and scarves, and Emma made a set of pistols and some sort of automatic rifle, all out of cardboard tubes and boxes painted black and detailed with metallic inks, for her brothers. Emma also sewed me a cushion for my rocking chair. Now, I have to tell you about the rocking chair....
I bought that Victorian oak rocker with a beautiful spindled back, for $150 at an antiques shop in Bouckville, NY a year or more before I met my husband. We got married, and I rocked four babies in that chair. It had come with a small crack in the front edge of the seat, but it never seemed to change, and I thought the creaks of the spindles were part of the pleasant package. One day, as I was expecting our fifth child, my husband sat himself down in my rocker, heaved his weight back for a rock, and down he came, with the chair seat split all the way through. After I shrieked, I cried. Then I put the chair away in the attic and wouldn't let anyone touch it, not even to fix it. Other rockers came into use, but that one stayed in the attic walkway as a testament to my suffering, I suppose. So I guess that Emma got tired of climbing over it to get at stored items, and she took it into her lil' red head to fix the chair. Apparently, she glued the chair, and fashioned braces which she then screwed on to the bottom of the seat, straddling the split. And she added the cushion. I have already chased my oldest son out of the rocking chair. By golly, he wasn't going to play Halo sitting in that chair.
I always put the stockings on the plates at the table, so we open them before breakfast. This year, my stocking had presents in it that I didn't put there. This is the first time. Ella put in a ball of one of my favorite cotton yarn colorways; Emma put in some top-notch chocolate I really like and never buy for myself, and I had a new wooden salad serving bowl and a new calendar planner, both items I'd "needed" under the stocking. Beside me, Jonathan had his own stocking, and the first thing he pulled out was the shawl that he had requested to be knitted for his lovey, 'Baby Giraffe.' That little stuffed toy goes everywhere with him and sleeps with him, too. I made the little triangle shawl out of the same colors his hat-mittens-scarf had come from, with fringe around the bottom, and he recognized instantly, "Oh, it's Baby Giwaffe's shaww!" (sic) "Mama, I wuv you fo making it!" And it fits just right.
One of my worst worries had been the matter of a dinner menu. Funding is slim, and we didn't have a special roast in the freezer. But I had saved dressing from Thanksgiving, and some nice dinner rolls, and I was able to put together a favorite recipe of creamed onions, pull out some of our sweet corn ("I'm sooo glad we stayed up until 10:30 freezing this!" said my husband, as he started on it), and there was chicken available, so we did alright. And did I mention, the breakfast scrapple was not made with cornmeal this year, but with buckwheat hot cereal....and it went down just as surely. Thank goodness, that worked: in a panic I was, yesterday morning, as I went to the cupboard for the cornmeal to stir into the boiling broth, and found none. Plan B was the idea, 'well, grits can also be chilled and sliced and fried crisp, and this stuff looks sorta like grits and nobody eats it as hot cereal, anyway.'
We bought Emma a violin for Christmas. Back in May, she took the notion that a violin had her name on it, sent me the link to Amazon.com, and teased and teased until I had to say in no uncertain terms that we just weren't going to have the wherewithal to buy one, and please to forget it. Along about mid-November, things got a little easier, and I started to think about that violin. The offer advertised in the link still in my email proved to be expired, but I found a comparable package, for less, and ordered it. Scarcely a week later, Miss Emma began with her begging and teasing again, and berating me for my heartlessness and cruelty in not listening to her. So I threatened to send the blessed thing back, to shut her up. Next, Amazon emailed me that the order had been cancelled due to out-of-stock status. I could have taken the easy way out, but....not me, you know? I found another dealer on Amazon, got the violin, and when Emma opened it, she just sat with it in her lap and smiled while everyone else tended to the rest of the opening. After chores tonight, she went right up to her room, and started in experimentally scraping away on it....it doesn't sound half bad. She'd better have the gift to match the grit, that's all I have to say about that.
I don't know why, but the children hooked up the old VCR after midday dinner, and of all things, put in a video tape of my old ballet recital from 10th grade, "The Golden Goose." I danced the title role in that one, and I had forgotten so much of it. I sat in my reclaimed rocking chair to watch it with them and listened to my children, who don't know this part of my life at all. "Is that Mama? She's so little!" "I think that's Mama right there....no, it's that one, I can tell by the legs." "You were pretty good, Mama!" "Look at Uncle Paris, he's so cute!"
I think there were half a dozen hugs from Ella scattered through the day, just because. Comments such as "You make the best cookies, Mama" abounded, and Ella helped me start the 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that we'll frame for Jonathan's room, once completed. It is an oil painting of the Three Little Pigs, full of color and light. While I sat there for two hours working at puzzling, no Christmas elves went through my kitchen to clean up from dinner, but *sigh* at least I could put in my new CD of Chris Tomlin or the Piano Guys to accompany my own efforts.
Humbug? Not so much....I'll do it all again........next year.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Mix With Faith (topic #13)
A Polite Demand - Beggar or Believer
I John 5:14-15 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
It is easy to think that 'asking of God according to God's will' means that we should ask only for certain things - as if God gives us the requests that line up with His approved list. This is certainly a valid understanding: we are to pray for our enemies, lift up each other's burdens, depend on God to supply the day-to-day as well as the crisis needs. But I think praying according to God's will is at least a twofold matter - it requires making godly requests, and being full of faith.
James says in his epistle that "he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways" (James 1:6-8). Don't think that God is mean or petty, in not rewarding unbelief. That is not consistent with God's character. Rather, God has mercy on whom he will (Exodus 33:19), and certainly He blesses many who do not love Him (Matthew 5:45). God blesses all, because He loves all. But asking any thing of God, is a whole other level of operation, and goes on the principle that one must come to God in belief, in faith, and with confident expectation. (Hebrews 11:6). It is also the will of God then, that we not only believe in Him, but that we believe Him.
The believer is to make his requests with faith - nothing doubting!- and with thanksgiving, in anticipation.
Matthew 6:9-11 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
You see that? When Jesus gave this lesson on how to pray, he wasn't laying out a prayer list so much as He was demonstrating the correct approach to prayer (and, to their credit, that was exactly what the disciples had asked of Jesus). It is a far cry from how the "Lord's Prayer" is used, almost ritualistically, throughout Christendom today.
"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven" (begin by acknowledging just who and how high God is) "Hallowed by thy name" (give God His due reverence. It is a precious, gracious gift, to call God, our Father, and we are to climb into His lap with childlike trust.) "Thy kingdom come." (Put God's priority first.) "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." (We address the King of heaven from Earth, the temporarily lost domain, knowing that in Christ, God has already gotten the victory and that we will see the end result, when every knee bows and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father, as it says in Philippians 2:10-11. It is only a matter of time for it to be worked out.) "Give us this day our daily bread." (By now, I am in a right frame of mind to present my request, for I know that God knows that I know...He will move heaven and earth to help this child. I'm not wringing my hands in consternation, but coming boldly before the throne of grace: "God, You are my Father, Creator, and King. All things are in Your hand. You are sovereign. Your word tells me of your love and grace towards me. You know this need that I have, and I know that you work all things together for good towards me because I love you. Thank you that you are meeting this need, and help me to rest in you."
Cautious, Aware & Diligent
Hebrews 3:19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Psalm 78:40-41 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
In these two scripture readings are both Old and New Testament references to a very tragic story. It is the account of how Israel missed a golden opportunity to enter into God's rest. (I encourage you here to read the record in the book of Numbers, 3:17-14:25.) In brief, as Israel was camping in Paran, God directed Moses to send twelve men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan. Of course, since Jacob and his large family had left Canaan for Egypt, some 400 years ago, their place had been taken by many different nations. Some were cunning, some were "giants" (picture: the Germans next to the Romans); all worshipped idols and conducted various forms of human sacrifice; all dwelt in strong-walled cities. What God wanted the Israeli spies to see, was the bountiful land surrounding those walled cities. He wanted them to see foremost the richness of the soil that would nourish bees and cattle and goats alike...a land flowing with milk and honey to bless God's children. Indeed, the spies brought back samples of the wild fruits they found; the grapes alone were so heavy that two men had to carry them on an improvised staff yoke.
Clearly, to God, the fact that usurpers populated the land, was of no consequence. He meant to drive them out, and it ought to have been clear to the Israelites, who had seen the armed forces of Egypt routed on their behalf, the Red Sea moved out of their way; mysterious sustaining food rained from heaven every morning; the guiding glory of the LORD in their midst, as a pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night. Surely, we like to think, they had seen enough of signs and wonders by now, to know that God would accomplish all He said? But like Jesus said in Luke 7:35, "wisdom is justified of all her children." These Israelites were a faithless lot, "stiff-necked," unwilling to trust God no matter how many miracles He might do. They had not the faith to mix with what they had observed.
Joshua and Caleb were the only two who understood, that God was for them, and that the rich crops were proof. "[We can do this, folks! God wants to bring us in, He is with us - what does it matter how things look?!]" Theirs was the voice of reason, of course, but it went unheeded, and so began the 40 years of wilderness camping, while God waited for the original refugees from the Exodus to die, and a new generation, who knew only trust in Him, to grow up.
The implications for our time are these: a generation steeped in unbelief and distrust and skepticism cannot be saved. For, "without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)
Hebrews 4:1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into this rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
What is the connection running through our need to be cautious, aware, and diligent? - I think it is a thread of wisdom (the capacity to apply and act on what you know), and where that runs into any obstacle, we run on informed faith (the practise of trusting God for what we cannot yet see, because of what we have already seen of Him).
Joshua and Caleb saw the promised land through the eyes of faith, while the other spies did not. This is not a banner moment in history, for the concept of majority rule. Hebrews 4:1 cautions the believer not to fall into distrust of God - the promise has been made, in fact, and God is faithful to perform what He has spoken. The only way we might come short of realizing God's rest, is to allow ourselves to be distracted by that enemy who stalks about seeking to devour us.
Harden Not Your Heart
Hebrews 4:2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
The warning here for us is that it could happen again in the Church as it happened in Israel. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world, and joins us to Christ's victory. We must be diligent in the study of God's word, to keep our awareness of God's love, grace, and power. Stay tenderhearted to the things of God. The gospel itself is not defective or insufficient; faithful acceptance is what opens our spiritual eyes and ears and enables us to live the gospel and to shine its light in a dark world.
Genesis 15:18-21 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
God is specific as He needs to be in promises and directions. And we of this present day, at least, can read the amassed record in the Bible, to see that God is always as good as his word - always.
So then, if God's word is good, there is really nothing to be added to it but our faith.
Hebrews 3:15 While it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
This refers again to the Israelites' failure to trust God to take them safely into the Promised Land, and it really highlights the root of all their (or of our) troubles. They refused to believe God not on the lack of miraculous and recent evidence, but because of their own obstinacy. Patience is a virtue; obstinacy is not. In your patience (trust, endurance, faith) possess ye your souls; harden not your hearts. Provoking God - not a good idea. When the Israelites provoked God, they fell short of receiving His promises.
Here is the scripture to which Hebrews 3:15 refers:
Psalm 95:7-11 For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.
This is a prophetic psalm, identifying many things. The LORD is God, and He is our God. We are the "sheep" under God's care but of course we are not truly sheep, but thinking beings created in God's image. We are designed to become little images of Christ, and the choice we make to listen to God and follow him ("to hear") or to reject him ("to err") has one of two consequences: salvation or damnation.
As a Christian, I face all the time the charge that this choice makes God a mean, capricious Being. Perhaps you have had this come up, too. But this is only a sullen cry of "no fair!" as one realizes that refusing even to make the choice...is still a choice. Anything other than grateful acceptance of God's plan for you, whether it be outright rejection or delay, is the wrong choice, and this has been spelled out again and again through the Bible.
What the skeptic or distrustful soul passes up is so much more than "freedom," or "autonomy"...all the premium spa visits we can dream up do not approach the rest that is available to all who become children of God. The skeptic faces the initial hurdle, then, of equating submission with becoming God's puppet. That of course is not so, and this exegesis is not about the unbeliever. It is about unbelief in the Church.
The Sabbath Rest
Hebrews 4:3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Believers may enter into God's rest...yes, we now that, ultimately, we are promised eternal rest from care, worry, labor, strife and struggle. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). But what does rest look like now in the ongoing, present confines of time? It should look like it did when God himself introduced the idea of rest: Genesis 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
We know from previous topics that God is always on, always at work, and that there is always a list of tasks for our attention, as well. So let's peel away everything from that kernel that relates Hebrews 4:3 to Genesis 2:2, and see what we can press out of it.
'Rest' in the Genesis reference is the Hebrew 'shabath' from which we derive 'sabbath.' It is a primary root meaning, "to repose", " desist from exertion."
In the Hebrews citation 'rest' is the Greek 'katapausis', from 'katapau', meaning, "to settle down" or "to desist." So the author of the Hebrews epistle described God the Creator "reposing down" after finishing the major work and settling it all in motion.
Now, when we enter the kingdom of God through the Door, through belief in Jesus Christ, we are deciding to rest from trying to force our own way through this worldly life. We subscribe to the truth, that God's plan for our lives is to conform us to the image of His Son, and we accept that God is able to accomplish this tranformation, that He knows the best way. "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Philippians 1:6)
Hebrews 4:4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
Again, this refers to the Genesis account of the creation, and the fact that God didn't leave any of it unfinished, that He is all done creating. God is still at work, to be sure, but the whole tenor of his work has changed. From the eighth day on, God's work has consisted not of creating and establishing, but of protecting, punishing, blessing, cursing, guiding, saving, all that is necessary both to will and do His good pleasure. None of this is anything to exhaust or deplete or tire the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. ---> So the believing, tender heart is content to leave all matters of salvation and justification, both ours and others' in the hand of God. This is the rest that we can enter right now. It is comprised of trust that God's will gets done, and freedom to fulfill the great commission of preaching and teaching the gospel, with joy.
Hebrews 4:6-7 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, after so long a time, as it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
So why does the epistle writer use the Hebrew escapees from Egypt to illustrate what is going on in (his) present-day church, and also in ours? I think he is developping a theme, in the first several chapters, about a certain tension in the church, a fervor that smacks of strife and toil based on worry and doubt (not much of rest, present or anticipated, there!). So he reaches back in history to hold up the Israelites: fresh from miracles on all sides, they still could not relax into trusting God wholeheartedly - they did not mix God's promises with faith (belief!) despite all the signs given them. And so they had no rest, for they were ready to quit as every new obstacle came up, refusing to believe and receive great salvation which God invariably delivered, from slavery, from poverty, from pursuing armies, from a barrier sea, from thirst, hunger, the deterioration of clothing and shoes...And the choice was for them, as it is for us, a matter of attitude and the heart.
Type and Shadow
Hebrews 4:8-9 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
Again, "rest" here in verse 8, is from the Greek root, 'katapausis', to settle down or desist. But in verse 9, the "rest" that remains (has not been yet realized) is the Greek 'sabbatismos', a "sabbatism", the figurative repose of Christianity. The word is derived from the 'sabbaton', the Greek name for the Hebrew practice of a "day of weekly repose from secular avocations."
Setting aside as unprofitable all arguments about how to properly observe the Sabbath day, the point of a sabbath rest is that it serves as a reminder, to trust, to regroup our energies and focus that has been scattered by the week. A sabbath period, be it a sundown-to-following-sundown, a 12-hour sabbath, or just a few hours, is a re-enactment of reposing down, of desisting from the toil, and observing that the world still goes around: so, evidently not through our efforts, but thanks to God's.
Just as vital to our spiritual life as the Word of God itself, is mixing what we take in of it with faith. The rest that God holds out to us is a way of living, of 'working out our salvation.' When rest, total confidence in God, becomes our way of living, when we can learn to breathe (both spiritually and physically) in a way that celebrates the steady and sustaining breath of God, then we are successfully mixing God's grace with faith. This is the balance we seek!
I John 5:14-15 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
It is easy to think that 'asking of God according to God's will' means that we should ask only for certain things - as if God gives us the requests that line up with His approved list. This is certainly a valid understanding: we are to pray for our enemies, lift up each other's burdens, depend on God to supply the day-to-day as well as the crisis needs. But I think praying according to God's will is at least a twofold matter - it requires making godly requests, and being full of faith.
James says in his epistle that "he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways" (James 1:6-8). Don't think that God is mean or petty, in not rewarding unbelief. That is not consistent with God's character. Rather, God has mercy on whom he will (Exodus 33:19), and certainly He blesses many who do not love Him (Matthew 5:45). God blesses all, because He loves all. But asking any thing of God, is a whole other level of operation, and goes on the principle that one must come to God in belief, in faith, and with confident expectation. (Hebrews 11:6). It is also the will of God then, that we not only believe in Him, but that we believe Him.
The believer is to make his requests with faith - nothing doubting!- and with thanksgiving, in anticipation.
Matthew 6:9-11 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
You see that? When Jesus gave this lesson on how to pray, he wasn't laying out a prayer list so much as He was demonstrating the correct approach to prayer (and, to their credit, that was exactly what the disciples had asked of Jesus). It is a far cry from how the "Lord's Prayer" is used, almost ritualistically, throughout Christendom today.
"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven" (begin by acknowledging just who and how high God is) "Hallowed by thy name" (give God His due reverence. It is a precious, gracious gift, to call God, our Father, and we are to climb into His lap with childlike trust.) "Thy kingdom come." (Put God's priority first.) "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." (We address the King of heaven from Earth, the temporarily lost domain, knowing that in Christ, God has already gotten the victory and that we will see the end result, when every knee bows and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father, as it says in Philippians 2:10-11. It is only a matter of time for it to be worked out.) "Give us this day our daily bread." (By now, I am in a right frame of mind to present my request, for I know that God knows that I know...He will move heaven and earth to help this child. I'm not wringing my hands in consternation, but coming boldly before the throne of grace: "God, You are my Father, Creator, and King. All things are in Your hand. You are sovereign. Your word tells me of your love and grace towards me. You know this need that I have, and I know that you work all things together for good towards me because I love you. Thank you that you are meeting this need, and help me to rest in you."
Cautious, Aware & Diligent
Hebrews 3:19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Psalm 78:40-41 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
In these two scripture readings are both Old and New Testament references to a very tragic story. It is the account of how Israel missed a golden opportunity to enter into God's rest. (I encourage you here to read the record in the book of Numbers, 3:17-14:25.) In brief, as Israel was camping in Paran, God directed Moses to send twelve men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan. Of course, since Jacob and his large family had left Canaan for Egypt, some 400 years ago, their place had been taken by many different nations. Some were cunning, some were "giants" (picture: the Germans next to the Romans); all worshipped idols and conducted various forms of human sacrifice; all dwelt in strong-walled cities. What God wanted the Israeli spies to see, was the bountiful land surrounding those walled cities. He wanted them to see foremost the richness of the soil that would nourish bees and cattle and goats alike...a land flowing with milk and honey to bless God's children. Indeed, the spies brought back samples of the wild fruits they found; the grapes alone were so heavy that two men had to carry them on an improvised staff yoke.
Clearly, to God, the fact that usurpers populated the land, was of no consequence. He meant to drive them out, and it ought to have been clear to the Israelites, who had seen the armed forces of Egypt routed on their behalf, the Red Sea moved out of their way; mysterious sustaining food rained from heaven every morning; the guiding glory of the LORD in their midst, as a pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night. Surely, we like to think, they had seen enough of signs and wonders by now, to know that God would accomplish all He said? But like Jesus said in Luke 7:35, "wisdom is justified of all her children." These Israelites were a faithless lot, "stiff-necked," unwilling to trust God no matter how many miracles He might do. They had not the faith to mix with what they had observed.
Joshua and Caleb were the only two who understood, that God was for them, and that the rich crops were proof. "[We can do this, folks! God wants to bring us in, He is with us - what does it matter how things look?!]" Theirs was the voice of reason, of course, but it went unheeded, and so began the 40 years of wilderness camping, while God waited for the original refugees from the Exodus to die, and a new generation, who knew only trust in Him, to grow up.
The implications for our time are these: a generation steeped in unbelief and distrust and skepticism cannot be saved. For, "without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)
Hebrews 4:1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into this rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
What is the connection running through our need to be cautious, aware, and diligent? - I think it is a thread of wisdom (the capacity to apply and act on what you know), and where that runs into any obstacle, we run on informed faith (the practise of trusting God for what we cannot yet see, because of what we have already seen of Him).
Joshua and Caleb saw the promised land through the eyes of faith, while the other spies did not. This is not a banner moment in history, for the concept of majority rule. Hebrews 4:1 cautions the believer not to fall into distrust of God - the promise has been made, in fact, and God is faithful to perform what He has spoken. The only way we might come short of realizing God's rest, is to allow ourselves to be distracted by that enemy who stalks about seeking to devour us.
Harden Not Your Heart
Hebrews 4:2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
The warning here for us is that it could happen again in the Church as it happened in Israel. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world, and joins us to Christ's victory. We must be diligent in the study of God's word, to keep our awareness of God's love, grace, and power. Stay tenderhearted to the things of God. The gospel itself is not defective or insufficient; faithful acceptance is what opens our spiritual eyes and ears and enables us to live the gospel and to shine its light in a dark world.
Genesis 15:18-21 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
God is specific as He needs to be in promises and directions. And we of this present day, at least, can read the amassed record in the Bible, to see that God is always as good as his word - always.
So then, if God's word is good, there is really nothing to be added to it but our faith.
Hebrews 3:15 While it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
This refers again to the Israelites' failure to trust God to take them safely into the Promised Land, and it really highlights the root of all their (or of our) troubles. They refused to believe God not on the lack of miraculous and recent evidence, but because of their own obstinacy. Patience is a virtue; obstinacy is not. In your patience (trust, endurance, faith) possess ye your souls; harden not your hearts. Provoking God - not a good idea. When the Israelites provoked God, they fell short of receiving His promises.
Here is the scripture to which Hebrews 3:15 refers:
Psalm 95:7-11 For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.
This is a prophetic psalm, identifying many things. The LORD is God, and He is our God. We are the "sheep" under God's care but of course we are not truly sheep, but thinking beings created in God's image. We are designed to become little images of Christ, and the choice we make to listen to God and follow him ("to hear") or to reject him ("to err") has one of two consequences: salvation or damnation.
As a Christian, I face all the time the charge that this choice makes God a mean, capricious Being. Perhaps you have had this come up, too. But this is only a sullen cry of "no fair!" as one realizes that refusing even to make the choice...is still a choice. Anything other than grateful acceptance of God's plan for you, whether it be outright rejection or delay, is the wrong choice, and this has been spelled out again and again through the Bible.
What the skeptic or distrustful soul passes up is so much more than "freedom," or "autonomy"...all the premium spa visits we can dream up do not approach the rest that is available to all who become children of God. The skeptic faces the initial hurdle, then, of equating submission with becoming God's puppet. That of course is not so, and this exegesis is not about the unbeliever. It is about unbelief in the Church.
The Sabbath Rest
Hebrews 4:3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Believers may enter into God's rest...yes, we now that, ultimately, we are promised eternal rest from care, worry, labor, strife and struggle. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). But what does rest look like now in the ongoing, present confines of time? It should look like it did when God himself introduced the idea of rest: Genesis 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
We know from previous topics that God is always on, always at work, and that there is always a list of tasks for our attention, as well. So let's peel away everything from that kernel that relates Hebrews 4:3 to Genesis 2:2, and see what we can press out of it.
'Rest' in the Genesis reference is the Hebrew 'shabath' from which we derive 'sabbath.' It is a primary root meaning, "to repose", " desist from exertion."
In the Hebrews citation 'rest' is the Greek 'katapausis', from 'katapau', meaning, "to settle down" or "to desist." So the author of the Hebrews epistle described God the Creator "reposing down" after finishing the major work and settling it all in motion.
Now, when we enter the kingdom of God through the Door, through belief in Jesus Christ, we are deciding to rest from trying to force our own way through this worldly life. We subscribe to the truth, that God's plan for our lives is to conform us to the image of His Son, and we accept that God is able to accomplish this tranformation, that He knows the best way. "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Philippians 1:6)
Hebrews 4:4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
Again, this refers to the Genesis account of the creation, and the fact that God didn't leave any of it unfinished, that He is all done creating. God is still at work, to be sure, but the whole tenor of his work has changed. From the eighth day on, God's work has consisted not of creating and establishing, but of protecting, punishing, blessing, cursing, guiding, saving, all that is necessary both to will and do His good pleasure. None of this is anything to exhaust or deplete or tire the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. ---> So the believing, tender heart is content to leave all matters of salvation and justification, both ours and others' in the hand of God. This is the rest that we can enter right now. It is comprised of trust that God's will gets done, and freedom to fulfill the great commission of preaching and teaching the gospel, with joy.
Hebrews 4:6-7 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, after so long a time, as it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
So why does the epistle writer use the Hebrew escapees from Egypt to illustrate what is going on in (his) present-day church, and also in ours? I think he is developping a theme, in the first several chapters, about a certain tension in the church, a fervor that smacks of strife and toil based on worry and doubt (not much of rest, present or anticipated, there!). So he reaches back in history to hold up the Israelites: fresh from miracles on all sides, they still could not relax into trusting God wholeheartedly - they did not mix God's promises with faith (belief!) despite all the signs given them. And so they had no rest, for they were ready to quit as every new obstacle came up, refusing to believe and receive great salvation which God invariably delivered, from slavery, from poverty, from pursuing armies, from a barrier sea, from thirst, hunger, the deterioration of clothing and shoes...And the choice was for them, as it is for us, a matter of attitude and the heart.
Type and Shadow
Hebrews 4:8-9 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
Again, "rest" here in verse 8, is from the Greek root, 'katapausis', to settle down or desist. But in verse 9, the "rest" that remains (has not been yet realized) is the Greek 'sabbatismos', a "sabbatism", the figurative repose of Christianity. The word is derived from the 'sabbaton', the Greek name for the Hebrew practice of a "day of weekly repose from secular avocations."
Setting aside as unprofitable all arguments about how to properly observe the Sabbath day, the point of a sabbath rest is that it serves as a reminder, to trust, to regroup our energies and focus that has been scattered by the week. A sabbath period, be it a sundown-to-following-sundown, a 12-hour sabbath, or just a few hours, is a re-enactment of reposing down, of desisting from the toil, and observing that the world still goes around: so, evidently not through our efforts, but thanks to God's.
Just as vital to our spiritual life as the Word of God itself, is mixing what we take in of it with faith. The rest that God holds out to us is a way of living, of 'working out our salvation.' When rest, total confidence in God, becomes our way of living, when we can learn to breathe (both spiritually and physically) in a way that celebrates the steady and sustaining breath of God, then we are successfully mixing God's grace with faith. This is the balance we seek!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)