God's Children

To all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. (John 1:12-13, NLT)

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. (Romans 8:14-17, NLT)

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. (Galatians 3:26-27, NLT)

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! (1 John 3:1, NLT)

We are children of God through faith.  This is accomplished through Jesus Christ and is a result of God’s great love.  We have received the Spirit of “sonship”, who brought about our adoption.  We are legally, practically and wholly God’s children.  This is by His will not our own.

Confused and Helpless

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  Matthew 9:36, NLT

Jesus was traveling through towns and villages teaching and healing.  Crowds gathered wherever He went.  Here we have a report of what Jesus thought when He saw the crowds.  Matthew wrote in Greek.  The Greek words behind our translation of “he had compassion” imply that this was a gut wrenching experience for Jesus.  Also, the words behind “confused and helpless” are emphatic.  “Confused” is an interpretation of a word that originally meant “to flay” and could accurately be translated “painfully annoyed”.  The word behind “helpless” has a root meaning “to throw”, and thus carries the idea of scattering or dispersing.

This is the way we are without Christ.  Where do you go for truth?  How do you measure truth?

Avoiding the Pitfalls

The Bible tells us, “Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day.” (2 Peter 2:8, NLT)  Lot lived in the midst of wickedness that claimed even his family and yet he remained righteous.  There has to be a secret. Psalm 1 gives us that secret. Verse 2 says, “But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.” (Psalm 1:2, NLT) I want you to consider the meaning of the word “but” as used in this context.  The Hebrew author used two words that are directly translated, “for lo”.  “For” could also be translated because.  So the writer is saying, “Because, look, he delights in the law of the Lord.”  The point is this is not just the contrasting behavior; this is the reason for his happy avoidance of the traps. 

Shelter

"Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty." (Psalm 91:1, NLT)  God is a shelter during times of trouble.  In each generation there are many who attest to this truth.  It defies explanation, and like the taste of honey has to be experienced to be understood fully.

Peace with God

“All we like sheep have strayed away.  We have left God’s plans to follow our own.” (Isaiah 53:6, NLT)  To find peace with God we need to repent of all our efforts to get our own way.  Some of us try to do everything right and in turn expect God to give us everything we want.  Others of us decide to say, “I will do it my own way.”  Both need to repent.  Here is an irony:  We strive to get our own way with God, but for His part God already wants to give us more than we can even imagine and the only thing stopping Him is us.  The greatest thing any of us can have is to be at peace with God, and He has already given His Son to make peace possible.  The only thing standing in the way is us.

Thirsty?

Have you ever been thirsty, really thirsty? 

The desires in our souls are often compared to thirst.  When you are thirsty, the desire for water can override everything else.

We pursue money, sex, entertainment and a thousand other desires like our lives depend on it. Driven by an overpowering thirst, our lives are poured out in a passionate pursuit.

God saw this happening with the ancient people of Israel and said: 

“My people have done two evil things:

They have abandoned me—

the fountain of living water.

And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns

that can hold no water at all!” (Jeremiah 2:13, NLT)

Here in this passage God is using a metaphor.  He is comparing the thirst of the soul to the thirst for water.  Our souls hunger and thirst for God.  Without God we are parched and thirsty on the inside.  God says here that He is the fountain of living water.  There are two evil things God addresses.  The first is that His people have abandoned Him.  The second is that they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns.  The cracked cisterns are a metaphor for things that we pursue to satisfy our thirst.  A cistern stores water so that when the spring rains are finished and the dry months of summer come people do not die for lack of water. We are dying for lack of "living water", because money, sex, entertainment and all our other pursuits can never satisfy out souls.

Fixated

Fixated or Fixation: the state in which an individual becomes obsessed with an attachment to another human, an animal, or an inanimate object. (Wikipedia) Acquire an obsessive attachment to: (Webster)

 What does it mean to be human? The scientific community has given us the Latin name: Homo sapiens: according to Wiktionary this is from Latin homo (“human being, man”) + sapiens (“wise, sensible, judicious”) We consider ourselves wise, sensible and judicious. And yet, Idolatry is part of the human condition. It is as old as humanity itself. Did you have to study Greek mythology? I suppose we all did. It is part of our culture. The days of the week are named after these deities. Tuesday – Mars the god of war; Wednesday – Mercury the god of commerce; Friday – Venus the god of love and beauty. When we think of idolatry, we think of statues and objects. However, consider what the gods we just listed represented. They represent things that even now men and women devote their lives to. When a person devotes his/herself to beauty or Aphrodite, there is no end to the surgery, dieting, exercising and products that can be part of the sacrifice. Aphrodite can be a terrible task master. Some damage their health to look better, taking steroids or harmful drugs. Others become enslaved to the point that the condition known as anorexia develops. When a person makes the pursuit of profit their sole purpose in life, do they not demonstrate what they are willing to sacrifice to Hermes, giving up family and children? The ancients gave names to the deities and we no longer recognize them by their names, but we still serve the same deities. We sacrifice health, family, children, integrity and our souls for the things these deities represent.

 

 We call ourselves wise, sensible and judicious. We pursue wealth, position, peace, beauty and happiness with all we are. And yet, we live in a world where many of us are Struggling, Hurting, Stressing, Cheating, Spending, Worrying, Medicating and Avoiding? What is the cause of the worry and stress around us? Our world is fixated or obsessed with so many things that promise happiness. Our gods have failed us, and sold us into slavery.

 Jesus taught that the first commandment is the most important commandment. The first commandment is: “You must not have any other god but me.” (Exodus 20:3, New Living Translation) This rule has to do with why we were created. It has to do with who we are. We were created to have a relationship with God. What is more, we do not break any of the other 10 commandments without breaking this one first. I believe that this is the problem; not just a problem, but the problem. I believe that the reason we are Struggling, Hurting, Stressing, Cheating, Spending, Worrying, Medicating and Avoiding is found in this commandment. Therefore, I believe that the answer to finding freedom from the worry, fears and struggles of our present day lies in this commandment. This is the most important commandment. The Bible puts it positively: “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.” (Deut. 6:5, NLT)

 I have been influenced by two books recently. The first one is “Gods at War”, by Kyle Idleman; and the second is “Counterfeit Gods”, by Timothy Keller. I recommend reading either of these books for a fuller treatment of the subject, and I must give credit to these men for places where I have borrowed directly from their books and for stimulating my thinking on this subject.

As humans we will give our lives to something. For example, if a person makes acquiring wealth their goal, they will end up serving money, fixated on it. If a person makes being accepted their goal, they will end up serving those they try to appease. We have a name for this, we call it codependency. Anything that we cannot live without will end up controlling us. Our hearts become fixed on the object or objects we trust for our happiness, security or success. We end up serving these things that have now taken the place of God. For example if we need to feel secure, and money makes us feel secure, we will pursue money. But, a different person will seek security in a relationship with the opposite sex, so they will pursue relationships. As we look at the heart in each of these scenarios we see we are trusting in something other than God to meet our deepest need. We are looking to this object to be our Savior. This is what idolatry is. Every one of us will look to something or a number of things to meet our deepest needs. Every one of us will serve a god or many gods. It is the way we are created. We each have a soul hunger that can only be satisfied in the one true God, the God we were created for. It is not a question of if we have idols in our hearts. I believe it is a lifelong process of allowing God to show us what our idols are.

 Romans 1:21-25 puts it this way: “They knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen." (NLT)