Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

How often do we sit in church, admiring our own spirituality and nod our heads and think thoughts like:

“Yes, Pastor..this is so true. I know someone who really needs to hear this message.”

As I was studying Moses and the Israelites, thoughts came to my mind that ridiculed them for their disobedience. Suddenly I realized that this study was for me. I was disobedient, I  was grumbling and complaining. I am no better than the Israelites, in fact I am just like them.

Change had to happen. Once you learn the truth the time comes when you have to actually put it into practice. Listening is easy, but change is harder.

So how do we do what the Word says?  First… I am going to ask you why.

Here is the answer.

John 14:23-24

Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own, they belong to the Father who sent me.”

So if we love God, we will obey His Word.

If you love Me, keep My commandments: This is a fair measure of our love for Jesus. It is easy to think of loving Jesus in merely sentimental or emotional terms. It is wonderful when our love for Jesus has sentiment and passion, but it must always be connected to keeping His commandments, or it isn’t love at all.  (David Guzik)

I will readdress the how we can change. How can we do what God’s Word commands? It is through prayer and through the Holy Spirit. When we turn our lives over to Jesus Christ, our lives and our minds are reformed.

We know God is love, but when we realize that to please God we have to love Him enough obey Him, there is a change of focus.

1 John 5:3

This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

But it is so much more than bread alone.

While wandering in the desert the Israeliltes  complained bitterly. They forgot how they were delivered from slavery in Egypt as soon as their stomachs became empty. They had no faith and weak memories.

So God supplied food for the people. Manna. The word manna comes from the Hebrew word, man hu which literally means “What is it?”

This manna appeared every morning on the ground as dew, and the people collected it every morning. This supply lasted for 4o years until the people were finally secured and had entered into the promised land under Joshua. This manna had to be gathered, and there was only a day’s provision. It would spoil by the next day. Therefore  a level of faith was being taught at this time. Only enough could be gathered for the day so that they would learn to expect God to provide for them the very next morning. Double could be collected only on the day before the Sabbath as they could not toil on this day.

What does this teach us? Do we gather God’s Word daily? Do we ingest the Word and obey it?

The people began to complain again. All they had to eat was this bread. They began to hunger for something more. They craved meat. How often are we discontent with what we have? How are we just like the Israelites who had been supplied with all they needed? God supplied them with bread, water from the rock, their clothes and shoes never wore out, yet they grumbled.

Their discontent was more than just about food. They complained against God and we also complain against God when are unhappy with our circumstances. It is in this way that we are just like the Israelites, never satisfied with what God has provided for us and the current situation we may find ourselves in.

God sent the people meat in the form of quail. These quail came knee-deep and when the people ate them…they were struck with a plague. This gives new meaning to the saying, “be careful for what you ask for.”

Jesus teaches us that He is the bread of life. “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty…I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world…Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me…he who feeds on this bread will live forever” 

John 6:32-33, 35, 48-51, 57-58

Jesus offers us eternal live if we feast on His Word. He offers spiritual food instead of temporal food. He tests us causing us to hunger and feeds us the Word to instruct us that we do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes  that comes from the mouth of the Lord.   (Deut. 8:2-3)

Do you take in manna every day in the form of Bible study? Do you ingest the Word of God and truly live it?  Will you set aside time each morning to collect God’s Word and hide it in your heart?

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The sacrificial system set up in Leviticus was to cleanse people of their sins but the shedding of the blood was to always point to Jesus.

Let’s look at the progression of the sacrifices.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, God for the first time killed animals and clothed them when they felt shame.

One animal for one person.

Then later we have Passover. The blood of a lamb was to be spread upon the door frames of the homes. These people were spared death.

One animal for one family.

Next we learn of the Day of Atonement. The priests sacrificed a goat while the people were confessing their sins to God.

One sacrifice for the nation.

Jesus. On the cross Jesus shed his blood for us so that we may have a way to be forgiven of sin. Still…blood has to be shed for the forgiveness of sin.

One sacrifice for the world.

Jesus did not come for only a few select people of His day, or only for Jews, or for those who might follow Him. The Bible is clear.

John 1:29

Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Jesus is the savior of the world.

Acts 4:12

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name by which we must be saved.

Jesus Christ and his shed blood is the new covenant :

1 Corinthians 11: 24

“..This cup is the new covenant in My blood.”

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“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). There is a great difference between prayer and the life of prayer. Almost everyone prays, but very few pray without ceasing. This is the habit of devotion. This is the altar of incense ever burning in the Holy Place. This is the fragrance of a heart that lives in the presence of the Holy One, and breathes the very life of God. This is the deep undertone of a sanctified life. It is from this that the sweetness, the gladness, the holiness, and the helpfulness come. Lord, teach us the habit of prayer, the prayer that springs spontaneously from the heart, and which neither secular duty, satanic temptation, nor the waves of sorrow, can interrupt, but which is only stimulated by the things that try us, until every experience becomes transformed into an occasion for communion and fellowship with God.

–A. B. Simpson

How much time have you spent watching TV? Listening to music? Playing cards? Dining out? Shopping on-line?

We can spent a lot of time on leisure activities. So…how much time do spend each day alone with God, reading your Bible and praying?

Your faith is probably proportionate to the amount of time you spend in God’s Word. I am not talking about church attendance or good works, although these are positives. I am referring to the time you spend alone with God. This is how you learn about Him and how you apply His truths to your life.

The time has come when we are going to have to live by faith more than ever. Why? Times are tough for many. Those who are not experiencing hardships need to be helping those who are.

So what is true faith?

We meet many Christians who have tears in their eyes, and complaints in their mouths; but there are few with their harps in their hands, who praise God in affliction.

To be thankful in affliction is a work peculiar to a saint. Every bird can sing in spring, but some birds will sing in the dead of winter. Everyone, almost, can be thankful in prosperity, but a true saint can be thankful in adversity. A good Christian will bless God, not only at sun-rise, but at sun-set.

Well may we, in the worst that befalls us, have a psalm of thankfulness, because all things work for good. Oh, be much in blessing of God: we will thank Him that doth befriend us.

–Thomas Watson

“How are we to handle this sword of ‘It is written’? First, with deepest reverence. Let every word that God has spoken be law and gospel to you. Never trifle with it; never try to evade its force or change its meaning. God speaks to you in this book as much as if he came to the top of Sinai and lifted up his voice with thunder.

I like to open the Bible and pray, ‘Lord God, let the words leap off the page into my soul; make them vivid, powerful, and fresh to my heart.’”

Our Lord Himself felt the power of the Word. It was not so much the devil who felt the power of ‘It is written” as Christ Himself. The manhood of Christ felt an awe of the Word of God, and so the Word became a power to Christ. To trifle with Scripture is to deprive yourself of its aid. Reverence it, and look up to God with devout gratitude for having given it to you.

–Charles Spurgeon, Spiritual Warfare in a Believer’s Life (P.81)

source:

The Berean Call

 by David W. Lowe

Because Jesus Christ is equal with God (Phi 2:6) and created all persons (Joh 1:1-9), he has inherent sovereign authority over all humanity and the universe. This means you and I must surrender to the authority of Jesus Christ. It is one thing to call him Master and Lord with your mouth, and quite another to make him the Master and Lord of your words, thoughts, and actions by obeying his commands in complete humility. He cannot be your Savior unless he is first your Master and Lord. If you have a problem with the idea of a Sovereign God ruling over your thoughts and actions, then you must question whether you are truly a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is King of Kings, seated at the right hand of the throne of God, and has all authority and power. As the righteous judge of mankind, his kingdom stands eternally opposed to sin and rebellion. Just as an inventor has the inherent rights to an invention or an author holds the copyright for a book he has written, so the Lord has the inherent rights to the earth he created and everyone in it. Because he holds the patent to the creation, he has the right to demand how it is used and how we interact and conduct ourselves within it. If that omnipotence and omniscience were the only reason to worship and obey him, it would be enough. But he not only created the world and everyone in it, he became one of us, and willingly offered himself to be butchered and crucified by his own creation in order to provide for its salvation.

How could I not bow in reverence and amazement to a King such as this? Earthly kings desire power, wealth, and fame, but this King desires mercy, servanthood, and sacrifice. This King humbled himself below all of his subjects in order to save them from their sins. Instead of giving me justice and crushing me back into dust, he vowed to save me in his boundless mercy. In the ultimate of paradoxes, God used my murder of his Son to be the medium by which I am saved! On the cross, the sinless Lamb became a curse so that a sinful human being like yourself could have his righteousness credited to your account by trusting in his blood atonement for forgiveness. Without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of your sins, and you remain a magnet of the wrath of God. But the perfect, sinless blood of Jesus Christ can remit the sin of every person who repents and trusts in his sacrifice.

Every knee will bow and acknowledge his authority, because he has earned the right to rule and receive all glory and honor through his perfect sacrifice and resurrection from the dead. Come to him in humility, understanding the quantum lengths to which he descended in order to become a human being and experience a gruesome, excruciating death at your bloody hands. Put your trust in his sacrificial atonement for your acts of rebellion against him, realizing his perfect existence was crediting to your sinful account. Believe the eyewitnesses of his resurrection from the dead and ascension to heaven. Then, pick up a cross daily in gratitude, obey his commandments in the Word of God with joy, and follow him without wavering, no matter the price.

These things seem to be contradictory to the fallen flesh and to the natural man, but they are two sides of the same compassionate, thrice holy God, and to reject either one is reject the true God for an idol.

Quote: David Cloud, Way of Life

Common questions. I have asked the very same questions over and over again. It is human nature to want to know the future. What a comfort it would be instantly lead on a day to day basis. Or would it?

In the Old Testament, the Israelites followed the cloud, the Lord, in the desert. Now here they knew for certain, that they were following God. In fact, they were led for every single moment. But picture this scenario…..

A family is settling in because the cloud has stopped moving. They unpack. Set up the tent. Make a fire pit. Put away all their belongings. But wait….the cloud has started moving again….hey, everybody….start packing. Let’s go..go…go!

I wonder what questions might the Israelites had asked….

Where are we going now? How long will we travel before we stop again? Why do we stay in one location for three days then the next for three months? Will we stop somewhere that has shade? When we do stop, how long will we stay at that destination? Where will our water come from? Should I continue to follow this cloud that does not seem to be taking us anywhere? Hey, where is this promised land? Are we there yet? No?…How long till we get there? I see the cloud but is God really in it? Where is that Moses when you really need him? 

Have the times or questions really changed that much since 1446 B.C., the time of the Exodus?

It is not indicated in scripture that the Israelites were given any answers to these questions. They were to just follow the cloud when it moved.  What a miracle to led by God by a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. Yet with all the miracles, like the parting of the Red Sea, and visual leadings they still complained bitterly about their circumstances. And they had no faith.

Is this really how you want to be led by God? By a cloud?  It gives us pause to remember the freedom we have in Christ and the security we find in the finality of the written Word. We are given a mind to make our own decisions as long as they are scriptural. In fact when we look at scripture there is no indication that the general believing population, after reaching Canaan, was given any special direction at all. They just served the Lord in everyday situations, just like we are to today. They were to follow the law and instruction given to them by leaders appointed by God.

God may give us a peace about a decision, check our spirit, or provide providentially, but we are to be wise and make the best decisions possible based on how we are to live our lives based on scripture and God’s commandments.

So, how do you know God and His will? Read Genesis to Revelation. There is no easy answer here but one has to start walking with Jesus because He is the Word. He is the Way. Trust in Him.

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