Ask The One Who Wrote It

Ask The One Who Wrote It

A man wrote a note expressing his views on a particular subject. He sent this note to some of the people he knew to get their opinion. The people that received it read the note, and afterward, they started to discuss its content. They were many opinions about what they believed the note said. It continued like this for days, and no one got back to the author. Finally, they gave the note to a man known for his practical wisdom. He read it as the people waited. The reader nodded when he finished reading. The people asked him, "Well, what do you think?" The reader said, "I think this is worth pondering. It could be interpreted in many ways. So I do not know…" They all waited to see if he said something else. Then suddenly, the man spoke, "Well, you all know me to be very practical. And I think this needs a practical solution." "And that is?" asked the impatient crowd. The man said very matter-of-factly, "Well, I am going to find the person who wrote this note and ask him personally what he meant by this." The man left the premises to find the author of the note.

Meanwhile, the crowd stood in place quietly, mumbling, "Why did we not think of that?" I believe the Bible presents a similar situation. When we read it, we do not readily understand it. So, we discuss and philosophize amongst ourselves what we think God meant. But, we do not ask God Himself what He meant in His Word.

This week's scripture reading makes a bold statement: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God" 2 Timothy 3:16. In Biblical Greek, the word inspired is translated from the word "theopnuestos." This term means, "God breathed out..." In other words, God exhaled the writings of the Bible on the authors. God did this, not by giving the authors of the Biblical books inspired words, but by inspiring the writers. One of my favorite writers elaborates on this,

The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God's mode of thought and expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer, is not represented. Men will often say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God's penmen, not His pen. Look at the different writers. It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired. Inspiration acts not on the man's words or his expressions but on the man himself, who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with thoughts. But the words receive the impress of the individual mind. The divine mind is diffused. The divine mind and will is combined with the human mind and will; thus the utterances of the man are the word of God. (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 21)

So when God exhaled to these Holy men, they "spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" 2 Peter 1: 21. The power that God used to give life to Adam when God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7), is the same power God used to inspire the authors of the Bible. This power gave life to man, and also gives life to the Words written in the Holy Writ.

So, the Bible belongs to the Spirit of God. The Bible is a Spiritual thing. And, Spiritual things are "spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). Only those who have received that Spirit of God understand the things of the Spirit. Only those who receive the Spirit can discern spiritual things. To understand the Bible in its purest simplest form –as the Truth as it is in Jesus - we need the same breath that God gave to those who wrote it. If the Holy Spirit is the author, and He dwells in us, then He should be able to tell us exactly what He meant when then men He inspired wrote as moved by Him.

The Bible says that "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (James 1:5). Jesus Himself says to all,

Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

Matthew 7:8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

To the above quote, the Apostle James may have added, "Ye have not, because ye ask not" James 4:2. Jesus also said that the Father is more than willing to give us the Holy Spirit if only we ask for Him (Luke 11:13). Will we continue to discuss amongst ourselves? Or, will we go back to the One that wrote it and let Him breathe His heavenly wisdom upon us?

RR

Raul Diaz

https://about.me/raul.diaz

The Bible's Prevalent Motif

The Bible's Prevalent Motif

A motif is a recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work; topics and themes are synonyms. Although the Bible is much more than a literary work, it has identifiable motifs. Some motifs in the Bible are the Love of God and the shedding of blood as expiation for Sin. Another prevalent theme in the Bible is this: God always searches or reaches out to/for man; this is the case from the start. Let us read from Genesis 3: 8-11,

Genesis 3: 8And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
Genesis 3: 9And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
Genesis 3: 10And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
Genesis 3: 11And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

The incident narrated above sets a pattern for the rest of our history. For 6,000 years, there has been a dynamic of man choosing evil and afterward hiding when he believes he others caught him. In his guilt, he drives himself into more evil and hiding further, or he tries to find a way to appease God, whom man believes is against him because of the Sin committed. God looks at the hiding man and says to him, "What are you doing behind there? It is dark there. Come out so we can see each other and talk freely." The man replies, "I am hiding from you. I know you must be angry at me, for I have disobeyed you. You must want to kill me for what I did."

Afterward, God looks at the man looking to appease Him, and says to the man, "What are you doing there? Why are you so busy? Please, stop. Turn around to me. I want us to talk." The man responds, "I am trying to make restitution for the evil I have done. I know you must be angry at me, and probably want to kill me. So, I am doing my best to show that I can do better. Perhaps I will change your mind."

God looks at them with sadness. He says, "Do they not know? Are they not listening? If I wanted them dead, I would have killed them by now. Have they not read in my Word when My Son told Nicodemus, in John 3: 16 and 17, that I God have '…so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.' Because, 'There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one' (Romans 3:11,12). All 'like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). "They reject My free gift to them, which has been so costly to Me. They reject My unconditional and eternal love. They reject my mercy and grace. They reject Me."

God's love for us and us rejecting it is the common thread in the Bible. God goes looking for the man. The man runs away from God. Man believes in his heart that God hates him. God wants to show man that that is not the case. So God goes after man again. But, man continues to reject God and delights further in the evil he does. So, God has no choice but to let man suffer the consequences of his decisions. The wages of Sin is death (Romans 6:23a). Those who choose Sin will die eternally.

Thankfully, not all men will die. Some have chosen the Light of God and come out of hiding in the dark. Some have chosen the gift of God, which is "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23b). They have accepted by Faith the good works of Christ that grant Salvation and stop trying on their own through their actions. They have received God's love, mercy, and grace. They chose to let God reach out to them and allowed God to stay with them. Will you choose to be part of this group?

RR

Raul Diaz

https://about.me/raul.diaz

That Which Is Desirable

That Which Is Desirable

When was the last time you heard the words, "I love you?" In our society, we toss around these words so much they have lost their meaning. We read them in advertisements, hear them on the radio or view them on TV. However, many of us may have never heard these words addressed to us. Some may have only heard "I love you" in a romantic situation. How do you know someone loves you? Can you hear it in what they say, or see it in what they do? What is your love language?

How do you know God loves you? He called His Son beloved – agapetos (Matthew 3:17), and Daniel himself had the privilege of being told by an angel that he was greatly beloved (Daniel 9:23; 10:11,19). The Hebrew word for beloved is chemdah {khem-daw'}, and it is this word that we translate as "beloved." In Hebrew, Chemda means desire, that which is desirable, pleasant, and precious. And, this is how the angel addressed Daniel. This word Chemda is the same word that is Jews used to describe a precious jewel or fertile land. Friends, Daniel was being compared to a jewel or a productive land overflowing with cattle, and vegetation which produced delicious milk and sweet-tasting honey. Mmm-- imagine --the beautiful and delightful dishes the Jews could make from milk and honey. Just think of that which you desire, that which is precious to you, and pleasing to your senses-- maybe it is something that stimulates your palate, quenches your thirst, or satisfies your longing. Whatever it is that you've imagined (that is ethically acceptable), that feeling of pleasure you get, that joy, is a small fragment of the immense satisfaction that God felt about Daniel and feels toward us.

"I am no, Daniel," you may say, and of course, you are right. There was only one Daniel, and there is only one you, and one me. Let's agree on this, first; God loves each one of us because we are His, irrespective of our choices. He sent His Son to die for all who lived or would ever live-- that each might be saved (John 3:16) if he so desired. God sends His sunshine and rain on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45), and the beauty of nature is available to all mankind. As strange as it sounds, the act of destroying Sin and sinners is an act of love. Second, it is only by the Faith of Jesus that we please God-- not by our faith or belief, for even the devils believe and tremble. We are His beloveds when we yield to the bidding of His indwelling Spirit. We become His beloved when we allow Him to transform us into precious jewels, or soft fertile soil that bears fruit. It takes time to create a precious jewel. It takes heat and pressure to convert common mineral into a crystallized form. Then a jeweler works on the piece to mold and shape it into a beautiful piece of jewelry. The more delicate the work, the more the need for a master craftsman. This process is akin to God's work in us. He looks at us lovingly, determining by His skilled eye the nature of the work to be performed. We are His jewel, and He will (if we allow Him), not only remove the rough edges but will so cut our stony hearts with such precision, that the brilliance and clarity of the Son is apparent to all.

Just as it takes time and effort to dig the land for jewels, it takes time and effort to make it suitable for sowing. We have hearts of stone. To make them tender and fertile, God has to break the fallow ground and replace it with His perfect topsoil. It is He who must till the stony or thorny or wayside soil, and it is we who, if we choose, will be made willing (to do of His goodwill and pleasure -- Phil. 2:13). It may take years, but it doesn't have to. After the ground is tilled and fertilized, God sows the seed, then the soil is watered, and the ground weeded regularly. How patiently, the sower waits for the land to bear fruit. He must often wait at least three seasons. How he yearns for that crop to grow, and ripen that He may feed others; this is how Christ and the Father wait for us. It through the Holy Spirit working in us--tilling the soil with truth, softening it with the rain, and through the photosynthesis of the word, ripening the plant to produce copious delicious fruit. Allowing this kind of work to go on in us, we become that which the universe finds pleasant, precious, and desirable.

The process of making us precious jewels from rough crystal rocks, or fertile land from seemingly dry, rocky, thorny wayside soil, may seem harsh and unloving, but, well-- remember that desire we talked about earlier, that longing and yearning? Well, "Christ is waiting with longing desire for the complete reproduction

of His mind in the people who love Him-- then the end will come." What God puts us through is necessary for us to become genuinely loving people. All our selfishness and self-love must go. And God Himself is ready and willing to replace it with His selfless and unconditional, fertilized topsoil. It is His love that produces fruit, such as works of faith, that acceptable. It is His love with which we love our family members (and our neighbors), and all will know us by this love.

Brothers and sisters, let's allow God to call us His beloved, not because we try to be like Daniel, but because we allow Jesus -- to make us like Himself.

RR

Raul Diaz

https://about.me/raul.diaz

Forgiveness for Unknown Sin

Forgiveness for Unknown Sin

The police stopped a very famous film actor because of improper driving. The Police officer suspected that the driver was driving under the influence of alcohol. The officer approached the car window, and before he could ask the driver for his driver's license, he could smell the alcohol. He immediately asked the actor to leave the car. The actor gets annoyed by the request and starts insulting the officer. Recognizing the actor, the police officer asks the actor if he had been drinking and how much. The actor is now infuriated and tells him, "None of your business?" The police officer asks the actor one more time to get out of the car. The actor at that moment tells the officer some improprieties about the officer's apparent ethnic background. He then adds, "The reason why this world has problems is because of your people." The next day the incident was all over the press and the media. The actor released a statement of apology, saying in part, "It is a known fact that one effect of alcohol is losing your inhibition. You say things you would not say sober. However, I said what was inside my heart. I was not aware that I held such dark feelings about other ethnic groups. While the incident was indeed embarrassing, what it revealed in my heart is humiliating." Through this incident, the actor realized that we harbor Sin in our hearts and may not be aware of it.

In chapter 9, Daniel prayed for forgiveness. He prayed for forgiveness for him and his people. But, there is something unusual about his prayer. Daniel includes himself with his people. Let us read some instances from Daniel 9: 4 - 19, where Daniel includes himself with his people,

5 We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:
 6 Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets,
10 Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
 11 …because we have sinned against him.
 13 … all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth.
14 … for we obeyed not his voice.
 15 …we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
 16 … because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us.
 18 …for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses,

As you can see, this prayer is not only intercessory but also corporate. Why does Daniel pray corporately? As far as we know, it was the iniquity of his people - not his own - that lead the Jews to the Babylonian captivity. Maybe Daniel knew the phrase, "there go I, but for the grace of God." Daniel perhaps understood that given the same set of opportunities and circumstances, he would have participated in the Sins of his people.  What separated Daniel from his counterparts? The grace of God, to which Daniel yielded, and his brethren did not.

We know that Daniel read Jeremiah. Daniel must have read Jeremiah 17:9 that says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Could it be that Daniel was confessing all Sin that his heart may harbor – even unknown Sin? However, any act or word we say comes out of the abundance of our heart (Luke 6: 45). All sinful actions that we commit, are committing, and will commit are borne in our hearts before we let them out. All these Sins need is the right opportunity. The problem is we cannot know what is in our hearts. However, God knows the secrets of our hearts (Psalms 44:21). Daniel, very likely, was aware of this truth. And, by including Daniel's prayer in this book of Daniel, sealed until our day, God was stressing the need to see this prayer as a model for us living in the last days.

God knowing how Sinful our hearts are, says through the prophet Ezekiel, that He wants to put in us, "A new heart … and [also] a new spirit … within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).  Perhaps our prayer should also be "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer" (Psalm 19:4).    David understood this concept of unknown Sin. He probably never thought that he was capable of coveting his best friend's wife, committing adultery with her, and murdering his best friend; this is perhaps why David wrote, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalms 51:10).

What unknown Sins do we bear in our hearts? If only God knows what lays deep and secretly in our hearts, only He can take it out. But, we must let Him do it.

RR

Raul Diaz

https://about.me/raul.diaz