Transitioning from an Orphan to an Heir of a Great Estate

Change is not easy. Imagine changing from an orphan to an heir of a great empire. The story is told of a man who owned a vast empire with thousands of acres of land, livestock, cultivated fields, and who lived in a beautiful ranch house. But he had lost his family in a terrible accident.

He told his butler his plan to adopt an heir. He made arrangements with an orphanage and traveled with excitement to the location for his appointment. As he walked into the room full of orphan boys, almost immediately, his eye latched on to one. The director explained all of the legal paperwork and process and presented a list of candidates. The man described the boy he had seen but the director explained that this boy had just been rescued from "under the bridge....he has lived on the street most of his life...he has issues..." The man was insistent and after a long process the day arrived when he was taken to the ranch house.

The boy was all eyes with every day an new experience. After several months, the butler met with the owner with an uneasy situation. The owner could tell that his trusted butler was nervous. He told him he was to speak freely and frankly. The butler said, "Its our new guest..." The man interrupted the butler and said, "You mean my son." "Yes, its your son. He is stealing things around the house and stashing them under his bed; even food."

The man began looking for his adopted son while he pondered his strange behavior. When he found him he said to him, "Son, look around at all that you see. It is all mine and yours." The man took him in to the kitchen and said, "See all this food; it is all mine and yours." He then took him into his study and the two sat together by the man's desk. He said, "I will teach you everything about my business and one day this desk and all of the responsibility of it will be yours. You are no longer an orphan. You are my son. You no longer have to steal. You own it all, with me."

When a person receives Jesus Christ a change is made; we are no longer an orphan, but now..."...you are all children of God through faith in Jesus Christ..." Galatians 3:26. This is just the beginning. We must learn a new culture; the culture of sin is unacceptable in the family of God. New manners and behavior must be learned, practiced, repeated over and over under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. As His Word becomes more and more of who you are, your life reflects more and more of His goodness and grace and the family business, the Kingdom of God, is carried out on earth as it is in Heaven.

Change is not easy. But it is imperative for a child of the King. God will not make those changes without you. Join Him today in the changes He has scheduled to make with you.

The Three Sins

St. Ignatius of Loyola was born in 1491 and died in 1556. As he was recovering from injuries from the Battle of Pamplona (1521) he had a conversion experience and became a theologian and founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). In his book Spiritual Exercises he wrote of the three sins; the sin of the fallen angels, the sin of Adam and Eve, and the sin of those who are in hell.

The sin of the fallen angels is best described as the sin of willful rebellion (Isaiah 14:12-14). It is a sin of the desire to exalt self, the sin of pride.

The sin of Adam and Eve is best described as the sin of deception by the lie of Satan, believing the lie rather than the truth of the Word of God (Genesis 3). It is a sin of the desire to fulfill desires apart from following the directions of God's Word. It is the sin of lust.

The sin of those who are in hell is best described as the sin of passive neglect of the things of God. This is seen in Scripture in Luke 12:13-21. Jesus told the parable about the rich fool whose land produced a large harvest. He said to himself, "...what shall I do for I have nowhere to store my crops...I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones...I have stored up for myself ample goods for many years." But Jesus said that God required his soul that night. The rich fool had lived a life of passive neglect toward God. It is the sin of rejection, passively neglecting the things of God.

These three sins can take root in the mind of the believer. One of the most serious problems among the people of God is an unredeemed mind. Our minds need to be saved. When the Holy Spirit gave us the command to put on the full amour of God in Ephesians 6, He said our minds needed the "...helmet of Salvation..." (6:17). He coupled it with the "...sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God..."

Romans 6 and Ephesians 4:17-24 gives us clear instructions of how our minds can continually be renewed and saved. But the first step in this renewal is to become active with God in the process. God the Holy Spirit is the only one who can save your mind. He does it the same way He saved your soul, at the cross of Jesus Christ through faith in blood, His Life given for you. But He will not do it without you! You must cooperate with Him since He now lives in you.

God will not work with a passive mind; but Satan will.

As you meditate today on the three sins in your life and repent, know that God forgives, cleanses, and makes new what you place before His piercing Word to kill and to raise up with Christ.

Correcting the Compliment; Luke 11:27-28

The lady in Luke 11:27-28 was deeply moved by the teaching of Jesus on His identity and the power of God to liberate, restore, and fill with His holy presence. Her compliment to Him was actually a compliment to His mother, Mary. She assumed that Mary had taught Jesus this wonderful truth about His identity and God’s Word.

Jesus corrected her by stating that this teaching was not of the earth from human instruction; it was from God. God-revealed truth, when given and received through faith (heard and done) is the most powerful, creative, life-changing thing that can happen in a person’s life.

Jesus was not putting the lady down or criticizing her for her compliment, but He did correct her. We should receive the correction of Jesus rather than feel condemned by His correction. Condemnation is something that will happen in the end when there is no more opportunity to repent. Correction happens now, to lead us to repentance. In Christ we are no longer condemned (Romans 8:1), but we are corrected (Hebrews 12:4-17).

Luke 11:14-28, Part 2

What do these three images from Luke 11:14-28 have in common; a divided kingdom, a burglary, and clean, but empty house? What was Jesus teaching us with these word pictures?

All three of these word pictures describe the strategy of Satan. He seeks to divide, he seeks to steal, kill, and destroy, and he will fill a vacuum. Jesus was being accused of working by the power of the devil, but the work of the devil is to divide the people of God, to steal from the people of God, and to creep into and fill any space he can in our lives.

The devil knows the downfall that occurs where there is division. It is God’s people who do not know how serious divisiveness is. Proverbs 6:16-19 tells us that sowing discord among brothers is one of the things the Lord hates. He hates it because it destroys unity.

Jesus would overpower a demon when He would cast it out. He would rob the demon of what the demon had stole from the person; their health, their mind, their relationships.

And the image of the clean but empty house is a warning that a person needs more than just help, they need to be occupied by the Strong Man, Jesus Christ.

The central teaching of Jesus in this section of Luke is that God’s Word, when revealed to a person, is powerful to liberate, to take back what the enemy has stolen, and to fill with holy power the life that receives that Word. Head knowledge of the things of God will not cut it. But receiving the revealed truth from God, through faith, will.

Thoughts on Luke 11:14-28

“…a house divided against itself falls.” Luke 11:17. Jesus is giving an answer to those who were accusing Him of using Satan’s power to cast out demons 11:15). He is also answering those who were testing Him, demanding from Him more signs “…from heaven.” (11:16). One group aligning Him with the devil by what He was doing and the other group demanding more proof (signs) that He was from heaven. Here is the question:

How does His answer in 11:17 correct both groups?

The fact that Jesus is teaching both groups is amazing to start with. He desires for all to come into God’s Kingdom whether they are a Pharisee, a publican, or someone in between. The invitation is for everyone, this is grace; but the condition remains singular; through faith in Christ.

The Pharisees were seeking to discredit Jesus because the crowds were flocking to Him and not to them. They were jealous and envious of Jesus. They could not deny the power He demonstrated in overcoming the demons and casting them out, and of healing people who suffered from various diseases. So they sought to justify their own position of not following Jesus from their sin of jealousy and envy. Jesus points out the flaw in their reasoning with the obvious question; How could the devil advance his own kingdom of darkness, destruction, and deception by defeating himself and overpowering his own agents? No way. His kingdom would collapse with that kind of disunity and confusion.

The second group has the same problem but from a different perspective. The second group wants to recognize that Jesus is who He claims to be, but needs more proof…they demand a sign from heaven. In their demand, Jesus hears again the old temptation of doubting God’s word and way and formulating another way to accomplish the same result, getting people to follow. Adam and Eve fell for this, but Jesus did not. He resisted this temptation in the wilderness, “turn these stones into bread… jump off the Temple, His angels will catch you…”

If Jesus would have responded to the crowd, rather than listening to His Father, He would not have been able to do anything. In John 5:19 Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Following the demands of the crowd rather than His Father would have divided His Kingdom for God’s way into the Kingdom is through faith, not signs or proof.

Mark 9-16

Notice as you read this section the number of times Jesus teaches. Mark's gospel is the action gospel and yet, it seems, the number one action of Jesus is seeing Him teach. Jesus reveals God by His words. Hold that thought for a moment.

In chapter 9 Jesus is transformed before Peter, James, and John and then tells them not to tell anyone what they have seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They had not yet accepted that Jesus would die, much less rise from the dead. So what was Jesus teaching them? Jesus was teaching them not to trust what they see, but to trust what He says which will then give meaning to what they see. If Jesus says, "Wait until this... before you start talking about that..." then He is teaching us about how we will understand "this." Later in the chapter (9:31-37) Jesus is teaching them this same lesson again.

Work through this section and note the teachings of Jesus concerning Himself. What is the number one thing we need to know and learn? Our number one need is to know Him and to learn of Him. Back to that thought; Knowing God is the result of hearing, seeing, and obeying Jesus.

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Meditation on Mark 7:1-13

Mark 7:1 begins with a wonderful statement, "Now when the Pharisees gathered to Him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw..." Here we have a group of the religious leaders gathering around Jesus, and others that had traveled a great distance to see something of Jesus. But the next statement tells all, "...they saw that some of His disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed."

When they gathered around around Jesus instead of seeing Him all they could see were the unwashed hands of His disciples. Their rules and traditions had blocked their view of Jesus. The Lord goes on to describe how they had honored God with their lips but their hearts were far from Him. And how they had emptied the Word of God of power by their traditions. The same thing can happen to us today if we elevate our traditions and begin interpreting God's Word by our traditions rather than interpreting our traditions by God's Word.

Traditions are the applications of God's Word. They become sacred when a generation fails to apply God's Word and instead simply apply the last generation's application of God's Word. The Bible speaks to every generation and to every culture, if we have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying.

As we seek the Lord, and gather around Him, let's make sure there are no barriers and let's focus upon what God is saying from His Word to us. The power of God's Word will then be unleashed within our lives and will change, transform, direct, encourage, and redeem.