“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”(John 8:36, NIV)
How does this happen? How am I free “indeed”?
Our enemy is relentless (1 Peter 5:8). He is continually at us. He is the master deceiver. John 8:44 tells us his native tongue is falsehood. That is who he is. So every morning when we wake up, our enemy is looking for some deception for us to grab hold of; some falsehood of who we are; some fallacy saying that who we WERE is who we ARE; some cock-and-bull story about some bondage we’ll never shake, some addiction we’ll never kick, some fear we’ll never be rid of. ALL OF IT LIES.
Jesus said “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus said it. So I ask again… “How?” Enter Galatians 2:20:
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal 2:20, NASB)
Check this out. If I am dead. What power does anyone hold over me? What power does any thing hold over me? What power does any addiction, any fear, any bondage hold over me? None. If I am no longer alive, then I have no more worries to haunt me, no more fears to paralyze me, no more rights to be stepped on, no more expectations to be let down, no more LIES to BELIEVE.
I am studying the occurances of the word (0r form of the word) “leaf” in the Bible. God is stirring up something of a message in it.
As I read several passages about leaves tonight, God kept bringing up the words of Christ saying “I am the vine. You are the branches.” found in John 15:5 (for further reading check out a writing I did November 2006 called “Remaining In (John 15:1-17)“) That verse is:
John 15:5 (ESV)5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Because it’s become obvious in my studies that I cannot study the leaf, without also studying the branches and the fruit. According to this verse, I am a branch plugged into the true vine (or think trunk, for a tree). So my question is becoming this:
What is the “leaf” vs. what is the “fruit”?
Several places in the Scriptures, the word “fruit” is often associated with the words “in season,” which would imply there are times that we do not produce fruit. (See: Num 13:20; Ps 1:3; Hos 9:10; Matt 21:34; Matt 21:41; Acts 14:17 as a few examples of fruit associated with season).
This opens up a whole line of questioning about what I’ve always defined as “fruit” – think the Gal 5:22-23 “fruits of the Spirit”. If there are seasons of no fruit by definition, then “fruit in season” can’t mean what I’ve thought it meant, because I should be producing the fruits of the Spirit, year round, regardless of the season.
v3 “3 His soul was strongly attracted to Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the young woman and spoke kindly to the young woman.” Is this a soul tie?
2. Generational Curse?
Funny how the sins of the father become the sins of the sons… Jacob was a deceiver. So here are two of his sons who deceive the man who raped their sister. Here the deception leads to much more than just a blessing. Here these two men murder all the men of a community and take all their possessions.
3. An Honorable Rapist?
Simeon and Levi deceive Shechem and his father Hamor saying that they will cross-pollinate with their countrymen if all the men of their city/province would get circumcised. For whatever reason, they they do.
v 19 “19So the young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob’s daughter. He was more honorable than all the household of his father. “
The “young man” referenced is Shechem. HE IS MORE HONORABLE? What is up with that? I don’t understand. It must not say much about Hamor, his father.
vv 25-31
25 Now it came to pass on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came boldly upon the city and killed all the males. 26 And they killed Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and went out. 27 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and plundered the city, because their sister had been defiled. 28 They took their sheep, their oxen, and their donkeys, what was in the city and what was in the field, 29 and all their wealth. All their little ones and their wives they took captive; and they plundered even all that was in the houses.
30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me by making me obnoxious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and since I am few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and kill me. I shall be destroyed, my household and I.”
31 But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a harlot?”
Who’s right here? Simeon and Levi who avenged their sister’s honor and innocence or Jacob whois now fearing for the life of himself and his family/clan?
I heard this song while I was running today and I had to listen to it a number of times over the miles.
While the entire song is lyrically and musically amazing, it was the spoken words during that song that captured my attention during my run. Here they are.
People aren’t confused by the gospel,
They’re confused by us.
Jesus is the only way to God,
But we are not the only way to Jesus.
This world doesn’t need
My tie, my hoodie,
My denomination, or my translation of the Bible,
They just need Jesus.
We can be passionate about what we believe,
But we can’t strap ourselves to the gospels.
Because we’re slowing it down
Jesus is going to save the world,
But maybe the best thing we can do
Is just get out of the way.
I recently was exploring that “Digg” is and stumbled across a link and subsequent comment chain on a quote written on a Church billboard. The quote was a quote from Martin Luther (although it didn’t give credit to Martin Luther) saying “Reason is the greatest enemy of Faith.”
While Martin Luther may have been right for the message he was preaching at the time, I’m really beginning to feel like the words of the song express a closer reality for today… ‘Christians’ are often the greatest enemy of Faith over anything else.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Jesus called it two thousand years ago. Every time he used the word “hypocrite” he was speaking to the religious leaders; to the church. (Matt 6:2, 5, 16; Matt 7:5; Matt 15:7-9; Matt 22:18; Matt 23:13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29; Matt 24:51; Mark 7:6; Luke 6:42; Luke 12:56; Luke 13:15)
In speaking to them Jesus said:
Matthew 15:7-9 (ESV)
7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
8 “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
That, I fear, is the condition of The Big-C Church, particularly in America. How did we get from a single body of believers to a system of religion that has so many denominations and differences of opinion and interpretation on what THE SAME BIBLE says?
We got there because men – in their pride – decided they didn’t like what they heard so they went somewhere else.
Now, here we are – 2000 years later – with such watered-down Christianity that we have watered-down faith. Most churches in America don’t see God move the way he did at Pentecost. Why? The Bible clearly says he’s the same God, yesterday, today and tomorrow and that HE WILL NEVER CHANGE.
To me it all comes back to Galatians 2:20 (one of my life verses). I have to die to myself, to my wants, to my desires, to my “rights” so that Jesus can live through me and be seen. When people see Jesus, they are attracted to Him… they want to be with him.
I have to get out of the way. We (believers) have to get out of the way.
Genesis 3:7
7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
OK, I missed this form of the word “leaf” as it was the plural, “leaves”.
I find this verse interesting that Adam and Eve used leaves to cover themselves after the fall. That was the best they could come up with to cover themselves. God’s solution required the death of an animal – the spilling of blood – as does his requirement for all sin.
Thus, the leaf, in this verse could kinda be a picture of the fruit of their fallen life. The best they could come up with. It would never be good enough, however as the leaves would eventually dry up and tear, and they would just have to be getting and making more. Of course, there was no death at this point was there? They likely hadn’t seen any dead leaves at this point. They may have thought they would be a long-term solution, but it wouldn’t be.
So, I guess this could paint a picture that the leaf is evidence of what our life is about. Evidence, in this case, of a sinful life.
Today the Lord has had me praying and fasting for the men on Quest and the staff (as you know two of our ironsharpeners on serving). I have a family member on Quest and that’s how I’ve spent my day today. No huge revelations.
6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.
So, as I mentioned in my first post. God has captured my attention on leaves and tonight I looked up all the references to the word “leaf” or “leaves” (the noun, not the verb). There were much fewer than I anticipated. There are twenty-one references that I found tonight. It’s possible I’ve not exhausted all the ways to search for the word in my bible program, but I’ll start with that for now.
This verse is the first mention of the actual word “leaf”. It is implied many times in the first chapter of Genesis when God is creating the world with trees and seeds and plants and vegetation. But here, is the first accounting of a leaf.
In this verse, the leave is freshly plucked.
It shows life. It signifies signs of growth after a purification and cleansing of God. It demonstrates that God does not destroy his creation, but makes it new. It screams newness, freshness and being alive.
It thrives on sunlight. So the leaf, biologically, is required to receive the energy from the sun. This is where photosynthesis occurs. From Wikipedia: Photosynthesis is a metabolic pathway that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Were I a botanist, I bet there is a whole host of biological processes that are incredible pictures of how God relates to us and loves us and how he created us to be. I imagine the entire study of plants points directly to God. From my non-botany background, I think it’s cool that the plants of the earth cannot live with out the Sun.
It’s where the dove went to. I think you know as well as I do that the Holy Spirit is often demonstrated as a Dove (Matt 3:16 – The Holy Spirit came on Jesus like a dove). In verse 12, once the waters had receded, the dove landed on the branch. It was where it needed to be. It was where it wanted wanted to take up residence.
How do I mirror the leave of Gen 8?
I cannot live without the Son.
The evaluation becomes for me is this. Am I showing life? Am I signifying signs of growth after God cleansed me? Do I demonstrate the new creation I’ve become? Do I scream newness, freshness and being alive?
Am I where the Holy Spirit wants to dwell and take up residence? Am I living fully submitted so He can?
I am sure there is at least one more object lesson in the fact that it was an olive leaf. But it’s late and I’m tired.
I’ll dig into more of the “leaf” verses over the coming days….
Psalm 1 (ESV) 1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
“Its leaf does not wither” has become a very interesting phrase to me this weekend.
The Lord has shown me some things about fallen leaves, but I want to know what those leaves represent:
1. When they are withered
2. When they are not withered
God’s speaking a message in to me on this topic, so I value the input of my sharpeners…
Once Abram was renamed to Abraham (Gen 17:4), he never referred to as Abraham again in the rest of the Bible except for 2 references that speak of his name being changed from Abram to Abraham (1 Chron 1:27, Neh 9:7).
In Gen 32:28, God renames Jacob to Israel.
We don’t truly see ourselves until first we see the Lord. “What is your name?” (Gen 32: 27, nkjv) was the question that forced Jacob to confess his true self—“Jacob, the schemer.” Once he faced himself and confessed his sin, Jacob could be changed. God gave him a new name—“Israel, prince with God” or “a God-governed man.” The way to have power with God is to be broken by God. God also gave him a new beginning and a new power as he began “walking in the Spirit” and not in the flesh. This was illustrated by a new walk, for now Jacob limped. He had been broken by God, but his limp was a mark of power and not weakness. Verse 31 indicates the dawning of a new day, as the sun rose and Jacob limped out to meet Esau— with God’s help!
Wiersbe, W. W. (1993). Wiersbe’s expository outlines on the Old Testament (Ge 32:1). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books
Yet, Jacob is still referred to and called Jacob, even after God gave him his new name.
In 35:10 God renames him again to Israel, yet for the rest of the Bible, he is still referred to as both Israel and Jacob. Why?
It’s like we’re never able to forget that Jacob was a deceiver – a schemer.
When God forgives our sin and changes us, isn’t it permanent?
Did Jacob find his identity in the name he had built (schemed) for himself, and therefore never forgot who he used to be?
The deception of Issac by Jacob to steal Esau’s blessing.
There are tons of things to write about, (conniving, deception, stealing, lying, obedience, blessing, etc.) but I have a question…
In Gen 25:21-28, particularly in v23, the Lord foretells of Esau (the older) serving Jacob (the younger).
22 But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If all is well, why am I like this?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.
23 And the Lord said to her:
“Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.”
24 So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. 25 And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau. 26 Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau’s heel; so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. 27 So the boys grew. And Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents. 28 And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. The New King James Version. 1982 (Ge 25:21-28). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Here is the question, was Rebekah’s and Jacob’s lying, dishonest, and wrong actions part of God’s sovereign plan? Would Jacob still have received the blessing had he not deceived his father?
Was it God’s will for them to deceive and cheat and steal Jacob’s way into the promise or would God have preferred to do it another way?