BibleScribbler

Coffee, a Bible, and a Napkin to Scribble On

Peaceful as a Weaned Baby

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[1] O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
[2] But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

(Psalm 131:1-2 ESV)

The picture here is awesome. God’s peace, the calm and quiet soul at peace, is like a baby that doesn’t have to cry for milk anymore. A weaned baby eats and is full, is still. Still with its mother, just sitting.

I remember with each of our kids the feelilng my wife felt when our kids were weaned and just sat with her. They were no longer whining or rooting for milk, they were just sitting and holding on and happy to be held by their mommy.

The person at peace and full of the Lord doesn’t have to worry about things that are too lofty for them, like if Obama is going to invade Texas, or the next crazy germ to break out somewhere. He doesn’t have to demand gifts from the Lord or raise his eyes up above what he currently has to demand more.

A weaned child sitting in her mother’s arms asking for a bunch of stuff that the mother knows better about is just a spoiled brat. There is no peace there.
A weaned child sitting and enjoying the shear fact of being with her momma brings joy to them both. How much more-so with our Lord!

What got me out of bed this morning

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I snoozed with my iPhone alarm this morning from about 5:00 until around 5:30. At that point I opened up my YouVersion Bible app and started reading the reading from yesterday (which I fell asleep reading last night) in Joshua 16 & 17. I remembered reading this last night, and came across similar statements a few times this morning:

Joshua 17:13
Whenever the Israelites were strong militarily, they forced the Canaanites to do hard labor, but they never totally conquered them.

What?! Whenever they were at their strongest, they didn’t win?! Instead they made matters worse than not winning. They subjected the lands they conquered to forced labor. What began as a campaign of total annihilation became one of conquest. The difference being, many more people would flee annihilation, resulting in more survivors. Conquest with slavery brings about impurity within the land and a hope for the indigenous people to keep their land somehow.
A footnote sent me over to Judges 1 and the news didn’t get better

Judges 1:28
Whenever Israel was strong militarily, they forced the Canaanites to do hard labor, but they never totally conquered them.

The list goes on in Judges 1 to describe eight tribes out of twelve that didn’t finish the job! That’s only 66% of the tribes that God brought out of Egypt, fed in the wilderness, brought through the Jordan at flood stage!
I think it’s important that it doesn’t say they forced them to do labor whenever they couldn’t beat them. They forced them to do labor when they were “strong militarily.” The battles began with the people being weak and God being their strength. At Jericho they could have easily taken the city and annihilated it. At Ai they failed and their smugness began to show. God wanted to be their strength. God wanted to be obvious among them. God wanted to be their provider who undeniably gave them the promised-land.
When they turned it into the earned-land and tried to get it by their own means, they failed the most. There were times when they had a strategy that was fine, but whenever they altered God’s original plan, things went really off.


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As long as they stayed weak, they kept to the plan. Let God be the boss, fulfill your calling, and watch the promised-land be delivered.

 

 

Drawing Closer to God

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These are things that make me want to learn Greek.

Acts 9:31

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

I looked up fear and comfort on the Bible Web App and learned some amazing and wonderful stuff. Those two words were kind of hard for me. They feared the Lord but they were comforted by the Holy Spirit? Like as in comforted in their fear?

No

The word phobos is used in a lot of places like “They were afraid of the Jews” but in a lot of other places it is used to describe the feeling people had after an amazing miracle had just happened. They had fear when Jesus healed severely sick people or hopeless cases. They had fear when Jesus raised from the dead. The other strange definition of this word is “reverence for one’s husband.” That one right there is the bombshell. Read it that way.

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in reverence for it’s husband…it multiplied.

All of a sudden that verse goes from some strangeness of fear to the church growing in it’s relationship with the Lord. That makes sense if the next clause is that they are “in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.”

So let’s unpack that comfort. It’s the Greek word paraklēsis and it means comfort. It also means to draw near or to ask or request of. So the Holy Spirit is calling them closer, asking them and requesting things of them. It kind of fits a lot better doesn’t it?

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in reverence for it’s husband and by being drawn near and closer to God by the Holy Spirit, the church multiplied.

The Holy Spirit, Gifts, and Freedom

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(I realize this quote starts out kind of arrogant, but stay with me.)

We lack for Christians who feel themselves expendable in the warfare of the soul, who cannot be frightened by threats of death because they have already died to the attractiveness of this world. Such Christians will be free from the compulsions that control and squeeze weaker thinking Christians.

This kind of freedom is necessary if we are to serve God and mankind from motives too high to be understood by the regular irregulars who shuttle in and out of the sanctuary.

Free Christians will:

  • make no decisions out of fear,
  • take no course out of a desire to please,
  • accept no service for financial considerations,
  • perform no religious act of mere custom;
  • nor will they allow themselves to be influenced by the love of publicity or the desire for reputation.

This is from a study I’m doing right now. Pretty strong words. While I was reading this I realized that I never expected to come home from any mission trip I ever went on. Every time I flew into my hometown airport or pulled into the church parking lot where I left my car, I was surprised at God. I was surprised almost to the point to paralysis because I realized that God had more to do with me.

So the question now is how does that mentality/lifestyle work in a neighborhood? In a place where you come home and walk in a door every day (if not several times in a single day?!)

There are two big deals I’ve gotten out of this study.

  1. All gifts are from God but watered and nurtured by people.

    2 Timothy 1:6 Because of this I remind you to rekindle God’s gift…

    Timothy had a gift that Paul was encouraging him to rev up again. Don’t get beat down from discouragement or whatever, turn it up Timothy!

  2. That power, love, and self-control verse isn’t about not being afraid, it’s about spiritual gifts!

    2 Timothy 1:7 For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.

    Timothy was being cheered on by Paul to get out there and do the things that Timothy knew he was meant to do. He knew the call of God on his life and the gifts that God gave him to do those things. Now, Timothy, Paul says, go do those things in love and self-control (or a sound mind, not an out of control crazy person).

So what happens if we are fully unleashed? What happens when we love our neighbors and talk sincerely to each other and become a safe haven for the people around us?

What if we focused more on what we are doing right now (I’m going to show you the love of God as it was shown to me in Jesus) instead of focusing so much on a result (I’m going to make you a convert whether you like it or not!)?

What would happen if we did what God called and equipped us to do, wherever we are, without fear of death or shame or embarrasment?

BUT

What if we did it in love, not obnoxiousness?

What if we walked in humility, not arrogance?

I think we’d find ourselves really free and the people around us would become free too!

What do we do with this bucket?

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John 4:28 NET

Then the woman left her water jar, went off into the town and said to the people…

So many times people focus on the woman leaving the jar like she didn’t care about water anymore because she now had the living water.

and that’s fine

But what are we going to do with that bucket/jar now? NONE of the disciples would want to touch it! If a dog ate off a plate, they would wash it and use it for people. If a Samaritan ate off of the same plate, it would be smashed to bits because it was so defiled that no self-respecting or God-fearing Jew would eat off of it!

So there is Jesus, who has been talking to the Samaritan woman. There are the disciples, that had a rough search around the area to find some Kosher food to eat. (either they had to leave Samaria or find some outcast Jew that lived in Samaria ((no way))). And they have that bucket that nobody wants to touch.

The great thing is when that woman comes back from town, they are all going to be invited to stay with the Samaritans and they are going to eat and drink off of their stuff for TWO DAYS!

Get ready boys. You wandered around Samaria on your own (they would have surely never been there before) and then you saw Jesus talking to a woman alone and then you had to deal with an abandoned Samaritan water bucket and NOW you’re gonna be their guest for 2 days. I love it.

Jesus busts us completely out of our rules, prejudice, customs, and lifestyle to focus on doing what He is living breathing doing inside of us.