The Kingdom of Heaven Part V

Very interesting wording, especially “oppose” and “recover.” Webster defines oppose as “actively resist or refuse, disapprove of and attempt to prevent, especially by argument” and recover  in the Greek is ananepho. It is a compound word between ana meaning again and nephron to be sober. So combining the two words we get “To awake out of a drunken state and become sober.” Also this word may refer to a practice in which trappers of fowl scattered seeds impregnated with a toxin that inhibited birds ability of flight so that a net might be thrown over them,” and such does the enemy do to us. The toxins of materialism, lust, power/ prestige or just being busy, distracting us from our need for Christ. It can be a dangerous game we play when only in a crisis do we realize that we have played the fool by seeking the things of the world at the expense of our relationship with God. We need to ananepho and fast!

Now we have another interesting word, “pre adventure” or mepote. I did not find any substantial explanation other than the word perhaps. Salvation is a mystery. Two people can hear the same message, one will come forward to accept Christ and the other remain in his seat. Yet we know from scripture that God wants “all men (and women)  to come to the knowledge of salvation,” yet clearly not all do. I would want my girls to drive at the speed limit especially when they have the grandkids, but they don’t always. Circumstances affect their driving, if they are late they will drive faster, as is true of most of us. However I would prefer them not to and as such is free will. God is always calling us to Himself, it is up to us to heed the call and make time for Him. We can’t ask God to just make us a Christian, saying ” I agree with you and give You permission to make me Christ like.” It doesn’t work that way, we need to put the time in. In 2 Timothy 2:15 we have one of the foundational verses of my life,

And though God does seek salvation for all, all do not qualify.  He does have His criteria; salvation  has a price tag on both ends.

In Duet 4:29 and Jer. 29:13, we find this verse, “When you seek me with ALL your heart I shall be found of you.” With all our heart, not partial will God be found. When we were dating, especially if we believed he or she was the “one,” there was no effort too great that we would not do to please them, we were 110% in. For whatever reason we do not approach God that way. He is always getting our leftovers, parts of us, but not the whole of us. Imagine proposing and asking “the one” to marry you and after she accepts, you say ” great, thank you and now I need to go and propose to Susie.” That is exactly what we do to the Lord, we “accept” Him but not exclusively, we continue to maintain our other wants and desires. He is to receive our “first fruits.” The first fruits of our time, our energy, our money, and most of all, our allegience and devotion. He should be second to none.

Therefore when  a man or women meets God’s criteria, searching with his/her whole heart God reveals Himself. Remember in Matthew, He is the pearl of great price. In each illustration the founder of the pearl sold all he had to acquire it, such is genuine faith. Many “salvation prayers” are nothing more than a cry for help. Therefore when the crisis is over, our prayer is forgotten and we go back to life as usual. There was nothing deeply moving in our prayer, it was for the moment. There was no realization of our sin, or our bankruptcy before a Holy God. It is with all our heart and a truly desperate heart will find salvation.

However, it is hard to feel desperate when all our needs are being met. Unless by God’s grace we are able to step back and see the emptiness in everything. That everything is truly an illusion of being fulfilled. We believe that this is the “good life,” and therefore so it is. This is what everybody says and does to be happy, so therefore this must be what it feels like to be happy? We convince ourselves until circumstances  come, and like a flood flatten our house. Here, opportunity knocks…. an opportunity to be real, to realize that our house with nothing more than a house of cards,  an illusion of security that we and others create. That sickness, death, divorce, unemployment, financial stress, addictions etc., is just as easily able to enter our home as the next. We are just as exposed as the next.

This was Solomon’s problem, he took his eyes off of the Lord and did exactly what a king was forbidden to do. In  Deuteronomy 17:17 “Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.” Nor horses as is mentioned in the prior verse which I believe represents large armies. Also we have this statement from him in Ecclesiastes  2:16&17….

Solomon sought to find fulfillment in his work as opposed to his relationship with the Lord, and for a time it worked; like

@ all new ventures, but they all have their end.

A repentant heart engenders the  presence of a loving and merciful Father. To repent or to be repentive means we turn around, to change course.  From trusting ourselves, others or things and putting our complete trust in the Lord. Also repentive means to  forsake our idols, be they objects or beliefs and put our full confidence in the Lord and His Word. In  Mark 1:15 we have Christ words…

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand ( referring to Himself) repent ye, and believe — the gospel.” People read this verse an mock it because there is no Kingdom of God here, it’s the way it has always been. However the Kingdom Christ’s seeks to establish  is His Kingdom inside each of us. His reign over man will come, but for now He seeks sons and daughters. And this decision has always been a personal one, yet we cannot deny the .influence of the Holy Spirit. I felt His conviction Sunday after Sunday until I finally went forward. For me to understand that God was Holy and that He was inviting me to His side was not hard. That I could only come through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, who was and is my atonement was very comprehendible to me. I knew that I was a sinner and that I needed His Grace to cover me, that part wasn’t hard  lI just needed to decide whether I wanted to follow Him or not. I’m soooo very glad I did.

We forget in this age of minimalizing everything, making right not so right and wrong not so wrong and black not so black and white not so white that to approach God one must be like Him, Holy, and we are light years from that. My father has also heard the same message and came close one time in his life. However  he maintains his faith in man and in being a good person as being sufficient, thereby denying the need for repentance. This view and others like it make God more like us. We may have been made in His image, but we share nothing of His Holiness.

Sovereignity is an interesting word. It refers to God being all knowing and all powerful, and I know He knew the day and the hour I was  going to accept Him. He knows whether my father will. However He will not violate man’s free will but will “ preadventure give him salvation.” 

 I believe Paul had himself in mind when penning these verses. If anyone opposed themselves it was Paul. And if anyone was recovered, it was Paul, but did God violate free will? I do not believe so. In Acts Jesus speaks to Paul in a vision and says something very interesting, “it is hard for you to kick against the goads or pricks (Acts 26:14).”  The “goads” was a sharp stick that the shepherds used to prod resistant sheep or oxen. ” Applied to us, the conviction or the pricks are God’s attempt to get us to see our need of Him, to draw our attention to and to agree with Him. He “goaded” me many times till I finally came into agreement with Him. To resist Him is to fight against our own well being. Therefore God continues to goad us until we repent because He foreknows that that is what our heart wants, it just gets lost in the minutia of life, the hurts and the disappointments or even successes, blinding our eyes from acknowledging our need. Emptiness or the search for significance is the one hook God has over us. That was not part of Creation, however when man broke fellowship with God the stamp of brokenness or incompleteness was birth in all of us. As the Holy Spirit left man,  emptiness moved in. However as long as I walk in fellowship with Him I fill complete, give me a week or two away from Him and those distant feelings relive in me.

“…that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil.”  As alluded to earlier, one of the means for capturing birds was to lace seeds with a toxin that inhibited their flight and hence they could be netted. Pagis is the word for snare and it refers to something that can be set up suddenly, is firm, and holds fast. The Devil seeks to snare us as well, though his traps are more cunning. He weaves a trap like a spider weaves a web, a lie here and a lie there and with each lie we believe we become that much more entangled until the lies sound more like the truth and truth sounds more like a lie. Once entangled, discernment, wisdom and sound consciousness are lost and the night seems like the day. To the one trapped the trap is invisible. To then recover such a one requires going backward to start undoing the lies, the hurt and the pain that are often associated with wayward or self loathing behavior. However, more than anything it requires the Lord. His intervention and His love is so critical, and even so it is tough. There are many lies that contain some truth, however at their root they deny or ignore man’s need for repentance and hence for a Savior. Prayer and the power of God’s Word are our strong hope, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

To not be taken captive “at his will” one must often be in the scriptures and prayer. The mind needs to be constantly renewed ( or washed) to stay on its true north. In Romans 12:2 we have the following,