Bible Teaching – Page 5 – Nourishment Through Words

And if you had only known what this statement means, ‘I desire compassion [for those in distress], and not [animal] sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
-Jesus in Matthew 12:7 AMP

When your child is sick, it’s easy to feel like your faith is crumbling around you. I faced one of the biggest scares of my life one early dark morning when my daughter seized up in her crib. She had been physically struggling after receiving a vaccination and she’d become extremely feverish. My heart melted like butter when I saw the cloudiness in her grey eyes and heard the sharp cry of pain that came only seconds before her body began twitching uncontrollably. Her harrowing cry was like a knife to my heart. She was just barely one. I lifted her light body out of the crib and sat her on the bed next to my husband, “wake up!” I sobbed. Eden crumpled up and jerked involuntarily. She didn’t recognize my face or my voice for almost half an hour. Panic came in like a thief in the night and after her rushed trip to the ER (filled with shots and medical scans) she was sent home. My family and I spent days around the clock watching her.

And for days none of the treatment that she had received at the ER seemed to be holding up. Her state was alarmingly erratic. During those tiresome days of attending to her meticulously, I felt the stony weight of condemnation in my soul. Like a rock attempting to divide the roots of my faith…or a hungered weed, attempting to steal the scared places in my heart that only belonged to God. This “feeling” of condemnation came to uproot a little bit of my security in the love of God (Song of Solomon 1:15).

You see, I know it’s hard when the pains of life come unexpectedly. Whenever we go through slicing pain, it can be tempting to harden our hearts in disbelief concerning God’s Word or His nature. The devil doesn’t come donned in an obvious cloak of black and red with a pitchfork. No, he comes with the subtlety of religious philosophy that longs to poison our confidence in Christ and our identity in Him (it only takes a little yeast to leaven the whole loaf Matthew 16:6). He comes to incriminate us and God in our ears. Our “un-graced” mindsets, flare up like crimson algae creating a red tide in the ocean of our conscious. Accusations pop up like smokey fumes. This flare reveals the hidden places of self-blame and shame in us. It unearths the places of self-righteousness that naturally reject grace and denounce the true nature of God. What was in the dark, comes to light when we give in to fear.

For several hours I cried out to God with self-loathing because when I prayed for my daughter, nothing seemed to happen. I had lost touch with the purity of the gospel in those moments of panic (Romans 1:16). When I had prayed for Eden, I was secretly doing it out of self-effort instead of trusting in God’s all consuming grace (Galatians 3:1-2). I was really trusting in my own strength. more than that, I was trusting in my animal sacrifices (holy lifestyle) to earn the healing of God. I was cheapening the gift of faith-righteousness for my own brand of works-righteousness. I was defaming the sacrifice of Jesus for my own sacrifice. (Condemnation is a very slippery and clandestine slope…but I promise you it only comes when we take our eyes off of Jesus for our right-standing with God and put ourselves in His place Romans 5:1).

One morning I woke up to the misty scents of God’s mercy. He came quickly to rescue and reconcile my heart to His love. I realize that throughout all the trails in my life… that it is vitally important to always connect to the Father’s undying love in the midst of the storm. God woke me up to mercy. He showed me His beauty and deep care. In doing so, He effortlessly removed the stone of doubt and guilt that was seeking to grip land in my soul. I felt His love in those moments like fragrant ointment being poured on my skin and shortly after, because of His grace, Eden was divinely healed. She made a full recovery in less than 24 hours. Once I was empowered by His love to receive the truth of His mercy, I was able to breathe in confidence and faith came out like a sighing exhale.

I want to encourage you, that if you can’t get your faith to “work” during a crisis or difficult situation, to not allow condemnation to sneak its way into your soul. Resist all notions of guilt. God’s miracle is not based on your ability to be good enough but on Jesus being your substitute (He is your goodness before the Father). I pray that you will be strengthened by the incredible love of God for you and His immense and glorious grace that is freely given in Christ Jesus. Healing is never earned, deliverance is never earned, salvation is never earned. It’s only by the love of God through Jesus and our faith in that, that we receive His goodness. May you find the simplicity of the Gospel to be sweet salvation in all of your circumstances.

The miracle of that mercy-filled morning for me was not my daughter’s healing. It was that my soul became so captivated with the mercy of God even when the symptoms were still present, that I worshiped despite the circumstances. I adored Him and the fear so disappeared that I forgot all concern for my daughter. His love for me and my daughter surpassed my love for her, my love for myself and my love for Him.

This poem was birthed through intimacy with God during that tender morning:

Relationship with Him looks like mercy–like deep sweet waters perfumed with grace. This grace is heady, like the whiff of strong aged wine. It is as intoxicating as fragrant floral hills bathed in rainbow colored flowers.

You are as beautiful as Tizrah my God, lovely as Jerusalem my Father, more awesome than an army with bright banners my Husband.

You melt my soul with your eyes of deep love and care. Your compassionate heart soothes my inner worries.

Your very Presence is a vaporous mist vaster than the mountainous clouds that sheet the amazon rainforests.

You are light and beauty.

Water and wine.

You are Living Bread…the substance that makes me whole.

I am enraptured by You.

Romanced by Who You are.

Captivated by your tresses.

I am smitten to my inner core.

I find I am threaded into You by your divine hand. A three fold cord is not easily broken.

You share your heartbeat with me and my eyes are fascinated by You.

I feast at the table in your soul and your banner over me is undying love.

~Taken from my book Visions of Celestial Love

For we who have believed (adhered to and trusted in and relied on God) do enter that rest in accordance with His declaration that those [who did not believe] should not enter when He said, As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest; and this He said although [His] works had been completed and prepared [and waiting for all who would believe] from the foundation of the world. —Hebrews 4:3 AMPC

Pause, and think calmly about those words.

Something about this scripture jumped out at me, and I have not myself to thank, nor my own intelligence, but the Holy Spirit. He’s the Life in the Word. The One who makes it living and active. Without Him, reading God’s Word is like reading another book—and there is hardly anything sadder than that. Do you see the word “works” in here?

Whose work, is it? It’s God’s.

Our only job, the one that we’ve always had, even in the old covenant, is to believe.

The same is true today, underneath the righteousness, blood, grace, and work of Christ.

Believing secures our rest. The rest God ordained for us to have before the foundations of the world. The rest of relationship.

Let’s continue reading about rest in Hebrews:

Again He sets a definite day, [a new] Today, [and gives another opportunity of securing that rest] saying through David after so long a time in the words already quoted, Today if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts. [This mention of a rest was not a reference to their entering into Canaan.] For if Joshua had given them rest, He [God] would not speak afterward about another day.

—Hebrews 4:7–8 AMPC

Think again for a moment. Before you read on, ask the Holy Spirit to help you grasp what this means.

I believe that entering God’s rest was more important than receiving the promised land. I believe it was more important than the Israelites entering into Canaan or even crossing over the Jordan to obtain the promise of land.

God was more interested in His people having relationship with Him. God’s always been more about the internal soul and the spiritual than He is about physical possessions.

Once again, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the meaning of these scriptures; He might give you more information, more insight than He’s given me here.

Perhaps the purpose of them entering the land was for them to enter into rest. The only way to that was belief. Trusting faith. A heart that knows God, knows He’s good, and knows His nature. A heart that knows His thoughts toward us, and more specifically you.

He’s a giver. Always has been, always will be. His nature does not change. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forevermore.

So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the [true] people of God; For he who has once entered [God’s] rest also has eased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own.

—Hebrews 4:9–10 AMPC

There is such beautiful promise in here.

Aren’t you tired of working? Of striving?

There is a sanctified striving that should exist in every believer of Jesus Christ, but it is often perverted.

We’re not striving to be accepted by God, or acceptable to Him. Our works, our striving will never get us that. Our striving should be out of rest, in a place of absolute peace. Done from joy, and with joy. Done out of love, in love, and through love. This cannot be done without belief. Our works shouldn’t even really feel like work.

Wanting to know our Jesus, wanting to be like Him, should be a part of our nature, as getting food or water to drink is when we’re hungry or thirsty. It should be a daily activity. It should be a mental domain, an internal setting.

When I asked if you were tired of working, I was talking about the working you see being done every day.

I mean look around you. Look at your loved ones. Look at the strangers on the street. The college students. The moms, the dads of our society just trying to pay the bills, fix ourselves and squeeze whatever joy we can out of life as if we’ve got a dried lemon in our hands that we keep trying to wring out.

I bet you hear the words “busy,” or/and, “tired,” come out their mouths when you ask them how they’re doing.

If they don’t say it, you can see it, or at least detect it. Can you detect it in yourself? It doesn’t belong there if you can.

Once again, our only work is to believe. Believe God can change us, believe God loves us as we are, and believe we don’t even have to perfect our faith. That is Jesus’s job. He is after all called “the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:2 NIV, italics added).

The Amplified Bible even goes as far as to describe Jesus’s perfecting of us—calling Him our faith’s finisher. The word says He brings it to “maturity and perfection” (Hebrews 6:1 AMP, italics added).

There is no room for guilt, shame, or condemnation in rest. Let me tell you something about guilt, shame, and condemnation (I’ve just struggled with it this morning, and the Holy Spirit lifted it off of me), it only comes out of an attitude, a heart, of works. It only comes when our own efforts fail, or are frustrated. It all comes out of our works.

God called us to work, not to works.

There is a natural work in the human life. There’s cooking, cleaning, etc., that needs to be done. If you’re on the prayer team at church, or have a God-ordained “job,” then yes, physically you are working. But there should never be a lack of peace inside. When there is, you have started works within.

God’s “jobs” for us are always a delight, and always for our good, and the good of the body. And God is always about balance, not burning yourself out, and not being sluggish or slothful either. Furthermore, I want to point out that “feeling” guilt or shame or condemnation is evil. I’m not calling you evil. I imagine that you’re in Jesus Christ, especially if you’re reading this, thus you are imputed with His righteousness.

I’m calling the act of holding onto (not letting go of) guilt, shame, and condemnation evil. The act is evil—a sin. And the Word of God declares it so. It is either done in an act of unbelief, or pride disguised as holiness. Listen to this,

Let us all come forward and draw near with true (honest and sincere) hearts in unqualified assurance and absolute conviction engendered by faith (by that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness), having our hearts sprinkled and purified from a guilty (evil) conscience and our bodies cleansed with pure water.

— Hebrews 10:22 AMPC

Do you know why guilt is evil? Because it doubts the power of the blood of Jesus to free us from sin. It doubts the overwhelming strength of the mercies and grace of God. It disbelieves His very love.

This is so powerful. This is a reverential truth that will set you free if you believe. The Holy Spirit convicts us, He never condemns us. And God doesn’t condemn man. God condemns man’s sin.

Those who choose to attach themselves to sin, instead of God, through Christ Jesus, have chosen to attach themselves to the thing that God condemns.

God’s heart is good. Jesus has paid the price of sin, and the weight and power of it.

I like what Joyce Meyer says. She says that she believes the power and the weight of sin is guilt, shame, and condemnation.

Hear the words of the Lord through His faithful apostle,

Whereas this One [Christ], after He had offered a single sacrifice for our sins [that shall avail] for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. For by a single offering He has forever completely cleansed and perfected those who are consecrated and made holy.

— Hebrews 10:12 AMPC

Jesus has done it.

I also want to point out to you the word “made.” The Holy Spirit just pointed this out to me (how I love His company and Presence). We can try to make ourselves holy, or we can be made holy.

We are made holy by grace through faith. We are saved by grace through faith. The key word here is grace. Not even faith is the key word. I’ll tell you why: Faith is graced to us.

Isn’t it God who appoints to us the measure of faith (Romans 12:3)? And remember that everything God gives us is a gift (James 1:17 AMPC). Gifts come free.

Isn’t it God who called us through His Holy Spirit to come to Him to receive His grace that we may be saved (see John 6:44)?

If we truly know that we are forgiven completely, accepted fully, and made perfect by Jesus, then we will have peace. And we’ll have something to get excited and stirred up for.

Entering God’s rest is not without the exertion, or perhaps better stated, the exercising of belief. The growing of belief only comes by grace.

Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell].

— Hebrews 4:11 AMPC

Once again, the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to something here. If we are trying to do God’s job in us or outside of us by working, our faith will wither away and, as this verse implies, it will “perish by…unbelief.”

Ultimately, working to “help God out” is an act of unbelief and it shows a lack of confidence in Him. The more we practice working, the more we feed unbelief. The more we stray from God. The more hopeless we become that He will ever come through for us.

God works through faith. Indeed, if we are working, thus acting out of unbelief and disobedience to His command to believe, then the power and glory of God that we so desperately want to see in our lives will never manifest. Or it is highly unlikely that it will manifest.

I say that because Saul didn’t believe on Christ Jesus, but Jesus still met him on His way to Damascus. After that encounter, I say, He fully believed on Jesus, or strived after it ardently.

Many Christians who strive, seem to strive not to believe. Or at least they feed their unbelief by rehearsing their doubts, either verbally to others or mentally to themselves. Instead of striving to not believe, strive and fight to believe. Fight the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12 NASB). Lastly, I want to quote a wonderful passage from a book that I’ve found very helpful on my faith journey. In The Book of Healing, John Reynolds writes:

They came to Jesus and said, “What must we do that we might work the works of God?” Jesus said to them, “This is the work of God that you might believe on Him Who He has sent.” They didn’t ask Him what to do to get saved, they asked about doing the works of God. Jesus said, “Believe on Me.”

Jesus has done all that is necessary for us to receive from God. “Father, I have finished the works you gavest me to do.” How many of us are trying to “work the works of God?” Jesus overcame every temptation. “He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin, let us therefore come boldly before the throne of grace that we [may] receive mercy and find grace to help.” The throne of what? The throne of GRACE. Stop trying to “work the works.” Stop trying to “work” for your healing, your present. Stop confessing the Scriptures with the attitude of trying to “make” something happen. “For it is the Fathers GOOD pleasure” to give it to you! The price has been paid by Jesus. Go and freely receive from Him based upon His grace.

Yes, it is important to know and quote the scriptures but don’t do it from the “I’m going to make this happen” attitude but rather from a heart attitude of “Father, I thank you for what Jesus did for me at Calvary when he bore my sickness and carried my pain. Father, I ask you to heal my body based on your grace and I thank you for it now in Jesus’s name.” Then just give thanks that your prayers have been heard and answered and act your faith.[

Our fight in life is simply this: to believe on the One God has sent. And belief, faith itself, grows best in rest.

[i] John Reynolds, The Book of Healing: How to Receive Healing from the Lord Jesus Christ (John Reynold Ministries, 2012), 44. Scripture references from John 6:28–29; Luke 12:32, version unknown. PDF available at http://www.thehealingministry.com/.

Category: Bible Teaching

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