This is just a curious thought – nothing more.
I’ve typically seen Adam and Eve depicted as twenty-somethings. But couldn’t they just as well have been (the equivalent of) teens or five-year-olds or even babies? Maybe God started out changing Adam’s diaper – or whatever – and raised him as a single dad? Maybe when Eve believed the lie and ate the fruit she was middle-school aged?
Okay; just something to mess with your 21st century presuppositions.
Blessings to you!
This is good and some of you need it
1 Kings 19:19-21 – The prophet Elijah has just designated Elisha as his successor. Elisha is busy plowing the field and his only request is that he can go back and say bye to Dad and Mom.
Here’s the thing. Let’s say you want to start a new diet. But you have half a pie left in the fridge. So you tell yourself, “I’ll start the diet in two days after I’ve finished the pie”.
Or you feel convicted about alcohol and want to stop drinking. But there’s half a bottle of Crown Royal in the cabinet. So you tell yourself, “As soon as that bottle is gone, that’s it – no more!”
Is it going to happen? You tell me, but I think “No” – in fact I think “Not a chance!”. Why? Because people don’t work like that. When we have the conviction to do something, or stop doing something, we need to act right then based on the conviction.
Elisha didn’t finish the field. He didn’t make arrangements for someone else to finish plowing it. He just left.
Have any fields you need to leave half-plowed?
Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast; and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it, but supposed Him to be in the caravan, and went a day’s journey; and they began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances. — Luke 2:41-44 NASB
Jesus is always right where he’s supposed to be. Sometimes we get ahead of him, often by doing the usual and expected thing. Then we need to go back and find him. He isn’t lost; we are. (courtesy Ron Scates)
I was looking at Wisdom and The Adulteress in Proverbs as personifications of the Spirit of Truth and Spirit of Error. It’s a pretty good study.
One thing that really struck me. Both of them are evangelists. Look at Proverbs 7:5-17 and Proverbs 8. Neither of want to leave things as they are. The Adulteress isn’t content to be rebellious and corrupt, she is actively looking for who she can pull down with her.
Wisdom as well. She isn’t content with being good and virtuous; she’s actively looking for how she can improve the lives of the people around her.
I’ve been reading and re-reading Ezekiel 14 this week. Wondering how many of the “answers to prayer” I’ve heard have been answers “according to the multitude of the idols of my heart”.
I used to be amazed that the authors of the Bible, over a huge span of time, told a consistent story using the same images.
Now I’m amazed that all of creation tells the same story using the same pictures.
God rocks!
image courtesy trucktrend.com
God is sovereign. He decides to intervene in a situation based on his own will. He alone knows the ultimate results of any action and he alone is in the position to choose action or inaction. But it seems there are two things that influence the likelihood of his intervention.
No Plan B – God is more likely to act when the situation is otherwise impossible. As Gideon went out to his famous battle with the Midianites and Amelekites, God said:
The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.” – Judges 7:2
God wasn’t willing to join the battle until Gideon reduced the size of his army from 22,000 to 300, making it unwinnable in any natural sense. God does not want to share credit for the victory.
Jeremiah 17:5-8 say that God curses the man who trusts in man’s strength – either his own or someone else’s – but blesses the one who trusts in the Lord. God acts when our hope is in him and him alone.
It’s His Choice – God is more likely to act when we submit to his sovereignty. This includes submitting to the possibility that he may choose to not act. The three Hebrew boys being thrown in to the fiery furnace testified to Nebuchadnezzar:
Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. – Daniel 3:17-18
They put their fate completely in God’s hands. “We know you can save us, now we’ll find out if you will save us.”
Jesus said it like this: “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)
My hands are off the wheel. I trust your driving. If you drive me into a ditch, I trust it’s the ditch I need to go through to get to the road I need to be on.
The fact that this role is needed in a church is a testimony to how broken the “traditional” church model is
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh”
For what reason?
The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
For the reason that she isn’t a separate entity, but rather part of him, living in a different body. For the reason that he is missing a piece; he is incomplete without her.
I was reading about Judas’ betrayal of Jesus the other day, where Peter whacked off the guy’s ear. Jesus said:
“How then would the scriptures that say it must happen this way be fulfilled?”
I’m not fatalist and I definitely believe Christians should be involved in politics and resisting the work of the Enemy. But at some point when they come for us, shouldn’t we say the same thing as Jesus?
A friend was expressing to me today that he’s not ready for Jesus to come. He was thinking about people he knows personally who he still wants to lead to a place of faith. But the attitude of New Testament believers seems to be one of longing and desiring the day of Christ’s reappearing. I don’t pretend to understand
Father, I can’t wait to see your son in the flesh. I love the presence of your Holy Spirit and my joy is the time we spend together. But I know the things Jesus has prepared are even better – unimaginably better! In agreement with your Spirit, I say, “Come, Lord Jesus!”
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