That I May Know Him

Philippians 3:10

If there is any one that ever lived that could claim to know the character of the risen Christ, surely it was the Apostle Paul. Yet, when writing to the church at Philippi, he says, “That I may know him”, as if there is more for him to know. How telling is this? If Paul had more to learn of the glorious Savior, surely we have a world of knowledge awaiting us!

The context of Paul’s request is a recap of his life prior to meeting Jesus. He counts all previous knowledge and law keeping as “loss for Christ” (Phil. 3:7), and “dung” (Verse 8), willing to exchange them “for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”. The thirst for knowledge is a recurring theme in Paul’s writings as he challenges believers to come to a fuller understanding of whom that they are in Christ. Notice his insistence:

“And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.” (Romans 15:14)

“That in everything ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge.” (1 Corinthians 1:5)

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.” (1 Corinthians 15:34)

These are just a few examples of Paul appealing to the knowledge of the believer. His belief was that there was no greater knowledge to be found than that which brings Christ into fuller light in your heart and mind. There was and still is, always something more to learn about our Savior.

The fullness of knowledge is linked to the fullness of spirit. Paul goes on to say, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12). The daily increase in his knowledge of who Jesus was led him to an apprehension of what it meant to be complete in Christ. The more that he learned of Christ, the more that he felt complete or “perfect”.

Jesus told us to “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me” (Matthew 11:29). Daily resting in Christ, whose yoke is “easy” and whose “burden is light” (Matt. 11:30), causes us to “learn” who He is. The more we rest in His finished work, the more that our awareness of His love and compassion is for us.

As you go about your day, take every available moment to dwell on the Father’s love for you. As you allow grace to wash over your soul, you place yourself beneath the yoke of Christ which is easy and light. Every moment that you rest under that yoke, you come into a fuller knowledge of who Christ is, which leads you one step further to living a perfect lifestyle. I do not insinuate that you will never fail again, but the goal in Christianity is to let Christ live His life through us, and that will be a life free from the stain and the failure of sin.

Happy is the Man that Knows He is Forgiven!

Psalms 32:1, 2

If the first couple of verses of Psalms 32 look familiar that is because Paul quotes these verses in his letter to the Romans, preceded by this phrase, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5), and then, “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man…” (Verse 6). Paul is connecting David’s prayer with his own revelation of righteousness without the keeping of the law. Let’s look closer at this connection that Paul is making.

Paul does not assume that David is talking about himself, which is how some Bible teachers explain this verse, attempting to say that we do not have this promise, but that only David had it. If David were talking only of himself, then Paul would not have made the connection as being relevant for his own readers in Rome. He also would not have said, “The blessedness of the man” (verse 6), but rather, “the blessedness of David”.

“Blessed” is better translated “happy” from the Greek. The man who knows that his iniquities are forgiven and his sins are covered is happy. There is a joy unspeakable connected the knowledge that you are forgiven of all of your failures and that your sins are gone in Jesus. With an improper knowledge of this forgiveness, your Christian walk is one of misery and discouragement because you will attempt to please a God that is already well pleased.

The next “blessed” is especially exciting, “Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile” (Psalms 32:2). When Paul quotes this verse in Romans 4:8, he drops the last part, “in whose spirit there is no guile” because as a New Covenant teacher he knows that there can be no guile, or hypocrisy in the spirit man of a believer. There may be hypocrisy in their thoughts and their actions, but their spirit man is as Christ in this world (1 John 4:17).

Having exposed only the front half of the verse, Paul furthers us deeper into the power of this phrase by using an emphatic Greek phrase for “will not”. It means “never, ever”, which shows us that “Happy is the man to whom the Lord will never, ever impute sin”. What a glorious thought!

Opponents of this interpretation say that David is referring to the man who lives right. They say that if you do right then God cannot impute sin to you. First of all, “impute” means “to count”, thus if sins are imputed then they are counted against you. If they are not imputed then they are not counted against you. Think about it for a moment; why would someone who does the right thing be excited that their sin is not going to be imputed against them? They haven’t done anything wrong! The only one who would be “happy” about sins not counting against them is the one who has done something wrong.

This message is often neglected because people are afraid that this knowledge will lead to sinful lifestyles among believers. Actually, the opposite is true! The knowledge that you are not condemned never leads you to want to sin more, but rather it is the one thing that helps you to go and “sin no more”.

Be happy today with the knowledge that your sins are not imputed against you because they have already been imputed to Jesus at the cross and He has paid your penalty. Hallelujah!

Dip 7 Times

2 Kings 5:1-14

The story of Naaman and his dipping seven times in the Jordan River to be cured of his leprosy is one of the most famous Old Testament stories, heard by all way back in Sunday school. Naaman was a Syrian general who had the favor of God resting on him, having been used to deliver his nation. He also owned an Israeli slave girl whom the Bible leaves nameless, who tells the leprosy-stricken Naaman that there is a man of God in Israel who can help him (2 Kings 5:3).

The man of God is Elisha, who tells Naaman to wash himself in the Jordan River seven times, “and thou shalt be clean” (verse 10). The Jordan River is the same place that Jesus will be baptized over 900 years later, marking the beginning of His earthly ministry. It is also the river that Israel crossed when going into the Promised Land. It holds a significant place in Biblical history as the beginning point, or the entrance to a new land. Just as Israel began to possess Canaan at Jordan, Jesus began to do His Father’s work at Jordan. For Naaman, it would represent the beginning of a new life of physical health.

For the believer, our Jordan River comes at Calvary, the moment that we meet Christ as our Savior. We give Him our life, allowing it to be crucified with all of its old lusts and affections. He gives us His eternal life, and we walk a new walk with Him every day. For Naaman to dip seven times is no coincidental use of numerology. Seven is God’s number of completion and perfection, thus, Naaman’s seventh time down represents Christ’s finished work at the cross. Elisha is pointing us forward to the healing virtues of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Every sickness and sin that plagues the family of man can be taken care of at our spiritual Jordan, Calvary. Just as the waters of that river washed over the sores of Naaman’s body, the blood of Jesus will wash over the wounds of a life spent in sin. We are made clean by His blood, through no effort of our own.

Naaman is typical of the world searching for redemption through any other means than through Jesus Christ and His finished work. He is first upset that Elisha does not come out to him and lay hands on the wounds, claiming healing in the name of the Lord. He wants a deliverance that looks spectacular, rather than one that is effective. Some are more concerned at how their religion looks to the outside than whether or not there are any tangible results.

Next, Naaman asks if the rivers of Damascus, namely Abana or Pharpar are not better and cleaner than the dirty, insignificant Jordan River. This complaint is a type of the sinner attempting to purify themselves through the “clean” means of this world’s self-help philosophies, psychiatric means, etc. Jesus’ cross is a bloody place that kills our old man. Sometimes we forget just how costly that His cross was, and we lean towards our own abilities to heal ourselves.
Fortunately, Naaman’s desire to be healed is stronger than his objections to the fashion in which he is to be healed. His faith is what takes him into the dirty waters of the Jordan, for as his servant points out, “What does he have to lose”? What do you have to lose by allowing the purifying waters of Calvary to wash over your soul? The end result is cleanliness in the presence of your Father, and there is no greater reward!

The New Prophecy

1 Kings 17:18

When we think of prophecy, we often think of the telling of future events to warn people about what is to come or to tell them what to do to prepare. This idea sounds a lot like fortune telling or psychic readings, which the world uses to try to see into tomorrow. For the believer, we have no need for someone to read our palms or stare into a crystal ball, for the Holy Spirit has revealed the hidden things to us (1 Corinthians 2:9, 10). In fact, Paul states further that we have not received the spirit of the world, “but the spirit which is of God; that we might know all things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Corinthians 2:12).

Deeper into his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul tells us the definition of a New Testament prophecy, stating that it will edify, exhort and comfort (1 Corinthians 14:3). To edify is to build up; exhort is to encourage; comfort is to calm and console. All prophecy will do one or all of these things to a believer. It will build up your spirit man and encourage you to continue onward and it will calm your raging soul.

When you hear something that is called prophecy that does not build your up or encourage you or calm and console you then you are hearing the voice of condemnation and judgment. This voice cannot come to you from your Father, for He has already judged everything in the body of Christ. If this be the case, then why does this type of “prophecy” still exist?

To understand why we still hear gloom and doom prophesied to us, we must first see that this type of prophecy previously existed. When Old Testament prophets spoke, they warned of impending judgment due to increased sin and iniquity. Their style was to warn mankind about the path that they were on, but this warning was due to the fact that the Old Covenant demanded that man pay for his own breaking of the law. Since Jesus came and completely fulfilled the law and all of its demands (Matthew 5:17), there is no more warning against man’s continued failures.

Old Testament prophecy did what the widow of Zarephath was scared of; it pronounced judgment and called sin to remembrance. When her son died, “She said unto Elijah, ‘What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?’” (1 Kings 17:18). The fact that she asks this question lets us know that the reputation of prophets was to remind people of the things that they had done wrong and to pronounce the judgment of God upon them.

Believer, rejoice that your sins are not being called to remembrance anymore, because Jesus has washed them all away!

Thou Shalt Not Die

2 Samuel 12:13

The 11th chapter of 2 Samuel is one of the saddest in the Bible. It tells the story of David’s sin of adultery with Bathsheba and his subsequent murder of her husband and the cover-up thereafter. The “apple of God’s eye” slipped so far into sin, and it is painful to read about. The 12th chapter is the confrontation between Nathan, the prophet of God and King David. Nathan tells him about his sin, how that God has seen what he did and will bring the sword into his house forever.

We learn a valuable lesson about the redemptive power of grace in this chapter. When David acknowledges his sin, he confesses it as being “against the LORD”. This act of repentance is seen by God as faith, knowing that David has a broken heart due to his failure. Nathan responds with, “The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die”. What sweet words those are! To know that the Lord has put your sin away so that you are not guilty anymore is the greatest knowledge in the world.

Why does God put away David’s sin, even without a lamb being sacrificed? David tells us that this is the fact in his prayer of repentance, found in Psalm 51: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God thou wilt not despise” (verse 17). There is no scripture prior to this one that told man that the Lord was looking for a broken spirit in man, but David had knowledge as to how the heart of God functioned. He knew that God could not and would not turn away the broken man; for God created man and He loves him unconditionally.

Prior to this verse, David tells us another remarkable truth, “For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering” (Psalms 51:16). Again, at no point in previous scripture has God indicated that He did not want sacrifices to be offered for the sins of man, but David is looking forward to the cross, when God would need no more lambs. David is a New Covenant thinker in an Old Covenant world, and God honors this kind of faith.

So complete is God’s forgiveness, that when Chronicles retells the story of Israel it intentionally leaves out the story of David and Bathsheba (1 Chronicles 20:1). I call this, “The Case of the Missing Story”, because when you look for the story of David’s sin, it is missing. God’s redemption is complete in that there is no trace of the failure left over when the blood of Jesus is applied.

Under the Old Covenant, God remembered Israel’s sins, “to the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 20:5), but under the New Covenant, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 10:17). When David appealed forward to Christ’s finished work, he was doing so independent of works, believing for a time when God would not count his sins against him.

You and I are living under this New Covenant, and we have the blessed promise that our sins are forgiven. Does this motivate you to go out and sin? Of course not! In fact, we know that we are dead to sin, so how can we continue to live in it? (Romans 6:1, 2) The knowledge that our sins are gone is coupled with the insurmountable love of God which strengthens us to live beyond sin. In fact, how can we continue to live in failure with so much grace around us? Give God glory for the knowledge that, “Thou shalt not die”.

A Deal with the Devil

1 Samuel 11:1-3

Nahash the Ammonite encamped against the children of Israel that lived in Jabesh, in the land of Gilead. The Ammonites had waited nearly 100 years to retake the lands that the Israelites had taken from them upon entering the Promised Land, and when the Israelites saw them coming, they immediately conceded defeat. Cut off from the rest of the tribes of Israel by the Jordan River, the people of Jabesh-Gilead must have felt completely hopeless.

Nahash means “serpent” in Hebrew, while Jabesh-Gilead means “dry, rocky place”. The typologies are clear, with Nahash being a type of Satan, the serpent who comes against us, similar to the Garden of Eden. The dry, rocky place is any place that we are in which lacks the flowing waters of Christ’s revelation. The enemy loves dry places, for they lack living water.
When Satan sees God’s people wandering in dry places, the opportunity for attack is great. He knows that you are in a weakened position spiritually, and he comes to offer you some illusory form of hope or peace. We often think that Satan looks to attack us in these hours of dryness, but he actually tends to give us opportunities to compromise.

Jesus had been in the wilderness 40 days and 40 nights when Satan appeared to tempt Him. Satan did not attack His physical body or go after His spirit, but rather he offered Him various chances to compromise who He was and why He was here. Turning stones to bread is Satan wanting Jesus to feed Himself on the Law and not on the words of His Father. Casting Himself off of a high place is an opportunity to take glory to Himself as the city watches the angels catch Him and float Him to the earth. Finally, bowing before Satan is an opportunity to have all of the earth and its glory without paying for it in blood at the cross.

Nahash offers safety and protection to the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead on one gruesome condition: they must cut out their right eyes. This form of mutilation was common in the Eastern world as punishment over conquered cities. It brought humiliation and suffering to the victims but it also ensured that there would be little military resistance from that particular village again. Soldiers of that era fought with sword and with shield. Most fighters were right handed, so they held their weapon in their right hand and their shield in their left hand. The shield would cover half of their body, with the other half exposed to fight. It was the right side that was exposed with the right eye available to see the enemy. Without that right eye, there was no chance that they could fight properly.

Satan has always hated mans ability to see. One of his first attacks against man in the Garden of Eden involved man’s eyes, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). He actually tells a portion of the truth, for when they eat the text says, “And the eyes of them both were opened” (Genesis 3:7), though they only see that they are “naked”.

Feed yourself on the fresh water of the Holy Spirit so that you do not get cornered in a dry place. Satan will attack your ability to see who you are in Christ and how great that Christ is in you. Do not exchange the great covenant that you have in Christ with temporary satisfaction from the serpent. Be blessed in your Daddy God!

Sweetness Out of the Strong

Judges 14:5-14

Samson is one of my favorite Old Testament characters because if there is ever a living example of the wonders of covenant and grace it is found in this man. Covenant must be kept by God, and grace is His free gift, completely undeserved. Samson is a living, breathing example of both of these things as his life was sealed by the covenant that God had made with his parents (“Don’t cut his hair and I will use him to deliver Israel”), and Samson received all good while earning none of it.

When I heard the story of Samson as a child I always saw him as a hulk of a man, with bulging biceps and muscles on top of muscles, but as I began to understand God’s grace and favor I began to view him quite differently. I don’t believe that Samson was very big at all. In fact, I am quite sure that Samson looked rather puny. If he were a massive man, all of his exploits could be attributed to his own personal strength and size, but we see that his enemies spent much time trying to ascertain how he did what he did. His strength was God given as a token of grace and covenant.

Samson and his parents were journeying to Timnath to take a wife for Samson from among the Philistines, the sworn enemies of Israel. His parents were very disapproving of his choice in taking a Philistine for his wife, but Samson did it to gain advantage over the enemy. On the road to Timnath, while temporarily separated from his parents, Samson was confronted by a lion. He killed the beast with his bare hands and did not tell his parents about the incident.

Some days later Samson journeyed back to Timnath to meet the woman again, this time turning aside to see the carcass of the lion that he had killed. Bees were swarming all about the body of the lion and there was honey in its body. Samson reached in and took some of the honey and ate it and then gave some to his parents, not telling them where it came from. Being Jews, they would not have eaten anything that came from the carcass of a lion. By law, Samson was not supposed to eat from the lion either, but as we have seen, Samson was operating under covenant.

Honey was a sign of all things sweet and good in the Lord. It is the food that God mentioned would flow in the Promised Land when He spoke from the burning bush to Moses (Exodus 3:8). It was also the food that Jonathan ate when he had won a great battle over the Philistines, breaking his father’s order to fast (1 Samuel 14:27); and it was the choice food of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:4).

The lion is a symbol of strength and royalty, but can also be a sign of the aggressor. Jesus is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, but we also see Satan as our adversary, “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). It is a lion that attacks the flocks of the shepherd David, and he grabs it by the beard and kills it. In the case of Samson, it is symbolic of another attack against God’s people.

Out of the belly of the aggressor came the sweetness of God’s grace. In the midst of great attack was a wonderful blessing. The story of the lion and Samson is a type of the enemy coming in like a flood to roar and frighten, only to have God bring a mighty miracle out of the midst of it, so that the believer can find nourishment.

Are you facing a lion today? Remember, all things work together for our good, for we are His Covenant children!