HOW TO CAST YOUR CARES ON THE LORD.

God is always speaking. Are we listening?

A Jewish friend of mine mentioned to me that she was considering learning how to meditate which would require learning to empty her mind. I woke up the next morning with all this going through my mind as it often does when an article is being downloaded to me from the Lord.  I thought it might be helpful to some others. So here goes. 

The Jewish and therefore biblical way of meditating is never to empty your mind which we cannot really do anyway – our minds were not meant for emptying but for being wise, for having discernment, for “knowing” what is right and what is not, what is godly from what is not.  There’s so much good stuff to be meditated upon in the bible God has given to us that emptying our minds doesn’t seem like fun at all. Besides, He wants us to hear what He would say to us. Time and time again He told Israel to heed His voice. In fact, the Sh'ma, one of the most familiar prayers in all of Judaism begins,"Hear O Israel...." which translates into listen and understand what I'm saying, says the Lord.

I woke up this morning to the verse that says,“Be still and know that I am God” going through my mind.  When things come to me like that I know it is God informing me of something meaningful.  The more I thought about this verse (I meditated on it), the more I felt myself becoming calm, and being still. Why? Because I can put all things into His hands and trust that God has His eyes upon me and is watching over me  and will give me wisdom for all things as I look to Him for it.  Another verse says, “Cease striving and know that I am God.”  Well, doesn’t that just put being still in perspective. Being still means to stop striving which we can do because God is in His place of sovereign and loving authority. 

I thought of where there might be areas in my life where I’m still striving, though surely not the way I used to before I knew God as I do. Take worrying, for instance. Worry is a kind of striving, though a useless one. Unlike just thinking something through, worrying carries stress. It’s a mental exertion to try to make things work out differently, to try to solve a conflict by rehearsing it over and over in your mind though your thoughts only go in circles and don’t come to rest or a new conclusion. 

So when I realize I’m worrying, I bring my worrying thoughts to God, ask Him for wisdom about it, and leave it in His hands.  There sure is a whole lot less stress when God is in on it with you and the weight of the matter is on Him and not me.  I remain quiet in my innermost being, in my kishkahs, as I turn each concern over to Him and receive His peace, expecting that He will give me the wisdom to know what to do or He will take care of it Himself.  Often the situation ceases to have great importance when I give it over to Him and I don’t have to do anything because God Himself has actually seen to it that it is resolved, just because I trusted Him with it. The problem dissipates once I put it in His hands and trust that He’ll fix it or fix me.  

As we read through the Bible we find that the greatest thing God asks from us is faith, that is, our trust in Him and His goodness.  That’s why the Bible says, “Cast your cares upon Him for He cares for you.”  That word cast means to release them to him the way you would release a bowling ball into an bowling alley.  Release the things and send them rolling off to Him. Scripture says, “You have not because you ask not.”  So ask!  This too is a kind of meditating, seeing your concerns in God’s very able hands and the weight lifted off of you. Whether it’s a sick child, someone making seemingly unwise decisions, or the state of the world, God will carry the weight if we’ll let Him.  He says, “My burdens are light and My yoke is easy,” meaning whatever He allows in our lives will not be too heavy a burden if we let Him carry the weight of them.  Once we meditate on that reality it becomes a part of our consciousness and way of life.  Now that’s productive meditating as God meant it to be. Emptying your mind has nothing productive or strengthening about it. 

I once spent a whole interesting summer “meditating” on when God blessed people and when He didn’t. I wanted to know how to stay in God’s blessings and how to avoid not being on His good side, for lack of better words.  I went through the books of Psalms and Isaiah, one of Israel’s major prophets.  I made a kind of chart with 4 columns:  Blessings and the cause; Curses (the opposite of blessings) and the cause.  Sort of like positive and negative cause and effect.  

For example, like in Psalm 1:1, it says, to begin with, people are blessed who do not seek or take seriously the advice or opinions of those who don’t think like God thinks. It says “wicked” in one translation, another translation of that word wicked is “ungodly.”  Either way, not godlike. I ask myself where am I taking advice that is not what God would be saying. I think of all the news commentators who report all kinds of awful things that don’t come from God and don’t bring me His peace, and also who speak against Israel. Surely that’s not godly. They never talk about what God’s doing or His promises to take care of Israel, or that He loves her and says that land is His land which He gave to Israel. The news commentators may not be ‘wicked’ but their opinions are not what God is saying.   

There is so much crazy stuff going on in the world today, but Scripture says to “focus your thoughts on what is true, noble, righteous, pure, lovable or admirable, on some virtue or on something praiseworthy…. Then the God who gives shalom will be with you.”  There’s enough to meditate on for quite a while in just those words. We can opt out of fear and worry.

I want blessings so I should not take too seriously the advice or opinions of those who do not know or are not speaking from a knowledge of God.  The Psalm goes on to say to avoid those who are “scoffers” (who speak against others, to mock them or speak derisively). There are a lot of voices ‘out there’ who speak negatively about people who in their own opinions are not worthy of respect or honor. God never does that. Even when He rebuked Israel for her backslidden ways through the prophets, He did so with encouragement to be all He wants her to be. God never beats us down, He always reaches for us to lift us up. 

To try and empty your mind is mysticism and, quite frankly, it opens you up to what is not godly. Hinduism seeks to empty your mind and that’s surely not Jewish. The Jewish and biblical way of meditating is to roll a thought over and over in your mind, and in fact, to say it out loud as you think about it.  Isaac meditated, but he surely wasn’t emptying his mind.  He was thinking with God about all going on in his life, about his new wife coming.  It says, “And Isaac went out to meditate in the field in the evening; and he lifted his eyes and looked, and there, the camels were coming” (Genesis 24:63 – though some translations leave out the meditation part). How exciting. Just as he was talking with God about the promise of a wife, there she was, coming with the camels!  

God spoke to Joshua as he was about to finally lead Israel into the promised land with these words that were not just for Joshua but for every Jew and follower of God:  “This book of the law (Torah) shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success” (Joshua 1:8). Here is your foundational instructions from God about meditating – to ponder, to consider, to dwell on what the Bible says, to make God’s words our reality. Torah can mean the whole bible and not just the first five books because the prophets are all about trying to get Israel to observe Torah, for instance.  

So you can see that God does not want us to empty our minds.  That is not a godly way to seek peace. His word is our way to peace. When we know what He has promised – and the Bible is filled with His promises – then we can put our trust in Him, regardless of what circumstances may look like.  A good example is His promise that the land of Israel is ours, and there is much that He has said that is recorded in the bible about what’s going on in the world today, especially about Israel that will help us understand that He is still in control even when the world seems to be going crazy. We need to not be empty of thoughts, but to keep our thoughts on what He gave us in the Bible and firmly trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for He alone is wholly trustworthy, both for us personally and regarding Israel. In fact, regarding the whole world for, “the earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1). 

As King David said in Psalm 48:10, “God, … we meditate on your grace.” Grace means the goodness of God on our behalf so meditate (think) on all that He has given to you in your life: health, sound mindedness, provision, protection, loved ones, beauty, comfort, eyes to see and ears to hear.  There is much joy in being thankful to “God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.” There’s enough to meditate on right there, to come to a new realization of how blessed we are, and to thank Him for what we may have taken for granted before. A thankful life is a full life. 

Psalm 119 has much to say about meditation. It is the longest Psalm and talks about meditation at least seven times, including:  “I have more understanding than all my teachers, because I meditate on your instruction.”  Now there’s a good reason to meditate.  To be a person of wisdom, seek His instructions for life in His Word.  They are many other mentions of mediation in the bible and all have to do with giving much thought to what God has to say, but never about emptying our minds.  That would entail a constant striving to empty your mind and a waste of time. It might be good for Madonna, but not for those of us who know we have so much else in God available to us. Heneni, Lord, We're listening!!

BARNABAS' MISSION STATEMENT

I came across what I would call Barnabas’ mission statement in the book of Acts.  It seems the brothers in Jerusalem, “…sent Barnabas off to Antioch. Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord.”  Then it goes on to say, “…for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” (Acts 11:22, 23).  

It struck me that first of all he had eyes that “witnessed the grace of God,” which is to say, that’s how he saw things, with awareness that God’s grace was all around him. He looked for the goodness of God in the people he knew, the words he heard, the circumstances he saw unfolding, and no doubt, he marveled at the beauty of God in the world around him. His faith in God was that he expected God to manifest His presence and goodness all around him as if He was leaning down from heaven and smiling upon him. Such was Barnabas' apparent enJOYment of God.

Rejoicing is a choice, you know. God’s word to us about joy is a double command:  “Rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4).  In the Lord we can be more than happy – we can have the joy of the Lord, which is to say we can share in God’s joy. How awesome is that? Since we are commanded to rejoice, it appears, then, that joy is not a feeling, but an attitude, and one we have control over.  

We’re probably all familiar with the verse that says, “… the joy of the Lord is your strength.” But the whole verse says, “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemia 8:10). If you are sorrowful, sad, depressed, or weak, God says exchange it for His joy!  God gives us so much to be grateful for. When we focus on all that is ours in Him and from Him, our hearts begin to reverberate with gratefulness and joy. It’s a matter of what we focus on.

Getting back to Barnabas.  Scripture tells us, “Now Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth… was also called Barnabas by the apostles (which translated means Son of Encouragement)” (Acts 4:36). This brother was such a positive person and so full of encouragement that the apostles affectionately gave him a nickname – Barnabas.  A friend of mine once had a green van in the 80’s that pretty much served as a congregational bus. It was affectionately known by all as Barnabus. It faithfully drove the worship team or folks wherever we needed to go. But I digress.

It goes without saying, though of course I’m saying it, that Barnabas’ view of the pervasive presence of God’s grace went hand in hand with being joyful.  Barnabas must have just been a delight to be around. And encouraging at that. To be encouraging you have to know, and care about, what people are dealing with. Since we all deal with issues, it would appear that Barnabas knew how to turn a troublesome worry into trust in the Lord – not to belittle or deny the problem but to put it into the perspective of truly trusting the Lord with it.  Barnabas’ trust came from a resolute heart, which means he was set and confirmed in his chosen way of remaining true to the Lord, no matter what. And that’s basically his message to others – remain true to the Lord. This means he himself had made the same decision so that he was able to encourage others to remain, continue in, and never quit with regard to staying true to the Lord. True in this sense means utterly faithful. 

It would seem, then, from this exhortation to remain faithful to the Lord that it is possible not to. This could mean unintentionally, to compromise in our walk with Him just a little - this time -   and slowly drift away. The word "if" appears way too many times in the Scriptures, for it not to be a possibility. Or it could mean the pressure of circumstances causes faith to crumble, if our faith is in our expectations of how things will go, in what we expect will happen to us, rather than in Him regardless of what will happen to us. A case in point: Years ago there was a supposed prophesy going around that Jesus was going to come on a certain date. When He didn't, one particular man's faith began to completely buckle. Though I didn't know this man, I got to speak with him on the phone. He had put his faith in "the rapture" happening and in particular on this certain date and when it didn't happen, he didn't have much else he was believing of the Lord  to sustain him. His faith wasn't really about "knowing the Lord" but about being taken out of this world to a better place.  In a sense, we could say that his faith was not about him serving the Lord but the Lord serving him. I assured him that we trust in the Lord because of Who He is, not because of what we expect He will do for us. He is God, He is Lord, and He is King!  Yet, the more we know Him, the more we know we can utterly trust that He is good, and that HE IS FAITHFUL, and so we rest in Him, overflowing with gratefulness to Him that we are His, and confident that He will take care of us no matter what happens - or doesn't.

When our walk with the Lord is that solid, we like Barnabas, can become people who can encourage and strengthen others. We then might have as our own personal mission statement what could have been Barnabas’ mission statement. Perhaps it went something like this: I will always seek to see things as God would see them, and look for where He is in every situation. I will remain grateful to God for His joy and always encourage others to be aware of the surrounding grace of God, and to remain firmly resolved to stay faithful to Him in any and all circumstances.” Perhaps we could say this would be the ancient version of WWJD.

Wanting to see more into Barnabas’ intention, I looked up a few words in Greek which led me on a bit of a rabbit trail but it seemed to apply to what Barnabas (and we) might tell people to encourage them. Starting with Grace, as I pondered the meaning, trying to see beyond what we’ve always been told about it being “unconditional grace,” it seemed that grace is only really the way to the freedom and joy that is found in relationship with God, and that is by accepting what He offers to us through Yeshua’s atonement.  There is nothing we can do to earn God’s open arms of welcome, or His ongoing goodness to us. The definition made the point that grace (charis – from which we get the word Charismatic) is in complete opposition to and entirely antithetic to the word for works.

There is no freedom or joy that can be attained through works or our efforts because you can never get to the sought after place in God that can only be reached by grace, by accepting what He did for us. It can never be reached by what we attempt to do for or by ourselves, or even for Him.  Our own efforts will never attain to the joy or freedom that we all seek In life. What we do for Him must be from the place of grace, not to get there.  Grace, and the freedom and joy that can only come from grace, are free gifts from God and if we try and earn them, there is no price high enough to accomplish the purchase of what only God can – and has paid for. That's why there is no real rest in God if we're still trying to earn it -  it's the ultimate of "you can't get there from here."

Despite His great grace, repentance (turning from sin on any level, which can also include unbelief) is a part of living a holy life.  Not only does God rescue us from the power of sin, He is continually in the process of healing us from the damages sin brought to our lives. This is where His mercy comes in. Mercy is not the same as grace, but is the gift of God to extend help to us to get us out of the mess that sin brings upon us.  To say it another way, grace saves us from the grip of sin, and mercy rescues us from the effects of sin. Grace takes us out from under the domination of sin; mercy takes us out from the consequences of sin.

 What could be more encouraging than to learn that God totally, entirely, completely, and thoroughly forgives and forgets your sin? You are no longer seen as a sinner in God’s eyes. You’ve been taken by God out from under the domination of sin and darkness and placed firmly into the light of the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son. He then begins to apply His mercy by bringing healing and wholeness to areas of sicknesses, of bad habits, of emotional scars and effects of trauma, and correcting wrong thinking that has robbed us of the freedom and joy that can now be ours.  It may take some repenting, not because we’re not already forgiven, but when we become aware of something in our lives that is less than holy, we come to Him and make a conscious choice to turn from it as we turn to Him in that area. His mercy over time lifts us out of what we suffer where sin had marred our lives. It is a process. Once having been saved through Yeshua’s death on the cross, we are then continually being saved: “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). I am most grateful for God’s power to bring correction to my life, aren’t you?  Thank God for His grace and His mercy.  

What Barnabas was encouraging others to do, we too can now take as our own mission statement. There is no greater treasure in life than our salvation in Yeshua, especially when we consciously choose to be aware of God’s grace that is all around us – because it’s there. Whether we see it or not is all in the eyes of the beholder.  Just as freedom and joy come from trusting entirely in God. No works will do it.  “Barnabas was a good man and filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” That’s how he got to be such an encouragement. Yes, maybe some of it was his nature to be cheerful. But this is more than cheerful. This was a determination to be so fully trusting in the Lord and in His goodness that His joy permeated Barnabas' life.  We can be the same way. God’s grace is all around us, all we have to do is look for it. Ask Him. In fact, let’s ask Him together:

Lord, please open each of our eyes to a new awareness of Your presence and the grace with which You have surrounded us.  Help us to see where You are at work in our lives and in those whose lives we touch.  Stir us each to be an encouragement to others, to be more aware of Your grace and mercy – all to Your glory, Lord. Thank You for making us Yours. B’shem Yeshua (In Jesus’ name).  Amen.   

REDUCING YOUR ENEMIES

There are times when something that has loomed large and intimidating in your life suddenly gets reduced to manageable size. Israel was facing some giants that terrified them the first time they saw them and they backed down from following God's orders to take the land. Forty years later, the next generation was faced with the same enemies. God told them He was sending an angel before them.  About this angel God said, “If you will truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.  For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.  And I will completely destroy them.  You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds: but you shall utterly overthrow them, and break their sacred pillars in pieces” (Exodus 23: 21-24). 

From our perspective as believers, His words about obeying the angel give every indication that this Angel was really Yeshua - a fact that remains in our favor if we are going to take God's words to Israel as directions that we should do likewise and get the scarey critters out of our territory. 

If you do some digging in the Strong’s Concordance and look up these nation's titles in Hebrew as I did below, you can see that these names were types and shadows of what God would want us to get out of our own lives, just as He wanted them out of the land He had give to Israel. God hates mixtures and surely He didn’t want evil pagan practices in the land which He set apart for Israel.  He didn’t tell Israel to clear the land just to provide a home for them, but because the Canaanites et al kept evil and detestable religious practices include sacrificing live children to their gods, and many other horrific things. 

Our enemies may or may not be sacricing their own children (say, by placing them in harms way as human shields), but I'm not talking here about Israel and her enemies, I'm talking about our own personal enemies.  They need to go because they are His enemies as well as our own enemies if we have allowed any enemies to dwell in our personal land, which is to say, in our minds and hearts.  It may be, as you read through these names below that you are so accustomed to having these issues in your life that you hadn’t realized until now that these are not personality defects, they are unclean enemies of your soul and they can be done away with by God’s power and grace. We can renounce them in Yeshua’s name as we make a firm decision (read, repent!) to not allow them to continue to remain in our lives as we fully trust in the Lord and His grace to help us be free of them. 

It may require that we make some significant changes in our lives, but these are choices with great benefits - well worth whatever the costs. It’s a choice we each must make if we want to move out of sharing our lives with limitations. Names of people, places and some things, in the Hebrew in the Bible most often have names that reflect their character.   Here are the meanings and some of the linguistic roots behind the names of the people God commanded Israel to destroy, according to Strong’s Concordance: 

Amorites:   Root: Say, report, speak, publish to boast of self, say in the sense of (self) publicity. (Sounds pretty much like pride, doesn't it?)

Hittites:  Terror. Root: To prostrate, hence to break down by violence, confusion or fear; to scare, terrify or discourage. Cause to dismay (Dismay means paralyzed by real or imagined fear.) 

Perizzites:  Root: An unwalled village, open country.  (It would seem to imply anything goes, no righteous boundaries. Also, being unprotected, vulnerable to enemy attack.) 

Canaanites: Root:  Humiliated (Canaan was a son of Ham); to bend the knee in state of humiliation. 

Jebusites:  Trodden, threshing place. Root: To trample (fig or lit), to loathe, tread down underfoot, or to be polluted.  (I've also heard thatJebusites means restless though I didn't find it in Strongs. This would be interesting since they were the former inhabitants of Salem [Jerusalem] which means peace.) 

Hivites, on the other hand,means: living space, encampment or village; to live, to declare or show.  (This doesn’t seem negative because these were the people who, though they lied to Israel, they did so in order to “declare” friendship with them and to make a covenant with them so they were not among Israel’s enemies.  Rather they dwelt within their ‘living space’ and “showed” their loyalty but serving as Israel’s water carriers and wood cutters.) 

God promised Israel, just as He promises us in the same way, that if we will not serve these negative and ungodly ways, nor do according to their dictates, but let the good of God’s ways utterly overpower these thoughts and behaviors, then God will give us the power to get them out of our lives. 

We cannot produce a vacuum by eliminating them from our lives; we must replace them with the word of God just as Israel was to move into and occupy the quarters left by those whom they ran out of the land. We must fill the place where the enemies of our wellbeing dwelt with God's word and the fruit of the Spirit. Where Israel compromised and allowed them to remain, we can track time and again how the same kind of trouble occurred over and over, just as we sometimes find ourselves going round and round over the same issues.   

I'm writing this on New Year's Day 2014 - a good time to sanctify the year and make a few resolutions to better your life. Make the commitment to take each of these to God and ask for His help. Confess where you have been an accomplice to your own detriment by allowing these behaviors to remain in your life. God will do all He can – which is everything you need – if you will be determined that this is the year that you will clear your land of the ‘ites” that don’t belong so that God can have all of you and all that God has for you has free reign in your life.