Hanging By A Thread

Have you ever felt like you just can't make it through another day?  Are you barely hanging on financially, relationally, emotionally or spiritually, and feeling like the ground underneath you is about to give way?  Are you at the end of your rope and barely hanging by a thread?  Then you have something in common with Rahab.  She is listed in the genealogy of Jesus (Matt. 1:5), and she is also listed as one of the Heroes of Faith in Hebrews Eleven.   You can read her story in Joshua 2:1-24. 

These are some of the elements that characterized Rahab's dire circumstances.  Her life was literally hanging by a thread:

·         she was on the brink of financial disaster

·         she was about to lose her entire family

·         she was consumed by emotional distress

·         she was spiritually bankrupt and in need of rescue

After the death of Moses, God choose Joshua, to be the leader of the Israelite people. They set about to conquer the land of Canaan, under the Lord's guidance. God said to Joshua, "Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9, NIV).

Spies from the Israelites snuck into the walled city of Jericho and ended up staying at the house of Rahab, a prostitute.  Rahab had heard about the God of Israel, and she had heard about him giving the kings of the Amorites into the hands of Israel (2:10).  Because of what she had heard she came to the conclusion that the God of Israel was "God in heaven above and on earth beneath"(2:11)  She believed that the land of Canaan had already been given by God to the people of Israel, and she believed all the things that she had heard about God.

Rahab had chosen to have faith in the God of Israel, so she hid the spies from the king's soldiers. When the time was right, she helped the spies escape out a window and down a rope, since her house was built on top of the city wall. Rahab made the spies swear an oath. She promised not to give their plans away, and in return they swore to spare Rahab and her family when the battle of Jericho began. She was to tie a scarlet cord in her window as a sign of their protection.

Faced with insurmountable odds, Rahab refused to allow her circumstances, her gender or her profession to define who she was.  Instead, she looked out of her window of opportunity, and she took a leap of faith into the unknown.   She embraced her future as she held unto that redemptive cord, and all the elements that had just been causing her dire distress, were now under her feet.

Whatever your dire circumstances are today, I want to remind you of  the words of our Savior.  Jesus said, "all things are possible to him who believes.”(Mark 9:23 ESV)  God is the one who can turn every impossible thing into a possibility.  As citizens of heaven, we have access to a domain that is "out of this world." 

God has designed a possibility to fit your present circumstance.  This is your Canaan and He is trying to move you into a new place in the Spirit.  Faith is the currency that allows us to see God and interact with heaven.   So grab hold of this redemptive thread and REMEMBER...you have the promises of Jesus, you have the nature of God, and you have the power of the Holy Spirit.  One person walking with God is always in the majority, no matter what the odds are. 

Look at your present circumstance the way that Rahab did, and know that this is your window of opportunity to encounter that perfect love that will cast out all fear (1 John 4:18).  Allow faith to arise inside of you right now so that you can overcome, because He is with you!  This is your defining moment...

 

INSIDE THE ALLIGATOR PIT...

The other day I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine, and I was asking her what she thought some of my strengths were.  A few of the strengths that she mentioned were courage, tenacity and humor.  When I questioned her as to how she thought I might go about sharpening those strengths, her answer caused me to burst into laughter..."How to sharpen those things? Well, you could put yourself in a pit of alligators!" 

The realization stuck me that metaphorically speaking, I have spent some serious time in an alligator pit during my lifetime.   You know, that place of captivity, where you are enveloped in slime and shadows, and you can hear your enemies slowly sneaking up on you.  Jaws snapping, they are poised to make you the entree on the morning menu.

Aside from draining the swamp or being rescued by a helicopter with a long rope, what kind of strategy do we need to develop for the next time we find ourselves in such an awkward place?  It's better to think about this in the present, because when we are surrounded by alligators it is difficult to remember what our focus should be.   

Here are some prescriptions for success:

First, Paul said, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. That is, concentrate your concern on the eternal, not the temporal. “Fix [your] eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”(Colossians 3:2)  Fixing our eyes on Jesus and knowing that His promises are true will cause courage to arise in our hearts in the very midst's of adversity.

Secondly, Stand therefore having . . . your feet shod with the preparation [hetoimasía, or firm footing for the foundation] of the gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:13–15). This intimates the firm and solid knowledge of the gospel in which the believer may stand firm and unmoved like soldiers in their military duty. The Roman soldiers were furnished with shoes that had cleats on the soles for this purpose.  Standing in the face of adversity (slime, shadows, & snapping jaws) causes us to rise up in a spirit of tenacity that will always frustrate the enemy and cause him to loosen his grip on us.

And last but not least, David's intense focus on God gave him the assurance that after he had "walked through the valley of the shadow of death" he would be sitting down for a meal. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;"  The Psalms also tell us that God laughs at His enemies.  "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision."(Psalm 2:4)

So here we are stuck in a pit and God begins to prepare a table before us in the presence of our enemies (alligators)...and He is laughing!  Now here is where humor kicks in.  If God is laughing at our enemies while we are eating this meal, that means that we are not going to be "the meal," and we are just about to be delivered from this pit that we find ourselves in.  I don't know about you, but that makes me laugh!

So next time you find yourself in a pit of alligators don't be afraid (fear not).  Just know that you are a much loved child of God and He is just helping you sharpen your strengths, and He is forming you into the image of His dear Son!

...ever-increasing glory!

September 9, 2011

What we focus on...what we give our attention to, is what we are becoming.  The presence of the Spirit brings freedom and transformation to believers who keep their gaze focused on Christ Jesus.

One of my favorite verses about beholding and becoming is found in Corinthians:

"Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. 3:17-18 ESV)

Here we see that it is the Spirit of the Lord that brings us into freedom-freedom to reflect the glory of the Lord in an ever-increasing glory.

In the Old Testament we can see the shining face of Moses as he beheld the glory of the Lord.  Here he had to veil his face before he could speak to the children of Israel:

^"Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses talked with them. Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.  And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.  But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him."(Exodus 34:29–35)

Moses veiled his face either because the glory of the Lord was too bright for the Israelites, or because he did not want them to see the glory fading. Unlike Moses, as believer's, we have unveiled faces, and everyone who encounters us should be able to see the glory of the Lord through us.

When we spend time in the presence of the Lord beholding his glory, the power and presence of the Spirit transforms us into the image of Christ.  This is a process of transformation (ever-increasing glory) where there is a degree-by-degree change.    

It was the Spirit of God that came upon Samson and he was able to demonstrate miraculous strength.  The Spirit enabled Joseph so that he was able to interpret dreams, and the prophets declared the Spirit as righteousness and they felt the Spirit within them.  The Spirit enabled David to be a conqueror in one crisis after another.  It was the Spirit of God that confronted Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus, where he was cleansed and commissioned, and became a proclaimer of the good news.  Sustained by the Holy Spirit in the wilderness, Jesus came to his hometown in Nazareth and, standing up in the synagogue, He declared, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...To proclaim liberty to the captives..." (Luke 4:18).

The Spirit of God is active today in carrying out the mission statement of Jesus.  It is the Spirit that releases us from the captivity of our past-the sins that we have committed, as well as the sins that others have committed against us.  He intercedes for us with groans because He understands the pain that we have experienced in this life, and He understands the difficult issues that we encounter in our journey. 

Sin and the affects of sin, have veiled our eyes from seeing ourselves the way God sees us.  Instead of unveiled faces, we veil our faces because we don't feel worthy of beholding the face of Jesus.  Our shame veils our eyes which keeps us from fixing our gaze on Jesus and seeing the beauty that God sees in us.  We hide from God and from others.  It is the Holy Spirit that wants to  remove these veils that distort our view of God, ourselves, and others so that we may "behold" Jesus within us, “as in a mirror.”

What a privilege we have today of being able to abide in the glory of God without intermission.  We can enter into his presence and behold that glory uninterrupted.  With "unveiled" faces we can  continually behold the face of Jesus and we become like him in the process.

Are you beholding Jesus today, and if not, what veils are getting in your way, keeping you from becoming Christ-like?