Showing posts with label leaven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leaven. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
What Is IN God's Love? - Patience
We can possess better patience when we realize that most people are doing the best they can, especially when we consider all the factors that have made them who they are. Then even if they could do better, you probably can't force that to happen, and why would you want to?
For instance, your one year old is crawling and maybe even beginning to walk. She has the innate desire to explore and so she touches everything that is on her level. No matter if it could possibly hurt her, she will touch it anyway.
This is but one of a mixture of reasons she does this…and one does not need to go to college to know what they are. She is not only driven by her age, but she is also driven by her inborn temperament and personality…but with no practical knowledge to temper her exploration. Grasping this understanding makes it easier to have patience with her. However, sometimes we still get agitated and impatient until we practice keeping these very important facts in mind...that essentially, she is doing the best she can.
Psalm 119:130 The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.
Proverbs 2:2 Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding.
Take a minute and think about the natural world around us. God's creation is another place to gain great insight as well. Look at a kangaroo for instance when you take your children to the zoo. Can it walk? No, at least not in the conventional sense. Kangaroos hop. Their legs cannot move independently of one another, so expecting kangaroos to walk or run like you and I would be ludicrous.
This gives a zoo keeper, for instance, all the patience in the world when trying to lead them from one place to another. He knows that this animal has fixed limits that cannot change, so getting impatient would be a waste of time and energy. Therefore, having this very basic knowledge gives him something very valuable and attainable - patience. This in turn leads to a more enjoyable experience as he works with these unique creatures.
God commands that we love...and patience is the first ingredient. (See 1 Cor. 13:4) Being patient with others shows them Christ...and it comes much easier with the understanding that most people are doing the best they can with what they have. ~
In fact this is why God is able to have such patience with us...and why He wanted us to taste, but not permanently stay trying to live up to the law -- because the law had zero patience...whereas Christ has immeasurable patience! Likewise why He wants us to emulate Christ so we can better obey His command to treat others as we would want others to treat us.
God understands that we are doing the best we can with what we have, this is why He has such patience with us ~
Psalm 103: 14 For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only
dust.
Romans 7: 8 I know that nothing good lives in me; that is, nothing good lives in my corrupt nature. Although I have the desire to do what is right, I don't do it. 19I don't do the good I want to do. Instead, I do the evil that I don't want to do. 20Now, when I do what I don't want to do, I am no longer the one who is doing it. Sin that lives in me is doing it. 21So I've discovered this truth: Evil is present with me even when I want to do what God's standards say is good. 22I take pleasure in God's standards in my inner being.
23However, I see a different standard [at work] throughout my body. It is at war with the standards my mind sets and tries to take me captive to sin's standards which still exist throughout my body. 24What a miserable person I am! Who will rescue me from my dying body? 25I thank God that our Lord Jesus Christ rescues me! So I am obedient to God's standards with my mind, but I am obedient to sin's standards with my corrupt nature.
Romans 9: 22 If
God wants to demonstrate his anger and reveal his power, he can do it. But can't
he be extremely patient with people who are objects of his anger because they
are headed for destruction? 23Can't God also reveal
the riches of his glory to people who are objects of his mercy and who he had
already prepared for glory? 24This is what God did
for us whom he called-whether we are Jews or not.
God wants us to be patient not only based on His command to do so, but also based on our understanding that most people are doing the best they can ~ as well as the understanding that when we are showing impatience it is usually because there is some demand we've made of another that was not met...meaning that they really had no choice as far as you were concerned. So impatience is many times brought on because we are only thinking of our own wants, as well as expecting that others should be and act like us...and not treating others in the same way we would want to be treated.
1 Cor. 9:22 When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some.
Romans 15:1 We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.
Romans 14:1 Welcome people who are weak in faith (patience), but don't get into an argument over differences of opinion. (impatience)
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The Nature Of Leaven - A Study
The writers of scripture have used the image of yeast many times to explain a very important premise in scripture...
Leaven, or yeast as we call it, is actually a composition of tiny individual plants, each one so small that it can only be seen through the eye of a very powerful microscope. Like all other plants they require food, and they find this in the dough they are placed in. The dough is made up of various kinds of substances and the yeast takes one of them as food, and in doing so sets free another substance called carbonic acid gas. This gas bubbles up and makes the heavy dough spongy and light. If it were not for these tiny bubbles of gas your bread would be as heavy and dense as a soft brick.
This is the reason why yeast is put into dough for making bread or cake. One of the most remarkable things about this yeast is, that when it gets into any substance that contains it's food, it begins to grow buds like most all plants do, however within just moments yeast does this and breaks away. So rapid is this increase, that if a single yeast-plant were to be put into a great mass of dough it would very quickly leaven the whole mass.
After understanding what yeast does it really helps us understand better what God wants us to know...that no matter what it is that leaven is being used to describe, the result is quicker than we can imagine, as well as thorough!
Matthew 13:33 Jesus also used this illustration: "The Kingdom of Heaven
is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a
little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the
dough."
The above scripture tells us, especially after understanding what yeast does...is that the Kingdom of Heaven is made to permeate our whole lives. Not just our church life, or our plans, or how we treat those we love...but every single area including those areas we would rather be in charge of -- our words (tongue) for instance, or our carnal attitudes as listed in Galatians 5: 19.
This means that it will do what it was created to do unless we have not become a part of the Kingdom of God yet. Some might say that we can halt the process by our stubbornness, however, God's love toward us is even more stubborn and therefore He disciplines us until we give in. We have this life in mind when we are stubborn...but God has all of eternity in mind, therefore He loves us too much to leave us behind!
Usually however yeast or leaven is used to describe sin and the effects sin has...this is why God had literal laws about the use and disuse of yeast at certain times in the OT, as it gave them and us a perfect type of what kind of relationship we should have with sin. Understanding this helps us get much more out of scriptures such as the ones in the following url.
One thing I notice in this segment of scripture is that it helps us see how leaven is used in relation to those in the church that we are to judge...those who have allowed the leaven of sin to permeate their lives to the point where they need to be dealt with. Then in contrast, in many other parts of scripture it is obvious that we are to do the opposite, as we are being reminded in those instances to be patient with the faults of others and before we try to judge the speck in their eye, we are to deal with the log in our own. (although I believe this is what we are to do before any and all evaluating of others) So we are to make sure we understand that some people are growing and the sin in their lives is on it's way out...and then there are some people who's sin is becoming more entrenched in their lives.
http://worldebible.com/1_corinthians/5.htm
In the following url is where we can find the heart of the story of when the Israelites left Egypt. You will notice one of the central themes is what to do and what not to do with leaven...to the point of not leavening the dough before the exodus because they would not have time to let the dough rise because they would be leaving so quickly. Therefore, one thing it communicates to us is that we enter our new life completely clean! No leaven at all. Not even a speck. Then there was something else that happened to them that sealed the beginning of this new life. This 'happening' is a type of Christ's work on the cross...can you find it?
I would highly encourage you to dig in to this story and relish in the 'types' it gives as another way of pointing to what Christ was destined to do...and well, has done!
http://nlt.scripturetext.com/exodus/12.htm
Exodus 12: 9 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born.
Even the Jews of today that keep the law as closely as they can, keep busy in their endeavors to keep it
I had the opportunity to visit a family’s home such as this once. I had taken a Nanny job with a Jewish family a number of years ago for about 10 days. They were not Orthodox Jews, but their children went to an Orthodox school and went by their many rules. While I was caring for them, they were invited to another family’s home for a Jewish celebration. So, I was given very strict written instructions on when and how to drop them off on Friday, and then when and how to pick them up on Saturday eve. I was not to knock on the door before or after very specific times, and was warned about what I could and could not send with them to eat and etc.
It took a lot of preparation and work to make sure everything was adhered to. Their mother said that she came from a home like this…where (during Passover) they had to clean the whole house several times to make sure it was completely void of leaven. The dishes were put through the dish washer more then once…and then the dishes that were used for certain foods on a normal basis, could not be used for Passover.
It is plain to me that Jesus came to show us that the whole reason the law was given was so that we could have a good solid picture of what was to come ~ that more than wonderful act He did for us on the cross!!
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