FUNDAMENTALS
OF DISCIPLESHIP
Yirmeyahu
(Jeremiah) 4:3 For
thus saith IAUE to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground,
and sow not among thorns.
4 Circumcise yourselves to IAUE, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
4 Circumcise yourselves to IAUE, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
Last week’s post ended with this
comment:
|
These
four steps are actually just two steps repeated in a different way.
Break
of your fallow ground / Sow not among thorns
and
Circumcise
yourself to IAUE / Take away the foreskin of your heart.
There
is a common misconception when it comes to “fallow ground.” Generally, when one thinks of fallow ground
an image of a dried river bed or creek comes to mind where the ground has
hardened from lack of water, and the surface is cracked into a maze of separate
puzzle piece looking clods.
This is not a correct image. Fallow ground is ground
that has been plowed; but has been allowed to sit unseeded for a prolonged
period of time. Fallow ground, due to
the lack of human attention, becomes overrun with nettles, weeds and, thorns.
It is an excellent depiction of the heart of a
newborn disciple who has never been shown or taught what he should do next; or
of the disciple who ceases his training for a period of time and decides to…“glide" on his own for awhile. Without the
constant watch care, discipline and obedience, the flesh will provide its own
seed to grow within our hearts. If we
are not actively committed to producing the fruit of the Spirit, we will
produce thorns.
Fallow ground is depicted in the parable of the
sower:
Mark 4:3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow…
7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and
choked it, and it yielded no fruit…
18 And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the
word,
19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of
riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word,
and it becometh unfruitful.
Here we see from the Master’s own mouth what
characterizes fallow ground…hardened hearts.
Does it not sound familiar?
1 John
2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If
any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the
lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but
is of the world.
The love of the world is the thorns. The thorns are characterized in three
categories:
1 John 2 Mark
4
The lust of the flesh
/ The cares of this world
The lust of the eyes / The
lusts of other things
The pride of life / The deceitfulness of riches
I doubt it is necessary to go into detail about any
of these items. We pretty much know what
they are from intimate experience with them.
These are the thorns that grow in our hearts when our hearts do not daily
attend to our discipleship, our service to the Master. We are commanded to break up this fallow
ground if we have any intention of having fellowship with IAUE. We do not get a second chance at this. It is not something that is going to “happen
to us” in the resurrection of the saints.
We deceive ourselves into thinking we can retain
this darkness in our lives and at the same time grow in grace and have
fellowship with the Father and the Son and with the saints. The clear command of Scripture is “Do not sow
among thorns.” The parable of the sower
explains that the seed cannot grow among thorns. The thorns will choke the seed, the Word of
IAUE, until it becomes unfruitful. Do
you recall what the Master did when he found the fig tree without fruit?
Bearing fruit, however, is easy. It comes naturally to the one whose heart
belongs to the Master. The Master has no
problem growing fruit in a garden that has been prepared for him.
Circumcise
yourself to IAUE / Take away the foreskin of your heart.
What we fail to understand is that when we walk in
darkness, we erect a wall within our heart to prevent “interference” to our
selfish inclinations coming from the spirit, where the Master speaks to us; and
where the Father reveals His will to us.
The fleshly driven heart wants it both ways. It wants to hear the voice of the Spirit of
IAUE when it wants to; and NOT hear His voice when it wants not to hear
it. This reminds me of an experience in
my youth when I was with my girlfriend in a very private setting. She looked at me and said, “Let’s pray
together.” Talk about something I did
not want to hear! I did NOT want to
introduce the Spirit of IAUE into that setting right then. Had I been spiritually wiser when I was that
age, I would have seen the experience as extremely illuminating and of great
benefit to my spiritual growth; but alas, it was nothing more than an
irritation to me at the time.
This resistance to the will of IAUE, this luxury of
pursuing the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life,
creates a wall…a foreskin upon our hearts that must be removed before any
genuine spiritual growth may continue and be experienced. Can you guess what circumcises that
wall? Yes, it is repentance; but as we
have seen in recent postings, one of the most powerful elements of repentance
is bringing our sin into the light…confessing our sin to another brother or
sister in Messiah; or even to the body at large.
1
John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
This verse, as we have explained several times over
the past year, is used routinely by Christians who imagine to do sin, recognize
it is wrong; but convince themselves they will simply pray 1 John 1:9 after
they have done or said or gotten what they want; and the Father will forgive
them and cleanse them from unrighteousness. It doesn’t even occur to them that
their theology tells them that they are already forgiven, even of future sins,
and that there can be no unrighteousness to cleanse in those who are in Messiah
Yahushua. This verse, however, somehow
stands as an escape clause to doing what they know is in violation of the will
of IAUE.
The problem with this mentality is that it relies
upon the understanding that it is to IAUE that one confesses his sin. Unfortunately, that is not the point of this
verse. IAUE already knows you sinned. He
does not need you to tell Him what He already knows. In context, this verse is talking about our
ability to have fellowship with IAUE and with our brothers and sisters in
Messiah. What is in the dark in our
lives is not in the dark to IAUE. We do
not bring anything into His light by telling Him what we have done. We bring our deeds done in darkness to the
light when we expose the truth of them to our brothers and sisters in Messiah.
How do you suppose this would impact the
millions of “believers” in the world today, if they knew that their restoration
into the fellowship of IAUE and of the saints is dependent upon them telling
their spouse, their pastor, or their friends what they have done? Only in this way is it possible to circumcise
the foreskin of their hearts. Only in
this way is it possible for the thorns to be removed from our fallow
ground.
Hebrews 3:13 But exhort one
another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
“Gliding” is not allowed in the life of the
disciple. The Holy Spirit provided us
this evidence that sin seeks to deceive and to overthrow us at the earliest
opportunity; and if we are truly those who have bowed the knee to Messiah, we
will not only want to confess our sins openly in order to be rid of them; but
we will exhort and encourage each other to make their own confession…to bring
every aspect of our lives into the light.
We must know that any darkness we allow in our lives is only giving
opportunity for our hearts to become hard, again.
We cannot move on in our
discipleship from this point if we do not realistically address this urgent
need in our lives and act as the Scripture expects us to act in confessing our
sins to each other. Not until then is
there forgiveness and cleansing from unrighteousness; and without that, you can
forget your discipleship to Yahushua.
Kingdom heart: a heart that offers no resistance to the performance
of the will of IAUE.
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