A KINGDOM HEART - XXI

WBS.051

FUNDAMENTALS OF DISCIPLESHIP

A KINGDOM HEART – XXI

Deuteronomy 6:4  Hear, O Israel: IAUE our Elohim; is one IAUE: 
5  And thou shalt love IAUE thy Elohim with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Last week’s post ended with this comment: 

	The gospel is not a message of “Just accept Jesus into your hearts and you will go to Heaven when you die.”  No, it is a command to a change of heart.  It is a transformation of life from enslavement to our own will to willful servitude to the Master’s will.  The end of this command is a loving and pure relationship with the King.

 

Yahushua came to prepare a people who will do the will of His Father. He demonstrated what that kind of life would look like by living it himself.

John 6:38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

One of the most significant differences between contemporary Christian “believers” and “disciples” of Yahushua Messiah is that believers, once having believed, embrace a religious culture and live out their lives within the parameters of their church’s expectations.  A disciple is totally unconcerned with religious culture and is focused daily on the knowing and doing of the will of IAUE.  A believer can go about a normal week and seldom give thought to his/her faith; but a disciple finds it impossible to exist without a continuously attentive ear to the voice of the Holy Spirit. 

This ability of a believer to have very little conscious daily interaction with Messiah or with IAUE is a natural consequence of having responded to a false gospel message. When believers rest their confidence upon having once prayed to accept Messiah into their life to assure them of a blissful eternity; they are no longer placing “present continuous trust” in Messiah. Their faith has been replaced with confidence in a subjective experience in their own life.  The moment that happens, they step out of the flow of IAUE’s grace; and doing the will of IAUE becomes impossible to them.  (Note:  We are saved by grace; and grace is the power that IAUE gives that enables us to do His will.)

Part of the problem associated with this syndrome is what I have referred to in a prior posting as “the problem with the invisible god.”  Because we cannot SEE Him, we can lose awareness of Him; and the natural world around us takes over our lives, because it is what we can see, taste, hear, smell and feel.  These are the senses of our flesh; and our flesh is not to rule our lives.  IAUE understood this problem and made provision for it; and that brings us to our verses for today.

Deuteronomy 6:4  Hear, O Israel: IAUE our Elohim; is one IAUE: 
5  And thou shalt love IAUE thy Elohim with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

"Shema Yisrael, Adonai el-oheinu, Adonai echad."  It is the prayer that, for millenia, the Hebrews have prayed when they rise in the morning and when they retire at night.  It is the prayer uttered when full of joy and when bowed low in despair.  It is the first prayer taught to the children, and the last words uttered by the dying.  "Hear, O Israel: IAUE our Elohim, is one IAUE."

The "Shema" (as it is called) is a declaration of faith.  In its few words, the Hebrews declared that they were a monotheistic people; that they belonged to and worshipped the One True Elohim.  It identified who they were, both as a people and as individuals within the Hebrew collective.  There were no others like them on the earth.  They were "the people of IAUE."

Today, another prayer has taken an equal role in the lives of "the people of IAUE."  Yahushua taught His disciples to pray, "Our Father..." thus recognizing the nature of family among those whose Elohim is IAUE, while continuing to instill the reality that Elohim is One.  He is the Father.

It is helpful to understand the context of this prayer, which is taken from three separate passages in the Old Testament scriptures.  It is very revealing of the strategy and wisdom of IAUE.

Deuteronomy 6:1 Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which IAUE your Elohim commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it:
2 That thou mightest fear IAUE thy Elohim, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.
3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as IAUE, the Elohim of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.
4 Hear, O Israel: IAUE our Elohim is one IAUE:
5 And thou shalt love IAUE thy Elohim with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.
9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates."

Deuteronomy 11:13 And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love IAUE your Elohim, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,
14 That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.
15 And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.
16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;
17 And then IAUE's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which IAUE giveth you.
18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.
19 And ye shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
20 And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates:
21 That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which IAUE sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."

Numbers 15:37 And IAUE spake unto Moses, saying,
38 Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue:
39 And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of IAUE, and do them ; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:
40 That ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your Elohim.
41 I am IAUE thy Elohim, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your Elohim: I am IAUE thy Elohim.

Can you see what is transpiring in these passages of scripture?  IAUE had separated unto Himself a chosen people (In the Old Covenant, it was the Hebrews.  In the New Covenant, He has made of both Jew and Gentile, one person in the Body of Messiah.); and devised a strategy for setting them apart from the rest of the world, and for sanctifying them before Himself. Man is a fallen and depraved creature.  To aid the Hebrews in living differently, in living as the people belonging to the One True Elohim, He gave them commandments and statutes and testimonies and judgments.  He instructed them to teach them to each other and to their children when they woke up in the morning, when they sat around the house, when they went outside, when they went to bed at night, and again upon rising the next morning...over and over and over again.  They were to wear them on their clothes and place them upon their door posts and upon the gates to their property.  If they were not able to discuss the Word of Elohim, they would at least be able to SEE it, and seeing it, be reminded of what Elohim required of them.  It was virtually impossible NOT to be aware of IAUE because of all the physical reminders.

When you are discussing and teaching the Word of Elohim when you first rise in the morning, when you are awake in your home, when you leave your home, when you return to your home, and when you lie down for bed at night, when is there time not to be aware of Elohim; and being made aware, not sense a responsibility to do as He wills? Yet, believers today struggle to find even five minutes each day to read the Scriptures.  We can find twenty minutes for the daily newspaper; we can find an hour to read the latest best-seller; we can find hours to watch television every day; but we cannot find time to read the Scriptures. Even when we attend church, we are exposed to little more than a verse here and a verse there.  At what time in the life of the contemporary disciple of Messiah Yahushua does he/she ever become literally saturated with the Scriptures as were the early Hebrews that obeyed the instructions in the above cited passages of scripture?

(Consider your own feelings as you were reading this post.  When you saw three large sections of Scripture, back to back, did you not feel the desire to bypass reading the Scripture and to move down to where the commentary continues, instead?  Why would a disciple not rather see it the other way; and long to read the Scripture, and consider the commentary as secondary reading material?)

Paul gave us the New Testament equivalent of the Shema when he said:

Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of Elohim, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto Elohim, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of Elohim.

If we read this passage as a commandment given to us by IAUE through His chosen apostle; then we must acknowledge that in order to be obedient to this commandment, we must provide for the continuous renewal of our thought processes by routine and persistent exposure to the Scriptures and to the voice of the Holy Spirit.  That does not leave us time to become unaware of IAUE in our lives; because the whole focus of our lives is to learn to think as He thinks, in order to learn more accurately and correctly how to know and to do His will.

---

Kingdom heart: a heart that offers no resistance to the performance of the will of IAUE.

---

A KINGDOM HEART - XX

WBS.050

FUNDAMENTALS OF DISCIPLESHIP

A KINGDOM HEART – XX

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Last week’s post ended with this comment: 

	1 Timothy 1:5 Now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure                               heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:     A pure heart is the objective.  This is what we must pursue.

 

Can we really imagine any other objective of the gospel?  Do we really believe that IAUE sent His son to die a cruel death on our behalf just so He could install an “ally ally in come free” message to mankind? Yes, it is a “whosever will may come” message; but the results are dependent upon what the “whosoever” are willing to do when they come.  Yahushua did not die to provide eternal security to men who would remain rebels against the authority of Elohim.  He gave His life to empower men to be "doers of the Word, not hearers only” (James 1:25). 

Being forgiven of our sins is not salvation.  All men have been forgiven their sins.  They do not have to ask to be forgiven.  It is an accomplished fact because of the death of Messiah.

Colossians 2:13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his stake;

2 Corinthians 5:19 To wit, that IAUE was in Messiah, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Peter’s first message on the day of Pentecost provides us the key to understanding this mystery.

Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Yahushua Messiah for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

There is a difference between forgiveness and remission.  Sin has two consequences: guilt and punishment.  Forgiveness is the absolving of the guilt that is the just consequence of sin. It isn’t the removal of the punishment that is the just consequence of sin. (A criminal may be forgiven by the victim of his crime; but he is still going to prison for his crime.) Remission is freedom from the power of sin, thus freedom from its punishment.  An old Wesley hymn contains one of my favorite lyrics:  “He breaks the power of cancelled sin.  He sets the prisoner free.”  Just because the world is forgiven does not mean they are free from the power of sin or of its punishment.  Remission frees man from the power of “cancelled sin,” and it is through the remission of sins that we are made to know and experience salvation; i.e., the liberty to obey the will of IAUE.

Luke 1:77 To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins…

We have seen that we are “saved by grace” (Eph 2:8); and that grace is the power that IAUE gives us to enable us to do His will.  Grace is given for absolutely NO OTHER PURPOSE.  If we are NOT doing the will of IAUE, we are either not receiving His grace or we are resisting His grace.  Either condition (not receiving grace, or resisting grace) is not admired by IAUE nor is it beneficial to man.  Salvation is what man experiences when he responds to and cooperates with the grace of IAUE.

The proud are not even candidates for IAUE's grace, as He is opposed to the proud in the same way a soldier is opposed to his enemy.   To the humble heart, Elohim pours out His grace.  The humble is then empowered to do His will.

James 4:6  But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, IAUE resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

1 Peter 5:5 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for IAUE resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

So, the first principal of discipleship to Messiah is to take his yoke upon ourselves and to learn his meekness and lowliness of heart; and the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart.  In fact, the Scripture is utterly focused upon the heart of man.  The word “heart” is found 884 times in the Scriptures: 724 times in the Old Testament, 160 times in the New Testament.

This brings us to our verse for today.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

This is a well-known verse within Christendom.  I have heard many teachers and preachers recite this verse in their presentations; but the central point of this verse is overlooked more often than not, because the verse is taken out of context every single time.  Look at the beginning of this passage of Scripture.

Jeremiah 17:1 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;

The imagery of an iron pen with a diamond point suggests the extraordinarily wicked nature of the sin of the people who call themselves the people of IAUE.  Their sin is engraved upon their heart; which is to say, the very nature of the heart is resistant to the will of IAUE.  Notice, also, the prophet adds the phrase, “and upon the horns of your altars.”  The altars were where sacrifice was made.  The brazen altar in the tabernacle was the focal point of the Hebrews’ relationship with IAUE.  Also, to commemorate a victory, or to give recognition that IAUE is to be honored in a place, the Hebrews would erect an altar in His name. In other words, they could go through all the motions of being the people of IAUE, observing His laws and outwardly honoring Him with their actions, and yet still be exceedingly wicked of heart.  IAUE took no pleasure in them.  It is for this reason the prophet declared that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

Matthew 15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

Acts 7:51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye.

The heart is extremely subtle, attempting at every turn to confirm the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life as the right choice (1 John 2:15-16).  How often have we sought IAUE's will about a matter; but desiring a particular outcome; only to find our own hearts convincing us that we heard Him say to do that very thing we wanted to do?  How many times have we told IAUE, "I will never do that again," only to do it again before nightfall?  How many times have we looked temptation in the face and told ourselves, “Go ahead and do it.  I can confess it afterwards according to 1 John 1:9?”  How many times have we contemplated doing evil, recognized what IAUE said about it, but justified doing it anyway?  How many times have we counseled others to do what is right when we were not even doing it ourselves?  How often have we done in secret what we would never want to be made known in public?

If we do not recognize our innate tendency to resist the will of IAUE, we will be no different than the Hebrews of which Jeremiah spoke.  If we believe that uttering a “magic prayer” will secure our eternal destiny; and that the efforts of our flesh to do the righteous deed will satisfy the King of Glory, we will be sorely disappointed in the Judgment.

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Master, Master, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Master, Master, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Remember, the Kingdom of IAUE does not come with observation.  It comes within the heart of man.  The outward deeds are nothing more than mere show or window dressing if the heart is not right with IAUE.

Hebrews 3:12  Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living Elohim.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of Messiah, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

James 4:8 Draw nigh to Elohim, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

In order to possess a pure heart, a kingdom heart, we must recognize that it is to be sought earnestly.  It is to be zealously pursued.  It is to be protected, exhorted and encouraged...daily.

Jeremiah 17:10 I, IAUE, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

The gospel is not a message of “Just accept Jesus into your hearts and you will go to Heaven when you die.”  No, it is a command to a change of heart.  It is a transformation of life from enslavement to our own will to willful servitude to the Master’s will.  The end of this command is a loving and pure relationship with the King.

---

Kingdom heart: a heart that offers no resistance to the performance of the will of IAUE.

---