Month: April 2024

This New Commandment is Deep

by Ms. Rita's Minute

Today I wanted to start my prayer time by reading aloud from the Bible’s book of Psalms as a prayer of my own. I arrived at one of David’s prayers and could not continue because it sounded so much like a curse against his enemies. Nevertheless, I understood his emotions having read all he had experienced from his adversaries in life. However, now we live in a new era after Jesus’ death and resurrection. We have been given a new commandment; a new edict, order, or rule: “Love one another.” (John 13:34) Moreover, this also includes loving our enemies as is taught by Jesus in Luke 6:27.

Interestingly, Jesus indicates it’s no big deal to love those who love us, and for most, if not all of us, even this is a difficult task. Yet the real demonstration of God’s love is loving our enemies (Luke 6:32-34). After all, this is what God does regularly showing His mercy and grace to everyone, though society sometimes represents this action as weak and wimpy behavior.

It’s actually scary to me sometimes, the thought of loving someone who may verbally or even physically abuse me. Yet God has ways unlike our ways and knows what is beneficial and wise for us in our responses to evil. We live to please Him. The Bible says to do good to them and lend to them without expecting anything in return. We are told to be kind and merciful to them (Luke 6:35-36). He tells us to bless and not to curse them and to pray for those who mistreat us.  He even tells us if someone slaps us on one cheek, to turn to them the other also, and If someone takes our coat, to not withhold our shirt from them (Luke 6:28-29). Now mastering these incredible feats really gets our Father’s attention and we will be rewarded by Him.

Nevertheless, I’m convinced that it is impossible to consistently love everyone without the help of the Holy Spirit. He’s the only person who can infuse us with the power to truly love someone who hates, hurts, and harasses us. Yet He doesn’t require us to repay them with like behavior. He is God and knows every unique fiber of their being and doing. So it is only God’s right and authority to handle them accordingly. Thankfully, God is love (1 John 4:8)!

May God give us the strength and courage to love everyone, including our enemies. Despite what society, and even some of our own brothers and sisters, teach us about self-preservation, we are commanded by God to live and respond differently–biblically. As a parent with children or a teacher with students, we may not always enjoy some methods of loving when we aren’t hearing or receiving exactly what we want at the time. Nevertheless, love in its many expressions, is an amazing blessing.

A Christian’s journey is a life of submission to a king and kingdom unlike any we’ve ever known. One that is not worldly, but where love is the chief commandment for living a holy and righteous life. In it, our aim is to do no wrong to a neighbor, even if he’s an enemy. By this we glorify the Father, acting like our Dad.

To me, in some ways, it just makes life easier; love them all! No need to pick and choose who gets the love. Though costly, God repays. Our enemies’ evil issues are not ours to transform. We can only say and do what God says. However, we leave it to God to change hearts in His highest sovereignty and wisdom, while we continue in prayer and obedience as an authentic follower of Christ. As we fellowship with our Father who is love, may we mature in expressing His kind of love to others.

Dealing with Adversaries

by Ms. Rita's Minute

I believe it’s quite amazing how we’re told in the New Testament of the Bible to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us; to bless those who curse us and to pray for those who mistreat us. (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:28). Yet, we are given some interesting instructions relating to dealing with the trouble we may incur from our adversaries, which may be encouraging to know. These promises give us hope and confidence that our God takes good care of us during difficult relational issues.

I’m offering the following three reminders that point us toward the right thinking regarding our state of mind and behavior when encountering problems with people whose hearts are set firmly against us.

Our attitude regarding vengeance:
Romans 12:19-21, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Our trust concerning defense:
Psalm 44:6-7, “I put no trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory, but you give us victory over our enemies, you put our adversaries to shame.”

Our help in times of trouble:
Psalm 41:1-3, “Blessed are those who have regard for the weak; the Lord delivers them in times of trouble. The Lord protects and preserves them–they are counted among the blessed in the land–he does not give them over to the desire of their foes. The Lord sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.”

There are many additional scriptures relating to believers and God’s instructions on vengeance, defense, and trouble. It will help us to do biblical research on those three words to encourage faith in the Lord’s wisdom in dealing with our adversaries.

Staying Faithful in Focus

by Ms. Rita's Minute

Whether we’re male or female, we can learn a great deal from the life of Solomon in 1 Kings 1:28-11:43 of the Bible. He was the son of King David and Bathsheba and was the wisest and wealthiest king in the world. Nevertheless, this wisdom did not stop him from making some very poor decisions that caused some unfortunate circumstances in history, something we all can do. It is possible to gain godly wisdom but err in exercising it in our lives. We’ve been given the freedom to choose to focus on godly priorities or those carnal desires of our own that pale in comparison.

As King David was about to pass away, his instructions to Solomon were to act like a man and observe and walk in obedience to whatever God required, according to the Law of Moses. He said that in doing so, the Lord would prosper him wherever he went in all that he did. It would also mean that the Lord’s promises to David would be kept if his descendants watched how they lived and walked wholeheartedly and faithfully before God. Then, David would never fail to have a successor on Israel’s throne.

The Bible says that Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the instructions of his father, King David, except he offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places. David had also married the daughter of Pharaoh (King of Egypt) through an alliance with the king, taking her to the City of David, until he finished building the temple and his palace. The people were still sacrificing at the high places because a temple had not yet been built for the Lord.

God appeared to Solomon in a dream and told him to ask Him for whatever he wanted. Solomon replied that he wanted a discerning heart to govern His people and to distinguish between right and wrong. The Lord was pleased with that request and told him that He would give him a wise and discerning heart as well as what he hadn’t asked for–wealth and honor. Further, if he walked in obedience to God and kept His decrees and commands, He would give him a long life.

Later, Solomon succeeded in building the Lord’s temple as well as his palace and is known as one to whom God gave wisdom and great insight, “greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. …From all nations people came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.” (1 Kings 4:30-34) Yet, how in the world did such a great man of wisdom and prominence, end up doing such a dishonorable thing, by marrying many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter, against God’s instructions?

God had told the Israelites that they weren’t to intermarry with the foreigners (not because of their skin color) but because they would turn their hearts after their gods. Yet the Bible says, “… Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines and his wives led him astray.” (1 Kings 11:2-3) Can you imagine relating to one thousand women on that level? How is that humanly possible? I imagined, viewing the following photo, that this amount of women would be a drop in the bucket compared to Solomon’s household. Mind-boggling.

It’s interesting but sad to read what Solomon did in appeasing his wives that made God “angry”, though He had appeared to Solomon twice, and also forbade him from following other gods. As a result, the kingdom would be torn from him and given to one of his subordinates. However, for his father’s sake, he wouldn’t do this in Solomon’s lifetime but would tear it out of the hand of his son, though still allowing his son one tribe. I love how merciful, yet just God is.

I believe these events show us the power of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. These things come from the world and not from God. These are the things we as humans, still on earth, struggle with and have to kill. It gives more insight into the importance of Romans 8:12-13, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Thank God for His Holy Spirit, whereby we can live according to God’s will for our lives. We who live under God’s new covenant have now received this grace and ability not to live after our own lusts. Yet we will always have a choice in the decisions we make; the option to do what’s right or wrong. God will not take that privilege away from us.

So we must keep our laser-like focus on the priorities God gives to us for our lives–those people He’s placed in our lives to love; the places we are to live and worship; and the ministries for which he’s provided our gifts. Thankfully, God lavishly provides access directly to Him through prayer, as well as His Bible, and gifts to the church via apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healing, helping, guidance, and different kinds of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:28).

A Healthy Difference

by Ms. Rita's Minute

What does it mean to be different? What does it mean to be set apart? Being different is described as being dissimilar, distinct, unlike, or separate. As God’s holy people, His set-apart ones, we carry the spiritual presence of our Father wherever we go. Though every word and action may not have reached the full level of perfection, there is a noticeable difference between ourselves, patterning our lives based on God’s standards, versus the world’s or society’s trends and human methods or desires of thinking. As we recognize humans are flawed in many aspects, we remain as such in our thinking, without the influence of our Creator who is all-knowing, everywhere, and all-powerful.

Thankfully, God has provided statutes, commandments, declarations, and attitudes based on heavenly principles that far differ from those of this world’s system. For example, God tells us in Matthew 5: 43-45, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. ‘ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Yet the world encourages us to hit back if we are hit. Also, God tells us in Luke 6:38 to “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Nevertheless, the world elevates getting money–more and more–even if you have to step on others to do so.

If we live within a system that functions differently from God’s kingdom, we can expect to be ridiculed, mocked, misunderstood, and even slandered or bullied, much like the children who appear to be weird or odd compared to their classmates. Yet interestingly, if we find the world and those who love it, adore us, we might need to self-reflect to see if we’ve actually become just like them.

Jesus already told us in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. …” He also told us in John 15:20, ” ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.” Hence, we are faced with the choice of faith in the Way, Jesus Christ of the Bible, or human logic, philosophy, and reason. This entails God’s way of faith–believing without seeing, over human understanding–God’s Kingdom over our worldly culture.

We as believers have found in Jesus a new and better way of living differently based on life in the spirit, versus life based solely on our own wants and needs. For this, we need God’s Holy Spirit active within us, alive and active in our everyday lives, His word, the Bible, strong in our thinking and doing.

1 Corinthians 2:13-16 shows us how amazing it is to think like Christ. “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,  for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.”

As a result, we are different in what we believe, say, and do. With gratefulness, we have the freedom or right in this country to share our beliefs and to invite whoever we may to experience our way of worship and love. We are free to share the promises, gifts, and warnings the Lord has provided us for living the godly and abundant life the Lord has given us, remembering, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” ( John 10:10) Hence, he works with us to take part in this endeavor, by sharing with others.

So we aren’t afraid to be different or uncommon, unusual or rare. It is with us as it was with Jesus when He walked the earth. At least that is how we aim for it to be. “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.  He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” (1 John 2:5-6) “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)

We recognize it is not by our own power or strength, but by God’s Spirit, that we can live life healthy and holy before Him. Moreover, God, in His Bible, makes it crystal clear, what is right and what is wrong. No method of changing or deleting it will matter. He has clearly instructed us on how to behave and how not to behave and left us with gifts to the Church to edify and instruct us on living this different life. “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11-13)

Thankfully, God sanctifies and works with us to accomplish what He’s created us to do in life. To sanctify means to consecrate, set apart, and declare holy. In this, we are made different. The world as a result will see us as different and hopefully want to join us–a very good thing!