Old but not Obsolete

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)

I realized as I read this verse this morning that it is obviously referring to the quotation immediately preceding in the last verse talking about the attitude of Jesus. The New Testament writers often quoted the Old Testament Scriptures to show how truth and prophecy are not disconnected between the two periods of time.

It has become very popular today among many Christians to teach that the Old Testament is obsolete in many ways and therefore we do not have to take it very seriously. They mistakenly teach that since the details of the symbolic services that pointed forward to Jesus are no longer required for believers today that somehow all the rest of the Old Testament lacks credibility. This is a fatal and most dangerous teaching that is giving false comfort to millions in believing that the Law of God and the principles taught in the Old Testament times have somehow been changed or suspended in a supposed new age of grace. These people typically teach a concocted theory of dispensationalism in which God supposedly changes the way He goes about restoring His image in His fallen children in His plan of salvation for different “dispensation” periods of time. But none of this can be realistically supported from the Word of God when properly studied as a whole. Instead, it is a scheme devised to keep people believing that they can never be completely free of the control of sin in their lives and instead that somehow God's grace will just wink at the residual rebellion that they are unwilling to release in their hearts.

But far from being obsolete or irrelevant to our lives today, the Old Testament is a living, powerful testimony to the consistency of God throughout all time. The perfect golden thread of truth about reality and how God created all things to exist in perfect harmony never needs changing or tweaking. To believe that is to insist that God Himself was not perfect enough to create a universe that could effectively be brought through the crisis of sin and rebellion as originally designed. It implies that somehow sin caught God by surprise and He had to come up with one proposal after another in attempts to deal with the sin problem that is causing so much havoc in His universe.

But these are all the musings and theories that only expose the ignorance and the infected nature of the minds of sinful people, not accurate explanations of the way God relates to us over the history of this world. Far from teaching that the Old Testament is no longer applicable to Christians today, the New Testament writers repeatedly refer back to the Old Testament as their source and authority upon which all truth should be based. Jesus Himself declared that He did not come to do away with the Old Testament Scriptures but came specifically to fulfill them. That means that He came to this world to clarify and demonstrate all the principles of life and the heart of God that was so confusing to humanity through all the previous ages.

Peter even declares that the Old Testament Scriptures are even more valid than the personal experiences that Peter himself had experienced while living personally with Jesus on this earth. He declared that personal experience must be confirmation of the truth already seen in Scriptures, not a replacement for it. So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19)

Far from being now obsolete, Paul declares here that the Scriptures – and he can only be referring to the Old Testament because the new was mostly not even written yet at that point in time – were written for our instruction. The word our here is referring to people living after the days of Jesus on this earth. And not only were they written for our instruction but they are also to be a source of encouragement and to induce in our lives this thing called endurance. The resulting effect of properly utilizing the Old Testament Scriptures applied to our hearts and minds according to Paul is the appearance of hope in our hearts and souls.

The stories and instructions and prophecies and accounts collected in the Old Testament Scriptures are a most important and integral part of the foundation upon which our personal Christian experience must be built or it cannot stand the storms of life and the deceptions that will come against us. Hope, faith and love are the three most important elements in the life of a true Christian, and without the Scriptures it will be impossible for us to have the stability that these three things build into our lives to withstand the deceptions and onslaughts of the enemy of our souls and the archenemy of our Father in heaven.

While it is true that many have mistakenly believed that the symbolic rituals and traditions of the Jewish experience in the Old Testament are incumbent on Christians yet today, that does not mean that we should ignore the teachings and revelations about reality that are expose in the Old Testament accounts. When we properly understand both the purpose and the fulfillment of the Old Testament symbols such as the sacrificial system and the feast days and holidays celebrated by the Jews, far from rejecting the Old Testament as authoritative in our lives today we will come to more deeply appreciate and understand the consistency of God throughout all ages. All of those symbolic traditions and requirements are now to be experienced at a whole new level of reality that far supersedes what those original Hebrews were able to experience back in ancient times.

Yes, it is true that we no longer need to offer a lamb as a sacrifice for our sins. The same applies to many other requirements that filled the life of the average Hebrew in the Old Testament period. But every one of those requirements were full of rich hidden meanings that suddenly explodes with significance and insights when studied with the light glowing from the fuller revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Those things are not obsolete but are superseded by realities we should be experiencing that are still fully consistent with the underlying principles that those former external practices were founded upon.

The following passage goes on to insist that it is God Himself that intends for the Scriptures to be the source for our unity in Christ. Whenever we try to bring about unity among Christians without basing that unity on all of the Scriptures available to us, then we are really trying to make a new religion that is not in harmony with God's original plan of salvation. And no matter how many centuries this new religion may have been around or how many millions have embraced it, it still is a counterfeit that must be avoided if we are to be faithful to the Word of God in both the New and the Old Testament Scriptures. Any unity achieved based on methods or theories that distort or abuse the Word of God in support of them are bound to be deceptions that can ruin our souls. And no matter how convincing a deception is or how provable it may appear by stringing proof texts together in its support, the true Spirit of God cannot validate it.

False theories and rejection of the Old Testament are evidences of the desires of selfish hearts looking for excuses to avoid dealing with all of the sin in the heart and life. Whenever we find ourselves excusing or ignoring anything that is exposed by the Word of God we can be sure that we are still living to some extent under the illusions of God's enemy. We can never free ourselves from the deceptions of Satan with our own mental efforts. Only by choosing to embrace a humble and teachable spirit and turning our attention to the true Spirit of Truth and the Scriptures that reveal that truth can we be safe from the contaminating atmosphere of lies about God that permeates everything in this world

When we accept the authority of Scriptures in our lives, both Old and New Testament, and are led by the Spirit of Truth to understand them in their beauty and perfect harmony and how they apply to our lives today, then we will experience the kind of unity that produces true and authentic praise and gratitude that glorifies God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only when Jesus is truly our Lord can we experience and offer up the pure worship that is acceptable to God and that brings His life into our souls.

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Rehydration

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus. (Romans 15:4-5)

When I look at many of the original words behind this text and ponder the implications and inferences of it I am a little bit overwhelmed and excited about how much there is in such a small space. It is clear that there is no way I can unpack and consider all of them in just one session. These verses are rich with meaning and application and are ripe just waiting to be picked and savored.

I find so many surprises when I look at the original Greek. It is sad that I cannot read the Bible in its original languages with training and experience. Like one professor tried to explain, “reading the Bible in any other language besides the original is like trying to enjoy ice cream with a sock on your tongue.” But while I'm quite sure he is very correct about that and I am likely missing a great deal due to my limited abilities, I still deeply appreciate the opportunity that modern technology provides today for anyone to be able to quickly use a computer to examine, at least in a cursory way, what might be lurking beneath the surface by looking at the definitions of each word and then allowing the Holy Spirit to rehydrate the Word of God in the heart of any true seeker.

Now that I think of it, that is part of what this text is really talking about. These two verses back to back make it absolutely clear that it is God who is using the Scriptures to fill our hearts and minds with the truths that create the attitudes or emotions or building materials of the life described here as perseverance and encouragement. It is not enough to just expose ourselves to an intense study of the Scriptures if the heart is not in tune and open to listen to the original Author and Inspirer of the Word. While that does happen far too frequently, if we want to be transformed into the image and likeness of the true God who is goodness, compassion and truth personified, then we will only experience that transformational experience by inviting the Spirit who is part of that Godhead to speak to our hearts as well as our minds while we do our digging in the rich soil of the Word of God.

According to this text it looks to me like that is the very purpose why God provided the Scriptures for us. And based on this revelation it could be assumed that to build my spiritual assumptions and experience on anything other than a diligent exploration of the Scriptures is similar to building a house on the beach with no foundation – and in Galveston no less, if you have heard anything current in the news lately.

When I took a look at the word for instruction I sensed that this was one of those times I wish I had been trained in the original language so I could perceive even more of what might be implied here. But since I don't enjoy that privilege I will share what I do see from the definition of this word.

The Strong's definition for this Greek word is: instruction (the function or the information):–doctrine, learning, teaching. At first glance this appears to be rather left-brain heavy on its emphasis. But then as I looked at it closer I noticed that phrase the function or the information. Now, I have to admit that I am bringing my own bias somewhat to what I am seeing here. But I don't think it is out of line to believe that God fully intends to restore and rewire both the left brain and the right brain in His work of restoration and transformation. So what I am seeing here is a reference to both the right brain – the function of the information – and the left brain – the information for the function. Maybe that is stretching it some, but given the context of how God has been training me over the past few years I can't help but see this interesting point here. However, I will concede that this word seems to be heavier on the information side which also may fit the context.

As I have written about sometime back, I believe that the Scriptures are analogous to freeze-dried, powdered high energy foods that are designed for preservation and safety for very long periods of time. What I pointed out was that when a person desires to reconstitute those foods for proper consumption to enjoy the nutrition and flavors that were in the original foods, it is critical that one uses the proper liquids to rehydrate them. Otherwise a person would come to all sorts of false opinions about the nature or flavors of the original foods and might even consider them toxic or dangerous depending on the content of the liquids used.

Let me use another simplistic analogy. Years ago I took a construction class in college and learned that one of the ways schools teach block-laying it to mix oil with dry cement to make mortar for laying blocks instead of using water. The reason for doing this is so that the mortar will not set up very hard and the blocks can easily be taken apart after the students have had a chance to practice their growing skills on how to use the various tools of the trade.

However, if a person were to observe such a practice and not realize that oil was never intended to be the proper liquid designed for re-hydrating the dry cement for its intended purposes, that person might easily assume that mortar was not a valid substance for building block walls and would likely turn away from the use of cement mortar to look for more reliable adhesives to hold blocks together. But the problem was not that cement is invalid as a building material but that the liquid used to reconstitute the cement was not the water that was the very ingredient removed from the cement to begin with and is needed to re-hydrate the dry mix.

Likewise, the Scriptures are like condensed, powdered milk. Even the Bible uses the analogy likening the Word of God to milk in 1 Corinthians and in Hebrews. But in order to benefit from the original intent of that milk it is vitally important to reconstitute it with the water of life which is the same Holy Spirit that inspired that Word originally. Otherwise the word may appear on the surface to be the right food but it may easily contain toxic, deceptive elements slipped in by the father of lies who is always eager and ready to supply counterfeit liquids or spirits that cause us to get spiritually sick or even delirious from improper use of the Scriptures.

This, I believe, is why the very next verse emphasizes that it is God, the Author of the Scriptures, that is the one who is to teach and supply us with what we need through the use of the Scriptures in our lives. And how do we know if we are listening to the right God as we study the Scriptures? When the outcome of our exposure or ingestion of those passages results in the experience described throughout the very next words.

We will have hope.

We will begin to have more and more the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus.

We will be in one accord.

With one voice we will glorify God the Father.

We will be accepting of one another as described in the previous chapters.

We will reflect the servant spirit that Jesus revealed while here on earth.

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Transformational Gratitude

Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus. (Romans 15:5)

A friend called me yesterday and began sharing with me his gratitude and praise for God while also telling me that his basement had been leaking in the last round of heavy rains. He had been reading about the way that God can oversee every event that comes into our lives and will only allow that which is for our ultimate good. So when God tells us to give thanks in everything He is telling us that everything can work for our good, for God would never ask us to give thanks for anything that is evil.

I was thankful that this friend was so full of encouragement and was sharing it with me. I know that he sometime struggles with discouragement and feels that he has almost no one to share his heart with or to encourage him. We have tried to stay in touch but at times it is long periods between contacts. At the same time I share his feelings of frustration at not having people in our lives who are willing to help bear our weaknesses as described in verse one.

As we continued to discuss together we talked about one of the problems that we typically run into with our attempts to live a life full of gratitude. There seems to be a habit we have that our praises for God usually revolve around supposed blessings, external “good” circumstances and material enhancements for our lives. We also look for things like unusual events where we were supernaturally protected from harm or gained advantage in some way that made us feel more important. It is not hard to listen to a session of typical praise and thanksgiving to hear things of this sort about 99% of the time.

But a very important lesson I heard a few years ago has really affected me and influenced my own thinking along these lines. While it is certainly not wrong to be appreciative of the “blessings” that we perceive as coming from God – and we usually fail to do that nearly enough – it comes with a great risk, a liability that can easily be exploited by Satan to cause us a great deal of discouragement many times.

If the reasons for our thanksgiving are based on the uncertain foundation of temporal blessings and good fortunes that come our way, then we are left with very little reason to entertain a spirit of gratitude whenever it appears that things are suddenly going wrong, that life appears to be falling apart, when trials and temptations surround us with darkness and fear. In those times it is very easy to start believing that God must be upset with us or has withdrawn from us in displeasure for some reason. In other words, we can easily allow Satan to control our perceptions about God and His attitude toward us through manipulation of our circumstances.

I have to say that this has been my experience for most of my life. I have a long history of resistance to gratitude to the point where I became known early on as a person who had very little appreciation for the kindnesses or gifts from others. I was sometimes rebuked for this lack of appreciation which only tended to reinforce my negative attitude and cause me to resent others more than appreciate them. It seemed to me that blessings and gifts always came with strings attached and that if I did not comply with unspoken demands to properly appreciate them that they would be withdrawn. In other words, blessings and love toward me were always conditional upon my proper reception and appreciation of them.

I still struggle with this life-long habit of thinking that is deeply embedded in my psyche from a very young age. But learning this important principle about gratitude has been a very big step in liberating me from this trap of legalistic mentality and self-centered discouragement. For I came to learn that it is far more important and transforming internally to focus the bulk of my attention on the character and motives of the heart behind the gifts instead of basing my gratitude on the gifts themselves. This takes the opportunity away from Satan to manipulate my feelings and opinions about God by yanking me around through constantly changing circumstances.

I give Satan a huge but unfair advantage over God in my life whenever I allow my praise and appreciation to rest only on circumstances or temporal blessings. For in doing so I will form my opinions about God and about how He feels about me based on my current circumstances instead of on His declarations about the true intentions of His heart. By doing this I become easy prey for being blinded by the lies and deceptions about God constantly promoted by Satan and the world around me, and living the life of a Christian becomes a constant chore and takes much more effort than God ever intended.

As I shared with my friend yesterday, and I myself need to me reminded of far more often, I believe that there is an overwhelming power, an enormous reservoir of emotional energy, hope and courage easily available to each one of us if we would learn to tap into the power inherent in true gratitude and praise. Satan and his agents are keenly aware of this great threat to their influence over us and are at work with intense frenzy to prevent us from being energized by this activity. To do this they work tirelessly to push entertainment, fear, stress, busyness and myriads of other distractions into our attention to try to prevent us from breathing this life-giving atmosphere of true praise that energizes all of heaven.

What perked up my attention this morning was that this text in Romans is reinforcing this very truth. I have discovered at times the transforming power of focusing on the truth about God's character in times of intense fear or hopelessness and have felt the peace and rest that comes from choosing to thank God for the truths about what He is really like while consciously turning my attention away from the source of my fears. And while that is an important secret for me to learn, I also realize that this attitude of focusing on the heart of God needs to become the all-consuming passion and obsession of my whole life. This is the preparation for heaven that is truly effective and transformational for my heart and which is the only real preparation that effectively qualifies me for heaven.

As I read this text and the following ones this morning I was reminded that my perseverance and encouragement come from God, not from trying to work them up for myself. And as I allow my heart to warm to this truth – that God is the kind of being who wants to empower me to persevere and is always ready to encourage me – then I find that gratitude will spring up naturally and spontaneously; I don't have to work hard at dutifully giving thanks as I have often felt.

Moving over to this whole new way of thinking and reacting comes with a most powerful result within the body of Christ. For those who begin to live a life focused on the goodness and love of God instead of basing their praise and gratitude only on the externals which are only temporary, will find that their hearts began quickly bonding with each other and the unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17 will began to become obvious and irresistible.

I have seen many programs and attempts and calls for unity among Christians. This has led to all sorts of ideas as to how we should achieve this righteous goal set forth by Jesus. But the problem is often that we try to arrive at it by all sorts of means other than the only true way laid out by Jesus. For if we introduce any false elements into our efforts to achieve unity we have just contaminated the ingredients for His perfect cake and the results will always be a failure to rise and set properly when put in the heat.

Maybe coming to understand the true nature and motives for genuine thanksgiving and praise and getting our focus on seeking God's face and learning the real truth about Him is analogous to the secret ingredient that causes the cake to rise to greater heights that we ever thought imaginable. And as we join our hearts with others who are also discovering the secret power of praise and gratitude based on the right motivations we will discover an amazing family emerging from the present discord seen in religion today. And as we look at what is happening to us with our hearts strangely attracted to those we previously only resented, we will see that it is because it is God who is granting us to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God. (Romans 15:5-7)

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Three Weeks to Conquer

Whenever I come across things that seem a bit too obvious, pieces of information coming from completely different sources that strongly compliment each other, I am now more likely to suspect that it might be more than just coincidence or chance. I try to be open to the possibility that there may be an intelligent coordination going on to alert me about something for my instruction or benefit that I need to be willing to accept and integrate somehow into my life. While I try not to view such things with a heightened sense of superstition or put more weight on it than other more reliable sources of revelation from God, I do believe that God is ready to reveal important things on a regular basis to those who are learning to listen with an open and non-resistant spirit.

This morning seems to possibly be one of those occasions.

Each morning I have a habit of reading two devotional books designed for daily readings before I get into my exploration of the Word. The two books have nothing to do with each other and come from very different authors and perspectives. One is targeted for youth and has a wide variety of readings that appeal to the younger generation. The other book is more oriented toward thinking adults and is carefully going through each verse of the book of Revelation from a devotional perspective.

The first book I read this morning talked about the scientific discovery of how the brain forms habits. It explained that a surgeon noticed repeatedly that patients who had had limbs amputated often took exactly 21 days to quit feeling phantom pains in their missing limbs. After some research and testing it came to light that the brain takes just that long to form a habit effectively.

Well, that was interesting enough. So I turned to the second devotional book and began to read the passage for today from it. What peaked my interest was that he too chose to write about habits and relayed a story from his own experience about the difficulty people have breaking a bad habit permanently. He observed that people who smoked, when confronted with graphic pictures of diseased smoker's lungs, were easily frightened into quiting the habit almost immediately. But then he also observed that as he visited them over time that nearly every one of them started up the habit again about two weeks later.

As I pondered these two pieces of information that seemed to be meant for each other I wondered intently why they were so well coordinated for me this morning. Yes, they were very valuable insights that definitely complimented each other, but I wondered why I was receiving them just now. Was there something about to occur in my experience that would require this information as an important key to use for myself? Obviously I don't know that yet. But my curiosity was aroused and I asked God why this was given to me just now.

I couldn't imagine how it might fit into my study of Romans. I couldn't remember anything I have looked at in the current passage under consideration that this might apply to but I decided to go ahead and open the Word and see what else God might have to say to me.

Well, the epiphany continues to grow. As soon as I opened my Bible to Romans 15 my eyes fell on the following verses that definitely can be enhanced by this information given to me just minutes earlier.

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus. (Romans 15:4-5)

One of the points brought out about attempting to break a bad habit through the motivation of fear is that fear, while a very powerful incentive at first tends to not have very much staying power when it comes to effectively changing the life long-term. This goes along closely with what I have been learning for years about how the brain functions and the two kinds of bonds that are used to hold people together. Fear bonds can be very strong but at the same time they are quite unstable and can be displaced rather easily by an even greater fear, or can simply loose their power from apathy over time. Evidently according to this report there might even be an inherent time limit associated with the use of a fear employed to change a life habit.

What I am seeing in this passage in Romans is a clear message of our need for perseverance. One of the greatest hindrances to changing the habits in our lives – habits in the way we think about God, about others, about ourselves which lie at the root of most of our behaviors and relationships – is our seeming inability to keep on pursuing a new way of thinking, to hang on to the original incentive that caused us to want to change. The word often used for this need to continue on is this word perseverance.

But what I likely would not have noticed in this passage had it not been for being alerted to the problems of trying to change habits that I read in both devotionals this morning, was the importance of having the right motivation for the perseverance that is needed. And this too, goes back to the most important element that needs to be addressed in our relationship with God – our opinion about how He motivates us.

If I believe, as I did for most of my life, that God primarily uses fear to motivate me to change my old habits; if I believe that God is in the business of frightening His children into obedience, then I will find that I might have great initial incentive at times to change my ways and try to abandon my old habits of acting and thinking – for a time. But if I believe that God's methods revolve around using fear to motivate my heart to follow Him and to unify with the body of Christ as addressed here in Romans, then I will be repeatedly frustrated in my inability to have the perseverance needed to effect long-lasting change in my life.

I might then come to believe that what I need is even more fear and I may look for even greater sources of fear and intimidation to get myself and others to change our ways, but if I continue to depend on the element of fear as my primary fuel for getting me to comply with God's requirements then I will find myself in a life of frustration, discouragement and repeated falling back into old habits of thinking and living. And I can certainly vouch for the truth of that last statement from long and personal experience.

What I see here in this passage sheds a lot of light on this aspect of perseverance. Verse four alerts me that I need this most important element in my life along with encouragement which I am told will come from the Scriptures. The result of these two important ingredients in my mind will produce hope in my life. That is wonderful, but if I don't continue on reading I might be tempted to jump to the conclusion that I must immerse myself deeper and deeper into the Word of God to pump myself up with lots of religious information in order to keep myself motivated to obey all the previous warnings and instructions of this passage.

But what I find in the very next verse is a wonderful insight into the way God wants to motivate me. And since God is the one who designed my brain to begin with it only makes sense that He would employ the right methods that are far more effective for lasting change in me than the false, counterfeit methods usually promoted for change. It says here that perseverance and encouragement come from God, not just studying the Bible. And this links closely with what Jesus said to the religious people when He was here.

You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39-40 NIV)

The important thing to point out that brings this full circle is the unavoidable fact that God is love. The Scriptures make it absolutely plain that the very essence of God is love and that Jesus came to this earth to reveal that love to everyone. So given that God is love Himself and that perseverance and encouragement come from God as noted here in Romans 15, then it would only follow that the motivation inherent in the perseverance needed to overcome old habits and establish new ones in my life will be based on love and not on fear.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. (1 John 4:18)

This now makes much more sense as to why it is so important to have love as the motivation for change rather than fear. While fear may appear to get more immediate or obvious results and is the preferred method used in nearly all religions (and pretty much everything else in the world today), fear is not how God runs His kingdom. Fear does not have the lasting endurance needed for real transformation of the heart (only 2 weeks worth of fear-based change at best?) but actually tends to isolate the heart and make it more brittle and withdrawn from others. Only perfect love has the power and effectiveness to accomplish real change in overcoming habits (more than 3 weeks of motivation) and rewiring the brain in the ways of God.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.... (1 Corinthians 13:7-8)

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