It’s a Small World

Over the Christmas holiday, we visited my daughter and her family 1,100 miles away in Texas. While we were there, we attended church with them. During the praise and worship service, their praise team sang a song titled, “Here Comes Heaven,” which spoke of Jesus, being heaven, coming to earth. There are times the message in a song or the Holy Spirit will trigger a response in me that brings me to tears and this is one instance that it happened. It isn’t often, but the words are what hit me between the eyes, because I see the church as a whole not getting this message. As many churchgoers, or followers of Christ “wait” for heaven or look for an escape out of this world, we are missing the great gift God bestowed on us… Jesus and Heaven on Earth. Let’s look at the words to that song: 

 

Children, weep no more
Hope is on the horizon
Weary world behold
Your promised Messiah
Angels, let your song begin
Here comes Heaven
Christ is born in Bethlehem
Here comes Heaven
Sinner, wait no more
Love has broken the silence
Come let us adore
The Savior is with us
Angels, let your song begin
Here comes Heaven
Christ is born in Bethlehem
Here comes Heaven
Here comes Heaven
Now, behold His glory
Glory in the highest
All the earth rejoice for Christ is born
Now, behold His glory
Glory in the highest
All the earth rejoice for Christ is born
Over all who mourn
Breaks the dawn of salvation
Darkness reigns no more
For Jesus is greater
He is greater
Angels, let your song begin
Here comes heaven
Christ is born in Bethlehem
Here comes heaven
Angels, let your song begin
Here comes Heaven
All creation worship Him
Here comes Heaven
Here comes Heaven
Elevation Worship
When the song was over, I wanted so desperately to get up and exhort that congregation to really listen to the words of the song, to stop crying about the troubles of this world, which are only fleeting and to realize that Heaven dwells among us, that God sent Heaven to earth. He sent His Savior to us to redeem us. We are heaven on earth, if we trust in Jesus, because God inhabits his people. Jesus told us in the book of John that we would do greater things, meaning we would reach more people, but many look at that and expect to outdo God. Let me tell you, we will never outdo God, but we have the ability to reach more with our technology today and the advances we have made in communication. We can advance the Kingdom of God to more people more quickly than they could in Jesus time. As I thought on these things, and the millions hurting needlessly, I turned to my daughter, with tears streaming down my face and asked her the name of the song, but she didn’t know, which is unusual for her. After the service, I cornered one of the worship team members and complimented them on their praise portion of the service and asked him about the song. He said it comes from a church in North Carolina, called ‘Elevation.’ My husband and I looked at each other and smiled, we are from North Carolina and know this church about an hour and a half away. We told this young man why we were grinning. What a small world, but isn’t that what God wants? To take our vast world and bring it into ONE. To take a song and unify us, to bring Heaven to Earth so that we aren’t waiting for it? To bring us into Unity. To give us all that we could ask or hope. No, children of God, don’t wait for that pie in the sky, sometime, somewhere, somehow… Know and Believe that heaven is on earth and he dwells among his people! Give praise to God for he sent Heaven to earth and he Never took it away. Heaven still lives in us if we grasp the Truth. Jesus is that Truth.
Follow these scriptures for more on Heaven: Matthew 3:16-17, John 1:49-51, John 6:32-33, Ephesians 2:6-7, 19-22

The Garden Covenant?

God is not chaos; He never has been. He is the one who put things in order. The Creator of this universe, the one who hung the stars and created man; how could that be chaos? The chaos and disease comes from man, starting when we listened to a serpent and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We broke the rules, we usurped authority and have been doing so ever since. We have polluted His divine order. Each generation has corrupted it more and more. A generation in the Bible is 40 years. When it says, “this generation shall not pass” then that portion it is referring to, has already occurred. Think about that when you read the Bible.

Look at the Abrahamic covenant which was between God and Abraham. The only requirement was for Abraham to love God. The Mosaic covenant was one that the Hebrew people asked for, many times referred to as ‘the rules on rocks’ or the Ten Commandments. The Hebrews had rejected the Abrahamic covenant and Moses was trying to rescue his people from their idol worship and sins. When Moses came down from the mountain with the commandments, he saw them worshipping the golden calf and many living in sin. Moses broke the commandments out of frustration. It was a covenant that Moses had asked for, not God, but God in his sovereignty, made a covenant with man as arbiter and punisher, not God’s desire. Other covenants followed this one.

broken-tablets

Erroneously, modern day man looks at the Mosaic covenant or ten commandments – a covenant between God and the Hebrews, as the law on how to live one’s life. God redeemed the Hebrews/Israelis and everyone from the law when he sent Jesus to rescue us from the Mosaic covenant. We don’t have a set of rules to follow, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth.

Luke 22:20 After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people-an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.” John 16:7-9 “But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me.” John 14:17 “He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

God made a New Covenant with man that was (simplified version) if we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior we would live an eternal life. This returns us to God’s original purpose — for man to fellowship with God and love Him, very similar to the Abrahamic covenant, but more to the point, to the garden experience. We are joint heirs with Christ, born from above. Just as was said in the beginning, “let us create man in our own image.”

Hebrews 9:11-15 But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things to come [that is, true spiritual worship], He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not a part of this [material] creation. He went once for all into the Holy Place [the Holy of Holies of heaven, into the presence of God], and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, having obtained and secured eternal redemption [that is, the salvation of all who personally believe in Him as Savior]. For if the sprinkling of [ceremonially] defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a [burnt] heifer is sufficient for the cleansing of the body, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal [Holy] Spirit willingly offered Himself unblemished [that is, without moral or spiritual imperfection as a sacrifice] to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works and lifeless observances to serve the ever living God?For this reason He is the Mediator and Negotiator of a new covenant [that is, an entirely new agreement uniting God and man], so that those who have been called [by God] may receive [the fulfillment of] the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has taken place [as the payment] which redeems them from the sins committed under the obsolete first covenant. 

Of course, we can look to the ten commandments as a guideline to follow, but the perfect guide is the Holy Spirit, who shows us how to lead our lives when we submit to him. How do we do this? By knowing his voice. By following that conviction we have when we feel that we shouldn’t do something. That conviction is the Holy Spirit telling us not to be involved, not to say certain things, and not to act in a particular way. The more we listen, the more ‘in tune’ we become with his urging and guidance. We walk in the garden covenant, we know when God is near, which is always. We know how to answer every man, we walk in communion with the Holy Spirit and we start to see and use the vision of Jesus, because we see with the eyes of God, because we have the mind of Christ. We have been transformed to our original purpose and the material things of this world matter less and less. 

1 Corinthians 2:13-16 When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. For, “Who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

God’s Honest Truth

There are six things the Lord hates—no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a LYING tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a FALSE witness who pours out LIES, a person who sows discord in a family. Proverbs 6:16-19

This week a post I read on Facebook prompted me to think how many people are dishonest. I’ve known people who tell what they call “little white lies” as if their dishonesty is minimized in their mind, because they think being dishonest a little isn’t harmful. But a lie, is a LIE, IS A LIE! I’m not shouting at you, I just want people to see that there is no such thing as being a “little” lie or being a “little” dishonest. I know one person who told me that they had to lie to certain people because they were protecting them. My response was ‘protecting them from what?!’ Lying Never protects anyone, because you are introducing sin into a relationship, no matter who it is you’re trying to protect. That relationship is doomed, whether it is a friend or a family member. When did God put you in charge of protecting others from the truth? Actually, that particular person was manipulating a situation, because they didn’t want the other person to know what they were doing. If you feel the need to hide how you control your affairs, perhaps there are other areas that you are not being honest about. They were also trying to control the response of the other person. I’ve known parents who will lie to their kids because they have a preconceived idea of how the child will react if they know the truth. It only opened up a larger dilemma in that they had allowed their child to control the situation based on that child’s previous bad behavior. It was definitely an unhealthy situation, based on lies by both parties. One was lying based on poor behavior and the other was lying in an attempt to modify that behavior. No relationship can endure based on lies, because it dispels trust, which is integral for longevity in relationships.

Truthful words stand the test of time, but lies are soon exposed. Deceit fills hearts that are plotting evil; joy fills hearts that are planning peace! Proverbs 12:19-20 

Some annoying prefaces to a conversation are: “I’ll be honest with you …”; “Let me shoot straight now.”; (Like they weren’t any other time?) “To be perfectly honest…”; “God’s honest truth…”; “No lie…”; “I swear I’m telling the truth!”; “Regardless of anything else I’ve said before…” There are many others also, but when you hear this, be on guard! If a person has to persuade you that they are being honest by putting extended conditions on their statement(s), it shows their integrity or lack thereof. I thought honesty was free from deceit, not conditional.

photo by Alamy
photo by Alamy

The dictionary definitions of the word ‘honest’ are as follows:

Honest: 1. honorable in principles, intentions, and actions; upright and fair. 2. showing uprightness and fairness. 3. gained or obtained fairly. 4. sincere; frank. 5. genuine or unadulterated. 6. respectable; having a good reputation. 7. truthful or creditable.

If you look up the word “honest” in the thesaurus, the main definition is ‘truthful & candid.’ Some synonyms are: authentic, reliable, undisguised, on the up and up, genuine, virtuous, and trustworthy. To take it a step further, I looked up the word “honesty” (the act of being honest) in the thesaurus and the word that stood out to me was integrity! The definition of integrity is: ‘the state of being whole’ which leads me to what lying is… ‘incomplete.’ We are not complete in God, if we are dishonest. We can Never be complete in God, if we cannot be truthful.

An honest witness does not lie; a false witness breathes lies. Proverbs 14:5

Just as damaging as a madman shooting a deadly weapon is someone who lies to a friend and then says, “I was only joking.” Proverbs 26:18-19

What sorrow for those who drag their sins behind them with ropes made of lies, who drag wickedness behind them like a cart! Isaiah 5:18

What bothers me most is when people drag God into their dishonesty, by using his name in the phrases I mentioned above. If you cannot stand on your own integrity, leave God out of it! Why should you use his name to verify what apparently has been deceit in the past? Learn to be truthful, forthright, and honest and there will be no need to preface your statements.

For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44

Lying is based on sin and following Satan, just as Adam and Eve did in the garden… they entered into sin and deceit. No one can ever measure up to the law, it only points us to the perfect sacrifice, which is Jesus. Jesus IS Truth, the opposite of deceit. You don’t have to measure up to be saved, Jesus defeated all sin on the cross and in resurrection. I am not saying that you can live in sin, but once you accept Jesus and follow him by the Holy Spirit, you have no desire to live in the bondage of lying and sin. Sin is the suppression of the Truth!

But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness…They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. Romans 1:18&25

Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Colossians 3:9

But you have received the Holy Spirit and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ. 1 John 2:27

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me…I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. John 14:6&12

But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. John 4:23-24 

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. John 14:16-17

Jesus IS Truth and when we follow him in spirit and truth, we represent that truth, lying is not a part of us and that is… the God’s Honest Truth!