In the first Seed from the Sower segment I saw this year, Michael Guido shared a story about love, actually it was two stories—one a lost love and the other an ill-placed love. And that is what this final blog of my series The Lady (2 John 1:1) will be about, what or who we love and where we find our peace; which is appropriate seeing how we will celebrate Valentine’s Day in less than two weeks.
Michael Guido shared, “A woman had choice tickets for the Super Bowl. A stranger asked, ‘Is this seat next to you taken?’ ‘No,’ she answered. ‘It’s my husband’s, but he died.’ Couldn’t you get someone else to come with you?’ ‘No’, she replied, ‘They’re all at his funeral.’ You can tell what has first place in her life. What has first place in your life, someone or something? Whatever it is, that’s your God. If you turn from the God of the Bible, you’ll find yourself serving an idol. You must have something to believe in. The Bible says, ‘Keep yourself from idols.”
When I began this series last year, I explained how all adultery begins harmlessly and unintentionally. Idolatry begins in a similar way, it creeps up into our lives without us knowing and before long we find ourselves serving other gods, “loves” and purposes. This is what happened in THE GARDEN, Adam and Eve walked with God and everything was perfect—it was complete.
Then, the crafty serpent slipped into the garden and tempted Adam and Eve with more, with greatness and equality with God. EVERYTHING GOES BLACK when we take our eyes off God and get CAUGHT IN THE LIGHTS, notice how Adam and Eve were content with God and what they had until the serpent promised more and they took of the “fruit” from the tree of life. What promises to satisfy or to give life, takes it. And that’s where everything went downhill; the Bible calls it, “the fall” for a reason. And God tells Adam that he will return to the dirty ground that he came from (Genesis 3:1–20). More than God, tell me THE DEVIL AIN’T A LIE!
Former Lakota Indian chief Red Cloud once stated, “I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We cannot take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.”
Jesus taught His disciples to give up their desires and SURRENDER in order to follow Him because they were part of an adulterous and sinful generation (Mark 8:34–38). The truth is most people love God and Jesus in their minds, but in their lives they want more than Jesus and that is the definition of a HYPOCRITE! Preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards once noted, “Spiritual delight in God arises chiefly from his beauty and perfection, not from the blessings he gives us.”
In a recent message by Bill Purvis he shared a story about desire. “A little boy saw a big cookie in a cookie jar on the kitchen counter and reached in to only learn that he couldn’t get his hand out of the cookie jar. For an hour the boy wrestled to get his hand out. His father came along and asked, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Trying to get a cookie,’ whined the little boy!’ ‘Looks like the cookie has got you! Let me show you a secret. Let go of the cookie and pull your hand out, then you can turn the jar over and have all you want.’ explained the father. It’s like that in life, when we want God to bless us—but we HOLD ON to what we want. We have to open our hands to receive what God wants to give us.”
Sometimes we hold on to things and other people in this life so much because that’s where we get our satisfaction, joy and peace from. The Bible calls that idolatry and it’s only a matter of time before we walk away from OUR GOD completely. Just like our forefathers did. Just like the Sadducees and Pharisees did in Jesus’ day.
Fruit?
Now, JUMP into the New Testament and the writings of a former Jewish Pharisee named Paul, Paul wrote to the church in Galatia about the fruits of the flesh: Sexual adultery, idolatry and selfish ambitions (Galatians 5:19–21). How often have we made idols out of God’s blessings? Theologian and writer R.C. Sproul writes, “[Hope] is that which latches on to the certainty of the promises of the future that God has made.”
Mark Driscoll notes in his book Who Do You Think You Are, “Often, this God-given passion to worship is misdirected towards idolatry and the worship of created things, like sex, fame, and food, rather than God.” Sadly WE BLIND—we never realize until it’s too late, these things don’t give us true peace or joy and we’re left feeling UNLOVED. Pastor Timothy Keller recently tweeted, “I’m so bad Jesus had to die for me, yet I'm so loved that Jesus was glad to die for me.”
Listen as the apostle Paul explained to the church in Galatia about the fruit of the spirit—he begins with love, joy and peace (Galatians 5:22). Although the greatest is love, joy and peace are typically byproducts of love. Isn’t that why most of us want to fall in love? Isn’t that the lure of love—to be complete and at peace? The late Jimi Hendrix once said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of POWER the world will know peace.”
The psalmist repeatedly sang about peace (Psalm 29:11; 34:14; 32:17; 37:37; 85:8; 119:165) and this idea of peace continues throughout the Old Testament prophets, John Lennon wasn’t the first and won’t be the last to sing about peace. To the Jewish community peace is a big deal. The Hebrew word often used in the Old Testament is shalom and it can be translated as peace, to make good, prosper, to restore and whole or complete. This is a promise of God to His people, to restore what was lost in the garden through the first Adam.
Andrew Murray explains in his book Humility, "When the Lamb of God has brought forth a real birth of His own meekness, humility, and full resignation to God in our souls, then it is the birthday of the Spirit of love in our souls, which, whenever we attain, will feast our souls with such peace and joy in God as will blot out the remembrance of everything that we called peace or joy before.”
Shalom is often used as a greeting or a salutation, because in the beginning God walked with man and there was peace and in the end God will be with man again and there will be peace. Even now in this evil world amongst our trials and tribulations it is the love of God that gives us peace that transcends all understanding through the second Adam—through His promise that we’re not alone, we know He is NEVER GONE. But it is through His second coming that He will usher in the ultimate and eternal peace when we hear that TRUMPET BLOW.
Gan Eden?
The Jewish word for the AFTERLIFE is Gan Eden and it is a RETURN TO INNOCENCE. Abraham Cohen explains in his book Everyman’s Talmud, “Whereas other peoples of antiquity placed their Golden Age in the dim and the remote past, the Jews regulated it to the future. . . They who are admitted into Gan Eden are adjudged so they may be accommodated in the division to which they are entitled. . . The happiness which is in store for those who merit Gan Eden is symbolized as a wonderful banquet. . . The chief joy they will experience is being in the actual presence of God.”
For Bible-believing Christians we call this place heaven and it will be on the new earth and there will be peace again, ABOUT TIME. This will be the NEW SHALOM and we’ll finally be complete, whole and we’ll fully realize the depth of God’s love for us. This is what Angel longed for in Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love, “I love you.’ When she turned away, he (Michael Hosea) yanked her back, pulling her into his arms. ‘I love you.’ He kissed her and felt the way she melted into him, clinging to him so desperately. ‘Michael, I wish I was whole. I wish I was whole for you.’ God, why? John and Elizabeth have six children. Will I ever beget even one on my wife? Why did you allow it to happen this way?”
It’s human nature to long for love, but we can’t become love addicts loving everyone and everything except the one we should be committed to. A true lady can only be satisfied by the one she has committed her life to. She knows that his love is greater than all others. Pope Francis recently stated, "Peace calls for daily commitment." Our Lord Jesus promised that one day He will return and there will be peace. The first time He came wasn’t for peace on this earth, but to make war (Matthew 10:34), He was a KING WITHOUT A CROWN. But next time He will be like a bridegroom coming for His bride on their wedding day.
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Despite what many well-meaning teachers and prophets would have us believe, I seriously doubt that we can imagine on this side of heaven, how wonderful the new earth and new heaven will be. Randy Alcorn explains in his book Heaven, “Aquinas was absolutely correct that God is the cosmic center. But his faulty logic reshaped our understanding of heaven by undercutting the biblical doctrines of physical resurrection, paradise restored on the New Earth, and the redeemed culture and community of the new earth’s holy city and nations.” It’s one we don’t deserve.
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Let me CLEAR THE AIR, Jesus isn’t coming back to save this world, just His bride! And He will establish a new kingdom, one where His people will live like royals. In this life, we’re not promised to be earthly kings of anything; we’re called to be humble servants of our Lord. The apostle Paul explained to the church in Ephesus that being completely humble will help us love one another and allow us to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:1–3).
We get our word humility from the Latin word humilitas which means abasement and unimportant. It is the same word that we get the word humus from which is basically earth, it’s the part of the dirt that is made up of dead plants and decaying animals. Remember what God told the first Adam in the garden? From the ground you came and to it you shall return (Genesis 3:19).
However, if YOU ARE a true BELEEVUH and you’ve turned to Him completely and He is STILL WITH YOU, you’re promised a new and perfected home with God, one without any blemishes, pain or sorrow and absolutely no sin! God hates sin so much that He shook heaven and cast His once anointed Angel Lucifer and a third of the Angels in heaven out to get rid of it. Then God sent His Son to the cross to deal with it once and for all. Because heaven will be perfect and free of impurities. There will be no broken hallelujahs as we sing holy is the Lord with the angels.
Like most people ALL OF MY LIFE I’ve dreamed of one day building a new house just the way I like it. IF I were to ever get married, it’s MY DESIRE for my wife and I to start our new life together in a BRAND NEW house that no one has ever lived in, a place that was built just for us, one that is free of defect— a sanctuary of sorts. It will be a home free of any negative history, because the very foundation was laid out of love for our future family to enjoy both good times and bad.
Likewise, that was God’s plan in the beginning, until the fall and sin entered the world and corrupted everything. That’s the effect of the curse on this world, it’s BROKEN and we can fill it in the pits of our stomach. God has been reconciling it every sense, out of His love for the bride. Like any other man, in God’s LOVE PURSUIT of His bride there will be a judgment before we go BACK TO THE BEGINNING.
I’m not talking about THE DIVINE INDICTMENT OF EVIL WORKERS who sought their own selfish desires and didn’t make God their NUMBER 1 priority (Jude 12 – 13), but the judgment seat of Christ (Revelation 22:12) when the bridegroom rewards His bride by what she has done while waiting for Him and at this point He won’t accept an APOLOGY or profession YOU KNOW thou art the Christ. This is when Jesus confronts those playing games with His heart, those who thought they could fool God by saying the right things (Matthew 7:21-23). They failed to store up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19–20) and chose to spend this life GOING PLACES. When this world falls apart after heaven and earth COLLIDE with each other, those who don’t believe or simply thought that heaven is a STATE OF THE MIND—will only wish for peace.
