Spiritual Food for Women

Every time I sit down to write, it is always because I have been convicted in some way and my heart has been pricked or my toes have been stepped on by something I have read in the scriptures or heard in a sermon or Bible class. I was asking myself a question today. Actually two questions. 

First, is Jesus truly my first love?

Second, how do I keep all things new in my life spiritually?

Revelation 2 talks about a church who had left its first love. The church is made up of people,  right? So therefore the people had left their first love…..Jesus. They were doing everything right from the outside looking in, but it had become a checklist that they were following. They were playing church just like kids play house or play school. They were going through the motions of worship but their hearts were not in it. We can’t ever forget that Jesus knows our hearts and minds. He knows if we don’t really want to be there. He knows if we are doing things for him just out of our duty and not true desire and zeal for His purpose. We cannot fool God no matter how many good works we do. Our love for Him, our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ and our love for the lost has to be our reason for everything we do. 

It’s easy to say that Jesus is our first love, but does our life show that he actually is number one? Do we listen to God/Christ by reading his word each day? Do we talk to Him in prayer every day throughout our day? Do we think of Him before we make big decisions? Do we uplift and build up our spiritual family by being at worship services and Bible study services?  Do we make our plans around our congregation’s church services, Bible study services, gospel meeting, VBS, etc. as best we can? Are we living out our faith in our everyday life? When a door opens with an opportunity to help someone understand the gospel, do we take that opportunity or are we afraid to stand up for the One we say is our first love? Do we see people outside of Christ the way Jesus sees them, as someone who is spiritually sick and in need of the Great Physician? All these are questions that I thought of under the heading, “is Jesus truly my first love?”. It hit me this morning. I would stand up for my husband and my children and give my life for them. What about Christ? Is he more important to me than those closest to me? My thought was, “he better be ” because He is the reason I have my precious husband and my precious children (all 4 of them). He has blessed my life and been so patient with me at times when I wasn’t giving Him a second thought, I’m ashamed to say. Sometimes we get caught up in life and we get numb in our spiritual lives. I know I have many times. Life is hard and busy and disappointing (and tragic) sometimes. But Jesus knows our struggles and He knows everything we go through because He went through the same things as a human walking on this earth. The only difference is He was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15) He is our ultimate example that we strive to follow. 

Now, second question, how do we keep things new in our spiritual lives? We make all things new when we are baptized, but how do we keep our heart new and humble. Paul said in Philippians 4:11-12 that he learned to be content in all things and in all situations that life threw his way. He trained himself to be content with wherever he was, including prison, and whatever he was going through, including being stoned and left for dead. The point is, we have the greatest gift right now because we are in Christ’s kingdom on earth and the most glorious reward coming later if we are in Christ and being found faithful to Him when we pass away or when He returns, whichever happens first. In Revelation 2:10 Jesus makes this promise, “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”  He’s our Savior. He gave up everything for us. Let that sink in. Our Creator gave up everything for us. He came down from His glorious home in heaven with his father, was born in a stable, walked on earth, became a lowly servant, was beaten beyond recognition and then died the most shameful and painful death imaginable….. for us! (Philippians 2:6-8) So yes, we can be content if we truly have Him as our first love…..for real. We won’t be worried so much about material things in this life if Christ is our first love. 

What about our focus? This has always been a tough one for me personally. It has taken me a long time to truly realize what my true purpose is on this earth…..what my main focus should be. Our life is so full of all kinds of things that don’t really matter in the end. Sometimes God/Christ gets lost in there among everything else. Just like in Matthew 13:22, the parable of the sower, the thorns which represent the cares of this world and materialism can choke out the gospel and blur our focus and we become of no use in God’s kingdom, the church. Our focus has to be sharp or Christ will be completely gone from our mind if we are not careful. We all get sidetracked sometimes. We have to try very hard to keep our focus on Jesus. Everything else in life will fall into place if our focus is Jesus, His word, and His church. This doesn’t mean we can’t have things, do fun things, strive for things we want, but we can’t let those things rule our hearts and become idols. So focusing on Jesus….is another thing that helps keep all things new. How do we stay focused? 2 Timothy 2:15 says we are to study. It’s a commandment. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the “word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The Bible is powerful and will have an effect on us if we let it. Staying in God’s word daily as much as we can, even if it is just a few minutes, helps us keep our focus and stay grounded in the truth. 

Last is effort. We won’t be content and we won’t be focused without effort. If Jesus is truly our first love, then we will put forth effort in things that truly matter. It takes effort to study the Bible and to slow down enough to pray. It takes effort to get up every Sunday for Bible study and worship. It takes effort to make it to mid-week Bible study after working all day. Effort to be involved with our youth and help with youth activities such as VBS and other things. Effort to make food for someone who is sick or lost a loved one. Effort to send a card or call someone who is sick or bereaved. And the list goes on and on of ways we can show others Christ living in us. I’m guilty. I don’t put forth effort like I should. I’m not saying we can earn our way to heaven. Grace is what gets us there. (Ephesians 2:8-9) However, grace does not mean that we don’t have to do anything. We have to put forth effort. James 2:14-26 explains in detail that “Faith without works is dead”. Obviously, we can’t do everything, but we can try to do as much as we can. We can be content, stay focused on Jesus, and put forth our best effort toward His purpose. If we do these things, we will stay spiritually new. When we fall short, God is always ready to take us back and lift us up through His word. Let’s always remember “that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” We are the called if we have repented of our sins, confessed Jesus’ name before others, been baptized for the remission of our sins, and are living faithful to Him.

(Repentance and baptism, Acts 2:38 and Acts 22:16) (Confessing Jesus’ name, Matthew 10:32)

Deuteronomy 5:29

“Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and keep all of My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!

The more I open my Bible, the more treasures I find and the more I learn how much God loves me and all of us. This verse nearly jumped off the page for me when I read it recently. We are studying Deuteronomy in our Wednesday night Bible class. I had never taken notice of this verse before even though I have read the Bible through and been to church all my life. I had never considered the depth found in this verse until now and I just wanted to dive into it and see where it would take me.

To start with, the thought of my God, my Father, and my Creator agonizing over my bad decisions throughout my life brings me to tears. The thought of my Father in heaven above wanting so intensely for little ole me to get it together for my own good and the good of my family literally brings me to my knees.

First, let’s consider how God starts this verse….”Oh”. That small two letter expression reveals so much about our Father in heaven. He has a deep yearning for all of us to be saved. He desires so much to have a relationship with me, with all of us. When we use that word here on earth, it usually has strong feelings connected to it in one way or another. It’s either a happy “Oh” or a sad “Oh”, maybe even an angry or surprised “Oh”. In this verse, we see our God deeply anguished over His children not following Him, even after all He had done for them. Is this not also how he feels about us when we don’t follow Him and put Him first in our lives? We know this feeling. We feel this way when our own children disobey us. We agonize over it as parents. God agonizes over us also. We know that we can parallel this verse with our lives today because we know that God never changes. His feelings never change. In Malachi 3:6 God says, “I am the Lord; I change not.” You can’t get any more straightforward than that. In James 1:17, God is called “the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”. God will always be the same. We can depend on Him to never change His mind about what He expects from us, His creation. Jesus Christ is also mentioned as unchanging in Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and  forever.” Since God and Jesus are one, this concept of an unchanging God is confirmed even more. Most of the world today thinks that the Bible is an outdated book and doesn’t apply to our generation and future generations. For those who think that, I present to them from God’s word, Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” If anyone needs a New Testament example of this concept, here is Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” So we have Holy Scriptures that tell us that God the Father has not changed and will not change, God the Son has not changed and will not change, and God the Holy Spirit, which today is the Bible, His written word, has not changed and will not change. I felt it necessary to clarify that fact before continuing to look at Deut. 5:29. God’s feelings then are God’s feelings today.So, to make my first point from this verse…..God has strong feelings of love for us just like He did for the children of Israel because He hasn’t changed and He won’t ever change.

The next part of the verse after “Oh” says, “that they had such a heart in them”. This part shows us that God can see our true feelings and knows us better than we know ourselves. The word heart here simply means our whole being, our mind, and our entire lifestyle. And not only does this mean our outward lifestyle that we show the world, but our inward self that no one else sees. Let’s never forget that our “very hairs are all numbered”. (Matt. 10:30) He knows us! He has always known us! Psalms 139:1 says, “O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.” And to add to that, He has known us from conception and even before that. Listen to Psalms 139:16 of NKJV, “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” He literally knew us before we were even conceived in our mother’s womb. So, point number two is that God knows our innermost thoughts and He has always known us. We cannot hide anything from Him.

The next part of the verse says, “that they would fear me”. This type of fear is two-fold. First, it should be a respect and a reverence and even an awe for who God is and all He has done for us. We are taught from a young age to respect our parents because of all they do for us in our lives. We are taught to respect elderly people because of their life’s accomplishments and experiences. If we are living our lives as faithful Christians, then this is the type of fear we have for God. The other type of fear is simply to be scared of what is going to happen to us, such as being scared of heights or storms. Honestly, if we aren’t in Christ or even if we are in Christ but aren’t living faithful, we should have this kind of fear of God. He can decide it is over here on this earth any time He chooses, and at that time there will be nothing we can do to make things right with Him. I’m so thankful that God has been patient and continues to be patient up to this moment in time, and I take comfort in 2 Peter 3:8-9, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” In this verse, God wanted His children to have both kinds of fear, respect for Him and fear of His judgment as well. So for point three, God wants us to fear Him as in to have respect and reverence for Him. To do this we have to be obedient to Him. If we do this, we should not have a reason to have a terrified kind of fear on judgment day.

The next part of the verse says, “and always keep all of my commandments”. I see  two key words in this part, “always” and “all”. We can’t just follow Him when it is convenient for us. It has to be all the time, convenient or not. And we can’t cherry pick what we want to obey and leave out what we don’t want to obey. We don’t make the Bible fit into our lives. We make our lives fit the Bible if that even makes sense grammatically. I think you get my meaning. If we look at Matthew 22:37-39, we see Jesus’ words after being asked what the greatest commandment in the law is. He pretty much summarized all the commandments into these verses. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” If we are truly doing these two things, then we will always be at bible study and worship services. We will be at our gospel meeting. We will be involved in VBS to help our children learn the word. We will be there for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We will “do good unto all men, especially unto those of the household of faith”. (Gal. 6:10) We will be in the word and in prayer daily. We will live out our faith every day. Are we going to fail? Yes we will. But Jesus is there to lift us up just like He lifted Peter out of those crashing waves. We need only turn to Him. When talking about following God’s word, I also need to add that we can’t add to it or take away from it. Let’s just do all that He says to do, no more and no less. This must be important because the last verses of the entire Bible stress this. Revelation 22:18-20 stresses what will happen if we add to or take away from God’s word. Why take a chance? Let’s just do what the word says. So point number four, we are to do all that God has told us to do in His word whether it’s convenient or not. We are to center our lives on His word.

The next part of the verse really touches me. It says “that it might be well with them”. God wants things to be well with us. He desperately wants us to be saved and be in heaven with Him someday………all of us on this earth! He also wants us to have the best and most healthy life that we possibly can while we are here on this earth. Ok, let’s put it this way. Why do we have rules when we drive? They keep us safe right? Why do we give our kids boundaries and rules? Because we don’t want them to get hurt. We want to protect them. God only wants to protect us from ourselves. Jeremiah 10:23 says plainly, “It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.” We can’t do this life on our own without God!  When we try to, we fail miserably. We also have Proverbs 3:5-6(NKJV) that tells us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.” This is the key to life. We get off-track sometimes but luckily God always helps us get back on track if we turn to Him. So point five, God knows what is best for his children and he wants the best for His children and that is a home in heaven with Him.

Speaking of children brings me to the last part of the verse, “and with their children forever!”. God wants future generations to be taught His word. If we fail to teach our children, then the future of the church is lost. Our children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and baby cousins are the church of tomorrow. God knows our children,  grandchildren, all of our physical family members and all of our future descendants. We want them all to be saved and in heaven with us and it all depends on our generation right now. Don’t let anything get in the way of or take precedence over God and His church. Jesus died for His church the world over……for all who have put on Christ in baptism. His blood flows backwards and forwards to past generations before Christianity and to future generations who will put on Christ in baptism someday. AND…… let’s not forget the exclamation point at the end of Deut. 5:29! It shows strong feelings! God was at His wits end often with the children of Israel and I know He has felt the same way about me sometimes and still does at times I’m sure. I’ve taken a lot of His patience over the years. Thank goodness He is overflowing with love and patience. I’m putting my name in this verse. You can do the same. God has probably said this about all of us.

Oh, that Greta had such a heart in her that she would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with her and with her children forever!