Boundaries

Delightful quote I saw on someone's facebook profile:

G.K. Chesterton once quipped that before you remove any fence always first ask why it was put there in the first place. You see, every boundary set by God points to something worth protecting, and if you are to protect the wonder of existence, God's instruction book is the place to turn. Anyone who thinks that he or she can place the boundaries arbitrarily will either destroy the enchantment of life or wear himself into exhaustion. God's commands are there to protect what life is truly about, not the other way around. Implementing that truth in our lives keeps us from losing the wonder. ~Ravi Zacharias

Confession Trumps Sin

I belong to a wonderful women's Bible study at my church. There are probably 75 of us who meet every Tuesday morning, study the book of John, then break up into small groups and discuss how what we studied applies to our lives.

This week's discussion was on John 8:1-37 (or thereabouts).

Have you ever read John 8? Yeah, me too. But read it again with me. It's a powerful passage on many levels, and every time I read it, I get something new out of it.

The setting of John 8 is during the Feast of Tabernacles, an 8-day feast that is so doggone rich with meaning that I'll just sigh and move on because I could blog for days and barely scratch the surface. I'll just say for now that lighting the temple menorah, the seven-branched lampstand, plays a significant role in this feast (although there is MUCH more to the feast than that).

In John 8:12, Jesus said something fascinating: "I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life."

Back to that temple menorah. I said before that there are seven branches on the lampstand. There are three lamps on each side, and one in the middle. The ones on the sides point to the middle lamp, the servant lamp. The servant lamp points directly to the Holy of Holies, the place where God's presence resides.

The menorah was known in Jesus' time as "the light of the world."

In John 8:2, it clearly says that Jesus was in the temple. So we know the setting, that the menorah was nearby, maybe even visible from where He was standing. He was letting them (the people and the pharisees) know who He was, and using an illustration with which they were all intimately familiar. That menorah had represented Him for thousands of years, a type and shadow of what He was doing for them right then, leading them straight into the Holy of Holies, the presence of God. After all, He is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but through Him. (Jn. 14:6)

And, as our women's group discussed, Jesus is the light, illuminating the truth for us. I want to delve a little deeper into something here using what is commonly called the "law of first mention."

Psalm 119:142 says, "Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law (Torah) is truth." The truth is the Torah (Law) of God. The word Torah literally means "God's teaching and instruction." It comes from the root word orah, which means "light." So, when John, in John 1 said that, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." and when Jesus says that He is "the light of the world," they're both saying that He is the Torah incarnate.

1 John 3:4 says, "Everyone who practices sin also transgresses the law; and sin is transgression of the law."

And further in John 8 (vs 31-32), Jesus says "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

So, if He is the light of the world, and if He illuminates truth for us, and truth is the Torah/law, and the transgression of the Torah/law is sin...then, by default, He illuminates our sin for us and sets us free.

He shows us our sin.

And then He sets us free from it.

During our study yesterday, the leader discussed what she called "grace-aligning habits," such as reading our Bible, fellowship, daily confession, etc. And the focus of that was on confession, how powerful confessing our sins can be. We were challenged to find an accountability partner (preferably our husbands, for those of us who are married), someone with whom we can be honest on a regular basis and truly confess our sins. The benefits are eternal.

After all, as long as something is hidden, it holds power over us. But once it is brought to the light, we can be free from it.

And to illustrate that point scripturally, tonight the Lord told me to read Psalm 32:

1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered!
2 How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
Through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me;
My own vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.
5 I acknowledged my sin to Thee,
And my iniquity I did not hide;
I said, "I will confess my transgression to the Lord";
And Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Selah.
6 Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found;
Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not reach him.
7 Thou art my hiding place;
Thou dost preserve me from trouble;
Thou dost surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;
I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
9 Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding,
Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check,
Otherwise they will not come near to you.
10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked;
But he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him.
11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you his righteous ones,
And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.

Okay, I know that was long, but it was absolutely amazing! The power of sin is so great that when we hide it, our bodies actually waste away. We must confess our sins. If we don't they literally eat away at us, and not just spiritually but physically. It doesn't say our souls waste away. It says our bodies. But look at the power of confessing our sins! When we confess our sins to the Lord, He forgives our guilt! David, the psalmist, urges us to seek the Lord, not to waste any time, but to see him. David has experienced the Lord's forgiveness, and he wants everyone else to experience it too. When we confess our sins, God becomes our hiding place. He preserves us from trouble. He surrounds us with songs of deliverance.

And then God steps in, responds to the confession and repentance, and basically interrupts the psalmist, with a prophetic promise: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you." Did you catch that? "I will instruct...and teach you." Torah is God's teaching and instruction.

Isn't that beautiful?

I don't know about you, but I want that. I want Him to instruct me, to teach me the way I should go, to reveal His Torah to me, because I know that Jesus is the Torah incarnate. I want Him to counsel me with His eye upon me. I want to continually be in His sight, because if He's looking on me, I know He hasn't forgotten me. He knows right where I am. I'm no longer lost. I'm not in darkness. His word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path...showing me the way that I should go.

Intro

Hi there. My name is Renee, and I'm a writer. A novelist, actually. I'm also a Messianic Christian, a wife, and a mother. And I guess some might say I'm an artist, although my artistic talents are limited to combinations of paint and silk.

My husband and I recently started attending a great church in our area. I love this church. It's nondenominational, and seems to be spirit-filled. The praise and worship is energetic, and most importantly, the pastor's teachings are biblically grounded and usually hit home for me. We're probably going to join this church soon. It's the first place that has felt like a church home to me in several years. Right now the entire church is participating in this program that they developed, called Building Our Legacy. It's a 40-day period in which each member spends time with God in reflection, prayer, and daily devotions, guided by a book that was written by members of the church. It's a really neat program, and I've already been blessed and challenged, and I'm only in the first week.

I normally read a lot. A whole lot. And I read a lot of secular fiction. But right now God has put me in a time-out, so I'm not allowed to read any secular fiction for a 40-day period, which conveniently coincides with this church program.

It's for the best, I know. I mean, I read so much some days that I can't stop thinking about it and can't fall asleep at night. Hello, that's not healthy, you know? And not all of what I've been reading lately is Christ-centered, to say the least. So I'm not reading anything except my bible and devotional. For 40 days. And I may read my own novels, which are still works in progress and are definitely not secular in nature.

Now, some folks out there probably wouldn't believe that God would speak to an individual today, much less that He would tell me to fast something as bizarre as secular fiction. But there it is. And He did. He didn't tell me to cut it out entirely, just for 40 days. I can do that. I mean, when the Creator of the universe is sitting in your living room, in His white robe and sandals, it's pretty easy to do what He says. He has a great smile, by the way.

And no, I'm not delusional. I'm just honest. Some might say that I have an unusual relationship with God. Part of it, I'm pretty sure, is the creative imagination that He gave me when He shaped and molded me in my mother's womb 30-some years ago. But it's also Him, and it's also real. Keep in mind that we're talking about a thing called faith here. Let's keep that in perspective.

You know, I never thought I'd create a blog. I've usually been the one person on the sidelines who made fun of blogs and refused to read them (well, okay, that's a lie...I read Anderson Cooper's blog sometimes, and I stumbled on this one blog by a Muslim-American woman that fascinated me). And I certainly never thought I'd write anything like what I just wrote in the paragraphs above and put it on a blog for the entire internet to read. Wow. Freaky. But there it is, so let's go with it. Maybe I'll write about divine creativity and imagination. Maybe I'll write about Hebrew Roots of Christianity and Torah. Maybe I'll even talk about my journey as an author. Or maybe I'll just brag about my kids. This is kind of fun, after all.