Not By Might / An Original Work / March 29, 2012
Based off Zechariah 4
“Not by might, and not by power,
But by My Spirit,” says our Lord, God.
“Mighty mountain, O what are you?
Before Christ you will become level ground.”
The hands of our Lord, Savior God,
Formed the foundation of His church.
He alone will complete the work
He began in His servants’ hearts and minds.
Who despises small beginnings?
Much can be done in Christ’s strength within.
Be of courage, and trust your Lord.
All sufficient He is for all your needs.
Opposition and apathy:
Holy Spirit will set us free!
We can be overcomers in our faith
In our Lord, and our Savior, King.
Don’t be troubled by God’s timing.
He has ev’rything in His command.
Hasten to obey His commands fully,
Trusting Him to work all for good.
Not by might nor by human strength,
But by God’s power; strength within;
My dependency now on His working
His will in me in righteousness.
http://youtu.be/bX2houWB_HE
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Micah 5:1-5; 6:1-8 (NIV 1984):
A Promised Ruler From Bethlehem
Marshal your troops, O city of troops,
for a siege is laid against us.
They will strike Israel’s ruler
on the cheek with a rod.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”
Therefore Israel will be abandoned
until the time when she who is in labor gives birth
and the rest of his brothers return
to join the Israelites.
He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.
And he will be their peace.
My Understanding: Israel, at that time in history, was both the physical nation of Israel and was spiritual Israel, i.e. God’s chosen people. Today we still have the physical nation of Israel, yet they are no longer God’s chosen people. They are no longer spiritual Israel, as well. God cut them off of his vine due to their unbelief. Though there are Jews who believe in Jesus Christ today, the nation of Israel is no longer specifically connected with spiritual Israel. They are no longer one people. Jesus Christ made Jews and Gentiles one in Christ. True (or spiritual) Israel is now the church, the body of Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem. So, there is now a physical separation between the land and nation of Israel and spiritual Israel, God’s people, the church, i.e. true followers of Jesus Christ.
At that time in history, God, through Micah, told his people, the Jewish nation, that they were to marshal their troops, for a siege was laid against them. God was punishing them because of their sins. Israel’s enemies would be victorious in battle against her. Yet, there was hope. Micah prophesied of the coming Messiah and Savior of the people, Jesus Christ. He would come from Bethlehem. Bethlehem was small among the tribes of Judah, yet out of something small God would do something great! What encouragement that should bring to our hearts. “Who despises the day of small things?” No matter how small or insignificant we might think we are, or we might think our work for the Lord is, God is able to do great things through us by his might and his power working through us. We just need to put our trust in the Lord and rest in him to accomplish through our lives and ministry what he intends as we allow his Spirit to work through us for his purposes and his glory.
This king (ruler) that was to come out of Bethlehem had his origins from ancient times. The NASB translates “ancient times” and “from old” this way: “His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” Jesus Christ is God. He is eternal. He was in the beginning with God, and the world was created by him (see John 1). He is also to be ruler over Israel. This takes me back to what I said in the first paragraph. Jesus Christ never ruled over the physical nation of Israel. He does rule over the church (spiritual Israel), and he will one day return to the earth and will rule and reign over all people, and his saints will rule and reign with him. So, the Israel that Jesus Christ was to rule over is spiritual Israel, i.e. true believers in Jesus Christ, his church, the body of Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem. And, one day he will rule over all nations on the earth when he sets up his millennial kingdom reign.
Jesus Christ, the ruler out of Bethlehem, would stand and shepherd his flock. To stand means to be in an upright position. Upright is another word for righteous; pure; and holy. Jesus Christ is all three. To stand also means to fight resolutely; to take a firm position on something; to bear witness to something. Jesus Christ stands on the truth, on the word of God, on righteousness and on holiness. He is truth. He is holy. He is righteous. To shepherd means to assemble (marshal), organize, urge, push, appeal, compel, lead, guide, direct, care for, to look after, nurture, and counsel those under his care. A ruler is also a leader. He, as ruler, is sovereign, having complete power and supreme authority over all things.
This ruler would stand and shepherd his flock (followers of Christ) in the strength of the Lord (God the Father). Jesus Christ is the second person of our triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They have separate personalities and functions, but together they form one God. So, although Jesus Christ is God, he also submits himself to the Father, his God. John 5:19-20a: “Jesus gave them this answer: ‘I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does…’”
The shepherd’s flock (followers of Jesus Christ) would live securely, and he will be their peace. The security and peace we now have with Christ Jesus are spiritual in nature, not necessarily physical, as the Bible tells us we will have many troubles and trials in this life. It also tells us we will be hated, rejected, falsely accused, persecuted and even killed for our testimony for Jesus Christ, so that is not physical security nor is it physical peace. Jesus Christ does not give peace as the world gives. The peace he gives is peace with God through his shed blood for us on the cross when he died for our sins so that we could go free of the power and penalty of sin over our lives. We will no longer face eternal damnation because of our sin, but that does not mean we will not face his loving discipline when we stray or for the purpose of maturing us in our walk with Christ and in making us holy. And, the security he gives is the security of knowing that, through faith in Jesus Christ, we have the hope of eternal life with God in heaven forever and ever as a sure thing. Yet, when he returns and sets up his earthly kingdom, there will also be physical peace and security.
The LORD’s Case Against Israel
Listen to what the LORD says:
…For the LORD has a case against his people;
he is lodging a charge against Israel.
“My people, what have I done to you?
How have I burdened you? Answer me…
With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings…
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
My Understanding: The Lord had a bone to pick with his people. Although he knows all things, and he doesn’t need us to tell him what he already knows, he wanted his people to explain to him what he had done to them; how he had so burdened them that they had wandered away from their pure devotion to him and had fallen into sin’s deceitfulness again. There appears here to be a tone of irony or sarcasm in the Lord’s remarks, because truly he was not at fault. Yet, he knew his people’s hearts, and he knows our hearts. When we wander away from the truth and we follow again the evil desires of our hearts, after all he did for us in dying on the cross for our sins so we could go free, we are in essence saying to God that he didn’t do something right, because obviously we can’t trust him with our lives, and so we feel we must take back control. We obviously don’t believe that his death paid the penalty for our sin so that we no longer have to be under the control of sin.
God told his people then, and he is still telling us today, as is evidenced by the teachings in the New Testament, that he is not interested in our token sacrifices and offerings to him if they do not come from hearts committed to him in surrender to his will and with willing hearts to obey him in all things. He doesn’t need what we think we can do for him or what we are willing to give up for him, thinking he will certainly be pleased with our sacrifices and offerings. He doesn’t care if we go to a church service on Sunday mornings or on Saturdays or whether or not we sing songs of praise and worship, and we listen to good (or not so good) sermons, or if we serve in the nursery or on some committee, or we teach a Sunday school class or lead a small group, or we play or sing in the praise band, or if we give 10% of our earnings, if he doesn’t first of all have our hearts.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51:17 NIV 1984).
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:1-2 NIV 1984).
What does the Lord require of us? – “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” To act justly means to act toward people in a manner that is fair and impartial and to do so in a manner that is in accordance with what is morally right (ethical, honest, decent). Mercy, I have heard many say, is not getting what you deserve, whereas grace is getting what you don’t deserve. To show mercy thus involves forgiveness and does not repay evil for evil, but repays evil with good. And, to walk humbly with our God means first of all to follow Jesus Christ in full surrender and obedience, which begins with forsaking our old lives of sin, allowing the Holy Spirit of God to transform our hearts and minds and to make us new creatures in Christ Jesus, and then to put on our new selves in all of Christ’s purity and righteousness. This is the working of the Holy Spirit within us, and is not of ourselves, but is accomplished as we cooperate with that work and we appropriate what Christ Jesus did for us on the cross to our own lives. And, this is to be lived out daily in our lives as we take up our cross and we follow Jesus Christ wherever he leads us.
Our shepherd, Jesus Christ, is marshaling (gathering) his troops for battle. The troops are his army, the people of God, the saints of the Almighty. The battle is spiritual, and it is won on a spiritual plane with spiritual weapons of warfare. He is calling out to each and every one of us to walk humbly with our God by choosing today to leave behind us all sin in our lives, and to choose today to obey him in all things and to surrender to his will for our lives.
To My Beloved / An Original Work / November 14, 2011
Based off I Pet. 5:6-9; Eph. 6:10-20; Jms. 4:4-10
Be strong in the grace of Christ, and
Put on His full armor in your fight
Against the enemy of your souls,
And resist him with all your might.
Take up the shield of your faith within you.
Salvation’s helmet – you put it on.
Put on the belt of truth,
And walk in the Spirit,
And you’ll not be ashamed.
Love your Lord Jesus; call His Name.
Call on your Lord and Savior, Jesus, and
Make Him Lord and King of your hearts.
Obey all of His teachings He has given
To you to follow in all His ways.
Repent of your sins. Return to your God.
Follow Him where’er He leads you now.
Humble yourselves in full
Surrender to His will
For your lives today.
Bow before Him, and humbly pray.
Be strong in the grace of Christ, and
Obey your Lord in ev’rything, always
Keeping His teachings in your hearts near you.
Walk with Christ in ev’ry way.
Resist the devil. He will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and He’ll be near you.
Wash your hands you sinners
And double minded.
Weep and wail o’er sin.
With Christ, your new lives begin.
http://youtu.be/PLMZdBxhE3I
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