THE POISON IN THE HEART

A long time ago in China , a girl named Li-Li got married & went to live with her husband and mother-in-law. In a very short time, Li-Li found that she couldn't get along with her mother-in-law at all. Their personalities were very different, and Li-Li was angered by many of her mother-in-law's habits. In addition, she criticized Li-Li constantly. Days passed, and weeks passed. Li-Li and her mother-in-law never stopped arguing and fighting. But what made the situation even worse was that, according to ancient Chinese tradition, Li-Li had to bow to her mother-in-law and obey her every wish.

All the anger and unhappiness in the house was causing Li-Li's poor husband great distress.Finally, Li-Li could not stand her mother-in-law's bad temper and dictatorship any longer, and she decided to do something about it! Li-Li went to see her father's good friend, Mr. Huang, who sold herbs. She told him the situation and asked if he would give her some poison so that she could solve the problem once and for all.Mr. Huang thought for awhile, and finally said, 'Li-Li, I will help you solve your problem, but you must listen to me and obey what I tell you.'Li-Li said, 'Yes, Mr. Huang, I will do whatever you tell me to do.'

Mr. Huang went into the back room, and returned in a few minutes with a package of herbs. He told Li-Li, 'You can't use a quick-acting poison to get rid of your mother-in-law, because that would cause people to become suspicious. Therefore, I have given you a number of herbs that will slowly build up poison in herbody. Every other day prepare some delicious meal and put a little of theseherbs in her serving. Now, in order to make sure that nobody suspect you, when she dies, you must be very careful to act very friendly towards her. 'Don't argue with her, obey her every wish, and treat her like a queen.' Li-Li was so happy. She thanked Mr. Huang and hurried home to start her plot of murdering her mother-in-law.

Weeks went by, and months went by, and every other day, Li-Li served the specially treated food to her mother-in-law. She remembered what Mr. Huang had said about avoiding suspicion, so she controlled her temper, obeyed her mother-in-law, and treated her like her own mother.After six months had passed, the whole household had changed. Li-Li had practiced controlling her temper so much that she found that she almost never got mad or upset. She hadn't had an argument with her mother-in-law in six months because she now seemed much kinder and easier to get along with.The mother-in-law's attitude toward Li-Li changed, and she began to love Li-Li like her own daughter. She kept telling friends and relatives that Li-Li was the best daughter-in-law one could ever find. Li-Li and her mother-in-law were now treating each other like a real mother and daughter. Li-Li's husband was very happy to see what was happening.

One day, Li-Li came to see Mr. Huang and asked for his help again She said, 'Dear Mr. Huang, please help me to keep the poison from killing my mother-in-law. She's changed into such a nice woman, and I love her like my own mother. I do not want her to die because of the poison I gave her.' Mr. Huang smiled and nodded his head. 'Li-Li, there's nothing to worry about. I never gave you any poison. The herbs I gave you were vitamins to improve her health. The only poison was in your mind and your attitude toward her, but that has been all washed away by the love which you gave to her.'HAVE YOU REALIZED that how you treat others is exactly how they will treat you? There is a wise Chinese saying: 'The person who loves others will also be loved in return.' God might be trying to work in another person's life through you. Send this to your friends and spread the POWER OF LOVE.

Continuing with our series: "True Biblical Prosperity as Revealed in the Beatitudes" ~

I know that it is true that we tend to turn to the LORD God with great intensity during our times of greatest need. We cry out to Him in pray. We seek others to pray with us, and we are open to the ministry that others can provide. We get into His Word, or we seek out those who can guide us into and through His Word to find that help we need in our present time(s) of trouble. Hear me now, please! It should not stop there. When we are not in a state of desperate need, we must learn that “True Biblical Prosperity” is to be found here in these short, pithy, powerful statements of our Lord and King. Look at the next couplet as we read verses 6 & 7:
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

We see here the dimensions of the cross! That vertical beam that connects us to our Father seated upon His heavenly throne is made sure when we choose to “go after” righteousness. You may remember that Jesus will exhort His disciples (that’s us, Beloved!) to seek first (before anything and everything else!) the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33a). If we do so, He promises us that all the other things of life that we need, those things that so often absorb and consume our attention and our affections, shall be added to us (33b)!

Note, however, that Jesus set the stage for us with the choice of His words. When we read the word “seek,” (6:33), we may not be impacted with the intensity of what the Master is wanting us to have in our searching Him out and making Him our first priority. Therefore, He paints the picture for us by using the words “hunger and thirst” in 5:6.

We must not wait until we are destitute. Rather, we are to choose to crave Him (His righteousness)! We must choose to be famished with hunger and “dying of thirst,” so to peak. The imagery we might want to use, by way of an analogy, to help us to get the import of the Mater’s message is this: In any sport or athletic competition or military conflict, the time to prepare is not the moment of the engagement ~ the sporting event, the match, or the battle. Muscles must be built up and conditioned, timing and reflexes must be honed to a razor-sharp lightning speed, knowledge and awareness of the opponents’ or the enemy’s tactics and strategies must be a part of our subconscious repertoire, and our confidence must be built to peak condition by constant real-life practice, sparring and war games with capable opponents. Only then will we be prepared to enter onto the field, into the arena or into the combat zone properly equipped for success. So, too, we must choose to hunger and thirst for righteousness in order that we may be equipped and prepared for the spiritual warfare that awaits us!

(to be continued . . . )

Below is the continuation from last week of "True Biblical Prosperity as Revealed in the Beatitudes:

. . . .

With this understanding in mind, let us begin to “open the treasure-chest” of the Beatitudes by seeing verses 3 and 4 as a “couplet,” a pair of parallel statements:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

This concept – those who are “poor” in spirit – is used four (4) times in the Hebrew Scriptures translated as the English word “contrite.” In three of these various forms of the word transliterated “da-kaw;” is used. Let us consider two of these from the Psalms of David:

Psalm 34:18 – (notice, once again, the couplet form)
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted
And saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 51:17 –
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Is it any wonder that our Lord Jesus couples this image of the “poor in spirit” with “those who mourn?” When you and I have experienced situations and circumstances of life – be they financial, medical, relational, loss of our dreams, betrayal, times of abject failure, et.al. – we truly have known what it means to be “brokenhearted,” “crushed” or “broken” in spirit.

At this time we also become quite contrite – “sorrowful for some wrong that one has done; deeply repentant.” (Miriam-Webster). These are the times, times of pain and desperation, of the keenly felt need for God’s help, His extended Hand, His Love and Forgiveness, times when we come in total and abject honesty as we “mourn” and weep unashamedly before Him in the midst of our pain. These are the times when we lay aside all of our excuses and rationalizations, and we “come clean” before Him with humble and beseeching hearts – hearts crying out His forgiveness, for His deliverance, His healing, His restoration!

Praise God, our Father in His faithful Love responds to our cries. He comes to us and meets us in our time of need! Jesus tells us that we will be blessed with the Kingdom of heaven, and we will be comforted when we come to Him in such honest, searching humility. 1 John 1:9 tells us that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” and1 Peter 5:6-7 gives us this promise: 6“Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time. 7casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

. . . . to be continued

TRUE BIBLICAL PROSPERITY
AS REVEALED IN THE BEATITUDES

As we begin to begin our study of “The Beatitudes,” the series of Jesus’ declarations of “blessings,” from which the Latin derivative “beatitudes” comes, we must first remember that Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. As such He followed many of the patterns and the customs of his first century culture and in conformity with Hebraic traditions. In doing so, His hearers understood many of the meanings and the implications of what Jesus said that we often have a tendency to miss, because we are not first century Jewish believers steeped in the traditions of the Hebrew Scriptures. Rather, we are first century Americans, and as such we need a little help in understanding how to approach this introduction to Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount.

As we know, prior to the invention of the printing press, the preparation of and the making of copies of written materials was time consuming, laborious, tedious and very expensive. Therefore, much information and teaching in the Hebraic, and later n the Jewish culture in the days of Jesus, was predominately done via oral transmission and memorization. Various devices to aid in accurate memorization of material were employed. Much of Hebrew poetry was written to be sung, the Psalms being a primary example, and we know how much easier and enjoyable it is for many of us to memorize song lyrics than it is to memorize rote facts and data.

Another primary method used to aid memorization was also used to emphasize information of particular importance was the use of repetition. When used in psalms or prophetic passages, Bible scholars have dubbed this “parallelism,” that is, the use of two or more lines or phrases that “parallel” each other meaning that the speaker is saying the same thing over again but using different words and synonyms to convey the same meaning. Most often this is seen in “couplets” or two lines that parallel each other. Sometimes a “triplet,” or three lines, is used.

A classic example of this is seen in Psalm 1:1. Quoting from the NASB:
How blessed is the man who does

not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stand in the path of sinners,
nor sit in the seat of scoffers!

On the one hand, “walk, stand, sit” can be seen as a progression of involvement and/or complicity, but on the other hand, the parallel is clearly seen in that one who desires to be blessed of God will not, in any way, involve himself or entangle his life with those who are sinning against Him!

With our next post, we will see, specifically, how this speaking/teaching pattern is used in Jesus’ presentation of the Beatitudes. Once we have this concept clearly in mind, we will then dig into the Hebraic meanings of each statement He made, and will be able to feel the power and the impact of what Jesus is teaching was far more powerfully than ever before. God Bless!

Greetings, Saints of the Living God!

There has been another time hiatus to the postings of Fresh Bread articles due to many distractions ~ all necessary, and all wonderful for the Kingdom, but it is time for me to get "back on track."

There has been enough time since I posted an article on the Beatitudes that I had just begun ~ "True Biblical Prosperity as Found in the Beatitudes," that I want to segue back into it by giving you this poem to ponder for the next few days, and then . . .

We begin anew and afresh!

~~~

HOPE ETERNAL
by Bob Preston

The things that meant the most to me in the days of my youth
Mean more to me now than ever before.
As Hope springs eternal,
So hope becomes a necessary ingredient for faith and victory.
Not hoping for the ideal any more,
I hope for the goodness of God’s promise to anchor me.
The crimes and lies of society have become the accepted norm
For men and women deceived.
The hope for their salvation is no longer enough,
For Hope must extend to covenant-keeping.
Discernment should prepare us for the worst before it comes,
Before it blind sides and wounds our faith.
Yes, Hope rivets me to the throne,
Pain is God-sent for my refinement.
Only then can I become a hardened veteran, undergirded by true Faith.
Unshakable, undeniable, inviolate.
Such Faith becomes more than a shield to me;
It is the very ground of reality upon which I stand.
My face turns again heavenward to the One
Who keeps covenant amidst fire, flood and famine.
True Love springs from the heart wrenched in pieces
By damaged Hope and shattered dreams.
True Love flows freely from the life battered by the storm,
Secured by the lifeline of Faith.
Love unfettered, unconditional, and unquenchable
Breeds Peace that delves deep to the roots of our Soul.
Blessed Peace that whispers sweet and low amidst the gale
Stems the tide of fear and doubt.
Unfathomable depths of Peace feed the rains of Joy
That course over our seared lives.
Joy unspeakable and full of Glory wells up into
Voluminous, spontaneous Song.
The Joy sings to the universe the Song of the Overcomer,
For I am known by Him who overcame all for me.
And I dare to Hope again. .


In the Lamb ~ Bob PrestonMy food is to do the will of the Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.
~ John 4:34

Covenant - Continued . . . .

I do not see an Old and a New Covenant as separate entities. The Scriptures are One Story (a Never-Ending Love Story). When Jesus passed the cup to His disciples at the Passover Meal (what we now call The Lord’s Supper), he said, “”This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matt. 26:28, variation of same in Mark 14:24, NIV translation) Some manuscripts read, “This cup is the new covenant . . . .” (Luke 22:20). Please understand that even if a more accurate translation of Jesus’ words is “new covenant” and not “covenant,” that His use of the word “new” does not convey any intent on His part to discard an “old” or previous covenant.

This is not “replacement theology,” but rather, it is a continuation, an unfolding of the progressive development of God’s working in history to bring all of creation to Himself. We know this, because Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-18, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish them but fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” (The Hebrew idioms translated “abolish” and “fulfill” will be revealed in a later teaching.)

Everything has not yet been accomplished, because we read in Romans 8:19ff that all of creation as well as we ourselves are groaning as in pains of childbirth and waiting in eager expectation for the final revelation of the sons of God. The story is not yet over, Saints!

(To be continued . . . )