To my fellow Quiet Time Prayer Ladies (and others), this post is what I want to share this week.
So I was reading a number of different Bible chapters from Exodus, Isaiah, Psalms, and Matthew yesterday, and discovered something interesting. For those that are currently using one of those reference Bibles, you probably caught onto this awhile ago, so bear with me, as the connection really hit home yesterday for me.
We know that through the Gospels, Yeshua (Jesus) talks in parables. In Matthew 13:14-15, Yeshua eloborates as to why he does this. I actually had read the section in Isaiah 6 just before reading some chapters in Matthew, and finally understood why Yeshua was always saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matt. 13:9) Another is, “Are you also still without understanding?” (Matt. 15:16). He was referring back to this chapter of Isaiah 6:9-10. God was telling Isaiah to go and tell the people that they keep on hearing, but don’t understand, they keep on seeing, but don’t perceive. Because if they actually saw with their eyes, and heard with their ears they would understand, they would repent and be healed. What did Yeshua come to do: bring the truth, and through faith in Him which required repenting, bring healing.
In Ps. 135:15-18, it talks about the idols that can’t speak, hear, or see, and how we put our trust in these things. We would like to think that we are better than these inanimate objects, but we are just as blind, deaf, and helpless, and put our trust in most anything, often before God.
We think we are better than the people Yeshua was speaking to all those years ago, that we are enlightened, and we know so much more than they do. I think we are being a bit cocky when we take this approach, because I think for the most part, we have lost a great deal of knowledge in our “enlightment” that has caused us to be blind and deaf, and therefore, totally tossed by the latest drama, dogma, charismatic speaker, etc.
It is this idea that we are better than those that preceeded us that is our downfall. Look at the rich young man that came to Yeshua asking him what he needed to do to have eternal life. He bought into the idea that it is something to own, that you can obtain it somehow with enough effort. He wasn’t prepared when Yeshua told him to keep the commandments, and he says, I already do all that, so why don’t I have this thing I desire? Yeshua tells him to sell everthing he has he loses interest, as he can’t imagine a life other than the one he knows. He can’t imagine a life without privledge, without power and control, without prestige and popularity. How could that be better than being rich?
Have you heard the saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees?” We get so focused on what is right in front of us, we can’t imagine anything being different, we can’t imagine their might be a better way, another viewpoint, another option.
Look at Moses, the man who talked to God directly. He spent all his time hearing case after case for the people. It took his pagan, father-in-law, one day of watching this nonsense to step in and provide an option to Moses (Ex. 18). Spread the workload was the message. It seems so simple, but even Moses couldn’t see it, as he was just so used to it being done this way, since he was the “go-to” man.
Yeshua was doing the same thing as Jethro. He was pointing out the issues where the traditions that had been taught were now more important than what God had actually instructed. He wanted to fix this problem so that people could see, hear and understand in a way that would produce action. He didn’t want people doing things just because they had been told this was the way they needed to do it, if it didn’t serve any real purpose. That was just total insanity.
It is like the division of different doctrines inside Christianity. Everyone believes their way of interpreting the Bible is right, and they are the only ones going to heaven, but I have to ask, “What did Yeshua say?” Not what the apostle Paul said, not what Peter said, not what the Pope says, what did Yeshua say? He didn’t contridict the hebrew scriptures, he brought further explanation, the correct interpretation to them. He didn’t discard them, he makes it very plain that he had no intention of doing so (Matt. 5:17-19).
So what is holding you back from really seeing, hearing and understanding what God wants to do in your life. What road blocks have we put in our way, what walls have we built to keep God from shining His light in and leading us out of the forest? What things are we holding to close (idols) that we are afraid to let go of and trust that what we know may be keeping us from experiencing something greater. Something we cannot comprehend, like the rich young man. If we hang onto what we think is most dear, that gives us status, sustenance, glory, etc. we can never move forward. We will always stand in the outer court wishing we could enter into the Holy Place, when we have been invited to join Him there. Is today the day the scales will be lifted, the ears unstopped, and your heart of stone turned to a heart of flesh?
I’d like to think I am not still blind, deaf, or lack understanding, but the sad reality is, I do. I just want to try to be a bit better at seeing, hearing and understanding today, than I was yesterday. It is a journey, and I am still running the race!
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