“Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5 v 1.

When God redeemed you and declared you righteous through Jesus Christ, He gave you seven spiritual blessings that ensure the eternal nature of salvation. The first of these blessings is Peace with God. (look for the other six on PUYB in the next few days)

What does it mean to be at peace with God?

Firstly, peace with God simply means you are not at war with Him. He is not against you; He is not trying to test you; He is not out to break you. When life is at your neck, you don’t have to search the heavens wondering ‘Why?’. You can look upon your God above and say ‘Help!‘.

Secondly, peace with God means that He is on your side. In all the battles you will ever face, He fights on your behalf. You have the creator of this universe on your side. When you pass through waters He is with you, when you walk through rivers they shall not sweep over you, and when you walk through fire you shall not be consumed, for He is the Lord your God, your Savior. (Isaiah 43v2)

Thirdly, peace with God means you are never alone. He has given you the Spirit of truth to dwell with you and to be in you forever. (John 14 v 17) As a child of God, there is nothing you will face alone. No diagnosis, no pending bill, no wayward child. He is always with you.

May the truth of the peace you have with God help your heart be still in this season of life.

In Luke 18 v 9-14 we read one of the forty parables that Jesus told the crowds that gathered around him. Jesus was a wonderful story teller. He mesmerized his audience with culturally relevant, simple stories that always ended with a call to decision. Those who genuinely seek Him, just as his original audience, ponder over these parables and discover the truths of the kingdom of God. Others respond in a manner best described by Jesus – “Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”

This particular parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, has become one of my favorite parables (I seem to have different ones in different seasons of life). Let’s read it together and then I’ll share my thoughts and would love to read yours (please comment).

Luke 18 v 9-14:

“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner! I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Let’s take a look at the 3 distinct characters in this story.

The Pharisee: What an onboxious fella this one is! Sheesh. Did you read that prayer? How self-centered and egotistic can a person be! We can quickly dismiss any semblance we may have to this guy… puhleez, we know how to do public prayer the right way.

The Tax Collector: This guy is the broken but lovable character in the story. He is humble in all the right places and gives God the glory and honor due to Him.

God: the just judge.

I love that Luke tells us exactly who Jesus intended this parable for : People who trusted in themselves, trusted in their own righteousness and, treated others, who probably didn’t measure up to their standard of law-keeping. Obviously the parable was directed at the the Pharisees in the crowd. But who is the Pharisee of today? Who does this parable address for the present day Bible reader? The prayer of the Pharisee seems shamelessly self-righteous. However, it was most probably genuine. The Pharisees were a sect of religious Jews who made following the Levitical law their sole purpose in life. They were set apart from other jews in that they created for themselves more stringent conditions to the law in an effort to please God and have right standing with him. We have to remember, there was no Messiah yet. They were doing everything they knew how to do right by God and they took great pride in this. This is the language we are reading in his prayer. He is thanking God that he has chosen the straight and narrow path unlike the pathetic tax collector, who has not. Self-centered, but truthful.

The tax collector’s prayer on the other hand was self-denying and filled with the awarness that his sole hope was in the mercy and grace of God. He was also being truthful. He had chosen the path of sinfulness by taking up the Roman post of Tax Collector, oppressing the Jews and benefiting from the riches he gained from it.

We like clear distinctions and so we tend to put the Pharisee in the bad guy bucket and sympathize with the tax collector alotting him the ‘good guy’ title. BUt the truth is both of these people were bad guys. They were both sinning against their God. The tax collector’s public sin made it easier for him and all the world to see his need for a Savior. The Pharisee, also a sinner, but not an abvious one. His sin was a heart issue – a reliance on his ability to follow what He thought pleased God. Ironically, this very dependence on self was the sin that set him against God.

So, I bring the question back again – Who is today’s Pharisee that this parable is intended for? I hesitate to say it but we know its true. It’s us. Christians who are probably not struggling with blatant sin and who seem to think we are a little more conformed to the image of Christ than others.

The longer we are Christians, we can lose that sense of our dire need for a Savior and start focusing on bettering our lives through actions, deeds, behavioral change etc. before we know it, we are spending most of our time looking at ourselves, albeit with good intentions of conforming to the image of Christ, more than we are looking at Christ. We get bigger and bigger in our focus lens and God gets smaller. Christians can get to a place in life where we have control over obvious, public sin. Our community living and accountablitiy in churches and community groups enable us to do this. We learn to tame our sinful nature in our efforts to live right by our Lord who died for our sins. In this journey, we can easily be fooled to think we are closer to God in morality than unbelievers or even other Christians.The line of progressive morality is a man made concept. It is important to remeber that when it comes to salvation and justification here are only two chacracters – God and the sinner. We must be aware and very clear as to which one we are.

It will change our hearts.

It will change our prayers.

It will put us in right standing with God.

The word of God never fails us – It always lights our path to keep us from destruction. Pick up your Bible. It will change your life.

Thank you, Jesus, for your parables. You are the best story teller.

I’ve been feeling the need to do something about my ever waning patience for quite some time. The older I get, the less patience I seem to have for anything or anyone. This is neither productive nor helpful. More importantly, it is not Christ-like.

I have tried the “fake it till you make it” strategy. Though this gets me through particular situations it hardly makes a dent in my character. And at the end of the day, though I projected patience to the world, when I looked at the condition of my heart, it hadn’t changed. I’ve also attempted the “avoid certain situations/people at all costs”. But seriously, how long can you keep that going? And the – quiet walks, long solitary breaks, screaming into a pillow, fetal position in a closet in the basement. I’ve tried it all, people. But in the end it didn’t make me more like my Father. No meaningful solution to be found. Until…

I started praying about it. I know… this sounds cliche… but it is the truth. I realized that no amount of self help was going to work with me. I need God to change this character in me. So, at the beginning of the year, I began to earnestly pray about it. My prayer has been, “Lord, help me be more patient and gentle because I want to be more like you”.

One morning in January, God brought my attention to Ecclesiastes Chapter 7. For those of you not familiar with this chapter, it is one that highlights the contrast between wisdom and folly. It has a poetic discourse in the form of what some refer to as ‘sentence literature’, like that found in Proverbs. Concepts are presented in dialectic pairs. Like, The State of A is better than the state of B, kind of format.

I immediately zoned in on verse 8(b) – “…and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit“.

I always thought of patience as simply the opposite of impatience. And impatience could be justified for in my life -impossible/immature people, demands on me or my time, tiredness, hunger, non-stop chatter of two young girls paused only for the gazillion questions shot my way every day etc. I’ve also considered patience as the opposite of haste. Even, patience as the opposite of a short temper.

But patience being the opposite of pride. Didn’t consider that and it pierced my soul. It convicted me because it is so true in my case. My impatience is indeed a pride issue. Though it is a harsh truth to discover about myself, I feel so free because of it. If you diagnose the exact cause of an infectious rash you can use the right medicine on it…and healing is sure to follow.

See what the Bible does! It is like a mirror reflecting the very core of your soul. Not to hopeless despair but to realize your need for a Savior and His mercy. And the good Lord knows I need Him!

In Christ Alone,

Cynthia.

Pick Up Your Bible was started to encourage fellow Christians to read the Bible. Pretty simple.

Our lives as Christians become truly remarkable when we take the time to study the Word of God and pray in the Holy Spirit.

The only way to know God is to have Him show you who He is. Moses knew this to be true and hence cried out to the Lord in prayer “Please show me now your ways, that I may know you…”

To say you know God is to say you know His ways. To say you know His ways you must indeed study them. Thankfully, He gave us the textbook.

IMHO, the three most pressing reasons to read our Bibles constantly are as follows:

Firstly, it’s God’s chosen method of revealing Himself to humanity. We must know what He says about Himself. Else our confession of Christ is but empty, untrue words.

Secondly, the Bible is the only true source against which we can and should test our understanding of Him. It is imperative that what we know of God is true. There are many who translate God to us. Many convincing voices (yes, including the one in your head) that claim to know Him. Do not be deceived.

Thirdly, we need to constantly remind ourselves of the truth of the Word in order to align our daily thoughts and actions to it. In our pursuit to be like Christ we must know who Christ is by his own account. The adversary makes good use of our bad memory, poor understanding and our plain lack of interest. We need to be on the offence.

Of course, there are numerous more reasons to read your Bible but for the sake of this blog post not going on into eternity, we shall stick to these three. These three are plenty reason to pick up your Bible.

In this blog, I share what I have learnt from spending time in the Word of God. I hope it is encouraging to you and creates in you a craving to read it for yourself.

In Christ alone,

Cynthia.

I’m Cynthia, a follower of Jesus Christ.

In my journey as a Christian, I’ve gone through periods of being lost within my faith. I know I’m not the only one. Many experience the same “wrestling with God” every day.

You see, it’s easy to think you know God. We assume we know what He would say, do, even think in any given situation. And therein lies the problem. We assume the character of God based on our limited knowledge and we ALWAYS get it wrong. This is where our faith gets shaky. This is where I find myself every time I wrestle with God.

It wasn’t until I started reading and studying the Word of God that I felt I was standing on firm ground. The Word is the soil that our faith can take root in and remain unshakable.

Why?

Because the Bible is what God used to reveal His character to His creation. It is impossible to know Him or understand Him outside of it. (unless, of course, He shows up at your front door… but even then, confirm with His word! lol!)

Pick up Your Bible is a space I use to share my understanding of God through His written word. The only intention behind it is to encourage you to stop looking anywhere else and to find God in His Word.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cynthia.