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PROVERBS 22:17-21
Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise,
And apply your heart to my knowledge;
For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within you;
Let them all be fixed upon your lips,
So that your trust may be in the LORD;
I have instructed you today, even you.
Have I not written to you excellent things
Of counsels and knowledge,
That I may make you know the certainty of the words of truth,
That you may answer words of truth
To those who send to you?
Certainty is the thing we hope to attain. If we are certain of something, there is no doubt; we are locked in to an outlook, a belief, a way of life, a prejudice, a preference, a like or a dislike, an opinion. As believers in Jesus Christ, the certainty of all He brought into this world is fundamental to our faith. Our own prejudices and opinions must fall away so that our Lord prevails. We are not our own. If we are uncertain of this, we are in danger of faltering and stumbling in our walk with God.
Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient,
“The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone,”
and
“A stone of stumbling
And a rock of offense.”
They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.
1 PETER 2:7-8
Proverbs reminds us that I may make you know the certainty of the words of truth, while 1 Peter states that stumbling is being disobedient to the word… to which they also were appointed. In other words abandoning the certainty of the word is what leads to our stumbling in faith.
When The Lord gave me ‘certainty’ as something to consider, I felt encouraged, certain in fact that I had heard from Him, but as the moment passed along with the days, doubt crept in. More than that, I could no longer be sure of what made me feel so certain about ‘certainty’ in the first place. I did what I have often done before which is to search out a matter [Proverbs 25:2]. As often happens when you begin looking into the things of the Lord, He presents you with the very thing you need; in this case a reading from Oswald Chambers’ ‘My Utmost For His Highest’, where he talks of Faith.
When The Lord gave me ‘certainty’ as something to consider, I felt encouraged, certain in fact that I had heard from Him, but as the moment passed along with the days, doubt crept in. More than that, I could no longer be sure of what made me feel so certain about ‘certainty’ in the first place. I did what I have often done before which is to search out a matter [Proverbs 25:2]. As often happens when you begin looking into the things of the Lord, He presents you with the very thing you need; in this case a reading from Oswald Chambers’ ‘My Utmost For His Highest’, where he talks of Faith.
Faith in active opposition to common sense is mistaken enthusiasm and narrow-mindedness, and common sense in opposition to faith demonstrates a mistaken reliance on reason as the basis for truth. The life of faith brings the two of these into the proper relationship. Common sense and faith are as different from each other as the natural life is from the spiritual, and as impulsiveness is from inspiration.
Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete, whereas common sense falls short. Yet faith must be tested and tried before it becomes real in your life. “We know that all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28) so that no matter what happens, the transforming power of God’s providence transforms perfect faith into reality.
Faith always works in a personal way, because the purpose of God is to see that perfect faith is made real in His children. For every detail of common sense in life, there is a truth God has revealed by which we can prove in our practical experience what we believe God to be. Faith is a tremendously active principle that always puts Jesus Christ first. The life of faith says, “Lord, You have said it, it appears to be irrational, but I’m going to step out boldly, trusting in Your Word” (for example, see Matthew 6:33).
Turning intellectual faith into our personal possession is always a fight, not just sometimes. God brings us into particular circumstances to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make the object of our faith very real to us. Until we know Jesus, God is merely a concept, and we can’t have faith in Him. But once we hear Jesus say, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9) we immediately have something that is real, and our faith is limitless. Faith is the entire person in the right relationship with God through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
OSWALD CHAMBERS ‘My Utmost For His Highest’ (30th October)
The line that impacted on me most readily was Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete. Making that distinction convinces my rational reasoning self that it does not and can not know everything, and helps in faith-building, reinforcing that my confidence is in The Lord, and repeated confidence makes for certainty.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, says William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 1, scene 5).
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, says William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 1, scene 5).
I’M CONFIDENT OF THIS VERY THING…
A CLOSING WORD from AARON NEVILLE
Every morning I wake up and thank God.
LISTEN TO THIS MEDITATION HERE…
… with apologies for extraneous noises … wood chopping next door … our small dog doing her ‘power shake’ to indicate her walk time is overdue … etc., etc. ...
COMING NEXT… #553 UNDER THE FIG TREE, I SAW YOU
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ACTS 4:8-17
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel:
If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well,
let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole.
This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marvelled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.
And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.
But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,
saying, “What shall we do to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.
But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them, that from now on they speak to no man in this name.”
ACTS 4:8-17
We can see that every witness and every sermon recounted in Acts concerns the Resurrected Jesus. Acts 4 is a continuation of the events surrounding the Healing of The Lame Man, and we find a major part of the substance of Acts 4 in verses 8-17, which states unequivocally that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
Both Acts 3 and 4 dwell on ‘the name’. His name is pivotal in our understanding of our faith. The name of Jesus (or ‘Joshua’) means ‘Jehovah is salvation’. This we know if we know Him at all. He is salvation, a word that carries the weight and power of saving grace, healing and life in the Spirit.
At our Tuesday gathering, Gill was given Psalm 52, verses 8 and 9 which read…
Both Acts 3 and 4 dwell on ‘the name’. His name is pivotal in our understanding of our faith. The name of Jesus (or ‘Joshua’) means ‘Jehovah is salvation’. This we know if we know Him at all. He is salvation, a word that carries the weight and power of saving grace, healing and life in the Spirit.
At our Tuesday gathering, Gill was given Psalm 52, verses 8 and 9 which read…
But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God;
I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.
I will praise You forever,
Because You have done it;
And in the presence of Your saints
I will wait on Your name, for it is good.
PSALM 52:8-9
The Psalmist says that he will wait on Your name, for it is good. The word for ‘wait’ means to bind together, to twist together, suggesting that in believing we shall be inextricably connected to the Name of Jesus, that we have an expectation that He shall be present for us, and if we are wondering about His power and how that translates into our lives, then we must see two things…
Psalm 52:8 speaks of us as a green olive tree in the house of God. The olive tree symbolically represents the anointing and thus spirituality. Green is the colour of life and we can be sure that we will have everlasting life in the spirit because of God’s eternal mercy, if we will but trust Him in all things. Trust in The Lord and His power is made manifest. There is power in the name of Jesus…
- The power is Jesus — His name, which is also His nature, as the only begotten Son of God,
- That power is not ours to wield — the power is Jesus and the Holy Spirit working within us if we have faith in Him. It is Jesus witnessing to our trust and belief that He is the Son of God, because we witness to Him.
Psalm 52:8 speaks of us as a green olive tree in the house of God. The olive tree symbolically represents the anointing and thus spirituality. Green is the colour of life and we can be sure that we will have everlasting life in the spirit because of God’s eternal mercy, if we will but trust Him in all things. Trust in The Lord and His power is made manifest. There is power in the name of Jesus…
Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
2 TIMOTHY 1:6-7
I re-iterate here from a word found in our ‘Write The Vision’ weblog:
Note the order shown in 2 Timothy. Power comes first, then love, then a sound mind, meaning a mind controlled and corrected by the Holy Spirit. The second and third come from the first. Power comes first of all, and you need the power of God to move in love and a sound or pure mind. But what is spiritual power?
Note the order shown in 2 Timothy. Power comes first, then love, then a sound mind, meaning a mind controlled and corrected by the Holy Spirit. The second and third come from the first. Power comes first of all, and you need the power of God to move in love and a sound or pure mind. But what is spiritual power?
- P – PRAISE — JUDGES 1:17 And Judah [praise] went with Simeon [hearing] his brother, and they slew the Canaanites [zealous; from root meaning merchants or traffickers] that inhabited Zephath [watchtower; a city renamed Hormah], and utterly destroyed it. And the name of the city was called Hormah [devotion]. Psalm 52 says I will praise you forever. [KJV]
- O – OVERCOMING — REVELATION 2:26 And he that overcometh, and keeps my works to the end, to him will I give power over the nations: [KJV]
- W – WORSHIP or WALK (in the Spirit)
- E – ENCOURAGEMENT
- R – RESTORATION
THERE IS POWER IN THE NAME OF JESUS by Noel Richards
There is power in the name of Jesus
We believe in His name
We have called on the name of Jesus
We are saved, we are saved!
At His name, the demons flee
At His name, captives are freed
For there is no other name
That is higher than Jesus
There is power in the name of Jesus
Like a sword in our hands
We declare in the name of Jesus
We shall stand, we shall stand!
At His name, God's enemies
Shall be crushed beneath our feet
For there is no other name
That is higher than Jesus
A CLOSING WORD from PEACE PILGRIM
If you realised how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.