March 27, 2015

 

 

To repeat what we started with last week in this series, we are talking about the personality, the makeup, the very essence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus -- as the Son of God -- was naturally supernatural, and supernaturally natural. I know that sounds a bit clichéd, but he was the "natural" Son of God. By the world's standards -- make that the sub-normal state to which mankind had sunk because of sin -- Jesus was absolutely "out of this world!" Except for the rare instances in Israel's history to which the scribes and Pharisees could point in the lives of Elijah and Elisha when people were raised from the dead and other miracles had occurred, no one had ever seen the kind of display evidenced in someone who was so clearly manifesting God's nature.

What Jesus did, what He showed to the people, and what He taught, was a kind of lifestyle absolutely foreign to sub-natural human thinking. But Jesus was out to restore the God-man relationship and to recreate the conditions under which men and women could once again live and breathe in today's world in the likeness and image of God. He was out to restore the original purposes of Father to have a family of beings who were just like Him, a family with whom He could fellowship and share on His level!

 

Jesus, therefore, was purposed in His sharing to reveal to those who would follow Him in a disciplined way just what it would take for them to mature supernaturally, and to become once again a race of supernatural beings in the earth.

 

We have — in previous studies — noted that once we are “in Christ” and He is in us, we are transitioning to becoming “Kings and Priests unto our God.” John put it like this when writing down the Revelation:

 

Revelation 1:5b-6: Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

 

Farther along in this same Word, he writes again:

 

Revelation 5:9-10: And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

 

Am I clear on this? Do you now see what it means when Jesus says, “For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”? None of this, of course, is instantaneous; this is the nature and character and personality of the Lord Jesus Christ being worked in us through a step=by-step process in which we respond to Holy Spirit at every step.

Consider the very next statement that Jesus makes in the “Sermon on the Mount,”

 

Matthew 5:4: Blessed and enviably happy (with a happiness produced by the experience of God’s favor and especially conditioned by the revelation of His matchless grace) are those who mourn [grieve and bewail their spiritual lack] for they shall with absolute certainty be comforted by and experience the Paraklete, who is Holy Spirit. (Amplified Bible with my additions)

 

Let me digress here to tell you an old short story that will illustrate exactly what Jesus is saying. This short story is titled: THE PEARL NECKLACE.

 

The cheerful little girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them, a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box.

"Oh mommy please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please?" Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl's upturned face.

 

"A dollar ninety-five. That's almost $2.00. If you really want them, I'll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy them for yourself.. Your birthday's only a week away and you might get another crisp dollar bill from Grandma."

 

As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies. After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she went to the neighbor and asked Mrs. McJames if she could pick dandelions for ten cents. On her birthday, Grandma did give her another new dollar bill and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.

 

Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up. She wore
them everywhere, Sunday school, kindergarten, even to bed. The only time she took them off was when she went swimming or had a bubble bath. Mother said if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.

 

Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night as he finished the story, he asked Jenny, "Do you love me?"

 

"Oh yes, daddy. You know that I love you."

 

"Then give me your pearls.”

 

"Oh, daddy, not my pearls. But you can have Princess, the white horse from my collection, the one with the pink tail. Remember, daddy? The one you gave me.

 

She's my very favorite."

 

"That's okay, Honey, daddy loves you. Good night." And he brushed her cheek with a kiss.

About a week later, after the story time, Jenny's daddy asked again, "Do you love me?"

 

"Daddy, you know I love you."

 

"Then give me your pearls.”

 

"Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have my baby doll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is beautiful and you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper."

 

"That's okay. Sleep well. God bless you, little one.. Daddy loves you."

 

And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss. A few nights later when her daddy came in, Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed Indian style.

 

As he came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one silent tear rolled down her cheek.

"What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?"

 

Jenny didn't say anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy. And when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. With a little quiver, she finally said, "Here daddy, this is for you."

 

With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny's daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case with a strand of genuine pearls and gave them to Jenny.

 

He had them all the time. He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could give her the genuine treasure.

 

So it is, with Holy Spirit. He is waiting for us to give up the cheap things in our lives — those things we grasp so tightly in our mourning — so that he can give us treasures beyond the scope of our imagination.

 

The Greek word translated “mourn” in Matthew 5:4, is the word, pentheo. While the literal translation means: to grieve, to bewail, to mourn (whether an act or a feeling), it comes from a root word, penes, which means: to be in poverty, to scratch for a living working at menial tasks.

 

Human nature is to grasp at straws, to cling to the things we have on hand, even though we are not really growing or prospering — spiritually, physically, or materially. Holy Spirit, as The Paraklete, is here to comfort us. The word, Paraklete, comes from the Greek, parakaleo — a contraction of para and kaleo, which mean: alongside, and to call.

 

The concept of “calling alongside” is that of a comforter, one who comes alongside to encourage, to call us up to a higher level, to lift us from the doldrums and substandard of living that results from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

 

Do you remember what Jesus said of the Paraklete?

 

John 14:15-17: If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

 

Those who “mourn” (to use the KJV translation) are not living in or with the truth. I know this discussion on mourning is one we could really take down a rabbit trail, but the emphasis that Jesus is making is that if we live IN HIM, and He lives IN US, we will have access to the sixth of the Seven Spirits of God — the Spirit of Truth — as our guide, our governor, our teacher and our comforter, no matter what our physical circumstances may be. Mourning will be a thing of the past.

Mourning is something that those people in the world have with them continually. The world is devoid of The Truth. As Jesus states, “the world cannot receive [Him] because it doesn’t see Him and doesn’t know Him.”

 

Thus, for those who lay aside their rational, reasoning, Tree-of-the-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil mindset and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ without clinging to or hanging onto things that comfort them because of their familiarity will see the Truth, receive the Truth, and know the Truth.

Now, in the space remaining, let’s see what we can do with the third of Jesus’ opening statements as He preaches from the mountain.

 

Matthew 5:5: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Let me see what I can do with amplifying this from the Greek text.

 

Matthew 5:5: Blessed and enviably happy [with a happiness produced by the experience of God’s favor] are those who know and walk in Kingdom authority, keeping that authority and power under control, for they shall become heirs to the earth. (RAC Translation and Amplification)

 

The Greek word for “meek” is the word praus. This is a word which J.H. Thayer translates: mildness of disposition, gentleness of spirit.

 

Here’s how Peter describes it in his first letter to the body of Christ:

 

I Peter 3:4: But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

 

We are all familiar with the cliché, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

From God’s perspective, the ability to keep a meek and quiet spirit, which is to say, the ability to keep authority and power under control, is costly (Greek: poluteles: extremely expensive).

Undisciplined authority and the exercise of power without having it under the control of Holy Spirit creates utter chaos around us, and it spreads that chaos like a disease. That having authority and power under disciplined control as part and parcel of the nature of Jesus Christ is demonstrated in something that Jesus said to the Scribes and Pharisees who were questioning Him.

 

John 8:28-29: Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him.

 

You get it, don’t you? Jesus was already regarded as “huios” by Father: a fully grown and mature Son in whom Father had vested His complete authority and power. He literally had all of Heaven at his disposal. There was NOTHING withheld from Him. He was the personification of both parts of David’s revelation:

 

Psalm 115:16: The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.

 

Nevertheless, having all of Heaven at His disposal, and — as a Son of Man (as He periodically described Himself) — having the entire Earth under His dominion, Jesus kept that authority and the incalculable power of the Throne of Heaven under absolute control.

 

He made it clear on more than one occasion that “I only say those things that Father has taught me,” or “I only say those things that I hear Father say.” By the same token, Jesus said, “I do always those things that please Him,” or “I do only those things that I see Father do.”

 

Get it? THAT’s the true definition of meekness.

 

And that’s why Jesus could say as a description of His character when He spoke to the multitudes, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth!”

 

Let me stop here, and we will pick this up again next week.

 

I remind those of you in need of ministry that our Healing Prayer Call is back on schedule for Mondays & Wednesdays at 7:00 PM Eastern. Once again, the number to call for healing is (805) 399-1000. Then enter the access code: 124763#.

 

Also want to let you know that our Sunday worship gatherings are available by conference call – usually at about 10:45AM Pacific. That conference number is (559) 726-1300, and the access code is 308640#.

 

Blessings on you!