Worship Call 0739

Worship Call 0739 Lead us not into temptation

Monday October 3, 2022

Stumbling block to prayer

And The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Genesis 2:8

God is multivocational at creation. He is the world’s maker, a soon to be matchmaker, Adam’s surgeon, Eve’s builder, and now gardener. Notice that Eden is not the garden, though we usually equate the two. The Garden is in the broader region of Eden, which is located somewhere “in the east.” A gan is a walled garden, a protected place, where flowers and fruits and vegetables grow. The Greek translation rendered gan as paradeisos – thus our word Paradise.

In God’s masterful shaping of events, after paradise is lost, it is regained when God takes up the vocation of gardening again. The same Lord who queried Adam, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), asked Mary Magdalene, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15) She supposed this man to be a gardener. – and oh, how right she was. The same Lord who planted a garden in Eden has now planted life in the soil above his vacated tomb. He’d come to cultivate the life of the spirit within us, to cause us to bear abundant fruit, to feed us from the new tree of life and – on our last day – to say to each of us, “today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43).

Plant your grace within our hearts, O Lord , that we might find our delight in you.

Chad Bird

Unveiling Mercy Matthew 6:14–15 (NASB95) — 14 “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

An Injury or a hurt.

88.297 παράπτωμα, τος n: what a person has done in transgressing the will and law of God by some false step or failure—‘transgression, sin.’[1]

This is picked up in verse 12 where we are asking the Lord to forgive us our debts as sin incurs a debt.

Here transgression is connected to the debt in verse 12.

So much is built upon our relationships with one another.

Communion service brings us altogether to remind us of our unity in the Lord.

So vital in that unity that if we do not forgive, we remain in the darkness of carnality. So much with in the body of Christ calls for forgiveness.

Those in Christ forms a communion. those that are bound together under a single purpose which is the spiritual life and faith.

Ephesians 4:1–7 (NASB95) — 1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

This world where exists the spirit of the antichrist while anticipating the one deemed as the man of Lawlessness which will take his seat as the one world leader in the future.

For now, as the world is restructuring to welcome this leader it is being restructured on the factions that it is creating. Blacks against whites, religion against religion, denomination against denomination, neighbor against neighbor we could sit all day defining the factions that stand opposed to one another.

And why do these factions exist? to tear down authority structures. Tearing down authority structures it tears down the systems that are there to maintain order and keep the peace.

Within the church structure there is authority structure and the system within the church is designed to promote spiritual growth. The same evil that exists outside the church also exist within the church to cause factions and descension designed to tear the unity which is so important.

It is this disunity that destroys not only individual spiritual lives but whole churches as well.

There are churches across the world that are suffering persecution from outside but much more damaged is caused by unsolved personal issues within the church.

But all of it begins with resolving the personal issue from the very bottom between two people.

That principle is that if we are going to fight among each other as mom or dad would say

“Take it outside!”

So we as believers take out bitterness anger dissension outside, out into the darkness. And the things that we do against one another if it is nothing more than the grudge that we hold against another we do against Christ.

The warning is

Matthew 6:14–15 (NASB95) — 14 “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Mark 11:25 (NASB95) — 25 “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions.

This means that we remain in Carnality where

1. Spiritual growth stops

2. There is a falling away from the faith

3. No effectiveness in prayers

4. Service to Satan by placing stumbling blocks before other believers

5. NO production of divine good

6. Spiritual impact diminishes as in salt losing saltiness and light failing to shine.

7. In the suppressing and quenching the Holy spirit there is no longer the ability to take in God’s word and often the believer will either completely give up on doctrine or begin to follow false doctrine.

8. The believer will also go through the cycles of discipline before being taken sin unto death

9. In the end the believer stands before the Lord with nothing to show for a life that should have be lived for Christ.

Pretty big price in holding a grudge.

When it comes to the forgiveness, as in what we read in the article recently about Corrie Ten Boom. It is not about how you feel. The Carnal nature is going to sit itself against the spirit. It is the yielding over to obedience to the spirit to dismiss the debt that is brought on by the transgression.

Ephesians 4:32 (NASB95) — 32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

1 John 1:7 (NASB95) — 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

Remember for a lot less than any of us will suffer Jesus upon the cross says

Luke 23:33–34 (NASB95) — 33 When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. 34 But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.

Matthew 6:16 (NASB95) — 16 “Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.

Fasting generally would have to do with food. The natural process of taking in sustenance for the body.

When it comes to fasting, it is laying aside the needs of the body to elevate the importance of spiritual matters.

How many dismiss all together spiritual matters in caring for the physical. I can’t go to church because I worked all week and too tired it is my only day to sleep in. How many times have heard that. Kind of funny. Well ok, But what about Sunday or Wednesday evening. But one is never too tired to come to the dinner table or go to ball game.

Fasting is setting aside the normal and natural functions of life to focus upon spiritual matters IE prayer.

This is another thing that Jesus sites that one’s righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees.

Luke 18:9–14 (NASB95) — 9 And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ 14 “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

[1]Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 773). United Bible Societies.