I Glory In My Jesus: I Am Their Inheritance

I was reading about Paul and Silas preaching in Macedonia (Acts 16) when they came upon a woman who was possessed with a spirit of divination. She was likely a slave because it said she brought "her masters much gain (money)" by her soothsaying. Divination and Soothsaying is the ability to tell the future and she was raking in the dough for her masters. But then she hears Paul and Silas and she started following them and started crying out, "These men are the servants of the most High God, which shew unto us the way of salvation!!" She goes on to do this for "many days" and Paul finally stops and sensing she was possessed, said to the demon - "I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And then...she was delivered!

When her masters see that her ability to predict the future was gone they became angry and they caught Paul and Silas and brought them to the marketplace and to the rulers and magistrates and said that they, "do exceedingly trouble our city". They must have been pretty good at whooping up a crowd because they got many to rise up against them and the magistrates start rending/ripping their clothes up (talk about watching demons in action) and then they started to whip Paul and Silas! And after they had whipped them significantly they threw them into prison and locked their feet into stocks.

Pause.

Here Paul and Silas are doing a good thing - freeing this woman of demonic oppression and what does it lead to? Punishment and whipping and prison.

That's going to happen to you, if it hasn't already. You will go about to bless others and things get worse. But the story doesn't stop there and we are lucky to witness, "mature faith" as my husband calls it.

Paul and Silas are in prison instead of lamenting why God allowed this to happen them - we see that at midnight they pray and sing to God. Suddenly there is an earthquake so that the foundation of the prison is shaken and all the doors open and every single prisoner's bands are loosed! And the keeper of the prison wakes up and sees the prison doors open and draws out his sword to kill himself because he thought all the prisoners are gone! There must be a heavy price to pay for prisoners escaping if his first response is to go straight to suicide. But when Paul sees this he cries out with a loud voice and says, "Do thyself NO HARM! For we are all here." And then they bring a light and this guy who was about to kill himself is trembling and falls at their feet and says, "What must I do to be saved?!" And they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."

This illustrates mature faith. Just because you follow Jesus Christ doesn't mean you won't suffer or have loss or be cast into prison, spiritual or physical. If you can praise Him in the valley as well as on the mountain top, you are walking in mature faith.

It's important to ask in prayer, "Lord, where is my faith in You needing to mature? Where am I reacting instead of acting in Your Goodness?"

Later in Acts Chapter 17 Paul and Silas come to Berea and go to the synagogue of the Jews and meet a special people. Paul said they were more "noble" than those in Thessalonica. What does noble mean? It is someone possessing, characterized by, or arising from superiority of mind or character or of ideals or morals. Someone who is...mature.

Why were they more noble/mature in their faith?

Because they received the words they were teaching them "with all readiness of mind" because they - "searched the scriptures daily" to know whether what Paul and Silas taught aligned with scripture.

There are many groups that do not understand scripture, though religious people say they have the most correct scripture and other groups believe they have the most perfect and sound translations. It really doesn't matter what any group professes to have if they don't understand them.

How can you tell if your church or group understands the scriptures or not?

When a preacher, a church or an offshoot group develops a handbook or puts forth requirements that are not found in the scriptures - that's your sign. Look at what causes conflict in the LDS church and/or offshoot groups. On which topics do people get divided? You may notice in each area the derision derives solely from the fact that the things their followers are upset about do not align with scripture in the first place. Distraction abounds and the end goal, which should be Jesus Christ, instead becomes obeying the rules and aim for Zion and becoming a Zion people so that Jesus can come and harmony can be achieved.

Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they (the scriptures!) that bear witness about Me!!" (John 5:39)

Jesus is all you need.

Learn from me - Jesus was not my focus, though I would have told you at the time that He was. Look at the group of people you spend your time with (outside of your family). Is Jesus the topic of their conversation? Or does it usually ebb to other things? When Jesus is what you wake up with on your lips and when you can pull weeds from your yard and find you whisper His name...when you sit at your desk to work and get stuck at an impasse and call out, "JESUS!"...when He is what you think about when you don't have anything to think about - you are on the path with Him.

That God that made the world, and everything in it....He is the Lord of Heaven and Earth. And He doesn't dwell in temples made with hands...and He is not worshipped with men's hands (or Temples, or more perfect scriptures or more detailed rules or another Conference...etc.). God made of one blood all the nations of men and women to dwell on the face of the earth and He has determined everything...that we should seek the Lord, "if haply they might feel after Him....and find Him....though he be not far from every one of us. For in Him we live, and move, and have our being....For we are also His offspring." (Acts 17)

Nothing extra you do will make God love you more or come to you more. He already loves you. He is already WITH you. Building Him another Temple isn't going to make Him happier - He already told you that you are His temple. Perfecting scriptures isn't going to please Him more. He already gave them to you and asked you to use them to come to Him (Luke 24:27).

Why do we, like Adam and Eve, insist on not believing Him? Making more rules about the priesthood or newer scriptures or more interesting conferences isn't going to make Him come any sooner. You are the only thing Holding Him back from being one with you. He's right here..." for in Him we live, and move, and have our being." Stop searching out there for the next thing and go in your closet and say "Abba - Father...Papa. I'm done with not believing Your goodness. I'm done believing that I need someone or something else to get to You. From the Garden to now I have doubted Your Goodness and that walking in the cool of the day with You was enough. Help me trust that You love me, right now, just as I am and there is nothing more I can do to make You love me more."

Just as a smart man knows he is stupid, so the awake Christian knows that he/she is a scalawag.

Brennan Manning said:

"The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can't save ourselves. What Jesus did was sufficient. To the extent that we are self-made saints like the Pharisees or neutral like Pilate (never making the leap in trust), we let the prostitutes and publicans go first into the kingdom while we are in the background having our alleged virtue burned out of us. The hookers and swindlers enter before us because they know they cannot save themselves, that they cannot make themselves presentable or lovable. They risked everything on Jesus and, knowing they didn't have it all together, were not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.

"Maybe this is the heart of our hang-up, the root of our dilemma. We fluctuate between castigating ourselves and congratulating ourselves because we are deluded into thinking we save ourselves. We develop a false sense of security from our good works and scrupulous observance of the law. Our halo gets too tight and a carefully disguised attitude of moral superiority results. Or we are appealed by our inconsistency, devastated that we haven't lived up to our lofty expectations of ourselves. The roller cosater rise of elation and depression continues.

Why?

"Because we never lay hold of our nothingness before God, and consequently, we never enter into the deepest reality of our relationship with Him. But when we accept ownership of our powerlessness and helplessness, when we acknowledge that we are paupers at the door of God's mercy, then God can make something beautiful out of us.

"The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness. Thus the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance, rather than repentance and then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace."

"From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you (realize) salvation (comes) through faith in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:15)

Never forget...there is only One person that should occupy your adoration and it isn't President Nelson and it isn't the preacher you follow...God said: (Ezekiel 44:28)

...I am their inheritance...I am their possession.