How do we become Change Agents to transform our society, both inside and outside church walls?
The cure is to become a Jesus Pickle!
Peter & John, two unlearned and ignorant men, set Jerusalem in a tizzy. How??? They hadn’t been to Bible College. They had no degrees behind their name. By today’s standards, they wouldn’t even qualify to be church volunteers much less approved revival leaders! Remember, Peter had an assault with a deadly weapon under his belt! In Acts 4:13, the boldness of Peter and John that threatened the leaders of their society was because they had been WITH Jesus. Not merely his students, not because they had heard Jesus preach, but because of their relationship WITH Jesus. They were constantly soaking in the Lord’s presence, eating together, sleeping together, and travelling together.
Many, myself included until recently, would endorse Bible Colleges and other forms of intellectual studying of God’s word as THE gold standard using 2 Timothy 2:15 as our proof text – “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” While studying God’s word is crucial to one’s spiritual growth, done through a Greek mindset will lead one down the path of error. The words will be interpreted through our fleshly mindsets instead of the Holy Spirit teaching us what He meant when He penned the words through men’s hands long ago. How else can one explain why there are so many denominations and cults all using the same English Bible yet be in such discord? Sowing discord among brethren is an abomination to the LORD (Prov 6:19), so we desperately need to find a solution!
So what does 2 Timothy 2:15 REALLY mean? The problem is modern day vernacular. The English definition of “study” today is NOT what it used to mean 400 years ago. A modern example most are familiar with is the word “Gay.” It used to mean happy, cheerful but now is used as a designation of one who has sexual relations with someone of the same gender, most often male. Today’s application of study is to dig in written material and turn into a professional student or theologian that can swallow & regurgitate quite nicely without ever needing to absorb the nutrients. Somehow that definition doesn’t jive with my spirit. Time to pull out the trusty Strong’s concordance and do a little Hebrew word surfing.
Study: spoudazo (G4704) – be diligent, be prompt, make effort.
Show thyself: paristemi (G3936) – be next to, be present with, to place
[yourself] at [His] disposal.
Approved: dokimos (G1384), – a cultural word for the legit money lenders who
did not shave down their melted silver-turned-
coins unlike their corrupt counterparts who
gave out coins that should be 10 grams but
were really 8 or 9 grams.
The analogy the Holy Spirit is getting at in this verse is that we’re to be prompt & intentional at making ourselves available to the presence of the LORD in developing a genuine relationship with Him, instead of just saying we are something when we truly aren’t. A church example that hits a little close to the belt is calling ourselves little Christs (Christians) when truly we are only big self’s because we haven’t spent enough intimate time with Jesus for his character and personality to thoroughly infuse us, transforming us from filthy, prickly garden cucumbers to deliciously smooth Jesus Dills. (Thanks to Todd Bentley at Hamilton’s Canada Glory Awakening for that analogy!). Our solution, pun intended, is Jesus Juice – the presence of God!
A practical example that may help get this Pickle point across. We welcomed a family to move in with us in the spring of 2016 after their home burnt down and ended up in a pickle of a situation. After 5.5 months of living together in each other’s faces day in, day out, they picked up both our good and bad habits, and we picked up theirs…not for intentional trying, I might add! Actually, we were trying NOT to pick up each other’s bad habits, but it just happened from the constant soaking in each other’s presence. Now imagine what would happen to yourself if you were pickled for 5.5 months in our solution of Jesus juice, God’s presence?
John came to baptize in water unto repentance. Since I can’t hold my breath under water for very long, I’m ever so thankfully that only takes a few seconds. But he prophesied that Jesus would baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. (Matt 3:11, Acts 1:5) Paul in Acts 19 confirmed this when he met 12 disciples of John that had never heard of the Holy Spirit. He didn’t walk away and say, OK, nice to meet you then carry on his merry way. Rather he educated them on being baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus – the one that John came to point the way to, then laid hands on them where they received power to speak in tongues and to prophesy.
Fires can spark instantly but they don’t die out two seconds later unless they’re lacking one of the essential ingredients (heat/hunger, something to burn/you, and oxygen/Holy Spirit). Ever notice that pickles aren’t made in two seconds, either? Many Christians lament that they have no or little faith as a means to explain away the lack of power present in their lives. The Good News is that’s not that they lack faith but rather they haven’t been pickled long enough yet to turn from a powerless bland cucumber into a powerful smelling pickle. They have to soak in the cleansing presence of God long enough to change their chemical structure into something else, being transformed by the renewing of their minds. Once you look and smell like a Jesus pickle, you won’t even have to try to exalt our Heavenly Father among the heathen and in the earth. It will just happen. One day I pray I’ll be so pickled, people will smell me a mile away in Jesus’ name!
Now the next question for the next post will be – How do I dunk myself into God’s presence (and stay there!)?
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