Revelation - Desires

Psalm 37:4: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." A Christ-centered life, or being a Christ follower, has an inherent promise that God fills your heart with desires. We are not devoid of them once we become Christ's followers, nor are we to abandon them altogether. Most religions persuade you to abandon desires, empty yourself, or get rid of them.

Recently, the Lord was impressing on my heart a few things that I have been meditating on trying to articulate here. In the book of Proverbs, there is a verse that says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, and desire realized is the Tree of Life." It is apparent here that the Lord uses our desires for the ultimate goal in our transformation to become like Him but rooting us back into the Tree of Life. The verse is intriguing and makes me think there is a deep correlation between hope, faith, and love. When one's hope diminishes, the heart is likely to be on the pathway to spiritual sickness (or journeys to the dark places of the soul), and the enemy waits for that to lead us into despair, discouragement, and depression. The illness is followed by a deep sense of betrayal, loneliness, and a breeding ground for Satan's motivations.

So, our hearts must be filled with hope. How do we practically do this? As revealed by King David, the Psalms have secrets built in, and the kind Lord has revealed them to us, so we use these weapons to fill our hearts with hope. One of those pathways of shepherding our soul lies through thanksgiving and praise. When we intentionally steep our hearts in places of gratitude to the Lord, we position and posture ourselves to enter His courts. One of the psalms rightfully sings, "Enter into His courts with thanksgiving and praise." Praise is another weapon in worship where we take our focus from ourselves and look upon His radiant face. Praise ushers in His presence into our situations. Praise was designed for our benefit, not His. It's telling our souls that no matter what, I am elevating myself into seeking His face and presence and not going to give my attention or devotion to inferior things vying for my attention. When this happens, our hearts slowly start filling with hope. And then hope dares to believe and raise the banner of faith to see the unseen. Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) quotes: "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."

Now, we need to know that desires compete with our delight and desire of the Lord. The revelation that the Lord recently impressed on me was when I came before Him in brokenness and a contrite heart, positioning my heart to desire Him more than all my other competing desires. At that time, He could trust me with those things that enlarge the capacity of my soul and those things that He wants to indeed bless me with. Sometimes, when we are not ready for those blessings without having the capacity to handle them, we can be crushed by them. It does not mean the Lord does not fulfill those desires. Sometimes he does, but most of the time, it follows with tests if we are making them our idols or making Him the center and chief desire of our lives.

May we all live with this foremost desire of making Him our first love and trusting Him with all our desires; indeed, He will fulfill the desires of our hearts. Jesus modeled His life for us this way, seeking the Father and his will alone, and whatever He asked of the Father, it was released in His ministry and work on earth. Our lives are no different; we are to live like He did. Simply desiring the Father and His will, and everything we need is supplied, but more importantly, we are rooted in Him, the source of everlasting life.

Shalom and Blessings,

Sam

Revelations 3-5 Treasure nuggets from the Gospel of Matthew

In continuing my series of revelations posts, here are some more from the first few chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. One observation I do have to make and confess is, though I have read these gospels so many times, every time I read them, I can’t help falling in love with the Lord Jesus more and more. I want to say, as we look upon His Glorious face, it seems like nothing else matters. Like Mary, we can be in awe, wonder, love, and be at His feet and keep asking for more.

Revelation#3: From the Gospel of Matthew: John the Baptist is railing on the Pharisees when they come to see him baptizing common poor people. He calls them a brood of vipers, but interestingly in Hebrew and Aramaic, the word used is ‘akidneh,’ which means a scorpion. A scorpion, after mating, and the female scorpion dies after giving birth, so literally every scorpion born is an orphan. The wordplay is interesting indeed as John uses that word in the Aramaic local tongue of that time as he compares the Pharisees to vipers. To literally convey that, though they were descendants of Abraham, they were not following his ways but born and left as spiritual orphans. But if they only returned to their true Father, God, they would no longer be orphans.

Revelation#4: The Sermon on the Mount is the unveiling of Christ’s new constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven and the invasion of it on earth as well. It begins by giving His followers a far superior way of living than the Ten Commandments dictated by Him to Moses. What I love about Yeshua is that He gives us more than laws; He gives us promises and also the power to fulfill all that He asks of us. Our part: yielding, following, and abiding! Blessings & Shalom.

Revelation #5: The Greek word Ekklesia is used or known commonly among Christians (and the church in general) as ecclesiastically or related to liturgy or a legislative body or assembly of the church. However, I find it fascinating that in ancient Greek culture, it’s also a word used primarily to mean “assemble an army.” The Church of Christ is indeed an army of kings and priests, marching and rejoicing in the ever-advancing Kingdom of God! The good news is Yeshua is in the front 🙂 as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Adonai Tzav’ot (The Lord of hosts and commander of Angelic armies)! Shabbat thoughts for Holy Sabbath, blessings, and Shalom!

Revelation from my quiet times - Reading through the Bible

2024 has rolled in and, like many who make New Year's resolutions, I return here after a few years of hiatus to again pen down some new revelations from the Lord. I am not promising myself anything, as old-fashioned writing in my journals using penmanship has caught me pursuing tangible paper, fancy writing instruments, and the messiness of ink. However, I do miss the conveniences of technology in putting my thoughts here from time to time.

At the start of the year, I made some FB blurb posts on a few revelations from the book of Matthew. As a start, I'm going to post or collate a couple of them here and hopefully, it will bless someone.
From my quiet time today: Revelation#1

The Gospel of Matthew in chapter 1 shows the genealogy of Christ, establishing His royal line as the son of David, and Luke’s Gospel shows the genealogy of Christ, establishing Him as the Son of man. Matthew’s genealogy starts with Abraham and Luke’s starts with Adam. The curse was on Jeconiah’s seed that no one of his line would sit on David’s throne, but God’s mercy and plan still establish the throne of David through Mary, who came from David’s line through Nathan. Interestingly, 14 generations are mentioned from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Babylonian captivity, and 14 from captivity to Christ the Anointed One! To blow your mind more: 14 is the number for Passover, and 14 is the number for Spiritual Perfection. 14 is mentioned three times in Matthew’s genealogy. 14 times 3 is 42, and brilliantly, 42 is the number of generations to Christ and 42 is the number of months Yeshua ministered in His earthly ministry. Coincidence, I think not 🙂

Revelation#2: From Matthew’s Gospel, we are told the Magi visited to worship Jesus after following a shining star that appeared in the heavens, and they followed it to Bethlehem. Their arrival created quite an uproar in Jerusalem. It is quite possible this entourage of the Magi was over a hundred people, and it's very unlikely there were only three people as represented in our cute nativity scenes and sets. It would be rare just three visitors would have created such an uproar in Herod’s court or among the people for a newborn King. They brought treasure chests of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The word 'branch' of the Lord is translated from the Hebrew word 'netzer', the root word for Nazareth. The teaching “the branch of the Lord” is a concept throughout the Bible from the Tree of Life, seven branches of the lampstand, to Jesus the Vine, and calling us His branches, and furthermore, branches that are transplanted and grafted into Israel etc. However, the word netzer also means keeper, watchman, keeper of secrets, and guardian, and the Aramaic meaning is “the victorious one” or when translated as Jesus being called the Victorious branch of Nazareth. Be Blessed & Shalom!