A Common Language

One of the amazing wonders of this world is that the Creator of it all desired to communicate with His creatures.
God could have finished His creation , and gone on to other things leaving His creation to fend for itself. He could have stepped back and simply watched man struggle to survive.
But no....God wanted to communicate with man, God desired to teach man to know Him !
"But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me." (Jer.9:24)

John Milton Gregory, first president of the University of Illinois , in his 1864 book “The Seven Laws of Teaching” said, “The language used as a medium between teacher and learner must be common to both.”

What a simplistic statement – of course if I am to learn anything from a teacher I need to be able to speak the same language!

Did you ever stop to consider that God and man do not naturally share a common language?

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (I Cor.2:14)

Natural man cannot understand God.
So the only way God could communticate with man was to create a common language between them so that man would be able to grasp the lofty things concerning God and His spiritual realm.
In His wisdom and love He ‘wrote’ a language specifically designed for this purpose.

What was this language that transcends time and the limitation of man’s intellectual ability to understand things that are unknown ?
It is the language of parables --- a language built on “it is like”. This language allows God to speak of the invisible , unknown things of God’s kingdom by comparing them to the things all men know and understand.

The biggest ‘parable’ God wrote is His creation. It is His picture book that peoples of all nations can ‘read’.
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." (Rom.1:20)

Even after men have 'read' what God has written in creation...and they open His Book to read His written word... God still speaks in parables... through stories... saying "it is like..."
"Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable." (Ps.78:2)

And when Jesus came He spoke as He heard His Father speak….
"And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying..." (Matt.13:3)
"All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world." (Matt. 13:34,35)

How often Jesus began His teaching with the words..…””It is like this…” explaining the unknown by comparing it to what is known and familiar to man.

A common language between us… did you ever stop to consider how precious that is ? If God ever spoke to us on His level of intelligence ….we would not understand a word He said.

I once wanted to demonstrate to a woman’s group I was speaking to how important it is that God ‘dumbed down’ His divine level of intelligence to be able to communicate with us.

To illustrate my point, I put together an English sentence…
“Scintillate, scintillate, diminutive superlative body, with speculative impetus I vacillate contemplating your definite composition.”

The sentence contains only English words yet the meaning does not easily transfer from speaker to listener, does it. Not one woman could tell me what I had said.

When I told them I had merely said “Twinkle, twinkle little star , how I wonder what you are”, they laughed in disbelief.

I think that it is a wonderful evidence of how much God loves us – that He would make sure that He could communicate His truths to our minds and hearts in such a way that we would understand.

How carefully should we observe His parables… and study them diligently to understand the spiritual Truths they are meant to teach us !!

Fear Not !

Above is a photo of the mother deer who had the broken leg.

I was never able to get close enough to her to see exactly what the damage was, until a couple of days ago when she was munching close to my back patio. I was able to get this photo, that shows where her left front ankle was broken.

It has healed but has a thickened area over the ankle . The mother deer is obviously no longer in pain but she walks with her hoof turned outward. Because she is walking on her side of her foot it makes her leg shorter and so she walks with a limp, but she has been seen leaping over fences. She has learned to cope with her handicap but I think it must often pain her to step on something sharp.

When we were first aware she had been hurt we felt so sorry for her and we feared for the safety of her little fawns that wandered around alone and vulnerable.

How I would have loved the mother deer to come to us ... to let us help her.

We could have given her the care she needed . We could have set her bones and taken care of her and her fawns during the healing process. If she had only come to us, she would now be walking on a perfectly sound leg.

But she is a wild thing and because she did not trust us we could not help her. But how we wished we could somehow have convinced her of our good intentions.

Looking at her the day I took the above photo, I thought..... is that how God feels?

Does He look at us and wish we would just come to Him with the brokenness of our lives ... our wounded hearts, troubled minds , our suffering , painful bodies?

If we would not be afraid .... if we would just trust Him, would He not work to put everything right again and comfort and strengthen us during the healing process ?

I think of His words that reveal His heart intentions toward man:
"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." (Jer. 29:11)

I hear His voice calling out to those who are tired and hurt and burdened:
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt.11:28)

And yet how often can God do nothing but stand by with an aching heart, watching people suffer needlessly and alone.
"How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Matt. 23:37)

It was not that we were totally unfamiliar to the mother deer when she met with the accident . She would calmly munch on my freshly blooming flowers with me standing just a few feet away. She had no reason to believe that I would hurt her... but she would not allow me to come closer than her designated several feet distance or she would just walk away.

Is man not often guilty of having the same attitude toward God? He enjoys what belongs to God and may even acknowlege that God is the creator of all things.....but he keeps God at a distance.
Even people who call themselves Christians keep a "personal comfort distance" between themselves and God. They allow God in some areas of their life but not others.

The mother deer eventually healed and she is walking again but she is handicapped. Man too finds ways of dealing with his brokenness and pain and often he heals ... but for the rest of his life he is handicapped... limping.... constantly reminded he is no longer whole.
And yet he could have been perfectly made whole, if only he would have trusted God !

If only he would listen to His healing Words.

Only God has the answers for our needs: only God can heal a broken heart, only God can forgive and make us whole again, only God can turn suffering and sorrow into joy !
Only God can take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it into a blessing.

Why do we not trust Him? are we 'wild things' ? afraid ?

Do a concordance search some time on the words "fear not" and see how many times God says those words , or how often the words are spoken by someone speaking for God.

Rather than being like the mother deer and hide in our pain, let us rather be like the mother's fawn who so trustingly walked up to me and put her nose into my hand. Would I ever violate that trust ? Never !

So then how much more would our Heavenly Father never violate the trust that anyone places in His hand.

Our Father - so great, so compassionate, so tender , so worthy of our praise ! Let us trust him 'in all our ways' setting aside our fear and our own understandings - and encourage others, by our example, to do the same !!

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and depart from evil.
It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones." (Prov.3:5-8)

Which came first?

I believe that the jury is still out on the mindless riddle of which came first -- the chicken or the egg?

I would love to slip into the room where they are still debating the chicken/egg question and lay this one on the table....

"Which came first ? the parrot or the parrot flower?"
That should stump them for awhile!!!

see note below

I think the real question is ... Which came first? God's wisdom? or man's foolish ideas?

We have such an awesome God whose wisdom blows me away ! And yet He is such a perfect Father God who cares about every one of His children and pauses in His watch over the universe to give a personal gift He knows will delight His child.

He gave me such a gift yesterday .
I had just finished an e-mail to a friend in which I commented on how God was the giver of such good gifts. He gives gifts , not to please Himself (as we sometimes do) but He gives gifts that will please the one receiving the gift.

I pressed the send button on the e-mail and left the house to go babysit my granddaughter who was home from school sick .
I was just passing through the complex gate when I noticed the mother deer and her two fawns from last year grazing on the side of the embankment.

(NOTE- the mother deer who had her leg broken... and for those of you who prayed for her - yes , she is doing fine. She has a little limp but it doesn't seem to bother her . She is leaping over fences again. )

I have been trying for a long time to get a picture of all three together but somehow I have never had them position themselves so all three would fit into my lens. This time there were clumped together and I was hoping I could get the shot I've been waiting for .

As I approached them to get as close as I could and also to try to avoid aiming my camera into the sun just coming over the top of the mountain, I stopped as the deer looked up at me.

Then what happened next, will stay in my memory as one of those unforgettable moments.

The littlest fawn looked at me and then without any hesitation walked right up to me and put his nose in my outstretched hand. He looked up into my face and then turned to go back to his grazing - leaving me with a thrill in my heart, a smile on my face and - regret that I didn't have a photo of the moment . The best I could do was take an 'after' shot of him enjoying his grass.

Did something nice happen to you today or this week that put a smile on your face .. but you forgot to thank the One from whom the gift came?

Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
*******
Note: Very Rare Parrot Flower
This is a flower from Thailand . It is a protected species and is not allowed to be exported. Few people will ever see it except in photos.

The Amazing Mustard Seed

I love Jesus’ parables.
And I think I understand most of them pretty well, as I’m sure do you .
But what we don’t realize is that sometimes we miss things because either we don’t understand the ‘laws’ of God’s creation or we don’t understand the culture the parables are set in.

I recently had the privilege to hear Dr. Karl Coke in a TV interview. I found him to be a fascinating man and have ordered his book… “A Proper Education”. -
(I'll post a book review when I have read it)

But what I want to share with you was an insight I gleaned from him regarding one of Jesus’ parables that I have always felt to be deeper than what is obvious.

In Matt. 13:31,32 Jesus says.. "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field,
which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."

And again in Mat 17:20 "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. “

So both the kingdom and our faith are likened to the mustard seed.

To properly understand the parable then, we must first ‘observe’ the mustard seed.

Even the people to whom Jesus told the parable did not understand the mustard seed the way we are able to understand it today. Isn’t that a beautiful thing about Jesus’ teaching? No matter how much science advances, Jesus’ teaching just expands with it and remains Truth !!

There is something important that agricultural science has learned about the mustard seed.

Man has discovered how to make hybrid vegetables. The way this works is by changing the DNA. For example, to get corn to be perfect corn that bugs won’t eat .. you have to cross the corn DNA with cucumber DNA .
The ONLY way they can get the corn to accept the cucumber DNA is to introduce it through a virus. Make the corn “sick” and then it will accept the cucumber DNA and end up as hybrid corn.

What science has discovered is that mustard cannot be hybrided .. (is that a word? No worries.. it is now .. you just saw it in print!)
The mustard seed can never be anything other a mustard seed. It refuses all viruses and there is no way to make it anything other than what it is !!

Another thing about mustard seed is that it LOVES garbage . It grows best in the most contaminated , infested areas.

How interesting these bits of info are when we re-examine the parables in the light of our new understanding.

Jesus compares His kingdom to a mustard seed !
It can never be anything other than what He created it to be! No one can come and change it , nor introduce anything that will change its DNA – its self-defining code !! His Kingdom is an eternal kingdom! A kingdom that cannot be invaded , changed or destroyed !!!
I'm reminded of Rev. 21:17..
"But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of Life."

Then when we look at the mustard seed along side faith (our childlike trust) , it gets even more interesting.
The mustard seed is afraid of nothing !!
It grows where other plants would be choked out, withered for lack of nutrients, eaten by bugs, infested by disease. But the mustard seed thrives !!
Wow !! do you see the implications regarding our faith ?
Does your faith grow in difficult circumstances and in an impossible environment?
When it is tested beyond endurance does it turn a deaf ear and thrive ?

Do you allow a virus to infest your faith? And thereby allow all kinds of error , falsehoods or sin to destroy it ?
There is nothing that will make faith ‘sick’ except doubt ! Doubt is a virus that opens the door to all the enemies of faith …. the voices we listen to in our world, voices that speak with man's wisdom learned at the feet of secular humanism and of course the voices that tempt us into deception, error and sin!
All the voices of this world have behind them the father of lies, none other than the original great destoyer of faith in the Garden of Edon - "Did God REALLY say ?"

Is your faith like the mustard seed , imperious to the invasion of anything contrary to the Word of God? Is your faith.. like the mustard seed , unable to be shaken from its single-minded focus – “I am a mustard seed and I WILL GROW!! “

Are you , like the mustard seed… so tenaciously holding onto the Word of God that you believe nothing else?
The mustard seed though it be ever so tiny grows to be a tree big enough for birds to build their nests in its branches.
Is your faith big enough to move mountains? Big enough for others to lean on you and take strength for themselves by being encouraged by your words and example?

The mustard seed will take out of the soil only the nutrients that it needs to be a mustard seed. It leaves all else behind.
We are told what our faith needs to grow !! Do you take ONLY that and leave all else behind?

“Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God !” (Rom.10:17)

"Thank you , Lord, for the sermon in a mustard seed !"