Spiritcode

"You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s."  Exodus 20:17 In this final commandment episode, we discuss the following questions... What is the link between this Commandment and with Commandment Nine, which says ‘do not bear false witness against your neighbor? And also what is the link between this one and Commandment One  -‘I am The Lord your God have no other gods before me? Many people seem to have a ‘the world owes me a living mentality’.  Is there a resentful kind of coveting in this attitude?   What about in people protesting for their special identity demands in society?  Is this attitude linked to coveting? In Romans 7, did Paul discuss a unique struggle with coveting specific to him, or is there a general principle? And how did the Commandment come alive to him and kill him?  What do you see as the transformational aspect of this Commandment in the New

WAITING AND HOPING The Book of Isaiah is a story of how God’s people live in hope, waiting for God. There are times that they start to trust in their own strength and turn away from him, and there are times when they are reminded to turn back to God, and when they do, they are mightily surprised by him, and it all comes into focus in this message in Chapter 30. God had been calling upon Israel for more than fifty years since the days of King Uzziah to take on a non-reactive role in international politics so that they could be given a new place of being God's spiritual representative as his servant to the world. and this role becomes clear in the later chapters of Isaiah, ‘arise shine for your light has come’ (Ch.60).  He called for a willingness on the nation's part to stop gazing out at the other nations and getting involved in their chaos and disorder and to rather search inward to find faith and to rest in God's grace and commitment to grow them and form them and do them good. He had said he would make the

NOURISHING FAITH  The Apostle Peter died shortly after he wrote his second epistle and in the first verse of that letter he tells us that we have received ‘faith of equal standing with his (isotimos; of equal value or honour). He goes on to write about how that faith grows and brings forth the fruit of the true person that we were created to become. I see that being like a tree of life growing within us. It took many trials of faith for Peter to come into the fulness of that fruitful faith experience, and he wants to impart that experience to us in this epistle. He came from being a godly man under the Law who strived to say and to do the right things as a man of God, into becoming a man of faith who lived in the flow of God’s divine nature within.  2Peter 1:3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to (pros move forward to, bring about) life and godliness, through the (intimate personal) knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, through which he has granted to us his

WE THE TEMPLE    During the closing few months leading up to the final week of the life and ministry of Jesus the momentum of his public appearances began to build up, and supernatural works of miracles and healing among the blind and the lame and the infirm were taking place everywhere he went. These sensational public appearances of Jesus and his engagement in open conflict and debate with the Scribes and Pharisees created a fame and notoriety that he had not deliberately set out to achieve. But he saw his Father ‘s power and love being glorified through him in these things, especially in the final most astonishing miracle of his raising of his friend Lazarus from the dead, and it was during that time that he began to be questioned by the many that followed him if he was indeed the Christ.  All this uninvited fame and notoriety and political power polling posed an enormous threat not only to Herod who was the legal king over the Jews, but it also signalled a threat to the Roman Empire as the people were urg

MOUNTAINTOP MANIFESTO Matthew 4:24 So the fame of Jesus also spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. On one such occasion Jesus sat with his disciples on a mountaintop and from there he began to teach the crowd that had been following him about what are called the Beatitudes, which means blessings – the blessings of being deeply fulfilled in soul and spirit. This teaching of Jesus is also known as ‘The Sermon on the Mount’. Today I’m calling that Sermon on the Mount the ‘Mountaintop Manifesto’ A manifesto is a proclamation of a grand intention that states where we have come from and where we are and the plan to get where we are going. Jesus starts the manifesto with the words; “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (

Exodus 20:16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.   Does this Commandment only deal with what we say about our neighbour, or does it include what we say about God? It includes what we say about God because he wants there to be a true witness of himself in the earth. So when we discuss bearing false witness it is important that we also discuss true witness, and God is also person and therefor is also out neighbour.   Truth about God comes from God himself as his revelation or self revealing through his Word and his creation and the things that he does for us to see. God is before all things. This is sometimes called the ‘prevenient grace of God’ God has acted upon us first and is always acting upon us. Atheists would say no – you thought God up. I say no to that - he thought us up.   What about scientific truth –  Is not that an honest representation of what is? Yes it is. However science is continually finding that it can observe ‘what is’ far more accurately than it used to. What has bee

THE UNKNOWN GOD  Paul had been preaching in Thessalonica and Berea in Northern Greece with Silas and Timothy, as part of his apostolic ministry to the gentiles, and he had to escape on his own from there because of opposition to his preaching and plots against him and he found a safe haven at Athens in the south of Greece. While he waited for his companions Silas and Timothy to arrive Paul was distressed to see that Athens was full of mythologies and legends and idols so he began to visit the Jewish synagogues there and the open marketplace and preach the resurrection of Jesus.  Meanwhile some of the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers of the city became intrigued and sceptical of these strange new things he had to say so they urged him to come to speak publicly about his views at the Areopagus, which was part courthouse and part philosophical debating forum. There he was met by ‘the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there who would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new’ Acts 1

    PROMISE AND BLESSING   The Blessings of Abraham. Genesis 12:1 ‘The LORD had said to Abram, Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. 2I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing… and all people on the earth will be blessed through you.” These blessings were spoken to a man who came from what is now Iraq. He was a man with a heart that wanted to find the one true God. The blessings he received were personal for him but they were corporate for both the Jewish Nation of Israel that was to come through him, and later to the whole world through Jesus.    The Blessings to Israel Israel first became a nation in Egypt, where they had been in captivity to Pharaoh for four hundred years. God then miraculously delivered them out of Egypt by the hand of Moses who led them through the wilderness on their journey to the Promised Land. God gave Israel the Covenant of the Promises and blessings of t

HEALING THE SHADOW SELF Much of our inner life with its feelings and deeper motivations of why we do what we do is hidden in the deeper recesses of the soul and remains unknown even to ourselves. These feelings and doubts and fears get pushed down and suppressed, and they make up what are called the shadows of the unknown self – our shadow self.  When David wrote Psalm 32 he portrays to us his life as a man who was taken from shame and guilt into acceptance and forgiveness, and from despair and depression into fulfilment and joy - and transformed from his shadow self into his true self. And he encourages us to embrace this kind of transformation through God’s love and mercy and forgiveness. In this psalm David starts off paying tribute to the blessing of the magnificent mercy and forgiveness of God. He then recounts the damage and torment he did to his soul by keeping everything in the shadows before finally opening up to God and letting his light and truth come in to his heart. Then he gives thanks for the s

THE OTHER SIDE Jesus had been with his disciples caring for the multitudes and had just miraculously fed five thousand people with the five loaves and the fishes. It had been a tiring day and so instead of going back to Capernaum with His disciples in the boat, he told them to go ahead (Mark 6:42) while he went up on a mountain to pray. John 6:15 … Jesus went up to the mountain alone by Himself, and when it began to get dark, the disciples went down to the sea and began to row their boat toward Capernaum, but soon a gale swept down upon them as they rowed, and the sea grew very rough and it was now dark. They were three or four miles out when suddenly they saw Jesus walking toward the boat! They were terrified, but he called out to them and said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the other side.  This story describes some of the faith principles of how we work together in partnership with Jesus as the disciples did. They had fa

How does failure in the seventh commandment lead to a problem in the eighth Commandment?   In the last commandment, which dealt with unfaithfulness and infidelity in relationships, we saw that materialism began to establish itself in the heart of that person, so that self gratification and things that people could have or indulge themselves in became more important than other people and their needs and feelings. So people start to take for themselves. They become takers instead of givers.   How does the New Testament expand the meaning this Commandment like it has  with all the other Commandments?   The apostle Paul wrote concerning the transformation of a thief. Ephesians 4:28 Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.   This scripture shows that the total transformation is that a taker becomes a giver. And on the way to becoming a giver the thief also becomes an honest worker. this commandment then,

THE DEVIL AND THE DETAIL There is a lot of speculation and attributing of blame concerning how the Corona virus came into being– was it made in a laboratory and if so where? Or was it transmitted by a bat or some other animal? Some people may even ask whether it was sent by God, and if so, why? Others may believe that it was sent by the devil. In my humble opinion, which I think I share with many others - the jury is still out on the laboratory and/or the bat, and the exact whereabouts of the bat and the lab.  I don’t think it was sent by the devil, but I think he is having an eventful and busy time with it. GOD’S CREATION Ultimately the virus is simply part of God’s creation, along with other viruses and bacteria and microbes and plants and animals and people - these are now all part of a disordered fallen creation that fell when man and woman fell in the Garden of Eden. The creation was put out of order and into corruption through the sin of Adam and Eve. And after that happened God said to Adam ‘the groun

THE STRUGGLES OF LIFE Life holds many struggles for us and indeed life itself is a struggle, right from the start; we struggle to be born into this world, and then we struggle to overcome the many obstacles to survival and security and satisfaction. There are the natural or outer struggles that we all have to deal with that belong to the outward circumstances of our lives and they are always in front of us every day. And there are the spiritual or inner life struggles that challenge us to grow in faith and trust in God. Our life is a journey in which we learn to know the difference between the outward natural struggles and the inner spiritual struggles, and we learn to choose which are the struggles worth having and which are not.  Many of the stories in the Bible in the Old Testament were preparing us for the understanding of the New Testament truth of having both the natural and the spiritual natures within us and how spiritual transformation by the work of the Holy Spirit is from the natural self that star

THE IMPORTANT THING notes The important thing is to know what is the most important thing.  The Bible speaks about Jesus being close friends of a man called Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary. Jesus would raise Lazarus from the dead and Mary would soon anoint feet of Jesus before his betrayal and his death on the cross. But prior to those events there is a story about Jesus being invited to have a meal in the home of Martha in Luke Chapter 10. Luke 10:38  Jesus was welcomed to go and enjoy a meal in the house of Martha. But Martha was left to to do all the preparation on her own while her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet taking in every word that he said.  Martha became stressed and upset with her sister Mary, and so she approached Jesus and said, “ Lord, don’t you care (melo – to realize it matters!) that my sister has left me to tend to all this work on my own? So tell her to help me.” And Jesus answered and said to her, “ Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing

There is a generally accepted definition of adultery which is in line with the Scriptures and it is ‘Unlawful sexual intercourse with married people’ – So this now depends upon what ‘Unlawful’ means   Lawful can change but what does not change is the spirit of adultery. It was lawful for Sarah to give Hagar to Abraham to have a child because if a woman was barren she could give her handmaid to her husband as a surrogate mother. It is unlawful in most of western society for a man to have two wives – bigamy, but it is not unlawful to commit adultery, but it used to be grounds for divorce in Australia till 1975. There are legal definitions of adultery in the American States of N Carolina, Minnesota and Virginia. And the commandment itself, and the spirit of adultery, or infidelity takes a lot more into account. Jesus once again expanded on this commandment in the sermon on the mount.   Jesus once again expanded on this commandment in the sermon on the mount. Matthew 5:27-28. 'You have heard that it was said to

COMMANDMENT TO BLESS  There is a story in the Book of Numbers in chapters 20 to 24 which tells of Israel coming to the plains of Moab just east of the Jordan River and opposite Jericho. It was towards the end of the forty years of wandering in the wilderness and just before the death of Moses. They would later cross the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua, but at this time under Moses the Israelites had already defeated two powerful kings in that area of the Jordan - Sihon the king of the Amorites and Og the giant king of Bashan.  Balak the king of Moab was in great dread of the multitudes of the people of Israel as they marched relentlessly onwards, sending up huge dust clouds that could be seen from afar. Balak had heard of the devastating defeats of the other nations and had heard the reports of the supernatural help that Israel’s God had given to them, and Balak said to his elders, ‘This horde will now lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.’ and he sent some of his eld

GOD’S WRATH AND RECONCILIATION AND GOSPEL  Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed (apokalypto – uncovered) from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Note; This is present tense) God’s wrath is an act of love nested in justice and truth as well as in mercy and forgiveness. God’s wrath (orge – intense feeling of indignation) is an expression of his protection of humanity against the destructive effects of sin that we commit against each other. The main causes of the pain and harm that we inflict upon one another are the corruption of Justice and truth in the misuse of power over each other and our malevolent attitudes towards one another. This protective indignation of God is dealt out through his discipline upon us individually and corporately. This expression of God’s justice goes hand in hand with God’s offer of his mercy and forgiveness to all the world which brings about his great acts of redemption and reconciliation with all ma

GOD’S LOVE AND BLESSING AND WRATH When Adam and Eve disobeyed God after being tempted by Lucifer the first thing they did was to hide from God in the garden, and they covered themselves with fig leaves. That was the beginning of a mistaken mindset of hiding from a God whom they thought was angry and was now going to punish them for doing wrong. The fig leaves were a useless way of covering up their shame and guilt for doing wrong. That was not God’s way of thinking, and he needed to change that mistaken mindset. God told Adam to come out into the open and talk to him. He was going to cover Adam with the skin of an animal (lamb, ram, sheep, goat?) to replace the useless fig leaves.  So God shed blood and covered Adam. This is a prophetic picture for us of God providing Jesus as a blood sacrifice for the sins of humanity. This blood sacrifice covers the shame and guilt we all experience as sinful human beings, and the fig leaves represent our futile attempts to cover our shame of exposure by covering up for our

FACING A NEW FUTURE  Facing the future is usually based on expecting things to keep on happening the same way that they have happened before. There is a consistent routine and we have a level of confidence and competence to manage that. If we have some worthwhile goal ahead, we can divert some extra energy away from some of the routine for that goal. But there are times like the strange times we are now in when the routine gets out of routine so much that we don’t know what to expect any more. Something bigger than our personal routine has taken over our circumstances so that it is difficult to make things happen that we did quite normally before.  We have to know how to face a new future. In normal times if something disruptive happens just to us personally, we seek help from those we can trust and we are grateful when help is given. We can have faith in God and look to the Lord for wisdom and guidance about how to see the challenge through so that we can recover and get our life back on track.  But when som

  This Commandment is about much more than murder or killing – It is about the killing of relationships through anger and lack of emotional control.   This commandment speaks about more than just the act of taking of life in general, but is concerned with the heart attitude of malice, which can start with frustration, then resentment, then even vengeance or letting hatred or some other hurtful intention harm another person. Jesus enlarged on this commandment in the sermon on the mount. Matthew 5:21-24 It has been written in the commandment, "You shall not kill." And whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. 22. 'But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment…'Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, 24. 'Leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.      The transformational aspect of th