Love & Revelation

One of the signs that we love Jesus is the fact that we obey His commands. If we love Him, we will also place a high value upon His commands and make adhering to them a priority. The results of this will be for us a growing revelation of Jesus and His purposes.

Placing a high value upon the commands of Jesus doesn’t mean we wear them in a little box between our eyes or have them hanging from our wrists. While that can be very symbolic of what guides us and what we set our hands to, that doesn’t mean that we think they are of value to us.

Having them printed on our shirts, posters, pictures, doors, cars, business cards, signs, etc still doesn’t mean that we value them. Having them underlined in our bibles, memorized, on cards in our pockets, on our key chains, etc still doesn’t mean that we value them.

Their value to us is only shown by how much we let them effect our lives. If they truly are valuable to us we will let them have great effect upon our lives. We will let them determine what is right or wrong, acceptable or not acceptable. We will let them set the course of our thoughts and our lives. We will ‘eat his words’, internalizing them and letting them be life in us, a part of us.

As these commands become part of us, part of our lives, doing them is not a burden, for they are in our hearts and we want to do them. And look at the results of our loving Jesus and obeying His commands. We will receive a broader understanding and experiencing of the love of God.

Along with this Jesus will also begin to reveal more and more of Himself to us. We will experience His love and release it to others as Jesus becomes more and more real to us. The Amplified Bible says in John 14:21

The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I [too] will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.]

Revelation, Boundaries & Restraint II

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.  (Proverbs 29:18, KJV)

Long before having a vision for your life, ministry, church, business, etc was vogue in Christian and secular circles, God had already talked about it in His Word.  First let’s look at Proverbs 29:18 in a couple different versions.  

The NIV Bible says: “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.” 

 The NAS Bible says: “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is he who keeps the law. “

 The word, vision, or revelation, might be better understood as divine communication. It is a vision, a revelation, a divine communication that comes to us from God. It is a revelatory communication from God in which He reveals Himself and/or His divine purposes.

 The Bible says that without this people are unrestrained. They have no boundaries, no parameters, nothing to regulate or measure their lives by. They have no lines to live between and no rule book to live by as we saw in Part I of Vision, Revelation, & Boundaries. Their lives have no boundaries, restraints, convictions, consideration, or guidance.  The end result is confusion, turmoil, and destruction.

On the other hand people who do have divine communication (vision)  from God and follow it, are obedient to the revelation (vision), have lives that are filled with blessings.  They will be happy, contented, fruitful, and have meaningful lives.  The Word is clear, it is not enough to know the vision, we must be obedient to it. As Paul said in Acts 23:19, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision".

In the context of the verse we have been looking at the vision is the Law God gave to Moses.  In the context of our time it would be the Old and New Testaments.  In the context of a personal vision for our lives, it would be God revealing something specific He wants us to do.  That specific thing will always be in agreement with the greater context of God’s revealed will in His Word.

 

The NLT Bible says “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is happy.

If we don't stay within our realm of authority & conduct ourselves in accordance with governing stipulations we will end up outside of safe boundaries.

Revelation, Boundaries, & Restraint

“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. " (Proverbs 29:18, KJV)

 

In baseball, there are two lines running from home base all the way to the fence that marks the end of the field.  One line runs from home base and passes just outside the first base, and the other runs from home base and passes just outside of third base.  Any ball hit in between those lines is a “fair ball” and the batter is to then run the bases with out being put out. Any ball that is outside of those two lines is called a ‘foul ball” and the batter is not to run the bases yet.

The lines give the players some parameters in which to play, some guidelines as it were. When you add the rules for playing baseball to this, the game proceeds fairly smoothly.  For the most part the game is played within the parameters that have been marked out by the aforementioned lines that separate fair from foul.

In football there is a big rectangular box that outlines the playing field, clearly defining the limits within which the game is to be played. Outside the lines you are either out of bounds or out of the end zone. You must play within the box.  Every sport has clearly defined boundaries and a set of rules by which you must play.  Otherwise there would be complete chaos.

If I was going to write the above verse for baseball, it would look something like the following. Where baseball is played without clearly defined boundaries and without a rule book, the players are unrestrained and do whatever they want to causing confusion, frustration, and altercations: the players however who play within the boundaries and keep the rules have a much greater potential of having fun, enjoying the game, and accomplishing something specific.

I am pretty sure we are starting to get a better understanding of this verse (Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.)

I have more to say about this but will save it for the next post. For now, I will finish with sports. Sports have to be played within the established boundaries, (between the lines), and must be played (guided) by the rule book, just as we Christians must live within the boundaries clearly established by Scripture, with them as our guide.

When there’s no vision, the people get out of control, but whoever obeys instruction is happy. (Proverbs 29:18, CEB)