Part and Lot with God - d1
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When you read the Bible, often you hear a phrase, a saying, that makes little sense. You come across it, you read it, you don't understand it ... so you do what? If you're like me, you move on. :- )
But these are precisely the areas that are so rich for mining. When we hit Bible ideas that are completely opaque to the eye, usually they offer us a place where the writer has been long before we were there.
In John 14, on the night of His crucifixion, Jesus uses a phrase we would never use:
Joh 14:29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.
Joh 14:30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.
I wonder why the Lord put it this way? Why didn't He say, the devil is massing his armies even now, and I will take My vengeance later? Why didn't He say, the devil has sinned and fallen from heaven? Why not say, "I hate him and he hates Me"?
Rather, Jesus characterizes His entire war with the devil in this way: "HE HAS NOTHING IN ME."
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The minor point is that there is no feeling or desire in Jesus that matches up with the devil's. There is no priority for Jesus that is similar to Satan's. So the devil has no way to prevail -- no way to tempt Jesus.
You take a 6th-grade chemistry student, and ask him to separate iron filings from sand. Offer him tweezers :- ) or a magnet. The tweezer way is just a little bit difficult. But with the magnet, the child learns something about how useful chemistry can be.
The magnet has VERY LITTLE in common with the sand, or has NOTHING with the sand?
Jesus is claiming that there is NOTHING in His mind that is lustful, or vindictive, or greedy. As a result, the devil will not succeed in seducing Jesus with an offer of rescue. Did this turn out to be the case? Dying on the cross, with fever, blood poisoning, no doubt half-delirious, Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them!" and showed that He honestly, deep down in His heart, wished nothing but the best even for men torturing Him at that very moment.
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The apostle John was there; the writings of his first-generation disciples are still with us. John either saw this and reported it to us, or he told us a bald-faced lie. Now remember John wrote the epistle of 1 John, and the only thing John says there is that "What makes a man good is telling the truth; what makes him evil is telling a lie."
Maybe John did based a preaching career of 60 years, around a Grand Theme that God hates lies ... and then set out to lie when he wrote the Gospel of John. But if he did, he is a fiend. Not a good teacher who exaggerated a little; not a man who maybe forgot a thing here and there (like whether Lazarus walked out of a grave? If that happened to you 30 years ago, would you remember it wrongly?). If John spent his career preaching truth-vs-lie, and then manufactured the Gospel of John, he is one of the most evil men who ever lived.
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Jam 1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
Jam 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
Jam 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Jam 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Jam 1:16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Jam 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.
Jesus said, "The devil cannot win this war for My soul." Why? For the same reason that a magnet cannot pick up beach sand. There is no attractive force between the mind of God, and the "appeal" of greed and taking from others.
This idea is the foundation cement of what it means to be Part-Ners with God.
Kind regards,
Jeff
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