Tag: God

Faces to Faces with God

Faces to Faces with God

Marissa

What face do you bring to God? In the Hebrew scriptures, the word for face, panim (H6440), is always plural. “The face identifies the person and reflects the attitudes and sentiments of that person,” and of course there is no single facet to the self. Our faces are “a combination of a number of features” and so are our personalities (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, entry 1782).

God is even more complex, multi-faceted, and wonderful than us. He is the God of all our faces, and He offers to show His faces to us if/when we seek Him.

When you said, “Seek my face,” my heart said to you, “I will seek your face, Yahweh.” Don’t hide your face from me. Don’t put your servant away in anger. You have been my help. Don’t abandon me, neither forsake me, God of my salvation. (Psalm 27:8-9, WEB)

Our God wants to be known. He wants to let us see Him. Whether or not we can see Him partly depends on us, though, because there are things we can do that prompt Him to hide His face. So how do we get into a “faces to faces” relationship with God, and what does it mean if we do?

Faces of Friendship

In Exodus 33:11, we’re told “Yahweh spoke to Moses face to face” (panim el panim) “as a man speaks to his friend.” Being face to face with God is part of being friends with Him. If you’re wondering how to become a friend of God, Jesus gave us a succinct guide when He said, “You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you” (John 15:14). Friendship with God requires mutual interests, goals, and morality. We need to commit to following Him if we want to have a relationship with Him.

Behold, Yahweh’s hand is not shortened, that it can’t save; nor his ear dull, that it can’t hear. But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. (Is. 59:1-2, WEB)

Sin separates us from God. There can’t be face to face relationship where there is disobedience. Thankfully, God graciously allows repentance and restoration of relationship. If you “turn away your faces from all your abominations” you can turn your faces toward Zion and “join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant” (Ezk. 14:6; Jer. 50:5). He’s happy and eager to have us face toward Him instead of away from Him. Read more →

Growing in the Wisdom from God

Growing in the Wisdom from God

Marissa

We just wrapped-up a series of posts going through all the characteristics of “the wisdom from above” that James writes of in his epistle. That’s not all there is to say about Godly wisdom, however. I already wrote an introduction post to this series that’s about God’s definition of wisdom, but today as we conclude this series of articles I want to narrow in our focus on wisdom as it relates to Jesus Christ.

My dad’s the one who pointed out to me that Paul says “Christ Jesus … was made to us the wisdom from God” (1 Cor. 1:30). God — both Father and Son — are the starting point for true wisdom. It seems, though, that God the Son plays a special role in giving this wisdom to us, and I think that’s worth looking at more closely.

Glory in the Wisdom from God

One of the things Paul does in his writings is reference scriptures from the Old Testament as support for what he’s talking about in his letters. He doesn’t always quote the referenced passage in its entirety, though, leaving it to his readers to familiarize themselves with scripture and recognize the connection. That’s what he’s doing here in 1 Corinthians. He’s talking about God choosing the foolish, weak, lowly, and despised things of this world and then he says,

Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption: that, as it is written, “He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:30-31, all quotes from WEB)

This phrase that Paul says “is written” comes from Jeremiah.

Yahweh says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth,
for I delight in these things,” says Yahweh. (Jer. 9:23-24)

Paul talks about God choosing people who are the opposite of wise, mighty, and rich to make a point. None of us have room to glory before God based on our own merits. Read more →

Wisdom Without Hypocrisy

Wisdom Without Hypocrisy

Marissa

I dare say we’re all familiar with the problem of hypocrisy in the church. For most of us, it’s something we’ve had close experience with. We’ve found ourselves disgusted with others who we identify as hypocrites and we may even have caught ourselves doing hypocritical things.

As we wrap up our study of how James talks about godly wisdom, we come to the last characteristic on his list. “The wisdom from above is … without hypocrisy” (James 3:17, WEB). In Greek, the words for hypocrisy and hypocrite have to do with someone playing a part, as if they were an actor on stage. They’re dissemblers, pretenders who simulate, feign, and pretend to be something they are not (Thayer’s dictionary, entries on G5273 and G5271). The opposite is what we find in wisdom — anupokritos (G505), something that is unfeigned, undisguised, sincere.

The Bible tells us “wisdom is the principle thing, therefore get wisdom” (Prov. 4:7, KJV). Wisdom is something God has in abundance and which He is eager to share with those who ask for it (James 1:5). As we grow in wisdom we will become people who are sincere, authentic, and live without hypocrisy.

Traits of the Hypocritical

Before we talk more about living without hypocrisy, let’s take a look at what a hypocrite is like. Jesus talked about this quite a bit in the gospels recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke (in fact, the word hupokrites, G5273, only appears in these three books).

  • Hypocrites call attention to the godly things they do in order to be seen and respected by other people (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16)
  • Hypocrites judge others before fixing up their own problems and repenting of their own sins (Matt. 7:5; Luke 6:42)
  • Hypocrites have double standards when applying God’s law (Matt. 15:4-7; Luke 13:14-16)
  • Hypocrites try to tempt others to sin (Matt 22:17-18)
  • Hypocrites block others from getting closer to the Lord (Matt. 23:13-15)
  • Hypocrites are greedy and have misplaced priorities (Matt. 23:16-19)
  • Hypocrites get distracted by minutia and neglect the things that are most important to God (Matt. 23:23)
  • Hypocrites appear righteous on the outside but are inwardly wicked (Matt. 23:25-28; Luke 11:44)
  • Hypocrites play lip-service to God but their hearts aren’t committed (Mark 7:6)

Read more →

Wisdom Without Partiality

Wisdom Without Partiality

Marissa

Balanced, impartial, unbiased views are going out of style in our culture today. While we like to think that we act with fairness and have a balanced way of looking at the world, I don’t think most of are as impartial as we’d like to be. We tend to prioritize emotional arguments over facts and logic (or vice versa, depending on our personality). We may favor certain groups of people when making decisions. Or perhaps we think that what’s “fair” should always work out in our favor. We’re partial to certain types of arguments, certain types of people, and to our own self interests. Those are very human reactions. In contrast, James tells us that godly wisdom operates without partiality.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. (James 3:17, all quotes from WEB translation)

Acting without partiality is a hard thing to do, but it is a godly thing and therefore worth doing. Part of growing to have the “wisdom that is from above” involves setting aside our automatic human reactions to situations and replacing them with how God would react.

Impartial Gift of Wisdom

Before we start looking at how we’re to be impartial, it’s important to note that God doesn’t show partiality regarding whom He blesses with wisdom. James writes, “if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” If you meet the basic requirements  — seek God and ask in faith (James 1:5-6) — then God will give wisdom regardless of your age, background, ethnicity, status, ability, etc. He is not a “respecter of persons” who shows favoritism or twists His rules based on who someone is (Deut. 10:17; 2 Chr. 19:7; Acts 10:34). Read more →

Good Fruits of Wisdom

Good Fruits of Wisdom

Marissa

“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom,” says a verse in Proverbs (4:7, KJV). In an effort to do that, we’ve been studying how James defines Godly wisdom in his letter to the New Testament church.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:17-18, WEB)

Today’s post is about the sixth characteristic on this list — wisdom is full of good fruits. Fruit is an often used metaphor in the Bible. It typically refers to what is produced in/by a person’s life. Certain fruits are associated with a life guided by God’s spirit and others indicate a life lived apart from God.

How to Fruit

There are certain actions and things that are not fruitful. As followers of Christ, we are to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather even reprove them” (Eph. 5:11, WEB). A life lived in spiritual darkness cannot lead to the production of good fruit. And if we’re not producing good fruit, then we’re in trouble. Read more →

Merciful Wisdom

Merciful Wisdom

Marissa

In his epistle, James describes “the wisdom that is from above” as “first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17, WEB). We’ve looked at those first four traits in previous posts, and now we come to study merciful wisdom.

Mercy, loving kindness, and compassion are key traits of our God, who is the source of true wisdom. (Language note: the Hebrew and Greek words translated “mercy” are also frequently translated as “kindness,” or more rarely a related word such as compassion or goodness.) If we want to be like God, then we also need to learn kindness and mercy. And we must use them wisely, as He does.

Consider the Loving Kindness

The end of Psalm 107 says, “Whoever is wise will pay attention to these things. They will consider the loving kindnesses of Yahweh” (Ps. 107; 43, WEB). Since we’re studying wisdom and loving kindness/mercy, this psalm seems like a good place to start.

Psalm 107 begins, “Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever.” A similar phrase echoes throughout the Psalm: “Let them praise Yahweh for his loving kindness, for his wonderful deeds to the children of men!” (Ps. 107:8, 15, 21, 31). In between, we’re given reasons for this praise and illustrations of the Lord’s loving kindness. Read more →