Today :)

Just some things I learned and reflected upon today from this Sunday’s Message :) I felt very blessed and encouraged :) Praise be to God for His amazing WORD!

1. God’s WORD has authority because of the Author.

• If anyone ever approached you and told you something, your next question would be “Says who?”. If it is from your Boss or a respected person, you’d more or less believe it right?
• The authority gains leverage on the source.

2. We can approach the WORD in 2 ways:

• You as the cookie cutter
• You rationalizing with it on your own, for your benefit and how you want to see it.
• OR the WORD as the cookie cutter
• Letting it mold you into the cookie that you should become based on how God wants you to become.

3. Another word for the “Promise Land” is “God’s Rest”

• To stand in His Promise and find Rest.
• Have you ever experienced being disobedient to Him? For example, you know you have to do something that He wants you to do, but you run away from it. It becomes a struggle. A restless one. You find yourself exhausted. Another example would be doing things on your own power, strength and effort, putting everything in your own hands. You end up burned-out.
• The Israelites were like that. Roaming for 40 years (A long and exhausting struggle).  They were disobedient to God. The root of their disobedience is unbelief in His Promise.

Heb 3:15-19

As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

4. Hebrews 4:7 "Today, if you hear his voice,” do not harden your hearts."

• Everyday is designated as “Today”.
• What hardens our hearts is Sin’s deceitfulness.
• We all have in one way or another, fallen to it’s trap.
• For example, you know what is right from wrong. You have a conscience to tell you so. However, you belittle the wrong because of your situation or maybe even your own personal philosophy. Some people would steal and just say that I was starving that is why I did that. Students would cheat in exam and say, I needed to pass the exam or else my parents are going to kill me. Some people commit adultery or fornicate, and say “we are in love”. The truth is, you know what is right from wrong. Sin deceives you to believe otherwise.
• Sin can contort you to have a “bad romance” with Sin.
• Col 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

5. Heb 4:11 “Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.”

• Q: WHY?
• A: #6

6. Because the WORD says in Heb 9:27 “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment”

• If you believe in God, then you would understand what that verse means.
• You can choose your sin, be a cookie cutter, run-away from God, and rationalize all you want like, but you cannot choose the consequence of those sin.
• In the end, when you stand before Him, you will never have an excuse.
• Being too young to settle down in Him, won’t be an acceptable excuse either.

7. Heb 3:13 “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness”

• As the WORD exposes our shortcomings, we need people to be their mirrors. Mirrors who would catch, support and help us.
• People who can point us back to the right track – back to the what He has done on the Cross for us, so that no matter how inadequate we may end up feeling, we are encouraged and revived to find His Rest.
• These are people whom we can walk with us “Today”. In VCF, we call this a smallgroup :)
• Remember: Everyday is designated as “Today”.