The Spirit and the Word— Part I.

There are five essential works of the Holy Spirit in regards to the Word of God.

 I.  Revelation.  2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful [‘profitable’] for teaching, for rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” {NIV}.  The Greek word theopneustos— from theos- ‘God,’ and pneo- ‘to breathe’— is translated literally and accurately in this case.

Revelation is the means by which the Spirit of God revealed His Message to the Prophets and Apostles.  God communicated to man what otherwise could not be known, things which man could never discover by either reason or observation.  While the existence of the physical world discloses the fact that there must be a Creator, the natural world by itself cannot reveal such things as the Creator’s righteousness, the Creator’s love, His mercy and grace, or the redemption He holds out to man.  For this, Abba Himself spoke to us.

II. Inspiration.  Note 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:21 which says, “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Ancient rabbis taught that the Spirit of God rested on the Old Testament prophets and spoke through them, using them as human mouths to speak in Abba’s place.  We speak of ‘inspiration’ as the power by which the Holy Spirit supervised and superintended the authors of Scripture so they recorded accurately and exactly what God had to say through them.  Divine inspiration extended to the very words— and all the words— of the original manuscripts written by those through whom God spoke.

When God chose an individual through whom to communicate His Word, He used this person’s IQ, He used their perspective, their vocabulary and their experience as His channel.  This is how sixty-six books written by more than forty authors, spanning 1,500 years, can be so different from each other and yet be absolutely consistent in message and unified in focus.  The central Theme of Scripture, the one Thread running through every book, every chapter, every v., and tying them together as a whole, is the Son of God and Savior of Man, Jesus Christ!

Three Points of Summary on Inspiration.

a.  The authors of Scripture didn’t merely write whatever they felt like writing; they were “moved” {NAS} or “carried along” by the Spirit of Christ.

b.  Each person through whom the Spirit worked retained his own unique viewpoint, style, and sense of expression.

c.  The Holy Spirit guided each writer so that: [i] no error intruded into the original manuscripts {Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek}; and [ii] the very words were precisely the words He wanted written.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

Not All Gospels Are ‘Gospel.’

When we turn to God from the heart, seeking to recover our “first love,” we awaken to the Gospel as a glorious Romance.  Not merely a set of principles to be mastered, or a plethora of programs to get involved in {or bound under ...depending on whether one actually wants to be involved}.  First and foremost, the Gospel is a love affair with God.  Following the Biblical imagery of Bride and Groom, it is God as Lover and us as His Beloved— never resting, never stopping, never ceasing to pursue us to the end of ourselves and love us in that place, setting us free by His sacrifice and as Peter said of the Gentiles in Acts 15, “purifying our hearts by faith” {v. 9}.

Now that is Good News— Grand News, Glorious News!  It opens up a whole New World before us, one where we soon discover the heart is absolutely vital to Life in the Spirit of Christ— Abba’s heart and our hearts.  We begin to taste {maybe for the first time} what Jesus meant in John 10:10 when He said He came to give us “Life— to the limit.”

A second bit of Spirit-inspired insight usually follows hard on the heels of the first: We live in a World at War.  Anyone {and I mean anyone} seeking to know God deeply, genuinely, intimately, finds the Romance opposed… at every turn.  It seems we have an enemy, a “thief” who “comes to steal, kill, and destroy”— steal our joy, kill our hearts, and destroy our lives.  This then leads us to wonder, “Where will I find some allies in this Conflict??  Who can I take this Journey with, who will battle beside me in the Life of Faith?”

Here’s what I’m trying to get to.  There are a lot of different “Gospels” being preached out there {just as there were in Paul’s day} and they are not all the same— cf. Galatians 1.  In fact, many are as the Apostle said, “No gospels at all.”  They give us no clarity on what it means to walk deeply with God, no entrance into the intimacy which Scripture describes as the normal Christian Life.  The normal, not exceptional.  I mean, honestly, what good would a book of exceptions do you?  Not much!

Many churches, many pastors, many ministries, do not recognize the centrality of the heart, do not believe in spiritual warfare, and they definitely do not see the Gospel as a Love Affair between a Father and His wayward Children.  They see it rather as a set of propositions, ‘tips and techniques’ for managing a fallen life, a magic ‘formula’ for faith.  I don’t now about you, but I don’t want to ‘manage a fallen life’ and I definitely don’t want a formula for it!  I want to live a victorious Life!  I don’t want to still be bound by the same sins, the same faults, the same flaws five years from now.  They don’t teach people that intimacy with God is the purpose of our lives, that we were made and meant for communion with our Creator, that the greatest and most profound action we are capable of is to “love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and from the power and purity of that relationship to love those around us ...and love them well.”

When you set the critical categories of real Life aside, you have to replace them with something.  Typically, the ‘busyness’ of religiosity, programs for programs’ sake, an information-only Christianity, or social service.  Once you take the heart out of anything connected to God, it becomes like the rule-ridden Judaism of the Scribes and the Pharisees— soul-killing.  Intimacy with God becomes an afterthought.  And then we’re surprised {as shepherds, leaders, communicators} that most folks have no idea how to find it.

To experience the Fellowship of Faith painted in the Scriptures, we need intimate involvement in the lives of those we love.  To have this intimate involvement, we must know another soul; and to know the soul of another, you must know their Story.  You must see the life and heart of the person beside you and behind you and before you in the context of their Story.  Period.  This takes time and patience and perseverance, and above all, the willingness to learn how to listen to someone else.  We live in a world where every last one of us is screaming to be heard— but precious few who are eager to hear.  But when you come to a place of empathy and understanding with another Follower of Jesus, it’s beautiful.  You begin to see who they really are, as opposed to who you think they are, instead of a five minute analysis of their life, character, conscience and convictions.  You begin to see why they are where they are, and how to help them along the Path of Life.

And this, by the way, is what a Body does, a living— breathing— thinking— feeling— acting— serving organism.  This is the challenge for each of us from the Spirit of the Living God.  To pray together, play together, and stay together!

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

Our Father Is Unerringly Faithful.

The God whom Jesus revealed as His Father, the God who is experienced by His Sons and Daughters as Abba, a loving Papa— generous to a fault and gracious beyond belief— is unlimited in His love and unchanging in His essence.

There is no end to His love for you, for us, and for all mankind {Jn. 3:16}… and there never will be.  For Abba, above all others, is ultimately faithful.

How?

Abba is faithful in keeping His promises.  Paul speaks of “God who cannot lie” and Hebrews 10:23 says that the God “who promised is faithful.”

Abba is faithful to forgive— 1 John 1:9.  “If we are faithful to confess, the Father is faithful to forgive ...and to purify the soul from all unrighteousness” {RR Exp}, which means any sin or stain or evil device of our enemy.

Abba faithfully keeps our souls safe and secure—Romans 8:35-39; John 10:27-29.  “I give My sheep Life and Life Eternal, and not one of them shall ever perish; for no one [Period!] can snatch them out of My hand.”

Abba always comes through for those who love Him.  Pressure or pain, trial or tribulation, it makes no difference.  Ps. 34:18— “The Lord is ever near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.  For many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers her out of them all,” v. 19.

Abba never fails to strengthen, stabilize, and protect the souls of His Children— Isaiah 41:10-13.  Paul said to the Thessalonians, “the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one” {2 Thes. 3:3}.

Abba is faithful to execute His plan— John 5:21-27.  The Corinthians discovered, in the words of the apostle Paul, it is God who “will keep you strong to the End [And why?], so that you will be blameless on the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful” {1 Cor. 1:8-9}.

Abba is always faithful to provide for us in grace— Philippians 4:19.  Paul said his gracious and lavishly generous God would “meet all” our “needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

We’ve just seen seven ways in which our God is incredibly faithful to father His Children.  We belong to Him and He belongs to us.  And there is phenomenal strength in the security of this relationship.  Do you sense the worth of your soul, the infinite value of a heart created by the hand of Christ?  Because you should.  It’s a critical component of your eternal identity.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

The Source of Real Strength.

Most of the men and women I’ve met are, to put it plainly, rather harsh with the broken places inside them.  They despise the fact that at times it feels like there is a lost and lonely little girl or boy down there.  You can see this from our reactions to our own woundedness: “Come on, just get on with it …just get over it!  Enough of this, damnit, this morbid introspection.”  Ever said this, or something similar, to yourself?  Probably.  And more than once.  But that’s most certainly not what God say’s about the Story of your wounds and your warfare and the message you received because of them.

Jesus said to His Disciples in Luke 17:1-2, “Things that cause people to sin [‘stumbling blocks’ {NAS}] are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come!  It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin [to ‘stumble’ and sin, to falter and fail their way, time and time again, through the maze of The Matrix]” {NIV}.

Listen to me… and listen close; hear me with your heart.  “It is no shame that you need healing;” there is no shame in this.  “It is no shame to look to another for strength;” there is no shame in this.  “It is no shame that you feel young” and fearful inside; there is no shame in this either.  And it is not your fault.  Not now, not ever.  You must trust in this as the final word of a loving Father.

Frederick Buechner wrote of the suicide of his father one beautiful Saturday morning in the fall his tenth year:

“When somebody you love dies, Mark Twain said, it is like when your house burns down; it isn’t for years that you realize the full extent of your loss.  For me it was longer than most, if indeed I have realized it fully even yet, and in the meantime the loss came to get buried so deep in me that after a time I scarcely ever took it out to look at it at all, let alone speak of it.”

This is precisely what I have seen so many of us do with the unbelievable hurts of our bleeding, broken hearts.  Bury it down below …and never take it out again.  But take it out we must, and enter deeply into it.  This is where most people fight the Journey the hardest.  The fullness of the false self in all its God-forsaking glory, the ‘lifestyle’ we’ve erected around it, is an elaborately designed defense against entering our wounded souls.  It is a willful blindness: consciously chosen, and subconsciously supported.  But a wound unfelt is a wound unhealed.  We must go back there— fully and finally.

“The way in which God heals our wound is” an intensely “personal process.”  For some, it comes in a moment of tender touch; for others, over tracks of time and through the help of many mediators who have taken you into the presence of the Healer Himself.  In the words of Agnes Sanford: “There are in many of us wounds so deep that only the mediation of someone else to whom we may ‘bare our grief’ can heal us.”  {Italics mine}

There will be times of healing prayer, and times of grieving wounds— the enormous losses of all our lives— times of forgiving those who have harmed you, and times of powerful and personal repentance, times of renouncing and times of restoring, renewing, rebuilding the ruins.  But always, always, flowing from a place of fellowship with the Father, a place of communion with our King and intimacy with the Spirit.  The point is: “Healing never happens outside of intimacy with Christ.  The healing of our wound flows out of our union with Him.”1

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

Do You Really Want This?

If we claim a particular level of growth for ourselves— especially in comparison to our Brothers and Sisters in the Battle— if we say, “Yeah... I’m at such and such a level,” God will try our hearts at this level {Prov. 17:3}.  Let’s see if we can illustrate this from the life of Peter.  In John 13:8 Peter said to Jesus, “You shall never wash my feet!,” to which Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me [‘No place with Me.’  Jesus is speaking of fellowship, communion, intimacy.].”  Our Lord tested him to this degree of humility.  Peter failed.

Test number two.  Peter claimed to be a man of great vigilance, of tremendous spiritual awareness.  He thought of himself as the watchdog of everyone else in this little Band of Brothers following in Jesus’ footsteps.  In Matthew 26:38 Jesus said to Peter, James and John, “My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death.  Stay here and keep watch with Me.”  What He was saying was, “I’m under phenomenal strain, enormous pressure.  Physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  I need you to pray for Me.”  Before He’d walked ten steps away they were fast asleep... all of them.  V. 40 says, “Then He returned to His Disciples and found them sleeping.  ‘Could you men not keep watch with Me for one hour?,’ He asked Peter.”  Peter flunked.

In the area of courage no one boasted more than Peter.  You know the Story.  Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know Me” {Lk. 22:34}.  Matthew records in 26:31 how Jesus told the entire group, “This very night you will all fall away on account of Me, for it is written, ‘I will strike down the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.’  ...Peter replied, ‘Even if all fall away on account of You, I never will.’  ‘I tell you the Truth,’ Jesus answered, ‘This very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown Me three times.’  But Peter declared, ‘Even if I have to die with You, I will never disown You...,’” 26:32-35.  Let me give you the RR Paraphrase.  Jesus say’s, “Tonight, every one of you will turn and betray Me.”  Peter answers, “Lord, I can see how you’d say that to the rest of them {gutless cowards that they are}; but not me Lord, I’ll never do it!”  Yet he did it, to a worse degree than any of them.  He failed the test of courage.

In the realm of relationship, who boasted to love Jesus more than Peter?  No one.  So, in John 21:15-19 Jesus puts him to the test.  This time, just like the betrayal, He even told him ahead of time.  Three times— in perfect parallel to Peter’s three denials— He said, “Peter, do you love Me?”  And three times Peter responded with, “You know I love You.”  Here’s what Peter was saying, “Lord, I phileo You, I love You as a friend.  Lord, I have a wonderful rapport with You ...but not a selfless and sacrificial love for You, not agape.”  Nevertheless, Jesus told him what the test was.  “Peter, since you say you love Me, from this point forward til the day you die, tend My lambs, shepherd My sheep, you care for the Flock!  Peter, you follow Me, faithfully unto death!”

This test Peter passed; and I’ll tell you why.  There’s an old saying, “Good judgment usually comes out of bad decisions.”  In fact, Gen. Omar Bradley once said, “I learned that good judgment comes from experience, and that experience grows out of mistakes.”  A lot of the tests you pass in life are the ones you’ve learned how to pass through your failures.  You fall, and you get back up and you drive on; you fall, and you get back up and you drive on.  As long as you’re alive and you haven’t quit, you’re not a casualty yet.

There’s a powerful lesson for life in this... and here it is.  You become a casualty in the Conflict the day you quit getting up.  Peter’s life is a magnificent illustration of this.  And ours should be one Day as well ...one fine and glorious Day when we stand before our King!

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously

Five Simple Steps to Flexibility.

There are five simple steps in the process of becoming flexible in Life.  These are levels of growth and not just phases you grow out of one day, because you don’t leave them behind as you move on, you bring each one with you into the next.

You are, first of all, available.  In Matthew 22:14 Jesus, comparing the Kingdom of Heaven to a wedding banquet for a prince, said to the Pharisees, “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”  It’s those who make themselves available in Abba’s plan who find true intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ.  Make no mistake about what I just said.

Then secondly, teachable— willing to be taught— which requires humility.  Solomon said, “He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at Home among the Wise.  He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding.  The fear of the LORD teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor” {Prov. 15:31-33}.  “How much better” it says in Proverbs 16:16, “to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver!  ...Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.  ...Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is he [or she] who trusts in the LORD.  The wise in heart are called ‘discerning,’ and pleasant words promote instruction.  Understanding is a Fountain of Life to those who have it, but folly brings punishment to fools.  A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction.  Pleasant words [‘words’ given us by a gracious God] are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” {vv. 18 and 20-24}.  You bet they are.

Third, adaptable.  Sun Tzu was a Chinese warrior and philosopher who lived about a hundred years before the birth of Messiah.  Commenting on the ‘Art of Strategy’ he wrote, “Those who are victorious plan effectively and change decisively.  They are like a great river that maintains its course but adjusts its flow.  ...They have form but are formless.  They are skilled in both planning and adapting and need not fear the result of a thousand battles; for they win in advance, defeating those that have already lost.”

Fourth, stable.  This is soundness, solidity, sturdiness of soul.  And it is a direct result of the Word of God at work in the heart and Life of the Child of God!

And fifth, indomitable.  This is genuine maturity in every area of life.  Mature Sons and Daughters reflect the glory and majesty of their Hero, the Lord Jesus Christ, by being firm but fair, wise yet willing to reach out, to expand and explore, to new things, new options, new avenues, especially when the old ones don’t work {and probably never did}.  They’re unbending in character but flexible in nature.  I.e., rigid on the absolutes, gracious on the non-essentials.

There it is in all its glory: a Life which is Jesus-centred, faith-focused, and divinely enabled, in absolute opposition to one which is self-centred, fear-focused, and humanly energized.  As Abba’s Children this incredible potential exists, in the form of equal opportunity and equal privilege for every one of us, from the moment of salvation on.  Our capacity— for love, for Life, for joy and generosity— deepens and develops as a result of our progress in His plan and purpose, in learning to live in the Kingdom of Grace.  When you bring these two things together {potential + capacity}, you have the reality for which we were intended.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously