10-30-2007, 02:18 AM
The Promises of God on Sale?
by Jeanette Reed www.vision2advance.com
Email: Jeanette@vision2advance.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recently my inbox has been inundated with sale flyers for anointing oil and associated products. Most of these promotions have catchy phrases indicating that the use of a particular flavor of oil will release the power of God in my life.
According to some of these promotions, if I want financial breakthrough I need to buy oil with cinnamon scent. If I want healing I need to buy oil with hyssop. If I want God’s favor I need pomegranate oil. If I want breakthrough I need mulberry oil. The suggestions sound very exciting with each promoter declaring that their product is the most incredible or the most sacred.
I find this marketing trend disturbing. The impression given is that if I am currently waiting on a promise of God, this oil may be the way to receive what I’ve been waiting for and if I hurry I can get this portal to God’s power at a discounted price and in a convenient dispenser.
What God has revealed about Himself through His Scripture and through His Son, Jesus Christ as the image of the invisible God, seems removed from requiring tricks and antics to cause Him to release His grace in my life. I feel like we are dangerously close to giving the impression that God is a vending machine. If I just put in the right currency I’ll get the candy bar I want. There’s no relationship, no love, no aligning of hearts needed. I don’t have to care about the machine and the machine certainly isn’t capable of caring about me. I just need the right offering to the machine god.
By contrast, Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
God doesn’t require any tricks or special tools to release His grace and love into our lives. He desires that we come to Him as children of the Living God and ask Him. He is our Abba, waiting with unfailing love.
Jesus said, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those ask Him!”
[Matthew 7:11]
I understand that anointing oil is mentioned a couple of times in Scripture. In Exodus 30 God gives very specific directions for the ingredients and use of anointing oil in the context of the Tent of Meeting, Ark of Testimony and consecrating priests. If we study these passages I believe we will see that this oil points to Jesus, just as all the parts of the temple, sacrifices, and Ark of the Covenant point to Jesus and were fulfilled through Him. Jesus is the true form of these realities where before we had only shadows of the good things to come.
For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. [Hebrews 9:13-14]
In a similar way, as the sacrifices and oil pointed forward to Jesus, we have bread and wine to point back to His atoning work on the cross. In His grace, God has given us ways to remember. He gave us things that use our senses. He gave us things we can touch, taste, and smell to help us remember His faithful fulfillment of His promises.
Each time I eat of the bread and drink of the wine of the Lord’s Supper, I remember Christ’s body broken for me; His blood shed for me, for the forgiveness of my sin.
In a similar way, if I use oil in prayer, I remember God’s faithfulness. I do not trust the oil. I trust God. I do not believe in the oil. I believe in Jesus Christ who is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. He is my faith. It is God’s action of being faithful to His promises, His character, His glory, for His Name’s sake.
Were the life, death and resurrection of God’s Son not enough to reveal the Father’s love for us? Are we still walking in darkness thinking God is so removed from us that we must go through curtains and veils and approach from a distance? Must I look for an acceptable offering, a way to be acceptable to the Lord God? I will not find one, except through Christ Jesus. There is no other way for us to access the Father except that we are covered in the blood of His Son.
God is near to us when we pray to Him. God does not wait for us to use the right ingredient before we find His favor. According to God’s Word, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. [Psalm 51:17]
I wonder if we could consider the posture of this kind of sacrifice to God. Could we allow the Spirit of God to penetrate our hearts and break us wherever we are rebellious, selfish, greedy, or hardened? We must repent from putting our trust in anything but Jesus.
If we proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom, which is Jesus Christ and the freedom won for us by the Cross, and then ask people to stop on their way out to purchase something to help them obtain God’s favor, what message are we really giving concerning the work of Christ?
Jesus has made a way for us to draw near to the throne of grace with confidence. There is nothing we need to purchase to add on to His gift.
I do think there is a cost to following Jesus, but I think it’s very different than buying the right mix of ingredients. Jesus said,
”So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
It seems Jesus is much more interested in what and whom I love than He is on what oil I use when I pray.
I pray we hear the Spirit calling the church to repentance. Repent from our religions, our idols, and our empty return to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, as Paul warned the Galatians.
We have become lustful for the things of the world, comfort and prosperity. We have taken our eyes off Jesus. We have leaders entrenched in sin. We hear false prophets manipulating words to fit events. We have made schemes and complicated formulas that take us off the narrow path of Jesus. We need surrendered hearts to the will of God. As God brings His discipline and correction for our idolatry, let us not ignore it, reject it, or excuse it away for God is treating us like sons.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. [Hebrews 12:11]
I pray that while there is still time, we will be stirred by God’s love to go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded. Jesus promised to be with us to the end of the age. Let us not offer any thing less than the magnificent, redemptive, complete, atoning, work of Christ.
If you are going through a difficult time, consider Jesus, who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. [Hebrews 12:3]
Pomegranates were one of the fruits the spies brought back from the land of Canaan; the land God gave them. When Joshua returned with the fruit of the land, he said,
“If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.” [Numbers 14:8-9]
You do not have to use oil to remember, we have Scripture to remind us and we have the Spirit of God to remind us. But if you use oil, let it remind you not to rebel against God, do not fear man, and know that God is with you. He is faithful.
Whether there are fires, floods, droughts, earthquakes, wars, feasts, or abundance, let us in each circumstance turn to Jesus and ask Him to align our hearts with His that we would abide in Him and His Words in us.
As we proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom, let us remember that the fulfillment of God’s promises came through the death and resurrection of Christ. There is nothing we need to purchase to obtain our inheritance for it is by grace through faith in Christ.“let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” [Revelation 22:17]
Jesus promised to send His Spirit. He is not manipulated by our use of a particular product or certain phrases repeated as though there is a formula to drawing near to God. Scripture tells us,
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. [James 4:8]
Throw off anything that does not draw you closer to Jesus. Do not be taken in by things that imply manipulating God. Test all things according to God’s Word and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Live and walk by the Spirit.
I could be wrong. As always, I encourage you to search the Scripture, ask the Holy Spirit to give you insight and see if these things are so.
“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” [Luke 11:28]
by Jeanette Reed www.vision2advance.com
Email: Jeanette@vision2advance.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recently my inbox has been inundated with sale flyers for anointing oil and associated products. Most of these promotions have catchy phrases indicating that the use of a particular flavor of oil will release the power of God in my life.
According to some of these promotions, if I want financial breakthrough I need to buy oil with cinnamon scent. If I want healing I need to buy oil with hyssop. If I want God’s favor I need pomegranate oil. If I want breakthrough I need mulberry oil. The suggestions sound very exciting with each promoter declaring that their product is the most incredible or the most sacred.
I find this marketing trend disturbing. The impression given is that if I am currently waiting on a promise of God, this oil may be the way to receive what I’ve been waiting for and if I hurry I can get this portal to God’s power at a discounted price and in a convenient dispenser.
What God has revealed about Himself through His Scripture and through His Son, Jesus Christ as the image of the invisible God, seems removed from requiring tricks and antics to cause Him to release His grace in my life. I feel like we are dangerously close to giving the impression that God is a vending machine. If I just put in the right currency I’ll get the candy bar I want. There’s no relationship, no love, no aligning of hearts needed. I don’t have to care about the machine and the machine certainly isn’t capable of caring about me. I just need the right offering to the machine god.
By contrast, Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
God doesn’t require any tricks or special tools to release His grace and love into our lives. He desires that we come to Him as children of the Living God and ask Him. He is our Abba, waiting with unfailing love.
Jesus said, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those ask Him!”
[Matthew 7:11]
I understand that anointing oil is mentioned a couple of times in Scripture. In Exodus 30 God gives very specific directions for the ingredients and use of anointing oil in the context of the Tent of Meeting, Ark of Testimony and consecrating priests. If we study these passages I believe we will see that this oil points to Jesus, just as all the parts of the temple, sacrifices, and Ark of the Covenant point to Jesus and were fulfilled through Him. Jesus is the true form of these realities where before we had only shadows of the good things to come.
For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. [Hebrews 9:13-14]
In a similar way, as the sacrifices and oil pointed forward to Jesus, we have bread and wine to point back to His atoning work on the cross. In His grace, God has given us ways to remember. He gave us things that use our senses. He gave us things we can touch, taste, and smell to help us remember His faithful fulfillment of His promises.
Each time I eat of the bread and drink of the wine of the Lord’s Supper, I remember Christ’s body broken for me; His blood shed for me, for the forgiveness of my sin.
In a similar way, if I use oil in prayer, I remember God’s faithfulness. I do not trust the oil. I trust God. I do not believe in the oil. I believe in Jesus Christ who is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. He is my faith. It is God’s action of being faithful to His promises, His character, His glory, for His Name’s sake.
Were the life, death and resurrection of God’s Son not enough to reveal the Father’s love for us? Are we still walking in darkness thinking God is so removed from us that we must go through curtains and veils and approach from a distance? Must I look for an acceptable offering, a way to be acceptable to the Lord God? I will not find one, except through Christ Jesus. There is no other way for us to access the Father except that we are covered in the blood of His Son.
God is near to us when we pray to Him. God does not wait for us to use the right ingredient before we find His favor. According to God’s Word, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. [Psalm 51:17]
I wonder if we could consider the posture of this kind of sacrifice to God. Could we allow the Spirit of God to penetrate our hearts and break us wherever we are rebellious, selfish, greedy, or hardened? We must repent from putting our trust in anything but Jesus.
If we proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom, which is Jesus Christ and the freedom won for us by the Cross, and then ask people to stop on their way out to purchase something to help them obtain God’s favor, what message are we really giving concerning the work of Christ?
Jesus has made a way for us to draw near to the throne of grace with confidence. There is nothing we need to purchase to add on to His gift.
I do think there is a cost to following Jesus, but I think it’s very different than buying the right mix of ingredients. Jesus said,
”So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
It seems Jesus is much more interested in what and whom I love than He is on what oil I use when I pray.
I pray we hear the Spirit calling the church to repentance. Repent from our religions, our idols, and our empty return to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, as Paul warned the Galatians.
We have become lustful for the things of the world, comfort and prosperity. We have taken our eyes off Jesus. We have leaders entrenched in sin. We hear false prophets manipulating words to fit events. We have made schemes and complicated formulas that take us off the narrow path of Jesus. We need surrendered hearts to the will of God. As God brings His discipline and correction for our idolatry, let us not ignore it, reject it, or excuse it away for God is treating us like sons.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. [Hebrews 12:11]
I pray that while there is still time, we will be stirred by God’s love to go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded. Jesus promised to be with us to the end of the age. Let us not offer any thing less than the magnificent, redemptive, complete, atoning, work of Christ.
If you are going through a difficult time, consider Jesus, who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. [Hebrews 12:3]
Pomegranates were one of the fruits the spies brought back from the land of Canaan; the land God gave them. When Joshua returned with the fruit of the land, he said,
“If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.” [Numbers 14:8-9]
You do not have to use oil to remember, we have Scripture to remind us and we have the Spirit of God to remind us. But if you use oil, let it remind you not to rebel against God, do not fear man, and know that God is with you. He is faithful.
Whether there are fires, floods, droughts, earthquakes, wars, feasts, or abundance, let us in each circumstance turn to Jesus and ask Him to align our hearts with His that we would abide in Him and His Words in us.
As we proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom, let us remember that the fulfillment of God’s promises came through the death and resurrection of Christ. There is nothing we need to purchase to obtain our inheritance for it is by grace through faith in Christ.“let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” [Revelation 22:17]
Jesus promised to send His Spirit. He is not manipulated by our use of a particular product or certain phrases repeated as though there is a formula to drawing near to God. Scripture tells us,
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. [James 4:8]
Throw off anything that does not draw you closer to Jesus. Do not be taken in by things that imply manipulating God. Test all things according to God’s Word and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Live and walk by the Spirit.
I could be wrong. As always, I encourage you to search the Scripture, ask the Holy Spirit to give you insight and see if these things are so.
“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” [Luke 11:28]