A lesson from the Sabbath

[Esaias]

For years I had been led to believe (however it happened) that when we go to church we 'get filled up' so as to be able to 'make it through the week'. The idea was that you come to a service, are edified, exhorted, and encouraged, lifted up, taught, etc, and you 'get what you need from God' so that you can carry on throughout the week, throughout your daily life. Throughout the week you will face various trials, temptations, issues, etc and you need to be in service to get charged up so you have the spiritual fortitude to face life's issues.

But the Lord showed me rather bluntly this morning that this approach was backwards. I knew it (in my head) already but he really brought it to my attention today. In fact, I had been operating in this fashion even within a house church structure. I had viewed the meetings as an opportunity for people to spiritually 'gas up', get a 'full tank', to be able to make it through the week.

The Lord showed me this leads to an imbalanced spiritual life, of looking forward to the meeting as a 'big event' to 'get what I need from God' so I could 'make it to the next meeting'. It creates a spiritual drug addict, requiring services/meetings to be 'something special', otherwise it wouldn't 'be enough' to make it to the next one. Thus, each meeting 'must be' some kind of big blowout service. The music has to be perfect, the environment needs to be perfect, the preaching and teaching needs to be perfect, the testifying needs to be top notch, etc etc. It really is a selfish approach to religion, when you think about it. It leads to disappointment eventually, as meetings don't 'measure up' to what you think they ought to be.

But the Lord reminded me. In the wilderness, God gave them manna six days a week, but on the Sabbath he gave them none. They were given an extra portion on Friday to hold them over the Sabbath. Each day they had to go out, themselves, and gather their daily bread. THEY had to work at it. But on the Sabbath, they had to quit working, because the day was to be devoted to the Lord.

The Sabbath was the end of the week, not the beginning of the week. It was the climax, not the start, of the week. Sabbath was not designed to be a 'fill up' to get you through the coming week. It was designed to be a rest, a rest from your OWN labours, from having to gather bread. To be able to focus on God, rather than yourself.

In other words, you are supposed to be gassed up, filled up, prayed up throughout the week. The meeting of the church is designed to be a time when the saints of God gather to offer spiritual sacrifices of praise and prayer to God, and to minister to one another. IF one is going from service to service, trying to get their spiritual tank filled up each service, by the time the next service rolls around they are often running on fumes.

God gave a history lesson through Israel in the wilderness, showing us that each day we - we personally - must gather the bread from heaven. What we need for each day is supplied by the Lord each day. He rains it down from heaven, but we have to get off our duff and gather it. Each day. So by the time service rolls around, we are well fed and stocked and provisioned to PROVIDE for others, to GIVE (rather than receive).

The body grows by that which each joint supplieth. But if each joint is running on fumes, is starving because they only got fed last meeting and have been eating that all week, then nobody really has much to supply to others, so once again nobody really gets what they need out of the service! It's a vicious, self-enforcing cycle of failure and spiritual addiction.

Instead, if we feed on Christ (the bread from heaven) each day of the week, daily, that is, continually, then when meeting time rolls around we have a surplus instead of a lack, we have overflowing abundance to give rather than overwhelming need to receive.

So once again, the importance of DAILY walking with God, and DAILY being charged up by the Spirit of God, was reinforced to me in a new way. Stop going from meeting to meeting, looking for some kind of thing that God is going to do to keep you going to the next meeting. Instead, get all you need from God right now, today, wherever you are, EACH DAY OF THE WEEK. He Himself is the bread from heaven, he's all you need. It's all in HIM. Then, when you come to service, be prepared to GIVE, GIVE, GIVE out of the abundance God has put in your life and your heart.

God is rich, beyond description. His wealth is available to each of us, TODAY, in Christ. Too many of us run around like beggars living paycheck to paycheck, with church not much more than a welfare line or foodstamp office or soup kitchen. If we would appropriate the heavenly manna that rains down all around us each day, if we would just go out there and GATHER IT on a daily basis, we would all be spiritually wealthy beyond belief, and nobody would suffer lack.

I want THAT kind of meeting, where all of us come bringing the bounty that God has provided. The more of us who do that, the easier it will be to actually meet needs, and the less people there will be needing a spiritual handout, because more people would be learning how to gather the manna they need.

It is more blessed to give than to receive, indeed.

[good samaritan]

Originally Posted by Esaias

For years I had been led to believe (however it happened) that when we go to church we 'get filled up' so as to be able to 'make it through the week'. The idea was that you come to a service, are edified, exhorted, and encouraged, lifted up, taught, etc, and you 'get what you need from God' so that you can carry on throughout the week, throughout your daily life. Throughout the week you will face various trials, temptations, issues, etc and you need to be in service to get charged up so you have the spiritual fortitude to face life's issues.

But the Lord showed me rather bluntly this morning that this approach was backwards. I knew it (in my head) already but he really brought it to my attention today. In fact, I had been operating in this fashion even within a house church structure. I had viewed the meetings as an opportunity for people to spiritually 'gas up', get a 'full tank', to be able to make it through the week.

The Lord showed me this leads to an imbalanced spiritual life, of looking forward to the meeting as a 'big event' to 'get what I need from God' so I could 'make it to the next meeting'. It creates a spiritual drug addict, requiring services/meetings to be 'something special', otherwise it wouldn't 'be enough' to make it to the next one. Thus, each meeting 'must be' some kind of big blowout service. The music has to be perfect, the environment needs to be perfect, the preaching and teaching needs to be perfect, the testifying needs to be top notch, etc etc. It really is a selfish approach to religion, when you think about it. It leads to disappointment eventually, as meetings don't 'measure up' to what you think they ought to be.

But the Lord reminded me. In the wilderness, God gave them manna six days a week, but on the Sabbath he gave them none. They were given an extra portion on Friday to hold them over the Sabbath. Each day they had to go out, themselves, and gather their daily bread. THEY had to work at it. But on the Sabbath, they had to quit working, because the day was to be devoted to the Lord.

The Sabbath was the end of the week, not the beginning of the week. It was the climax, not the start, of the week. Sabbath was not designed to be a 'fill up' to get you through the coming week. It was designed to be a rest, a rest from your OWN labours, from having to gather bread. To be able to focus on God, rather than yourself.

In other words, you are supposed to be gassed up, filled up, prayed up throughout the week. The meeting of the church is designed to be a time when the saints of God gather to offer spiritual sacrifices of praise and prayer to God, and to minister to one another. IF one is going from service to service, trying to get their spiritual tank filled up each service, by the time the next service rolls around they are often running on fumes.

God gave a history lesson through Israel in the wilderness, showing us that each day we - we personally - must gather the bread from heaven. What we need for each day is supplied by the Lord each day. He rains it down from heaven, but we have to get off our duff and gather it. Each day. So by the time service rolls around, we are well fed and stocked and provisioned to PROVIDE for others, to GIVE (rather than receive).

The body grows by that which each joint supplieth. But if each joint is running on fumes, is starving because they only got fed last meeting and have been eating that all week, then nobody really has much to supply to others, so once again nobody really gets what they need out of the service! It's a vicious, self-enforcing cycle of failure and spiritual addiction.

Instead, if we feed on Christ (the bread from heaven) each day of the week, daily, that is, continually, then when meeting time rolls around we have a surplus instead of a lack, we have overflowing abundance to give rather than overwhelming need to receive.

So once again, the importance of DAILY walking with God, and DAILY being charged up by the Spirit of God, was reinforced to me in a new way. Stop going from meeting to meeting, looking for some kind of thing that God is going to do to keep you going to the next meeting. Instead, get all you need from God right now, today, wherever you are, EACH DAY OF THE WEEK. He Himself is the bread from heaven, he's all you need. It's all in HIM. Then, when you come to service, be prepared to GIVE, GIVE, GIVE out of the abundance God has put in your life and your heart.

God is rich, beyond description. His wealth is available to each of us, TODAY, in Christ. Too many of us run around like beggars living paycheck to paycheck, with church not much more than a welfare line or foodstamp office or soup kitchen. If we would appropriate the heavenly manna that rains down all around us each day, if we would just go out there and GATHER IT on a daily basis, we would all be spiritually wealthy beyond belief, and nobody would suffer lack.

I want THAT kind of meeting, where all of us come bringing the bounty that God has provided. The more of us who do that, the easier it will be to actually meet needs, and the less people there will be needing a spiritual handout, because more people would be learning how to gather the manna they need.

It is more blessed to give than to receive, indeed.

[Esaias]

I had thought about making another thread, but decided since this thread seems to be about 'gathering manna' figured I'd just stick this here.

A quick note: Jesus is the bread from heaven.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
(John 6:51)

Jesus is the living bread from heaven, but more specifically and to the point, the bread we need to eat is his FLESH which he gave for the life of the world. In other words, the bread from heaven we need to eat in order to live forever is HIS DEATH on the CROSS.

We have to eat that, which is to say, we have to appropriate his death to us, personally. How does one do that? How does one actually appropriate the death of Christ to oneself, personally, in such a way that brings life?

If I set a plate of food before you, it can be said to be 'yours'. But someone may come along and eat off it, they may just take the plate, or you may just get bored and walk away, leaving it half eaten, whatever. But if you actually eat that food, you make it undeniably yours. It cannot be more yours in any other way, than for you to stuff it in your mouth, swallow it, and digest it. Once you've eaten it, it can't possibly be anyone else's. It's ALL yours.

In fact, once you eat it, and digest it, it becomes a part of you. You are what you eat. The food gets broken down into basic nutrients and is transported to every cell of your body, and in fact becomes a part of every cell of your body.

This is what we must do with Christ, specifically as it relates to his death on the cross for us. We must EAT it, make it undeniably OURS. It is not enough to just believe Christ died 'for the world', one must believe Christ died for ME, personally. All the promises available to the saints through the death of Christ - life eternal, the Spirit of God, the empowerment of God, the justification of the sinner, the sanctification of the believer, ALL the promises - must be PERSONALLY and INDIVIDUALLY CLAIMED and appropriated.

So when you read the following: 'Repent, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost' you need to insert your name right in there, and read it as 'Repent, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of MY sin, and *I* SHALL receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.'

When you read "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want' you need to stick YOUR NAME right on in there. Make the promises of God YOURS. You have to see that these promises of God, all these good things made available to us through the death of Messiah, are promises to YOU PERSONALLY.

Sometimes you have to get BOLD about it. The parable of the unjust judge tells us this. The widow woman got what she needed from the judge because she was persistent and 'importune', she was bold enough to be a 'belligerant claimant in court' as the lawyers call it. In other words, she was willing to be bold about it, she had a cause and demanded justice. God wants that kind of attitude among his people, he wants us to come BOLDLY to the throne of grace to receive help in time of need.

And we have to come boldly in the sense of boldly believing 'those promises are for ME.' If your name is Fred, you have got to approach God like this: Jesus died on the cross to save ME, FRED, so that FRED would have eternal life and ALL the promises of the kingdom.

Is your name written in the Book of Life? Then read it like it is! Jesus said whoever confesses him before men, he will confess before the angels of heaven. Jesus Christ acknowledges YOU PERSONALLY - yes, YOU RIGHT THERE READING THIS - he acknowledges you BY NAME, if you will confess him as yours!

So we have to claim those promises made available to us by the death of Christ, we have to claim them by FAITH, making them OURS, personally.

Now, we have to get our daily bread. We are taught to pray 'give us our daily bread', or in other words, 'give us the bread we need TODAY'. We must go to God in prayer, and gather the manna, the bread of life, which is all the blessings of the kingdom made available to us by the death of Christ. We must claim those promises personally and individually by faith. And we must do this DAILY.

Did you gather your daily bread, TODAY? 'Come and dine', the Master calleth, 'Come and dine'!

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Esaias

When you read "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want' you need to stick YOUR NAME right on in there. Make the promises of God YOURS. You have to see that these promises of God, all these good things made available to us through the death of Messiah, are promises to YOU PERSONALLY.

Great stuff!

Maybe you recall, I once did this on the forum and your words are greatly presented thereby:

Psalm 23 The LORD is Unregistered's shepherd; Unregistered shall not want.
Psa 23:2 He maketh Unregistered to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth Unregistered beside the still waters.
Psa 23:3 He restoreth Unregistered's soul: he leadeth Unregistered in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Psa 23:4 Yea, though Unregistered walks through the valley of the shadow of death, Unregistered will fear no evil: for thou art with Unregistered; thy rod and thy staff they comfort Unregistered.
Psa 23:5 Thou preparest a table before Unregistered in the presence of Unregistered's enemies: thou anointest Unregistered's head with oil; Unregistered's cup runneth over.
Psa 23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow Unregistered all the days of Unregistered' s life: and Unregistered will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

[mfblume]

Good thought on the sabbath.

I see the trend in man Spirit filled circles. No daily living with the Lord, but a gas fill-up at church service. This robs us of ministering to others, and we're always the ones in need, and are ever-infantile believers. Never growing up.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Good thought on the sabbath.

I see the trend in man Spirit filled circles. No daily living with the Lord, but a gas fill-up at church service. This robs us of ministering to others, and we're always the ones in need, and are ever-infantile believers. Never growing up.

Indeed. We had a really good service, and I am glad to see people growing week by week, day by day. God is good!

[jfrog]

Well said!

[KeptByTheWord]

Very good teaching! Thank you for sharing, and may the Lord continue to bless your fellowship!