A Vision for Holiness in an Age of Mammon - David Mitts

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (NASB)

[23]  Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. [24] Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 

(Romans 12:1 NKJ)

We live in age where Mammon has invaded our lives in so many ways that we could actually say, we live in a soup of Mammon.  Our thoughts are bombarded, our bodies are poisoned, our spirits are being corrupted with the goal to lull us into a spiritual, mental, emotional and physical death.

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The Lord has not only called us to be spiritually identified with Him, even though this is our greatest need, no doubt.  But Abba has called us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to Abba, as a reasonable act of service.  The NASB translates this term "reasonable service" as "your spiritual service of worship".  The word here is the same as is used for the Holy Priesthood, the Cohens when they worship the Lord.

This means that our bodies and how we take care of them is as holy to the Lord as our songs we sing, our giving, our prayer time, our faith.  

Now, I know we don't want to hear this in our church context.  We want to give lip service to our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit but we want to put in them whatever we want, without thinking of that as sin against Abba.  

I believe the reason for this has to do  in part, with the word sacrifice.  Yeshua was our sacrifice.

But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, (Hebrews 10:12 NIV).

What is sacrifice all about?  Sacrifice, in a biblical context is about intimacy, love.  We are to be people of love, and of sacrifice: Look at Ephesians 5:1-8

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know,  that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:1-8 NKJ)

We are called to walk, or have our walk be as children of the light.  This involves sacrifice.  Part of our love walk  our sacrifice is to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. What does this mean to us in a practical sense?

It means that we have a responsibility to treat our bodies with the same diligence we give to our other aspects of our believer life.  It means there is an accountability for a level of physical holiness.  

Now I am NOT talking about religion and self discipline.  Rather I am speaking about a greater standard, called love.  You see religion is all about boundaries and self discipline.  This is really a trap of Mammon.  You see Mammon gets us focussed on ourselves.  There is no sacrifice in this even when we do sacrifice things, we do it with a severe self focus and our goal is pride.  Because pride is rooted in shame, we carry the false image in our hearts of failure and try to overcome it with works.  A dismal plan of enslavement.  The best we can do in that system is self control which always makes us look down on others who can't or won't "control themselves".

So what is a living sacrifice?  It is an act of love.  An analogy is like someone who has a love for collecting something that they value.  How do they care of it?  Is it obedience?  Or is it a sacrifice of love? And..... What motivates that sacrifice of love?  The value they place on whatever it is!  It is a treasure to them and so love is released in loving sacrifice!

This is the attitude we are to have towards our bodies.  One of loving sacrifice.  This is true holiness, an act of love.  Let me show you this in Yeshua's words:

Matthew 6:16-24 (NASB)

Fasting; The True Treasure; Wealth (Mammon)

 [16] “Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. [17] “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face [18] so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

 [19] “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. [20] “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; [21] for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

 [22] “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. [23] “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

 [24] “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.

Now, he begins with speaking of fasting.  Fasting is a process of purification.  Fasting a a living loving sacrifice.  It is a Shabbat for the digestive systems are usually overworked in us.  Mammon wants to turn this into self discipline...  Mammon wants to turn fasting into pride.  You see Mammon is ALL about pride and its twin, shame.   I am just speaking about fasting here but it is true about any body care.  The war is not only about what you eat or wear but about how you eat or wear.  Do you love the temple of the Holy Spirit and honor it in that love?  People take better care of their cars than their temples!!  They fill them with poisons, toxic chemicals!  When they fast, it is still just religion!  

These are the earth treasures that Yeshua is talking about.  It isn't the cars or the  houses  He is talking about!!  It is the pride and shame!  You see when we work for pride, when we fast to be cool, we earn earth treasure, the approval of others who have the same treasures. IT becomes an economy of earth treasures.

But if we go the opposite way and ignore our bodies then that is Mammon and pride too.  A good analogy is how we would define loving someone, like a spouse.  If I love them with acts, so I can get noticed, then I am in pride.  But if I ignore them, and love them by one time declaration then I am in neglect which is self focus and more pride.  You see the key is the treasure, the value.  Do we value them, or in this case our bodies, as the way God values us or do we value our bodies in earthly ways, pride or shame?

But, when we act out of love, it becomes a heavenly treasure and God who isnLove rewards us because we are trading in His economy! Return to Matthew 6:22-24

"The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 

(Matthew 6:22-24 NKJ)

You see the eye is the idea of perspective.  A good eye is one that sees with the eyes of God.  How do you see your body?  Do you see it with the yes of love?  Love is His currency and it is given NOT earned.  You can't earn love you can only give it.  So to sum this up, we have a body, which is holy to God.  Holy means dedicated and it is to be cared for in love.  How?  Great question.  Ask, seek, and find......

But first repent from works and turn to the joy of loving temple care!

The Secret Place: Learning to abide - David Mitts

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. (Psalms 91:1)

In these tumultuous times abiding in the shelter or the secret place of the Most High is a key survival strategy for personal and ministry effectiveness.  In the secret place, the hidden place we learn to abide in His shadow.

If we remember that it was in Peter’s shadow that miracles occurred.

So that they [even] kept carrying out the sick into the streets and placing them on couches and sleeping pads, [in the hope] that as Peter passed by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them. And the people gathered also from the towns and hamlets around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those troubled with foul spirits, and they were all cured. (Acts 5:15-16)

The shadow is the place of miracles, the place of protection.  The key is to dwell in the secret place.  What exactly is the secret place? 

The key is to look back a few verses in the book of acts to see what attracted the shadow.

In Acts 4, Peter and John had been arrested for preaching in Yeshua’s name.  After their release and prayer God’s glory manifested.  This is so important t.  Let’s read it:

And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness. And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles' feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need. Now Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles (which translated means Son of Encouragement), and who owned a tract of land, sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

(Acts 4:31-37)

Out of this came the shadow, the secret place.  You might say, I don’t see the connection.  Well I think the connection strikes right at the heart of what this gospel is truly all about, covenant community.  You see, we live in a time when Yeshua warned of anti-messiah, antichrist and that the spirit of the age would be marked by lawlessness and coldness of love.

"Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. (Matthew 24:12).

Now, let’s ask what is lawlessness?  It is a disregard for standards, for God’s ways.  In this age God becomes trivial, passé.  But even more insidious is the result, love growing cold.  Now, we say my love isn’t growing cold!  Well, let’s look at it a bit and see the connection to lawlessness and then to the secret place.  What is the center point of love? 

Love is sacrifice.  God so loved the world that He sacrificed His son.  Love is always marked by a sacrifice of our will for a greater love.  Love has to include Law, Torah.  What do I mean by that??  I mean that in order for love to exist, it has to exist inside order, boundaries.  Love exists inside of covenant.  God gave His Son, sacrificed Him to the brutality of man’s lawlessness, sin, to honor covenant.  It was the boundary of Law, or Torah, that demanded sacrifice.

We don’t like that.  We don’t want to sacrifice.  We don’t want to commit.  We prefer to live in the fringes of all possibilities; ready to bolt the minute we feel any kind of threat to our ego.

You see what was released in the book of acts was something I believe that was a foreshadow. You see the Spirit came in power and what was formed was sacrifice and covenant community.

Now, today we have 2 forces in the body that are in opposition, One is the corporation.   This is the business church model.  The second is a reaction to the first, which is the individualized prayer life, where it is about God and me.  Both of these will keep us out of the secret place.  The corporation is all about works and productivity. It is about belonging to a large impersonal thing with its own identity and in that a pride of identity becomes very apparent.  I have heard the corporation speak brand awareness, like Pepsi.  Complete with coffee mugs and t-shirt and cute program names, the corporation keeps believers in a form of slick godliness with no real power.  Why?  No sacrifice except maybe a little money and time.

What is never a part of the corporation is transparency and risk of being known.  In fact the main reason it works so well is it avoids transparency and being known at all costs.  Instead we know each other as good Christian brothers members of the big company.

The other ditch is the God and me.  This is the counterfeit secret place of my own solitary relationship with God.  Again what is not present is any kind of transparency and certainly no accountability.  Many tears may be shed but what is missing is God’s power and life.

These are reserved for the lovers, those who will sacrifice.  Sacrifice what?? Everything.  All was sacrificed in the book of acts.  The result was the shadow.

Why am I saying all of this?  Because we want to have revival, we want to be known by the Lord.  How will He know us??

By our love.  But it is by sacrificial love, covenant love.

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For additional study about abiding in His love in the times we live in, obtain and read the book "Love versus Law, or BOTH!" by David Mitts.

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