I’ve been working the last couple of days and through some mis-scheduling by a supervisor, one of the days involved me working along, on my feet, for 11 straight hours. My legs and feet were pretty sore at the end of the day and my prayers were pretty short when I hit the sack that night. I’m 72 years old so the legs and feet aren’t as strong as they used to be.
Yesterday things were back to normal so I had someone to share the workload with. I’ve also been reading a book by Hugh Ross entitled “Beyond the Cosmos” that was graciously sent to me free of charge and I’m finding it pretty interesting. I’m not going to do a book review here right now but one of the things that Hugh Ross mentions in his book is the fact that God operates outside of our dimension of length, width, height and time (how we see and interpret everything around us). So, in essence, in God’s world per sec, there is so much more that we, in our limited perception of our current dimension, cannot see or understand.
I don’t know about you but I often think of what the Apostles actually thought when they first experienced our risen Lord.
When you stop to think about it, that would really have to blow your mind. When Jesus said to them in Luke 24:39 KJV “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
If I had of been there, I think my mind would have said something like , “this is the God of the universe standing before me.” Which of course leads into the realization taken from Romans 8:1 “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
BUT, we’re still in our bodies and we still see and understand everything around us according to length, height, width and time (our dimension). And as I read posts from other Christians who are going through trials or dealing with fears, it makes me mindful of the changed mindset that was prevalent with the Apostles in dealing with their new insight that had burst into their reality. It becomes easier to understand or comprehend the change that took place within the Apostles because their mindset had been forever altered from what they previously perceived into what they now perceived.
Talk about a “lightbulb” or an “ah ha” moment!
It’s that kind of new understanding, new reality, that makes so much of the Bible literally seem to jump off the pages. So how did the Apostles deal with their new insight? We know the answer to that because they all, without exception, went out and were unstoppable in spreading the Good News of the Gospel, until, God in His wisdom, allowed their witness, to come to an end and be picked up by others who carried the truth of Christianity forward as recorded in history.
And yet, as Scripture tells us, in 2 Timothy 3:15-17 NIV “and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.“
And the “all scripture” includes the testimony of the Apostle Paul who tells us what he endured in 2 Corinthians 11:16-33 NIV
I just going to itemize “some” of what he tells us:
- Five times he received from the Jews forty lashes minus one.
- Three times he was beaten with rods
- Once he was pelted with stones
- Three times he was shipwrecked
- He spent a night and a day in the open sea
- He was constantly on the move
- He was in danger from rivers, bandits, fellow Jews, Gentiles
- He was in danger in the city, at sea, and from false believers
- He often went without sleep
- He was hungry and thirsty and often went without food
- He had been cold and naked
It’s interesting to note that God in His wisdom did NOT stop the beatings that Paul endured, nor did God spare Paul from being shipwrecked, or being left out in the sea for a night and a day, nor being in danger, or hungry, or without sleep, or cold etc.
That’s how the transforming reality of the Apostle Paul’s mindset was acted out in his dimensional world. It doesn’t necessarily change what we experience but it does change how we deal with it. We don’t, God does, but we have to leave it with Him.
And I was complaining about my legs and feet feeling tired!
In Philippians 4:11-13 NIV Paul also tells us: “ I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
Our North American experience of what being a Christian is, is a far cry from what the Apostles and early disciples of Christ actually experienced. The reality of the risen Lord totally changed their outlook on life, their understanding of “reality”, on how they perceived and dealt with what happens in this dimension that we live in.
We need to get our mindset in line with the reality of the Heaven and Kingdom of our God, our King and our Saviour.
John 14:2-3 KJV “ In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
Worthy is the Lamb! Blessings!
Filed under: Apologetics, Christianity History, Defending Christianity, Faith Tagged: Christian Apologetics, Christianity, Faith
