Perception - CS - Hannah

"She made a vow and said, "O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a son, the I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life..." I Samuel 1:11

In just this one short prayer, you can identify several of Hannah's perceptions about God and about herself. Let me quickly point them out:

*if - she knows that God has a choice. She is not demanding or pleading, as much as requesting or giving Him an option - almost a covenantal promise - if you do this, then I'll do this...

*maidservant times three - she knows her place. She is a slave, He is the master. What right does she have to ask anything of Him, but for the fact that He allows it or might possibly have an ear for it...

*Your - she not only knows her place but knows who her master is...

*vow - this is the biggie. When Hannah makes a vow, she keeps it. Later in the story we find that God answers her request, gives her a son (Samuel) and she keeps her vow to the Lord - she gives him to Eli to serve in the Tabernacle. What does this reveal about her perception of God? If you make a vow to God, you'd better remember it and you'd better keep it because God remembers. She believed that God actually gave her Samuel and he was the Lord's to keep.

How often do we bargain with the Lord, only to forget what our end of the bargain was? You know what I am talking about - "Please Lord, give me this or take away that and I promise to _________ (fill in the blank)." What does that reveal about our perception of God? Well, either that He won't remember what we promised, He really doesn't care what we promised, He really didn't expect us to follow through with our promise or He won't do anything if we don't keep our promise.

How sad is that?

Hannah kept her vow because she feared the Lord. She was His maidservant and she gave Him what was already His. And the Lord honored this by giving her more children that she could keep (I Samuel 2:21). What a beautiful picture of a woman who had the proper perception of God and lived by it!

Again, let me ask - how does your perceptions of God affect your actions?

Perception - CS - Ananias and Sapphira

"Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God." Acts 5:4,5

Is there such a thing as a white lie? One that is harmless? If there is such a thing, it would have been Ananias' and Sapphira's lie. I mean, who were they hurting? They sold some property, kept a bit of the sales price for themselves, but when they gave the money to the apostles for the ministry of the early church, they said they gave the total amount. No one had asked them to do this, but they weren't completely honest. But did it really hurt anyone to keep back a bit and act as if you gave it all?

Next thing they knew, they were standing before the Lord Himself. From earth's perspective, they were dead. So apparently, there is no such thing as a harmless lie.

Peter was the one who reprimanded them before they died, and he told them that their lie was against God. David understood this with his own sin with Bathsheba, when he said, "Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight..." (Psalm 51:4)

So what was Ananias and Sapphira's perception of God?

I have met plenty of Christians who understand that their sins have been forgiven by God and live on the perception that there is no penatly for sin. Jesus paid for it and God knows I'm a sinner, so if He's already forgiven me, why should I worry about it?

It sounds pretty silly when I write it out, but that doesn't change the fact that most of us live as if there are no consequences to sin. We live forgiven but not grateful. That was Ananias and Sapphira's problem - they didn't think God really cared about truthfulness or else they would have been truthful. They didn't think a little white lie had any consequences, but they were wrong.

So what does God think about truthfulness? Do lies bother Him? Are there earthly consequences for tiny, little sins or can we get away with them? Well, what does this story tell us?

Yes, our penalty has been paid when it comes to sin, but there are always consequences. And these consequences come in all shapes and sizes. Our motivation to be truthful needs to flow from a proper perception of God and His view of sin, not a misperception that salvation is a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Next, I promise a good example...

Perception - CS - Jonah

"And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish for three days and three nights..." Jonah 1:17

So this one is pretty easy. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and cry against it. Jonah runs to Joppa to catch the first boat to Tarshish. God sends a storm, God sends a fish and Jonah ends up in Nineveh.

Of course I skipped a lot of details. But we're looking at a perception here and it's fairly obvious to find. Not only did Jonah chose to disobey, but he ran away.

That's the perception I want to look at today. His action of running away reveals his heart - plus the fact that the scriptures tells us what he was thinking...twice:

"But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." Jonah 1:3

Jonah believed he could run away from the presence of the Lord. So that makes God...ummm...what? Not omnipresent, wouldn't you say?

David, on the other hand, had the proper perception of God's presence when he wrote: "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there, if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me." Psalm 139:7-10

Even though it's written a few hundred years before Jonah, it kind of sounds like David was writing about him, doesn't it?

David understood that you cannot flee from the presence of God. He is everywhere. Jonah, on the other hand, had to learn this lesson the hard way. But it made me stop and think, do I honestly believe that God is everywhere - that He is with me all the time and knows everything I am doing, saying, thinking? Do I act like I believe this?

How different would our lives be if we truly lived with this reality! Our conversations, our entertainment, our free time - would these things be different? Or do we have this perception of God that we can actually flee from the presence of the Lord? That He can tell us to do something and we choose not to do it, and then run away from His presence?

In both Eve and Jonah's stories, our main characters disobeyed God's command. Their perceptions caused actions. So do ours and the way we act communicate what our perceptions of God are.

So, do we think God is a liar? (Eve) Do we think we can hide from God? (Jonah)

Hmmm...where will she go next?

(By the way, I like this picture because it doesn't look like a whale but truly like a big fish!)

Perception - Case study - Eve

"The serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:4,5

In the case study of Eve, we start with a different beginning point. Eve was not created with a sin nature. She didn't come out of the womb already tainted, affected and consumed by sin. She wasn't spiritually dead from day one. She was alive, whole, pure, holy and completely unencumbered.

She was perfect.

But let's get one thing straight. Even in her perfection, she was dependent on God. That was how she was created. She needed His guidance, His wisdom, His love and His counsel.

So what was the serpent's message to her? We are not given a lot of details of their meeting, just the basics. And basically, he called God a liar.

"God said you would die? Are you kidding me? You won't die. You see, He knows that as soon as you eat from the tree you'll be just like Him. You won't need Him anymore because you'll know everything you need to know! That's all that tree does - gives you understanding of good and evil."

One of my favorite women's books is Lies Women Believe by Nancy Leigh DeMoss and it's main point is that from day one, women have believed the lies Satan has whispered in our ears. It's a powerful book that hits us right between the eyes - gals, check it out.

But that's exactly what Eve did. She believed a lie.

So, what was her perception of God? She knew His instruction and she knew the consequence of disobedience. And yet there seemed to be another side to the story. Was God worried that she would become like Him and not need Him anymore? Was she doing Him a favor by eating it - then He wouldn't have to spend so much time instructing her? Why doesn't He want me to know good and evil? Why withhold something as wonderful as this fruit?

We don't know what she was thinking but we do know her choice. She chose to disregard God's instruction and follow another's. She believed Satan's lie, which means that she believed God had lied to her about the true affect of this fruit.

God. A liar.

Can you even imagine?

And that was in a perfect state.

Now put our lives into perspective. We are tainted by sin. We cannot process information without sin affecting it. That's how powerful sin is. And yet, we clearly have God's instructions and we clearly have a choice before us. Do we believe that what God says is true? Or is He a liar? When He tells us that He's given us the Holy Spirit to live within us and help us with our decisions, do we believe it? Or is He lying?

Of course God is not a liar, but unfortunately we act like He is when we don't believe that His ways are best for us. I'm going to let you mull that over for a while. I think each of us can apply this to our own lives in a myriad of ways, so I'll leave the personal application to you.

But keep in mind - Eve's actions revealed her perception of God. She knew Him, was in complete communion with Him, but still chose to believe that He was not being truthful with her. It had devastating consequences in her life as well as ours.

How do your perceptions of God affect your own life, positively or negatively?

Hmmm.....