by Shannon Tillman | Jan 23, 2025 | Thoughts
I have never physically birthed a child. However, I was in a delivery room one time with a friend. I was not expecting to be there at the time when the little baby came, much less be asked to stay in the room during the process. (Just a side note: I am not the one you want with you in an emergency situation. I get woozy at the thought of blood. The mere talk about our body’s circulatory system can make me faint. Please do not show me pictures of anything medical in nature. I appreciate that the doctor fixed you up in surgery, but I do not want those images set before my eyes for your sake and for mine. It would be embarrassing that I fainted because of your pain!) While I thought the entire process was a horrific ordeal, the mom would testify that though the childbirth was difficult, the joy from the birth of the child was worth the pain!
The curse from Eve was difficulty in childbirth. Due to her eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she received punishment concerning the process of having children. The Lord told her:
Genesis 3:16b
I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.
I want to take this verse and bring it to a spiritual application. Paul himself does this in the book of Galatians. Paul had been a missionary to the region of Galatia and saw many come to faith in Jesus. Later, after he left the area, doctrinal error came into the church. They believed that the addition of works helped them to be saved instead of faith alone in Christ. Paul wrote a letter to address the heresy. In the letter, he compared himself to a mother who had labored for her children’s lives.
Galatians 4:19-20
My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!
Paul understood that spiritual labor is difficult, painful, and often messy. Ministry to others is labor. Yet, we are called to labor, to work, to invest in bearing “spiritual” children. It costs us time, energy, pain, and even loss. The labor is not completed at the moment of their acceptance as Jesus as their Savior. If so, then Paul would not have felt like he was in labor again for his spiritual children. The labor continues as we see our children grow as disciples. Sometimes there are moments of parental pride and other times parental pain. No matter the situation, this is an assignment. We are all called to co-labor with Christ to “bear” spiritual children, also called disciples, on this earth.
Matthew 28:18-20
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Good parents do not have children to abandon them, but to raise them. All the time, resources, discipline, conversations, caretaking, and everything else involved is to see the baby grow up to become a fully functioning adult. Parents want the children to have more than what they have, to accomplish more than what they did, and to raise up a healthy and whole next generation. This entails many sacrifices of the parents for the children. Each loving parent would say the joy of having the child outweighs the cost.
We are not called to live unto ourselves. We each must endure the labor to birth spiritual children in this world. It is our calling to fulfill the blessing originally given to Adam and Eve when God told them:
Genesis 1:28a
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.
We need to be fruitful and increase in number. It is not an easy calling. It involves painful labor. It is duty as believers to reach out to the world and see lives changed by the name of Jesus. It is a giving of our lives so others may have life.
1 Thessalonians 2:7b-8
Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.
Our lives should be about others. We are to tenderly care for others, love others, delight to share the gospel with others, and to share our lives with others. This cannot be done from a distance, but engaging closely with those around us. This is an intensive, all-encompassing call to see lives changed! However, the messy, painful labor will be worth the sacrifice as we gaze upon the spiritual children God will give us!
by Shannon Tillman | Jan 16, 2025 | Bible Study
The prolonged time of distress weighs on me. I am faced with pain and losses around me. I hurt with situations in my own life, and I hurt with others who are suffering. The question we all seem to ask is, “How long, Lord?” We in our finite minds, trapped in time, want to know when the pain will end.
As I pondered the question, I received an unexpected answer from God, simply one word – “Rahab”.
His word caused more questions in my heart. “Really, Lord, that is how You are answering me? That is all I get? I want to know specific times and dates of when the situations will finally end. I want to see You move on my behalf and for others so we can celebrate your victory. Yet, all I get is the word “Rahab”? What does that mean?”
We find the story of Rahab in Joshua chapter two. Moses had died. Joshua is now the leader of Israel. They are commanded to conquer the Promised Land. They had been commissioned to do so forty years earlier, but due to the sin of unbelief, they wandered the desert instead, until everyone over the age of twenty died. Only Joshua and Caleb, the two men who believed God would give them victory were allowed to live. However, they had to bear the consequences of the wilderness journey along with the Israelites. Now the time had come for the people to take the land.
Joshua 2:1
Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.
Even though Rahab was one of the people living in Jericho, she chose to rescue the spies from the king who wanted to kill them. She hid them on the roof of her house under stalks of flax. The king’s searchers were sent away to look for the spies, for she told them that the two men had left. After all was safe, she went to the spies and explained her decision to save them.
Joshua 2:8-9
Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.
Rahab, a pagan, idol worshipper, Gentile, prostitute; believed the word of Lord. She knew that her land would be conquered by Israel, just as God had said. She had faith in the plan of God. Remember, the nation of Israel did not believe this word forty years earlier and were forced to wander the wilderness. Yet, this woman had faith and requested help from the spies.
Joshua 2:12-13
“Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.”
The spies told her to tie the scarlet cord to her window as a sign between them. Everyone in the house would be saved.
Joshua 2:21b
So she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.
Because Rahab rescued the spies and followed the covenant by keeping the cord tied in the window, she and her family were saved.
Joshua 6:22-23
Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her.” So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.
Not only was Rahab saved from battle, she became a part of the Israelite community.
Joshua 6:25
But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
Not only did she become a part of the Israelite community, Rahab put away her life of prostitution and became a wife and a mother. Not just any mother, she became a part of a kingly lineage:
Matthew 1:5-6a
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.
Rahab was the great-grandmother of King David. This means that she is one of the many great grandmothers to Jesus Himself! Rahab, the Gentile prostitute, became a part of the genealogy that led to the Savior of the world.
How does this relate to my original question to the Lord of His timing for the end of my difficult situation? Here is what the Lord was telling me. If Israel had been faithful and conquered Jericho forty years earlier, Rahab would not have been born. She would not have had the opportunity to choose faith in God and to see the rescue of her entire family. She would not have become a part of the Israelites, married, and had children. She would not have been a part of the line that ultimately birthed Jesus, the Savior of the world!
What seems a delay to us, may be an orchestration for other people’s lives and other people’s families to be eternally changed! Our pain, our suffering, our “desert times”, may be a divine set-up for others to come to Christ. God’s answer for us to “wait” is giving others time to be saved.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
My focus must switch. Instead of asking “How long”, I instead should ask the Lord to rescue more and more “Rahabs” during this time of delay. We will see Christ “birthed” into our situations. Lives will be changed. “Rahabs”, those far from the Lord, will become a part of the people of God. We will celebrate what God has done. Every delay will become a reason for thanksgiving.
Hold on, dear friend, your deliverance will come and the lives of others will be delivered as well. Just like Rahab.
by Shannon Tillman | Jan 9, 2025 | Bible Study, Thoughts
You have everything you need for the changes you desire to make this year. How do I know? It has been promised to us.
2 Peter 1:3
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Everything for a godly life has been granted to us. Everything! It is not by my might or my own so-called self-control (which causes me to break New Year’s resolutions by at least January 11th, sometimes sooner); it is by God’s divine power. This divine power is accessed through our knowledge of Him.
The question we need to ask ourselves would be: “Do my thoughts, words, and actions showcase a godly life?” If they do not in certain areas, then this shows a hinderance to the knowledge of God. We cannot excuse it away as a “character flaw” or “just the way I am” or even “it is not that big of deal”. Sin is sin! Lately, the Lord has been convicting me of how I become irritable over little things not going the way I think they should go. I could say “everyone gets frustrated sometimes.” Or I could look at this verse and recognize that there is a lack on my part of the knowledge of God which manifests itself in me not living a godly life in this particular area of irritation. No excuses, just facing the facts.
If the knowledge of God is the vehicle to this great gift of a godly life, then a hindrance to this knowledge would be a called a “stronghold”. A stronghold is where a belief is defended. A stronghold is the place where we defend our opinions or beliefs against the revealed word of God. The enemy loves to fortify our strongholds and make them even more resolute against the knowledge of God.
We, as believers, can have strongholds. These are thoughts which we choose to believe even though they are contrary to the Word of God.
For example, the lie of “I am unlovable” must be replaced with the truth. One example of this truth is:
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The lie “nothing will work out” can be replaced with this truth …
Romans 8:28:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
What about the lie “I cannot forgive”? The truth is God would not tell us to do something unless He would equip us to do so.
Matthew 6:14
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Or how about the lie that I will never be able to change:
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
How do we remove strongholds from our thoughts?
2 Corinthians 10:4-5
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
We must evaluate our thoughts. What is raised up against the knowledge of God? Anything we choose to believe that is not based upon the word of God is a lie. These lies blocks “all things that pertain to life and godliness.” I have access to all things but strongholds block or limit the access. I have to look at the thought and ask, “Is what I am thinking in line with God’s word?” If not, I must reject the life, stop defending it, and instead replace it with truth.
God’s word leads to a godly life. Anything less than that points to a stronghold. We choose to live from lies or truth. We cannot blame others or our circumstances. However, to change, we must begin with the humility to admit not all areas of our lives are godly. Then, we can focus in on what needs to be transformed.
Start with the truth that His divine power has given everything we need for a godly life. And choose to live from the truth. You will be radically changed this year!
by Shannon Tillman | Dec 26, 2024 | Bible Study
Psalm 22 is a Messianic prophesy. Hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, this Psalm, written by king David, gives specific details about the crucifixion of Jesus.
Psalm 22:14a, 16b-18
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint…. they pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them.
This psalm not only gives insight into the death of Jesus but also gives insight into the time of Jesus in the womb of Mary.
Psalm 22:9-10
Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
These two verses explain the life of Jesus: total trust in God. In every situation, He trusted God. In every stage of life, He trusted God. Trust is not a feeling but an action. Every circumstance is a venue to showcase faith in God. I will either trust and obey, or I will choose my own way. From birth, Jesus trusted the Lord.
His faith journey did not lead to riches but to rags, not to safety but to suffering, not to a castle but to a cross. The outcome of trust on earth is not always the world’s idea of what victory should look like. However, what seems like defeat on earth ultimately leads to victory in heaven. Jesus trusted God to the point of death, even death on a cross, and because He did so the way of salvation was presented to the world. And for 2,000 years, lives have been eternally saved by this good news.
Psalm 22:30-31
Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!
Spiritual victory in life, a life that impacts generations, comes down to one thing: trust. Every situation is an opportunity to showcase faith in God. We can choose to be like Jesus. His life was one of trusting God completely. Because He trusted God even to the point of death, He conquered sin and the grave. Today, we proclaim “He has done it!” New generations for 2,000 years have been told of the victory at the cross. He trusted God and lives are still being changed.
We can follow His example of trust starting today. Do not look back on the times you did not trust God “from the womb”. Instead, choose this moment to trust Him in each situation you are facing. A life marked by trust of God is a life that looks like Jesus.
by Shannon Tillman | Dec 19, 2024 | Bible Study
Have you ever wanted just a few more details on how something happened or how a conversation took place? That is how I feel when I read this verse.
Matthew 1:18
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
The most magnificent miracle since creation takes place and we are only given one verse in the book of Matthew. One verse! I have questions. How did this happen exactly? What emotions did she feel? Did she see evidence of the Holy Spirit like a cloud or was it more of a feeling? Was there supernatural light in the room or even a light emanating from her body? Or maybe nothing obvious happened and it truly was all by faith? I want to know more! We are left with only one verse that does not answer all of my questions.
The book of Luke does not add much more detail:
Luke 1:34-35
But Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the holy Child will be called the Son of God.
However, a Jewish audience would have connected the work of the Spirit over Mary with significant moments in Jewish history.
For example, Bezalel had the Spirit to build the tabernacle of God.
Exodus 31:1-4
Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.
The Spirit came upon seventy elders in the wilderness to help Moses lead Israel.
Numbers 11:25
Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.
The Spirit came upon Balaam to bless Israel and to prevent him from cursing the people.
Numbers 24:1-3
Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not resort to divination as at other times, but turned his face toward the wilderness. When Balaam looked out and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the Spirit of God came on him and he spoke his message…
In the book of Judges, the Spirit of the Lord often came upon different people so that they had the power to defeat the enemies of Israel. One such example is Othniel.
Judges 3:9-10
But when they cried out to the Lord, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, who saved them. The Spirit of the Lord came on him, so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war. The Lord gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him.
The Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul to confirm his kingship, with signs of prophesy and transformation.
1 Samuel 10:6
The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person.
Sadly, due to his sin, the Spirit of the Lord left Saul and an evil spirit came to torment him. This is what opened the door for the next king of Israel, David.
1 Samuel 16:13a
So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David…
The Spirit of God came to give prophetic warnings to the people.
2 Chronicles 24:20
Then the Spirit of God came on Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood before the people and said, “This is what God says: ‘Why do you disobey the Lord’s commands? You will not prosper. Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you.’”
When Matthew wrote how the Spirit came upon Mary, the readers would recall that when the Spirit came upon a person then powerful, mighty events took place that impacted not just the person but the nation and even other countries as well. That one verse is a link to thousands of years of history, which began with the first mention of the Spirit in Genesis.
Genesis 1:1-3
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
The Spirit that hovered over darkness prepared the way for light to shine. Once again, the Spirit hovered over Mary to bring the spiritual Light into this dark world. This Light, Jesus, would build the spiritual temple of God. He would disperse the Spirit to others. He would bless Israel to become the first carriers to bless the nations with the gospel message. He would conquer the enemy. He would give prophetic words and see lives transformed. He would rebuke and give warning. He would come powerfully upon His people so that families, people, nations are changed!
This one verse unwraps the miracle of the gift of the Spirit to us. While in the Old Testament, the Spirit came upon people, we now have the miracle of the Spirit within us just as Jesus promised.
John 14:16-17
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (emphasis mine)
Read again the verse that in a few words capture this great miracle:
Matthew 1:18
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
Thank you, Holy Spirit, for your work throughout history on us, in us, and through us. Continue your powerful work in your people today! Amen!
