Only once before have I come across a word in the Bible that sends me on a wild chase through scripture to understand the word at its core. The first time was steadfast love – hessed. The Lord has given me a new word to study, meditate, search the truest meaning, and then apply to my every day life. Just as understanding hessed at depths I can’t explain I now carry that word along side a new word, sterizo.
I first encountered the word in a Bible study I am doing called Determined – Living like Jesus in Every Moment by Heather M Dixon. It is an in-depth study of the book of Luke, and an amazing one at that. One of the days in the study she leads you to study Luke 9:51 “Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” (NKJV)
Tucked in this verse we find the word that now has grabbed ahold of my heart and has become a tether from my heart to God. It really is the whole phrase “set His face” that means sterizo. It simply means to firmly fix; direct myself towards; give support to secure; to set ones face as flint; a Hebrew expression.
So me being me, I began to study this little Hebrew expression to fully understand. Along the way I unearthed some amazing facts about this expression and learned new things about flint rock. To put all that information in a nutshell, it means to have unwavering determination to accomplish a purpose or a task.
Using Jesus as our Biblical example it meant everything He did from the fall in the garden of Eden to His resurrection from the grave was about getting to the Cross of Calvary. It was always about becoming the sacrificial Lamb of God for you and for me. When He was here on earth He lived with that purpose in mind.
MacLaren’s Exposition’s found on Biblehub.com (https://biblehub.com/commentaries/luke/9-51.htm) explains it this way:
“As we look up at that Cross we know not whether is more wonderfully set forth the pitying love of Christ’s most tender heart, or the majestic energy of Christ’s resolved will. The blended rays pour out, dear brethren, and reach to each of us. Do not look to that great sacrifice with idle wonder. Bend upon it no eye of mere curiosity. Beware of theorising merely about what it reveals and what it does. Turn not away from it carelessly as a twice-told tale. But look, believing that all that divine and human love pours out its treasure upon you, that all that firmness of resolved consecration and willing surrender to the death of the Cross was for you. Look, believing that you had then, and have now, a place in His heart, and in His sacrifice. Look, remembering that it was because He would save you, that Himself He could not save.
And as, from afar, we look on that great sight, let His love melt our hearts to an answering fervour, and His fixed will give us, too, strength to delight in obedience, to set our faces like a flint.”
Charles Spurgeon even wrote a message about this topic that he preached on Nov. 28th, 1880 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Newington. His whole message points to lingering with the idea that the Lord loves us so much that He spent decades of time determined to save us from our sins. It’s a long message but well worth the time to read it and ponder his questions in your own heart before the Lord.(https://answersingenesis.org/education/spurgeon-sermons/2738-the-redeemers-face-set-like-a-flint/)
For me, I want to learn to live with my face set as flint towards God every day. Determined to accomplish His purpose each day. Determined to spend time with Him daily. To linger in His presence. To have a heaven-minded agenda for my life lived out each day.
This word sterizo means seeking God daily. Being on purpose in my quiet time to learn His heart, His plan, His love for me all over again. It’s having a resolve to say no to things that are lesser than God’s best for me. It’s having courage to not participate in things that pull me off course from pursuing His heart.
I know it won’t be easy, but I know that with the aid of Holy Spirit and studying Jesus’s determination, I can do it. I can look to others in scripture like David, Daniel, and the apostle Paul who lived this life of a face set like flint on following the Lord.
It will at points be tirelessly hard, but oh so worth it. I wonder who else has a resolve in their heart, and has set their face like flint to follow after the Lord?
For additional scriptures on sterizo read:
Daniel 1:8
Gen 31:21
Deut. 11:18
Daniel 6:14
2 Kings 12:17
Isaiah 50:7
Luke 16:26
Luke 22:32
Romans 1:11
Romans 16:25
1Thessalonians 3:2
1Thessalonians 3:13
2Thessalonians 2:17
2Thessalonians 3:3
James 5:8
1Peter 5:10
2Peter 1:12
Revelation 3:2
