Roger Harned, Christian author – Not all writings are talk of Jesus; however a thread of theme will generally connect to scriptural truth and contemporary application in our 21 c. Christian lives. SHARE a link to your SOCIAL WITNESS to your ‘Friends.’ Please COMMENT on talkofJesus.com to witness your thoughts of witness to our Christian community.
The following is an UPDATE of an early Talk of Jesus post about Roger, his Christian Social Witness & specifically being born again in the Lord Jesus Christ on a Good Friday ~30 years ago.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Isaiah 40:3 KJV
And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound…
Prepare to witness JESUS
You’ll recognize the Prophesy of Isaiah as an announcement fulfilled by John the Baptizer shouting a warning in his day: Prepare to meet Christ Jesus who IS God with us!
Those of you familiar with my writings and witness over the years know well that I have generally acknowledged the preparatory seasons of Christmas and Easter with appropriate writings during Advent and Lent. A brief glance at the 2014 calendar will reveal that the traditional 40 days of preparation for Easter liturgically known as Lent remain several wintry weeks away.
http://talkofJesus.com currently [A.D. 2014] posts daily 6 days/week & is searchable by topic or scripture
So as not to discourage any who might regularly read my exhortations of scripture without understanding the context, I thought to prepare your hearts by pointing even through the darkness of these days to the Light of Life in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and our certain assurance of hope in His coming again to resurrect a new and fresh life out of the grave of these present days.
Just a bit of background about my faith experience.
I was raised in the Methodist Church, which had several set ‘methods‘ of worship.
Later, for many years I was a member of the Episcopal Church which generally followed a very catholic liturgical calendar typical of the Anglican communion.
I continue to have many dear brothers and sisters of the Roman Catholic faith.
I became an active member of a Southern Baptist church and have remained a faithful worshiper in Presbyterian and other Protestant churches as moves to other towns necessitated.
[At the time of the launch of Talk of Jesus .com in 2014]
I am now a member of the Mennonite Church, which like all other denominations of Christ reflects many facets of Christianity.
As always, I am first and foremost a servant of Christ Jesus as Lord and obligated to the full command of God through all scripture of the Bible.
Roger’s condensed Vitae
I have a Bachelor of Music degree; have taught instrumental music of all types; directed bands, orchestras, small ensembles and choirs, as well as performed as in instrumentalist and sung in many church choirs; and I have mixed and recorded sound for contemporary worship.
The Lord has given me teaching, preaching and writing gifts.
I love the exegesis of scripture and can never get enough. Whatever I do for Christ is not so important as what He might do through me for you and for others. This is why I generally provide dynamic links in my writing to some of my favorite resources.
Why Talk of JESUS?
The Lord has given me a passion not so much for evangelism (to which every Christian is called) as for teaching my fellow dear believers the necessity to grow up in our faith.
Prepare yourself for SOLID FOOD.
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
Warning Against Apostasy 11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
For this reason I have sought to make it easy for you to read your Bible daily, even through posts from Scripture on talkofJesus.com
-Do you read scripture every day?
-Do you read your Bible every day?
-Do you pray to God (at least once) every day?
This is the milk of my posting scripture to this easy to SHARE, easy to COMMENT, and easy to read site of Christian Social Witness.
Post content on TalkofJESUS.com as the Spirit leads may not always be as easy to digest as milk.
Roger@TalkofJesus.com
I invite you to COMMENT & offer YOUR thoughts about God and Christ, as well as your personal convictions, repentance, applications and witness of Jesus Christ to chew on long and hard with the seriousness of your own salvation.
The Lord has pointed me toward this witness as a result of an upcoming book [*] of importance also about growing up in our faith. It is a contemporary retelling of a Christian serial story with 149 brief episodes.
[*] note: not pubically available at this time + TalkofJesus.com has published several serial stories with brief post episodes.
I have also written a much shorter serial story based on Genesis, which I would have published on this site by now, except for the lack of current interest by lack of any comments of yours expressing any interest in following a serial story here for five or six days a week over a month. If you are interested, just add a comment to this post.
from a liturgical 2014 calendar
in order to prepare our hearts for Lent & Easter
Observe (if you like) that I had intended to begin and continue in Genesis in January 2014, however the Spirit led me to Psalm 119, which concluded just recently.
Recent & upcoming posts are an intense call to repentance of professing christians.
(You CALL yourself a christian or CLAIM you ‘go to church.’)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 7:21 ESV A caution of Jesus to believers who later cautioned [v.23] And then will Ideclare to them, ‘I never knew you
a traditional Repentance of Lent to prepare for Easter
These preparations from scripture, often from the Prophets of the Old Testament, are more typical to the liturgical requirements of repentance to dust and ashes from the time of Ash Wednesday (this year: March 5, A.D. 2014) through the Crucifixion of Lord celebrated on Good Friday in the year of our Lord 2014 on April 18.
about Roger receiving the Holy Spirit!
On a personal note:
I was born again in the Lord on a Good Friday during a contemporary ‘Stations of the Cross’ remembrance about twenty years ago [now ~30 years].
The little Episcopal church where we were members had a powerful moving of the Spirit for a time that could make a Pentecostal service look conservative!
(So much for tradition… for a brief unexpected time at that time.)
Roger’s ‘teaching’ style
I hesitate to say that the ‘easy grace’ message so attractive to bring in the crowds of marginal christians is all too prevalent and undeserving of the call of Christ Jesus to become like Him, obey Him, and be born again in Him.
You should find the Easter to Pentecost liturgy and probably my writing after Easter will reflect more of the importance of the love and grace and forgiveness that we have through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
If you need a nice encouragement of Jesus – the friendly, nice, lamb-holding, child-welcoming teacher; read the Gospel.
He IS the same Jesus who will return on the clouds (perhaps soon) with fire and vengeance and judgment.
NO, not everyone will be in heaven just because we mention Jesus or say we are christian or go to church once in a while or every week and don't let scripture convict and change us.
The upcoming months leading up to Easter, [A.D. 2014] for the most part are meant to convict each of us to:
a stronger faith, a weaker self, a humbler obedience, a truer witness
and a God-given, Christ-centered, Spirit-driven daily life
to do the Lord’s will on earth, as it is in heaven.
Please add your COMMENTS or questions to this or any post and share our Christian Social Witness liberally on your ‘other’ site where unbelievers watch what you do and say is important to you.
I pray for you, that the Lord may somehow use our witness through this. Pray also for me.
May our Lord, Christ Jesus, continue to grow you in your faith and knowledge of scripture in preparation for His return to reign as King of Glory and Lord of all over the earth and heavens and every soul of His creation.
Yesterday (which I had incorrectly noted as January 7 as I lost track of days) I stopped by Cracker Barrel for dinner. Near the end of my meal some waitresses came out of the kitchen joyfully with a candle on a desert toward the table next to mine singing a happy birthday song. It brought back some buried memories.
We were going to use hospice at sometime in that preceding year of life-threatening cancer, but the nurturing of our now six-year old daughter instilled more perseverance for life in her mother. The goal, even with crumbling bones in her body, a neck brace in place of pearls and her hospital bed as the center of our family room life, was to survive one more day to celebrate her fiftieth birthday. So that we did: we headed out the door with her walker to take a ride out to her fiftieth dinner celebration at Cracker Barrel.
As God would know a bone inside her crumbled as she merely eased down our front walk. Her pain was excruciating!
Do you want to go to the hospital?
NO! We have to go to Cracker Barrel.
The brief dinner with husband, six-year old daughter and both heart-sick parents showed even those at tables near us how extreme her pain must have been – surely 10 on a scale of 10 (as they always ask).
Can it really have been fifteen years ago today? Although I know that she is with the Lord, as all were confident by her witness of love for the Lord and all others, I could not set foot in a Cracker Barrel for many months after that. Since then her father has died and my mother and numerous others.
What about 15 years from now – January, 2029 – where will you be?
God knows.
I know by my faith in Christ Jesus that God has even more plans for me here and an eternity with Him and all of my beloved believer friends – no we are neither married or are given in marriage in heaven – but our love for Christ and for all is like a loving marriage.
I do pray that the later Blessing of our vows, my wife, will by then be with us all by her repentance and return to the love of Jesus Christ. I pray that ALL of our children will be with the Lord and will not be misled by the false desires of this temporary world and even more crumbling flesh of dust.
I love so many of you in Christ. Won’t you join us, while it is yet today?
Do you have more than one resolution of some important things you plan to do with your life in 2014? Did you have a list of resolutions for this past year? Did you write any or all of them down?
Most of us resolve to do some things in our life of highest importance. Not an ‘I wish I could do that’ or I wish I could have that,’ but a more pressing resolve to do something important in relation to someone or something important in our own lives.
We do this at other times of the year on occasion. We often take import events in our lives as starting points to resolve to do some important things: a marriage, a birth; starting school or college, beginning a new job or a new business; and sometimes at the realization of a death of someone important in our lives. We resolve to do… and we make a list.
What is on your 2013 list of New Year’s resolutions?
IF you even bothered to write down an important goal or two as resolutions for the year, how did you do?
ü Gave more time to God
ü Gave more time to my spouse
ü Gave more time to my children
ü Gave more time to my health (lost those ?# of pounds) and exercise daily
ü Gave some time to my education & career improvement
ü Gave my absolute best at work
ü Gave up (???) … (that’s a really long list) all those things I shouldn’t do
OR rather than focusing on the important people in your life, did someone force you to throw out the book and give up on your goals?
Did you give up on a relationship – a VIP in your life?
Did you give up on something to do with school or work?
Perhaps you gave up on your resolutions, promises and vows to many very important people in your life.
Did you give up on God?
Our resolutions, especially those we make with the best of intentions – our solemn promises and our sacred vows – are just one more reason God must seek us out and sent to us a Shepherd for our brokenness. We are constant sinners and once more we must repent and return to the Lord our God and Christ Jesus, who died for you and for me.
Jesus said, Let you yes be yes and your no be no. Anything more is sin. – Mat. 5:37
You do not intend to break a promise or a resolution, and certainly you do not take your vows and covenant between a man and a woman and God lightly. Repent. For time is short.
Remember how quickly 2013 slipped away?
How quickly these past seven years have flown by?
It will be even more quickly that your life of sin apart from God will pass and in an instant you will be raised to the Judgment.
I hereby resolve: Christ Jesus IS Lord. I repent. I forgive. I begin anew in His love.
What does that mean to:
ü My wife (or husband, if you are a wife reading this)?
ü My son(s) (grandsons)?
ü My daughter(s) (granddaughters)?
ü My mom and my dad (even if they have passed before me)?
ü My dear friend? My other dear friend? And all my other dear friends?
ü My brothers and my sisters in Christ?
ü My brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles: relatives of all kinds?
ü My own personal well-being in heart and mind and body and soul?
The Commands and Law of God (general as they are):
Love God
Love one another
God commands us very specifically to relationships of love with our God, our Savior, our family and the family of God, our friends and community and even our enemies.
Be it resolved to check this out.
READ your Bible. Hear what the Lord has said. Don’t just take my word for it.
Make it your own list for your own loved ones, my dear brothers and sisters in our Lord, Christ Jesus.
Loved ones,
You are VIP’s in my life and the eyes of God and Christ Jesus.
Love,
Roger
Happy New Year, (as Jesus defines our call to be blessed).
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