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Tag: Bible

Do you really believe that? ONLY Scripture Sola Scriptura
ONLY Scripture – Sola Scriptura

The HOLY BIBLE IS: The written word of God from scripture.

  • COMPLAINT!

    COMPLAINT!

    Job Replies: My Complaint Is Just

    6 Then Job answered and said:

    2 “Oh that my vexation were weighed,
    and all my calamity laid in the balances!

    Ever had a bad day?

    The Lord had already put on my heart to write from Job’s experience as continuation for our Lenten preparation in consideration of the cost of the Cross. And then I had yet another ‘bad day.’

    Job was angry and frustrated with what GOD had allowed to happen to him after all of his faithful worship and righteousness in every part of his life. GOD had always rewarded Job’s righteousness.  GOD had always brought blessing into Job’s life.

    Blessing or curse: Is it from God?

    WHY! Job asked?

    Why ME! we ask?

    Why, Lord, have you brought me very low to this place?

    I know that I am a sinner. I know that I do not deserve your grace in Christ Jesus. I know that.

    But you have done all these things to me. You have afflicted me with my own sin and the sin of those I love. WHY?

    Prior to Job’s complaint (and God’s eventual answer and restoration): Job 2:

     9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”

    10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

    It’s OK to have an argument with God; Job did. It’s called prayer, private petition; and you had better be ready to brace yourself for God’s answer, if you have ears to hear as our Lord would instruct.

    It is a fearsome place… to be alone in the place of God… no wife (or perhaps, husband) to support you in your love of the Lord and care for your over-abiding love for her by God’s grace. It is a lonely place to sit among friends (even so-called ‘christian’ church friends) who feel sorry for you and fill your wearisome ears with misguided uncompassionate advice.

    Prayer for yourself

    Just between you and God

    Waiting to hear

    The answer of the Almighty

    Should bring us to our knees

    And bow down our sinful souls

    Into the dust and ashes

    Of repentance.

    Let you with ears to hear hear, before you would speak so boldly into the ear of the One who hung upon the Cross for your sins.

    Yet we have questions. And we have an Advocate in Christ who knows our pain. Jesus hears and will answer if only we will hear Him. Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart.

    In our strong will to tell GOD what to do, will we hear His answer?

    Job 6:11 What is my strength, that I should wait?
    And what is my end, that I should be patient?
    12 Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?
    13 Have I any help in me,
    when resource is driven from me?
    14 “He who withholds kindness from a friend
    forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
    15 My brothers are treacherous as a torrent-bed,
    as torrential streams that pass away,
    16 which are dark with ice,
    and where the snow hides itself.
    17 When they melt, they disappear;
    when it is hot, they vanish from their place.

    Yes, prayer with the Almighty, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a fearful place. Prayer is a fearful place for battered flesh and broken heart of one so continually refined by the fire of the Holiness of GOD.

    Yet the grace of His love comes at high cost. The ransom paid for our continuing sin is more than sufficient before the King for Him to be gracious to those He loves.

    Let us repent once more and listen. Let us this time obey and follow His Cross without turning or regret.

    John 12

      4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said…

    23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…

    27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?

     40 “He has blinded their eyes
    and hardened their heart,
    lest they see with their eyes,
    and understand with their heart, and turn,
    and I would heal them.”

    (Are you praying, you with ears to hear?)

    Jesus Came to Save the World

    44 And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.

    48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day…

    You with ears to hear hear… and pray.

    Pray also for me, sinner though I be.

  • lord. What does it mean?

    lord. What does it mean?

    Jesus is Lord.

    What does that mean?

    Is this a Kingly title… like, “Sir Jesus, most exalted ruler” of someone or some land or maybe even some angels? Is that what you mean by, Jesus is lord?

    I say this tongue-in-cheek, but the question of the title ‘lord’ probably yields a not much better answer in most of our freedom-loving minds.

    Lord: a broad definition from the Oxford dictionary

    Origin Old English hlāford, from hlāfweard ‘bread-keeper’, from a Germanic base (see loaf1, ward)

    Last on the Oxford list: Our Lord
    10 Used as a title for God or Jesus Christ:

    IF a man holds all your bread, he literally lords it over you – you are servant of the lord over the bread of your existence.

    Think about wars and war lords (in the middle ages, the Islamic wars & Crusades); even now war-torn parts of Africa, Asia, Arab lands, the Middle East; poor European and Russian wilderness regions; poor areas of Mexico, Central and South America; many islands worldwide – lords of violence enslave and murder their unwilling victims.

    Think about the dependence of the poor on the rule of an over-lord, cruel men commanded by evil and cruel men who control the bread, the rice, the trade, the labor, the sex traffic, the drug traffic, the oil…

    Are there not lords of evil throughout the earth?

    It is no wonder that Jesus Christ stated categorically:

    “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

    You cannot serve God and money.” – Luke 16:13

    It is a matter of life and death to be dependent on a lord. Indeed we are a slave to whatever or whoever feeds us when we have nowhere else to go or no one else upon whom we can rely.

    The large master-slave story of the Old Testament is found in Exodus. Joseph was sold by his brothers (lords of the eleven tribes of Israel) into slavery in Egypt. Pharaoh later became lord and ruler over all the tribes of Israel.

    The LORD, Jehovah,The Existing One, sent Moses to Pharaoh to demand: Let my people go.

    The LORD will rule His people and He will only give them into the hand of another for His refining purpose.

    Consider that in reference to God saving Israel from their Master, Pharaoh; and that the lord over the bread of our very existence is ruler over our lives; Jesus boldly proclaimed:

    “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” – John 6:51

    Lord is used in other contexts of authority throughout the Bible. Sarah calls Abraham her husband, ‘my lord,’ for example. And Jesus points to His authority when He taught, “For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’

    Jesus had asked the traditional religious ‘authorities: “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?” – Luke 20:41-47

    The word “Lord” is used 7836 times in the King James Bible.

    Authority must have some importance in the lives of the followers of God.

    Simply stated: He IS God and we are not.

    In these freedom-loving, self-serving last days, let christians recall the chilling (or should I say rather: the fiery, damning) words of Jesus:

    “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

    19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

    Let your ears hear, unfruitful christian, the damning caution of the one you call, ‘lord.’

    Yes, we are free from the Law, from earthly rulers, even Bishops and over-lords. We have the grace of Jesus Christ and forgiveness of the Cross.

    We need no intercessor (with exclusive access to the Holy Spirit) to intervene for us as Priest, father or mother of Perfect Son of Man. We need pray through no dead saint, alive in the Spirit. We are free from all of that.

    Yet by the authority of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the saints (that is, you and me, beloved faithful brother, obedient sister in the Lord) have a relationship of love, a fellowship of grace and mercy with the LORD of all mercy, Lord of all the Heavens and the earth; Judge of all men, ruler of all creation!

    Are we not, fellow men and women of dust, sinful in our every leaning away from our loving Heavenly Father, the command and example of the Living Son of God the Father, and the merciful leading of the Holy Spirit to the overflowing streams of Living Water – are we not perishing ashes of fools destined for the fires of destruction?

    Who IS your LORD?

    Is there not a price to pay for taking up the Cross of Christ Jesus?

    Christians were persecuted in Rome, in Syria, in Greece, in Asia in the first century for proclaiming Jesus Christ as LORD. Are the days not coming, even this day for some believers, to suffer once more for boldly bowing down ONLY to Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior?

    Romans 10:

    … if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

     The Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle John:

    19:16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

    He Was and IS and Is to come, the LORD!

    Jesus IS LORD!

    What does it mean to you?

    What must you do now (while it is yet today)?

  • My Love – 6 – If I have not love

    My Love – 6 – If I have not love

    ‘I’m not happy.’

    ‘I met someone’

    IF you claim to be a follower of the Bridegroom of the church, Jesus Christ and things don’t go quite your way, would you tell Jesus to ‘get out’?

    Would you look for someone better, who might make you happy in this world?

    (Did God really say, “Don’t eat of the fruit of that tree?”)

    IF you are unfaithful to Christ’s love, would it not be adultery?

    christian whoreThough you claim to be a follower of Jesus, so had Judas!

    This is the unfortunate false witness of some with a cross in front of their home, ‘christianity’ claimed before ‘friends’ as religion, their stamp of approval before the world. These claim many things by the ‘Blood of Jesus,’ yet their more bold witness of worldly sins again crucifies hope in His body and true Bride, the church.

    Some have heard the following, even at weddings, known as the ‘love chapter.’

    IF Jesus Christ is your love, listen then to true love, you adulterers of Christ!

    1 Corinthians 13

    The Way of Love

     If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

    I have heard in churches the noisy gongs of ‘single moms,’ divorced grandmas and others clanging the noise of their own ‘higher’ worship, ‘tongues of angels,’ God’s messengers; as if we should follow these women, rather than Christ Jesus as Lord. Will they who are not bowed down to their husband or any man in Christ not lead the faith astray with their babel?

    2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

    I have heard prophesy given in the church. Is it from God? Why then did the church not record the very prediction of God given? Is the prophesy confirmed and witnessed to the glory of our Lord, Christ Jesus? Yes, sometimes; but believer beware of the wolves in our midst.

    Have you not endured some claiming such superior knowledge and understanding of mysteries who would teach us of their ‘faith to remove mountains’ in their Sunday school class or church small group?

    Did you experience the embrace of Christ’s love in their Pharisaical instruction? Did you hear love for you in their teaching or prophesy?

    I, too, have received prophesy and spoken it. The revelation of the Lord is a terrible and awesome thing!

    Some prophesy has not yet come to pass. For all I know, I may have been given some spirit of deception to accomplish the Lord’s overpowering purpose. Yet in these last days we must fear the Lord, always listening for the approaching trumpet of truth over the blaring cries of some claiming ‘understanding.’

    Read your Bible and pray for revelation by the Spirit of Truth in scripture.

    3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

    ‘And though I bestow,‘ states the King James; bestow, an interesting word more related to charity as we understand it – charity, agape love of God, used in application throughout these verses of the love chapter.

    Bestow: to feed by putting a bit or crumb (of food) into the mouth; of infants, young animals etc.; to feed, nourish to give a thing; to feed someone, feed out to

    Feed on God’s word in scripture. Nourish your spirit in prayer.

    Does this not also bring to mind the love a father and a mother, given to their child, their teen, their grown adult children, even their spouse given in marriage into your own family? Is this not also the gift of adoption given by our Heavenly Father through Christ to gentile believers (like most of us)?

    Are we not all poor and needy, dependent on our Father’s forgiving gracious love?

    Though I give to the poor, but have not love…

    Is that our charity of witness?

    Now that I have shared the seriousness of God’s love for us, allow me to share the more familiar actions of love often and appropriately shared at weddings:

    4 Love is patient and kind;

    love does not envy or boast;

    it is not arrogant 5

     or rude.

    Are you patient to your spouse, to whom you are joined to each other and God by your vows?

    Is your husband (or wife) patient with you – patient for you?

    Is your love for your beloved partner until death – kind?

    Are you, dear father, and you, dear mother, kind to your son – kind to your daughter – kind to each and all of your children (obedient and faithful, or rebellious and hateful)? Are you kind to your adopted child, your step-child, your child (even an adult child) given into your nurture by God to raise and guide in the Lord, Christ Jesus?

    Is your love patient and kind even to your prodigal teen?

    Is your love for your spouse, your children, your brothers and sisters in Christ ALWAYS patient and kind? Lord help us, impatient and unkind sinners!

    It does not insist on its own way;

    it is not irritable or resentful;

    it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

    Are you just another ‘spoiled child’ of God in your relationships with others in your daily life?

    7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

    Lord: Convict us and forgive us, for the sake of your Son, our loving Savior, Jesus Christ. Help me – help us to love you more and more; help us, miserable saved sinners, to love those you love with your overflowing agape love.

    8 Love never ends.

    To be continued…