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.
But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord.
“Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated.
We pray to God: ‘Give me a blessing.’ ‘I cannot do this alone?’ ‘Please help me, Lord.’ We acknowledge God as our Father and as our Lord. The Lord, our Father in heaven then blesses us. He provides a loving mate. He provide godly guidance for our misguided children. He heals a dreaded disease. He provides job after job and puts food on our table. He places us in the congregation of Christians who care for our needs and for our soul. Again, and again, the Lord brings us blessing and not curse when we are not in the low place and do not even pray for blessing.
And what is our thanks? What is our offering to the Lord? Do we cleave to our beloved husband (or wife)? Do we stand as example of Jesus in our instruction of our children? Do we give thanks to the Lord for healing our body? Do we witness at work of the Lord’s unfailing love? Do we thank Him for the food on our table as if without Him we could not be fed? Do we thank Him that someone does not have to feed us for our inability of health to hold even a spoon? Do we joyfully worship with our loving brothers and sisters in Christ on the Lord’s day? Do we gently guide our children to the house of the Lord?
We fall back into our sins. We slide back toward the pit. We revel in the ways of the world and witness against Christ as our Lord. We witness against God our Father. We offer the sacrifice of our tithes and offerings to the gods of chance, the gods of addiction and the gods of our evil desires. We bow down and worship the gods of sin!
But you say, “How have you loved us?”
Do you understand as you trespass the blessing of the Cross that you sell forever His blessing and grace and love?
Don’t you know that we are ALL lawbreakers? Don’t you remember what you were before you were adopted into the family of faith, the Household of God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord?
God is NOT your Father and Christ Jesus is NOT your Lord (for no one will lord it over you) IF you witness against the love and sacrifice and blood of the Cross.
You reject the Lord. Why, at the Day of your judgment, should the Lord not reject YOU?
Some of us reject a God that could hate Esau… a God who would hate us. (I spoke to this earlier.) We think of Esau as just a man who lived long ago. We think of Israel as only a land and not a people chosen once by God who rejected God continually and rejected Christ Jesus forever.
Paul, the Apostle to the gentiles, was once a man of Jacob, chosen by God over Esau. He hated Christ Jesus, the Messiah of Promise and Blessing of the gentiles. God so loved the world; yet Saul of Tarsus hated the church.
What if Saul of Tarsus had not finally bowed down to Christ Jesus as Lord? Would he not also be judged with Esau?
Abram was changed to Abraham. Jacob was changed to Israel. Saul of Tarsus was changed to Paul the Apostle.
Has God changed you for all eternity by the Cross of Christ Jesus?
Or do you ask for God’s blessing, then quickly turn from the Lord?
The books of the Bible, which we so carelessly neglect along with the armor of our salvation, point us so diligently toward salvation (being saved from our great curse of sin and death). Over and over the books of the Bible instruct us in that which we ought to have instructed our children and heeded in our own lives.
GOD IS a Person. God our Father may hate, but most certainly God our Father does love those who truly love Him.
Genesis 4:And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”
10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
Does the Blood of the Cross not cry out against you when you offer to your sin that which is the Lord’s?
13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden…
Deuteronomy 11: 26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.
30 At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, 31 just as Moses the servant of the Lord…
34 And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.
“Yes, Lord God the Almighty,
true and just are your judgments!”
15 (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) 16 And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
3 John 1:2 Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.
Colossians 1:3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you…
Pray also for me, that the blessings of God our Father, the Son Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will continue through His work in me, and that His own Blessings to my life may be renewed in His Spirit, obedience, faithfulness and love.
Your further study through these dynamic links on most posts on http://talkofJesus.com are highly encouraged, along with your comments to any and all posts on this site.
Is this not our very need to understand God through Scripture?
170 Let my plea come before you;
deliver me according to your word.
171 My lips will pour forth praise,
for you teach me your statutes.
172 My tongue will sing of your word,
for all your commandments are right.
173 Let your hand be ready to help me,
for I have chosen your precepts.
174 I long for your salvation, O Lord,
and your law is my delight.
Though the Lord chooses us to be His, even by adoption, He does not coerce us to follow Him. As Adam, we may choose obedience or choose sin.
As Christ Jesus, the new adam, a second son of man who was before the first; He does not coerce our Christian life, either; though He laid down His Life for our sin.
Choose Jesus as Lord or choose death and punishment for your sins.
175 Let my soul live and praise you,
and let your rules help me.
Genesis 2:7 KJV And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. H5315
1 Chronicles 29:13 KJV Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise H1984 thy glorious name.
Jeremiah 20:13 KJV Sing unto the LORD, praise H1984 ye the LORD: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.
176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.
Isaiah quotes this last verse of Psalm 119 in prophesying the coming of our Savior, the Good Shepherd.
Look upon the Cross of our Savior and upon your own sin.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
And be also comforted by the last verse of the Psalmist; for our Lord, Christ Jesus also quoted it, and He knows well your soul.
Matthew 18: 12 What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.
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