Giving up each dream now beyond my reach and touched my the Hand of the Almighty, I press on to preach to Gospel exclusively to those whom the Lord has chosen. (You may not be one of these.)
Those not saved by the grace of God have most likely scrolled past the Light of their salvation already.
Roger Harned – reflection on why most will never talk of Jesus Christ
Social Media is not the world
Social media and broadcast media are the medium and the message to a world opposed to the Lord God.
We are in the world and of the world, born into sin and continuing in sin, unless the Lord separates us into His holiness.
Spokespersons for the world seek to sway our conversations to follow only their diverse distancing from God.
Christians must not sway back into the ways of the world — ways which demand judgment and deny the grace of Christ Jesus.
As we hear in our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer from an upper room in Jerusalem just before His betrayal, Jesus prays for those given Him — the Apostles (except His betrayer) AND for those in generations to come who will need to be protected from the evil one.
Are you one of these?
Do you need protection by the Lord God Who IS and came to the world in the Person of Christ Jesus?
Jesus, God in Person and One with the Father, prays NOT for the world but exclusively for those given to Him — souls chosen for eternal life.
The world will hear its media but never the Truth of God.
The world will read any diverse solution except that of Scripture.
I no longer preach to a world which denies Christ Jesus.
Roger@talkofJesus.com
You with ears to hear and eyes to see, read what John writes to the church.
John’s Letter
Do you have ears to hear challenging preaching directed specifically to Christians who see Christ Jesus through Scripture?
If so, turn the page and read John’s first letter & my challenge to you, beloved brother or sister in Christ.
Although my thoughts now gather more urgency, they tend to come to the page just a bit slower.
Change ahead in my Christian Social Witness to you and the world.
Yet as always, my thoughts will remain well-considered in light of scripture before you read it here. (Bear with me and help me by your comments, please.)
I do have a reflection or two on my three score and ten, which I will share with you more gradually than before.
Roger Harned – reflection on continued writing at 70 years old
How many score remain?
Those accustomed to the language of King James Bible may take account of their days by the same measure of years used by Lincoln.
Lincoln and Gettysburg Address
“For score and seven years ago,” Lincoln began on November 19, 1863. He looked back to the year of our Lord1776 (as they used to say) just 87 years before.
You may also recall from Lincoln’s memorial to those killed:
… that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Lincoln could not have known then that an assassin’s bullet would soon end his own life five years short of just three score years, at age 54.
All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.
Job 34:18
Abraham Lincoln and Job were both highly successful men of integrity in life who encountered tragedy. Lincoln no doubt had read in his own King James Bible of Job’s struggles.
If you’re keeping score
Only a few of you will know what I once chose as a ‘life verse’ and that it comes from Job.
{IF you want to know my life verse, just click the link to it above and it will open in a new tab or window.} It may help you to understand more about my purpose and gifts.
It just so happens that in this year of our Lord{Anno Domini}A.D. 2020, I have, by God’s grace, lived three score and ten years.
a bit of biography
My mother, Marie Hall Harned, lived more than four score years, though her father lived only to three score and five and her mother, Vera Tyler Hall not even to three score.
My father William E. Harned, his siblings and father William Alba all lived past four score years.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
I praise God for good health of this aging flesh and might easily boast (and speculate) of more years to come.
Yet I remember well so many struggles of the lives of loved ones, their end which came upon us sooner or suddenly.
Therefore like Job I consider that my end will be dust and strive to live for the life of my saved soul — in worship and love of Christ Jesus, One with God our Father.
Take to heart your own possible suffering to come from Psalm 22. It precedes one we know so well about ‘the valley of the shadow of death‘:
Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help…
Psalm 22 was part of our celebration of the wife of my youth, Becky Rice Harned. We considered our end — knowing how she had suffered to survive just her fiftieth birthday.
She went to the Lord in spirit in that same year of our Lord, 1999, on the 10th of February, her disintegrating frame now returned to dust.
Other beloved ones suffer in the flesh even now. Some endure pain known to us, while others, like Becky, suffer in silence.
This frail frame will fail. So will yours, yet be encouraged in the Lord.
Though our aging flesh contains the image and essence of our Holy God, our dust is not our living soul.
A few family and long-time friends know a partial history of my life in this world. And I suspect a handful know yours as well.
Most of you know my own failures and disappointments, as we all have in varying degrees at different times. Yet I do not expect to receive Job’s double blessing before I draw my last breath.
Job suffered much, as some we know — even as Jesus Christ suffered severely for our sins.
I am no righteous man – only in Christ’s righteousness – but like Job I have sought to live my life in integrity. I could not have lived through it all without the encouragement of the Holy Spirit through Christ Jesus, when finally I relented from my sins and sought the Lord for help for this helpless flesh.
Looking back & ahead
Reflecting back on my three-score and ten, as well as looking forward into the light of life given to my own spirit of hope, I continue in God’s grace.
I continue in purpose, perhaps more directed toward that which lives within reach of my limited mortal touch.
Leaving behind each dream and soul beyond my reach, I press on to preach to Gospel exclusively to those whom the Lord has chosen. (You may not be one of these.)
Those not saved by the grace of God have most likely scrolled past the Light of their salvation already.
Roger Harned – reflection on why most will never talk of Jesus Christ
Social Media is not the world
Based on technical data, talkofJesus.com has reached readers in many countries on at least four continents so far. My Christian Social Witness may yet by God’s grace reach some soul who has doubted the only Son of God as the Way and Truth of Scripture.
So often Jesus taught His followers, that is, believers who loved the Lord God and one another, and also preached to multitudes which included many who failed to have ears to hear or eyes to see.
Though in Christ, I am certainly not Christ Jesus. I can no longer preach the Gospel to those who refuse the Good News of Christ Jesus. They have no interest in a relationship with the God of love and life!
Therefore, Christ’s purpose for my witness of the Gospel to a 21st century church, wrought with ‘christians‘ who witness something other than Christ, pales by comparison. Never-the-less:
No soul has more need for the true Gospel of Christ Jesus than the 21st century christian.
Although we will soon return to my 2020 series on the Gospel of John, you, beloved reader, will be in for a new and more pointed relational look at scripture as we speak exclusively to the church.
In answering the question, ‘Who Does JESUS Pray For?’ we have clearly determined that Christ Jesus prays for us as High Priest and intercessor before God our Father.
“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.
John 17:6 NASB
Jesus, although not praying for Judas, intercedes for the Eleven Apostles in the upper room as well as other disciples – those followers in every era to come until the judgment of the world.
Eternal Life will be granted ONLY to those the FATHER has given to the SON and not all of the world — not to the worldly, not to the unrepentant, not to the Antichrists of the last days of John or to those opposing Christ Jesus in these last days.
Jesus Son of Man and Son of God prays: “I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me,” but who are these?
shama`Yisra’el Yehovah ‘elohiym Yehovah ‘echad … “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! …
Jesus had witnessed:
“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. – John6:37
“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. – John 6:44
“I will raise him up on the last day” is certain reference to eternal life and assurance to disciples of Jesus.
“I and the Father are one.” – John 10:30
One with the Son
Here stands the same Son of the Father, God incarnate! praying for those He selected before the world began. Jesus, the Christ and Messiah prays for the sameness of relationship the He enjoys with the Father.
One and the same would be the expression of relationship – God’s Perfect relationship in love.
Jesus IS; yet in His Oneness He says He is ‘no longer in the world’ (past tense). Jesus prays for those He loves though they must remain in the world for now (as do we).
As WE are ONE refers to Christ as the LORD, One with the Father and the Holy Spirit of God!
10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. [KJV]
Now Jesus prays:
Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.
Jesus bows before our Holy Heavenly Father as the Perfect and Incarnate Son of Sacrifice pleading for God to protect or keep them in the Lord’s fold as He leaves them to the predators of this world opposed to GOD and all righteousness.
Then again, Jesus prays an astounding prayer of intercession: “… that they may be one even as we are.”
John has already used this testimony of Jesus many times including:
“I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one G1520 flock with one G1520 shepherd.
– of the gentiles joined with the Jews following the One Messiah as if they were one – John 10:16
Now in His great prayer of intercession Jesus prays for this mystical relationship of love between the Father, the Son and those chosen to eternal life.
