Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: Church

  • Heth

    Heth

    Your Word Is a Lamp to My Feet

    Heth (Cheth)

    57 The Lord is my portion;
    I promise to keep your words.

    The LORD is my portion.

    What does this mean to you?

    To begin, let us disavow the popular preaching from the mega-pulpits of false teaching that God’s blessings are yours to name and claim: God gives us our ‘portion‘ for HIS glory and not ours in the eyes of men.

    You, O Lord, are our inheritance! You are our portion for heaven after we have died to our own wills of greed and self-indulgence.

    58 I entreat your favor with all my heart;
    be gracious to me according to your promise.

    I come to you in weakness, in my sickness of heart. With all of my heart (not just a portion set aside for god) I beg you for your favor. NOT ‘favor’ as in a favorite son, but favor as in, Have mercy on me, a sinner. 

    59 When I think on my ways,
    I turn my feet to your testimonies;
    60 I hasten and do not delay
    to keep your commandments.
    61 Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me,
    I do not forget your law.
    62 At midnight I rise to praise you,
    because of your righteous rules.

    When you are in trouble do you rise to praise the Lord?

    Now follows the importance of Christian community: one Christian for the support of all other Christians who also fear the Lord:

    63 I am a companion of all who fear you,
    of those who keep your precepts.
    64 The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love;
    teach me your statutes!

    The Lord is faithful, even unto death. For Life is ours in Christ Jesus, who also suffered and was sacrificed for our transgressions of the law and hears our prayers and witness and calling upon Him. Jesus IS Lord.

    Teach us your statutes! It is not only a call to memorize 10 commandments or learn a number of rules; it is the plea of our heart that God will show us (His servants) what to do and how to do it His way. Our strong desire should be to hear and do all that Jesus Christ has taught us in Person.

    Do you desire the Lord to teach you His statutes? (Here is a start.)

  • A Foundation of Truth

    A Foundation of Truth

    My father was a builder when I was a boy. He and my uncle and the men who worked for them built houses from the ground up.  My dad could look at a piece of ground and survey it with his eyes and see a finished house. What just looked to me like piles of dirt being moved about progressed into a hole deep in the ground with leveling lines of string and cement blocks tapped with a hammer were set just so, one by one below the foundation of the house.  We watched these men set block by block on the dirt in the raising of a house over a strong foundation where they would walk on the dirt floor from room to room knowing the outline of what was to come.

    In many ways reading the Bible becomes a foundation to the foundation of truth. Daily devotional time with God becomes a leveling of all that seems out of kilter in our lives. Regular worship with like-minded Christians and perspective from the sermons of a God-fearing Spirit-filled pastor/preacher becomes a plumb line for our ascent into a higher place nearer to truth and the certain hope of our salvation in Christ Jesus.

    I paint you this picture as introduction to what I attempt to do in my personal life.

    • I read the Bible. It is 66 Books. I have read all of them, most numerous times. Every time I take on a book of the the Bible to study I learn more about God.

    READ & STUDY a book of the Bible. THEN, read another.

    • I pray. (More than once or twice daily.)  It is personal conversation with God. I do not hear God as well as I ask God for the needs of others and sometimes my own desires.

    I need to pray much more. Do you?

    • I worship with others. I don’t just ‘go to church, I try to be part of Christ’s church. I am a member of our local church and try to worship with our church every Sunday. I have done this in different places, buildings and denominations most of my life. God is a relational God. Jesus is a relational Savior. The Holy Spirit is a relational Counselor. AND Christians must, according to scripture, have a relational love for each other and the whole church.

    We are Christ’s church, the bride of Jesus. We are one with Him and with one another.

    I say all of this a introduction to an introduction (a borrowed thought) from a lesson on Titus I recommend to you.

    In addition to my daily time set aside for the Bible and prayer, I listen to Truth for Life and the teaching of Alistair Begg. I read and listen to the teachings of others as well. Do not rely on any one man (or woman) for the truth of Biblical teaching.

    The risen Jesus Christ sent out twelve Apostles to different churches in different places to lead and instruct the church. An Apostle to the Gentiles (once known as Saul of Tarsus) encountered the risen Christ, who in turn instructed others how to instruct the church. By the Spirit, Paul wrote many of the letters of the New Testament for Christians. Two letters to Timothy and one to Titus are considered as ‘Pastoral Epistles,’ letters to the church through these two pastors of certain churches.

    Pastor Begg suggests reading this short Letter of Titus every day.

    This teaching from Truth for Life will follow this short letter daily on the radio and online in January 2014 for a series of lessons titled: “Get It Right, Volume 1.”  I would like to recommend these to your daily devotional time.

    Christ’s servant,

    Roger Harned

    (site administrator) http://talkofJesus.com

     

  • ‘adam

    ‘adam

    Genesis 2:7a  And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground…

     

    Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them…

    The Creation of Man and Woman

    4 These are the generations
    of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
    in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens….

    — 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

    Yĕhovah ‘elohiym formed ‘adam of the dust of the ground [‘adamah]…

    We need to understand something here from the original Hebrew:

    Yĕhovah ‘elohiym [THE LORD GOD] IS plural (as we discussed yesterday).

    Note also the similarity of the word for ‘man (or mankind) to the word for the ground: ‘adamah. “You are dust and to dust you will return.” (Sound familiar? Yet we speak only of the bones and flesh and not the breathed-in soul.)

    Adam = man = mankind and is a masculine noun (like ‘elohiym); yet the great mystery of the complexity of man, made in the image of the One Triune God, is also a great mystery.

     Genesis 2:15a Yĕhovah ‘elohiym took ‘adam into the garden of ‘Eden…

    The LORD GOD took mankind into Eden – Man, the male and Woman, which the LORD GOD created out of man, the female. HE made them. (More of that in the remainder of Genesis 2.)

    Jesus Christ, the Word of God, ONE with the God the Father and God the Holy Spirit spoke to the great mystery of man and woman and marriage referring to Genesis 2:18, which in the KJV translates:

    And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

    Jesus said (of these scriptures and specifically from Genesis 2:

    Teaching About Divorce 

    6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

    As ‘from dust to dust’ rings in your souls the familiar truth of the burial of the body, so too ought these words of Christ Jesus burn in the hearts and souls of a man and a woman joined in marriage by our Christian vows before God.

    A man and a woman, joined to each other as one and joined as one one with God: a great and wonderful mystery!

    What is your witness for Christ Jesus in this, o ‘adam of dust and man of spirit?

    Dearly beloved Christian husband; dearly beloved Christian wife:

    What is the witness of the triune oneness of your Christian Marriage?

     

    {a personal prayer}

    Dearly beloved, my Blessing of the Lord our Savior:

    May the overflowing sacrificial love of Christ Jesus renew your vows of witness to the eternal love and joyous hope we found in His blessings of the joining of our lives with Him now and forever more. amen.