Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: Church

  • Put Your Armor On

    Put Your Armor On

    15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear… [more from 1 Peter]

    Are you ready for Christ Jesus?

    O church, arise and put your armor on.

    What is your Christian Social Witness?

    DO YOU TALK OF JESUS ONLINE?

    Most Christians who spend any time online (facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and other Social networking sites) RARELY mention Jesus.

    Oh sure, some of us pin a poster with a nice verse.  (Maybe a “Friend” might just happen to see it an get converted.) Do you really think this qualifies as talk of Jesus?

    Jesus IS and will return on the clouds… perhaps any day now.

    Certainly in terms of 2000 years since our Lord’s promise to return AFTER the Gospel is spread throughout the world, this 21st century must qualify as last days.

    “Is there any oil in your lamp of social witness?

    Put our your armor, church, my dear brothers & sisters in our Lord.

    When everyone in our ‘SOCIAL’ networks is talking about every thing else, WHY are Christians so unwilling to talk of Jesus?

    While we spend hour after hour in our ‘SOCIAL’ circles with hardly a mention of Jesus Christ, the Ephesians 6 armor of Christians has become rusty as Dorothy’s Tin Man. (Link provided, in case you forgot where you left your armor.)

    Jesus is NOT going to take up everyone when He returns.  Don’t you want your Christian Social Witness to help SAVE your ‘FRIENDS from hell?’

    A definition may help 21st c. Christians get our ideas of armor out of the middle ages.

    any tool or implement for preparing a thing
    arms used in warfare, weapons

    Another reference to this armor (from the same Greek word) provides additional encouragement for our witness.

    – 2 Corinthians 6:  We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 For He says:

    “In an acceptable time I have heard you,
    And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”

    Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

    But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God… By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left…

    Please SHARE your talk of Jesus with all of us and with your friends.  ADD a Comment.

    Our Christian Social Witness matters; but above all… before the battle…

    O church, arise and put your armor on. *

    * “O Church, Arise”
    Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
    Copyright © 2005 Thankyou Music

  • A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 1

    A Picture of Heaven – Chapter 1

    A Picture of Heaven Chapter 1 (of 14 episodes)

    (Just in case you missed it, here is a link to the Prologue,)

    The day and the weeks of that time had begun like any other day in any other week of any other month of any other year.

    I say that they had begun that way, not because this day was any different, but because it was the same. We existed from day to day and week to week, alongside the same people in the same places doing the same things.

    Some of us went to church when the spirit moved us. Some of us went to church every week (some even more). And some of us would never be caught dead among people who tell us that ‘we have to change’ or we would ‘never get to Heaven.’  But as it turns out on this ordinary day, we all ended up at church.

    I recognized some of the people as they walked in the door. They were family and friends; young and old (with some even older). Their smiles were reserved and their embraces seemed more in need of embrace than gifts of hugs. A few held back tears.

    We were not the planners of this hastily arranged reunion, but all of us had broken the ordinary busyness of that day and dropped everything from our sacred schedules to meet here at this church on a day like any other: the day of the funeral…

    That’s what everyone kept referring to, for weeks and even years afterward:

    Do you remember the day of the funeral?

    Yes. We all remembered it. I could not put it out of my mind.

     +

    Years ago when I had traveled in Europe I became awestruck at the towering Cathedrals and intricate worn detail of these monuments of religion constructed centuries earlier.

    It must have been something of this which brings Jews to speak with some reverence of the Temple. I had seen pictures of many magnificent temples with this same opulence, built like palaces of kings in many lands of other countries with other religions.

    What had struck me most about these palatial places of worship was that they seemed to be built more for tourists and pilgrims, than for the poor family around the corner.

    And my experiences prior to the day of the funeral seemed to confirm that churches have way too many seats for the number of people who show up.

    These churches did, however, often look grand enough for the formal processions of a King or a beautiful bride.

    ... To be continued

  • Grief: A Picture of Heaven – Prologue

    Grief: A Picture of Heaven – Prologue

    With real life comes real death.  With death comes grief.  Sometimes immediately, sometimes later… always lasting for loved ones.

    And they will never die again. In this respect they will be like angels. They are children of God and children of the resurrection. – Luke 20:36 NLT

    This story is not a real picture of heaven.  It is a story about grief.

    We need to look to scripture to see the true picture.  We need to READ what the Bible has to say about the NON-fiction of eternal life.  We will one day see the urgency of understanding the picture of the alternative beyond death of this decaying flesh.  This story, however, is fiction.

    I tell A Picture of Heaven as wandering thoughts about death which do ambush us from time to time.  The origin of my wanderings emanate from at least one real life/death experience.

    A little more than thirteen years ago, we sat through a similar scene… when my former wife died.

    Not too long before her death, a friend and neighbor had met with instant death in an accident.  One evening his daughter, our babysitter, pointed toward a star in the sky as my daughter looked up and comforted her with the thought that every time she looked up she could see her dad.

    It was not a Biblical picture for our six year old daughter, but it was helpful.

    When you and I want a true picture of heaven we must look much higher than our own experience to a God we cannot see and do not understand except through scripture and prayer.

    Faith in Jesus Christ is the only way anyone will get to heaven, where there will be no more death and no more tears – NO grief.

    I would like to point you to the place where you fit in the scene of our 14-part serial story.  At one time or another you may experience most of these perspectives.

    What will you do now…

    to face the eventual last episode of your story?

    You might want to pause for reflection and prayer as you consider each episode.

    To be continued… God willing… tomorrow, 3 September, 2013, M-F until the conclusion.

     Job 10:9

    Remember that you made me from dust—
    will you turn me back to dust so soon?