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Tag: corinthians

  • until he brings justice to victory

    until he brings justice to victory

    The death of justice occurred not a week ago, but in centuries past.

    Justice..

    such a noble ideal. Yet what is justice, but a separation of evil from good?

    This world and this country, the unseen victims of our streets and countless peoples fleeing violence are destined to suffer injustice since the fall of man (adam). Why should it surprise us that a crisis of justice once more brings darkness to a people with failing light?

    global debtThe law of the land is no longer just. The nation of hope is no longer light to the nations. Those once free are sold to our debt and the lords of the land lend by usury.

    Psalm 89:14 KJV

    Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.

    The LORD is higher than the laws of the nations.

    His justice hears the appeals of the downtrodden,

    His judgment is feared by the judges of injustice.

    He will make right wickedness done to the poor.

    RH

    Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Psalm 82:3

    Trump on borderDare we build yet higher walls between billionaires and the penniless? Do millions of poor not gamble their futile futures in towers of sin built by the greed of a handful of arrogant rich?

    Can a nation be bought or a people negotiated?

    _87097692_syria_rebel_control_624_v4Where is justice in the lands from which millions flee for their lives?

    Where is justice for the unwanted child? Where is justice for victims fleeing from war?

    The perversion of justice is not a new thing under the sun.

    Isaiah 59:

    Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,
    or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;
    2 but your iniquities have made a separation
    between you and your God,
    and your sins have hidden his face from you
    so that he does not hear.

    baby 17 week fetus3 For your hands are defiled with blood
    and your fingers with iniquity;
    your lips have spoken lies;
    your tongue mutters wickedness.
    4 No one enters suit justly;
    no one goes to law honestly;
    they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,
    they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

    Why this sounds like the accusations of a political race with rumblings of iniquity heard all over the world. Yet the prophet Isaiah wrote this in the 8th century Before Christ.

    … Their works are works of iniquity,
    and deeds of violence are in their hands.
    7 Their feet run to evil,
    and they are swift to shed innocent blood;
    their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
    desolation and destruction are in their highways.

    kerry putin8 The way of peace they do not know,
    and there is no justice in their paths;
    they have made their roads crooked;
    no one who treads on them knows peace.

    Judgment and Redemption

    14 Justice is turned back,
    and righteousness stands far away;
    for truth has stumbled in the public squares,
    and uprightness cannot enter.

    15 Truth is lacking,
    and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
    The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
    that there was no justice.

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    The short terms of political power and temporal rulings of Justices, powerless before the Throne of Judgment, will not prevail in this age any more than in forgotten times of fallen empires with nameless leaders, mortals whose legacy is dust and whose souls will be called to account at the victory of Christ, when soon the Lord will return in power upon the clouds.

    On a Cross in Jerusalem the Righteous One was crucified for our sins. Christ Jesus offered us mercy for the wickedness of our hearts and deeds of our sins.

    Even the Prophet Isaiah looked forward to a time of Jesus Christ:

     “And a Redeemer will come to Zion,
    to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord. – Isaiah 59:20

    1 Corinthians 15:54-57 KJV

    So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption,

    and this mortal shall have put on immortality,

    then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,

    Death is swallowed up in victory.

    O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

    The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

    But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

     

  • Days of Despair

    Days of Despair

     In Christ we have a Light of hope in a season of our dark despair.

    Job 30:

    16 “And now my soul is poured out within me;
        days of affliction have taken hold of me.
    17 The night racks my bones,
        and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

    Have you ever had a bad time in life like this?

    18 With great force my garment is disfigured;
        it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
    19 God has cast me into the mire,
        and I have become like dust and ashes.
    20 I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
        I stand, and you only look at me.

    IF you even ask, do you sometimes feel like God does not answer you?

    21 You have turned cruel to me;
        with the might of your hand you persecute me.
    22 You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it,
        and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
    23 For I know that you will bring me to death
        and to the house appointed for all living.

     

    Does despair, inward pain and silence from God turn your Christmas joy into a longing for the gift of hope?

     

    26 But when I hoped for good, evil came,
        and when I waited for light, darkness came.

    27 My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;
        days of affliction come to meet me.

    28 I go about darkened, but not by the sun;
        I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

    Bible trivia: Job is the oldest of any book of the Bible written approximately 2100-1800 B.C.

     

    Job was a righteous man who had some big troubles test his faith. Perhaps you think that you are a righteous man or woman as well. You do mostly good. You live like you should (for the most part).

    You cry out to God for help… and nothing…

    Job could not help himself, except to pray to God. Often, neither can you or I.

    This time of year you may hear the familiar Christmas nativity story told by either Luke or Matthew. If we were to read on in Matthew to a time thirty years later when Jesus first began His teaching, we would read how our Lord heals the afflictions of mankind.

    Matthew 4:

    23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

    24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains,those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

     

    Are you just one in the Christmas crowds who follow Jesus just to see if He will heal someone else?

    Jesus Christ IS the balm for your wounded soul and the salvation of your sinful flesh.

    Hear these words of encouragement from the Apostle Paul to the church at Corinth:

    2 Corinthians 4:

    But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 

    We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;

    perplexed, but not driven to despair; 

    persecuted, but not forsaken;

    struck down, but not destroyed;

    always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,

    so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

     

    To be continued…

    This look at the afflictions of Job is the third installment in my Christmas series in the year of our Lord, 2015.

     

     

  • Mission – 1 – What?

    Mission – 1 – What?

    What is your mission in life?

    Do you have one? Have you ever thought about your daily life in terms of what GOD wants you to do?

    Christians typically don’t think of our day to day life in terms of mission, but rather we ‘send missionaries’ away to other places to ‘spread the Gospel.’

    The Apostle Paul addresses the mission of Jesus Christ in his opening advice to the church:

    1 Timothy 1:15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

    Jesus Christ has a mission to save sinners. Our Lord paid the price for our sin. He continues to save us from the penalty of sin and death. Paul confesses his own sin, as should we.

    Jesus had a mission to accomplish in His three-year ministry which He continues to accomplish through those accepted by God as part of His body, the church.

    What is the mission of our church?

    Many churches and most Christians will take some approach to mission to accomplish the sending out of missionaries (as Jesus sent out His Apostles).

    We support or hire missionaries to accomplish the mission of Christ, rather than approaching our own lives as being one sent as an ambassador from God into this perishing world in the Name of Christ Jesus to save sinners.

    The church of this century has corporately fallen into a worldly check-list of ‘christian’ things that we do through others for others in the Name of Christ.

    A brief look at our corporate church websites will include visions and missions not unlike a Fortune 500 focus constructed with a secular and worldly-relevant appeal. I do not condemn us for laying a groundwork for the important business Christ has given us to accomplish, yet even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.  [2 Corinthians 4:3]

    Sending missionaries makes our church feel good. We ourselves seem to have no mission for Christ in our daily life beyond the doors of a building we call our ‘church.’ (We contribute to missions as a small portion of our meager offering.)

    How easy it is as a church or as a Christian for us to either get caught up in goals of our ‘mission’ or to ignore them entirely.

    What is my mission as a member of Christ’s church?

    If we approach our typical intention to a mission individually we might take a systematic approach. Vision pyramidOur local body of believers may only make the connection to mission as we understand it’s meaning from the Latin root: Mid 16th century (denoting the sending of the Holy Spirit into the world): from Latin missio(n-), from mittere ‘send’.

    Mark 16:15-16 “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

    Perhaps as Christians it is time for us to take another look at mission more in terms of the reason Christ Jesus has already sent us into the world to live as ambassadors of Heaven to a fallen world. Perhaps the time of our return should be taken with more of the daily intentional seriousness of the Apostles.

    The Letter of Paul to the church at Philippi

    3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

    Do we press on toward this goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus in the same way that the Apostles remained so focused on God’s ambassadorial mission for our daily lives… until we are called upward to the time and place we will receive our resurrected eternal bodies?

    If a ‘christian’ is to have a Christ-like mission, shouldn’t we look to Christ Jesus as our example for our day to day life?

    Is your life a mission for Christ?

    Do you have any thought at all of how God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit would use you in the lives of others?

    To be continued…