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Tag: father

Times of Difficulty – 3

Watch Yourselves

Luke 21:

34 “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Watch yourselves! A warning of apocalypse.

“Be on guard,” states the King James, with the same Greek word where Jesus warns to ‘beware of false prophets.’ And in case you missed it, Jesus reiterates the warning. “Stay awake;” “keep on alert,” the King James Version warns. Matthew records Jesus using these warnings together as one.

[ctt title=”‘Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.’ – Mark 13:33″ tweet=”Do the cares of this life obscure the Light of eternal life? Watch yourselves!” coverup=”Kj6Z5″]

Who does Jesus warn?

21st century readers could easily dismiss this. Jesus is just preaching to the people of His day. The Temple will be destroyed and Israel will be destroyed. And that’s the end of it.

Not quite. Although these events of which Jesus warned did take place, as is so often the case, prophecy also applies to other times. Just because you and I live in a different place and a later time does not exclude us from the truth.

Jesus warns of impending disaster: ” and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.” How often over time does this apply to so many.

[ctt title=”For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth.- Luke 21:35″ tweet=”Disaster prophesied by Jesus: not just for a forgotten time centuries past.” coverup=”1nRD9″]

Not just Jerusalem. A disaster of the scope of Sodom and Gomorrah comes more to mind. (Lot was on watch. Only Lot sought to obey the Lord by fleeing sin.)

Jesus does not speak of only ancient Judea, Samaria and Galilee which Rome would destroy later. The Lord warns, “all who dwell on the face of the whole earth.”

Do those who ignored the warnings of Noah also come to your mind?

Judgment!

We don’t like it, the thought of being judged by another. Yet a sovereign God surely rules in righteousness and will judge the living and the dead! We prefer to see Jesus as our humble example of living to love God. Jesus invites us to think of God as Father. Jesus challenges us to love others.

Yet He often warned of a judgment to come, a judgment with eternal consequence. Here is just one more example of the Almighty authority of Christ Jesus (which could be easily dismissed).

The Son of Man

Allow me to isolate what Jesus warns.

“… But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength… to stand before the Son of Man.”

Judgment! Jesus clearly warns the He will be our judge. And you will not stand in your own strength, but in His.

Jesus IS the Son of Man! Jesus also clearly states for all with ears to hear:

“I and the Father are one.” –John 10:30

Revelation 14:14-16

Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.

And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud,

“Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.”

So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.

To be continued…

August 29, 2017
My Love – 6 – If I have not love

‘I’m not happy.’

‘I met someone’

IF you claim to be a follower of the Bridegroom of the church, Jesus Christ and things don’t go quite your way, would you tell Jesus to ‘get out’?

Would you look for someone better, who might make you happy in this world?

(Did God really say, “Don’t eat of the fruit of that tree?”)

IF you are unfaithful to Christ’s love, would it not be adultery?

Though you claim to be a follower of Jesus, so had Judas!

This is the unfortunate false witness of some with a cross in front of their home, ‘christianity’ claimed before ‘friends’ as religion, their stamp of approval before the world. These claim many things by the ‘Blood of Jesus,’ yet their more bold witness of worldly sins again crucifies hope in His body and true Bride, the church.

Some have heard the following, even at weddings, known as the ‘love chapter.’

IF Jesus Christ is your love, listen then to true love, you adulterers of Christ!

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

I have heard in churches the noisy gongs of ‘single moms,’ divorced grandmas and others clanging the noise of their own ‘higher’ worship, ‘tongues of angels,’ God’s messengers; as if we should follow these women, rather than Christ Jesus as Lord. Will they who are not bowed down to their husband or any man in Christ not lead the faith astray with their babel?

²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

I have heard prophesy given in the church. Is it from God? Why then did the church not record the very prediction of God given? Is the prophesy confirmed and witnessed to the glory of our Lord, Christ Jesus? Yes, sometimes; but believer beware of the wolves in our midst.

Have you not endured some claiming such superior knowledge and understanding of mysteries who would teach us of their ‘faith to remove mountains’ in their Sunday school class or church small group?

Did you experience the embrace of Christ’s love in their Pharisaical instruction? Did you hear love for you in their teaching or prophesy?

I, too, have received prophesy and spoken it. The revelation of the Lord is a terrible and awesome thing!

Some prophesy has not yet come to pass. For all I know, I may have been given some spirit of deception to accomplish the Lord’s overpowering purpose. Yet in these last days we must fear the Lord, always listening for the approaching trumpet of truth over the blaring cries of some claiming ‘understanding.’

Read your Bible and pray for revelation by the Spirit of Truth in scripture.

³If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

‘And though I bestow,‘ states the King James; bestow, an interesting word more related to charity as we understand it – charity, agape love of God, used in application throughout these verses of the love chapter.

Bestow: to feed by putting a bit or crumb (of food) into the mouth; of infants, young animals etc.; to feed, nourish to give a thing; to feed someone, feed out to

Feed on God’s word in scripture. Nourish your spirit in prayer.

Does this not also bring to mind the love a father and a mother, given to their child, their teen, their grown adult children, even their spouse given in marriage into your own family? Is this not also the gift of adoption given by our Heavenly Father through Christ to gentile believers (like most of us)?

Are we not all poor and needy, dependent on our Father’s forgiving gracious love?

Though I give to the poor, but have not love…

Is that our charity of witness?

Now that I have shared the seriousness of God’s love for us, allow me to share the more familiar actions of love often and appropriately shared at weddings:

⁴Love is patient and kind;

love does not envy or boast;

it is not arrogant ⁵

or rude.

Are you patient to your spouse, to whom you are joined to each other and God by your vows?

Is your husband (or wife) patient with you – patient for you?

Is your love for your beloved partner until death – kind?

Are you, dear father, and you, dear mother, kind to your son – kind to your daughter – kind to each and all of your children (obedient and faithful, or rebellious and hateful)? Are you kind to your adopted child, your step-child, your child (even an adult child) given into your nurture by God to raise and guide in the Lord, Christ Jesus?

Is your love patient and kind even to your prodigal teen?

Is your love for your spouse, your children, your brothers and sisters in Christ ALWAYS patient and kind? Lord help us, impatient and unkind sinners!

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Are you just another ‘spoiled child’ of God in your relationships with others in your daily life?

⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Lord: Convict us and forgive us, for the sake of your Son, our loving Savior, Jesus Christ. Help me – help us to love you more and more; help us, miserable saved sinners, to love those you love with your overflowing agape love.

⁸Love never ends.

To be continued…

February 16, 2015
Personal Witness of a Personal Love

Luke 10:23 Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Isaiah 53

Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

John 1:

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Who IS Jesus Christ?

And what is the witness of His divinity?

Note that I ask, ‘Who IS Jesus Christ,’ not, ‘who was Jesus Christ.’

For if Jesus Christ is not divine – if Jesus Christ is not God; then Jesus was and is not; for the son of man was not and is not the Christ – God with us. If Jesus is not the Christ, then the gospel is not true witness and our faith would be in vain (as states Paul in 1 Corinthians 15).

Yet again, as Paul did witness, as the Apostles did witness, as John the Baptist did witness, as Jesus’ mother and brothers did witness, as many were witness to the resurrection of Christ Jesus: He IS Divine – Jesus, with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit IS GOD! This is our witness of the gospel of grace for those who will believe.

Where were you three years ago (in 2011)?

Were you walking near to the life of a loved one? Were you involved in the daily life – the comings and goings of one so dear that you knew nearly their every action, most of what they said and understood much of what they thought? Were you – three years ago and for these past three years – that near to your beloved, a man or woman of this flesh? Were you near to their soul? Are you joined in your purpose and understanding even now to do what they would have you do?

And where are you now (on this day in the year of our Lord, 2014)?

Have you remained faithful in your relationship and love to your beloved? to your husband (or wife)? to your children? to your brothers and sisters in the Lord?

I would venture to say that you have NOT been as near to any soul, to any of flesh and blood, as was the John the Disciple to Jesus. (And may we be convicted by the Spirit for our neglect of the love of those nearest to us in Christ Jesus.)

This was the intimacy of John, Peter and the Disciples of Jesus: they lived with the Man, they ate with Him, they traveled with Him, they listened to His teachings in public, they listened to His instructions in private, they witnessed His miracles in public and they witnessed His Power in private.

It is with this intimacy and understanding of the risen Christ and the Incarnate Son of Man that John the Apostle witnessed Jesus by his Gospel, his letters and his Revelation of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was, IS, and is to come – GOD!

AND God is love.

How can we, a mortal man (or woman), a soul surrounded by flesh and bone and a mind finite in understanding, grasp the fullness of the love of Christ Jesus?

Indeed, we cannot; but must know the Lord by humility and faith. We must believe by faith the many witnesses of God in the flesh.

The witness of John the Apostle in his first letter [KJV]:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

NO faithful Jew speaks lightly of GOD – of ‘That which was from the beginning.’ John makes a remarkable statement about God here:

‘That’ which WAS FROM THE BEGINNING (Only GOD IS from the beginning), we have heard and we have seen with our eyes.

We have touched GOD! And He has embraced us!

How near may a man stand to God? How near dare a mortal come to the Immortal?

John is witness that God, in the Person of Christ Jesus, came near to us – near to him. Is it any wonder that John’s witness is: God is love?

John comforts us, “our hands have handled … the Word of life.”

Following the resurrection, the Holy Spirit was witness to John and the disciples of the divinity and power of Jesus. Following these letters of John the risen Christ is once more witness to John on Patmos (after the other Apostles have been martyred for Christ). Yet prior to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, GOD the Father gives witness to the Son in the presence of John.

Matthew 17

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light…

5 He [Peter] was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

6 When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”

We may also be familiar with the witness of God the Father at the witness of Jesus’ baptism by John. We are perhaps less familiar of the following witness of God the Father to Jesus Christ the Son, near the completion of Jesus’ three year ministry on earth.

John 12

Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead…

9 When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead…

12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord…

23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified… 27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.”

Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

John, the Beloved Disciple, is witness to the love and glory of Christ Jesus. John says of his Holy friend:

1 John 1:3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

John held the hand of God, in Christ Jesus. John lay upon the breast of our Lord Jesus, hearing the beating of His mortal heart. John beheld the holes of the nails of the cross in the flesh of the hands of the risen Christ Jesus. John is witness that God is love and in Him is no darkness at all.

John 13:23 KJV Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.

John’s Gospel and witness and Revelation reveal the light and life and truth of God in Christ Jesus, that only in Him is light and life. He IS the living water. He IS the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

Only in Him will you have eternal life. Only in Christ Jesus will you have the fellowship of love. Only if by faith you follow and witness by His love: Jesus IS Lord, will you have any life and hope and love for your soul – in this life and that which is to come, which we cannot understand, except by faith in Jesus Christ.

May our Lord draw you into His arms of love and light and life.

Amen.

October 20, 2014