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Tag: father

  • The Fruit of Good Advice

    The Fruit of Good Advice

    Luke 6:36 KJV Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

    Jesus has been giving advice to the multitudes, especially those who will hear His advice, overflowing with proverbs and parables for our daily life.

    Will we choose blessing (‘Happy are you…’)? We call them the beatitudes. OR will we choose curse? Jesus gives the multitudes choices (including repentance) which we must make. In fact (as we just read in Luke 6:27-35) Jesus has told us how we must love even our enemies.

    The Apostle John has emphasized so often the love of God through Christ Jesus, as “our Father” that we may have missed in the verse above this first reference of the Gospel of Luke to calling God our Father, as Christ Jesus has just said to the multitudes after giving out all the good advice of the sermon on the mount.

    Therefore, you be merciful, as your Father God is also merciful.

    Yes, the Beatitudes and parables are a call to blessings from God – a call to do good and not evil – a call to receive God’s blessing and not curse; but Jesus points out that His teaching is more than that. Christ Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man teaches with authority that WE have through Him a relationship of family – a relationship of familiarity (as a son or daughter has of their own father) – a relationship of love (capable of both discipline and mercy). What will you choose?

    Before the Son of Man, the Prophets gave advice to God’s people – good advice AND warning. The people did not often listen (or perhaps they feared and listened for a time and then fell away from the Lord). What then, was the advice from God (through the Prophets)? REPENT! Turn back from your evil ways to the LORD your God. He is a God of mercy IF you will repent of your sin and turn back to His blessings.

    Before the Kings and the Prophets, God led His chosen people, His chosen family, Holy to the Lord; the LORD God had a relationship with His faithful family members (though they were a stiff-necked people). The LORD led His chosen ones out of the slavery and evil of Egypt. The LORD led His family through the Sea of Reeds and through the barren wilderness. The LORD saved them and blessed them and gave His chosen family His Law – He IS a personal Father to His people.

    Yet the people feared the Lord and could not stand in His Holy Presence; therefore the LORD appointed Moses as His Prophet and Aaron as His Priest to stand between His Almighty Holiness and the many sins of His people.

    Repentance and Forgiveness

    “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, 2 and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.

    5 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

    17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.

    And though our Father God had shown great mercy to His people and great patience for the generations who opposed His righteous rule over His own family, the people fed by the hand of the Lord in the wilderness often chose curse and not blessing. His stiff-necked self-serving children refused to worship the Lord our God and Father.

    My child, don’t reject the LORD’s discipline,
    and don’t be upset when he corrects you. –     Proverbs 3:11 NLT 

    The call of God to His children through Moses, through the Proverbs of His Kings and through the personal teaching of our personal Savior Christ Jesus, the only Son of God is a call to the Perfect love of the Holy Father of all creation. Jesus calls us to relationship through His Authority and love.

    So in concluding His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus in effect asks us (by referring to our Father’s mercy): will you listen to your Father?

    It is with both the Authority and love of the Father that Jesus taught those on the hillsides and in the towns to REPENT.

    An IF NOT, what therefore?

    Certainly hell and damnation; but Jesus has more to say on our free choice of curse over blessing given through His mercy.

    To be continued…

     

  • Hear my prayer

    Hear my prayer

    Psalm 39

    12 “Hear my prayer, O Lord,
    and give ear to my cry;
    hold not your peace at my tears!
    For I am a sojourner with you,
    a guest, like all my fathers.

    13 Look away from me, that I may smile again,
    before I depart and am no more!”

    HEAR my prayer… my cry… see my tears. Is this sentiment at all familiar?

    I am a sojourner with you. I have no place here. The welcome of this guest is worn thin and all my ancestors have passed this way, yet not remained.

    Look to me, Lord.

    I’m NOT smiling here. 🙁

    WHY?

    Surely my journey through this life has some purpose. Show me, before my journey is finished and I am no more.

    Yes, we are sojourners – travelers though time in a timeless creation of Almighty God.

    Why should the Lord look away from one who just lives for a blink of an eye in His eternal timelessness?

    3     My heart became hot within me.

    As I mused, the fire burned;
    then I spoke with my tongue:

    4 “O Lord, make me know my end
    and what is the measure of my days;
    let me know how fleeting I am!
    5 Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
    and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
    Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah

    “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
    My hope is in you.
    8 Deliver me from all my transgressions.
    Do not make me the scorn of the fool!

    Transgressions? (Now there’s a word you don’t hear on the news.) What’s a transgression?

     pesha` – transgression, rebellion

    rebellion even against God; guilt of transgression; punishment for transgression

    Am I a rebel against the Cross of Christ Jesus?

    Oh, Lord!

    10 Remove your stroke from me;
    I am spent by the hostility of your hand.
    11 When you discipline a man
    with rebukes for sin,
    you consume like a moth what is dear to him;
    surely all mankind is a mere breath! Selah

    Surely all mankind is a mere breath!

    Consider again, the Lord’s rebuke,

    The refining fire of His righteousness.

    It is the Lord who rebukes. The Lord our Father disciplines His children. (Do not look upon us in Your wrath, O Lord.)

    It is the Lord who corrects the sins of His loved ones. The Lord corrects mankind for our sinful nature. It is the fire of the Lord’s love which burns away our unrighteousness. It is the Lord who consumes our iniquity like a moth caught in the flame. A man or a woman is perverse and depraved; our iniquity and guilt deserve the punishment of our iniquity before a God and Father who IS Holy.

    How will a child of the Lord endure the wrath and punishment of Almighty God?  Selah. 

    “Hear my prayer, O Lord,
    and give ear to my cry…

    Psalm 39

    Matthew 26

    “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death…

    “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

    “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

    46 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

     

  • Pray also for me

    Pray also for me

    I have a prayer list. If you are reading this, you probably do too.

    Some of the names on mine: Lissette, Rachel, David, Ashley, Dad, Ed, Ken, Jenny, Tom, Robin, Marianna.

    Please pray for these loved ones of my family.

    I guess that all Christians pray for our families at times (as we ought). It’s in our own best interests, in addition to theirs. IF God blesses a family member and does not curse them, our prayer is answered (maybe not in our way, but in His).

    But the truth is that most people, probably even most christians, do NOT take any time to pray for others (except out of circumstances of desperation).

    Why not?

    Why don’t we at least take time to pray for our family (let alone our boss or workers or neighbors or friends or our President and Congress or the hungry or homeless or one in prison or any others…)?

    I suspect that most of us are too caught-up in our ‘selves.’

    So it is with some hesitation that I even ask you to pray also for me.

    Let’s talk about prayer briefly from the Bible. (For an in-depth study of prayer would take more time than we are willing.)

    In fact: PLEASE take just a moment right NOW to STOP reading, close out the world, close your eyes, bow your head & PRAY.

    amen. 

     

    What does it mean to pray?

    To begin, perhaps you would like to look at a few examples: first, from the Hebrew word for pray:

    God speaking to Abimelech in a dream here: Genesis 20:7 Now then, return the man’s wife,for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live.

    Here is a reason to NOT complain about God: Numbers 11: And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. 2 Then the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down. 

    The story of 1 Samuel 1 shows the prayer of Hannah, the answer of the Lord and the sacrifice of thanksgiving from Hannah.

    Many of the Psalms of David speak not only directly to our hearts, but also provide examples of prayer to God:

    Psalm 5

    Give ear to my words, O Lord;
    consider my groaning.
    2 Give attention to the sound of my cry,
    my King and my God,
    for to you do I pray.
    3 O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
    in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

    Do we do that?

    Do we pray to the Lord in the morning? (Did you this morning?)

    Do we even offer a small sacrifice of our mortal time?

    We also know that the Priests and Prophets prayed to God on behalf of their people. In fact, we probably recall at least one Prophet also praying to God for himself.

    Jonah 2: Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying,

    “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
    and he answered me;
    out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
    and you heard my voice.

    In ALL prayer we should see something in common:

    Prayer implies conversation with God

    A faithful man or woman may assume an answer from God our Father.

    In the New Testament, Jesus and later the Apostles teach us to pray.

    A brief look at the Greek word for pray:

    Jesus sums it up perfectly in Matthew 6 (some of which we memorize & other of His instructions about prayer we sometime forget).

    5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray… that they may be seen by others…

    6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

    7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases… for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

    8 … for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:

    “Our Father in heaven…

    (Though your memorized words are good, Jesus was showing us HOW to ask. Pay attention to the structure of His Prayer and you will learn truly how to pray.)

    Peter and the Apostles prayed before decisions [Acts 1:24], prayed before healings [Acts 6:6], prayed and fasted, prayed and sang hymns.

    One of our best instructions about prayer from Paul, Silas, and Timothy:

    1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

    Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances;

    for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

    Most encouraging to the churches of the first century – to all of the believers – the Letters from the Apostles and leaders of the Church are filled with references of personal prayers for individuals and prayers of thanksgiving for the church corporately as a body of believers for whom they prayed.

    Colossians 1: (from Paul and Timothy)

    3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard ofyour faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints…

    9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…

    (I pray that ALL of our church leaders pray for us like that and also encourage us by such public praise in prayer as did Paul and Timothy.)

    Do our church leaders call us to pray for each other and pray also for them?

    Colossians 4:3 Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains.

    1 Thessalonians 5:25 Dear brothers and sisters, pray for us.

    2 Thessalonians 3:1 Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we ask you to pray for us.Pray that the Lord’s message will spread rapidly and be honored wherever it goes, just as when it came to you.

    Hebrews 13:18 Pray for us, for our conscience is clear and we want to live honorably in everything we do.

    Since I do not address you as a church, but individually as my brother or sister in our Lord Christ Jesus, I do ask that you will pray also for me.

    I would ask that you pray for our Christian Social Witness and for the sharing of the Gospel through this place for your encouragement.

    I will pray for you, as will others with whom you Share your COMMENTS.

    Please ASK for prayer in our comments. May we add you to our prayers?

    May our Lord, Christ Jesus bless you and keep you for His own until we pray with each other once again. amen.