Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: Gospel

The Gospel is Good News to all who will humbly accept Jesus and listen to His teaching.

We refer to the four books of the Bible which tell the story of Jesus Christ as the Gospels. These books are named for their authors: Matthew, a Jewish Apostle; Mark, a disciple of the first generation who recorded accounts of Peter and the Twelve; Luke, a gentile Physician and disciple of the first century; and John, one of the Twelve Jewish Apostles chosen by Jesus.

  • As for me and my house – God’s family?

    As for me and my house – God’s family?

    As Christians we no doubt know Joshua’s quote:

    “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” – Joshua 24:15

     If you are old enough to remember the Saturday Evening Post you likely recognize the Norman Rockwell painting depicting family prayer at the dinner table.  It is a picture of many faithful Christian families in the mid-twentieth century.

    Take a look at the dinner table in your house, for example (and witness).

    What do you see in your own 21st c. christian house?

    • Prayer?  Probably not.
    • The whole family seated together? Probably not.
    • Thoughtful family communion with each other? “Communion” would be actually communicating with each other while enjoying our meals together.  Definitely not.

    Even in rare moments when all are present at the dinner table, all of us are NOT fully present.

    “Family relationships and family time together is most important (second only to our personal relationships with God?)

    • Is that your Christian social witness to your own family? Probably not.

    Why do cell phones, internet distractions, video games and TV rob your house of serving the Lord?  

    “Are 21st century Christian houses incapable of serving the Lord even at their own dinner table? 

    Joshua and Caleb were two faithful followers of God and Moses who wanted to serve the Lord in the Promised Land.  So many of the Hebrews wanted to go back to their slavery.

    After Moses died and Joshua became leader of these people who yearned for the comforts of their slavery, once more all came down to a choice to choose to follow God OR be a rebellious household.  When Joshua’s time was near he gathered the people of the Lord together and spoke.

    Joshua begins his call to God’s chosen family with those word to which we must always listen with fear and trembling:

    Thus says THE LORD:

    The challenge:

    24:2  ‘Long ago, your fathers…  served other gods… 5 And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the midst of it, and afterward I brought you out… And you lived in the wilderness a long time. 8 Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites…

    11 And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the leaders of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And I gave them into your hand…

    13 I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.’

     

    Joshua then: on behalf of the people of God – the house of God – renews the covenant of their forefathers.

    14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

    THE ALTERNATIVE appears prior to our well-known quote from Joshua 24:15. Joshua outlines choices:

    15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord,

    choose this day whom you will serve,

    whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River,

    or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.

    But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

    Joshua 24:15 is the call of a faithful leader to the people of his house to faithfulness.

    The people, under Joshua’s leadership respond appropriately… before the witness of God, of his appointed leader of His House and His People… and before the God-appointed leaders who would follow after Joshua’s death.

    The covenant of promise and blessing between God and his People is once more confirmed.

    The promise is NOT YET fulfilled.  The promised land must now be taken.

    The book of Judges records how once more, the people of God break their covenant with God… a familiar and ever-repeating historical disobedience from Eden… through this 21st century day… until the Last Day.

    After the time of the Judges, David eventually becomes King.  After the fall of the Kingdom of David, the Prophets tell of a coming King.  After the Sacrifice of Christ Jesus the True King… after the Resurrection of Jesus our true hope and New Covenant…

    The promise is NOT YET fulfilled.  Our King’s promised land must now be taken

    … filled with the faithful who will not break OUR Covenant of baptism in His Holy Blood.

    “Go into all the world,‘ is His Command.

    ‘and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.’  – Mark 16:15

        Thus says THE LORD 

    What is OUR response? What is our witness?

    When the Apostles sought to replace the traitor Judas they chose another witness.  They had a choice between two faithful witnesses.

    Peter, chosen leader of the House of the King spoke:

    Acts 1: 21 “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”

    NOW, even two thousand years later…

    the promise of the Kingdom NOT YET will soon be fulfilled.

    And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, 

    choose this day whom you will serve…

     

    whether the gods your fathers served…

    or the gods of the age in this land where you dwell. 

    But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

    Jesus IS Lord and King.

    And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord… forever.

    Choose this day whom you will serve:

    What is your Christian Social Witness?

     

  • Rest for the wicked; hope for the weary

    Rest for the wicked; hope for the weary

    It so happens as the Lord had planned it that the launch of http://talkofJesus.com -+- CHRISTIAN SOCIAL WITNESS coincides with the American holiday: Labor Day.  We will have picnics, parades and some much-needed family time.  No school.  Post offices, banks and many not-so-greedy businesses closed to give their employees a rest from their labor – something all of us need at times.

    A prior post began with this same thought. It is about Sabbath rest – a related, but different reference to the word of God in the Bible.  We’ve likely heard the expression:

    ‘NO rest for the wicked and the good don’t need any.’

    NOT true; NOT Biblical.

    We ALL need rest and we all need work.

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    American’s inherited this Labor Day idea of rest though the long-standing culture of the King James Bibles so much apart of our Christian heritage.  The original call for rest comes from Jesus.

    “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. – Matthew 11:28

    At one time Americans realized the importance to honor God through our labor and to honor labors as God’s own workers.  Sadly, in a 21st c. America (or Europe, Asia or any other place) we don’t get that, do we?  (Jesus tells us why – which I will reveal in a moment.) The world has two approaches to labor:

    Work hard for your SELF. (More work, more reward: right?) God doesn’t really need that “offering AND tithe” to honor Him — after all, the Government gets plenty of our required monetary support.  Our Country will take care of us.

    OR

    I don’t need to labor because Uncle Sam* takes care of me and will always help me.

    *  ‘Americanized’ personalization of our impersonal ‘representative’ Government.

    God never intended for ANY to have a rest from the work they will NOT do.  (We won’t go there today. That’s a different scripture.)

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    Getting back to talk of Jesus:

    The crowds had flocked to hear Jesus on the hillsides of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.  Jesus traveled from city to city on His northern tour.  Everywhere Jesus traveled, He was expected.

    Matthew 11: When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.

    Imagine the excitement of the promised Messiah of God coming to your city.  Jesus was predicted by the Prophets.  Jesus was proclaimed by the greatest prophet their contemporary, John the Baptist.

    John was a ‘hell-fire and damnation’ kind of preacher: popular with the people, but imprisoned by the religious establishment.

    REPENT! And be baptized (changed permanently). Cleanse your sins before you must stand before the HOLY ONE.

    Yet our Lord is also calling the people of the cities to hear Him and obey.

    20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.

    Jesus? … Preaching ‘hell-fire and damnation’ like John?

    Read what He said comparing the disobedient to the people of Sodom.

    Come to Me, and I Will Give You Rest

    25 At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will…

    28 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

    What is Jesus saying about our labor?

    Jesus is illustrating a picture of manual labor.  He doesn’t say to just give it all to Him and He will take care of it.  (I’m not saying this about prayer.  We are talking ‘labor’ here.)

    • Take my yoke upon you a picture of the collar of two doing the work of one.
    • learn from me – a direct reference to learning from the example of His life.
    • I am gentle and lowly in heart [Jesus is kind and humble. Have you learned this from His Perfect Example?]

    and [IF you will do this, according to our Lord]

    • you will find rest for your souls. 

    30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

    Jesus didn’t say ‘Take a break and I will do it all for you.”

    Jesus actually called out the people who refuse to repent and listen to Him for their wickedness.

    Our Lord knows how weary we become in this world.

    Do we remember: disobedience was punished in Eden.  Unpleasant work became part of our sinful heritage for having knowledge of good and evil.

    Jesus offers to share in our work in this world.

    Will you work with Him on that?

    Though we are wicked sinners

    Because of the Cross of Jesus 

    Weary laborers have hope.

    Come unto Him.

  • Closed on Sunday

    Closed on Sunday

    “Rest for the wicked; Hope for the weary.

    Where did that thought come from, I wondered.  Could it have anything to do with all of those early mornings and late nights on the internet? (So I looked it up on the internet… didn’t find it… looked for the quote from the Bible… didn’t find it.)

    My thought was actually concerning rest on the Sabbath, a Commandment. (Forgive us our trespasses.) Did our Father in heaven want us to rest for our own good and also worship the God of any of our goodness through Christ Jesus?  What do you think?

    Deuteronomy 5:11 “‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

    12 “‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

    13b On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

    “Observe the Sabbath… Did I remember that wrong? … (I’ll look it up on the internet.)

    I found it. I did remember it. (I think I saw it on someone’s coffee cup somewhere.)

    Exodus 20:8 KJV – Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

    What I had failed to ‘remember’ about the sabbath is the depth of meaning ‘to keep it holy.

    qadash – to consecrate, sanctify, prepare, dedicate, be hallowed, be holy, be sanctified, be separate

    Pharisees had complained about Jesus not keeping the sabbath; but His explanation does not justify any failure of ours to observe the holiness and separation God our Father intended for us to rest… consecrate Sunday and separate ourselves from the world to worship the Lord our God.

    “Most Christians and most 21st c. christian families are guilty of NOT consecrating Sunday to be separate from the worldly and coming together before the Lord our God in holiness.

    (Just an hour of so of obligation to ‘go to church’ hardly counts as “observe” or “consecrate” Sunday, to keep it HOLY.)

    Have you and your 21st c. christian family also been as guilty of remembering to come together as a family of God and worship?

    Forgive us, Lord.  We repent and seek the holiness of Jesus Christ.

    In fact, God willing, I will take another day (after I have rested on Sunday) to talk about: “Rest for the wicked; Hope for the weary.

    Remember to SHARE Christ Jesus and worship the Lord on Sunday as part of our family of the Lord.

    Roger, your brother in Christ -+- Christian Social Witness