The following is an UPDATE of an early Talk of Jesus post about Roger, his Christian Social Witness & specifically being born again in the Lord Jesus Christ on a Good Friday ~30 years ago.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Isaiah 40:3 KJV
And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound…
Prepare to witness JESUS
You’ll recognize the Prophesy of Isaiah as an announcement fulfilled by John the Baptizer shouting a warning in his day: Prepare to meet Christ Jesus who IS God with us!
Those of you familiar with my writings and witness over the years know well that I have generally acknowledged the preparatory seasons of Christmas and Easter with appropriate writings during Advent and Lent. A brief glance at the 2014 calendar will reveal that the traditional 40 days of preparation for Easter liturgically known as Lent remain several wintry weeks away.
http://talkofJesus.com currently [A.D. 2014] posts daily 6 days/week & is searchable by topic or scripture
So as not to discourage any who might regularly read my exhortations of scripture without understanding the context, I thought to prepare your hearts by pointing even through the darkness of these days to the Light of Life in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and our certain assurance of hope in His coming again to resurrect a new and fresh life out of the grave of these present days.
Just a bit of background about my faith experience.
I was raised in the Methodist Church, which had several set ‘methods‘ of worship.
Later, for many years I was a member of the Episcopal Church which generally followed a very catholic liturgical calendar typical of the Anglican communion.
I continue to have many dear brothers and sisters of the Roman Catholic faith.
I became an active member of a Southern Baptist church and have remained a faithful worshiper in Presbyterian and other Protestant churches as moves to other towns necessitated.
[At the time of the launch of Talk of Jesus .com in 2014]
I am now a member of the Mennonite Church, which like all other denominations of Christ reflects many facets of Christianity.
As always, I am first and foremost a servant of Christ Jesus as Lord and obligated to the full command of God through all scripture of the Bible.
Roger’s condensed Vitae
I have a Bachelor of Music degree; have taught instrumental music of all types; directed bands, orchestras, small ensembles and choirs, as well as performed as in instrumentalist and sung in many church choirs; and I have mixed and recorded sound for contemporary worship.
The Lord has given me teaching, preaching and writing gifts.
I love the exegesis of scripture and can never get enough. Whatever I do for Christ is not so important as what He might do through me for you and for others. This is why I generally provide dynamic links in my writing to some of my favorite resources.
Why Talk of JESUS?
The Lord has given me a passion not so much for evangelism (to which every Christian is called) as for teaching my fellow dear believers the necessity to grow up in our faith.
Prepare yourself for SOLID FOOD.
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
Warning Against Apostasy 11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
For this reason I have sought to make it easy for you to read your Bible daily, even through posts from Scripture on talkofJesus.com
-Do you read scripture every day?
-Do you read your Bible every day?
-Do you pray to God (at least once) every day?
This is the milk of my posting scripture to this easy to SHARE, easy to COMMENT, and easy to read site of Christian Social Witness.
Post content on TalkofJESUS.com as the Spirit leads may not always be as easy to digest as milk.
Roger@TalkofJesus.com
I invite you to COMMENT & offer YOUR thoughts about God and Christ, as well as your personal convictions, repentance, applications and witness of Jesus Christ to chew on long and hard with the seriousness of your own salvation.
The Lord has pointed me toward this witness as a result of an upcoming book [*] of importance also about growing up in our faith. It is a contemporary retelling of a Christian serial story with 149 brief episodes.
[*] note: not pubically available at this time + TalkofJesus.com has published several serial stories with brief post episodes.
I have also written a much shorter serial story based on Genesis, which I would have published on this site by now, except for the lack of current interest by lack of any comments of yours expressing any interest in following a serial story here for five or six days a week over a month. If you are interested, just add a comment to this post.
from a liturgical 2014 calendar
in order to prepare our hearts for Lent & Easter
Observe (if you like) that I had intended to begin and continue in Genesis in January 2014, however the Spirit led me to Psalm 119, which concluded just recently.
Recent & upcoming posts are an intense call to repentance of professing christians.
(You CALL yourself a christian or CLAIM you ‘go to church.’)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 7:21 ESV A caution of Jesus to believers who later cautioned [v.23] And then will Ideclare to them, ‘I never knew you
a traditional Repentance of Lent to prepare for Easter
These preparations from scripture, often from the Prophets of the Old Testament, are more typical to the liturgical requirements of repentance to dust and ashes from the time of Ash Wednesday (this year: March 5, A.D. 2014) through the Crucifixion of Lord celebrated on Good Friday in the year of our Lord 2014 on April 18.
about Roger receiving the Holy Spirit!
On a personal note:
I was born again in the Lord on a Good Friday during a contemporary ‘Stations of the Cross’ remembrance about twenty years ago [now ~30 years].
The little Episcopal church where we were members had a powerful moving of the Spirit for a time that could make a Pentecostal service look conservative!
(So much for tradition… for a brief unexpected time at that time.)
Roger’s ‘teaching’ style
I hesitate to say that the ‘easy grace’ message so attractive to bring in the crowds of marginal christians is all too prevalent and undeserving of the call of Christ Jesus to become like Him, obey Him, and be born again in Him.
You should find the Easter to Pentecost liturgy and probably my writing after Easter will reflect more of the importance of the love and grace and forgiveness that we have through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
If you need a nice encouragement of Jesus – the friendly, nice, lamb-holding, child-welcoming teacher; read the Gospel.
He IS the same Jesus who will return on the clouds (perhaps soon) with fire and vengeance and judgment.
NO, not everyone will be in heaven just because we mention Jesus or say we are christian or go to church once in a while or every week and don't let scripture convict and change us.
The upcoming months leading up to Easter, [A.D. 2014] for the most part are meant to convict each of us to:
a stronger faith, a weaker self, a humbler obedience, a truer witness
and a God-given, Christ-centered, Spirit-driven daily life
to do the Lord’s will on earth, as it is in heaven.
Please add your COMMENTS or questions to this or any post and share our Christian Social Witness liberally on your ‘other’ site where unbelievers watch what you do and say is important to you.
I pray for you, that the Lord may somehow use our witness through this. Pray also for me.
May our Lord, Christ Jesus, continue to grow you in your faith and knowledge of scripture in preparation for His return to reign as King of Glory and Lord of all over the earth and heavens and every soul of His creation.
4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.
Going forward, do we backslide?
This question of our christian life, as witnessed by the church and especially others is most serious.
What does it mean that we “were once enlightened?” Do you, fellow believer have the saving knowledge of the cross of Christ Jesus? If so, you are also enlightened.
Have you been offered the heavenly gift of grace, forgiveness from your sins of the past? Have you tasted the good word of your redemption in Jesus Christ as your Lord IF you follow Him? Do you follow OR did you just hear of it once or more?
Here is the point of the sharpened word (in verse 6): IF you or any fall away, it is a most serious matter of your salvation. You do NOT have salvation and eternal life (you cannot lose it, IF you have it) if by not ‘following’ Christ you actually sin against the Cross of Christ by your worldly unrepentant actions.
Yes, christians are NOT covered by the grace of Christ’s cross IF we will not repent of our former lives of sin and turn back from our worldly ways of the flesh. Die to the flesh and live as Christ! Christ Jesus must be our Lord. We must be obedient to Jesus as our personal Lord. (It is not enough to just say that we are christians, while in fact we witness against His Holy Sacrifice on the Cross.)
Repentance of such christians is a most serious matter for Christ’s church; for an unbeliever might be persuaded that your unholy life is one acceptable at the judgment seat where He will say to these, “I never knew you.”
Let us, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, look to the context of this important teaching for us as we look forward into a new year (and hopefully not backward onto our sinful nature, before our commitment to follow Christ Jesus as our Lord) – personally, and in every aspect of our lives.
Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.
Do you, unrepentant christian sinner, sit in church week by week as a kindergartner who ought to be held back?
Is your desire to learn the doctrine of Christ so immature that your daily life is constant witness to a grace without foundation?
Christ’s church, His bride for whom He will return, is His constant love. Christians have a relationship of love – a constant and loving relationship with Jesus, the Groom and our Lord. And as members of His perfect royal family, Christians have constant and loving relationships with one another – this is the doctrine of His love – this is the maturity of our witness.
This is the essence of our vow and witness: Jesus IS Lord.
4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
How are you ‘celebrating’ this New Year?
Are you Christ’s? OR are you NOT?
Happy New Year OR Blessed New Year (as our Lord would say in the Beatitudes: blessed are you).
Perhaps you know the Thanksgiving hymn, “We Gather Together.”
Look to the lyrics of the hymn of thanks and give thought to them:
1. We gather together
to ask the Lord's blessing;
he chastens and hastens
his will to make known.
The wicked oppressing
now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to his name,
he forgets not his own.
2. Beside us to guide us,
our God with us joining,
ordaining, maintaining
his kingdom divine;
so from the beginning
the fight we were winning;
thou, Lord, wast at our side,
all glory be thine!
3. We all do extol thee,
thou leader triumphant,
and pray that thou still
our defender wilt be.
Let thy congregation
escape tribulation;
thy name be ever praised!
O Lord, make us free!
e
source: We Gather Together lyricWe gather together to ask the Lord's blessing. Yes, that's what Thanksgiving is all about. Yet dig deeper into the text of this formerly well-known Thanksgiving hymn (many churches no longer offer a service of Thanksgiving) and find more for which to be thankful.
To begin, here is an interesting looking a probable emergence of the hymn: The Surprising Origins of "We Gather Together"
“We gather together”is cherished as yearly opportunity for family gatherings; however further examination of the lyrics suggest an occasion of worship “to ask the Lord’s blessing.”
Do you gather together with other Christians (not just family) regularly to ask the Lord’s blessing? And if you do not bless God, would it not be appropriate for God to curse you? Therefore, let us always give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And if we receive blessings from the Lord day by day (and we do, if you will take note of these), should we not thank the Lord each and every day even as was ask the Lord’s blessing on the food and full provision for our lives?
“He chastens…”
Chaste: there’s a word you don’t see in the Christmas ads on T.V. or anywhere else.
of those who are moulding the character of others by reproof and admonition
of God to chasten by the affliction of evils and calamities
Revelation 3:19
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
What does it mean that the Lord rebukes and chastens his beloved (you an me, dear brothers and sisters in Christ)?
Perhaps you think that Thanksgiving is not a time for ‘rebuke’ from the Lord. Yet if we are unrepentant in our relationship to the Lord and in our relationships to each other, I can think of no better time for a loving Father to rebuke and correct His children, even adopted children through the Cross of our Lord, His only Son, Jesus Christ.
He chastens AND…
“… and hastens His will to make known.”
“Thy will be done,” is the prayer we all pray.
What is God’s will for you? Do you want to God’s will when you finally get around to it? Or if we listen to the lyric, it would seem that God would make haste in our measured days to make His will know to us.
“The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.”
A definition (as if we need a reminder): oppression – prolonged cruel or unjust treatment, mental pressure or distress
The world surrounds us with wicked oppressing; but thank be to God for redeeming us from oppression of our our sin. Is anything more oppressing than sin? Yet by grace we may cease from distressing over the punishment of the Father we truly deserve.
And what should be our response to the lifting of our oppression from us by the grace of the Cross?
“Sing praises to his name…”
Indeed, Thanksgiving is all about worship of God our Father and Christ Jesus.
11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Verse 2.
Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining…
Encouraged? You know this from the Christmas message:
Matthew 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
“… ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine;”
Jesus began the Kingdom. Jesus maintains His Kingdom. Jesus will return for His subjects… His family. He will reign.
We thought that we were losing out on life, but by accepting Jesus as our King we cannot be defeated.
… let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
“so from the beginning the fight we were winning; thou lord wast at our side,”
Isn’t it comforting to know in our daily struggles that Jesus stands right there with us? It’s just one more reason to praise him.
“all glory be thine!”
Verse 3
“We all to extol thee, thou leader triumphant,”
‘Extol.’ It’s an old word that has fallen from our vocabulary. It means to praise enthusiastically. Furthermore, it is appropriate to make mention of another old English usage that has fallen by the wayside. The King James Version of the Bible remains popular with many because of its use of ‘thee and thou.’ It is a proper reverence for God and Christ, lost in familiarity of worshipers bordering on disrespect. Our attitude of worship (as a church and in our family and personal life) should at the very least show God the respect due a father. Often, it does not.
Jesus has triumphed over death… and He did it for us. IF Jesus is our Lord, He IS our leader triumphant.
“and pray that thou still our defender wilt be.”
We will be raised up with Him at the Judgment.
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
“Let thy congregation escape tribulation;”
Do you know what tribulation is really? According to the Oxford Dictionary, its a cause of great trouble or suffering.
First century Christians suffered much tribulation from evil men opposed to Christ. Last century Christians will suffer a worse tribulation under the oppression of the Antichrist and the persecution by all those opposed to Jesus Christ as Lord. Yet we are victorious in Christ Jesus, who has overcome death, will defeat Satan, and rule a new heaven and a new earth. We will reign with Jesus our Lord!
For this we ought to have much thanks giving.
“thy name be ever praised!”
And one final plea of the hymn (only it is not for freedom from tyrants):
“O, Lord, make us free.”
Are you part of the family of God? Or do you remain a slave to your sin?
John 8: ““Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
You may gather with ‘family’ and give brief thanks for too much food; but Thanksgiving is much more than this.
Psalm 102:18-22
Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD:
that he looked down from his holy height; from heaven the LORD looked at the earth,
to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die,
that they may declare in Zion the name of the LORD, and in Jerusalem his praise,
when peoples gather together, and kingdoms, to worship the LORD.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Praise the Lord.
Jesus IS Lord.
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