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lord. What does it mean?

Jesus is Lord.

What does that mean?

Is this a Kingly title… like, “Sir Jesus, most exalted ruler” of someone or some land or maybe even some angels? Is that what you mean by, Jesus is lord?

I say this tongue-in-cheek, but the question of the title ‘lord’ probably yields a not much better answer in most of our freedom-loving minds.

Lord: a broad definition from the Oxford dictionary

Origin Old English hlāford, from hlāfweard ‘bread-keeper’, from a Germanic base (see loaf1, ward)

Last on the Oxford list: Our Lord
10 Used as a title for God or Jesus Christ:

IF a man holds all your bread, he literally lords it over you – you are servant of the lord over the bread of your existence.

Think about wars and war lords (in the middle ages, the Islamic wars & Crusades); even now war-torn parts of Africa, Asia, Arab lands, the Middle East; poor European and Russian wilderness regions; poor areas of Mexico, Central and South America; many islands worldwide – lords of violence enslave and murder their unwilling victims.

Think about the dependence of the poor on the rule of an over-lord, cruel men commanded by evil and cruel men who control the bread, the rice, the trade, the labor, the sex traffic, the drug traffic, the oil…

Are there not lords of evil throughout the earth?

It is no wonder that Jesus Christ stated categorically:

“No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and money.” – Luke 16:13

It is a matter of life and death to be dependent on a lord. Indeed we are a slave to whatever or whoever feeds us when we have nowhere else to go or no one else upon whom we can rely.

The large master-slave story of the Old Testament is found in Exodus. Joseph was sold by his brothers (lords of the eleven tribes of Israel) into slavery in Egypt. Pharaoh later became lord and ruler over all the tribes of Israel.

The LORD, Jehovah,The Existing One, sent Moses to Pharaoh to demand: Let my people go.

The LORD will rule His people and He will only give them into the hand of another for His refining purpose.

Consider that in reference to God saving Israel from their Master, Pharaoh; and that the lord over the bread of our very existence is ruler over our lives; Jesus boldly proclaimed:

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” – John 6:51

Lord is used in other contexts of authority throughout the Bible. Sarah calls Abraham her husband, ‘my lord,’ for example. And Jesus points to His authority when He taught, “For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’

Jesus had asked the traditional religious ‘authorities: “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?” – Luke 20:41-47

The word “Lord” is used 7836 times in the King James Bible.

Authority must have some importance in the lives of the followers of God.

Simply stated: He IS God and we are not.

In these freedom-loving, self-serving last days, let christians recall the chilling (or should I say rather: the fiery, damning) words of Jesus:

“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

¹⁹Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Let your ears hear, unfruitful christian, the damning caution of the one you call, ‘lord.’

Yes, we are free from the Law, from earthly rulers, even Bishops and over-lords. We have the grace of Jesus Christ and forgiveness of the Cross.

We need no intercessor (with exclusive access to the Holy Spirit) to intervene for us as Priest, father or mother of Perfect Son of Man. We need pray through no dead saint, alive in the Spirit. We are free from all of that.

Yet by the authority of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the saints (that is, you and me, beloved faithful brother, obedient sister in the Lord) have a relationship of love, a fellowship of grace and mercy with the LORD of all mercy, Lord of all the Heavens and the earth; Judge of all men, ruler of all creation!

Are we not, fellow men and women of dust, sinful in our every leaning away from our loving Heavenly Father, the command and example of the Living Son of God the Father, and the merciful leading of the Holy Spirit to the overflowing streams of Living Water – are we not perishing ashes of fools destined for the fires of destruction?

Who IS your LORD?

Is there not a price to pay for taking up the Cross of Christ Jesus?

Christians were persecuted in Rome, in Syria, in Greece, in Asia in the first century for proclaiming Jesus Christ as LORD. Are the days not coming, even this day for some believers, to suffer once more for boldly bowing down ONLY to Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior?

Romans 10:

… if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

The Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle John:

19:16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

He Was and IS and Is to come, the LORD!

Jesus IS LORD!

What does it mean to you?

What must you do now (while it is yet today)?

February 25, 2015
Ashes of Ash Wednesday + a Preparation of Repentance

Ash Wednesday

We pause momentarily today [AD 2022] from consideration of God’s love to prepare for the season of Christ’s Blood of Sacrifice.

Consider your own unrighteousness to receive any grace.

Bow down in the dust of your crumbling bones; cover with ashes your sin-consumed flesh.

Will the LORD not have mercy on me, a sinner?

Who will pay any ransom for your many sins? Who has redeemed the faithful who fall short of righteousness? Who only can cleanse the soul of sin and the heart of continual iniquity?

Jeremiah 6:26

O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth,
and roll in ashes;
make mourning as for an only son,
most bitter lamentation,
for suddenly the destroyer
will come upon us.

Mark 1

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 3:3

Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

2 Peter 2:

But false prophets also arose among the people… And many will follow their sensuality… And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell… if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly… then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment…

Repentance Of Sinners: v.12

But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed… They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you…

Peter is warning the church here of those CLAIM to be christians, but actually are wed to Satan the master of their sin.

Is this not a timely loud caution for our contemporary church?

14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray…

20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

Remember in ashes and dust, the turning of Judas from Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Savior.

The ashes of Ash Wednesday traditionally come from the burnt palms of the prior Palm Sunday, a day with the crowds shout, HOSANNA! The KING, our LORD Jesus approaches the gate.

Yet how quickly we turn on HIM, when we see the CROSS we must also bear to follow Jesus.

In this season of preparation for Easter, less than 40 days until the dark celebration of our own sin for which our Lord suffered and died on Good Friday, let us repent in dust and ashes before the Lord our God. Let us bow down to Christ Jesus, who suffered all for our sins that we might be redeemed by His grace to the Light of Eternal Life.

Hebrews 3

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion…

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

Are you prepared to meet the LORD your GOD Face to face?

Are you prepared to face Jesus should today bring your last breath of life before eternal Life or prior to Christ’s triumphant return and Judgment?

Like Job, do you repent in dust and ashes before God?

Like Peter, do you come before Jesus Christ confessing, I am a sinful man?

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord in these troubling times?

Mark 8: 34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul?

38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Yes, false Prophets will come, but the time is not yet.

No man knows the day or the hour. Some claim tolerance with darkness and Jesus.

He is NOT Christ to them. They twist truth into lies with self-serving sinful false prophesy!

Some proclaim loudly choruses of peace, while they proclaim God’s lands for the destruction of evil.

Our United leaders of this world excel as the Chamberlains of peace, rather than admit evil’s destruction of the truth and the truth of evil’s destruction.

Some sing loudly a Hallelujah Chorus to Jesus, while they lead astray softly in the sin of their hidden ways.

Are you a secretive christian, tolerant of those who hate Christ and the Cross?

REPENT in dust and ashes! For in these last days the signs are many and the Day and hour you do not know.

Prepare and wash your soul in the Blood of Christ Jesus, in preparation for the Good Friday of the Cross and our only hope and joy, the Resurrection and Victory of the love of God celebrated in 40 days (God willing) on Easter.

Revelation 7

A Great Multitude from Every Nation

⁹After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

¹³Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” ¹⁴I said to him, “Sir, you know.”

And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

¹⁶They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
    the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 11

The Seventh Trumpet

¹⁵Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

HALLELUJAH! CHRIST OUR LORD IS! JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN. HE WILL RETURN ON THE CLOUDS IN VICTORY OVER ALL SIN. HE WILL PUNISH ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.

Repent, therefore, and worship Christ Jesus our Lord. Bow down only to Christ in the dust of your flesh and the ashes of your sinfulness. Christ Jesus IS and will judge you and me and all.

Remember you are dust and into dust you will return.

February 18, 2015
My Love – 3 – Affection
Affection! How hurriedly has this love fled our homes in the hustle and bustle of these last days?

Hardly a child will remember affectionate extended time with both father and mother at home. It is a great failure of our broken, worldly ‘christian’ families. How by our selfish quests for ‘happiness’ in the world ‘christians’ have forgotten not only the importance of our marriage vows, but also the affection and stability needed by our children for this essential love.

The word for this love in Greek is storgē. This love is our natural affection of a parent toward our off-spring and the dependent children toward parents without whom they would not have been born and could not survive as God has intended.

The relationship carries on into the extent of the lives of parent and child even well into adulthood and times when circumstance may dictate a child caring for their aging parent prior to death.

Briefly consider the affection and nearness of the families of Noah, Abraham and Jacob (even when his son, Prince Joseph of Egypt, cared for all of the sons of Israel and their families).

Read how near David remained in his affection, honor and relationship to his father Jesse. See how the families of the Priests and Prophets all lived together in one home or places near to one another as the faithful of God maintained the love and affection of community.

Another antiquated use of this storge love is expressed by a people for their King (even if he ‘did evil in the eyes of the Lord.’) We do not get to choose this relationship of inequitable dependence.

Our children must depend on and require the love and affection of their father and of their mother (and to a lesser extent, the people of their King, Queen, Governor, President or leader). A parent (or King) has duties of affection and responsibility toward each child (or subject).

Look also to the application for widows in this. Look to the needs of their children. See the God-given affection of dependence on family, rather than independence of self-will.

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus was not only a beloved friend but also responsible for his unmarried sisters, Mary and Martha.

What wonderful long-term affection of one in need dependent on a family member to provide or care for them. It is the familial plight of children, widows and widowers, aging parents, handicapped children or siblings. Love provides the compassion they need.

Is it not our God-given duty to love our children with the greatest affection?
- Is your instant message, your text, your clever ‘fb share’ enough affection?
- Is it enough for only a ‘single’ parent to manage this important love God expects from all of us?
Storge (per se) is not specifically used in the Greek New Testament; however this love and affection of family is well documented in many books of the Bible.

The Apostle Paul uses a similar word as direction to those with charge of our church family for some who must submit as children of God as a dependent one of Christ’s body, His church. Please hear the appeal and responsibility for this love (storge) as instructed in Paul’s Letter to Titus, a leader in establishing the foundation of the church and family.

Titus 2

Teach Sound Doctrine
But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good,

4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

We ought to see a hierarchical dichotomy in this instruction between the expected mature behavior of the older men and older women of the church, in contrast to their loving responsibility to train the younger women and younger men in the will and ways of Christ Jesus our Lord.

The instruction in the King James Version describes these differences with serious gravity.

That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise…

Would this not also imply a similar duty and affection for the husband and wife of our Christian homes?

And to these instructions Paul adds (as just reason for the older women): … that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

How are we doing with that, men and woman of Christ’s church, in our Christian homes? Are we, as mature Christians, ‘teachers of good things?’

We can be certain that our affection, teaching and guidance in the love of the Lord in our homes is much needed in this 21st century. (If you don’t believe it, just ask nearly any of our ‘christian’ youth.)

These young men and young women so depend on us and look to us; yet so often as parents and as their mentors of the church we ignore our teens and fail our youth.

Hear once more (in the KJV) what Paul instructs the older women and note once more that it is OUR responsibility to teach them (again, a familial dependent love):

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

(I have added links to definitions in the Greek, in some instances root words, and always other uses of the same Greek word in New Testament scripture for your own study.)

Again, I ask us: has this love, this affection been diluted and nearly lost in our Christian homes?

On a personal note, I must confess to our son and our daughters how miserably I have failed in this love and affection so needed in our own now-broken christian home; as I confess to my wife by our vows before the Lord my great failure to show the love of the Blood of Jesus to her and His compassion for the struggles of my own wife in the Lord. For this (like so many broken christian marriages and families) I am truly sorry that WE are no witness of example to the church and to the world.

I pray that the Lord and your personal prayer and study of scripture will convict you in those areas of love where Christ Jesus would have you grow, love even more and be blessed.

Pray also for me, my wife and our broken family – our grown children, yet in need of compassion.

To be continued
February 8, 2015