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Tag: John

Your Mistake – You Don’t Know the Power of God

Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.

Matthew 22:29 NLT

The Power of God

Psalm 68:

God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered;
and those who hate him shall flee before him!
2 As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away;
as wax melts before fire,
so the wicked shall perish before God!
3 But the righteous shall be glad;
they shall exult before God;
they shall be jubilant with joy!

18 You ascended on high,
leading a host of captives in your train
and receiving gifts among men,
even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there.

19 Blessed be the Lord,
who daily bears us up;
God is our salvation. Selah

28 Summon your power, O God,
the power, O God, by which you have worked for us…

34 Ascribe power to God,
whose majesty is over Israel,
and whose power is in the skies.

35 Awesome is God from his sanctuary;
the God of Israel—

he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.
Blessed be God!

Who is in Control?

Political and religious bickering such as is common in every age postures man against man and promotes idea against ideal. Jesus encountered such controversies as part of everyday life and ministry, yet refused to become entangled in issues of authority.

The hidden question beneath numerous inquiries to Jesus from religious officials of every belief was, ‘do you see why we are right and that you are wrong?’

Their assumption of the Son of Man was that Jesus would have taken control (like they would have seized power) IF He IS the Son of God.

Yet God did not sacrifice his only Son for power of control, but for forgiveness of sins.

When do powerful leaders look upwards to the Lord in humility?

Where was the humility of Jerusalem’s religious leaders in the presence of their Messiah Incarnate? They continued to cling to what little control Rome would allow. To relinquish power to Jesus would mean giving up authority of their position.

Perhaps the best illustration of the questions of authority of the Lord Jesus Christ from officials in control of the people takes place in their first dialogue after clearing the Temple.

MATTHEW 21:

Quotes & Events:

“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

Jesus, surrounded and worshiped by crowds, rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. (Christians celebrate this occasion as Palm Sunday.) He drove out all who were buying and selling from the temple of God.

“It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

He healed the blind and the lame in the courtyards of the temple. Crowds continued to praise Jesus, while the established religious authorities continue to question their witness to miracles.

… they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?”

“Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”

Jesus left for Bethany, home of Lazarus whom He had raised from the dead! He returned the next morning and crowds continued to follow and Praise the Lord.

Do you suppose the multitudes praising Jesus in Jerusalem included those who had witnessed the resurrection of Lazareth in Bethany?

Yes! Of course.

Resurrection – Only by the Power of God

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.

10 So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, 11 because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

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, even the King of Israel!”

To be continued…

By What Authority? – Leaders, Law, Scriptures, God

March 17, 2018
WE do not presume
God’s Righteous Judgment

Romans 2:

.. do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

So I ask you: are you repentant? Are you sorry for your sins? Shouldn’t we confess our sins against God? Yet repentance demands both confession and turning back to the way of righteousness.

The LORD is God and we are not! Bow down, o man of dust, to the One Who IS and was and will be forever, the LORD!

WE seem to have forgotten

Listen to the lyrics of our music. Much ado about ‘us,’ or ‘me,’ some about ‘you’ and even a little about God. Not so surprising in our worldly wireless abyss of media, but subtly self-centered in an emotional entertainment of worship music. Paul cautions the church at Rome in the preceding verse:,

3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?

Who are we to claim Christ with words rarely mentioning Jesus by Name?

While we rail against the outside world, ‘christians’ claim WE are a people favored by God. Was fallen Israel so different after Solomon? A fallen nation abandons God’s favor for freedoms of over-expression. We accuse each other of forgetting our roots, never once claiming that we have forgotten the Lord.

Prayer of Humble Access

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. …

What presumption that the Lord God should accept our everyday sin without just punishment or consequence. Most certainly this age-old problem of sin confronts every created being of every generation.

13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

Regardless of your church traditions of worship and the law, the Lord must judge rightly. Listen to law or ordinance with indifference or never consider it, yet the Lord must judge sinners.

Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this Law.

God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. – Romans 2:16b ESV

Presumption

Look to today’s news (or news of any era); presumptuous leaders rise to prominence, replacing our presumptions of yesterday. I speak not only of a president, leader or another country or political party, but of all ambitious men and women.

Can any stand before the Throne of the Almighty with a claim of innocence? The time of their judgment will soon enough be at hand, as it has been in every generation.

Ecclesiastes 1(ESV)

All Is Vanity
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

We hear accusations and counter-claims from the rich and powerful. Yet even Solomon recognized the inevitable fall of a mighty kingdom given to his leadership. Solomon advised:

Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake…
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[to the messenger of the media, if you prefer]
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For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear. – Ecclesiastes 5:6a,7

WE presume much in the contention of carefully-crafted words and excesses of mistaken condemnations. Agendas of man will fail without the purpose of the Lord.

The antonyms of presumption are knowledge, truth and humility.

God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

psalm 5:

Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness
because of my enemies;
make your way straight before me.

For there is no truth in their mouth;
their inmost self is destruction;
their throat is an open grave;
they flatter with their tongue.

Make them bear their guilt, O God;
let them fall by their own counsels;
because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out,
for they have rebelled against you.

Truth

Who can we believe?

Only God; only the humble. (May the Lord make us humble before Him.)

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.

17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. – John 14:6

And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. Matthew 23:12 KJV

Confession of the humble before God

Prior to communion with our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus; prior to our confession: “We do not presume…” Our hearts ought to have come to a more complete acknowledgement of our sin.

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness..

Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake…

The simplicity of Christ’s Sacrifice for us: humility on a cross does not presume forgiveness, but the love of God for repentant sinners.

Father, forgive us, for we do not know the Sacrifice of Your love.
January 21, 2018
Time Beyond Years – Omega
Revelation 1:8 KJV

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Alpha

Briefly, we considered creation (day 1 before measurable time).

Look at the timeline of man’s history as if the mark on the left is creation. Suppose man (adam) is a second mark and Noah a third. Then Abraham and Moses followed by David, with generations and centuries unmarked.

In the middle of the line a notable mark of the division of time follows which we note as B.C. (or BCE) and A.D. (from the Latin: Anno Domini – ‘In the year of our Lord’).

Before this dividing mark of time between BC and AD, David has reigned and the Prophets have spoken.

THEN..

Jesus Christ is born, teaches, crucified and resurrected (a challenge to mortal time).

His life as God With Us (Immanuel) delineates a beginning to these last days.

Our timeline of these last days endures through persecution of the faithful while the Lord wins repentant sinners.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. – 2 Peter 3:9

Following the fall of Rome and rise of false prophets the church witnesses the way of Christ Jesus.

History records the printing of the Bible, reformation of the faith and enlightenment of mindful godlessness.

The nations learn of Christ, empires rise and fall toward an inevitable end, the omega of time. Christ IS near in the omega of these last days, the end of time measured by the created of the Lord God Almighty.

Ω Ō, o’-meg-ah; the last letter of the Greek alphabet, i.e. (figuratively) the finality:—Omega.

Observe any line, even a timeline of history.

It has a beginning (Α, ἄλφα) and it has an end (Ω, Omega).

Yet look beyond the visible beginning and visible end of the line and in your mind’s eye observe the infinite extension of that which is visible.

Look above (heavenward) and below: consider the expanse of so much which the line does not touch.

— Omega revealing the end

Our created living souls can barely grasp it!

The refracted light of our postmodern enlightenment clouds the clarity of the One true Light.

Time and creation have cause. The Lord will surely accomplish His purpose and the saving of His own at the end.

Before the Α, After the Ω

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 1:31

One commandment from God to man, a simple life in paradise:

“.. of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” – Genesis 2:17b

Yet man chooses trespass to just one simple command from God. A just and righteous LORD must punish sin.

The Lord God said.. to Adam he said: “.. for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” – Genesis 3 excerpt

Living toward life’s end
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LATER in Scripture - from a conversation of a righteous man.
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Although Job appears later in the Bible his place in the timeline of history is closer to Abraham than to David.
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Job 7:

“Has not man a hard service on earth…?

… so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’

But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
6 My days are swifter.. and come to their end without hope.

7 “Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
8 The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;
while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.

¹⁷What is man, that you make so much of him,
and that you set your heart on him,
¹⁸visit him every morning
and test him every moment?

Why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
you will seek me, but I shall not be.” – Job 7:21

The time and place of punishment

Luke 16:

… and in Hades, being in torment… And he called out, ‘… have mercy on me.., for I am in anguish in this flame.’

ᾅδης – hadēs
- What do you expect of inevitable death and deserved hell?
- (Or do you yet claim blemished goodness with eyes that will not see death?)
Hell [Hades] holds captive many living souls by the certainty of our own sins.

Roman, Hellenist and Hebrew understanding of Jesus’ mention of Hades fits the definition:
1. name Hades or Pluto, the god of the lower regions
2. Orcus, the nether world, the realm of the dead
3. later use of this word: the grave, death, hell
Yet note a subtlety of the root word of Hades:

From the negative participle of Alpha and εἴδω – eidō, a word meaning ‘to see’ or ‘to know.’

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. – Revelation 20:1

Do you yet see our vulnerability to the punishment for sin after our end without Christ?

“Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house. – Ezekiel 12:2

After the Omega, saved in Christ

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.. – 1 Timothy 1:15

The gospel εὐαγγέλιον of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

.. and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

“We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ)...

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

And this is the judgment:

the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

Omega – for those with eyes to see

Omega revealing the end

Revelation 22:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb…

“And behold, I am coming soon.

12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

“Come.”

And let the one who hears say, “Come.”

And let the one who is thirsty come;

let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.

Amen.
January 9, 2018