Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: Lord

  • Mission 3 – Who?

    Mission 3 – Who?

    Whatever your mission, whatever the corporate mission of your church: People are more important than things.

    Our mission is not so much what we do or where we go, as it is who we do it for.

    My personal mission, your personal mission and the corporate mission of our churches must minimally include two VIP’s:

    1. THE LORD GOD
    2.  Each person we serve.

    Your mission may have a long laundry list of things to do and places to do them, but ultimately our mission is to go to another in the Name of God and Jesus Christ, to accomplish the mission of the LORD in the life of another.

    Much ado is rightfully made about the great commission. Christ Jesus IS! He alone defeated sin and death. Christ sent His Apostles into ‘all the world’ to preach the Gospel and indeed they went out from Jerusalem into other lands.

    Jesus commands us to take the gospel into the world; however before Jesus and His Disciples went into the world, they first saturated the world nearby and the people they knew and loved with the good news: Our salvation is come in Jesus Christ.

    Repent! for the kingdom of God is at hand. Worship the LORD. God is our loving Father. Your sins are forgiven.

    Matthew 4: English Standard Version (ESV)

    Jesus Ministers to Great Crowds

    23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

    IF you and I were to take the Gospel into all the world in the fashion of Jesus’ three-year earthly ministry, we would start at home. Galilee was Jesus’ home state. He was known by others in relation to his home town; for many called our Lord, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’

    • Does your mission to those in your home town and local community show you living a life like Jesus?
    • Is your life good news to your family, your neighbors, your friends?
    • Is your righteousness in Christ Jesus good news of love and forgiveness?
    • Do you dare call your fellow sinners to repentance?
    • Is your daily life an invitation to others to live a godly life like yours?
    • Does your life preach the Gospel throughout all the places you travel in your state and in the world?

    Jesus lived, breathed and walked as ‘GOD in the flesh.’

    GOD did not send Jesus Christ on a mission of miracles, but on a mission to heal sin and save sinners.

    As Jesus taught scripture He demonstrated the saving power of the Word of God. Prior to His death and resurrection Jesus showed us how to be changed in our daily lives. Jesus showed Christians how to love one another as God truly loves us.

    GOD loves us Personally, in the incarnate Person of the Son, Christ Jesus.

    We have many examples in the four Gospels of how Jesus Christ spread the Good News. Jesus repeatedly set aside the ‘TO DO list’ of His brief journeys to be the Good News for individuals personally.

    To the LORD, people are more important than things.

    The NIT’s (Not Important Things) of our “Mission” seem to steal mortal time from the VIP’S (Very Important People) of our lives.

    Jesus Christ has a mission to take the Gospel into the whole world. Our Lord’s mission always takes time for the VIP’s God would save from sin and death.

    Do you have time for these in the mission of your life?

    In our next series [August, 2015] we will examine the Mission of Jesus in the Gospels and look to His example of how our Lord took time to interrupt His Mission to minister to the VIP’s to whom He is sent.

  • What do I do with this? – LORD

    What do I do with this? – LORD

    All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 2 Timothy 3:16 KJV

    Don’t we ever-so-briefly ask of our Bible verses and stories: “What do I do with this?” Of course we do. And if it is true of Jesus’ parables and illustrations of teaching God’s doctrine, reproof of His Disciples and correction of Pharisees, we certainly ask ourselves about righteousness – instruction on HOW to apply the LAW and the Ten Commandments. (Of course Christ Jesus also shed great light on the Law for us with perfect instruction recorded in the Gospels.)

    Once again let’s put the giving of the Law into the context of when and how God gave the Law to Moses.

    King TutFor a brief moment imagine in the 20th century that some brilliant archaeologist exploring the pyramids of ancient Egypt had made the discovery of a lifetime: instead of finding the royal sarcophagus of King Tut from just three centuries before King David of Israel, he unearthed an even older tomb of a Pharaoh God-King of the ancient Egypt which dominated their world like a later Rome. hieroglyphsAnd the hieroglyphs read: Pharaoh Moses!

    Even though the fantastic scenario above is pure fiction; in fact, Moses was born into a royal household, raised as a prince of Egypt and could have realistically become the new Pharaoh of Egypt upon the death of the Pharaoh familiar to us in the book of Exodus.

    Had Moses (at age forty) not chosen to identify himself with his Hebrew blood of the line of Egypt’s great savior Joseph, who ruled under an earlier Pharaoh, Moses could just as well have ruled the Egyptian Empire from which he was forced to flee.

    Once comfortable in the household of a King, Moses flees to Midian; he marries, works and has a family. Things are going pretty good again for a middle class Moses in Midian. [Exodus 2]

    Moses names their first son, Gershom, which means, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.” Moses has lived a good life for eighty years.

    If we think of our everyday life as a brief journey to a place of which we have only dreamed, then Moses had left the palace of dreams and settled for an ordinary life in a new place. (Even Abraham’s journey did not end in Eden.) Eighty years, a wife and kids, a job, a home… a good life for Moses – and then God finally shows up and says something like, “Go back to Egypt. You, Moses, are headed on an unexpected journey.” (Just like Abraham.)

    Moses burning bush “I AM the LORD your God. I have something in mind here for you and your descendants.” (Sound familiar?) [Exodus 3]

    I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

    3:6  וַיֹּאמֶר אָנֹכִי אֱלֹהֵי אָבִיךָ אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב וַיַּסְתֵּר מֹשֶׁה פָּנָיו כִּי יָרֵא מֵהַבִּיט אֶל־הָאֱלֹהִֽים׃

    ‘elohiym ‘ab ‘elohiym  ‘Abraham ‘elohiym Yitschaq ‘elohiym Ya`aqob

    Before the fire of the LORD in the bush, where ‘elohiym instructs Moses that he is on holy ground, GOD comes to an eighty year old shepherd with instructions.

    How many times has the LORD asked you to do something after you were in the comfortable place?

    Or again, how many times have your own misguided plans brought you to your knees before the LORD asking, ‘Where did I go wrong? What do I do now… Lord? Where do I go with this? Show me the way… please… Lord?’

    And ALL is silent… No answer (even for eighty years). And again we cry out to the LORD.

    And the Lord is faithful in His answer. Yet we do not like it. It is not the ‘comfort’ we expected. In fact, it makes us even more uncomfortable and will require even more faith than we believe possible – faith to ‘believe God’ and have it counted as righteousness.

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    Exodus 3: 13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

    14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

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    What next? (Isn’t that always the question from the comfortable place or the house of desperation?) What next, Lord?

    How can the LORD instruct you in His Law of Righteousness unless you are obedient to allow the LORD to lead you to next place of the LORD’s choosing?

    To be continued…

  • And you, who once were alienated

    And you, who once were alienated

    Colossians 1: NKJV 21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—

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    Jesus Christ! Friend or foe?

    No other Name evokes such controversy and alienation: not Muhammad, not Buddha, not Obama, not Putin. The world, your workplace, our government: all oppose any suggestion that Christ Jesus IS Lord; that the Lord will judge sinners, that we are created once to die once, to be raised to the judgment and accountability for our sins against our fellow man and enmity against God.

    Wicked works of our daily lives, evil ideas conceived for our advantage over others, evil efforts to bring pleasure at the expense of others – all are rebellious against ANY man or ANY god being Lord over us.

    We must be in charge of our own destiny.  And so we are; for we have choice between the passions of these evil days, with eternal punishment after death, or accepting Jesus Christ as Lord to serve God in exchange for His righteousness leading to eternal life by His grace.

    Before the Lord mercifully called you to peace of your soul and invitation to worship in the body of believers, were you not indignant that Jesus could command you to NOT do those things you have always done, that Jesus could command you to action of love when you would easily ignore the need of another?

    How wicked are our works and deceitful our hearts. Yet by grace we are saved to His love, the love of Christ Jesus in place of the things of this perishing world and pursuits of this decaying flesh.

    Psalm 36

    How Precious Is Your Steadfast Love

    To the choirmaster. Of David, the servant of the Lord.

     Transgression [rebellion] speaks to the wicked
        deep in his heart;
    there is no fear of God
        before his eyes.
    2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes
        that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
    3 The words of his mouth are trouble [iniquity] and deceit;
        he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
    4 He plots trouble while on his bed;
        he sets himself in a way that is not good;
        he does not reject evil.

    5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
        your faithfulness to the clouds.

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    By contrast to our evil, sinful nature, the Lord is good, full of steadfast love. The Lord is faithful, but we are not.

    The NKJV [v.4] says of the wicked: He does not abhor evil. Christians know this to be true of all who surround us in our workplace, where we dine, shop, and are entertained in spectator sports or even casual observation of those all around us. Do you abhor evil? Or has the world convinced you to ‘tolerate’ evil, even in the holy worship place and communion of our Lord?

    Do not hate evil with hatred, but abhor evil with the love of Jesus which also called you to repentance for your sins.

    And lest we paint ourselves into a sanctuary of perceived righteousness apart from Christ, let us recall with humility the mercy God has already shown us, miserable sinners in His sight.

    Romans 2

    Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 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? 4 Or 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?

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    Do you rant and rail against abortion, bold christian, while condoning your teens having intercourse before marriage?

    Do you shout out about marriage between one man and one woman, while divorcing your Christian husband or wife to whom you have made your vows before God?

    Our righteousness is only in Christ Jesus. If He is our Lord, our Lord commands us to be merciful to others, as He has shown us much mercy. Surly our Lord requires continued patience with you and with me, grace for the reshaping of our repentant hearts into the clay of His love.

    The witness of Christ, passed on in truth and in love by His Apostles continues in all the generations until the Lord returns again. Paul and Timothy write in their letter to the church at Colossae:

    Colossians 1: ESV [NKJV]

    3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven…

    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.

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    Paul writes to the church of the transformation which takes place that makes believers in Christ Jesus different from the world. The Apostle Paul cautions continued faithfulness in believers, that we might not fall back into our former sinful and wicked ways so evident in those worldly enemies of Christ around us.

    [NKJV] 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

    For how did Paul precede this caution? With the contrast of our redeemed life in Christ Jesus.

    21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—

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    Do not fail to show mercy to others nor to remember the grace by which we were saved.