Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: reconciliation

  • Esau I Hated

    Esau I Hated

    Malachi 1:2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord.

    But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord.

    “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated.

    We pray to God: ‘Give me a blessing.’ ‘I cannot do this alone?’ ‘Please help me, Lord.’ We acknowledge God as our Father and as our Lord. The Lord, our Father in heaven then blesses us. He provides a loving mate. He provide godly guidance for our misguided children. He heals a dreaded disease. He provides job after job and puts food on our table. He places us in the congregation of Christians who care for our needs and for our soul. Again, and again, the Lord brings us blessing and not curse when we are not in the low place and do not even pray for blessing.

    And what is our thanks? What is our offering to the Lord? Do we cleave to our beloved husband (or wife)? Do we stand as example of Jesus in our instruction of our children? Do we give thanks to the Lord for healing our body? Do we witness at work of the Lord’s unfailing love? Do we thank Him for the food on our table as if without Him we could not be fed? Do we thank Him that someone does not have to feed us for our inability of health to hold even a spoon? Do we joyfully worship with our loving brothers and sisters in Christ on the Lord’s day? Do we gently guide our children to the house of the Lord?

    We fall back into our sins. We slide back toward the pit. We revel in the ways of the world and witness against Christ as our Lord. We witness against God our Father. We offer the sacrifice of our tithes and offerings to the gods of chance, the gods of addiction and the gods of our evil desires. We bow down and worship the gods of sin!

    But you say, “How have you loved us?”

    Do you understand as you trespass the blessing of the Cross that you sell forever His blessing and grace and love?

    Don’t you know that we are ALL lawbreakers? Don’t you remember what you were before you were adopted into the family of faith, the Household of God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord?

    God is NOT your Father and Christ Jesus is NOT your Lord (for no one will lord it over you) IF you witness against the love and sacrifice and blood of the Cross.

    You reject the Lord. Why, at the Day of your judgment, should the Lord not reject YOU?

    Some of us reject a God that could hate Esau… a God who would hate us. (I spoke to this earlier.) We think of Esau as just a man who lived long ago. We think of Israel as only a land and not a people chosen once by God who rejected God continually and rejected Christ Jesus forever.

    Paul, the Apostle to the gentiles, was once a man of Jacob, chosen by God over Esau.  He hated Christ Jesus, the Messiah of Promise and Blessing of the gentiles. God so loved the world; yet Saul of Tarsus hated the church.

    What if Saul of Tarsus had not finally bowed down to Christ Jesus as Lord? Would he not also be judged with Esau?

    Abram was changed to Abraham. Jacob was changed to Israel. Saul of Tarsus was changed to Paul the Apostle.

    Has God changed you for all eternity by the Cross of Christ Jesus?

    Or do you ask for God’s blessing, then quickly turn from the Lord?

    The books of the Bible, which we so carelessly neglect along with the armor of our salvation, point us so diligently toward salvation (being saved from our great curse of sin and death). Over and over the books of the Bible instruct us in that which we ought to have instructed our children and heeded in our own lives.

    GOD IS a Person. God our Father may hate, but most certainly God our Father does love those who truly love Him.

    Genesis 4: And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

    10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.

    Does the Blood of the Cross not cry out against you when you offer to your sin that which is the Lord’s?

    13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden…

    Deuteronomy 11: 26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.

     Joshua 8:30-35 

    Joshua Renews the Covenant

    30 At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, 31 just as Moses the servant of the Lord…

    34 And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.

    The Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath

    7 And I heard the altar saying,

    “Yes, Lord God the Almighty,
    true and just are your judgments!”

    15 (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) 16 And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

    James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

    3 John 1:2 Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.

    Colossians 1:3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you…

    Pray also for me, that the blessings of God our Father, the Son Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will continue through His work in me, and that His own Blessings to my life may be renewed in His Spirit, obedience, faithfulness and love.

     

     

  • Thank God

    Thank God

    ALMIGHTY God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

    Then shall the Priest, turning to the people, rehearse distinctly all the TEN COMMANDMENTS: and the people still kneeling shall after every Commandment ask God mercy for their transgression thereof for the time past, and grace to keep the same for the time to come, as followeth.

    In worship we have finally bowed down to God. We have repented of our sin. We seek His holiness through the Cross of Christ Jesus.

    Though I could have chosen liturgy of many denominations of our Lord’s church, we exam ourselves through the part of the liturgy of communion in the Anglican Church.

    BCP – Holy Communion

    Then shall the Priest say to them that come to receive the holy Communion,

    YE that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways: Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort; and make your humble confession to Almighty God, meekly kneeling upon your knees.

    I ask you to pause here: Consider our position before God in light of our examination of scripture, sin and righteousness, the heavens above and hell beneath; in the light of the cross of Christ and hopelessness of our own nature to sin against our Lord, rather than to worship Him and bow down to His will. Do our sinful lives not require His grace?

    Therefore let us put off the soiled garments of our hypocrisy and confess our sins before Almighty God.

    Then shall this general Confession be made, in the name of all those that are minded to receive the holy Communion, by one of the Ministers: both he and all the people kneeling humbly upon their knees and saying,

    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, Which we from time to time most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; For thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, Forgive us all that is past; And grant that we may ever hereafter Serve and please thee In newness of life, To the honour and glory of thy Name; Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

    These words always stuck in my craw as I remembered my sin:

    We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness. 

    “…Which we from time to time…” is most kind; for by thought, word and deed are we not constant sinners?

    Do we not well deserve the wrath of God and punishment of hell?

    Yet God is a loving Father of all mercies, who sent to us his only Son, even as a sacrifice on the cross for your sin and mine; for the sins of the world, those saved and those yet to be saved.

    This is mercy. This is grace. This is the highest reason for a sinner like me, a lowly creation of a loving God, to worship and bow down to God our Father in Heaven and Christ Jesus, Sacrifice of His love for us on the Cross.

    It is our duty and obligation of this sinful flesh, formed by God and given the life of His Spirit, to bow down to our Creator as Lord. Because of His love for us, He came to us in the flesh – the sinless flesh of Christ Jesus the only Son of the Father in Heaven. He IS and was and IS to be our Savior and Lord.

    Therefore, let us worship Christ our Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God for His Spirit and the eternal life made possible for us only by the Blood of Jesus on the Cross.

    As the Apostle Paul instructs us, let us give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

  • Complaint to the Lord

    Complaint to the Lord

    Job 6

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Job Replies: My Complaint Is Just

    6 Then Job answered and said:

    2 “Oh that my vexation were weighed,
    and all my calamity laid in the balances!
    3 For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea;
    therefore my words have been rash.
    4 For the arrows of the Almighty are in me;
    my spirit drinks their poison;
    the terrors of God are arrayed against me.

    8 “Oh that I might have my request,
    and that God would fulfill my hope,
    9 that it would please God to crush me,
    that he would let loose his hand and cut me off!
    10 This would be my comfort;
    I would even exult in pain unsparing,
    for I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
    11 What is my strength, that I should wait?
    And what is my end, that I should be patient?

    21 For you have now become nothing;
    you see my calamity and are afraid.
    22 Have I said, ‘Make me a gift’?
    Or, ‘From your wealth offer a bribe for me’?
    23 Or, ‘Deliver me from the adversary’s hand’?
    Or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the ruthless’?

    24 “Teach me, and I will be silent;
    make me understand how I have gone astray.

    Go not your own way

    Or run to your own understanding,

    But seek the answer of the Lord

    The eternal truth of temporal trouble.

    Numbers 15:39 NIV

    You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by chasing after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes.

    Psalm 22

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Why Have You Forsaken Me?

    27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
    and turn to the Lord,
    and all the families of the nations
    shall worship before you.
    28 For kingship belongs to the Lord,
    and he rules over the nations.

    29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
    before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
    even the one who could not keep himself alive.
    30 Posterity shall serve him;
    it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
    31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
    that he has done it.