Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: repent

  • But if…

    But if…

    “But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18 then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. – Deuteronomy 30:17-18a NLT

     God’s love for us is unconditional; yet God’s blessing is conditional – dependent on our obedience to His command.

    God speaks: in Person, through Christ, through scripture, through the Spirit — God shows us his will. We are free to choose. What will it be?

    God makes a covenant, God confirms a promise, God confers a blessing and what does it imply?

    Will the LORD not surely do what He has said?

    Yet we have a part to do. We have an action in the agreement. We have a choice.

    We sometimes pray for blessing, while we often live for curse. For we act knowingly against the will of God and the promise of our own mouth. We stand before heaven and earth making our vow, giving our word and pledging our allegiance before the Living and loving God and human witnesses. Then we sin and would hide from heaven and earth and witnesses the sins of our disobedience.

    We may even say (on Sunday occasion): Jesus is Lord.

    Yet is Jesus YOUR Lord?

    When will we repent and return to the Lord our God? It would seem by some of our witness on many occasions that we are no different than our Chosen forefathers.

     

    Deuteronomy 30

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    Repentance and Forgiveness

    30 “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, 2 and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you…

    11 “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off…

    14 But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

    15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

    If you obey… by loving the Lord your God…, then… the Lord your God will bless you…

    17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.

    You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.

    19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

    Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

    God charges Moses, as the Lord has charged His leaders – His Kings and His Priests, His Prophets and His angels:

    This is the will and word of the LORD.

    Will you not do it? For IF you do, I will bless you.

    BUT IF you refuse to obey, I must curse and not bless the one I would love.

    Moses once more sets before us the blessing and curse:

    Follow the LORD or perish without blessing.

    We know how soon God’s own chosen ones did turn against the Lord even after many reminders of blessing and cautions of consequence.

    Years later… 

     1 Samuel 1:3 Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord…

    1 Samuel 2:12 Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord.

    27 And there came a man of God to Eli and said to him,

    “Thus says the Lord, ‘Did I indeed reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt subject to the house of Pharaoh?

    The Lord speaks here of Levi as Eli’s ancestral father of the house of the priests of the Lord.

    28 Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? I gave to the house of your father all my offerings by fire from the people of Israel…

    30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, declares: ‘I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever,’ but now the Lord declares: ‘Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed…

    31 Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house… 34 And this that shall come upon your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, shall be the sign to you: both of them shall die on the same day… ”

    Then Samuel faithfully spoke the word of the Lord to Israel as had Moses generations before.

    Hear his witness as Priest  anointed in place of his Eli’s two evil sons. Samuel would anoint Israel’s Kings; Saul here and David later.

    1 Samuel 12

    6 And Samuel said to the people, “The Lord is witness, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.

    7 Now therefore stand still that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous deeds of the Lord that he performed for you and for your fathers. 8 When Jacob went into Egypt, and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the Lord and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place.

    9 But they forgot the Lord their God…  11 And the Lord sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety. 12 And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the Lord your God was your king.

    13 And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the Lord has set a king over you. 14 If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well.

    15 But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king.

    Now both Priest and King are representatives of God’s chosen people before the LORD.

    20 And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21 And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. 22 For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

     Two generations (& 3 Kings) later

    1 Kings 9

    The Lord Appears to Solomon

    6 But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,

    7 then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 8 And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 9 Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’”

    To be continued

  • Is that all there is (of my life)?

    Is that all there is (of my life)?

    And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. – Hebrews 9:27-28 ESV

     

    What is the meaning of MY life?

    The paradox of purpose to a soul given our meaning by God:

    “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
    and before you were born I consecrated you;
    I appointed you … (to your purpose and your meaning), says the LORD.

    In Jeremiah 1:5 the LORD reveals His specific holy consecration and appointment of Jeremiah as “a prophet to the nations.”

    The LORD also knew you (as the LORD knows me). He has appointed you to HIS purpose. In HIM only will you find YOUR meaning.

    Why does the prodigal child ask a friend of the world and not the Father of all creation?

    “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise) – Ephesians 6:2

    Is that all there is wineWhy does the prodigal wife drown her meaninglessness in booze asking: ‘Is that all there is?’ rather than remembering the blood of Christ, whom she once called, “Lord?” Why does she betray her vow to her husband and to her ‘Lord?’

     1 Corinthians 11

     3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

    11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; 12 for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.

    Here is your relationship of a man and his wife; the living and loving relationship of Christ Jesus and His family.

    Yet do you, dearly beloved, remember the significance of this “family relationship?”

    Ephesians 5:31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

    And remembering the three-strand relationship of husband and wife in Christ, we return to the symbolism of of this great mystery in which we share (returning to First Corinthians 11):

    23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said,

    “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

    25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying,

    “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

    26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
    27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

    —

    When in our homes our children have seen and have lived in the instruction of holy scripture, which by our New Covenant in Christ Jesus sets us aside from the world for the glory of God; when in our christian homes our christian children have seen their christian fathers and their christian mothers live first in their meaning and purpose to the LORD; when husband and wife live as one to each other, forsaking ALL others (worldly work friends, worldly neighbors, the worldly influencers of unsaved family); when WE the prodigal children who claim Jesus as Lord do actually desire obedience first to HIS purpose and meaning in our lives: then our children, seeing Christ in us will no longer ask: “Is that all there is?”

    —

    John 12:26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

    John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

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

    John 15:26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

    John 18:37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king.
    For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

    —

    • What is God’s purpose for you, beloved husband & father? 
    • What is the Lord’s purpose for you, devoted wife & mother?
    • What is the Father’s purpose for you, blessed child of God, honoring your Christ-like parents?

    Pray in the spirit and let the light of our Lord Jesus Christ shine into the caverns of your broken heart.

    1 Corinthians 2:

    9 But, as it is written,

    “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
    nor the heart of man imagined,
    what God has prepared for those who love him”—

    10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

    11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

    12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

    —

    Think about these things.

    Pray also for me.

    +

     

  • In these last days…

    In these last days…

    Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. – Hebrews 1 ESV

    An astounding claim! The Person of God spoke through the Prophets. (The books of the Prophets speak to this.) The Prophets speak what God wants to tell man.

    HOWEVER; in these last days (as opposed to the thousands of years of creation and of man, even since Abraham and the books of Moses) GOD, THE LORD, has spoken to man by HIS SON, CHRIST JESUS.

    Jesus Christ is the Very Glory of God! GOD speaks though the WORD directly. This is the Living Gospel;the Good News of our salvation!

    Continuing in our theme of God speaking through the Prophets, let’s again examine the question from a New Testament perspective.

    • What does a Prophet see?
    • Who does God make a Prophet?
    • What is the message of the Seer?
    • Is it the message from God Almighty?

    A Prophet will see the things of God that no other man can see.

    John 4:29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

    John 7  14 About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. 15 The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?”

    16 So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. 17 If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. 18 The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

     “… but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”

    John 1: 

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

    6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

    God the Father IS the Very Word of God Existing in the Person of the Son, Christ Jesus!

    Jesus Christ IS the Very Word of God spoken in His Holy, crucified and risen flesh!

    What is the message of the seer – the Prophet of God?

    Matthew 11:

    7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.

    9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

    10 This is he of whom it is written,

    “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
    who will prepare your way before you.’
    11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

    20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.

    Is it the message from God Almighty?

    Mark 1:

    9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

    12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

    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.”

     Luke 24:

    And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,

    20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”

    25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!

    26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

     

    It would be yet another lesson to study all that Jesus had spoken of how He IS the fulfillment of many of the prophesies of Scripture, spoken by the Prophets.

    Do you believe in Jesus Christ? He IS the Person and Word and Prophet of GOD! Jesus Christ IS and will be greater than any prophet. Christ Jesus IS fulfillment of scripture and prophesy. He IS the beginning and the end. God has not and will not use ANY other sinful man (and we are all sinful men and sinful women) to speak or interpret any word of prophesy that opposes Jesus: He IS God the Son.

    Can God yet appear to other men (after the resurrection of the Son to the Throne of Heaven?

    Yes. Scripture also speaks more of these prophesies, of true prophets and of false prophets. Yet Christ Jesus IS the Word of God. He has sent us the Holy Spirit, the third Person of God. Again, this would be another study for another day.

    Jesus is Lord.

    NO man and NO Prophet stands above Him.

    Jesus IS God!

    Jesus said, to His Disciple Phillip:

    Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.