Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: romans

  • Days of Despair

    Days of Despair

     In Christ we have a Light of hope in a season of our dark despair.

    Job 30:

    16 “And now my soul is poured out within me;
        days of affliction have taken hold of me.
    17 The night racks my bones,
        and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

    Have you ever had a bad time in life like this?

    18 With great force my garment is disfigured;
        it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
    19 God has cast me into the mire,
        and I have become like dust and ashes.
    20 I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
        I stand, and you only look at me.

    IF you even ask, do you sometimes feel like God does not answer you?

    21 You have turned cruel to me;
        with the might of your hand you persecute me.
    22 You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it,
        and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
    23 For I know that you will bring me to death
        and to the house appointed for all living.

     

    Does despair, inward pain and silence from God turn your Christmas joy into a longing for the gift of hope?

     

    26 But when I hoped for good, evil came,
        and when I waited for light, darkness came.

    27 My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;
        days of affliction come to meet me.

    28 I go about darkened, but not by the sun;
        I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

    Bible trivia: Job is the oldest of any book of the Bible written approximately 2100-1800 B.C.

     

    Job was a righteous man who had some big troubles test his faith. Perhaps you think that you are a righteous man or woman as well. You do mostly good. You live like you should (for the most part).

    You cry out to God for help… and nothing…

    Job could not help himself, except to pray to God. Often, neither can you or I.

    This time of year you may hear the familiar Christmas nativity story told by either Luke or Matthew. If we were to read on in Matthew to a time thirty years later when Jesus first began His teaching, we would read how our Lord heals the afflictions of mankind.

    Matthew 4:

    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.

    24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains,those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them.25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

     

    Are you just one in the Christmas crowds who follow Jesus just to see if He will heal someone else?

    Jesus Christ IS the balm for your wounded soul and the salvation of your sinful flesh.

    Hear these words of encouragement from the Apostle Paul to the church at Corinth:

    2 Corinthians 4:

    But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 

    We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;

    perplexed, but not driven to despair; 

    persecuted, but not forsaken;

    struck down, but not destroyed;

    always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,

    so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

     

    To be continued…

    This look at the afflictions of Job is the third installment in my Christmas series in the year of our Lord, 2015.

     

     

  • Reflections in Windows of Time

    Reflections in Windows of Time

    Looking back, running away from God is nothing new. We who would be so critical of Peter denying Jesus three times have now looked back to others faithful to God with moments of doubt.

    Note: Our Lenten reflection continues from where ‘Running from God‘ left off – an introduction to examining a history of relationships between God and believers.

    Moses, God’s chosen Prince, Prophet, Law Giver, Chief Justice, Administrator of the day-to-day lives of the rescued Hebrew nation: even Moses had had it!! – with these rebellious chosen people. Moses was ready to give up on the whole exodus thing more than once during their forty years stranded in the wilderness.

    Elijah, God’s great Prophet who stood against the evil King, with his foreign Queen – Elijah, a true Prophet of God who mocked the false prophets, who mocked the false idols – Elijah, God’s Prophet who both predicted and demonstrated the immeasurable Power of the One Almighty Creator of the heavens and the earth!! as the LORD Jehovah came into the place of his witness – Elijah turned from the victory of God and ran in fear for his own life.

    Christ Jesus never shrunk back from the fearful inevitable providential call of the Lamb of God to become the Living Perfect Sacrifice for our sins.

    Not only Peter turned away from what seemed like defeat for God – defeat for righteousness – defeat for the witnesses of God’s true word and God’s true will.

    You and I turn from God as well, in our everyday lives.

    Look through the many windows of time. What do you see?

    Are the reflections of our unrighteousness not evident in every millennium, in every century, in every generation?

    Look though the reflection of time: at Jerusalem; at Israel and Judah; look at the Hebrew people before they had a King, before they conquered a land; look before Judges and Generals, reflect before Moses and Abraham: what do we see through the reflections of the windows of time?

    We see God’s patience, God’s mercy and God’s love.

    IF YOU were God or if I was God, WE would have done it differently, wouldn’t we?

    None of this rebellion stuff! None of this disobedience allowed! And the SIN… why.. we would wipe it right out EVERY time, just like in the days of Noah and just like when God destroyed the evil men and the evil women in Sodom and in Gomorrah.

    I do not think you or I could be a merciful God (not even in our best moments).

    No work of any good man or any good woman is sufficient to the Holiness of God.

    The Bible only gives us glimpses into the windows of time at just part of the lives of a few righteous imperfect examples of God. Yet these good men and these good women had their moments of failing – every one of them.

    Jews and Christians and Muslims, who all believe in the ONE GOD, all tend to hold up story lines of convenience, while failing to acknowledge the sins and failings of our fathers of the faith.

    ALL men and ALL women of faith fail in the light of the example and teachings of Jesus Christ!

    The zealous and learned Jew and Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, who we know as Paul, addresses God’s righteousness in Romans 3:

    “None is righteous, no, not one;
    11     no one understands;
        no one seeks for God.

    David, in a moment of weakness appeals to God:

    Psalm 143

    Hear my prayer, O LORD;
    give ear to my pleas for mercy!
    In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!

    Enter not into judgment with your servant,
    for no one living is righteous before you.

    +

    We are too harsh! God is merciful.

    King David was not only God’s anointed King who united the Hebrew tribes into a United Israel; David, recall, was an adulterer and murderer.

    According to the Law of Moses, should not David have been executed for his sins?

    We see even through the broadcast windows of these evil days, merciless zealots of a false prophet executing judgment without mercy!

    God is patient; God is merciful. Our loving God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will save yet more enemies of the One True God. Was Saul of Tarsus not one of these?

    God seeks repentance in the hearts of all men and all women of every faith; that these will come to the love and grace of His mercy through Jesus Christ, Son of Sacrifice for the sins of the world.

    Look through the windows of time with eyes to see and ears to hear. God has given us the Holy Bible. NO other book is Holy!

    History reveals the hearts of men and women are only continually evil. Why should we worship any man or woman who is NOT God? Why would we kneel or bow down at their idols or lift up their ancestry or follow their teachings from man-made books?

    None is righteous, no not one. Yet God in His mercy reveals both His love for us and our own failings in the lives of the best of us.

    To be continued…

     

  • lord. What does it mean?

    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

    19 Every 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)?