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Tag: salvation

  • Interrupting Jesus 11 – a last supper in Jericho

    Interrupting Jesus 11 – a last supper in Jericho

    jericho-mapJericho, best known as the place where the Hebrew nation, led by Joshua, began their conquest of Canaan with a march around the walls of Jericho, strategically central to inland trade routes to the Mediterranean. old road jerusalem-jericho

    Along a barren highway to the west, about a 15 mile walk to Jerusalem after an ascent from the small town of Bethel. Galileans, Judeans, Samaritans and of course, Roman soldiers, traveled these highways through Jericho. It would be the path to the festival of the Passover, this one the time of the Sacrifice of Jesus.

    The crowds have traveled with the popular Rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth. In just days they would lay palms before His triumphal entry into the gates of Jerusalem. Like Joshua, His Hebrew Name means: “Jehovah is salvation.” 

    Jesus IS the Christ, the Messiah.

    Into the town of Jericho crowds enter. People allign the streets as if awaiting a King with riches or celebrity you must see once in your mortal life. One of the town’s lesser citizens is a resented tax collector. (Perhaps you have heard how the Jews hated the men who collected taxes for Rome.) In fact, one of the purported followers of Jesus used to be a tax collector. Perhaps you have read his Gospel.

    Luke 5:

    After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

    And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

    The Messiah came to save sinners: seductive women, adulterous men, liars, thiefs and even tax collectors.

    Jesus did not come to save the regular attenders of church (synagogue). Jesus has tax collectors and sinners following Him as Disciples and as part of the crowds – sinners like you and me – sinners like Zacchaeus.

    In fact, Luke reports a parable Jesus had told about a Pharisee and a tax collector. Here is a story we can relate to about good ‘church’ people and the corrupt public official in their midst:

    Luke 18:

    The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

    9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee,standing by himself, prayed thus:

    ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

    12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

    13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying,

    ‘God,be merciful to me, a sinner!’

    14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

    Do you, dear claimant of Christ, good observer of God’s ordinances, come to the LORD pleading for mercy while showing no mercy for your fellow sinners?

    Matthew, the tax collector who quit to follow Jesus, and the other repentant sinners of the crowds knew that the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus, was a merciful teacher. Not only the Gospel of His miracles preceded Jesus as He entered Jericho, but also the wisdom and compassion of His teaching of scripture. A tax collector like Zacchaeus might just have a chance to see this man of mercy traveling to Jerusalem through his town of Jericho.

    Luke 19:

    He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.

    5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”

    Imagine, the leading teacher and prophet comes through town with crowds of followers. Jesus pauses where you are and looks up to you! He calls you by name. Further, this well-known teacher boldly tells you (in front of all of the witnesses around Him) that He has to come to your house for dinner. Unthinkable! Nobody wants to associate with tax collectors and corrupt politicians, let alone have dinner.

    Have you ever been looked down on by others, rejected by everyone of importance?

    Jesus did not think himself to be so important as to not interrupt His journey to Jerusalem to have dinner with a sinner. Zaccheaus

    6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.

    7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”

    8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”

    9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.

    10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

    Jehovah is salvation: Jesus has interrupted the journey of His high sacrifice about to take place at the Passover. The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, has come to the house of a sinner for a feast.

    What is your response to Christ Jesus? Have you repented of your sins and accepted the grace of God?

    Lord have mercy on us. Christ have mercy on us.

    Therefore, let us keep the feast, beloved fellow forgiven sinner.

     

  • Your ATTN: required

    Your ATTN: required

    20 Jan, 2015, In the US, President Obama, the most powerful man in this world, gave the President’s annual State of the Union address to the US congress and a worldwide audience. (I have neither heard it nor previewed it, but rest assured his priorities are not mine or yours.)

    1 January, 2015, You were likely one of millions to make at least one or a list of New Year’s resolutions. (You’ve had three weeks. How are you doing with that?)

    10 July, 2007, We were on our honeymoon in beautiful St. Lucia. I wanted to establish some important priorities for our new marriage, concepts borrowed from “The 7 Habits of Highly Organized People” by Steven Covey, from which the graphic for this post is taken. My bride was recuperating from another chemo-therapy treatment (not your usual honeymoon activity) and wanted nothing to do with it. I trashed the book.

    Plan all you want; some things are important and some are not.

    Some events become urgent, most do not.

    As a good manager of my life I want to always plan for the important things and important people of my future.

    As the poor manager of my time and relationships (as all-to-frequently I am), I gravitate from the important to the unimportant (as Covey warns) and neglect the inevitable importance of those life events and people which will surly come without warning. (No, I still have not updated my will… for instance.)

    And who would ever think to plan so poorly to have a honeymoon right after a cancer treatment. My urgency and reasons failed to stand in the importance of time.

    I have led a successful and fruitful life in past times in more than one career. (I cannot claim that in this particular fleeting moment of eternal time).

    A man like me (perhaps like you) came to Jesus right when he was on top.

    What can you do for my portfolio, Jesus? Does your new mega-church need some money? I know you have the power here.

    Can you help me out here? What can you do for me?  (Everybody wants me to be part of their church boards and leadership, you know.) How can I help you, Jesus? I know you could do just this one thing for me, please.

    Now you may claim to have never seen this man in the Gospel and that he never said that. Yet look closer to this familiar story (remembering how rich almost ALL Americans and Europeans are (along with a select, exclusive group of the rich in nearly every country throughout the world).

    Consider that you are the RICH man coming up to Jesus. Later we will reconsider our priorities: their urgency and their importance.

    Luke 12:

    The Parable of the Rich Fool

    13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

    14 But he [Jesus] said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”

    Now this is NOT the answer we rich women and rich men expect as an answer from Jesus, is it?

    My father is currently blessed with long life. He is 91. My mother went to be with the Lord in 2007. I have three siblings. (As I mentioned, I have not even updated my own will. {Shame on me..}) For me, this scenario of the rich man could well take place at anytime in the next decade. So easily could I come to Jesus and ask Him to be an arbitrator over my inheritance of earthly riches.

    I’ve had some tough times the past few years… been taken advantage of… lost much. (Nobody bailed me out. No one replaced my income or market losses.) I once had extra storage and extra accounts for all my wealth! But not now.

    Can Jesus help me?

    Listen to our Lord’s reply:

    15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 16 And he told them a parable, saying,

    “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.

    19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’

    “Eat, drink and be merry.” You have heard it quoted back to you out of context that this is straight from the Bible from the teaching of Jesus.

    But the rest of the expression, “for tomorrow you die,” though true, is not the application of Jesus’ teaching.

    20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

    “God said to him, ‘Fool!’

    Jesus is not warning us to party now, because one day you will die (and it could be as soon as tomorrow). He is not telling the man not to save some of his wealth, either. Jesus is telling the man that he is saving up for the wrong priorities and possibly a wrong day (of his life) for which he is planning, but does not expect.

    Do Not Be Anxious

    22 And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.

    Jesus does not tell the man not to plan his barns. Jesus does not tell the man not to save his money for a future need. Jesus does not even tell the man to give some money to his church so that God will bless him. What a ludicrous call to an offering; but it is so often the hope of the rich man who wants and covets even more. (I’ll listen to this preacher and give him a little, because he promises that God will give me even more if I give to his church.)

    What was important to Jesus, then? What did Jesus think the rich man should plan. What does Jesus think you should plan? For after all, tomorrow may be the day your soul is required of you.

    Eternity is a long time. How close our entrance into the rest before judgment! By comparison even to the urgency of life’s every day trials and the importance of this mortal life’s focus on a lifetime; how near we stand each God-given day to the treasure of heaven, or how near we teeter toward the precipice of sin’s backsliding into a long punishment of Hell!

    Does God say to you, “Fool!?”

    Do you think that any investment of your time and money will keep the steep cliff of sin upon which you stand from the collapse of landsliding time? Do you have any hope of surviving the fall without the Savior of the fallen to lift you toward light?

    Jesus Christ has promised us an inheritance in heaven. He has guaranteed our reward by His sacrifice for our sins – and these are many – on the bloody Cross.

    Focus on your eternal future. Manage your earthly time and money. Invest in Christ’s righteousness. This, of course, in addition to worshiping God and giving some of your time and money to the church, means that like Christ Jesus, our Lord (so we claim), we must always love God, always love people (and so many of us are so hard to love – really).

    Do not be deceived by your dreams and desires for a bigger barn on earth. Do not be swayed to avoid the thought that you are mortal and a God-appointed day for the end of this life awaits you.

    Do you think its enough to spend a little time and a pittance of pocket change at church once a week? Is that your storage barn of heaven?

    Let us plan for eternal life by our investment in our daily life. Let it be for Christ Jesus, who sacrificed everything for you and for me.

    Jesus paid the price for your soul. Yet if you do not follow Him as lord of your life, you will not have the ransom for your soul, required to pay for your sin.

    Dearly beloved, mortal sister, mortal brother of this failing flesh: please do not be the rich fool. Repent! Turn back to bow down to Jesus as your Lord, our only Saviour, while it is yet today.

    For all we know, tomorrow! – your soul may be required of you.

     

  • The Scandal of a Virgin

    The Scandal of a Virgin

    Everything seemed to be in chaos; no real leadership to speak of in households in my country or surrounding countries. Armies of men, young men and even boys terrorizing our lives, then running away. Soldiers, they call themselves; robbing homes, taking what they please and offering it back to helpless widows.

    The men flee and fear radical zealot followers of traditionalist religious men. The powerful army of an enemy has occupied once more in a place where no one will be led – a place where men and women will only do what is right in their own eyes.

    Life seems hopeless for us. What little semblance of order we once had in our families is now broken by the futility of war and the occupiers of peace.

    Is this scenario from which we are constantly distracted so unfamiliar?

    When judea mapRome occupied Syria and Palestine  and there was no longer an Israel (recall from your history), the traditional local leaders had failed in leading a rebellious people that will not be led – a history much repeated over the centuries.

    War and conflict: familiar and frequent in these lands of the Bible ripe for the picking of wealthy nations, open to opportunists conquering the wealth of weak peoples.

    Life has little value to those who fight for an army of conquerors. They have no home any more; these soldiers and those who flee from them.

    Family: husbands and wives, boys and girls – these are of little importance to those who wage war, men who desire riches and glory for themselves.

    Is anything new under the sun? Yet this is not God’s intention for God’s family.

    Deuteronomy 12:8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters…

     —

    As we prepare to celebrate a ‘Christmas’ season in the year of our Lord, 2014; rich Americans, prosperous Europeans, several wealthy Arabs, select Asians, a few Africans and some South Americans are much distracted by our addictive daily entertainment and games. It was no different in the games of Rome years before the Roman Empire fell, miles away from Palestine and the birth we mark in Bethlehem.

    Christmas is now a time of self-indulgent shopping and entertainments of blockbuster movies. A box-office hit might well suggest movie-scene destruction of a country the size of Argentina or Poland. How like a video game must all the violence seem to these boy warriors.

    Who would even bat an eyelash at so many deaths in a war-like scene where men of war are determined to wipe out their enemies; where young boys will break up communities and families and men who lead armies will cause them to take their crusade of higher cause to unfamiliar lands, wreaking havoc and devastation in the most evil ways upon the innocent?

    It would not seem unusual in this time of surreal, video game-like violence for a man like me, who drives through a city like Allentown PA US, to go to work to discover that in just one day some violent, evil force had destroyed every living being the entire city (or in a year the deaths of the entire population of Poland). This is the deception of our industrious entertainment empires.

    This unimaginable violence, both real and portrayed, whether in the dramas of the Roman Colosseum or the movies of Hollywood, trivializes the value of every human life intended for a place on this earth by God; a place in a marriage by God; a place in a family of God; a place in a community of God in a place where war is no more. We are a world corrupted by sin and peoples led by evil men.

    —

    iraqis refugeesAbout 850,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have fled the conflict in central Iraq to seek safety further north in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). They are scattered across the KRI in a variety of temporary housing situations: though a small number of them are in camps, most live informally in local schools, unfinished buildings, and public parks. Half a million of them are in the city of Dohuk alone. The great majority of these 850,000 internally displaced are members of religious minorities – Christians from the Ninewa Plains and Yazidis from the Sinjar area, in particular.
    As humanitarian agencies scramble to meet their needs, there must be a plan for longer-term support that reflects the increasingly complex and unpredictable environment in the country as a whole: an environment that is likely to result in more displacement.

    Syrian-refugees-setting-up-camp-receiveing-aid-in-IraqThese 850,000 refugees are in addition to the 640,000+ registered refugees from Syria in Jordan, not to mention the hundreds of thousands who have fled war in many parts of Africa and the Middle East; more than a million refugees from Ukraine and other countries.

    ‘What does all this have to do with a virgin?’ you ask.

    An introduction to our ‘cover girl’

    West_Bank_&_Gaza_Map_2007_(Settlements)

    The young girl featured above the title of this post lives in the troubled land of Israel of today. She is part of a group of young Jewish girls born in the troubled settlements of the West Bank.

    Tzuriya, a recent graduate of Ma’ale Levona, is doing her National Service as a guide at a Jordan Valley farm for kids with drug and alcohol problems.

    Two thousand, fourteen years ago, she would not be unlike a young Galilean girl named Mary, betrothed to a man a little bit older than her named Joseph. In those days young girls adhered to strict Biblical standards for young women prior to their betrothal to their future husband.

    They were called virgins. Their virginity was expected and guaranteed by their fathers as virgins were given to a husband as his bride and wife. A young woman’s life could be forfeited if she became pregnant. No honorable young man would consider having intercourse with just any young virgin (girl) and fathers protected their daughters with all power and authority until they were married. The family and pureness were held to the highest standards by all Hebrews.

    Babies were protected by mothers and fathers; all women, children and elderly preserved and protected by brothers and by close-knit biological families of the husband and his wife.

    Do you recall my reference above to an unimaginable violence of a movie scene that destroyed a city like Allentown PA US in just one day (and then another one, say, Hartford Connecticut, tomorrow)? That is the scope of the violence now being done to unborn babies executed by abortions each day of every year!

    The global holocaust of deaths of babies by abortion destroys the equivalent population of Argentina or Poland each and every year!

    The threats of the duplicitous government of Herod were small by comparison to what we matter-of-factly call ‘planned‘ in destroying the lives of babies for the indiscretions of their mothers. As a matter of fact, Mary and Joseph (you may remember) did have to flee Herod and the political troubles of the day for their baby Jesus to grow up in Egypt for a time (until it was safe for these refugees to return to Galilee (after their eventful visit to Bethlehem).

    Yes, the problem of refugees and violence against babies and families is not new and was familiar even to Jesus.

    Matthew 1 ESV [notes]

     The Birth of Jesus Christ

    18 Now the birth of the Christ [the Messiah] took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed [That is, legally pledged to be married] to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

    19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

    21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

    23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
    and they shall call his name Immanuel”
    (which means, God with us).

    24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

    —

    A Light in the darkness

    Christians make much of the pageantry of the Christmas story and the child-like delight to which our Lord calls us as we hopefully hear the annual re-telling of the birth of Christ Jesus.

    The Gospel of Luke recounts the events in even more detail than our account from Matthew (above); however the Gospel of John tells us why a young virgin girl giving birth in Bethlehem of Judea remains the most scandalous birth of all time – the virgin birth of the most controversial son of man ever born, Christ Jesus, Immanuel, God With Us, Redeemer of the Jews, Hope of the Nations, Sacrifice for our sins, Judge of all men; Perfect and Holy example of what it means to be made in the Image of God.

    Jesus was a sinless man, sacrificed for your sins and for mine. No other man (or woman) born of a woman can claim Christ’s sinlessness.

    John 1

    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…

    9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

    12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

    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.

    32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.

    —

    The same Jews who believed John the Baptist to be a Prophet, rejected Jesus for political and traditional religious expediency. Only a remnant of the Jews accepted Jesus as the Messiah. [v.11] Christ Jesus adopted the people of the Nations (gentiles) who believe in Him. He gave those who believe the right of being part of the family of God. [v.12]

    It is not the land that is important; it is the God of the land.

    Jesus even praised some Romans and commended hated Samaritans (formerly part of the Israel of David) for their faith.

    Jesus chastened the rich to be generous and the ‘religious’ to be faithful, compassionate and loving.

    Love one another. Love your neighbor and pray for those who persecute you.

    Jesus performed many miracles, fulfilled many scriptures, taught scripture (the Bible) with authority, lived and died righteously, and most importantly of all – rose from the dead (witnessed by over five hundred men and several women). Yet most Jews do not accept Jesus as the Christ to this day.

    Did the Prophets not condemn the hardness of their hearts? Have the hearts of some christians not now become just as rebellious to the commands of Christ Jesus? Just read what the Prophets had to say about the darkness and disobedience of the time before Jesus Immanuel came into the world.

    Is it not the same darkness which now permeates the border-less regions of the nations and secret places in the hard hearts of mankind in these last days before our Lord’s triumphal return on the clouds?

    The Apostle John speaks well of the overflowing love of God, the love of Christ Jesus and the necessity of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men.

    IF we expect to inherit eternal life and the eternal Kingdom of God and His only Son, Christ Jesus, then we must repent of our sin and follow Jesus as our Lord. The Good News of Christmas is that you are invited to do this. You need not live in Israel or be of Hebrew descent.

    John also cautions that many will not accept Jesus, the light of life; and John tells us why many (including some who would claim to be ‘christians’) will not follow Jesus as Lord. The words following near to the well-pronounced John 3:16 remain a relevant caution to all in these last days.

    John 3:

    19 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.

    20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

    Jesus confronted Pharisees of the Jews as whitewashed tombs. They are dead in their religion and dead in their life – dead in their witness of the love of God and dead to eternal life. Jesus acknowledged that accepting His righteousness – accepting God, worshiping God as Lord of your life and not merely doing what is right in your own eyes is controversial; even more controversial than the scandal of a virgin giving birth.

    Ask a Jew who rejects Jesus; ask a Muslim who rejects most of what Jesus taught (as just one more prophet before Muhammad); ask a Hindu or Buddhist, who believe in many gods; ask a post-modern agnostic or atheist, who speak of peace yet believe only the science of the provable:

    Did Jesus come into the world to bring peace? Is Jesus God Incarnate; God With Us? Does Christ Jesus still live, resurrected in the body (as the Gospels witness)?

    Matthew records Jesus’ own comment about ‘peace’ on earth.

    Matthew 10:

    18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. 19 When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. 20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved…

    Not Peace, but a Sword

    34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

    36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.

    37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

    —

    Is it not true? Is it not scandalous that a virgin should give birth to God Incarnate?

    Is it not true, that God is NOT one (in a definable sense), but infinitely unknowable by a being – a human being – of His creation; rather, the LORD GOD is a trinity – Father: Abba Father, a loving Father, as Christ Jesus taught, a Father overflowing with love for those who love Him; Son: Christ Jesus, the Messiah, Sacrifice for our sins, Redeemer of our eternal life in Him, example in the Person of God’s love and teacher of God’s very Word, the same ‘Word’ which spoke all being into existence [John 1:1]; and Holy Spirit: The same Person of the Holy Spirit which descended on Jesus and His Baptism (not a bird), the same Person of the Holy Spirit that descended on the Apostles (no more a fire than the burning bush, but something more of the Holiness of God), and the same Person of the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost, hagios pneuma) which gave the Son to Mary.

    Matthew 1:20 …for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

    Scandalous!

    —

    Love and follow Jesus Christ as your Lord. Build a personal relationship with the Son of God, that you may be known in His eternal Kingdom.

    My Christmas messages to follow in this year of our Lord, 2014,  are not a traditional rendering of the Christmas story, a message of ‘peace on earth, good will to men.’

    It is not a message of peace for those who will not receive the peace and love of Christ Jesus, God Immanuel, the Person of Christ returning in victory.

    It is not truly the Gospel, the Good News that IF you accept Jesus as your Lord and follow Him, as I pray you will; that in Christ Jesus you will have an inner peace in addition to eternal life. It is not the message of love to which I pray my Muslim, Jewish, and unbelieving friends will come as they humbly accept that no works or laws can earn our right to eternal life with God.

    Rather, my Christmas messages to follow are a plea to the church; a trumpet call to marginal ‘christians’ to do what Jesus would have us do, to say what Jesus would have us say, and as best we can to live as Jesus would have us live. Christians must love one another as God has loved us in the Person of Jesus Christ – the Christ of ‘Christ-Mass’ – coming to us; for our LORD has commanded that His love be evident in us as we live in the world, while we are no longer part of the condemned.

    Are we not here to do something about a world of devastating darkness, hearts of uncaring coldness; lives lived without love, souls surviving with no hope, no faith and no love?

    Is it not scandalous that even God is not loved by those whom He created – those whom He knew even before we were in our mother’s womb, souls who the Word of God spoke into existence in the beginning and will judge in the end?

    Can you think of any lasting scandal more divisive (even now) than the birth of Christ Jesus to a virgin in Bethlehem?

    If you do not believe it, I challenge you to share the love of Christ and witness the Name of Jesus.

    Those who love the darkness will hear nothing of our sin; they will scandalize and reject the Name of Jesus, this Christmas and until the Judgment.