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Tag: witness

  • 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…

     

  • Is anybody out there?

    Is anybody out there?

    Please pray for me, as I also pray for you. I need answers from the Lord.

    Roger

    Jesus Rejected at Nazareth

    16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

    18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
        because he has anointed me
        to proclaim good news to the poor.
    He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
        and recovering of sight to the blind,
        to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
    19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

    20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

    Listen

    Are you out there, my friends?

    As always, your Comments are encouraged here. Begin: ‘PRIVATE’ if you do not want me to post your comment to this or any of my 400+ posts publicly.

    Servant of our Lord Jesus Christ,

    Roger Harned

  • My Love – 6 – If I have not love

    My Love – 6 – If I have not love

    ‘I’m not happy.’

    ‘I met someone’

    IF you claim to be a follower of the Bridegroom of the church, Jesus Christ and things don’t go quite your way, would you tell Jesus to ‘get out’?

    Would you look for someone better, who might make you happy in this world?

    (Did God really say, “Don’t eat of the fruit of that tree?”)

    IF you are unfaithful to Christ’s love, would it not be adultery?

    christian whoreThough you claim to be a follower of Jesus, so had Judas!

    This is the unfortunate false witness of some with a cross in front of their home, ‘christianity’ claimed before ‘friends’ as religion, their stamp of approval before the world. These claim many things by the ‘Blood of Jesus,’ yet their more bold witness of worldly sins again crucifies hope in His body and true Bride, the church.

    Some have heard the following, even at weddings, known as the ‘love chapter.’

    IF Jesus Christ is your love, listen then to true love, you adulterers of Christ!

    1 Corinthians 13

    The Way of Love

     If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

    I have heard in churches the noisy gongs of ‘single moms,’ divorced grandmas and others clanging the noise of their own ‘higher’ worship, ‘tongues of angels,’ God’s messengers; as if we should follow these women, rather than Christ Jesus as Lord. Will they who are not bowed down to their husband or any man in Christ not lead the faith astray with their babel?

    2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

    I have heard prophesy given in the church. Is it from God? Why then did the church not record the very prediction of God given? Is the prophesy confirmed and witnessed to the glory of our Lord, Christ Jesus? Yes, sometimes; but believer beware of the wolves in our midst.

    Have you not endured some claiming such superior knowledge and understanding of mysteries who would teach us of their ‘faith to remove mountains’ in their Sunday school class or church small group?

    Did you experience the embrace of Christ’s love in their Pharisaical instruction? Did you hear love for you in their teaching or prophesy?

    I, too, have received prophesy and spoken it. The revelation of the Lord is a terrible and awesome thing!

    Some prophesy has not yet come to pass. For all I know, I may have been given some spirit of deception to accomplish the Lord’s overpowering purpose. Yet in these last days we must fear the Lord, always listening for the approaching trumpet of truth over the blaring cries of some claiming ‘understanding.’

    Read your Bible and pray for revelation by the Spirit of Truth in scripture.

    3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

    ‘And though I bestow,‘ states the King James; bestow, an interesting word more related to charity as we understand it – charity, agape love of God, used in application throughout these verses of the love chapter.

    Bestow: to feed by putting a bit or crumb (of food) into the mouth; of infants, young animals etc.; to feed, nourish to give a thing; to feed someone, feed out to

    Feed on God’s word in scripture. Nourish your spirit in prayer.

    Does this not also bring to mind the love a father and a mother, given to their child, their teen, their grown adult children, even their spouse given in marriage into your own family? Is this not also the gift of adoption given by our Heavenly Father through Christ to gentile believers (like most of us)?

    Are we not all poor and needy, dependent on our Father’s forgiving gracious love?

    Though I give to the poor, but have not love…

    Is that our charity of witness?

    Now that I have shared the seriousness of God’s love for us, allow me to share the more familiar actions of love often and appropriately shared at weddings:

    4 Love is patient and kind;

    love does not envy or boast;

    it is not arrogant 5

     or rude.

    Are you patient to your spouse, to whom you are joined to each other and God by your vows?

    Is your husband (or wife) patient with you – patient for you?

    Is your love for your beloved partner until death – kind?

    Are you, dear father, and you, dear mother, kind to your son – kind to your daughter – kind to each and all of your children (obedient and faithful, or rebellious and hateful)? Are you kind to your adopted child, your step-child, your child (even an adult child) given into your nurture by God to raise and guide in the Lord, Christ Jesus?

    Is your love patient and kind even to your prodigal teen?

    Is your love for your spouse, your children, your brothers and sisters in Christ ALWAYS patient and kind? Lord help us, impatient and unkind sinners!

    It does not insist on its own way;

    it is not irritable or resentful;

    it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

    Are you just another ‘spoiled child’ of God in your relationships with others in your daily life?

    7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

    Lord: Convict us and forgive us, for the sake of your Son, our loving Savior, Jesus Christ. Help me – help us to love you more and more; help us, miserable saved sinners, to love those you love with your overflowing agape love.

    8 Love never ends.

    To be continued…