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Tag: witness

  • Gimel

    Gimel

    Psalm 119
    English Standard Version (ESV)
    Your Word Is a Lamp to My Feet

    Does your meditation time include prayer and petition to God?

    Here is a worthy prayer for your whole heart.

    Gimel

    17 Deal bountifully with your servant,
    that I may live and keep your word.
    18 Open my eyes, that I may behold
    wondrous things out of your law.

    “Open thou my eyes,” states the King James.

    ‘Open,’ as ‘uncover’ what you do not see exists in the eyes of God, never-the-less.

    And note from the translation that it is God we ask to open our eyes and not we ourselves who open our eyes to anything without first opening our eyes to the Lord God.  It is that same understanding of good and evil that God sees.

    Two important meditations of understanding follow:

    1. We are sojourners – travelers on the earth. As children of God we have become strangers who do not belong on this earth of sin.
    2. Our prayer to our Father in heaven is that He would reveal or uncover what He sees in the Law and the Commandments.

    19 I am a sojourner on the earth;
    hide not your commandments from me!

    20 My soul is consumed with longing
    for your rules at all times.
    21 You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,
    who wander from your commandments.

    Is your soul consumed with longing for God’s rules at all time?

    For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. – Deuteronomy 4:24

    “My soul breaketh,” states the KJV. Does your heart break; is it crushed with longing for the judgments of God? The KJV also points toward the wrath of God on those who do not consider His commandments:

    21 Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from thy commandments.

    In this the Psalmist warns: the curse of God will come upon those who are proud and err in our ways of wandering from the straight and narrow path of the commandments. God rebukes those He loves; but we had best listen and repent if we do not want to experience the wrath of God’s consuming fire.

    22 Take away from me scorn and contempt,
    for I have kept your testimonies.
    23 Even though princes sit plotting against me,
    your servant will meditate on your statutes.

    To meditate on the word of the Lord is a picture of life – a germination of a new and godly life in our soul which can blossom into eternal life.

    24 Your testimonies are my delight;
    they are my counselors.

  • A Foundation of Truth

    A Foundation of Truth

    My father was a builder when I was a boy. He and my uncle and the men who worked for them built houses from the ground up.  My dad could look at a piece of ground and survey it with his eyes and see a finished house. What just looked to me like piles of dirt being moved about progressed into a hole deep in the ground with leveling lines of string and cement blocks tapped with a hammer were set just so, one by one below the foundation of the house.  We watched these men set block by block on the dirt in the raising of a house over a strong foundation where they would walk on the dirt floor from room to room knowing the outline of what was to come.

    In many ways reading the Bible becomes a foundation to the foundation of truth. Daily devotional time with God becomes a leveling of all that seems out of kilter in our lives. Regular worship with like-minded Christians and perspective from the sermons of a God-fearing Spirit-filled pastor/preacher becomes a plumb line for our ascent into a higher place nearer to truth and the certain hope of our salvation in Christ Jesus.

    I paint you this picture as introduction to what I attempt to do in my personal life.

    • I read the Bible. It is 66 Books. I have read all of them, most numerous times. Every time I take on a book of the the Bible to study I learn more about God.

    READ & STUDY a book of the Bible. THEN, read another.

    • I pray. (More than once or twice daily.)  It is personal conversation with God. I do not hear God as well as I ask God for the needs of others and sometimes my own desires.

    I need to pray much more. Do you?

    • I worship with others. I don’t just ‘go to church, I try to be part of Christ’s church. I am a member of our local church and try to worship with our church every Sunday. I have done this in different places, buildings and denominations most of my life. God is a relational God. Jesus is a relational Savior. The Holy Spirit is a relational Counselor. AND Christians must, according to scripture, have a relational love for each other and the whole church.

    We are Christ’s church, the bride of Jesus. We are one with Him and with one another.

    I say all of this a introduction to an introduction (a borrowed thought) from a lesson on Titus I recommend to you.

    In addition to my daily time set aside for the Bible and prayer, I listen to Truth for Life and the teaching of Alistair Begg. I read and listen to the teachings of others as well. Do not rely on any one man (or woman) for the truth of Biblical teaching.

    The risen Jesus Christ sent out twelve Apostles to different churches in different places to lead and instruct the church. An Apostle to the Gentiles (once known as Saul of Tarsus) encountered the risen Christ, who in turn instructed others how to instruct the church. By the Spirit, Paul wrote many of the letters of the New Testament for Christians. Two letters to Timothy and one to Titus are considered as ‘Pastoral Epistles,’ letters to the church through these two pastors of certain churches.

    Pastor Begg suggests reading this short Letter of Titus every day.

    This teaching from Truth for Life will follow this short letter daily on the radio and online in January 2014 for a series of lessons titled: “Get It Right, Volume 1.”  I would like to recommend these to your daily devotional time.

    Christ’s servant,

    Roger Harned

    (site administrator) http://talkofJesus.com

     

  • Are you Christ’s? Or are you NOT?

    Are you Christ’s? Or are you NOT?

    Hebrews 6:4-6 NKJV 

    4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

    Going forward, do we backslide?

    This question of our christian life, as witnessed by the church and especially others is most serious.

    What does it mean that we “were once enlightened?” Do you, fellow believer have the saving knowledge of the cross of Christ Jesus? If so, you are also enlightened.

    Have you been offered the heavenly gift of grace, forgiveness from your sins of the past? Have you tasted the good word of your redemption in Jesus Christ as your Lord IF you follow Him? Do you follow OR did you just hear of it once or more?

    Here is the point of the sharpened word (in verse 6): IF you or any fall away, it is a most serious matter of your salvation. You do NOT have salvation and eternal life (you cannot lose it, IF you have it) if by not ‘following’ Christ you actually sin against the Cross of Christ by your worldly unrepentant actions.

    Yes, christians are NOT covered by the grace of Christ’s cross IF we will not repent of our former lives of sin and turn back from our worldly ways of the flesh. Die to the flesh and live as Christ! Christ Jesus must be our Lord. We must be obedient to Jesus as our personal Lord. (It is not enough to just say that we are christians, while in fact we witness against His Holy Sacrifice on the Cross.)

    Repentance of such christians is a most serious matter for Christ’s church; for an unbeliever might be persuaded that your unholy life is one acceptable at the judgment seat where He will say to these, “I never knew you.”

    Let us, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, look to the context of this important teaching for us as we look forward into a new year (and hopefully not backward onto our sinful nature, before our commitment to follow Christ Jesus as our Lord) – personally, and in every aspect of our lives.

    Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.

    Do you, unrepentant christian sinner, sit in church week by week as a kindergartner who ought to be held back?

    Is your desire to learn the doctrine of Christ so immature that your daily life is constant witness to a grace without foundation?

    Christ’s church, His bride for whom He will return, is His constant love. Christians have a relationship of love – a constant and loving relationship with Jesus, the Groom and our Lord. And as members of His perfect royal family, Christians have constant and loving relationships with one another – this is the doctrine of His love – this is the maturity of our witness.

    This is the essence of our vow and witness: Jesus IS Lord.

    4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

    How are you ‘celebrating’ this New Year?

    Are you Christ’s? OR are you NOT?

    Happy New Year OR Blessed New Year (as our Lord would say in the Beatitudes: blessed are you).