Send Me!

Maybe this is your time, your place, your breakout. Maybe God wants you to take on a special challenge. In Isaiah 6:8, Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord say, " 'Whom shall I send?' Then I said, 'Here am I, send me'...."

A great example of meeting the challenge is shown in Esther chapter 4. Esther was a Jewess who had been made queen of Persia. Through interesting circumstances (go back and read the book of Esther if it has been awhile--great reading), the Jews are condemned, and Esther is challenged to take a stand before the King. Esther's cousin in Esther 4:14, says, "Who knows whether you have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this." Esther had one chance to save her people and now was the time.

Maybe now is the time for you and me to step up to meet some special challenge. Ecclesiastes 3 says, "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven."

Maybe now is your time....and mine.

Thanks for reading. Have a good week!

What God wants from us

Sometimes we make Christianity very complicated........perhaps too complicated. But Jesus gave us some very simple and direct instructions for living the Christian life. Note these verses:

John 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." This was Jesus' instruction to His followers as He prepared to leave them for the last time.

And this one, a question from a lawyer testing Him: " 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?' Jesus said to him, ' You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.' "

When we look closely at what God wants from us, it can be reduced to this: he wants our HEART. Included in that is our love, our obedience, our worship to Him, our remembering and appreciating Jesus (including taking the Lord's Supper--communion), our love for the Word of God, the Bible, and perhaps more. But simply, He wants our Heart.

Now if all this seems too simple, remember that He gave us 21 letters (epistles), Romans through Jude, which are written to give us detailed information as to how to live the Christian life. And, of course, Jesus did a lot of teaching as recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John regarding how we are to live. But if we just give Him our heart and truly seek to follow Him, the rest will fall in place. We need to put our trust in Him and in the Word, the Bible, and we will be ok.

Thanks for reading this week. See you in the next message.......or maybe the next life. So I'll just say "see you.............and feel the love!"

2 Interesting Bible Verses

Here are two intriguing Bible verses that I have memorized and enjoy having with me all the time:

Ephesians 3:20, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

The other sounds a lot like the first one:

From the end of the book of Jude: "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen."

Both of these passages are a praise to God, attempting to describe in human terms how great He is. And, after all, everything is about Him; not about us. Our lives need to be about worshipping Him and praising Him......so that someday we can be with Him forever. Thanks for reading! See you next week. And, as Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. loved to say with great exuberance, (you have to be old to remember him. And I disclaim now that I wasn't a supporter of his), "Keep the faith, Baby."

Jerusalem

In my recent trip to the middle east, I was most fascinated with the old city of Jerusalem. In many of the Bible scriptures, mention is made of "going up to Jerusalem." The "going up" related to the fact that Jerusalem sits at a high elevation on a high hill. My most interesting view of the city was my first one when I was standing on the Mount of Olives looking across the Kidron valley which included the Garden of Gethsemane, looking up at the city of Jerusalem. You will see a picture of this here, but it won't have the impact of seeing it in person, of course. One thing that is noteworthy is that everything is close; it isn't far across the valley to the city. You can see the Dome of the Rock in the center of the city, of the old Jewish temple area, which is occupied by the Muslims now. In the other picture, you can see a more close up picture of the valley containing the Garden of Gethsemane. It is in this garden, or one similar, that Jesus went with His apostles to pray, just before His death.

Next week I hope to be back to our regular Bible lesson. But this week I wanted to show you these pictures of Jerusalem; it is such a fascinating place with so much Bible history. Have a good week!