Promise Kept

God always keeps His promises.  We read in 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness...."  He doesn't make promises lightly, but what He makes, He keeps.

The most important promise in the Bible, the most important promise ever made, is given in Genesis 12.  God was speaking to Abram (Abraham) and made several promises.  But the significant promise was a statement that would change people for all time: "And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."  In the New Testament the point is clarified so that we do not need to be questioning the meaning, Galatians 3 being one place.  God was promising Abraham that he would have a descendant who would be a blessing to the whole world, namely Jesus Christ.  When we read Galatians 3 and Romans 7 we see the whole plan of God tied together.  It shows that God's plan was made many hundreds of years before to bring Jesus to the earth to die for the sins of man.  A beautiful story.

The Jews had been told all through the OT that a great king was coming, a kingdom that would last forever.  They knew to expect a messiah.  But when one came, they couldn't believe.  It is interesting to read about one man (Luke 2) who was waiting for the king to be born; Simeon.  Jesus was brought by His parents to the temple in Jerusalem in accordance with Jewish custom of the Law.  Simeon had been directed by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.  He took the baby Jesus up in his arms and blessed God and said:  "Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel."  Simeon understood the promise from Genesis 12 and was waiting anxiously for the king.

The NT testament makes clear in many places that Jesus came to save souls, souls of all people.  Galatians 3:28 says "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.:

God always keeps His promises.  He promised a savior and He delivered.  He promised to makes us heirs if only we follow Him.  He always delivers.

Thanks for reading.  Have a great week!

Life

I gave this short talk at a church service this past Weds. and thought you might enjoy hearing it.  Life is a heavy subject.  We all think about the significance of life, the purpose, the result, all about life.  We all see people who suffer, who mourn, who worry; perhaps we are often those people.  I think about people who are born in pain, who live all of their lives in pain and suffering, about people who are in a wheel chair all of their lives.  It reminds me of an occurrence years ago when I visited a small church in Sopchoppy, Fl.  You would have to know that this was one small church.  There was a woman there who had been in a wheel chair from the earliest of childhood due to childhood arthritis.  I was asked to move her after services from her wheelchair to the front seat of the car.  I said "sure" and was honored.  At the appropriate time, I placed the wheelchair close to the car seat, realized that this was one heavy woman with no use of arms or legs...dead weight, so to speak.  I grabbed her, a bit embarrassed, and gave it my all, virtually lunging from the chair to the seat.  We barely made it onto the edge of the car seat.  She said, "Come again."  I grabbed her again and gave it a mighty heave to shift her further onto the seat.  She barely moved.  She said, "Come again."  I grabbed her and heaved!  She said, "Come again."  I grabbed her and heaved!!  She said......."No.  I mean Come Again to Church!!!"  Needless to say, I was most embarrassed.........

Realizing that life has its ups and downs, but a whole lot of downs, we look to the Bible for answers.  When we read the writing of King Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes, we see the final opinion of a great king who had everything, every amount of wealth, comfort, women, play, you name it.  He said that all was vanity, worthless, in this life.  None of these things make life great.  He said, "He who loves silver, will not be satisfied with silver."

So what is the answer?  The answer is Jesus Christ.  Jesus said in John 11, when talking with his good friend Martha at the time that Lazarus had died, "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in  Me, though he dies, he shall live.  Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die." Wow; who could resist an offer like that?  Then He said, "Do you believe this?"

And that is the question to each one of us.  "Do you believe this?"  The offer of life eternal is too good to pass up; we only have to follow Jesus to never die.  Whatever pain and suffering and sorrow must be endured here, we have the great offer of life forever with Him.  Let's do it!

Thanks for reading.  Feel the love.

The Business of the Church

I am sure that my first responsibility is to take care of my soul, to deal with my own frailties, my own faults, my own......And it is not my job to judge others...in the sense of determining who is saved and who isn't.  I happily leave that to the Lord.  But beyond all that, the NT does talk of the church, how the church is structured, who gets church support, how money is raised; much is said about the church and the church's business.

In today's world, we see churches getting into all manner of business that has nothing to do with spiritual matters.  I received word today that the Mormon church is buying 350,000 acres of forest land in North Florida.  I didn't seek out this information and didn't really want to know.  But what business is that of the church?  This is just one example of many that could be cited about other denominations and their work.  It isn't biblical.

The only example of churches raising money is given in the NT regarding the collection weekly of money to meet the specific needs of the church and the individual Christians in need.  I Corinthians 16 says, "Now about the collection for God's people; Do what I told the Galatian churches to do.  On the first day of every week, let each one of you set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made."

If we just do things the way the NT churches did them, we do much better.  The church is to be funded by individual collections, not by running big business.  It was always that way in the Old Testament with all funds being raised through individual giving; and it is that way in the NT as well.

Perhaps we don't like hearing that there is a pattern to follow, but it still is the truth.  If we don't follow the pattern of the Bible, we drift, we divide, we denominate, and we start to not look like the original church at all.

Now I will go back to worrying about me, my soul, my weaknesses.........

Thanks for reading.  I hope your week is great!

Seeking God

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is in Hebrews 11:6, "..without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to god must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."  The emphasis here might be on the subject of faith, but I would assume that anyone reading this does believe that God exists.  The subject here then is to consider the importance of "diligently seeking Him."  There are many passages that talk about this subject so we will look at a few.

Deuteronomy 4:29, "But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find Him, if you search after Him with all your heart and with all your soul."

Proverbs 8:17, "I love those who love Me, and those who seek Me diligently find me."

And Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened."

This is only a small sampling of the many verses that talk of the importance of seeking God.  Realizing that this is what God wants from us, we should seek Him in all ways, in all aspects of our lives.  Likely a great place to start is in reading and knowing the Bible, His special message to us.  We need to take it at face value, to treasure it in our heart, to let it guide our actions and our speech.  We can seek Him in prayer, and in worship...and meditation....and love.

Wow, that all sounded impossible.  The Lord knew it would not be easy.  It wasn't easy for Him in this life, and it won't be easy for us either.  But the challenge is clear...and powerful.  Let us diligently seek Him.

Thanks for reading again.  Have a great week.