We Are Spirit

We tend to think in a material, physical sense.  We are born physical, live physical lives, think about our bodies a lot, watch our diet, exercise, health, medicines, doctors, sleep.  We tend to think in a physical sense.  And yet we are spiritual beings.  There is a spiritual sense to us all that needs to be recognized, exercised, and fully utilized. 

I will have to say that I do not feel fully qualified to discuss this subject.  I don't know all about this.  But I know that this is true because of what I read in the Bible.  God knows all about this and has given some specific direction to us.

We hear people say, "I am not religious, but I am spiritual."  The answer to this is that we are all spiritual.  There are a few people who fight this concept by saying that they don't believe in such.  But looking at the world in total, at all peoples in all societies, we see that people are basically spiritual.

So the Bible speaks a massive amount on this subject, but we will look at some excerpts from a passage in John 3 for purposes here.  Jesus was speaking with Nicodemus, a prominent Jew:
 
"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' "  His point here is that we are actually spiritual beings.  But if we want to further that by being followers of God...and recipients of all that He offers we must take on His Spirit...by being "born again."

The writer then goes on to explain the role that God, Jesus and we must play in this process.  "even so must the Son of Man (Jesus) be lifted up (die on the cross), that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

We are spiritual beings not matter what we believe.  But when we are born of the water and the Spirit as we read in the book of John, when we are born again, we take on the Spirit of God.  And now we are really living!

Thank you for reading....again.  May God bless you.

John The Baptist

It is interesting that John the Baptist is referenced in both the Old and New Testaments.  In fact, the OT ends with the mention of John the Baptist coming.  So we will look at a few passages that talk about him and his purpose in revealing the Lord Jesus.

Right at the end of the OT, at the end of the book of Malachi, it says:  "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord."  We would not know for sure that this is talking about John except for looking at some supporting passages.  For example, we go to Malachi 3:  "Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me."  This is Jesus, long before He was born on this earth, predicting that John would be a preparer, preparing the way for Jesus. 

We see in the preceding passages that there is reference to Elijah.  He had lived in the OT time and wasn't literally going to be returning again.  But here it says that he is coming again.  What it is saying is that one like Elijah is coming, that is, John.  This is all made much more clear by reading the words of Jesus in Matthew 17, beginning in verse 11:

"Then Jesus answered and said to them, 'Elijah truly is coming first and will restore all things.  But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished.  Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.'  Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist."

And we must note John 1:6, "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.  He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light."  The Light here is, of course, Jesus Himself.

We know that John suffered an early death because of his dedication to our Lord.  We cannot be John the Baptist......but we can tell of Jesus, tell of His greatness, and tell of His importance in our lives.  We can tell of the salvation that He offers and of His great love for each of us.  And if we ever face adversity--John certainly did--we must stand up for Jesus!

Thank you for reading.  Please keep reading....and feel the love.   

Freedom

On this July 4 it seems only appropriate to think a bit about freedom.  Certainly we appreciate the freedoms that come with living in our country today; that is not the case, of course, throughout the world.  Here we will discuss a few Bible thoughts on the subject.

First, we should recognize that we as citizens have some responsibilities to our government.  Note this passage from Romans 13:

"Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.  Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.  For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil.  Do you want to be unafraid of the authority?  Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.  For he is God's minister to you for good.  But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil."

We must respect governing authorities, realizing that God is in control of all things.  But when put in a position of respecting God or respecting authorities, we must then respect God.  We see Peter and John in this situation in Acts chapter 4.  The Jewish authorities "called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.  But Peter and John answered and said to them, 'Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.  For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.' "  We need to speak the same things boldly, as well.

And no matter what comes, as Christians we have freedom.  Note this passage at the end of Romans chapter 8:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?....Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Thus we have nothing to fear....except God.  We can enjoy the freedoms that we have in our society knowing that the greatest freedom of all is in Jesus Christ.  Now there is a good reason to celebrate!

Thanks for reading.  Have a great day and a great week.

Details From GOD

When we look at the Old Testament, we see that our God is a God of details.  He was very specific with His people about what He wanted.  We see this in the book of Exodus where God gives His directions to the people about how to build a place of worship, the Tabernacle, and how worship was to be done.  The details are tedious...the reading is tedious...but one can see the point of this by reading Exodus chapters 25-30.  Here is an excerpt:

"You shall make an altar to burn incense on; you shall make it of acacia wood.  A cubit shall be its length and a cubit its width-it shall be square--and two cubits shall be its height.  Its horns shall be of one piece with it.  And you shall overlay its top, its sides all around, and it horns with pure gold; and you shall make for it a molding of gold all around.  Two gold rings you shall make for it....."  This is the description that God gives for this one small part of the worship place, the Tabernacle.

Another example, speaking of the clothes that the priest shall wear:

"And these are the garments which they shall make: a breastplate, and ephod, a robe, a skillfully woven tunic, a turban, and a sash.  So they shall make holy garments for Aaron you brother and his sons, that he may minster to Me as priest."  The writing goes on to give great detail in the making of each one of these items. 

One might ask why there is so much attention given to these items of worship.  There could be several answers.  But the first would be that this is what God wanted.  And He wanted to be praised.  He wanted anyone coming in worship to Him to be perfect in dress, appearance, and in the manner of worship.  He is God, and He deserves to be worshiped in His own way.  He also wanted obedience, wanted to see obedience in His people.

But then we go to the New Testament and look at the development of Christianity there, looking at the words of Jesus as He brought us a new way.  The question arises, Is God different in the new age?  And why don't we see this kind of detail being described in the NT?  The immediate answer is that God certainly isn't changed.  He is the same always.  But the NT does describe to us a new kind of law.  Here our Lord wants us to be priests, all of us (Revelation 1:6).  Just as the OT priests, a small percentage of the people,  were to approach God in a special way, a way beautiful to Him, the NT priests (we, as followers of Him) are now the priests that must approach God in a very special way.  But the new way isn't in the details of the OT.  The new way is in spiritual perfection.  He wants us to be spiritually beautiful.  We see this in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7, as Jesus taught the people to be special in heart, in nature, and in love.

Those of us who are followers need to be very careful in our approaching our Lord, to do so in great respect and praise, knowing that He is a God who cares about details, details of our lives, our hearts, our nature, our love....and our obedience.

Thanks for reading and have a great week.  Feel the love.....

In The Beginning

There are at least two places in the Bible that talk about "In the Beginning."  One is in the Old Testament and one in the New.  I suppose that there is no other event anywhere recorded more important than this one.  If there was no beginning of this world, then of course there would be no us...and no blog here to discuss it.  So perhaps it is worth our time to consider the beginning.

It has always been interesting to me that the Bible begins with this one powerful statement, maybe the most powerful statement ever made: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  That answers a lot of questions like, how did the world and heavens get made?  And is there a God?  And the verses thereafter tell us how it all happened and in what sequence.  Were it not for the first chapters of Genesis we would have no idea...except for the wild speculations that we sometimes hear from the "wise" of our day.

In the New Testament we read of the beginning in the first chapter of the book of John.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men."  In this passage we learn something new about the Creation, the beginning.  We learn that the Word, Jesus, was there and not only there, but it was all made through Him.  Thus we know that Jesus was,  always was, always existed, always was active...and was active in the Creation.

For those of us who are believers, who are Christians, we know that these things are true.  But for much of the world, much of society, these teachings, these facts are not so known or accepted.  We know there is a God, that He made the world and all around it, and we are comforted in knowing that He is in control.

Praise be Him, the great and mighty LORD.

Thanks for reading and have a great and happy week!

The Lord

It has been mentioned in this blog before that the most often spoken phrase from God Himself is, "I AM the LORD."  It is obvious from study of the Old Testament that recognition of God as Lord is of extreme importance to Him. 

In reading the Psalms, I noticed this phrase in Psalm 81:10.  It says, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.  Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.  But My people would not listen to Me; Israel would not submit to Me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices."  In this passage we see the rejection of God's people in old days.  Perhaps the question here is, "Are we doing this today?"

And reading this passage I cannot help but think of Moses.  He argued with God when God came to him and told him he would be leading His people out of Egyptian captivity.  Moses did not think he was the man for this job...and put up quite a debate with God over the matter.  But we know that God would not take no for an answer, and Moses was the chosen leader.  He even said to God, "When I go to the people to tell them, who shall I say sent me?"  And God said, "Tell them I AM sent you."  God is the great I AM; not was... or is to be... but just I AM.  He is and always is.

And Jesus addressed the importance of Moses several times.  One good example is John 5:45, where Jesus says, "Do not think I came to accuse you before the Father.  You have one who accuses you: Moses, on whom your hopes are set.  If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me."  All of the Jewish people of that day...and really any day....knew about Moses.  But where Moses wrote about the fact that a Messiah would come one day, they didn't really believe or take note.  And Jesus is saying that if they didn't heed Moses, they weren't going to heed Jesus.

And perhaps it is that way today to a large extent.  People don't really care so much about Jesus.  Yes, He is the only answer, but most don't care. 

Let us care!  Thanks for reading and have a great week. 

The Authority of Jesus

We find in the New Testament that Jesus had to establish His authority on speaking with the Jews.  They didn't want to believe that He was really the Christ, the Messiah that had been foretold in the old scriptures.  And so the Jews, especially the Jewish leaders, would challenge Jesus and His authority, saying that He had no right to claim to be the Son of God.

In John chapter 5 we find that Jesus healed a lame man, one who had been sick for 38 years and was unable to get into the healing waters. Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath.  The man arises and carries his bed with him, prompting the Jews to criticize Jesus and the man.  By Jewish tradition this could be worthy of death for Jesus, so they sought to kill Him.

To make matters worse, Jesus said, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working."  "Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God."  Jesus was quite outspoken about His authority and position with the Father.

Jesus then followed this event with some very powerful statements that we should note:

"For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will."

"...he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."

Speaking to the Jews specifically, "Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father, there is one who accuses you--Moses, in whom you trust.  For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.  But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"

In this last statement to the Jews He is referring to the fact that Moses, many generations before, had told them that a Messiah would be coming.  But they were not believing that Jesus is the one.  This hatred for Jesus would carry on through to the death of Jesus, to the insistence by the Jews on Jesus being crucified.

Jesus is truly the Son of God and is the only Way to truth and salvation. 

Thanks for reading.  Have a great week!