Separation

Did you ever just open your Bible and see what is before you, what message might jump out from the arbitrary page?  I did that this morning and landed on Daniel chapter 12.  My first thought was "There is no way that I am writing about Daniel 12."  But I looked at the page and here is what it said:

"At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time.  And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book.  And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.  Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever."

Now, I don't know when these things will occur, but it seems clear that this prophesy, written hundreds of years before Christ, will happen....and there will be a great separation between those who followed the Lord and those who did not.  It reminded me of other passages in the New Testament that teach the same thing.  This passage in 1 Thessalonians 4 tells of some of these end-time things:

"But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep (died), lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.  For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.  For the Lord Himself will descend from the heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.  And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And thus we shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore comfort one another with these words."

This teaching is comforting, but only to those who are "in Jesus."  And there is a great separation to come...as we read here.

There are many other passages that teach about this subject, but we will look at one more only.  Note the end of the Sermon on the Mount at the end of Matthew chapter 7:

"Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.  Now everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell.  And great was its fall."

The message is certainly clear.  There are two choices in life.....and only two:   we follow Jesus or we don't.  Lets "do."

Thank you for reading.  Have a great week!

Adoption

Adoption is a beautiful thing.  Yes, I guess we would all like to be born into our family, a full blooded member.  But anyone who has ever adopted a child knows how special this one is.  There is just nothing like it.  The Bible calls us adopted children of God.  Now, how special is that?

Note how Ephesians addresses His beloved Christians:  "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will...."

This passage shows that God planned to have His special people before He even created the world.  He didn't specify then which people would accept His adoption, but He planned a great adoption to come.  We know from other passages that God will accept any and all who will come to Him. 

We see a discussion in Galatians 4 about the adoption process that God has provided.  "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons."

It is a wonderful thing to be adopted into the family of God.  Those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ can enjoy this privilege.  And from all that we learn in the Bible, God takes care of His own.  He knows His people (note John 10) and provides eternal life for his people.

The only challenge then for us is to be one of His people...a follower of His Son, Jesus Christ.  Remember that He loves you....more than you or I can possibly know. 

Thanks for reading.  Feel the love.

Who Will Be In Heaven

I personally can't judge who will go to heaven, but I know where to get the answer.  This subject is covered in many places in the Bible, but we will look at the end of the book of Revelation for our purposes here.

When one reads the obituaries it becomes clear that most people, if they care at all, believe that virtually everyone is going to be in heaven.  So we will see a different story as we look at Revelation.

Chapter 21, excerpts:
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth...
Then I, John, saw the holy city...
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying....
He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.  But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

Chapter 22:14, "Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.  But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie."

It is evident that God cares about saving those who have dedicated themselves to Him, to those who have done His commandments.  That, for sure, is harder than some people think it is going to be; i.e., many think that God just loves everyone and will save everyone.  We see in His Word, the Bible, that there is more involved than that.  He loves everyone, but He is going to save only those who have served Him in this life.

So, thank you for reading again.  Feel the love.  Serve the Lord.

Real Religion

Sometimes we wonder what is real religion.  What does God really want from us?  We get some answers from James chapter one.  Let's look at a few of these thoughts. 

"Therefore, my beloved brethren:

"Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath...."

"Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls."

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."

"But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."

"If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless."

And then the final kicker:

"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

We must realize that this is not a complete list of what it means to be a Christian.  But there is no question either that these are valuable thoughts to bring us closer to God.  These are action thoughts.  They require that we be genuine people, clean of mind, and serving others.  Being a Christian is not just about doctrine....or going to church...or saying the right words.  It is about all that we are, that we do, that we think....where our heart is.

Have a great week.....a God filled week.....

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.