It's a family affair

When we exit our mother's womb and are born, we become a member of a family - a mother, a father, maybe brothers and sisters, and grandparents.  These are our blood relatives because the DNA in their blood is in our blood as well.

When we repent of our sins and trust Jesus as our Savior, we are born again, but into a different family - the family of God.  The family of God consists of all those who are born again and have put their faith in God and Jesus Christ throughout the centuries.  Revelation 1:5(b) states: To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood." Ephesians 2:13 states: "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." If you are a member of the family of God, you have been washed clean of your sins through the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed on the Cross. As your family's blood runs through your veins, the blood of Christ makes God's children a family.

In the family of God, everyone is a brother or a sister to the other members of the family of God and God is our Father. Throughout his epistles, Paul refers to other believers as brothers.  In Romans 16:1, Paul refers to Phoebe as a sister.  In 1 John 3:14(a). the apostle John refers to the family of believers as brethren, which is another word for family.  John states, "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren."

If you're a born again, blood washed believer in Jesus Christ, not only are you a member of the worldwide family of God, but you should also be attending a local church with local members of the family of God. A local church will provide fellowship, learning opportunities, worship, and accountability. As Christians, we need the support and love of other Christians and indeed, we are told in Hebrews 10:24-25 the following:"And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the Day approaching."

So since we are members of the family of God, how should be we be treating our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ?  In the 1 John 3:14(a) verse quoted above, John says we should love the brethren.  But that's just the start. Paul has many instructions written in his epistles as to how we should treat our brothers and sisters in Christ. Although Paul's instructions were written to the churches of his day, they apply to us as well.

So if you are a member of the family of God, I look forward to seeing you at our family reunion in heaven someday!  (I wrote about that here.) If you're not a member of the family of God, we would love it if you would become our brother or sister in Christ.  If you're unsure about how to do that, you can read more about that here:  Got eternal life?

Thanks for reading! See you next time!

Diane

Respect your rulers

This post is not about the wooden or plastic objects with numbers on them that you use to measure things. This post is about rulers like kings, presidents, governors, etc. 

All of us know people who only talk about how much they hate the president or their governor. (Sadly, some of us happen to be married to one of these.)  Listening to them complain and gripe gets very tiresome.  If that person claims to be a Christian, however, what they are doing is going against what it says in the Bible about how we are supposed to treat those who rule over us.  Let's take a look at what it says in the Bible about how we are supposed to think about and treat our leaders.

Paul writes about rulers in Romans 13:1-7.  Keep in mind that the Roman Empire was in charge in Paul's day (hence the reference to a sword in verse 4), but they apply to us in our time as well.   I'll discuss my thoughts on each verse.

1 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. 
That's a heavy verse. We are to be subject to the governing authorities even if we don't like them, and they are appointed by God? That has a lot of implications like God has appointed certain authorities over us because He's upset with our actions, or we cry out for righteous leaders (like the Israelites) and He delivers us. 

2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 
This is another heavy verse. As Christians, we don't want to resist the ordinance of God or we will bring judgment on ourselves. 

3 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. 4 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.
Aren't we all afraid when we get pulled over by a police officer? We feel guilty because we know we're speeding, or maybe we've done something else we're not supposed to. If we are behaving ourselves, we have nothing to fear from the governing authorities.

5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. 
As Christians, we feel guilty when we break the law because our consciences bother us.

6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. 
Although some of us would not like to pay taxes, God tells us in His Word that we should because these taxes help support the government. So yes, we do need the IRS whether we want them to exist or not.

7 Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
Paul summarizes the preceding 6 verses in this verse: pay your taxes, obey the law, honor those in high office.  

In 1 Timothy 2:1-4, Paul discussed how we are to treat our rulers in greater detail:

1Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 
Paul is speaking about all people in this verse, not just rulers. Some folks are hard to pray for, but Paul says we should do so anyway.

2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 
When we pray for all those in authority, we will lead a life like that mentioned in this verse.  And who doesn't want to live a quiet and peaceable life?  

3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 
Paul is stating that praying for our rulers (and indeed, for everyone) is what God wants us to do. Verse 4 is a verse you may want to keep in your memory bank in case you are having discussions with a Calvinist who says that only the elect are saved. You can point him/her to verse 4 that says that God wants all men to be saved. 

The current president of the United States certainly brings out many people's fierce emotions. There are those who think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread and then there are those who think he's Satan incarnate.  

The people who love our current president surely must have Romans 13:1 in mind.  They believe that even though we vote for our president that God must have made it happen so that he would win the election.  They post on Facebook how much they love him and that he's the greatest president ever. This group of people must be careful that their love of the president doesn't grow into idol worship.  God is the only one we should be worshiping.  We are supposed to pray for our president (see 1 Timothy 2:2 above) and honor him, not worship him.

The group of people who hate the president and who would love to see him deposed from office ignore Paul's words in Romans.  They are letting their hatred blind them so that all they can think and talk about is how much they hate the president.  This obsessive hatred is consuming their lives and alienating their loved ones and their friends.  If we are Christians, we are supposed to love each other (see 1 John 3:23) and not hate others, especially our fellow Christians.

What's worse, some of the people who hate the president are not attending church anymore because they think that the Christians that voted the president into office are hypocrites for electing such a person. They don't want to hear the pastor pray for the president and for our leaders because they hate them.  I would like to remind them that we're all sinners in need of grace and forgiveness.  We're all on a level field at the Cross. Hebrews 10:25 says the following in regards to church attendance: "not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, is the manner of some, but exhorting one another; and so much the more as you see the Day approaching." 

So what's the best thing for a person to do?  We as Christians are to live by God's Word, which tells us to respect our leaders, obey the law, pay our taxes and pray for our leaders and for all people. We should put God first in our lives and not our rulers.  If our president has done something that is against God's and man's law, it will be discovered and he will be tried and judged then. Until that happens, let's love and worship God and love one another. Those are the best things to do.

Thanks as always for reading! See you next time!

Diane

Palm Sunday - The entry triumphal

Today is Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week.  This event is recorded in all four of the Gospels and considering that each Gospel was written by different individuals, the details of the event in all of the Gospels are remarkably the same.  There are minor additions to the story in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke.

Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem was not only to announce to the Jewish people that the Messiah had come, but it also fulfilled Old Testament prophecy.  In Daniel 9, Gabriel the archangel gave Daniel the prophecy that foretold when the Messiah would arrive.  Gabriel didn't give exact dates, however; he said that 70 weeks had been decreed for the Jewish people and for Jerusalem.  Bible scholars have determined that each "week" equals 70 years.  After sixty-nine "weeks," the Messiah would be "cut off," or put to death. Chuck Missler did the math (Thanks, Chuck! Math was my worst subject in school) and determined the following:

This includes a mathematical prophecy. As we have noted in previous articles, the Jewish (and Babylonian) calendars used a 360-day year; 69 weeks of 360-day years totals 173,880 days. In effect, Gabriel told Daniel that the interval between the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem until the presentation of the Messiah as King would be 173,880 days.

Chuck then gives us even more important information:

The commandment to restore and build Jerusalem was given by Artaxerxes Longimanus on March 14, 445 B.C. . . .This [the Triumphal Entry - DMS] is the only occasion that Jesus presented Himself as King. It occurred on April 6, 32 A.D. When we examine the period between March 14, 445 B.C. and April 6, 32 A.D., and correct for leap years, we discover that it is 173,880 days exactly, to the very day!

That's really incredible, but as we all know, God does all things in His own way.  He does give us clues in His Word, and we just have to dig them out.

Another Old Testament prophecy that Jesus fulfilled was in Zechariah 9:9 when He rode into Jerusalem on a colt.  "Colt" in those days referred to a young donkey and not a young horse like we think of in modern times.

Titus Kennedy, in an Adventures blog post on the website Drive Thru History titled "The Triumphal Entry," compared Jesus' entry into Jerusalem to the triumphal entry of ancient Israeli kings and the triumphal entry of Roman emperors.

According to the list of Triumphs on the Fasti Triumphales, which concludes with a triumph in 19 BC, by the time of Augustus the triumph had become part of the Imperial cult, and only the Emperor could receive this honor and recognition as king and divine (Dio Cassius; Suetonius; Pliny). In a comparable fashion, Jesus began the Triumphal Entry outside the boundaries of Jerusalem in Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, rode on a donkey like the kings of ancient Israel, descended down the road into the Kidron Valley, entered the city through the Susa Gate, then went to the Temple where He cleansed it of merchants and moneychangers. The similarities to the Roman Imperial Triumph and the ancient Israelite kinship procession are obvious. Therefore, the Triumphal Entry of Jesus had significance and implications for both the cultures of Israel and Rome, as Jesus carried out traditions associated with both an ancient king, conquering victor, and the Divine all in one procession. 

So Jesus' triumphal entry proclaimed that not only was He the Jewish Messiah and King, He was also the spiritual King of the Gentiles as well.  The Jewish people recognized on Palm Sunday that Jesus was the Messiah.  Yet five days later, those same people chanted for Jesus to be crucified and that His blood would be on them and on their children.  Because the people rejected Jesus as their Messiah, the prophecy in Daniel 9:26 (". . .and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.") would be fulfilled in AD 70 when the Romans (the people of the prince that shall come) destroyed Jerusalem.  

Dear reader, has Jesus made his triumphal entry into your heart?  Is Jesus your Lord and Savior? He died for you on the Cross - all you have to do is repent of your sins and ask Jesus to rule in your heart and life. 

That's all for now. Thanks as always for reading!

Diane

Bibliography:
Chuck Missler, "Daniel's 70 Weeks:  The Precision of  Prophecy,"
https://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/552/
Titus Kennedy, "The Triumphal Entry - Drive Thru History,"
https://drivethruhistoryadventures.com/the-triumphal-entry/

To know or to know about?

That is the question (with apologies to Mr. Shakespeare).  There is a difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone personally.

This also pertains to our relationship with God.  A person may know about God by reading about God or hearing about God from others.  But when a person repents of his or her sin and believes on Jesus as their Savior, they begin a personal relationship with God, which continues through all eternity.

We grow and maintain our relationship with God by reading the Bible, by prayer, and by worshiping God.  We listen to what God has to say to us through His Word. When we fall out of the habit of doing these things, our relationship with God suffers.  We become more worldly and fleshly.  John states in 1 John 2:15 that we should not love the world or the things in the world, or the love of the Father will not be in us. James 4:4 states that if we are friends with the world, we make ourselves an enemy of God. In our relationship with God, He should be first and not us.

The Bible gives examples of persons who had good relationships with God. In Exodus 33:11, it says that the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, like a man does with his friend.  We will not have the opportunity to see Jesus face to face until we get to heaven, but we can speak to Him in prayer like we would speak to our own friends.  David was also a friend of God. Even though he sinned, David prayed to the Lord for forgiveness.  He pleaded that the Holy Spirit not be taken from him,  In Acts 13:22, Paul tells the Jews at Antioch in his discussion about Jesus that David was a man after the Lord's own heart. 

But what happens to those who never repent of their sins and don't have a relationship with God? Or to those who repented of their sins but don't maintain a relationship with God?  In Matthew 7:22-23, Jesus tells those who perform signs and wonders in His name but do not do the will of God that He never knew them and to depart from Him.  I sure don't want to hear Jesus tell me to depart from Him, do you? 

Dear reader, is your relationship with God a strong one?  Do you spend time in God's Word, speak with Him in prayer and spend time worshiping God?  Or has your relationship with God slipped away through the cares and the wiles of this world?  As long as you're still breathing, there's still time to repair your relationship with God.  Go to Him in prayer and ask for forgiveness in letting your relationship with Him slide.  Make every effort to read your Bible daily and study it.  Go to church on Sunday morning to worship the Lord corporately, and worship Him privately as well.

Thanks as always for reading! See you next time!

Diane

Pull that weed

Spring has finally arrived and with that, the urge arises to get outside to clean up the yard from the winter and plant gardens, fertilize the grass, etc. On a friend's Facebook post, Elizabeth, one of my Facebook friends, mentioned using a weed wacker to cut down the weeds. I replied that in order for the weed to not grow back, you need to pull it up out of the ground.

Those of us who maintain our homes' yards know that using a string trimmer to cut down the weeds only takes care of the weeds temporarily.  Either pulling up the weed, root and all, out of the ground or using weed killer and then pulling the weed up out of the ground is the only way that the weed will not grow back.  It can be back-breaking work, for sure, but the results are permanent.

Upon further reflection, I realized that weeds can be a metaphor for sin in our lives.  Like weeds, sin starts as something small. The more we commit the sin, the more it grows, until it finally takes over our lives and our relationships with family and friends, and even our relationship with God, like the weeds take over a garden.

So how can we get rid of sin in our lives?  First, we must recognize that there is sin in our lives, like when we see a weed in the garden and know it doesn't belong there. Once we see the sin, we must repent of it to the Lord.  1 John 1:9 states, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Now that we have repented of our sin/seen the weed, we must get rid of whatever caused us to sin so that we don't sin/it doesn't grow again. In Mark 9:43-45, Jesus speaks metaphorically about getting rid of whatever causes us to sin:  "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched. . . And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.  It is better for you to enter life lame, rather than having two feet, to be cast into hell, into that hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, . . . And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.  It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire." Weeds (the plant variety) can only be eradicated using the methods listed above.

In the movie Fireproof, Kirk Cameron's character is addicted to pornography, which he views over the Internet. After he repents of his sins and turns his life over to God, he realizes he needs to get rid of what causes him to sin.  He takes his computer outside in the back yard and demolishes it with a baseball bat, much to the amusement of his neighbor.

If we are spending too much time on the computer and/or smartphone and it interferes with our relationships, either with people or with God, we need to cut back. If we are viewing pornography, either in print or via the Internet, we need to stop.  If you are unsure about what constitutes sin, read your Bible.

Dear reader, take a look at your life.  Are there weeds/unrepentant sin in your life? If so, repent of your sin in order to have a better relationship with God. 

Thanks as always for reading! See you next time!

Diane

An eternal love

Valentine's Day is celebrated every year with cards, candy, flowers, etc.  After Valentine's Day, love is put on the back burner until the next Valentine's Day.  But there is a love that should be remembered every day.  That love is the love that God has for us as His children.

The apostle John wrote all about God and love in 1 John 4.  In 1 John 4:8, John states that God is love. John writes that since God loves us and love is of God, we should also love one another and if you are born of God (i.e., born again), we know what love is.  God's love is perfected in us when we love others.

God, through the apostle Paul, wrote the book of love (1 Corinthians 13), which answers for all time the question posed by the Monotones in the classic song "Book of Love" ("oh, I wonder, wonder, who, who-oo-ooh who, who wrote the book of love?").  In fact, take 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and substitute the word "God" for the word "love." For example, "God suffers long and is kind (especially to the Israelites - they must have really tested His patience), God does not envy, God does not parade Himself, is not puffed up."

God knew us while we were being formed in our mother's womb, and He loved us even before then (Psalm 139:18).  He loves us so much that He sent His Son into the world to die for us on the Cross, even before we knew or loved God (1 John 4:10).  During Jesus' ministry, He loved people so much that he healed the sick, raised the dead, and forgave their sins.  He showed His Father's love to others and gave His life on the Cross in the ultimate act of love so that our sins would be forgiven.  In 1 John 3:16, John wrote: "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.  And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."  John 15:13 states: "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."

1 Corinthians 13:13 states:  "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."  Love, therefore, is the most important part of our relationship with God and our relationships with other Christians.  So let's remember God's love for us every day and thank Him for His love, and then share the love that God gives us with others.

Thanks for reading! See you next time!

Diane

By the book(s)

Reading is one of my favorite hobbies, and so is writing.  God is an author and as you will see below, He is also a librarian. 

God’s main book, of course, is the Bible.  Divinely inspired and transcribed by men on two separate continents over thousands of years, the Bible gives us instructions in 66 books on how to live according to God’s will: it contains the history of creation and God’s chosen people Israel, Jesus’ life and ministry and the history of the early Church; and it tells us about what will happen in the end times and the final end of all mankind.  Jesus Himself is the Word, and the Word became flesh and walked among mankind.

In the Bible itself, four different kinds of books are mentioned.  The first book is the book of the Law.  This is the two tablets with the Ten Commandments.  You will see the book of the Law referred to in the Old Testament as the Testimony, and you can find the Testimony referred to in many verses in the book of Exodus, especially in the verses that reference the ark.  The Testimony (the tablets of the Ten Commandments) was placed in the ark. The book of the Law is also referred to in Deuteronomy 28:58, Deuteronomy 30:10, Deuteronomy 31:26 and Joshua 1:8. 

The second book is the Book of the Covenant. It contained all of the civil and health laws God gave to Moses in the desert for the people to live by.  The first reference to the Book of the Covenant can be found in Exodus 24:7.  In 2 Kings 23 and 2 Chronicles 34:30, King Josiah read the Book of the Covenant to all the people so that they would live for the Lord once again.  

Every person who has ever lived has a book in God’s library.  Each book contains everything a person ever did, whether good or bad.  The first mention of this book is in Psalms 56:8, where David says, “My tears are in your book.”  In Psalm 139:16, David says that all of his days were written in God's book even before he (David) was born.  Those people who were not resurrected at the first resurrection will be raised at the second resurrection, and at the Great White Throne judgment, everyone's books are opened and they are judged according to what is written in their book. 

The other book mentioned in the Bible is the Book of Life, which is sometimes referred to as the Lamb’s Book of Life (see Revelation 21:27).  The Book of Life contains the names of those who have repented of their sins and trusted in Jesus for their salvation.  The first mention of this book (although indirectly) in the Bible is in Exodus 32:32. Moses goes up on the mountain to ask God to forgive Israel for their sin of worshiping the golden calf but if God wouldn't forgive Israel, then God should blot Moses out of His book.  God replies that anyone who has sinned against Him will be blotted out of His book. Paul refers to the Book of Life in Philippians 4:3. You can find many references to the Book of Life in the book of Revelations.  

If your name is written in the Book of Life, you will live with Jesus for all eternity.  Dear reader, is your name written in the Book of Life? If your name is not written in the Book of Life at the time of the Great White Throne judgment, you will be thrown into the lake of fire to suffer for all eternity (see Revelation 20:15).   If you don't want to spend eternity in the lake of fire, please repent of your sins and put your trust in Jesus for salvation.  Read the Bible, God's main book, and learn about Jesus and about how God wants you to live. 

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to check out this blog's podcast - you can find a podcast player embedded in the upper right-hand corner, and there is a share button, so feel free to share away. 

Diane