#The bible is literally scripture and scripture of good things that are constantly ignored or twisted or used for a biased reason

[yearningaces]

I gotta say, no one prepared you for when you grow up religious and turn out queer.

There's so many people I've talked to who left the church and it correlates with them being queer and I will never say they're wrong

But there's a different kind of grief of still being religious, and wanting to stay in a church, and going to one your family just found and praised and you go and hope for the best and instantly know you'll never be welcomed here if you were yourself.

And then you have to sit and bite your tongue and listen when others like you say they don't go and they've got religious trauma and all you can say is 'I'm so sorry. It's not supposed to be like this, my God isn't like these people but they hurt you and I'm so sorry I don't know why they act this way'

How do you go about that?

[dfroza]

what is the treasure of your heart?

“But this beautiful treasure is contained in us—cracked pots made of earth and clay—so that the transcendent character of this power will be clearly seen as coming from God and not from us.”

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 4th chapter of the Letter of 2nd Corinthians:

Now, it’s because of God’s mercy that we have been entrusted with the privilege of this new covenant ministry. And we will not quit or faint with weariness. We reject every shameful cover-up and refuse to resort to cunning trickery or distorting the Word of God. Instead, we open up our souls to you by presenting the truth to everyone’s conscience in the sight and presence of God. Even if our gospel message is veiled, it is only veiled to those who are perishing, for their minds have been blinded by the god of this age, leaving them in unbelief. Their blindness keeps them from seeing the dayspring light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the divine image of God.

We don’t preach ourselves, but rather the lordship of Jesus Christ, for we are your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said,

“Let brilliant light shine out of darkness,”

is the one who has cascaded his light into us—the brilliant dawning light of the glorious knowledge of God as we gaze into the face of Jesus Christ.

We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that this immeasurable power will be seen as God’s, not ours. Though we experience every kind of pressure, we’re not crushed. At times we don’t know what to do, but quitting is not an option. We are persecuted by others, but God has not forsaken us. We may be knocked down, but not out. We continually share in the death of Jesus in our own bodies so that the resurrection life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. We consider living to mean that we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake so that the life of Jesus will be revealed through our humanity. So, then, death is at work in us but it releases life in you.

We have the same Spirit of faith that is described in the Scriptures when it says,

“First I believed, then I spoke in faith.”

So we also first believe then speak in faith. We do this because we are convinced that he who raised Jesus will raise us up with him, and together we will all be brought into his presence. Yes, all things work for your enrichment so that more of God’s marvelous grace will spread to more and more people, resulting in an even greater increase of praise to God, bringing him even more glory!

So no wonder we don’t give up. For even though our outer person gradually wears out, our inner being is renewed every single day. We view our slight, short-lived troubles in the light of eternity. We see our difficulties as the substance that produces for us an eternal, weighty glory far beyond all comparison, because we don’t focus our attention on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but the unseen realm is eternal.

The Letter of 2nd Corinthians, Chapter 4 (The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 55th chapter of the book (scroll) of Isaiah that reveals God’s words as a living seed:

Eternal One: If you are thirsty, come here;

come, there’s water for all.

Whoever is poor and penniless can still

come and buy the food I sell.

There’s no cost—here, have some food, hearty and delicious,

and beverages, pure and good.

I don’t understand why you spend your money for things that don’t nourish

or work so hard for what leaves you empty.

Attend to Me and eat what is good;

enjoy the richest, most delectable of things.

Listen closely, and come even closer. My words will give life,

for I will make a covenant with you that cannot be broken, a promise

Of My enduring presence and support like I gave to David.

See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander among the nations.

Now you will issue a call to nations from all over the world—

people whom you do not know and who do not know you.

They will come running, because of Me, your God

because the Eternal, the Holy One of Israel, has made you beautiful.

So turn your attention and seek the Eternal One while it is still possible;

call on Him while He is nearby.

Let those who are busy plotting violence and doing wrong

stop right now, turn, and do right.

Let them turn back to the Eternal so they can experience His compassion.

God will excuse our past wrongs. Our God’s forgiveness is inexhaustible.

Eternal One: My intentions are not always yours,

and I do not go about things as you do.

My thoughts and My ways are above and beyond you,

just as heaven is far from your reach here on earth.

For as rain and snow can’t go back once they’ve fallen,

but soak into the ground

And nourish the plants that grow,

providing seed to the farmer and bread for the hungry,

So it is when I declare something.

My word will go out and not return to Me empty,

But it will do what I wanted;

it will accomplish what I determined.

For you will go out in joy, be led home in peace.

And as you go the land itself will break out in cheers;

The mountains and the hills will erupt in song,

and the trees of the field will clap their hands.

Prickly thorns and nasty briers will give way

to luxurious shade trees, sweet and good.

And they’ll remind you of the Eternal One

and how God can be trusted absolutely and forever.

The Book (Scroll) of Isaiah, Chapter 55 (The Voice)

to be accompanied by these lines in The Message:

“So you’ll go out in joy,

you’ll be led into a whole and complete life.

The mountains and hills will lead the parade,

bursting with song.

All the trees of the forest will join the procession,

exuberant with applause.

No more thistles, but giant sequoias,

no more thornbushes, but stately pines—

Monuments to me, to God,

living and lasting evidence of God.”

The Book (Scroll) of Isaiah, Chapter 55:12-13 (The Message)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for monday, August 2 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons about choice:

Our Torah portion this week (i.e., parashat Re’eh) begins, “See (רְאֵה), I give before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing (הַבְּרָכָה), if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and the curse (הַקְּלָלָה), if you ... turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known" (Deut. 11:26-28). We obtain God’s blessing (i.e., berakhah: בְּרָכָה) when we obey the LORD, and our decision to obey manifests the blessed state of walking before the Divine Presence (the direct object marker et (את) before the word “the blessing” alludes to the blessings of “Aleph to Tav,” that is from Yeshua, as described in Lev. 26:3-13). As King David said, “I have set (שִׁוִּיתִי) the LORD always before me...” (Psalm 16:8). David made a choice to “set” the LORD before his eyes, for he understood that opening his eyes to Reality was the only path of real blessing.

On the other hand, we obtain God’s curse (i.e., kelalah: קְלָלָה) when we close our eyes and “forget” that the LORD is always present.... Suppressing God’s truth invariably leads to idolatry, that is, to self exaltation. Note that the root word for the word “curse” (kalal) means to be treated as of little account, and therefore “ratifies” the rebellious heart’s attitude toward God. This is middah keneged middah - we are ignored by the LORD as we ignore Him, just as we are seen by Him when we truly seek His face (Isa. 55:6-7). So we see that the blessing or the curse really comes from our own inward decision, and God establishes the path we have chosen. As King David said, “God supports my lot” (Psalm 16:5), and Solomon wrote, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps” (Prov. 16:9). [Hebrew for Christians]

8.1.21 • Facebook

and another about taking an honest look at ourselves:

The last month of the Jewish calendar (counting from Tishri) is called Elul (אֱלוּל), which begins at sundown on Saturday, August 7th this year. Traditionally, Rosh Chodesh Elul marks the beginning of a forty day “Season of Teshuvah” that culminates on the holiday of Yom Kippur. The month of Elul is therefore a time set aside each year to prepare for the Yamim Nora’im, the “Days of Awe,” by getting our spiritual house in order.

We are all on a spiritual journey, writing the “Book of our Life.” To help us in the “writing” process, the Jewish sages encouraged us to set aside as a season each year for cheshbon hanefesh (חֶשְׁבּוֹן הַנֶּפֶשׁ) - “making an account of the soul.” This means that we engage in honest self-examination about our behavior. After all, what is the essence of teshuvah if it is not honesty with yourself? “For everyone who does wicked things (lit., ὁ φαῦλα, that which is “easy,” “worthless,” or “vain”) hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (John 3:20). Therefore we make some time to reflect about our lives from the previous year. We ask searching questions like, “How did I get to this place in my life?” “Where am I now?” “Am I where I should be?” We engage in this process of self-examination with an aim to grow -- to let go of the pain of the past and move forward. Confession (i.e., homologia: ὁμολογία) means bringing yourself naked before the Divine Light to agree with the truth about who you are. Indeed, the related verb word "homologeo" (ὁμολογέω) literally means “saying the same thing” - from ὁμός (same) and λόγος (word). We need to confess the truth if we are to be free from the pain of the past. When King David wrote, יְהוָה אוֹרִי וְיִשְׁעִי מִמִּי אִירָ֑א - “The LORD is my Light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? (Psalm 27:1), he implied that he should even be free of fear of himself and of his past....

Being honest with ourselves is essential for any sort of authentic spiritual life... “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced” (James Baldwin). "No person is saved except by grace; but there is one sin that makes grace impossible, and that is dishonesty; and there is one thing God must forever and unconditionally require, and that is honesty" (Kierkegaard). Amen. Confession means "saying the same thing" about ourselves that God says - and that means not only acknowledging our various sins, transgressions, and iniquities, but also affirming our beloved place in his heart. Saying that God doesn’t love you is a lie as damning as denying His very existence... [Hebrew for Christians]

8.1.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

August 2, 2021

I Am

“And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:62)

After His arrest, “the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none” (Mark 14:55). Then they got their sought-after witness from Jesus Himself when the high priest asked Him: “Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” (v. 61), and it only took two words from Him. “I Am!”

As a matter of fact, this was not the first time He had thus identified Himself as the self-existent, eternal God. On an earlier occasion in Jerusalem, He had told the Pharisees: “I am the light of the world,” and then, “I am from above:..I am not of this world....If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:12, 23-24; the “he” in verse 24 is not in the Greek original).

He made this especially clear a few minutes later when He asserted: “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). But when He finally made this wonderfully truthful claim in the presence of the council, “they all condemned him to be guilty of death” (Mark 14:64). He had committed the capital crime of blasphemy in their opinion, by claiming to be God.

“I am” is, in fact, the very name of God. When Moses, at the burning bush, was called by God to deliver the Israelites from slavery, God said His name was “I Am That I Am” (Exodus 3:14). The name Jehovah (or Yahweh), the most frequently used name of the Lord in the Old Testament, is essentially this name.

One can count at least 196 “I am” claims of God in Christ (“I am the way, the truth, and the life,” for example—John 14:6) in the Bible. Truly, our Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal, self-existent God, “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Revelation 22:13). HMM

[blogisastrongword]

Thinking For Myself

**I originally published this on Medium here but decided it should also live in this oft-neglected corner of the internet.**

When I was growing up, I didn’t go to church on Sundays. There was a short period of time when I was about 13 or 14 that my parents started taking me and my brother to church on Sundays, and that lasted for about a year, maybe two. When I was younger I would sometimes go with a girlfriend of mine when I stayed over at her house on the weekend, which I thought was a little strange, but at the time I kind of liked going. It was different and I got to dress up, so that was cool. In my freshman year of college, I tried going to church with a group of people I had become friends with (you know the way college freshman never seem to do anything alone?), and that actually stuck for a little while, but I eventually dropped that too after it became what church had always been for me: invasive, exclusive, and judgmental. I didn’t lose a lot of sleep over quitting church altogether. I say all of this to say that I am not a particularly religious person now, nor did I grow up in a super religious home. In fact, though I still believe in God, I am someone who harbors a lot of resentment toward the church and Christianity*.

The thing is, I didn’t grow up going to church on Sundays the way most kids I know did, but I went to church every other day of the week. I went to a small private Christian school, in Texas, from Kindergarten through 12th grade. What does this mean? Well, first of all it means I went to chapel once a week, every week, for the entirety of my education. I had a bible class every single year, and in high school I had two because I was on the worship team and we had our own “worship class” we attended on non-chapel days. It also means things like I wore a uniform to school and graduated in a class of only 62 kids, but those things are less unique than some of the other stuff. One thing I’ve learned in the last few years is that when you tell someone who didn’t go to Christian school that you went to one, they just kind of nod and say “oh, okay.” and that’s it. But if you meet someone who also went to Christian school, congratulations, you have just found someone to talk to for the rest of the night. Suddenly, you’ve found someone who also knows all the words to literally 100 hymns and worship songs, and who also had to memorize passages of scripture for a grade. It’s going to bore the people around you, but the two of you don’t care, you have so much to talk about!

The thing is, other people just don’t really get it. And that’s not me trying to say “I’m so misunderstood!” I’m saying that there’s no way someone outside of the experience could get it because it’s so, well, outside of their experience. But also, I don’t really think to explain it to other people because it was my normal. So when I casually mention something about reading C.S. Lewis in English classes, or the time one of my math teachers spent an entire class period talking about the evils of witchcraft instead of, you know, algebra, I forget that those things didn’t really happen to other kids as much (or…at all). For me, that was an ordinary school day.

When I got to be a certain age, I think part of me knew it was weird, but it was also the only thing I had ever known. I was happy to be in a Christian environment because it was the best place to be — everyone kept saying so. It wasn’t until college that I really started reflecting on it with any kind of perspective, and it took me awhile to recognize that some of the things I had been taught were not only batshit insane, but damaging on a deeper level.

As I got into my 20s, I would sometimes notice the way my religious background influenced my life in not-so-positive ways. It created difficulties for me in my relationships, both romantic and platonic, and in my social life in general, as well the way I thought about and treated myself in my own mind. In the last year-ish, I’ve really started examining this influence, and I’ve discovered a couple of things (which yes, I am talking about with my therapist). There’s so many things I could list and stories I could share that are bizarre, funny, even inappropriate about my christian education, but for now, I’ll list the three things my Christian education did not teach me:

how to think for myself

to trust in myself

to be kind, both to myself and to others

A lot of people I went to school with and definitely a lot of my teachers would probably be shocked and upset to hear me say this, but it’s true. More than that, it’s taken me years to realize it.

Christianity doesn’t teach you to think for yourself because you don’t have to think for yourself; it’s called the Inerrancy of Scripture (seriously, you can google that) and it makes everything super easy. If the Bible says it, it’s true and you believe it, or you go to hell. The end.

You don’t trust yourself because your trust is in God — and in your pastor, or your parents. Usually, in my case, it was in my teachers. They were right and I was wrong if I disagreed. This issue of trust also has a special significance for women, especially young women, because we often receive a rather mixed message from Christianity regarding our worth as human beings. And if you’re constantly questioning your worth, how are you ever supposed to start learning to trust your own mind?

Lastly, and this is the thing I almost didn’t say because I recognize that it is harsh, but Christianity doesn’t teach you how to be kind. You don’t learn to be kind to yourself, a sinner, for whom there is no hope of salvation, or life worth living, without God. And you certainly don’t learn to be kind to others. This was especially true in the place I come from. You know those places you hear about where shout about homosexuality being a sin and an abomination? And about how Muslims will kill us all, and there’s a war on Christmas? Yeah. I went to school there. These are people who preach kindness and do not practice it themselves. And look, I know this is harsh and not totally fair — churches and Christian organizations do a lot of good. They do. But you can’t ignore, or I can’t ignore, the unkindness they have also perpetrated, some of it through me as a young person.

Because guess what? When you’re 13 and it’s your normal, and no one is ever telling you anything different, and the only internet is dial-up that you can only use when your mom doesn’t need the phone? You believe all that shit. People want to believe, kids especially I think, and when you combine that with not being taught how to think for yourself? It’s kind of a perfect storm. I look back on some of the things I believed at 14, 15, 16, and I’m ashamed of that girl. But I’m also trying now to cut her a little slack. Because even now, when my beliefs have changed so drastically for the better, I am still a victim to that system in some ways. A lot of them are subconscious — I don’t even realize where a feeling or attitude formed until I have it pointed out to me (did I mention I’m seeing a therapist?), but I’m making a real effort to examine and reprogram some of those negative influences. Only time will tell, of course, how successful I am and how it affects my eventual relationship to faith and Christianity, but I think it’s going to be a healthy thing for me in the long run.

So that’s what I’m thinking about right now.

Talk to me about religion — I’m weirdly obsessed and I won’t judge you!

*In case it isn’t clear throughout here, I’m speaking specifically about white, southern, evangelical Christianity. I don’t want to type this out every time, but it’s important to note because I do recognize that there is a huge variety of experiences just within Christianity alone. This is mine.

[darinb]

Choices 5- The Dance of Doubt and Fear

Doubt and fear is what I want to wrap up our series on making right and godly choices with. Doubt and fear are something we all face, every one of us, even if we have made the right choice, and that is doubt.

SHALL WE DANCE?

Second guessing the choices we make is commonplace for human beings, and the Bible likens it to dancing. We are not God, so we do not have infinite knowledge, understanding and faith. As a believer, how many times have you made a decision, then felt this nagging doubt creep up on you, questioning whether you made the right choice, whether it is God’s will, and if it is, will He even be faithful to you, and are you even worth it?   Doubt and fear are normal, but it does not make them right, because they are based in fear and unbelief.  We might dress it up and call it different names, but it is doubt and fear just the same.   When you agree to buy something big, like a car or house, then on second thoughts you wonder if it was such a good buy, we call it “buyer’s remorse”. If a bride leaves the groom alone at the altar it is called “getting cold feet”. If we commit to something in church then pull out we call it “I just didn’t feel a peace in my spirit”, but all of these are purely and simply just doubt.   When Peter stepped out of the boat in the storm and walked on the water, and he did well until he stopped, rationalised and looked around and panicked!   Matthew 14:31 (ESV Strong's) Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”   The Greek word Jesus uses here for doubt is “distazo”, which literally means, “to doubt or to mentally waver.”   A similar Hebrew word is used by Elijah to the Israelites when taking in the prophets of Baal...   1 Kings 18:21 (ESV Strong's) And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”   That word limping in Hebrew is “pasah”, which means “to hop, to limp, to waver or to dance.” What a brilliant description of doubt, where we make a decision and then find ourselves dancing between two opinions, hopping from one foot to the other.   We would like our choices to be right, godly, strong and decisive, yet often, despite our best intentions, we find ourselves weak, insipid and flipping between doubt and faith.   So let’s analyse our thought process around the doubt and fear that will assail us after we have actually made a decision…    

DANCE STEPS- THE DOUBT AND FEAR TWO STEP!

  You’ve made a decision, and it’s a good decision. You know it’s right, you know it’s good and you know it’s God, but there’s that nagging doubt. Welcome to the Fear and Doubt and fear Two Step… Shall we dance?   Let me take you through the steps....  

1.      RELIANCE

  You started with reliance. You make a decision, you trust God, you have faith in the God who says He has plans for your life, to prosper you and not to harm you. You make a decision, take a leap of faith and trust God, believing that…   Psalms 27:1 (ESV Strong's) The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?   However, the devil is not happy about your making a positive decision, and so he starts to subtly undermine the process with doubt and fear…  

2.      RESTLESSNESS

  So the decision has been made, but there is a restlessness.   James 1:6 (ESV Strong's) But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.   The Greek word for driven and tossed “rhipizo” which means “to agitate or stir up.” It is used to refer to fanning an ember into a flame, and so the doubts are stirred up like that, like wind whipping up the ocean, starting small but agitating into full blown faithlessness.  

3.      RECONSIDER

  This uneasy, restless feeling causes you to reconsider. Like Peter, you look at your surroundings, at the circumstances, listen to the opinions of others and you begin to reconsider your initial decision…   Matthew 14:30 (ESV Strong's) But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”   How many of us make a decision, then get swayed by circumstances into reconsidering our choice?  

4.      RATIONALISE

  As you reconsider the situation, you start to rationalise. You start to think things through in a different way. One phrase we often use in English for this particular dance step is that we start to “entertain doubts.”   What a curious but revealing phrase. We don’t look at doubt and reject it, we don’t slam the door in doubt’s face, we entertain it. We say, “Come on in, Mr Doubt, have a seat. Can I get you a coffee? Why not stay for dinner? In fact, why not move in?”   Proverbs 3:5 (ESV Strong's) Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.   When we lean on our own understanding instead of trusting God, we rationalise our doubt and fear and excuse them as inspired logic, and then we are not trusting God for that decision.  

5.      RUN

  The next phase is panic… we want to cut and run, run like crazy to get away from impending disaster that our rationalise mind convinces us is imminent.   But the Bible says, in Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything.” Paul tells us,   2 Timothy 1:7 (ESV Strong's) for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (Sound mind)   When you reach the point of panic, you have anything but a sound mind. Panicked people make irrational decisions, and most decisions made in the heat of the moment are bad ones. This leads to the next step...  

6.      REQUESTING HELP

  Like Peter sinking in the waves we cry out, “Lord, save me!” In our panic, in our fear, in our entertained doubts, we look for salvation. We search for a way out, and if we are wise, we turn to the Lord again… and He says…   Isaiah 41:10 (ESV Strong's) fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  

GOD CAN DEAL WITH YOUR DOUBT AND FEAR

  God is big enough to deal with your doubts… of that there is no doubt! He doesn’t want pretence and bravado from you, He wants honesty. If you make a decision and you doubt, don’t try and hide as many Christians do behind the bravado of false hyper-faith… where we never face our fears and doubts, we just positively confess them away. People who do this often have little faith despite their brave and sometime foolish positive confession. If you are trying to convince yourself to have faith, your faith is not in the immutable, infallible and incredibly powerful God we serve, but in yourself. That’s not real faith, folks, and trying to muster it doesn’t work long term.   When I think of faith and doubt I always consider Abraham…   Abraham is described as the Father of Faith. When God told him he would have a son, he didn’t stick his head in the sand and positively confess. No, the Bible says he looked at the facts, he recognised the impossibility, but because God had told him…   Romans 4:20-21 (ESV Strong's) No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.   He didn’t waver, he refused to dance with the devil, he looked at the facts and recognised that his body was as good as dead at 100 years old.  He was rational, he was logical, he stared Doubt straight in the face, but then he said, despite all this, “My God is bigger than you!”   Don’t ignore or gloss over your doubts. Don’t try and fake or muster enough faith in yourself… look to Jesus, feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death!   Let’s look at someone else you struggled with their faith…  

GIDEON WAS FEELING GIDDY

  Gideon is another great hero of faith as a warrior and a judge in Israel. He is often held up as a model of decision making, but he is not at all! He’s actually an example of God loving us through our doubts and fears. Gideon was one of those guys who danced between faith and doubt constantly.   Some Christians try to determine God’s will by “throwing fleeces” as Gideon did in Judges 6. You might remember that Gideon was visited by an angel and he was threshing wheat in a cistern, for fear of the oppressive Midianite regime. The angel then called him mighty man of God, but he replied that he was the least in his tribe, which was the least tribe in Israel. Clearly this guy had doubts and very little faith!   Then came the fleece throwing thing…   Judges 6:37 (ESV Strong's) behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.”   This happened, but he still was not sure. So he laid a second fleece…   Judges 6:39 (ESV Strong's) Then Gideon said to God, “Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.”   He was testing and testing God, but God knew his doubts and loved him enough to allay his fears.   Some Christians say, “If X happens, then I’ll do one thing; but if Y happens, then I’ll do another.” This is a terrible way to make decisions and is little different from heads or tails! It’s spiritual two up!  In most cases, putting out a fleece demonstrates not a robust faith in God, or a willingness to truly know and obey His will, but an unhealthy suspicion that God does not have our best interests at heart and He really can’t be trusted to fulfil His promises.  

GIDEON WAS FLEECED!

  God recognised that Gideon was a man of doubt and fear, but God loves him enough to tolerate the fleece throwing situation not once but twice. God did it to allow his faith build for the future.   Note this:  

This is the only place in Scripture where this method is used

Fleece throwing was Gideon’s idea, not God’s! Nowhere in the Bible does God authorise this practice or recommend it for knowing His will.

Gideon knew God’s will at the start… he had had an angelic visit and a direct Word from God. He was not trying to make a decision, he was doubting God, and he did this twice to gain confidence for the battle ahead. He needed an extraordinary sign to build his faith.

  I’m sure God would have preferred Gideon to have faith like Job, who despite all the circumstances going against him, he trusted the Lord with a strong and deep faith, a faith that said,   Job 13:15 (ESV Strong's) Though he slay me, I will hope in him;  

HOW DO WE STOP THE DANCE?

  I know many of you have made deep and life-changing decisions in this series of messages. But I also know that many of you have doubts, second thoughts and cold feet about the decisions you’ve made. Today is the day you stop the dance of doubt and fear and make 100% sure of your choices and decisions.   You might have decided to become a Christian but then that voice whispers in your head, “You’re not good enough for that. God doesn’t want people like you.” Don’t listen to that voice, and don’t doubt, because God’s Word says,   John 5:24 (ESV Strong's) Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.   You might have made a big decision to get rid of a bad habit, or to make a positive change in your life. You might have made. Life changing choice but are doubting whether you can stick to it. We are here to love and support you, and together make that great decision stick for eternity!   You might have decided to come here to check out this church. You like what you see, but there’s that nagging doubt in your head. You might feel guilty that you want to leave another church. You may feel fearful because you don’t know where you can fit in.  Let me allay your doubt and fear…   Ignite Church is called to be a safe haven, a spiritual home where my desire as a pastor and the desire of our ministry teams is to see you become everything you could possibly be in the Lord. My heart is to train and equip and then release you to become a mighty man or woman of God. I won’t force you to do things you don’t want to do, but as God loved Gideon and gently helped him into faith and belief, so our commitment here is not to condemn you but to love and build your faith too.   So let me finish with ways can you deal with the dance of doubt and fear and stop second guessing decisions?  

1.      BE SURE OF YOUR DECISION IN THE FIRST PLACE

  Making the right choice, God’s choice for your life, is not always easy. As we’ve discussed previously, there are several tools you can employ as checks and balances  to make sure you are choosing correctly…  

1.      CIRCUMSTANCES

  Psalms 25:4 (ESV Strong's) Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.   Sometimes circumstances open up and just show you God’s will in a choice, revealing the obvious and logical pathway to doing it. Sometimes God’s ways are obvious, but beware because this method is often not reliable. Just because it looks good, doesn’t mean it is necessarily God!  

2.      THE STILL, SMALL VOICE

  We talked about the voices in your head a few weeks ago (check the app). Many time you can hear God’s voice if you know what He sounds like. I’m going to do a series coming up on hearing God’s voice, and Fiona has a course starting in July on hearing God’s voice.   Isaiah 30:21 (NIV-WS) Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”  

3.      GODLY COUNSEL

  When facing a decision, getting good advice and counsel from godly people can give you real insight. Not your mates at the pub or your Facebook friends, people at church you respect. I make all decisions in Ignite church consulting not one but many team members and leaders…   Proverbs 11:14 (ESV Strong's) Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counsellors there is safety.  

4.      SUPERNATURAL

  Sometimes, albeit rarely, God will lead you supernaturally, with a dream, a vision or an prophetic word. Never rely on this method alone, it is fraught with danger. Gideon met and angel, Pete saw a vision and prophets throughout the Bible spoke God’s words…   Haggai 1:12 (ESV Strong's) … all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord.   In our church, prophetic words are common, and much of the prayer at the front is prophetic, but these words should reinforce what God is saying, not be the only source of guidance!  

5.      GOD’S WORD

  For me, the ultimate voice of God in my life is His Word. God will never contradict His written Word, and as I spend time with Him each day His Word comes alive, leading, guiding and lighting my path...   Psalms 119:105 (ESV Strong's) Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.   So use a combination of those methods we’ve discussed to be absolutely sure of God’s direction when you make a choice or decision, especially a big one like changing jobs, Church or residency.  

2.      BE HONEST ABOUT YOUR DOUBTS

  Some Christians are always trying to generate faith. I’m sick of Christians faking faith trying to generate enough faith to get what they want. Listen, if your will lines up with God’s will, faith is a lot easier. God’s not here to give you what you want. He is not your personal genie in a bottle. When you align yourself with Him, you don’t have to try to fake it, because you know that you know that you know God’s will in your choices. Seek first His Kingdom, and guess what happens!   God is not fooled by your false bravado! We all experience doubt, so please be honest, be open, and just as God loved Gideon, Thomas and others through their doubt and fear into faith, He will love you too!   Think of the father whose child was demon possessed…   Mark 9:24 (ESV Strong's) Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”   This is a classic statement of the paradox Christians face in making godly choices… they believe, but still struggle with unbelief. They trust, but still can’t seem to trust enough. This desperate father wanted to believe, his heart said yes but his head said no! He was dancing with doubt and fear.   And some of you here are just like that. Heart says yes, but head says no. You’ve come to this church thinking your dreams are dead, they’ve gone, they’re finished. You can feel God awakening those dreams, you can sense that something is stirring, you even begin to believe and make the choice to follow God into what He has for you. But then you doubt, you second guess yourself, your heart cries yes but your head tries to logic you out of it! You believe, but cry “Help my unbelief!”  

3.      ANSWER YOUR DOUBTS WITH FAITH

  Doubt knocked at the door. Faith answered. There was no one there! The answer to the dance of doubt, the second guesses, the fake hyper-faith and cerebral logic, is to build your holy faith…   Jude 1:20 (ESV Strong's) But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,   Praying in the Holy Spirit builds your faith, that’s why God gave us that gift. Reading God’s Word, studying it and memorising it, build your faith, that’s why God gave us His Word.   Faith is directly dependent on how well you know somebody. If you don't know someone, doubt and fear arise.   If Fiona asks me for $100, there’s no problem. I know her, I know she won’t blow it on alcohol or drugs. However, if some random guy in the street asks me for $100, the answer is “no way!” If I don’t know him, I can’t trust him. You get to know God and rely up and trust God by reading His Word and praying. When you know Him, your trust deepens and you stop second guessing!   Psalms 37:4-6 (ESV Strong's) Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.   Today I want to pray for those struggling with doubt and fear. Today, faith will answer the door, and there will be no doubt there. No doubt, no fear, no second guessing, no anxiousness.   If you, like me, make decisions and then second guess yourself, if you decide then doubt, the Lord is calling you to respond today. Don’t stand there arguing with Him, if He is challenging you come forward and we will pray that doubt, fear and second guesses with be replaced by genuine, God centred, powerful, life-transforming faith. Look out mountains, you’re about to be moved!

https://ignitechurch.org.au/choices-5-the-dance-of-doubt-and-fear/

[thesocialrevolutionnaire]

Cognitive Dissonance, Irrationality and the Obstruction of Knowledge & Truth

Something I feel that religious people in particular, (especially fundamentalists) need to be aware of, is this thing called cognitive dissonance (a term coined by the American social psychologist Leon Festinger). It’s an incredibly uncomfortable feeling of psychological stress, caused by the upholding of two or more conflicting beliefs, ideals and/or values simultaneously. It typically occurs when one is presented with new information that directly contradicts with what they already deem to be true. I know this because I’ve personally experienced it myself (even now still to this day) back when I was going to church and actively practicing (there’s a reason why it’s called ‘practicing’) my faith in the Christian god of the holy bible. But it was actually one of the things that encouraged me to get to a place of self-reflection and critical thinking. Without it, I would most likely still be as lost as I was then; but then again perhaps not actually, come to think of it. I would probably be amongst the rest of the religious community going about my life in ignorance to the truth, and completely void of any kind of logic or reasoning. And the most retarded thing, is that I’d no doubt be happier and more carefree for it too. See I constantly fell into the trap that I feel every religious person falls victim to; the pursuit of happiness and comfortability over the much more noble, significant and seemingly never-ending search for knowledge and truth. But don’t get me wrong, I can understand why people do this. The prospect of having to navigate, for the most part alone, through an existence as complex and fragile (and at times just downright bizarre and confusing) as ours, is really quite daunting. Now allow me to quote some scripture for the purposes of providing some context to my argument:

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

What we have here is an attempt at trying to assert that seeking god resembles a path that is narrow and hard to tread, but if you’ve ever met a Christian; better yet, if you’ve ever been a Christian; better still, if you in fact are a Christian, then it’s much more inferential that the opposite applies, that is in terms of difficulty. But the path can remain narrow due to the limited and restrictive nature of having to conform to the systems of belief inherent within all religious pursuits.

Now I’m not here to spout snobbish remarks as some of you may be thinking right now (rather it’s the ones that spout rhetoric, double-talk and religious propaganda that you need to worry about) I genuinely feel that it’s my duty or purpose to speak out against irrationality, and to explore and identify precisely what it is that causes us to feel so lost and powerless – to the point that we just throw our hands up (quite literally in some cases, depending on which denomination tickles your fancy) turn to an imaginary friend, and then proceed to give ourselves up, rendering us even more helpless, lest our illusive and sometimes even malefic (once again depending on which god you think is bigger and better) shows us mercy and grants us an eternal life that I believe well and truly exists outside of this seemingly physical (it isn’t, as quantum mechanics has been quietly discovering bit by bit over the years since its inception) plane of existence. Whew! That was a mouthful!

Based on the information I have presented here, I can deduce that the very source of doubt and uncertainty we struggle with in regards towards the beliefs and faith we may have in god, can be attributed to cognitive dissonance. It’s one of the things that I feel woke me up to the realisation that god does not exist; only human thought and inspiration, as these are obviously extremely powerful things in the universe. They shape our perceptions of the very fabric of reality and our existence – a perfect example of this being Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave‘. Hell, even just watch ‘The Truman Show‘ or ‘The Matrix‘, as the themes explored in these films are similar in nature to those represented in Plato’s (and even other philosophers’) attempts to explain the nature of reality; and it might also be easier to comprehend it that way solely due to the fact that the format is easier to consume. Plus they are also both great films in their own rights, so enjoy; and good luck to you in your (hopefully) new-found pursuit of knowledge and truth!

[dailyaudiobible]

04/28/2017 DAB Transcript

Judges 8:18-9:21 ~ Luke 23:44-24:12 ~ Psalm 99:1-9 ~ Proverbs 14:9-10

Today is April 18th.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I'm Brian and it's good to be here with you today, next step forward, kind of turning the corner toward the end of the week and we’ve been reading about this judge named Gideon in our Old Testament reading and we’ll pick up with his story today; Judges chapter 8, verse 18 through 9:21, and we’re reading from The Voice this week.

Commentary

Let's just do a really quick recap of where we’ve been in the Old Testament. It gets so easy to get disconnected from the story and then kind of feel lost.  

So we get into Judges and hear of these people that rise up to lead God's people for a period of time, usually their lifetime, but it kind of feels like they are popping up here and there and we’re kind of lost to the connection.   Let's just quick go back and remember this guy Abram.  

Remember this guy Abram, way a long time ago, right after the New Year? Abram, who comes into a land that he didn’t know, following a God that he had just met?  Everything started there.  Abram becomes Abraham.  He has a child of promise named Isaac.  Isaac has a son named Jacob and I know I'm skipping some pieces, but he has a son named Jacob whose name becomes Israel and his children, Jacob's children literally are the children of Israel because Jacob's name is Israel.  One of those children’s name is Joseph who ends up getting trafficked as a slave into Egypt.  We followed that entire story and that is how the children of Israel got to Egypt.  

Then God raised up Moses 400 years later to free this massive people from slavery in Egypt.  Then we wandered around for 40 years.  Then Moses died.  Joshua became the leader of this people, the children of Israel, and they crossed the Jordan into the promised land.  Everything was well and good.  The land was granted out and divided up among the tribes during Joshua's life.  And then Joshua died, but those who were contemporary with Joshua kept everything moving in the right direction.  But then everyone died.  Everyone who had ever been in the wilderness wandering around, everyone who had been that first generation in the promised land, they are gone. So the people don’t have a leader. That is where these judges come in.

It was a time where there wasn’t a central figure, a Joshua, a Moses. Everybody was just kind of doing what they thought was right and it didn’t take long before the mixture began and people began to worship the God's of the Canaanites or the Hittites or the Amorites.  These people that are around, they began to fall in love and mix in other religious customs and it all kind of became this leaderless group of people.  This is where the judges come in.  

Every time we come to a judge, we’re moving another generation or two later in time, so we can go through the book of Judges not realizing that we’re moving through generations of people.  Every time we come to a new judge, this is a different generation of people, and so we’re getting further and further removed from Joshua, from Moses, and we’re seeing what is happening to the people over time, over the generations.

So we get to somebody like Gideon and we’re several generations removed and the people have been in the land for a while.  Everybody who is there has grown up there.  It is all they have ever known.  And then we hear the echoes of Moses’ warnings:  “When you get there and everything is all good and you are at peace, that is where your real battle is going to be.  That is when the seduction of the false gods that you will find yourselves worshipping, that is when that is going to challenge you.”  And that is exactly what we’re seeing.  

In the Gideon story we sort of see the texture of what is going on, regional power struggles for leadership and all of this.  Gideon frees the people and actually rallies the people together in a unified mission and they want him to lead, but he doesn’t want to be their leader.  But they do revere him and he's kind of the unspoken leader, but he dies.  Forty years later he dies.  But he has a lot of kids.  Seventy kids is a lot of kids, a LOT of kids, but one of them, Abimelech, kills all of his brothers in order to become leader, in order to use the family name to gain power and we see that the people just begin to slide backward until God brings up a new leader.

There is like this forward movement and then this retreat, this forward and retreat, this ebb and flow, this back and forth that is going on that so deeply resembles our own stories.  God shows up, gives leadership, brings rescue, everything returns to normal, the slide backwards begins.  We find that we’re not so different than these people of so long ago, not in our hearts. I think that is one of the most beautiful things about reading the Bible.  It's retelling the story of life on earth.  It's retelling our story.  We find in the motivations of the people that we’re reading about the same things going on in our own lives.  And then the Bible becomes less of a religious book and one of humanity and over and over and over again we get to see where the roads lead, which allows us to choose what road we’re going to walk on.  

Then, of course, in Luke's gospel we see where that road led Jesus and we see where that road led these same people.  This story of Gideon that we’re reading, many, many, many, many, many generations later it's these same people calling for Jesus’ execution, which we witnessed today from Luke's gospel.  And we’re reminded once again that God will not surrender his people to the darkness. He will not stop coming for us. He has always come for us and Jesus is the greatest rescue of the human race ever, the only one needed.  And thank God.  

Prayer

Father, as we find our life in the stories in the scriptures and as we find the great rescue in your story, Jesus, we’re once again in awe.  Your word speaks truth into our lives and then we can listen or we can ignore, but your word is kind enough to show us where either one of those places will lead us.  So we choose to follow you and invite your Holy Spirit.  Lead us into all truth.  This is the promise and we believe this because it has been true in our lives.  You lead into truth and that is what we want.  You lead on the narrow path that leads to life.  So come, Holy Spirit, we pray in the mighty name of Jesus that you would do exactly that, lead us into all truth, lead us on the narrow path that leads to life.  We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website.  It's home base.  It's where you find out what is going on around here, so check it out.  Check out the resources that are available in the Shop. Check out the Prayer Wall.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com.  There is a link right on the home page.  Thank you. Thank you profoundly.  If you're using the Daily Audio Bible App, you can press the More button in the lower right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today.  I'm Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hi Dabbers.  This is Victoria S. from Maryland and I'm calling in because I heard a message from Annette A.  And Annette, when I hear your voice, it always brings a smile on my face, even when you and Biola were reporting live from the More Conference, that just brought such a big smile to my face.  And I heard your prayer request and I heard your challenge about your son, Alex, and you made one important statement, that God had told you that he had plans for your son.  So regardless of what is going on right now, stay focused on the promise that God has told you and not the process.  Stay focused on the promise and not the process and what it comes to.  I’ll stand in agreement with you, praying and praying for your son as he is going through this little setback.  Be blessed and be encouraged, Annette.  And remember, we win.  

Good day Daily Audio Bible family.  I feel a little funny constantly calling all the time, but prayer is all that I know and all that I know to do and I think that is a good thing.  I'm going to push.  I'm going to pray until something happens.  I'm lifting up pastors.  That is where my heart is right now.  And pastor's wives.  I'm praying for you, praying for your finances.  Pastors make so many financial sacrifices.  My husband and my credit is just messed up because we had to take a lot of our own personal finances to put it back into the ministry.  We came second.  So I'm praying for your finances.  I'm praying for pastors who are pulled by God's heart to do his will, but you sometimes are alone.  I'm praying for you.  I'm lifting you up.  I'm praying for your wives, the struggle sometimes to make ends meet.  I’ve been there, not having enough food sometimes. So I'm just lifting up pastors. And I want you to please remember Pastor Gary in your prayers, that God will deliver him and set him free.  Have a wonderful day everyone.  God bless.  Bye.  

Good morning family.  This is Rachel in Houston and my heart is troubled today.  I'm behind on the Community Prayers.  I’ve been listening to them and there is just so much turmoil in marriages across our family.  It just breaks my heart.  I’ve been really praying about marriages.  I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who is actually going through a divorce and she said something and it has been on my heart and it keeps coming back and keeps coming back and I just feel like the Holy Spirit is telling me that there is somebody out here that needs to hear what she said.  I probably won't say it exactly the way she said it, but basically she said we have to forgive ourselves because Jesus would never condemn us for getting out of something that he never put us in in the first place.  I don’t know who that is for, but just know that your spirit can be renewed and the troubles in your marriage, you can overcome those as long as you follow according to what Jesus wanted you to do, what God's plan was for you.  So thirst for his will and everything else will come into play.  I don’t know who that is for, but I hope that helps someone.  And I also wanted to give a shout-out to Jeff who is doing the trek across Spain.  Our uncle…

Hi, this is Debbie from Sarasota.  I was just at the More Gathering Conference which was just a blessing to be there.  I'm calling for Matt.  I heard that your brother and his wife are pregnant and that their baby may have some complications.  Well, I'm going to pray for this baby as well as I would like everyone to pray for my daughter's baby.  She will be due in two months.  Her baby was just diagnosed with cystic hygroma and they actually told her to have an abortion, but we did not do that.  So for Matt's future niece or nephew and for my granddaughter, complete healing and a miracle for our babies.  And I know that there are a lot of women in there that have sons in jail as well as I do. I'm praying for you all and I'm praying for our sons.  God bless everyone.  Have a miracle day.  

Hello Daily Audio Bible family.  It's April 26th.  This is Stanley from Maryland.  This is a specific call for Jeff from Virginia Tech.  You prayed for the boldness and the wisdom to know how to effect change at your campus.  Let me just say to you, brother, man, that is a very honorable, noble challenge, but we have a God who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we ask or think and so I wanted to share with you, man, a prayer and I wanted to share with you these lyrics from Rend Collective and the name of the song is called Build Your Kingdom Here, so I'm just going to quote to you the chorus and I'm going to be done.  It says build your kingdom here.  Let the darkness fear.  Show your mighty hand.  Heal our streets and land.  Set your church on fire.  Win this nation back.  Change the atmosphere.  Build your kingdom here we pray.  So I’ve been listening to this song for the past week and it has just blessed me so much and I pray this prayer and these lyrics for you and to know that God wants to build his kingdom and that if you constantly ask him and pray to him and seek him and trust in him, he will show you the pathway to go.  Amen.  Have a great rest of your day, man.  Bye.  

Hello Dabbers.  This is the first time I’ve called in and I’ve been listening since the start of this year. I find it really difficult to call in and kept putting it off because I thought I was being selfish and that I could call in later.  So anyone else who is considering calling in, it is so much better to tell yourself to call in now because otherwise it will never get done.  Today I have a prayer request for my dad and granddad who aren’t Christian and don’t know God yet.  I know God has the power to do anything, but I still doubt him sometimes.  By listening to the DAB, I have learned how praying to God is so powerful because it is God's power and love and it would be amazing if we could be united in faith and prayer to ask God to bring any non-Christian family members to God including my granddad whose called Frank and my dad who is called Trevor.  Thank you everybody for being encouraging and encouraging each other to grow in faith and hope.  Thank you. Bye,

[pamphletstoinspire]

Psalm 26 - Interpreted

Daily Plenary Indulgence

Per Vatican II, one of the ways to gain a daily plenary indulgence is to read Scripture for ½ hour per day. For Pamphlets to Inspire (PTI), the Scripture readings that inspire us the most are the Psalms. Reading the Psalms and understanding their meaning can sometimes be challenging. In an attempt to draw more individuals to not only read the Psalms, but to understand their meaning, PTI has found an analysis of their meaning by St. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. The method that will be employed is to list the chapter and verse, and then provide an explanation of that verse. Your interest in this subject will determine how often we will chat about this topic. The Bible that will be used is the official Bible of the Catholic Church and used by the Vatican, that is, the Douay-Rheims or Latin Vulgate version.

David’s faith and hope in God.

1. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

1. “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” Tribulation brings on darkness, prosperity brings light and serenity; for tribulation confuses and confounds the soul, so that it cannot easily see how it ought to act, and thence is provoked to impatience, or to some other sin. But should God, by his divine light, dispel the darkness, the soul at once sees that the tribulation, which in the darkness of the night brought such horrors with it, was temporary and trifling; and sees, at the same time, that tribulation, when God protects us, can not only do us no harm, but even tends marvelously to our good. David, having learned this by experience, exclaims, therefore, for himself, and in the person of all the elect, “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?” In other words, ignorance and infirmity made me timid in my tribulation, but once the Lord “enlightened” my mind, he made me clearly see that no temporal calamity can be grievous or continuous, and healed my soul with the ointment of divine love. “I fear no one,” for truth expels darkness, and “perfect charity casteth out fear,” 1 John 4. “The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” another reason why he should no longer fear. The Lord not only is “my light and my salvation,” he will not desert me when enlightened and saved, but will constantly protect me with the shield of his providence and benevolence. “Of whom shall I be afraid,” then? “If God be for us, who is against us?” If a king, with a powerful armed escort, has no reason to fear, why should a servant of God, protected by his powerful and immortal master, have any fear about him? “Protected by the sign of the cross, instead of shield and helmet, I will securely penetrate the ranks of the enemy,” says Saint Martin; for he was one of those who could confidently say, “The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”

2. Whilst the wicked draw near against me, to eat my flesh. My enemies that trouble me, have themselves been weakened, and have fallen.

2. “Whilst the wicked draw near against me, to eat my flesh. My enemies that trouble me, have themselves been weakened, and have fallen.” He describes the effects of God’s protection, and, as is usual with the prophets, makes use of the past for the future tense, to show the certainty of the matter. The meaning is: God will so protect me, that when they who wish me harm, “shall draw near against me,” like dogs or lions, “seeking to eat my flesh,” “these enemies that so trouble me” will become “so weak” and “so fallen” by their efforts, that, instead of harming me, they will only damage themselves. That such is the case is clear from the example, not only of David himself, but of Christ, and the martyrs, and of all the saints.

3. If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear. If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident.

3. “If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear. If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident.” To show what unbounded confidence he has in God, he now says that he not only despises his enemies individually, but that he even fears not “armies in camp” of his enemies, and not only so encamped but even in actual battle.

4. One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord and may visit his temple.

4. “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit his temple.” This “one thing,” so asked, is thought by some to mean the house where the Ark of the Covenant lay; who will have it that he asks to return from exile, that he may be near the Ark. I prefer the opinion of Saint Augustine, who understands it of heaven, which seems to be not only the true, but even the literal meaning. For David does not ask to dwell near “the house of the Lord,” but “in the house of the Lord;” and it is well known that David never lived in the house of the Lord, but in his own palace, which was a good distance from the tabernacle, more so before the tabernacle was brought to Mount Sion; and he could, had he chosen it, when he was king, have lived as near as he pleased to the tabernacle. Along with that, this verse is a counterpart of one in Psalm 83, “blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord; they shall praise thee forever and ever;” a phrase that can only be applied to those that dwell in God’s house in heaven. Finally, David, holy and perfect as he was, would never have so ardently desired or asked for any temporal favor in such terms as, “one thing I have asked of the Lord,” as if nothing else was to be asked. The Prophet then, in this passage, tells us what is the real foundation of his confidence in God, and why he fears no temporal calamity. The foundation is a fervent love of God, for he that fervently loves the supreme and everlasting good, sets no value whatever on the things of this world. “One thing I have asked of the Lord; this I will seek after.” I ask for nothing temporal; I care not for the loss of the whole world, provided I be found worthy of possessing one thing; for that one thing alone do I care; that one thing alone have I asked; that one thing alone will I ask; namely, “to dwell in the house of the Lord;” not for a while, but, “For all the days of my life;” that is, during the life of the saints with God, which will certainly have no termination. Observe the point in the words, “That I may dwell in the house of the Lord;” for while here on earth we are the children, as well as the friends of God; however, we do not dwell with, but rather walk with God; nor do we rest in his house, but in his tent. “That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit his temple.” He tells us why he longs to dwell in the house of the Lord, because there perfect happiness reigns. For there is to be seen the beauty of God’s house and of the heavenly host; where nothing profane can enter, but where there is a daily sacrifice of jubilation and praise.

5. For he hath hidden me in his tabernacle: in the day of evils, he hath protected me in the secret place of his tabernacle.

5. “For he hath hidden me in his tabernacle: in the day of evils, he hath protected me in the secret place of his tabernacle.” He assigns a reason for having so boldly asked for a place in the house of the Lord, and a sight of his beauty; because he had already got a taste of his sweetness, and a pledge of his love: as if he briefly said: Having received the grace, I dare to ask for the glory: The whole is metaphorical; for, correctly speaking, David was not “hid in the tabernacle” of the Lord, when Saul was in pursuit of him; but the whole passage means, in the evil days of the present time God has defended and protected me as effectually as if he had placed and hidden me in the inmost recesses of his tabernacle, and from such condescension on God’s part, I confidently hope that I will one day arrive at his house, “The one thing I have asked;” the one thing “I will seek after.” The second part of the verse is, in other words, a repetition of the first.

6. He hath exalted me upon a rock: and now he hath lifted up my head above my enemies. I have gone round, and have offered up in his tabernacle a sacrifice of jubilation: I will sing, and recite a psalm to the Lord.

6. “He hath exalted me upon a rock: and now he hath lifted up my head above my enemies, I have gone round, and have offered up in his tabernacle a sacrifice of jubilation: I will sing, and recite a psalm to the Lord.” By another metaphor he conveys the same idea; namely, that he was so defended and protected by God’s providence as if he were in a lofty and well fortified tower, Isais uses the same metaphor when he says, 33:16, “He shall dwell on high; the fortifications of rocks shall be his highness.” The meaning then is: “He hath exalted me upon a rock;” placed me in an elevated, fortified position, and hence, “My head is lifted up above my enemies;” I have subdued and vanquished them all. Thus is described not only the protection and defense of the just, who cannot possibly be injured by any machinations of the enemy, according to 1 Peter 3, “And who is he that can hurt you, if you be zealous of good?” but even we are told how the just arrived at such security; namely, by elevating the mind in contemplation to God and to eternity. For he that seriously meditates on eternity, and has an ardent love for God, is placed on a very lofty and well fortified tower, so that nothing can harm him, all earthly things having now become so vile in his sight. “I have gone round.” The Prophet having spoken of contemplation, is himself now wrapped in it; is raised up above everything earthly, and breaks out in admiration of God’s works, and of the Almighty producer of them. “I have gone round.” I have taken a mental survey of God’s works in heaven and on earth; “And have offered up in his tabernacle a sacrifice of jubilation;” in this great tabernacle of God, the heavens, which I have ascended in spirit; in a loud voice, proceeding from intense admiration, I have offered my tribute of praise to God, the most agreeable sacrifice I could possibly offer him, as we read in another Psalm, “Offer to God the sacrifice of praise;” and, in the same Psalm, “The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me,” a thing I have not only already done, but will do daily, for “I will sing and recite a psalm to the Lord.”

7. Hear, O Lord, my voice, with which I have cried to thee; have mercy on me, and hear me.

7. “Hear, O Lord, my voice, with which I have cried to thee: have mercy on me, and hear me.” He reverts to “One thing I have asked of the Lord,” which one petition he asks may be granted, burning as he is with a vehement desire of beholding his beloved. “Hear, O Lord, my voice with which I have cried to thee;” namely, when I asked for the “One thing.” “Have mercy on me,” suffering as I am in my exile, “and hear me.”

8. My heart hath said to thee: My face hath sought thee: thy face, O Lord, will I still seek.

8. “My heart hath said to thee: my face hath sought thee: thy face, O Lord, will I still seek.” No explanation given.

9. Turn not away thy face from me: decline not in thy wrath from thy servant. Be thou my helper, forsake me not; Do not thou despise me, O God my Savior.

9. “Turn not away thy face from me: decline not in thy wrath from thy servant. Be thou my helper, forsake me not; do not thou despise me, O God my Savior.” These verses require more to be reflected on and put into practice than to be explained. “My heart hath said to thee.” My desires have spoken to thee. “My face hath sought thee.” My interior eyes, fixed in the face of my soul, look for thy beauty— despise everything else. “Thy face, O Lord, will I still seek.” It shall be always my study to look for a sight of thee, in the hope not only of seeing thee face to face in the world to come; but that also, in this world, too, I may study one thing only, to catch your looks, and through them to be enlightened and inflamed. “Turn not away thy face from me.” Keep your eyes constantly on me, for fear my light may grow dark, and my charity grow cold. “Decline not in thy wrath from thy servant.” Allow me not to fall into sin, for fear you may desert me in your anger. Saint Augustine justly observes that the fear alluded to here is not servile, but holy fear. Servile fear wishes for the master’s absence, to be able to offend with impunity, and, therefore, would not make use of the expression, “Decline not,” but would rather say, Go away, and decline; but holy fear, that truly loves the beloved, fears nothing more than his departure. “Be thou my helper.” Having asked God” not to decline in his wrath from his servant,” and that from a consideration of the impossibility of his avoiding, by his own strength, the sins that provoke the anger of God, he cries out to him to continue helping him. The just man, then, asks God’s help to avoid sin; but should he unfortunately fall, he begs he may not be discarded entirely, but that he may, in mercy, be pardoned and cured; and he, therefore, adds, “O God, my Savior;” for a Savior’s duty is to heal and to cure, instead of rejecting and despising the unfortunate.

10. For my father and my mother have left me: but the Lord hath taken me up.

10. “For my father and my mother have left me: but the Lord hath taken me up.” A very urgent reason assigned for God’s assisting him, there being none that loves us so ardently. Observe the third person used for the second in the end of the verse; instead of saying, Thou hast taken me up, he says, “The Lord hath taken me up,” and that through reverence for God. A similar change of person occurs in Genesis, where Rachel says to her father, “Let not my Lord be angry at my not being able to rise before you;” and, in Kings, Nathan says to David, “Has this word gone out from my Lord the king?” The expression, then, “The Lord hath taken me up,” is the same as, You, O Lord, have taken me up. These words beautifully express the goodness of God, for David was then no child to feel the want of parents; nor could it have been any great loss to him to be without his parents, who then would rather have been a burden than a loss to him; the meaning, then, is: I am like a newborn babe, deserted, abandoned by its natural parents, and thus exposed in all manner of danger; but when so cast away and deserted, you, O Lord, have, in the excess of your goodness, taken me up, fostered, nourished, and cherished me. And, in fact, any one that will only reflect on the frailty of human nature, the power of our invisible enemies, and how much we need the grace of God in all our actions, will not deny that we are, with the greatest justice, compared to infants exposed and abandoned by their parents. So convinced was Ezechias, the prophet, of his infirmity in this respect, that it was not to an exposed infant, but to a swallow’s young, unfledged, that he compared himself, Isaias 38, “Like the young of a swallow, so will I cry.”

11. Set me, O Lord, a law in thy way, and guide me in the right path, because of my enemies.

11. “Set me, O Lord, a law in thy way, and guide me in the right path, because of my enemies.” Having compared himself to an exposed, deserted infant, adopted by God, he anon fairly asks to be shown how to walk. He asks the grace of being able to observe all his holy commandments, which he never loses sight of through the whole one hundred and fifty psalms. What else could he do? When it was the only path to that heavenly house of God, which he had just declared to be the only wish and desire of his heart. “And guide me in the right path, because of my enemies;” that is, direct me in the way of your commandments, which is truly “the right path;” the most just, however narrow it may be. Others will have it that “Teach me thy way” is a request for internal inspiration; and “Direct me in the right path,” means a petition for a loving desire of observing the commandments. The Words, “Because of my enemies,” imply the necessity of the grace of God in this pilgrimage here below, to protect us from our visible, as well as from our invisible enemies, who are in daily ambush, watching us, seeking to divert us from the straight road of virtue to the rugged and difficult passes of vice.

12. Deliver me not over to the will of them that trouble me: for unjust witnesses have risen up against me; and iniquity hath lied to itself.

12. “Deliver me not over to the will of them that trouble me: for unjust witnesses have risen against me; and iniquity hath lied to itself.” The same petition continued. He asks to be saved from being delivered up to “the will” of his enemies, especially his invisible ones. A similar expression occurs in Luke 23, “He gave Jesus up to their will.” “For unjust witnesses have risen up,” is by many referred to the false witnesses that so calumniated David; not an improbable explanation; but I consider that the sentence will be more in accordance with what preceded, as well as with what follows, and also with the subject of the whole Psalm, if we interpret these words as applying to the temptations, whether of demons or of men, who, by false promises, or by threats, seek to bring the just to impatience, or to any other sin, as we have in Psalm 118, “The wicked have told me fables, but not as thy law.”

13. I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.

13. “I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.” He tells us why “iniquity hath lied to itself.” For I, in spite of all my enemies, “believe,” have the strongest confidence, that “I will see the good things of the Lord;” that is, those good things which, before God, are good; which make man happy, which alone are really good; and that “in the land of the living,” in that land where death hath no place, no dominion.

14. Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord.

14. “Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord.” He concludes by an apostrophe to himself, to have patience and confidence in God, saying: My soul, as you desire to dwell in the house of God, as you have so many pledges of his love, as you “believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living,” do not be disheartened in your trouble, do not look for any earthly consolation, but “wait patiently,” take courage in the Lord, act the part of a man, until the evil days shall have passed away, and the good ones shall have arrived.

End of Psalm 26��

[dfroza]

grace doesn’t give us what we deserve.

grace is the purest gift from our Creator that offers His Life and eternal Breath when we “believe…” in the heart in the True illumination of the Son and speak it from a body of earth. for just as God created the universe by speaking living words, we hold the power of rebirth of the heart (by the Spirit) in our words of faith spoken through grace. and this is our eternal hope of seeing all things reborn at some point.

Paul illuminates this in his writing with Today’s reading of the Scriptures of the New Testament Letter of Romans in the way those who share God’s message become His living “Voice” on earth:

My beloved brothers and sisters, the passionate desire of my heart and constant prayer to God is for my fellow Israelites to experience salvation. For I know that although they are deeply devoted to God, they are unenlightened. And since they’ve ignored the righteousness God gives, wanting instead to be acceptable to God because of their own works, they’ve refused to submit to God’s faith-righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law. And because of him, God has transferred his perfect righteousness to all who believe.

Moses wrote long ago about the need to obey every part of the law in order to be declared right with God:

“The one who obeys these things must always live by them.”

But we receive the faith-righteousness that speaks an entirely different message:

“Don’t for a moment think you need to climb into the heavens to find the Messiah and bring him down, or to descend into the underworld to bring him up from the dead.”

But the faith-righteousness we receive speaks to us in these words of Moses:

“God’s living message is very close to you, as close as your own heart beating in your chest and as near as the tongue in your mouth.”

And what is God’s “living message”? It is the revelation of faith for salvation, which is the message that we preach. For if you publicly declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will experience salvation. The heart that believes in him receives the gift of the righteousness of God—and then the mouth confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scriptures encourage us with these words:

“Everyone who believes in him will never be disappointed.”

So then faith eliminates the distinction between Jew and non-Jew, for he is the same Lord for all people. And he has enough treasures to lavish generously upon all who call on him. And it’s true:

“Everyone who calls on the Lord’s name

will experience new life.”

But how can people call on him for help if they’ve not yet believed? And how can they believe in one they’ve not yet heard of? And how can they hear the message of life if there is no one there to proclaim it? And how can the message be proclaimed if messengers have yet to be sent? That’s why the Scriptures say:

How welcome is the arrival

of those proclaiming the joyful news of peace

and of good things to come!

But not everyone welcomes the good news, as Isaiah said:

Lord, is there anyone who hears

and believes our message?

Faith, then, is birthed in a heart that responds to God’s anointed utterance of the Anointed One.

Can it be that Israel hasn’t heard the message? No, they have heard it, for:

The voice has been heard throughout the world,

and its message has gone to the ends of the earth!

So again I ask, didn’t Israel already understand that God’s message was for others as well as for themselves? Yes, they certainly did understand, for Moses was the first to state it:

“I will make you jealous of a people who are ‘nobodies.’

And I will use people with no understanding

to provoke you to anger.”

And Isaiah the fearless prophet dared to declare:

“Those who found me weren’t even seeking me.

I manifested myself before those

who weren’t even asking to know me!”

Yet regarding Israel Isaiah says:

“With love I have held out my hands day after day,

offering myself to this unbelieving

and stubborn people!”

The Letter of Romans, Chapter 10 (The Passion Translation)

and the closing line of chapter 10 in The Message:

Day after day after day,

I beckoned Israel with open arms,

And got nothing for my trouble

but cold shoulders and icy stares.

(verse 21)

to be reiterated by these lines of great significance from The Voice:

“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the good news we have been called to preach to you). So if you believe deep in your heart that God raised Jesus from the pit of death and if you voice your allegiance by confessing the truth that “Jesus is Lord,” then you will be saved! Belief begins in the heart and leads to a life that’s right with God; confession departs from our lips and brings eternal salvation.

The Letter of Romans, Chapter 10:8-10 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 29th chapter of the book (scroll) of Isaiah that looks at humbling pride and a restoration that occurs as well through this to establish Justice:

O Ariel, woe to you Ariel, our Jerusalem,

where David set up his camp to stay.

Go ahead, go on with your fruitless festivals,

your calendar of events, year in and year out.

In the meantime, I will trouble Ariel to the point of mourning and crying.

She will be for me a fiery hearth.

I will surround you, enclose you, cut you off.

I will isolate you from aid or reprieve;

I will attack the city walls with towers and siege works.

That will humble you so low, you’ll speak from the earth itself.

And when you do, your voice will issue from the very dust where you lie;

Your voice will rise from the ground like the voice of a ghost,

like a soft whisper from the earth.

But in an instant your ruthless enemies, who seem too many to count,

will become as fluttering dust, as wind-driven chaff.

They will be blown away in the snap of a finger.

For the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, will visit you

with thunder and earthquake and great noise,

With raging wind and tempest and consuming fire.

And all those armies intent on destroying Ariel,

that great international coalition of Jerusalem’s enemies

Battering against the city of God, will disappear.

They’ll evaporate like a night’s dream in the light of day.

As when a starving person dreams of eating at a banquet and wakes hungry,

or a thirsty person drinking his fill in sleepy night visions

Finds himself still parched when the morning comes,

that’s how it will be for the horde attacking Mount Zion, His chosen place.

But it will take some time. Wait and wonder.

In the meantime, make yourselves unable to see or understand.

Make yourselves drunk and unsteady,

but not from wine or liquor.

For the Eternal One has poured you a cup of sleep—

deep, heavy sleep.

O prophets and seers, He has closed your eyes and covered your heads.

Everything God is disclosing to you will be like the words recorded in a book that is sealed. When it is given to one who is literate, he can’t read it because it is sealed. When it is given to one who is illiterate, he can’t read it because he doesn’t know how.

Eternal One: These people think they can draw near to Me by saying the right things,

by honoring Me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from Me.

Their worship of Me consists of man-made traditions learned by rote;

it is a meaningless sham.

Therefore, I will do something extraordinary with this people.

I will add wonder to wonders—

Shut down the wisdom of their wise

and hide what the discerning have figured out.

Oh, it’ll be bad for those of you who conceal your thoughts from the Eternal,

who do your deeds in the dark and say:

“Who sees us? Who knows what we are doing?”

My goodness, how you’ve turned things around!

You seem to think that the potter is equal to the clay;

Should the pot say about the potter, “He didn’t make me”?

Or does the thing formed say about the one who formed it,

“He doesn’t understand anything”?

Surely you know that in just a little while

the forests that clothe Lebanon will become rich fields

And the fields will be considered as valuable as the forests.

Then the deaf will hear the words read from a book,

and darkness and gloom will fall from the eyes of the blind.

A renewed sense of joy will come over the humble, thanks to the Eternal;

and joyous celebrations will break out among the poor, because of the Holy One of Israel.

For cruelty and mean-spiritedness will come to an end,

and those who laugh dismissively will be silenced.

All those who are determined to do evil will be cut down.

Those who level a false charge against an innocent person,

who twist an honest testimony and tell lies

in order to incriminate the innocent, will be stopped.

So the Eternal One, who rescued Abraham, says concerning Jacob:

Eternal One: The people of Jacob’s line will no longer be ashamed,

nor will they grow pale with embarrassment.

For when they lay eyes on their children, the work of My hands,

they will protect My name and keep it holy.

They will recognize that I am sacred, the Holy One of Jacob,

and stand in awe of Me, the God of Israel.

Whoever thought otherwise and wandered off will know the truth,

and whoever said otherwise and voiced criticism will quietly learn.

The Book (Scroll) of Isaiah, Chapter 29 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Wednesday, july 7 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons about “crossing over”:

Our father Abraham is called ha-ivri (הָעִבְרִי) - “the Hebrew,” a term that means “one who has crossed over” (עָבַר) from another place. Rashi identified this “other place” as Ur of the Chaldees (אוּר כַּשְׂדִים), located east of the Euphrates River, though the midrash (Genesis Rabbah) symbolically identifies it as the realm of idolatry: “The whole world stood on one side, but Abram crossed over to the other.” Abram separated himself from a world steeped in idolatry and polytheism by worshiping the One LORD God who is the sole Creator of all things.... Understood in this way, being “Hebrew” means being an “other,” a “stranger,” or an “outsider” to idolatrous and worldly culture. Therefore all those who "cross over" from the realm of death to life because of Yeshua are rightly called “Hebrews” (John 5:24).

The term "Jew," on the other hand, refers to one who praises the LORD (יְהוּדָה). The word (יְהוּדִי) comes from a root (יָדָה) which means to “confess” or to “praise” God (Gen. 29:35). The Apostle Paul alluded to this by saying that one whose heart has been circumcised by the Spirit is "one who is praised by God -- not by men" (Rom. 2:29). Being a Jew therefore means you are “chosen” to receive blessings and grace to live in holiness for the glory of God and for the healing of the world. The performance of various mitzvot are for the greater purpose of tikkun olam, the “repair of the world,” in order to reveal God’s goodness and love (Eph. 2:8-10). Doing so makes someone a Jew, since his praise comes not from man, but from the LORD. God is the source and the power of what makes a true tzaddik (righteous person). After all, Israel was meant to be a “light to the nations” (Isa. 42:6; 60:3), and God had always planned for all the families of the earth to come to know Him and give Him glory through his chosen servant Abraham (see Gen. 12:3; 22:18). “Jewishness” is therefore not an end in itself but rather a means to bring healing to the nations... Indeed, the entire redemptive story of the Scriptures centers on the cosmic conflict to deliver humanity from the “curse” by means of the "Seed of the woman" who would come. The gospel is Jewish because it concerns God’s great redemptive plan for the whole world (John 3:16; 4:22). [Hebrew for Christians]

7.6.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

July 7, 2021

The Eternal God

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” (Psalm 90:2)

This verse was written by Moses as the children of Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land. Perhaps the most basic of all the attributes of God is that He “inhabiteth eternity” (Isaiah 57:15). He is “from everlasting to everlasting,” the God who ever was and ever shall be.

Creatures of time cannot really comprehend the idea of past eternity. “But who made God?” children ask. “Nobody made God,” we answer. “He always was.” The alternative would be to believe in the eternity of “space” and “matter,” but these in themselves are utterly incapable of producing our complex universe. God, however, is an adequate First Cause to explain all the effects of our infinite, intricate cosmos.

There are many other Scriptures assuring us that God has always been. “Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting” (Psalm 93:2). He is “the everlasting God, the LORD” (Isaiah 40:28). And this truth applies to God the Son as well as to God the Father. The Lord Jesus could say, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Revelation 22:13).

We find it somewhat easier to contemplate the fact that God will live forever. Still, certain foolish men have imagined that God is dead, but “the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king” (Jeremiah 10:10).

The most glorious fact of all is that this living God did also become man, in the person of Christ Jesus, and He did die. But He soon defeated death and now can say, “I am alive for evermore” (Revelation 1:18). And now, since “we believe that Jesus died and rose again,...so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:14, 17). HMM

[dfroza]

A guard against the counterfeit

is what Light does for the heart & mind

to see Love in its True nature.

A point illuminated by Today’s reading from the Letter of First John:

[A Warning against False Teaching]

Delightfully loved friends, don’t trust every spirit, but carefully examine what they say to determine if they are of God, because many false prophets have mingled into the world. Here’s the test for those with the genuine Spirit of God: they will confess Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh. Everyone who does not acknowledge that Jesus is from God has the spirit of antichrist, which you heard was coming and is already active in the world.

Little children, you can be certain that you belong to God and have conquered them, for the One who is living in you is far greater than the one who is in the world. They belong to this world and they articulate the spirit of this world, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God, and whoever truly knows God listens to us. Those who refuse to listen to us do not belong to God. That is how we can know the difference between the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him. The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love. The light of God’s love shined within us when he sent his matchless Son into the world so that we might live through him. This is love: He loved us long before we loved him. It was his love, not ours. He proved it by sending his Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins.

Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life! No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor. But if we love one another, God makes his permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in him, and his love is brought to its full expression in us. And he has given us his Spirit within us so that we can have the assurance that he lives in us and that we live in him.

Moreover, we have seen with our own eyes and can testify to the truth that Father God has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Those who give thanks that Jesus is the Son of God live in God, and God lives in them. We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love he has for us.

God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them. By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the day of judgment, because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world. Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection. Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us.

Anyone can say, “I love God,” yet have hatred toward another believer. This makes him a phony, because if you don’t love a brother or sister, whom you can see, how can you truly love God, whom you can’t see? For he has given us this command: whoever loves God must also demonstrate love to others.

The Letter of 1st John, Chapter 4 (The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 7th chapter of 2nd Chronicles that continues with the dedication of the First Temple in Jerusalem:

[The Temple Dedication]

When Solomon finished praying, a bolt of lightning out of heaven struck the Whole-Burnt-Offering and sacrifices and the Glory of God filled The Temple. The Glory was so dense that the priests couldn’t get in—God so filled The Temple that there was no room for the priests! When all Israel saw the fire fall from heaven and the Glory of God fill The Temple, they fell on their knees, bowed their heads, and worshiped, thanking God:

Yes! God is good!

His love never quits!

Then the king and all Israel worshiped, offering sacrifices to God. King Solomon worshiped by sacrificing 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep at the dedication of The Temple. The priests were all on duty; the choir and orchestra of Levites that David had provided for singing and playing anthems to the praise and love of God were all there; across the courtyard the priests blew trumpets. All Israelites were on their feet.

Solomon set apart the central area of the courtyard in front of God’s Temple for sacred use and there sacrificed the Whole-Burnt-Offerings, Grain-Offerings, and fat from the Peace-Offerings—the Bronze Altar was too small to handle all these offerings. This is how Solomon kept the great autumn Feast of Booths. For seven days there were people there all the way from the far northeast (the Entrance to Hamath) to the far southwest (the Brook of Egypt)—a huge congregation. They started out celebrating for seven days, and then did it for another seven days, a week for dedicating the Altar and another for the Feast itself—two solid weeks of celebration! On the twenty-third day of the seventh month Solomon dismissed his congregation. They left rejoicing, exuberant over all the good God had done for David and Solomon and his people Israel.

[God’s Confirmation]

Solomon completed building The Temple of God and the royal palace—the projects he had set his heart on doing. Everything was done—success! Satisfaction!

God appeared to Solomon that very night and said, “I accept your prayer; yes, I have chosen this place as a temple for sacrifice, a house of worship. If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people, and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you: I’ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health. From now on I’m alert day and night to the prayers offered at this place. Believe me, I’ve chosen and sanctified this Temple that you have built: My Name is stamped on it forever; my eyes are on it and my heart in it always. As for you, if you live in my presence as your father David lived, pure in heart and action, living the life I’ve set out for you, attentively obedient to my guidance and judgments, then I’ll back your kingly rule over Israel—make it a sure thing on a sure foundation. The same covenant guarantee I gave to David your father I’m giving to you, namely, ‘You can count on always having a descendant on Israel’s throne.’

“But if you or your sons betray me, ignoring my guidance and judgments, taking up with alien gods by serving and worshiping them, then the guarantee is off: I’ll wipe Israel right off the map and repudiate this Temple I’ve just sanctified to honor my Name. And Israel will be nothing but a bad joke among the peoples of the world. And this Temple, splendid as it now is, will become an object of contempt; tourists will shake their heads, saying, ‘What happened here? What’s the story behind these ruins?’ Then they’ll be told, ‘The people who used to live here betrayed their God, the very God who rescued their ancestors from Egypt; they took up with alien gods, worshiping and serving them. That’s what’s behind this God-visited devastation.’”

The Book of 2nd Chronicles, Chapter 7 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Thursday, february 4 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible, along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

A post by John Parsons that looks into the significance of our Hebraic History:

In our Torah portion this week (i.e., Yitro), God revealed the Ten Commandments (i.e., עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִבְּרוֹת, literally, “the ten declarations”) to the Israelites at Sinai, a dramatic event that represented the giving of the law, or the “Old Covenant,” to Israel. Now while a case can surely be made that the revelation at Sinai represented an “older covenant” (see 2 Cor. 3:14; Heb. 7:18, 8:6,13), when looked at from another perspective, Sinai actually represented a sort of *new* covenant, since it was given later and served as a proviso to the covenant given earlier to Abraham (Gal. 3:18). The culmination of the covenant at Sinai was the revelation of the Altar (i.e., the Tabernacle), which pictured the sacrificial blood “covering” the tablets of God’s judgment. This, in turn, recalled Abraham’s great sacrifice of his son Isaac (the Akedah), which further recalled the very first sacrifice of the Bible, namely the lamb slain in the orchard of Eden to cover the shame of Adam and Eve's sin (Gen. 3:21; Rev. 13:8). Therefore it was the promise God made to Eve regarding the “Seed to Come” that was the original covenant (Gen. 3:15), and it was this covenant that was later fulfilled by Yeshua, the “Serpent Slayer” of God (Num. 21:9; John 3:14). This is the “Gospel in the Garden” message, the original promise of the lamb of God that was slain from the foundation of the world... In other words, the “new covenant” (בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה) may better be understood as the fulfillment of the original covenant, the promise to redeem all of humanity from the curse of sin and death. The redemptive plan of God therefore moves in an ascending circle. The "Tree of Life" reaches back to the orchard of Eden and extends into the World to Come...

Because there is so much confusion regarding the topic of the role of the law, particularly among certain "Messianic believers," I would like to reiterate a few things mentioned elsewhere on the Hebrew for Christians web site. Let me first remind you that the legal aspect of the “Torah” refers to the subset of the written Torah called Sefer Ha-Brit (סֵפֶר הַבְּרִית), a portion that defined various ethical, social, and ritual obligations given at Sinai (Exod. 24:7-8). It is a “category mistake” to simply regard the first five books of the “Torah” as the “law,” since the law was given later in sacred history, after the Exodus. Moreover, the Book of Genesis reveals that the very first “priest” (i.e., kohen: כּהֵן) was neither a Jew nor a Levite nor a descendant of Aaron, but rather Someone who is said to have “neither beginning of days nor end of life” but is made like (ἀφωμοιωμένος) the Son of God, a priest continually (Heb. 7:3). This priest, of course, was Malki-Tzedek (מַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק), the King of Salem (מֶלֶךְ שָׁלֵם) to whom Abraham offered tithes after his victory over the kings (Gen. 14:18). The author of the Book of Hebrews makes the point that the priesthood of Malki-Tzedek is greater than the Levitical priesthood and is therefore superior to the rites and services of the Tabernacle (Heb. 7:9-11). It was to Malki-Tzedek that Abram (and by extension, the Levitical system instituted by his descendant Moses) gave tithes and homage -- and rightly so, since Yeshua is the great High Priest of the better covenant based on better promises (Heb. 8:6). As the Scriptures teach, in everything Messiah has preeminence (John 5:39; Luke 24:27; Col. 1:18). [Hebrew for Christians]

https://hebrew4christians.com/

2.3.21 • Facebook

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research

February 4, 2021

Prophecy

“I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” (Deuteronomy 18:18)

Two types of prophecy must be distinguished. When a prophet foretells or predicts, he represents the future in light of the present. But frequently the prophetic message consisted of rebuking, reproving, counseling, or admonishing, i.e., forth-telling rather than foretelling. As such, he portrays the present in light of the future.

It is the predictive type of prophecy that provides such a strong argument for rational faith. Neither human intuition about the future nor limited Satanic control of the future can account for the hundreds of specific biblical prophecies that have been literally and specifically fulfilled. These could only come by divine revelation from the One who both knows and controls the future.

Actually, predictive prophecy provides a double defense: Not only does it prove the divine origin, inspiration, and authority of Scripture, but since over half of the prophecies converge on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, it advocates His deity and Messiahship. One could hardly read Isaiah 52:13–53:12 or Psalm 22 without recognizing that these are prophetic portraits of Christ on the cross. Others, equally specific, deal with other aspects of His life and ministry.

Still others predict the coming Kingdom to be set up by Christ, in which we as believers will have a part. Having seen so many prophecies literally fulfilled, we can have complete confidence that these others will come to pass as well. “We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3). JDM