70π

eejoseph

I suppose a lot of American preachers and historians are not aware that God thrust the  Israelites out of the land of Canaan into Babylonian captivity for 70 years and then had the Persians, the ancestors of today’s Iranians, fund and protect the rebuilding of the province of Judea. Preachers who talk about Black liberation and White wolves who love to talk about prosperity, Jesus and going to heaven, had better stop, because they have had 70 times π years to get their business together. In 1995 Pope John Paul spoke to the UN and to the United Nations with clarity about the use of power.  Here we are watching America celebrating 250 years of depravity, utter rottenness and rank ignorance.

Catastrophically downhill

After the administration of the 42nd the US president America set it sells on a path of doing the most outrageous and unhealthy things to itself, in a campaign of ignorance and blind nationalistic sloganism.  Any American who shows a sliver of intelligence can expect his work to be suppressed, and in the age of digital algorithms, fewer and fewer people will see the philanthropic and scientific contribution. Utter buffoons and charlatans are publishing books and pulling the wool over the eyes of people who are perfectly capable of seeing in broad daylight both atrocities and extreme grace.

This weekend, the curtain falls, like the  axe on the barren tree.  This coming Sabbath, this Sunday, your pastors get up to say the thing that shows they are tuned in to God and people, or the excreta and vomit people have been lapping up turns to freedom and happiness for everyone.

6. And He [Jesus] began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. 7. “And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Look! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ 8. “But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, leave it alone for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; 9. and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’” (Luke 13:6-9, NASB)

One more word about the holy sabbath while the Holy Spirit is waiting for you every day of the week, every hour of the day, every minute of the hour, every second of a minute, and your wolfishness earns the label.

One more word about dying and going to heaven while the necessary life of service and cross-bearing and you prove you have never met the Nazarene.

Borrowed time is a profound understatement of the fact that the time has run out for the Nations with the most privileges and the biggest bank accounts.

Remember Herod’s birthday

21. On an appointed day, after putting on his royal apparel, Herod took his seat on the rostrum and began delivering an address to them. 22. The people repeatedly cried out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!” 23. And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died. (Acts 12:21-23, NASB)

The Authority, The Appeal, and The Identity of Jesus’ Name

eejoseph

Prayer sometimes appears as a “truck reversing at maximum speed on the highway” that needs to be slowed down.
Most of us learned to end our prayers with the phrase “in Jesus’ name”.  It is familiar, comforting, and sincere.  But sometimes—without meaning to—we treat those words like a verbal stamp that validates whatever we just prayed.

Jesus gives us something far richer.
His Name is not a formula.  It is a place, a domain, a relationship. In its usual precise manner Scripture speaks of His Name in three intertwined ways: Authority, Appeal, and Identity.

The Authority of His Name

When the apostles healed, preached, baptized, or cast out demons “in the Name of Jesus,” they were not adding a phrase—they were standing inside His delegated authority.

His Name is the jurisdiction of the risen Christ.

To pray “in Jesus’ name” is to pray as someone representing His mission, not our private wish list.  Authority is not a stamp at the end of a prayer; it is the ground from which the prayer rises.

The Appeal of His Name

  • His Name is the atmosphere in which prayer breathes.
  • His Name is not the punctuation of a prayer. 

Scripture speaks of calling upon the Name, asking in His Name, and appealing to His Name.

This is not magic.  It is trust.  To appeal to His Name is to say: “I am depending on who You are, not on who I am.”

It belongs in the covenant, is relational, and is humble.  It is the opposite of using Jesus’ Name as a verbal purifier or filler for prayers that never passed through Jesus’ heart.


The Identity of His Name

This is the quiet center of everything.
We are baptized into His Name. 
We are kept in His Name. 
We bear His Name. 
We suffer for His Name. 
We confess His Name.

Deny one of these and you unravel your prayer to practical uselessness.
The possessive adjectives in Scripture—My Name, His Name, Your Name—are not grammatical decoration.  They reveal that the Name is relationally precise identity.

To pray in His Name is to pray as someone who belongs to Him.

A Gentle Closing Thought:

When Jesus taught us to pray, He didn’t end with a Name. 
He began with one:

“Our Father in heaven,  [address]
“let Your Name be hallowed.” [first request]

The Son’s Name is the ocean in which our prayers swim.  The Father’s Name is the horizon toward which they move.  The Spirit is the breath that carries them.  Prayer ought to be simple, gentle, and freeing. Let the Name shape the prayer – listen to the spirit – not merely seal it.

The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

(John 5:23b, NASB)

Lord, if you had been here

eejoseph, , ,

Life is not a straight road, neither is it a steep mountain climb, and it is not a descent into a valley. Hungry people have the power to feel that they have a destiny that includes food. For some there’s no food in the pipeline.  There are people who believe that they have found a gemstone of a lifestyle in which none of life’s changes or challenges can appear. 

If God is with a person all of the forces arrayed against that person will have to reckon with God.  Increasingly we are hearing that God erases all problems and that the common problems do not occur in the lives of the chosen. The notion uproots the expectations of those who are in God and depend on God.

The Bible records the story of Jesus’s friends from Bethany village, whose brother had died and the sisters were convinced that if Jesus had been in Bethany the brother would not have died. 

Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. (John 11:21, NASB)

So when Mary came to the place where Jesus was, she saw Him and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:32, NASB)

Consider the argument completely false, that anywhere Jesus is people don’t die. I’ll take it a little further to say that where Jesus is there is  calm, joy, health and goodness. Or if we apply that rationale to God then we have to go back to Eden and see that Adam and Eve died with God watching. Distance is not an issue in the application of God’s power. He sees everything and is never incapable.

Our lives are not problem free or pain free because God is with us. That has never been true of any of the heroes whose experience comes to us in the Bible.   Sometimes we operate in a fog, not knowing ourselves or our companions. The God-with-us is not a supernatural handyman nor is he a contractor specializing in all problems.

Thousands of people became Christians on the day of Pentecost and following that day the sizes of the congregations multiplied and people were added daily, and yet we only read of James and Paul being put to death by the government, so who else became true witnesses of Jesus, counting the cost and paying the price by daily cross-bearing? We should know where the biblical GPS locates Jesus and what are the diagnostic effects of his presence.

You are here and please let your will be done!

Coming soon

eejoseph

A lot of prayers are like a truck driving backwards down the highway at maximum speed, and I can prove it from the scriptures.

Idols not an idle industry

eejoseph

One of the books in the Christian library  is  Bel and the Dragon. It tells of how Bel, a Babylonian deity, is exposed as the product of a fraudulent priesthood.   People assumed that Bel, a huge statue of some kind, consumed the food that they placed before him. The book presents the hero as the same figure in the Bible, Daniel, a Hebrew in Babylonian exile.    Here are some snippets from the drama.

The exchange between the king and Daniel

Then said the king unto him, Thinkest thou not that Bel is a living God? seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day? (Bel and the Dragon 1:6, KJVA)

Daniel’s smiling response.

O king, be not deceived: for this is but clay within, and brass without, and did never eat or drink any thing. (Bel and the Dragon 1:7, KJVA)

https://www.tota.world/article/830/
https://www.tota.world/article/830/

So a plan emerged to keep a close eye on  sacrifice and the interval between the sacrifice and the morning, when the food would normally be gone. In brief, the priests were caught devouring the food with their families each night when they thought no one was watching.

So when they were gone forth, the king set meats before Bel. Now Daniel had commanded his servants to bring ashes, and those they strewed throughout all the temple in the presence of the king alone: then went they out, and shut the door, and sealed it with the king’s signet, and so departed. (Bel and the Dragon 1:14, KJVA)

If this story be true then what are we to make of all the idols that are still being made and worshiped across the planet?  You can see why such a book is in what we call the Apocrypha.  I suspect that there are people who are convinced that idols have a secret life, a dimension we are yet to discover.  Idols that walk, eat, drink, asleep, and have children are certainly wondrous, but idols will be shown to be incapable of doing the ordinary activities of the people who worship them. You can see why idols are a thriving business in government, religion, and business.

The past and the future are sometimes necessarily connected

eejoseph,

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

We use our experiences to make sense of the  path we are on, but sometimes completely new destinations and new companions become central to our agenda.  Then the comfort and confidence we expect and are accustomed to are hard to find.

We can make sure we have spiritual, mental and physical refuges when life’s turmoil seems to be in every lane. Live joyfully and confidently.

When you are young, go with the passion that elevates you and your community, and when you’ve matured embrace your youthful gems.

eejoseph,

What’s your top tip to be successful in life?

Far too many humans never grow up, and the world is caught in the vices of juvenile pseudo-luminaries.  Night life, with its scarce moonlight, has not been able to properly define success. Success, to be identified, needs the light of day.  It is shallow and short-lived if its contributors are handrails and training wheels.  There comes a time when the child needs no escort to school, and the parents know their supervision of the child ends, and the child’s greatness is in the child’s hands.

Never stop growing your grasp of knowledge, your grace to others, and your greatness.

Jonathan Seagull

eejoseph,

What’s a book, movie, or TV show that you wish you could experience again for the first time?

This title belongs to a book, my sister’s, which I peeked at over five  decades ago.  I am now recognizing that it was the most likely spark for my personal obsession with flight. I do not mean aircraft.  I mean flying without wings or other attachments. 

I fly in my dreams, in my songwriting, in my pursuit of life-changing truth, and in my imagination of what our world might become.