Author: eejoseph

Run sister! Run brother!

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I can guarantee you that my great, great, grandfather’s loins were rocking with protest against the slavemaster and his assertion of property rights. If you are wondering, I am a descendant of African people, a part of the waves of westward transported labour to America and the Caribbean.

Since the 17th century, European powers (Spain, Portugal, France, England, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany) have been exploiting their own poor and people in far-flung lands with various justifications.

I would have been a runner: running off the slaveowners property to entrust my life to God. They would have had to chain me 24/7 or kill me.

Running is good for the believer.

  • When temptation seems to corner us we should run
  • When persecution closes in on us we can run
  • When Christ says follow me we should run

We live because Christ gave us life

We sing because Christ gave us a song

We conquer because Christ gave us the victory

We should run – live – for life’s sake and remember that our crown does not come from anyone overcoming sin.  Even with laws in our hearts and near countless constant recitations of God’s will we come to God with contrition or prove that we are still lost, having no Spirit to help because we did not really believe that God forgives sin all the time and powers our life moment by moment.

Mighty like

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Ecclesiastes 12:14 gets recycled perhaps as often as “Yahweh loves a cheerful giver” and “Yahweh is my shepherd” and with the same effect. Nothing big happens just for saying or believing these things. If 12:14 is TRUE we are all dead: fallen on our way to what we thought was rest and sanctuary, slaughtered by the idolatrous streak in our nature and by unbelief.  Mighty Mount of Likes! It is still a lie.

Who is doing the judging and sentencing?

Where to look!

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We cannot look away from Christ- the Nazarene- and call what we see truth.

He has the promises

He has the remedy to death

He has the bread to nourish us


All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him. Matthew 11:27

Torment and Terror Treatment

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How does the growth in Christ proceed? Still trying to find and live by every word that God speaks or has ever spoken? That amounts to hundreds of commands and loving others is supposed to foot the bill.

Get an attitude adjustment! It ends the labour and heavy load. It feels like rest.

LET US EMPTY OURSELVES AND SERVE

Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.

Philippians 2:5-7

He has commanded you

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Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it:

Deuteronomy 6:1

This turning point of Moses’ leadership is aimed at LIFE IN CANAAN (LIC), and includes the essential statement of Judaism. It also states Israelite obligations with devastating clarity. The personal responsibilies were to do the CSJ (commands, statutes, and judgments), to take possession of Canaan, and to keep (guard) in an attitude of reference the CSJ.

“Ya gotta love” might have been the end of exhortation. Let’s face the fact that Moses was not commanding things that did not exist to become reality. He was stating expectations. It gets complicated when God’s uniqueness rises to the top of the confidence list. I mean the Shema which puts on blinders about how many gods have been part of Israel’s experience up to the Deuteronony turning point (and since).
The Shema calls for attention: hear, there is one God. It does not say “Israel has had one god; that’d be a false report.

When did he command you?

What Israel had to do to have the Life in Canaan as promised are alien to the viability of Abraham’s family.
Is it slightly schizophrenic to embrace the Shema as a statement of faith without hearing what God’s spokesperson – it is not Moses or the prophets- has said?

Can neighbour be reduced to “partners in fables” or battered out of shape with the cyclical bloodbath of animal blood? Christians have more commands than Jews and face no risk of condemnation, exile or deportation. God has commanded repentance.