Author: eejoseph

From the House to the Street

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When Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer clothing, he reclined again and said to them, “Do you know what I have done for you? You call me Teacher and Lord — and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done for you. John 13:12‭-‬13‭, ‬15 CSB

https://bible.com/bible/1713/jhn.13.12-15.CSB

This dramatic example of caring for each other hardly happens at our daily dinner time. We seem to have less time for preparing healthy meals, and we increasingly want everything “now”. In the world of close relatives – people authorized to be or allowed in our homes – washing the feet follows the kiss at the door (we also take the coat or outerwear), and if we are observant, we might offer the guest a quick touch up to their appearance, some oil for the hair and an extra pillow or too so they can “make themselves at home”.

A lot of loving has a reason

The three hard realities of caring are kiss, water, and oil. A woman leads the way! I am not surprised.

Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. (Luke 7:44) You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. (Luke 7:45) You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. (Luke 7:46) Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” (Luke 7:47)

The scope of humble service

Maybe “caring for one another” can be restricted to disciples, so we can absolve ourselves of being this nice to strangers or non-intimates. If that is to be sustainable, we have to realize that the lordship of the great Footwasher finds no parallel in our relations with anyone. A host would kiss his guests at the door, have his servant make the guest comfortable, if not basking in the abundance of generosity, and acceptance. We also have to recognize that we are not authorized to do washes that have any cleansing efficacy. We do not wash feet in order cleanse people from sin.

Taking it to the street

We may be ritually washing the feet of people who are woefully unaware of the glory of loving humble service, yet we do it. We may be habitually missing scores of foot-washing opportunities because we do not care for people the way Christ cared for Judas. Our xenophiobic DNA is killing us.

Grace is a thing we get and yet we contort ourselves to avoid being kind to sinners. Away from the ritual washing of clean feet we realize that the Master’s example is an attitude fix, not a thing to do now and then. Let us take it to the “others”: the Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, knowing full well that we are not bosses, only devoted and persistent slaves.

Half-baked, Half-saved

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Salvation is a gift, and even when we preserve or endure there is no credit to us. People are always distracted by self- importance: what we can say and what we can do. Nothing we can do seems to be anything more than a filthy rag, but there is always faith. Half-saved is what results when people do not believe, and half saved is lost.

Then they said to him, What must we do, to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

John 6:28-29

Faith needs no partner

If we see the way Christ paved for us we will recognize that tales about our performance and acquisitions – obedience and knowledge – are lies that keep us pinned under the burden of darkness. Work hard at believing the truth because it frees completely. This is not a halfway business deal. Christ frees us as we take God’s work seriously and without distraction.

Hiding in a rock

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Fanny Crosby, a prolific writer who was blind, is likely in the top tier of influential women and kingdom-of-God workers. If you are interested you can look at the songs this messenger has contributed to the church’s witness and see how she, unsighted, looks forward to seeing and even revels in visions of the present condition.

Here is Isaiah sounding off about interpersonal refuge. It is a marvelous highway which may seem to make skilled and conscientious Christian leadership unnecessary but it is another layer of investment in everyone.

Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. Isaiah 32:2

  1. Fanny was a hiding place
  2. Fanny was a shelter.
  3. Fanny was a stream of water in a dry place
  4. Fanny was a shady rock in a weary land

Rocky VII

No sequel of Fanny or apostle Peter is imminent; no copy of Yeshua or you exists, but we all have a great rocky destiny, in the fashion of St. Peter (Rock, Kefa, Petros). Fanny was convinced her sight would improve.

All the things that Fanny saw in her wonderful Saviour she was privileged to be. We are privileged to be. This means that each of us has the potential to be rocky residences and rocky witnesses. Shifting sand and pebbles do not work.

Oh the height and depth of mercy

Oh the length and breadth of love

Oh the fullness of redemption

Pledge of endless life above

Potus45 incites murder

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The manifestos of murderous dudes are evidence.

We cannot bring the mass murders to White House?

Remember:

There are good people on both sides of the Nazi and Jew experience.

America will redeem itself when it prosecutes people who say things like that.

Insane Idolatry of Insularity

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Many of us are worshipping the capacity to choose and we stick to the routine of jumping through the same hoops week after week. The assumed helpers of this chosen lifestyle are the massive legal institutions we depend on to punish wrong and often the innocent. The exercise becomes a futile venture when we insist on trying to cultivate our choices and values in perfect isolation from others.

With thousands of years and hundreds of rules under our belt we still can’t say we have achieved purity, safety, or maturity. Nobody can. All the modern nations coming to grips with their divided houses and running out of fingers to plug the holes in their leaky constitutions many Christians have bought the delusion that law will stop crime.

If the gloating bigot in the White House is saying it, it is likely to have a gaping hole in the bottom. Humans do not change by willpower, and it is impossible for any human to become a citizen of God’s kingdom by willing it.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13

There is no successful vote to end crime

Serpent in the Desert

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Again it is helpful to work the message of Numbers 21:6

Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.

People died and YHWH moved, not to bring the dead back, but to demonstrate his preservation of His travelling people. Again we see how precisely the narratives of the sacred texts inform us of the practical dimensions of the glorious gospel.

Really dead and condemned

Moses’ elevated bronze serpent is one of those graphics that tells only so much about the Saviour’s mission. Could there be one facet of ancient revelation that tells it all, that is not blood (life) and grace (God’s attitude)? The person who has not believed in Christ is condemned for not believing. Having no participation in God’s life and having only human desires and aspirations is death.

In response to the serpent-bite outbreak YAHWEH ordered something intended to drill down into the experience. The last thing they wanted to see was a serpent, of any kind. The dying Israelite who looked lived, surviving the venomous bite.

Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. Numbers 21:6

Who would have thought that God’s answer to our ongoing sin problem was to have us look at a dying sinner, His son who had taken onto himself all of our sins? Salvation story is not told in any single Old Testament narrative, and the elevated bronze serpent is one that tells one slice. So to claim that “tabernacle” or sayings like “whole duty of man” are the bedrock of the gospel is pure fiction.

Life for people dead in trespasses comes only from Christ and his sacrifice. Elevated serpent is obviously another matter.

Still think that John 3:16 is about life for a dead race?

Park the Ark, Table the Tablets

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We are familiar with presentations that are completely Christ-free except for the fact that the content might bring us to the Christ Event.

The theory that God has encoded the way of life for the world in the Tabernacle is a fascinating half truth. Up to the preaching of John the Baptist followers of divine revelation had only glimpses of the great hope of the race. The OT makes a person wise to salvation without delivering its benefits, unless we can show that something other than faith is responsible for saving ancient individuals. Two witnesses, David and Abraham convince us otherwise.

Concealed

The OT is either contemporary instruction or prediction, and we know that God kept the mystery of divinity – mystery of godliness – concealed until the Lord Jesus Christ himself began to publish it. It is sheer fantasy and fable to intimate that the gospel was preached to the Israelites in antiquity.

How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; Hebrews 2:3

Matthew 13:13-17

This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.