Confidence

Feasting on fiction

eejoseph,

I can hardly think about fiction without bringing along Aaron’s comical delusion (Exodus 32:24-25) or James question about justification (James 2:23) because the two instances show us that deadly threats do come from trusted people. How certain can one be that the things one handles are not destructive inventions that do seem like filling abd satisfying food? Absolutely with the Way, Truth, and Life. And even with that level of certainty a sensible mind will defer with a comparison to the Supreme Commander, having done all the things which are commanded us, we still say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’” knowing that fiction comes easily out of us.

How Israel got the golden calf

Now when Moses saw that the people were out of control–for Aaron had let them get out of control to be a derision among their enemies–

I said to them, ‘Whoever has any gold, let them tear it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” Exodus 32:25

We have to be far more responsible for what we tell ourselves and for what we pass on to those we care about.   Unless we wish to become echo chambers for bad ideas, found typically these days in chat groups, backroom schools or churches, in videos, and on television.

If the first and most honourable and respected high priest was mourned for thirty days, an equal number as Moses, I suppose the 45th president of the United States is bereft of any such character. Both Moses and Aaron acted treacherously in plain sight of the Israelites and no one assigns their names to the list of the lost or the list of enemies. There are many theories about truth but fiction needs none. Fiction is mostly entertainment and the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff is to love the Truth-Yeshua with a single and humble heart. The intellect that spends countless hours each day hoping to find food for a healthy mind is in the grip of corrupting influences.

When the evidence we seek for how to live is in black and white, written and certified by its solidarity with all the sacred texts where we have found wisdom leaders ought to read a lot more and set the example for all. Indeed, there is no justification for investing in the passing fashions of the current age. We are in the world but not of it.

Saved or redeemed, the deal is set

eejoseph

Are you one of those believers who is loath to say “I am saved”? On the other hand are you one of those believers who is certain that you were redeemed? These two questions reveal that Christ’s payment for the sins of humanity does not get debated because Christ’s it is the foundation of the Christian message and only an raving lunatic will say atonement has one more step. The questions also help us see that people debate whether they are saved because the message they heard did not stand a chance (see the seedsower parable in chapter 13 of Matthew’s gospel) and the salvation of an innumerable crowd is set in God’s personality and perfect plan.

Psalms 107:2

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary

Half-quote that blinds

Is Christ some kind of McSaviour that he does not finish what he started?  Does he deliver a person from sin and not transport that person into the kingdom of his righteousness?  That kind of thinking makes a liar and a failure of God. 

The “just shall live by faith” appears in Habakkuk as a complete prediction standing opposite a puffed up person who is on a crooked path. It appears in Hebrews opposite a wavering person who gives God no pleasure.

Hebrews 10:38

Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

Hebrews 10:38

Habakkuk 2:4

“Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Blood pays: redeemed, justified, saved

THE BLOODWASHED WAY

29. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Romans 8:29-30

1 Peter 1:17-19

17. If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; 18. knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19. but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

1 Peter 1:17-19

Redemption out of dire circumstances

eejoseph

Ruth 4:22

And Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David.

The conclusion of Ruth’s story (4:22) might leave some people wondering, a huge “So!” filling the thoughtscape. A famine brings a Jewish family to Moab, a land that was no friend of the seed of Isaac and Jacob. Emigration seems to mark every important development towards the unveiling of global salvation. Some of us can pretend we do not see how abominable a racist and homicidal immigration policy is and always was, there is a malingering nod to dire circumstances that open up our most treasured encounters.

Ventilators for the dying

Ruth’s story belongs with the Joseph legacy. We remember that a hated teenager was forced into a new land and from there became the instrument of keeping the Jacob-Israel clan alive, and kept the promise of land and national identity on everyone’s mind. Ruth is no patriarch. She is a matriarch of unparalleled majesty. She left Israel to bring back the woman and the womb that God wanted to separate a household for Christ to be born.

A resurrection is in the mix

Ruth 4:5
Property:
Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.

Ruth 4:10
Marriage
Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.

Stance for this circumstance

In our 2020 first quarter circumstance we see homicide-by-virus bringing the planet to a new level of terror and interpersonal abuse. Fear has been the preferred tool of people carving out religious and politics space for superiority. Our love, that supreme gift, will not allow us to take a dive into the animalistic pools where everything despicable seems to collect. Let us avoid the rumours of war and peace. When the most disturbing events in the time of unprecedented trouble begin to occur we stand resolute on the promise of redemption. Catch up with David’s son!