Hearty Security

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Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.
Proverbs 4:23 CSB
https://bible.com/bible/1713/pro.4.23.CSB

Solomon’s dad felt he could nail down a sinless life (from some point onward!) by storing up (tsafan, צפן) God’s word in his heart. The whole assembly of Hebrews at Sinai, pledging to do what YHWH says, were not blessed with a heart that could contain God’s message.

Heart and soul, exceedingly

All the way to New Testament times few men, knew what it was to have God’s word on the inside. Prophets and wise men, not knowing what they were hearing, clung to reciting the words of God and adorning their bodies and clothing with bits of “Bible” quite literally.

One God is where security starts and we have seen that the people who say they are champions of all the right things have the hardest time getting past the first step. Only the bewitched believe that life comes from what goes into the heart or body.

Life comes from God, Solomon, but that is ok, you did not know, and Moses was not a big deal did you.

Source of life: heart and mouth

Did we not learn that the heart is the source of human badness?

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. Mark 7:21-22

For Moses wrote about life when he discussed the righteousness that is based on the law, namely, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. Solomon was a dismal failure in this regard.

But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, Who will ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down) or Who will descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

Moses would not be surprised that now a new arrangement rules the life-flow. He predicted the shift to an effective word of faith.

But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:5ff

Always learning, bye truth

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Christ moves in and stays, contrary to popular imagination. The critical learning expected by God does not extend over a person’s lifetime. Paul knew people who had mountains of material they insisted on teaching to others even when their lives showed little evidence of the benefits of such teaching. You might recognize the phenomenon as not extinct in the introduction to Yeshua, His taking up residence in us, and in the effective knowledge of the Saviour.

The image of resistance

This analogy makes an example of opposition from within, taken from an instance of external opposition. The smokescreen of learning in New Testament times did not hide the resistance to truth.

2 Timothy 3:7-9
Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.

Meeting Christ

The introduction to God’s family does not take forever. The ever-learning never seem to hear God/Yeshua say “Thank you I’ll take it from here”. The way some people introduce us to Christ is surprising because there is so little Christ in the lengthy spiel. Those who are the never-growing clung to their toys and models and despise the liberty of sonship.

Saving knowledge

Knowing Christ is thought to be the element that distinguishes the saved from the lost, but when the knowledge turns out to be piles of rudimentary principles there is no real experience of divinity to be found. There is definitely no intimacy with Christ.
Taking up residence in a person who believes the gospel does not take the Holy Spirit weeks, and the embrace of the extent (breadth, length, depth, height) of God’s fulness towards us is not the interminable drip of the faucet.

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19

Effective learning does not keep growing infinitely. We must come to know Christ’s love or we are opposing heaven’s adoption process, and are saying “bye” to the truth.

Consecrated by bread

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When it was time to distribute the bread of the sin offering among the sons of Aaron the scene must have been moving. One did not need to consider how much of that consecrated bread was one’s share. A crumb sufficed to make an already holy person more so.

It shall not be baked with leaven. I have given it as their share from My offerings by fire; it is most holy, like the sin offering and the guilt offering. Every male among the sons of Aaron may eat it; it is a permanent ordinance throughout your generations, from the offerings by fire to the Lord . Whoever touches them will become consecrated.’ ”

LEVITICUS 6:17‭-‬18 NASB

https://bible.com/bible/100/lev.6.17-18.NASB

The changes this procedure was supposed to have brought about are now known to be dead in the water. No-one is getting holiness from eating bread baked in an oven.

Thanks are due to God for rescuing us from that futility.

For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. John 6:33

Glory! Glory! GLORY!

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Catch some today. Why woncha? Glory seems to be everywhere.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Angels know it!

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

And then there’s Yeshua

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

The gospel is something special: kept under wraps for millennia, not revealed in the sky and earth, and delivered only by people.

Dead on arrival

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I am glad wise and just were not in the evangelists’ descriptions of the rich ruler who approached Yeshua with a question that should shock both Jew and Gentile. The question puts Moses and the prophets in poor a light as possible. Dead on arrival describes the truth seeker who has the misfortune of running into a Pharisee (isolationist) or an “expert”.

What the one good thing a Jew might do (to inherit life) might had definitely eluded the Jewish people. One might say they rejected it. All the covenant-making, glory, patriarchs and the seed of the ages, were not good enough: questions were better than faith. That is why the claim of descent from Abraham and is to be taken with a grain of salt.

How do I get life?

The man in Mt. 19:16 was not described as one of the testers sent out by the religious factions opposed to Yeshua.

And behold, a man came up to him, saying, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? (have, better, get)

  • Nobody knew what eternal life looked like. He had to ask someone who might.
  • Everyone knew that if any one of the hundreds of commands was sufficient for acquiring life Moses and all the prophets would be the great fraudsters of antiquity. Moses and his allies devoted all their energy to tell people to do all the statutes and the judgments that Yahweh commanded
  • God, if he were a man, would be fed up and tired of the lying mantra.
  • We do not know that this question is one that people were asking the priests and scribes. If this question was posed to Jewish leadership the answer would be a lie, just like “we were never in bondage” or “Moses gave us bread from heaven”.

Protection from lies is certain

The gospel is not debatable. Its promise and purpose were not revealed to Jew or Gentile so that no party will be able to say they had advanced notice. No one with eyes or ears can ever say they do not see or hear the difference. People who say the gospel is simply more of the same (law, prophets, and writings, patriarchal customs and folk tales) are likely to be fence-sitters. They are likely to be suffering from indecision

  1. First they teach the kids to be obedient. they themselves do not comply and neither do the kids
  2. then they try to grab first place in the gospel
  3. the kids see the Hollywood and deathrow in obedience calls and know that there is no future in keeping up that facade
  4. Both parents and kids have told themselves that there is no higher goal than keeping the Commandments of God
  5. so if one is keeping one the Commandments all one’s life what does one need when one grows up, (because all of Moses’ teaching and practices were designed for the juvenile phase of life).

□ □ □

Do you trust someone who tells you he can describe your new life in detail? If you do, what do you have to work out in fear and trembling?

What does someone need to tell you about the Saviour that takes up to 14 years? If you are not a miseducated zealot like Saul of Tarsus God is ready to connect with you and connect you with his church the moment you confess and believe.

Should we not follow the lead of the apostles in acknowledging the believer’s journey?

  • Our presentation of the Saviour needs no spin
  • The seeker is not delayed
  • There is no sin examination by a sinful pastor-evangelist. He knows all comers and himself as sinners

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Matthew 23:15

Knowing Yeshua’s Commands Means Life

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Every time you run to the words of Moses and prophets you disrespect God. Like a dog to its vomit and a pig to the mud, you forget who matters.

In the first six chapters of Matthew’s gospel alone we find the following direct commands of the Saviour of the world. None are intended to test or prove the hearer (prove, Exo. 20:19-20) nor yet to show him lost and condemned (Romans 3:19-20). If we take the time to examine for ourselves the obedience claims and the love practices of our brothers we will find a black hole of kindergarten pictures and toys arranged around a death cult. The words of the many are decidedly unlike Yeshua’s words. From the Life comes life, and from the dead, death.

  1. REPENT: From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matt 4:17
  2. FOLLOW: And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Matt 4:19
  3. REJOICE AND EXULT: Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great [is] your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Matt 5:12
  4. SHINE: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Matt 5:16
  5. PAUSE YOUR WORSHIP AND BE RECONCILED : Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Matt 5:24
  6. COME TO TERMS AT COURT: Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Matt 5:25
  7. REMOVE TROUBLESOME MEMBERS: And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast [it] from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not [that] thy whole body should be cast into hell. Matt 5:30
  8. AMPUTATE TROUBLESOME MEMBERS: And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast [it] from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not [that] thy whole body should be cast into hell. Matt 5:29
  9. USE SIMPLE SPEECH: But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Matt 5:37
  10. DO NO RESIST EVIL, TURN THE OTHER CHEEK: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matt 5:39
  11. GO THE EXTRA MILE: And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Matt 5:41
  12. LOVE ENEMIES: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; Matt 5:44
  13. BLESS THOSE WHO CURSE: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; Matt 5:44
  14. DO GOOD TO HATERS: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; Matt 5:44
  15. PRAY FOR ASSAULTERS AND ABUSERS: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; Matt 5:44
  16. DO NOT SHOW OFF YOUR ALMSGIVING:Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Matt 6:1
  17. PRAY IN SECRET: But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Matt 6:6
  18. HOW TO PRAY: After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Matt 6:9
  19. DO NOT FAST LIKE A HYPOCRITE: Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. Matt 6:16
  20. HOW TO FAST:But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; Matt 6:17
  21. STORE UP TREASURES APPROPRIATELY:Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: Matt 6:19
  22. STORE UP TREASURES APPROPRIATELY: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: Matt 6:20
  23. AVOID ANXIETY: Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Matt 6:25
  24. TAKE A LESSON FROM THE BIRDS: Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Matt 6:26
  25. TAKE A LESSON FROM THE LILIES: And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: Matt 6:28

It is obvious that finding all the relevant commands by Yeshua and his apostles is neither recommended nor healthy. The Holy Spirit is the dynamic guide and that relationship is intensely personal. The Holy Scriptures, which people are interpreting to put human beings ahead of Christ, is not private at all, but they are the measuring stick for the hypocritically righteous crew. Listen closely and you will hear them saying, “Oh look! We found another command. ‘Thou shalt not sin.'”

Chasing commands can become ridiculous. It is destructive. Even the evaluation of someone’s lunch shows the absence of genuine love.

Think soberly the next time you are tempted to say “I love Jesus and am keeping his commandments”

Junk sayings

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Here is a phrase you have probably heard. It is trash. Someone’s mouth is in gear but the engine is not running.

Believing by faith

Maybe one can talk without words but no Christian can believe or live without faith.