Marksmen we could use

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What would we say if we found out that the people from whom we expect deadly accuracy were repeatedly missing the mark? Perhaps nothing, due to shock.

The 700 stone-slinging men in the army of the tribe of Benjamin were probably also the kind of guys you want to have at a stoning. Ideally, when it came to war with neighbours, Israel needed only march and praise God with the covenant tokens out front.

I say, we need to call on the marksmen with a solid reputation.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15

It would be great if we who are marksmen can stand in our place and say “I present you with the certainty, free from my opinion, of what is written”

Must get home

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Heaven, tent, temple, Holy Land(s), churches, altars, sanctuaries and dedicated buildings have all been thought to be God’s residences. We know that things, especially those made with human hands, are poor dwellings. They are inadequate and unnecessary for a great family life.

Shekinah – God’s residence with humanity- is a matter of loving care. Often we get terror and insularity, barriers and partiality, cruelty and false pride where we should find FATHER-LOVE.

Finding home – where God lives – should be everyone’s quest

Into God’s Business

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SINCE believers overcome by the blood of the Lamb (the Word, the Logos, Rev. 12:11, John 1:1, 2,14) and the sayings (logos) related to their testimony SHOULD we not say that the two combine to complete GOD’s businesss?

Christ is WAY without Creature Contributions

Why do we prefer the way of torment and condemnation, trying to plug a square peg into a round hole?

Hebrews 9:26 tells us that he was all alone in his atoning work as priest and sacrifice.

for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Or maybe we really do not subscribe to the idea that

1. Faith is the victory

2. Faith is the indispensable Godpleaser

3. Faith is grace’s channel for saving us

The joke about believers overcoming sin should end before God strips you down Luke he did the well-dressed Judea and showed private parts to the world.

Or maybe we really do subscribe to the idea

  • That the gift of life is really a conditional loan
  • That man is saved by law and grace
  • That our kids, following us in observing holy times and bowing down to food and drink, need a Saviour
  • the law is not a tool of condemnation and a prison from which only Christ can release humanity

God’s business results in victory without me having to contort myself into a White Anglo-Saxon cartoon with tons of Mosaic cosmetics and accessories, or a magician or a shaman authorized to undo God’s work. Let us look at Temple mount in Israel, America’s shameful religious and political slide to the rubbish heap and think: maybe a wakeup is coming our way.

Why would God’s business be something added to the Anointed and Only-Begotten?

Dodging shame and clinching our crosses

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  • Do not ever be ashamed….
  • Be a fellow sufferer…

How? In accordance with divine grace and purpose. The line to shamelessness and beneficial suffering is in the God

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, Timothy 1:9

The saving and the calling are decided before the world began. God knew exactly what he was going to do for .the human race and he knew when he was going to do it. Therefore they cannot be amended by people locked in time and space. This is why the gospel is defined as eternal or everlasting.

Dangerous but delicious diet

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Shame on the but-phobic

If you are living your life on the basis of a daily verse offering with or without commentary you may have fallen into the trap of liking the fattty, sugary, artificially flavored snacks that are popular. People are slow to acknowledge the positives of God’s existence and message. They find his buts and rebukes are less attractive. Very often, the only way for a daily (memory or devotional) verse to make sense is for the user to be familiar with the context. Just saying the verse with no reflection is like spinning ones wheels or like blowing hot air into a cold room.

I pick this verse, 2 Timothy 1:9, as an example of how a thought can be carelessly twisted or disconnected to say something compact. A sentence beginning with “who” is likely to be treated as a question. Who hath saved is one word and who hath saved is another. Two words the writer uses to identify the God whose testimony is the only hope we have for covering our vulnerability.

The King James preserves the intent of the writer by beginning the verse with the relative “who“, because the main thrust of the passage are the COMMANDS (1) stop being ashamed (2) be a fellow-sufferer.

The reader is being encouraged to be in accordance with the power of God. Verse 9 answers to “what God?” Verse 10 contrasts the mystery with appearance and death with life. Verse 11 identifies Paul’s appointment to a ministry to non-Jewish people.

Ashamed of fresh testimony and prisoner status

It is fairly easy for Yeshua to become too much trouble when the easy way is being embraced by the majority. The pressure on many believers today is to talk less about Yeshua and more about God or Yahweh. If he exposed your national treasure as an oppressive fraud you’d think twice about calling him “Lord”.

Verse 9 is intended to identify the GOD (saving and calling)

1. Of whom one needs not be ashamed

2. With whom one needs to suffer

Let us never be ashamed of the Lord’s testimony or his prisoners (our leaders), but let us be fellow-suffers alongside the God who saved us, even if presently many leaders are neither giving Yeshua’s testimony nor are facing imprisonment by the state or other authorities.

One Name under Heaven

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What name are we calling?
From the top?
Before creation there is salvation.
This is the first of divine mysteries 1 Timothy 3:16.

THE INCARNATION.

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
There is no track leading anywhere except where the INCARNATE WORD has trod.
1. Justified in the Spirit
2. Seen by angels
3. Preached to the Gentiles
4. Believed in the world
5. Received into glory
It is all Messiah!

Earliest mystery

1 Corinthians 2:7-8
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world (prior to the ages) unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

The earliest mystery is not the law. That, we have found, is an addition that succeeds the promises. The law has nothing to do with faith.
The name of necessary interest is the name above all others. “Son” is separate from all other entities. The name Yeshua sets the Saviour apart from all entities. There is only one Saviour. Only God can be Saviour.

I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour. Isaiah 43:11

Jewish opinion was that a man could not be Saviour, while the record shows that Moses, Joshua, and the judges were just that: saviours.

How sad it is that having named Christ as personal Saviour we turn to the broken vessels (prophets, kings, patriarchs, and plagiarists).

The top 3 of departure from Christ are
1. Self-reliance
2. Ignorance
3. Playacting

Let us make sure we clean house of these.