Finding the Fight Fit is Easy

Revisiting the idea that the word of truth needs to be measured and fit together is neither tiring nor monotonous. Popular as rightly dividing among people who have neither interest nor ability to work with the Biblical text, the actual work is missing in action.

There are thousands of poorly translated Bible expressions which lead to disastrous interpretations. There are scores of popular sayings that pollute the word-working environment which we have thought were Christ-centered.

Investigating those expressions closely from the source and with Christ as the axis is still our best shield against silly slogans and shallow beliefs.

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

Peter got it right when he said to Yeshua “Where can we go? You have the words of life“. He would be a mega hypocrite if he was thinking that some other person also had the words of life. What would it make us if we say what Peter said and keep a convenient back up or alternate source handy?

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

Matthew 7:26

To propose that our Lord had a scroll in his hand when he uttered these words is evidence that the influence of demonic hypnosis is more important than biblical fact. Who else would turn you down a useless sideroad?

The Failure of Wall Law

The walls of historic significance are all in ruins, and their intended purposes remain unachievable. People need people. People need to move and no priority move on God’s part have progressed without migration. Wall theology reaches into the darkness of racial and gender discrimination. If Christian attitudes keep skidding off the gospel track to embrace wall – legal or literal – we can expect a catastrophic outcome because peace and safety are grounded in attitudes, not law.

The partition of humans into camps other than lost or saved is a perversion of the enlightened mind.

Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 1 Corinthians 10:12

Pervasive Positivity Perverted

Under what moon can we expect people who are holding their noses against what faith brings to increase in it?  

The moon of hasty devotions and unfinished studies.  

The following is a daily devotional belonging to the type that does no study but tries to tack on Jesus at the end. The title itself betrays the author’s plan to reverse the writer’s intention. Faith is not sight, just as surely as what we hope for is not ours. Faith works when sight is ineffective. It is a doubting and unbelieving crew that holds to videre est credere, seeing is believing.  My comments are in red.

Believing is Seeing

“By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”

In this next paragraph the writer asserts that many people live far below God’s ideal, leaving us to as assume perhaps that he and others live above or in line with God’s ideal. Still there is no reference to the Saviour.  As is typical of people who have little relationship with the actual words of the Bible the devotional author sets sight on creation.   No-one ever got saved by believing that God reated the universe.

You were created by Almighty God to live a blessed and fulfilled life. But so many people live far below the level of what God truly intends for them simply because they don’t see how it could happen. The truth is that you have to believe before you’re ever going to see something take place in the natural. You have to look with your eyes of faith because the provision, healing and miracle that you need is already available in the supernatural realm.

Where does a person get eyes of faith?

You might say, “Well, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to look with my eyes of faith.” The way you open your eyes of faith is by reading and meditating on the Word of God. His Word deposits strength and faith inside of you and illuminates your heart. His Word causes your faith to grow so you can believe His promises. And when you believe it, then you will see it because all things are possible for those who believe!

“Seeing in the natural” is irrelevant. Faith is the substance (the audio, video, tangible component of what we are hoping for).  Nothing has been said in this devotional about the great salvation or the resultant relationship, so this exhortation remains in the realm of the general.  The following paragraph therefore changes the scope by addressing the feeding of one’s faith.

Today, feed your faith by meditating on His Word. Declare His promises over your life. Keep moving forward with an attitude of expectancy knowing that He has victory in store for your future!

Faith that makes people well was not found anywhere in Israel, among the people who were surrounded with God’s written instructions.  It was the law of the land for thousands of years.   Under what moon can we expect people who are holding their noses against what faith brings to increase in it?

“Father, thank You for Your sweet and precious promises. I choose to open the eyes of my heart so that I can see and receive the good things You have for me. Help me to be a blessing to others and keep my mind stayed on You in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

All of the “IN JESUS’ NAME” tacked on to the end of what we say or do does not make a thing happen, be attractive or true.

Lord, I just want the fading glory

I have been compiling observations about a few statements that seem to hang around like a night-time trial of an innocent citizen. Sometimes we can be accused of having one eye closed but the things that I am observing include many that look more like having both eyes gouged out. Attitudes are so full of self (esteem, effort, and expression) that God and Christ are truly absentee landlords. Some of us have decided that drinking the bottle will give the advantage over just drinking the wine. Others find solace in monotony, repetition, insularity, elitism, relabelling things we do not own, clinging to sweet-smelling flowers, in a clear obsession with fading glory.

All flesh is grass, but God’s word endures.

All created things perish.

The biggie of fading flowers

There is no point to trying to comply with everything God ever said. Some things have become irrelevant and there are vistas of kingdom life that were kept under wraps until the Word became flesh and lived among men 2000 years. He revealed himself as the way to life.

That revelation was not in the law or the prophets or the writings. That revelation was reserved for the lips of God’s anointed.

If latching onto the ten commandments is said to be required them someone is trying to get away with spiritual adultery (see Romans 7).

Eden is a starting point

If we can imagine God giving the ten Commandments to Adam and Eve we can also imagine Christ saying “Keep the whole law and be saved”. Who buys that and for how long?

Moses glitter

  • God’s promises eclipse the Mosaic tradition (Galatians 3)
  • Christ distances himself from all of Israel’s caretakers, and calls them thieves and robbers. (John 10:8)

Kingdom glitter

  • Kingdom law needs a king. There was no king at Sinai and it took three magi to bring the King’s birth to Jewish attention. (James 1, Matthew 2:1-2)

The older conventions are easy to claim: the vast majority are about festivals, food and drink, and bodily functions. All are elementary and juvenile, now faded into no glory by comparison with the Light of the world.

There is no evidence that people of ancient times living under Moses’ economy had even the common impartiality, justice, and respect for other people. Yet they had instruction on the disposal of human waste.

Denying that God changes things he said in antiquity in order to bring his eternal plan to light is to deny Christ and to conspire with murderers and thieves.

Your Brother’s Home!

Lost means lost. Found means found. Here in the Lost (not wasteful or prodigal) Son story in Luke’s gospel the one was not lost turns out to be miserable and self-loving.

The fact that the lost son wasted (dapanao) his inheritance seems to have shaped our interpretation of the lesson. At best it shows how quickly we evaluate one another as undeserving, while the closing thought is rejoice and be glad.

Very often we neglect to put ourselves into the picture of the stories Yeshua told. When we do put ourselves into the narrative we choose the best light and most favourable situations.

It was fitting [for you] to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found. Luke 15:32

EE

The way to life

Who said love your neighbour as yourself was a lifeline or a life-sign? No one of note ever said that. So why is it is such a rage 2019 when love in its purest and fullest showing is no longer a mystery? We are confusing the way of life with the way to life.

All the recommended and idealistic behaviors of the human history are not the way to life. There is only one way to life and it does not include our performance.

No one is doing the critical thinking when the flesh of a animal that dies naturally is an abomination for me but that same flesh can be put on sale for my neighbour. It is likely that we do not have the heart to admit that neighbours are unavoidable and of equal value to God. It is obvious that heart was not one of the things Yahweh was willing to hand out wholesale in antiquity.

Individuals who refuse to commit to Christ without reservation are lost, and some who carry the name living creature are really dead. Only God knows the subject completely. In the blink of an eye the dead come to life. The way to life remains mysterious.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:8