Life is Found in God

Have you ever picked a bouquet of flowers and set them on a table in a pretty vase?  The look so beautiful and their fragrance fills the room.  Flowers are used in weddings, given to the people we love and to cheer up those who are sick.  They are a wonder of God and look so alive.

Their appearance is one of life but soon they will droop and wither away.  Those flowers had the outward appearance of life, but without nourishment, they quickly reveal that they can no longer sustain life.  From the time they are separated from their roots, they are in an imminent spiral to death. 

I have friends that I have known for many years who loved the lord, went to church weekly and read their Bibles daily.  They decided the church was not for them and slowly they have spiraled into a spiritual death spin.  No one holds them accountable or encourages them.  They stop reading scripture and it doesn't take long before they live a life no different than anyone else in the world.

We are to meet regularly with other believers.  Separating from the church will end in disaster.   We are to read God's word.  Separating ourselves from the Scriptures will end in falling into the sinful traps of the world.

God loves you so much and wants to show you that love through other believers and tell you Himself through His word.  Do not cut yourself off from God.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Your White Stone with a New Name

"And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone, a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it." Revelation 2:17b

Jesus gave this promise to those in the churches who overcome.  The people who turn away from the ways of the world and follow Christ.  Isn't it interesting that the stone will not have your name on it but will have a 'new name' written on it?  Why a new name?

There are many times that God renames someone.  Abram and Sarai became Abraham and Sarah, Simon became Peter, and Jacob became Israel.  God also named Adam, but then He had Adam name his wife and all the animals.  Giving a name to someone or something is a very important act.

To name someone means that you are going to oversee them.  You are taking responsibility for their life.  You will protect them and see that they have food, clothing, and all that they need.  You are the head of the one you name and will guide them in the best ways to go.  You are their leader and their greatest servant.

God named Adam because God was the one responsible for protecting and guiding Adam.  He oversaw Adam's life so that Adam would have the best life possible.  Adam named the animals and Eve because he was to oversee them.  He was to provide and protect them.

When we marry, the woman takes the man's name.  He is naming her and is taking responsibility for her every need.  He is the head of the house because when good or bad occurs within the home, he is ultimately responsible to God for his family. 

God gives us a new name because He has taken responsibility for us. He is the one who is responsible to care for us.  Jesus is our head and Jesus is the one responsible for all the good and the bad that we have done in our lives.  He took the bad by dying for our sins and we give him the glory for the good which is found in our lives.

We have a new name because we now have a new king on the throne of our hearts.  A king who provides for our needs and is willing to even die for us.  That new name is the whole gospel personally written for you.

Photo Credit: Singled Out by Domiriel

Saint David

You are a saint.  A holy and sanctified one set apart for the purposes of God.  What does it mean to be a saint?  Biblically it is not someone the Catholic Church declares to be a saint.  All people who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are saints.  That is who are the saints, but what is a saint?

A Saint is someone who is Holy.  Israel was declared holy by God, a nation set apart from all other nations for God's purposes.  From the nation of Israel, the Levites were separated and from the Levites, God separated the cohanim to a holier calling as the priest. The holiest priest was the High Priest who once a year went into the Holy of Holies alone to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat for the sins of the nation.  Every degree of holiness was matched with an equal degree of separation unto God.

The most separated people were the holiest people.  A saint is a person separated from the world and given to the purposes of God.  The more separated we are, the holier we are.  God desires us to be separate. To stand out from the world because we now have the mind of Christ so that those in the world will see Him and desire to come to God.  We are to separate ourselves from the world but love the people in the world back to Christ.

If Jesus is your Saviour, then you are a Holy vessel of God set apart for sacred work in the world.  You are a saint of the living God.

The Temples of Desecration

In 168 BC Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated Herod's temple by putting a statue of Zeus in the Holy of Holies and sacrificing pigs to it.  This stirred up the Jews who, led by the Maccabees, revolted and overthrew their oppressors. The Jews then cleansed and rededicated the temple.  The word for dedication is 'Chanukah' and from that day forth they celebrated the Feast of Chanukah.  Even Jesus celebrated Chanukah. John 10:22-23

Today there is no temple in Jerusalem but God has another temple which is created as His holy place in which His presence is to dwell.  In fact, there are many such temples.  You were created to be the dwelling place of God.  You are a temple purposed to hold the creator of the universe.

Everyone who lives in this world was meant to contain God within them.  Sadly what dwells within most of those temples is darkness, sin, and foulness so vile that God cannot enter in.  The world is filled with temples of desecration.  God created every person to be a holy dwelling place, but we have defiled our temples and now only the filth of self is found within.

Every person must have their own Chanukah, their own dedication to God.  Even Christians have idols they set up to other gods which must be taken out and cleansed.  If you sin, you have an idol. 

Non-believers can not see what is inside them, but the scriptures are like a mirror to show what filth there is in a person so that they might come to God and be cleansed.

We must Chanukah our selves to God and help others, with love, to find the cleansing of their temple through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Photo Credit: Happy Chanukah to All! by John

The Secret of a Blessed Life

Look around at all that you own.  Look at others who are richer and own even more.  Look at the person who owns the company you work for.  Look at everyone in the United States and how much we have compared to those in other countries.  Are we blessed?

You said "yes" didn't you?  While I can not disagree, I must point out that all those blessings are just material blessings.  There are many rich people who are blessed with material goods but do not have the spiritual blessings found in a life with Jesus as Lord and savior.

Material blessings are just temporary and will ultimately not mean a thing.  To be truly blessed we need to open up our hearts to God and allow Him to bless us with eternal blessings.  The people who find the joys of God's blessings are those who seek God. 

God pours out blessings to us every day, both material and spiritual.  The only way to receive the spiritual blessings as God pours out them out is to have your heart open to God and ready to receive them.  Too often we are looking for the material blessings of God and forget the spiritual.  We hunger for the temporary and ignore the eternal.

The secret is simple.  "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." Matthew 6:33

Photo by Serge Kutuzov on Unsplash

Jesus' Words in Red

Many Bibles have the words of Christ printed in Red.  I have heard preachers say, "Read and study the words in red."  They are basically saying that the words of Jesus have more power and authority than anything else found in your Bible.  After all, since Jesus is God those words should carry more weight than what some minor prophet said.  Wrong!

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,"  2 Timothy 3:16

Look at your Bible.  Look at the words written there.  Those words were not from the writer but from God.  God breathed those words exactly as He desired them to be written.  The writer might be Moses, Isaiah, Amos or Luke, but it was God and God alone who is responsible for what is written.  It is a paradox but it is true.  The writer's manner of speaking is found in the writings but the words are purely from God, and perfect.

The words of Jesus are from God but the words in black are just as authoritative as those in Red.

Photo Credit: bible and ballcap (4) by Eric Golub

Rest. God Commands Us to Rest.

This message is directed at those who work hard to minister to God, but we all need to learn why God gave us Sabbath Rest.

Some of us do not need to rest simply because we don't do anything, but I know of a few people out there in ministry, that might be burning themselves out.  Some may be in full-time ministry every day 24/7, and some may be working full time at a secular job and trying to minister when not at work.  I admire both of these ministers of God because they are true workers who sacrifice all for the sake of the Gospel.

One of God's commandments is to have a day of rest and yes, that even means from ministry.  A good example of why God wants you to rest if found in Leviticus 25:4.  In this verse, it tells the Hebrew nation to work the land for six years and on the seventh to let it go fallow.  Do not plant or harvest from that land.  Why? It needs to rest.

When you continually plant a crop on land, the nutrients are taken out of the ground and it will produce less and less.  To let it rest a year allows those nutrients to get back into the ground and refresh it so that the field can again be fruitful.

When we work seven days a week in ministry we are taking spiritual nutrients out of ourselves and our work produces less fruit and the job requires more and more of us to keep it going.  God commanded us to rest so that the Holy Spirit can refresh us and make our lives more fruitful.

A Sabbath rest is not a useless time of doing nothing.  It is a time given to God so that our lives are more fruitful and filled with the Spirit of God.

Photo by Jean-Pierre Brungs on Unsplash