Finding the Riches of God.

The word "Hebrew" means to pass over.  The Hebrew children had to pass over  the Red Sea and the river Jordan to get to the promised land, but before they did that they had to exit Egypt. The act of entering the promised land was very important, but equally important was the act of exiting the land of their slavery.  You can not enter into something without first exiting something else.

In Genesis 12:1 "The LORD had said to Abram, "Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you."  God's first command was to "Go from your country."  Before Abram could ever go anywhere he first had to leave where he was at.

When Jesus called his disciples to come with him, they first had to leave their fishing boats and nets.  They had to leave their old lives behind so that they could follow Christ.

God calls us to come and follow Him.  He asks us to be willing to leave our old lives and enter into a new life.  Just as you can not go into one room without leaving the room you are in, you can not enter into a life with Christ, without leaving your old life behind.

There are many people who long for changes in their lives.  They want something better, more satisfying and new.  What they don't want is to leave what they have now behind.  Few people are willing to leave what they know they have, even if it is not good for them, for something they have not even seen.

When we look upon what we have in our hands now, we are scared to lose what little we have for the promise of something greater that we do no see.  We need to look up from our hands and into the face of God.  What God promises, God does.  When God promises rich robes for rags, He fulfills that promise.  God never fails. Trust God.  Leave the slavery of your land and go into the promised land of God's riches.  

Is Jesus God?

Most people in the world say that Jesus is not God.  Does the Old Testament show Jesus to be God?  Not only does it show him to be God it out right says it.

In the Hebrew the word for salvation is Yeshuah.  The Greek translation of Yeshuah is Jesus. So Jesus' name means salvation or Yahweh saves.  With this knowledge we can find some very interesting verses in the old testament. 

"Surely God is (my) Yeshuah; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become (my) Yeshuah" Isaiah 12:2

"The LORD is my strength and my defense; he has become (my) Yeshuah." Psalm 118:14

"The LORD is my strength and my defense; he has become (my) Yeshuah. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him." Exodus 15:2

The words in parenthesis were added by translators to make it easier to understand.  

You might say this is only a coincidence but when it comes to God, there are no coincidences. Yes these verses are talking about salvation, but many times God talks about two different things in a verse. I believe these verses have a double meaning as well as do many more Bible passages. These verses show that God came to earth and became Yeshuah, our salvation. 

Photo Credit: Face of Jesus 130 by Waiting for the word

Launch Out into the Deep

Where are you living your life?  Are you living in the calm, quiet of the shallow waters, or in the unpredictable, dangerous waters of the deep?

It's nice living in the shallow waters where life is easy and stress free.  You never enter the deeps. You are near the safety of the familiar shore.  It is comfortable here.  Very little can ever disturb you when you live in the shallows.

The deep waters are unknown and unpredictable.  There is no land in sight and safety is beyond the horizon.  The waves of the deep can be huge and completely engulf you.  Storms are more vicious and deadly here. It is not easy, stress free or comfortable.

In Luke 5:4-11 Jesus tells his disciples to "Launch out  into the deep, and let your nets out for a catch."  When they did as Jesus said, they caught so many fish that they filled two boats to almost sinking.  Because they followed what Jesus said, they were blessed beyond what they thought possible.  If the disciples had stayed in the shallows, they would have been more comfortable, but not blessed.

Following God means to leave what is comfortable and  putting out into the deep.  To trust Him with our lives even when storms come to overwhelm us.  It means to not look for familiar shores for safety but to God instead.  This is where we will find true blessings.  This is where God can use us and bring about an abundant harvest.

I was in the US Navy and I have seen waves which completely cover a ship.  I sailed through hurricanes and saw the destruction they possess. It was out in the deep waters where I found myself the most alive and where I saw the might and the glory of God.  I never felt fear our in the deep waters no matter how rough it was, but I found the presence of God much closer out there.

How to Change Your Past

We all have times in our past which we regret.  Can those times be altered so that they never happened?  If you took a white shirt and dyed it so that every fiber of that shirt was totally red, could you undye it, so that it was as white as before?

If it is impossible then how can God say "Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow." Isaiah 1:18   How can sins, which have already been committed, suddenly be gone, wiped clean from our past?  How can any past action disappear so that we become sinless?

The first miracle of Jesus was performed at the wedding at Cana.  Because the wine had all been drunk, but they were still celebrating, they needed more wine.  Jesus took containers of water and changed it into wine.

How can that be?  Wine takes time to make.  Even if you had grape juice instead of wine it would still take weeks at least to make it into wine.  To change water to wine, you must give it a past where there once was none.

Whatever past sins we have, if we repent, God does not just forgive them.  If He did, we would still have them and be the same person as before, and just not be punished for them.  It is not just as if we did not sin, but we are completely purified and righteous.  No stains of sin exist any more.  Those sins have been taken away by Jesus as he hung on the cross.  They are now his sins and not ours.  Our past is free of all sin, great and small.  He has changed you from water to wine.

As a young Christian this song about Christ turning water into wine reminded me of this truth.  The Hawaians "He turned the water into wine"

The Exact Time of Jesus' Crucifixion Foretold

The law of the Tamid was started in Exodus 29: 38-39. It was the daily sacrifice of a lamb in the morning and another in the evening.  The morning sacrifice took place at the third hour of the day (9 am) and the evening sacrifice at the ninth hour of the day (3 pm.)

Tamid means daily, forever perpetual, always, and continual. As the morning sacrifice took place, the temple trumpets would sound and the temple gates would be opened. At the ninth hour the second lamb was slain as the evening sacrifice and all sacrifices at the temple would cease for the day.

Jesus was nailed to the cross on the third hour of the day.  As the temple trumpets sounded over Jerusalem, Jesus was raised up on the cross to suffer and die.  The sacrifices in the temple began just as Jesus' crucifixion began.

At the ninth hour Jesus cried out "It is finished" and bowing his head he gave up his spirit.  As he took that final breath, the second lamb was slain and all sacrifices in the temple ceased.

Jesus is our Tamid.  His sacrifice was for our daily sins from our furthest past, through today and forever.  His sacrifice was a perpetual sacrifice that will always and continually cover our sins.

The Tamid sacrifice of the lambs was a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do on the cross even down to the exact time of his crucifixion and death.

The Origin of Palestine.

The Jews revolted against Rome in 66 AD resulting in Rome destroying Jerusalem in 70 AD.  Until 134 AD the Jews fought the yoke of Rome within the Empire. This resulted in hundreds of thousand deaths and the depopulation of areas in the Roman Empire such as Libya and Cyrene.  The Jews ambushed and killed the XII Roman Legion and were a major problem to the Empire.  This period is known as the Jewish-Roman Wars.

While the Jewish-Roman wars took place mostly outside of Judea, a revolt began within Judea in 132 called the Bar Kokhba revolt.  This revolt, led by Simon Bar Kokhba, started when they cut off the Roman garrison in Jerusalem.  The Romans tried unsuccessfully to subdue the revolt and the Jews initially had victories over the Romans.  Many of the Jews regarded Bar Kokhba as The Messiah.

Roman Emperor Hadrian was tired of these troublesome Jews.  He assembled a large scale Roman force of six full legions and finally crushed the revolt in 134 AD.  This resulted in the depopulation of Judea.  Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed and many more died of hunger or disease.  Many of those left were sold into slavery. Jews where forbidden to enter Jerusalem and were executed if found there.

The city of Jerusalem was renamed the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina.  To wipe out even the memory of Judea or Ancient Israel the Emperor renamed the region, Palaestina after the Philistines who had been wiped out and totally disappeared in the 5th century BC.

The name Palestine was used to deny the Jews the right to the land of Israel.  It is used to change the history of Israel and deny the prophetic words of God for His people and the land of Israel.  Palestine denies God, the Bible, and the promises of God including the second coming of Jesus Christ. 

The Milk of God

When we were born we came into a totally alien world of which we knew nothing about.  Innately we did know one thing about our new world, mother's milk. Without knowing what it taste like, looked like or if it was even real, we knew that it would satisfy our hunger.

When we were born milk satisfied our physical needs, but there were other needs that were also born within us.  Needs that we also knew nothing about and yet we knew that they must be satisfied from somewhere outside of ourselves.  The need for love was a driving force in our lives, which was first met by our mothers.  As we grew older we found we needed more than just her love.  We sought out the perfect love.

Perhaps we found a person to love and married them.  Marriage can bring much love into our lives, but it is not perfect and does not perfectly satisfy.  We try to fill that desire for love with many things such as jobs, money, sex, drugs, friendships, possessions but find them not perfectly satisfying either.

That desire was placed in us by God, just like the desire for mother's milk was, but it is a spiritual desire.  The desire for the perfect, eternal love of God.  He and He alone is the spiritual milk of life that can satisfy the longing of our lives.

"Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days."  Psalm 90:14

The Mystery of God's Zeroa

Zeroa is the Hebrew word for "arm" or "strength."  When we think of God's strong arm, we think how He is mighty and invincible.  No force in all the universe, no person or demon can ever even hope to defeat Him.  His very words have the power to create or destroy.  A man will live or die at the very whim of God.  He is the most terrible and awesome force in the universe.

Isaiah 53:1 says, "Who has believed our message?  And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?"

Have you seen the strength of the lord and just how mighty God is?  If you read the rest of Isaiah 53  you will find that the Zeroa of God, in this chapter, is a person.  A person who has no beauty or attractiveness.  A person despised and forsaken.  He is a man of sorrow and full of grief.  The Zeroa of God is pierced, crushed, scourged and during it all he was silent.

Jesus Christ is the Zeroa, the strength, of God.  Even though he was righteous and blameless, he suffered the torture and death we dealt to him.  He could easily have simply stopped it all and destroyed all people if he so desired.  He had the power and the right to never go through that pain and suffering.

The Zeroa of God is found in His love.  Love so powerful and strong, the arm of God Almighty was weak, broken and died on a cross for you.

Photo Credit: Crown of Thorns by Waiting for the Word

What is Love?

Love is putting yourself in the place of another.  When you love someone you feel their pain and share their joy.  When they are burdened, you share that burden with them.  Where they are poor, you share out of your abundance.  Love willingly suffers to bring healing.

The greatest example of Love is God Himself who came into this world to share the pain and suffering of this life. He laughed with us and cried with us.  He lifted burdens and gave life to even the most despised and rejected people. Jesus even lifted the burden of sin by being tortured and murdered for our sins.

The love of God did not end at the cross.  Even today He wants to share our burdens.  He cries when we cry and rejoices when we rejoice.  He wants to walk with us through life and share all that you experience.  He desires to teach us about His love so that we can follow His example and love others.  We are to put ourselves in the place of others just as He did.  Just as God came down from the throne of Heaven to this world, we are to go where ever needed to share the Love of God. We are to put ourselves into the place of another.

Photo Credit: help by Rachel

Creation Day or Eons?

The "Gap" theory states that there is a gap of millions of years between Genesis 1 verse 1 and verse 2.  In that gap evolution took place from the time of the Big bang until the fall of Satan and a great war occurred which destroyed all creation.  God then re-created what we have today.

Just as the "Day-age" creationist try to answer the problem of Evolution, by saying each day in creation is actually millions of years, the Gap tries to reconcile the Bible and Evolution.  The problem with both of these is that if what they say is true then GOD LIED!!

There is a lot of biblical evidence against these two theories but lets look at just one.  When did death come into  the world? Death is a result of sin and there was no sin in the world until Adam and Eve sinned by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Genesis 2:27

If death never occurred before the fall then the dinosaurs could not have died out millions of years ago. Every animal and plant which was born or planted would still have been alive and well.  Of course this is all impossible.

God does not lie.  Even if you do not see how what God says could be true, believe the impossible from God before you believe what your own eyes sees.  

What do you Actually Own?

What do you possess?  I mean, what do you actually own in your life?  If someone were to ask me what I own, I would say a car, house, furniture, clothing, food and a lot of other things, but do I really?

There is no true verb for "to have" in the Hebrew Scripture.  You can not say "I have this or that."  By the Hebrew language you can not possess anything in this world.  It is simply an illusion.  There is nothing in this world which you can keep.  It is only temporarily entrusted to you.  What you think you have, you really do not.  If you fight to keep what you have you are fighting for what you do not have.

God is the only person who actually owns anything and He allows us to be stewards of some of His earthly riches.  Even your own life is not your own but God's; therefore the burdens in our lives are not ours but God's also.

The only things we can give to God which belongs to us are our sins and our will.  The only thing a Christian can truly possess is God Himself.  When you have nothing but God, you own everything.

Photo Credit: A vintage Jaguar XK150 on show at Hinton Ampner in Hampshire by Anguskirk

No Fear! No Worry!

Would you like to live a life without fear and worry?  It seems impossible in this fallen world filled with violence, war, sickness and death. If it was impossible than why would scripture so many times tell us not to fear or worry?

The people with no fear are not extreme sports athletes who do death defying stunts.  The answer is not in being brave.  The mystery of where to find a worry free, fearless life is found in the Bible.  If we really believed it we would be closer to a fear free life.

"Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.  The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation." Isaiah 12:2

When Isaiah says "I will trust and not be afraid" he is not just talking about fear of death and where we would go afterwards. If we truly trust God with our lives, we would have no fear.  We would know that God loves us too much to let unnecessary pain in our lives.  Yes, some pain is necessary in order to grow in Him and to serve Him, but even then God is there beside us.  The life of a Christian will have have pain, suffering and even death because of the fall of man. But God is love and in the love chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, it says that love always protects.  God protects us from Satan's plans, so the we can follow God's plan for our lives.

So what do you have to fear?  What do you have to worry about?  The God who loves you more than anything you could imagine is with you; protecting you.  You just need to rest in Him.  Trust that you are in His protective hands where you can just peacefully curl up and sleep soundly; knowing that He is watching over you.

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be trouble and do not be afraid."  John 14:27

Photo Credit: Panic by Nate Steiner

The Death Penalty for a Lie

It just doesn't seem fair that we should be thrown into Hell for telling a little white lie.  In fact there are lots of small sins that we feel shouldn't send us into eternal damnation.  So why would a loving God have such a harsh punishment for such a little thing?

God is the ruler of all the universe.  He is king of everything and everyone is living within His kingdom.  God sets forth laws which are beneficial to the people of His kingdom.  They are laws which are established out of love.  His nature is one of love and protection.

When we go against any Law of God we are saying that God was wrong to establish that law.  We are telling God "I know better than you do.  I should be the King and not you."  We are attempting to tear God off the throne and establish ourselves in His place.  What we are doing is treason.

Throughout history anyone who tried to take down the authority of a nation was deemed a traitor.  It was the most horrendous crime you could commit.  The penalty was death, and usually a very horrible and prolonged death.

All sin is taken very seriously by God because it is a direct attack against Him and undermines the loving protection He gives to all people.

Photo Credit: Flames by Jaymann91

Cold Blooded Evil

In the Scriptures, the serpent is a symbol of evil.  That does not mean that the serpent is evil, but that it represents evil.  The cold blooded serpent moves by twisting its way to its destination.

Evil is also cold blooded and twisted.  Just as a snake twists its body to move, evil twists the truth.  It will twist all that is pure, good and Godly into something defiled and vile.

Deception is cold blooded. Gossip is cold blooded. Illicit sex is cold blooded.  Hatred, slander, revenge, and even pride are all cold blooded.

God desires that those things which are cold blooded to be cast from us.  They are finite while that which is of God will endure forever.  The evil cold blooded things must give way, in the world and in our lives, to the goodness of God.

Jesus' Evil Twin

Pilate stood before the crowd of Jews with two men on either side of him.  On one side was Jesus, the Son of God and on the other was Jesus, the son of his father.  When offered to release Jesus who had done no wrong or Jesus who was a famous criminal, the crowds freed the evil Jesus and called for the crucifixion of the righteous and sinless Jesus.

The story found in Matthew 27 calls the one set free Barabbas.  In Matthew 27:16 the most trusted ancient text the full name given is Jesus Barabbas.  It is much more likely that the name Jesus was deleted, is some text, out of respect for the Messiah rather than added.  

What does the name Barabbas means? Bar means "son" and abbas means "father".  So Barabbas means "son of the father"  

To explain the mystery of why these two identical men were brought forth to the people we must go back to the time when God gave Moses the laws found in Leviticus. In Leviticus 16 God instructs that the high priest should take two goats that were identical in appearance and cast lots for them. One goat would be sacrificed for the sins of the people, while the other goat would be freed.  Two goats where presented to the people; each with a separate destiny.  

This act of choosing which goat was to live and which was to die was a fore shadowing of  the coming Messiah.  

Dry Bones

The Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, but it wasn't until 73 AD that the last of Israel was truly conquered. The fortress of Masada held out against the Romans until finally the last zealots, numbering about 1000, killed themselves so that the Romans could never have the victory of actually defeating them or sending survivors into slavery.

When Masada was excavated in the 1950s, they found a scripture buried in the ruins, Ezekiel 37: 1-14. This is where God shows Ezekiel a valley full of dry bones and ask "Son of man, can these bones live?"  God then tells Ezekiel to prophesy over the dry bones to put on flesh and skin and to live.  And the dry bones did and they stood up like a vast army.  God then says that He will bring the Jews up from the grave, they will will live again in their own land and God will put His spirit into them.

On May 14th 1948,  for the first time since the fall of Masada, Jews lived under the banner of their own nation.  God brought them out of the grave of history back to life just as Ezekiel pronounced He would.  Today Israel lives by the grace of God.  They have their own land back, they speak the same language as they did 2000 years ago. They have the shekel as their currency again. No people have ever come back from destruction like this before and become a nation again.  God brought them back from being dry bones to being a living nation of people that someday Jesus Christ will return and rule.

Photo Credit: Masada, Israel by Miguelsihman

To Kiss God

I love God.  I desire to see Him with all of my heart.  I know I will be so happy, but I wonder what I will do when I see Jesus face to face.  What will any of us do?  Will we cry with joy?  Will we hug him and never want to let him go? Perhaps we will fall down before him and kiss his feet.

Do you desire to give God a kiss?  Did you know that you can kiss God even now?  In the Greek New Testament, Proskuneo is translated as worship.  Pros means "towards" and kuneo means "to kiss"  It is the idea of so adoring Him that you throw yourself down and kiss His feet.

Would you like to give God a kiss?  Worship Him!  Right now you can give the Lord a kiss by worshiping Him.  Sing a love song to Him. Pray and tell Him how much you love Him.  Worship Him and kiss God.

Photo Credit: kiss by summerbl4ck