The Seeds of the Bible

Take a handful of seeds and look at them.  They are just small, dry bits of plants.  If you put them in a drawer or on a shelf, in a year you will find that nothing has changed at all.  You can prize them and put them on display, but they still will do nothing. Seeds must be sown in order for them to accomplish what they were meant to.

Take your bible and look at it.  It is full of paper and ink.  If you put it in a drawer or on a shelf, in a year you will find that nothing has changed at all.  You can prize your Bible and put it on display, but it will still do nothing.  The Bible must be sown in order for it to accomplish what it was meant to do.

The Bible was meant to be read and shared with others.  We must sow the truths of the scriptures to all people.  When the word of God is sown into the hearts of men, those seeds can take root and bring forth life.

Is the word of God being sown into your life?  Are you reading God's word so that life can spring forth into your heart?  Are you sowing God's word into the hearts of others?  Are you helping to unlock life in others or are you ignoring God's word and allowing death to take the souls of men?

Photo Credit: Abrus precatorius seeds P8104 by eyeweed

The Secret of Success

What is the secret to a successful life?  Can anyone be successful?  What must you do to have a successful life?  I am going to tell you right here and now how YOU can be a success.

Look around you at all the successful people in the world.  I am sure you could make a list of 10 successful people without hesitation.  You can be as successful and more likely MORE successful than they are.

What is it that those people have that you do not?  Money? Mansions? Hot cars and hotter women?  Do they live the life you wish to have with parties, famous people and powerful people of the world? You do not have to be left behind.

John D. Rockefeller, the world's first billionaire when asked 'How much money is enough?" replied 'Just a little bit more'.  Was John D. Rockefeller successful?  Compared to everyone else in the world, he was very successful, rich and could have anything money could buy, but he just needed a little bit more money.  Why? Because he was not satisfied.  He had not yet succeeded in gaining all he wanted.  He was not yet successful in his own eyes.

Movie stars, star athletes, famous singers and others are in the news every day because with all that they have they are not happy.  Successful at being famous and rich is not true success because it didn't bring happiness and fulfillment.  So they overdose on drugs, commit suicide, drink themselves to death and try anyway they can to get rid of the pain of their lives.

Success is found in being content with where you are, but success is never stagnate. You must grow every day, because to remain in one place your life will slowly grow old and stale. But, what are we growing toward?  What is the goal of our life?  We have seen that money, fame and power are bad goals.  Happiness is a goal but how do we attain it and grow in happiness?  What makes us truly successful so that we have a life of fulfillment and happiness?

"Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.  Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart," Psalm 37:3-4

What we desire is found in Christ and Christ alone.  Fame and riches are poor methods to find happiness, love, joy, peace, security, or any other truly satisfying state of mind.  This will sound crazy to some people but if we search our hearts to find what we truly want in life, we will discover that nothing in this world can satisfy us outside of Jesus Christ.

Success is not found in what you seek, but in who you live for. 

Photo Credit: let me, let me by girl/afraid

The Ironic Sanhedrin

The Sanhedrin, called the 'Tractate Sanhedrin', wrote in the Talmud that the Messiah of Israel would be called the 'Leper' because of Isaiah 53: 4-8 which includes, 'surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him a stricken; smitten of God and afflicted.'

They called him a leper because he would be a man of afflictions, stricken and an outcast.  He would be oppressed and killed by his own people.  They saw that the Messiah would be treated like a leper by the people of Israel and He would not even open his mouth to defend himself.  They knew that the Messiah would be hated, despised, tortured and killed.

The Tractate Sanhedrin was the very Sanhedrin that put Jesus on trial for blasphemy, judged him guilty and pressured the Romans to have him crucified.  The very rabbis who described the Messiah as 'The Leper', were the men who fulfilled Isaiah 53.

Ironic that the men who had the vision to see how the Messiah would suffer, be rejected and be murdered, were the very people who were too blind to see the Messiah when he stood right there in front of them.

Photo Credit: High Priest Jewish by Robert Faulkner

Consuming Christ

What did the priests in ancient Israel eat?  The priests didn't just sacrifice the animals at the Temple, but they ate the sacrifices as well.  They survived by partaking of the sacrifices as their holy food.  The sacrifice was not just an outward task, but it became an integral part of their very existence.

Just as your food gives you the energy to work, move, talk and live, spiritual food acts as the sustenance for you to work, move, talk and live a spiritual life.  You need holy food to keep your spiritual life healthy.  Unholy food will actually destroy your spiritual life and bring only death.  Hatred, gossip, lust, revenge, and any impure or unclean thought or action emerges from spiritual darkness.

What was the ultimate sacrifice?  Jesus Christ dying on the cross was the sacrifice which all other sacrifices were foreshadowing.   His sacrifice for our sins was the holiest sacrifice of all.

1 Peter 2:9 says that we who follow Jesus are Royal Priests.  As a priest, our lives are to be sustained by eating the sacrifice.  We must live on the food of the priest by partaking of Christ every day.  We will survive spiritually by taking in Christ to sustain us.  His love, mercy, joy, peace, goodness, grace and His very nature and essence are the spiritual substances that keep us alive and working to accomplish God's will in our lives.

You are what you eat.  If we want to be like Christ, we must daily consume His spiritual essence of Godliness found in His Word.

Photo by Jay Wennington on Unsplash 

What You are Worth?

How much is a grill cheesed sandwich worth?  A couple slices of bread, a slice of cheese, some butter and then grill it for a couple minutes.  It might cost you $1.50 at a restaurant but actually, it is worth whatever someone will pay for it.  If no one buys that $1.50 sandwich than it is not worth $1.50.  If someone would pay $28,000 for it than that $1.50 sandwich is worth $28,000.  That is what someone paid to own a grilled cheese sandwich with the image of the Virgin Mary on it.

Was that sandwich worthy of $28,000?  Most people would say no but someone thought it was.  That is how everything is valued in this world.  Whatever you own is only worth what someone will pay for it.  We might not see it as worthy or perhaps as worth more, but the final decision on worth is the one who buys it.

What are you worth?  If you were kidnapped would someone pay a million dollars to get you back?  If you were to sell all you owned would that be your worth?  How do we know what we are worth?  Are we worth our annual income?  What is the price of a human life?

God is the one who determined what you are worth.  You are more valuable to God then your income or bank account.  All that you own, all your material possessions do not come close to your worth.  Look at the stars above.  You are more valuable than all of them put together.  Look at the animals and plants where you live.  You were made in the image of God and are more precious than all of creation here on earth.  There is nothing in creation which God values more than you.

To pay the ransom for you God gave His precious son, Jesus Christ. "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." 1 Peter 1: 18-19

Sin had you in its grip.  You were destined for that spiritually empty life which ended in the lake of eternal fire. God redeemed you with the most valuable item in this universe and every universe, dimension or existence you can think of.

Are you worthy of such a price to be paid for you?  Most people might say no but God knew you were.  Live your life with the humility of a chunk of dirt formed into a person, but also as one loved, cherished and found worthy by God.

It is a mystery how we can be so valuable to God, but He bought you.  All that you have and are, is His. Give Him all glory and honor and praise for He is the one who is actually the worthy one.

Who is the Jew?

Have you ever thought about what the word 'Jew' means?  In Hebrew, the word for the Jewish people is Yehudim.  It comes from the Hebrew word for praise, worship, and thanksgiving.  A person who is Jewish is meant to praise and worship God.  In fact, his very presence is a witness to the love and power of God.

If it had been up to the will of man, the Jews would have been wiped off the face of the earth long ago.  The name 'Jew' has been used as a curse word for centuries.  The Jew has been hated, cursed, murdered, and vilified throughout history.  Shakespeare used a Jew as the villain in The Merchant of Venice.  Martin Luther railed against the Jew in a language so vile that I would never quote it here.  Jews were scapegoats by Hitler, the Russians and almost every nation in Europe.

Strange that so many see the people of praise and worship to God as the vilest of people on earth.  Even today many see the Jew as the villain in the Middle East.  Anti-semitism is growing in Europe and around the world.  Even in the United States people are turning their backs on Israel and the Jews.

When Jesus was crucified a sign hung over his head saying "King of the Jews".  King of the Yehudim.  King of praise to God.  Everything Jesus did in his life brought praise and worship to God.  Even his death was praise and worship to God.

The people who follow Jesus must do likewise.  We who follow the way of Jesus must bring praise to God in our lives.  Jesus is king of the Yehudim.  He is king of those who praise God.  King of the worshippers of God.

The Jew owes his existence to God, just as the Christian does.  Satan is determined to destroy the Jew and the Christian.  We are both vessels of praise, worship, and thanksgiving to God.  We are Yehudim.

Photo Credit: Happy happy joy by Smoochi

Your Scroll of Days

Did you know that God has a book where all of your days have been written down?  The days and actions of your life were recorded long before you even existed.  That does not mean you do not have free will.  It means God knew what you would do from eternity past.

Psalm 139:16b says "...all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

The word for book is sefer, which is actually a scroll.  So God has written down on a scroll all the days of your life.  A scroll is not like a book in some ways.  You can not just flip to the back of a scroll and see how it ends.  You have to unroll the scroll through each day until you come to the end in order of what was written.  As you read through a scroll you unwind what you are reading towards and what you have read is rolled up behind you.  This way you can only see what portion you are presently reading and not the past or the future.

You are living that area of your life written on the scroll which is in the here and now.  You are not to go back to the past to relive it.  What has been done, is done.  We must accept that and trust God to use our past for good.  We can not look to the future.  To live in the future today is to live in a dream world of what we hope.  It accomplishes nothing except to take time away from today.

Focus on today.  Focus on the plan of God which He has opened up for you this day.  Live your life today to the fullness of God's will. Living in the moment will help lead you to what has been appointed for you in the future.  A future full of God's blessings and grace.

Photo Credit: Torah by Lawrie Cate