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

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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

The Awe of YHVH

In the Old Testament, YHVH is the personal name of God.  It can be found 6800 times and it is so sacred to the Jews that when talking about the name of God the say, "Hashem" (the name).  We have lost how to properly pronounce God's name because the vowels are inferred.  Only the High Priest would utter His name on Yom Kippur.

The name of God is so Holy that the very people of God would not even utter it under their breath.  In Hebrew, God's name is called "the ineffable name"  The name that is so great that it is never to be uttered.  The Jewish tradition is to substitute the word "Adonai"  (my lord) in its place when reading the Torah. When not reading the Torah they will simply refer to God's sacred name as "Hashem" (the name).

We have lost the Awe of God.  There were times when going to church meant dressing up in your best, but now we go in tattered blue jeans and t-shirts.  Swearing and cursing were never heard in public and you could be fined or locked up for it.  Cursing the name of God is found in our songs, movies, TV shows, and even in church sermons.

When we think of God do we think of a big buddy who throws His arm around us and says, "Ah shucks, ya shouldn't say that."  How holy is your God?

God commands respect.  God created you.  He is the one who holds your life in His hand.  He is the omnipotent one, the omniscient one, and the omnipresent one.  He alone is self-sufficient, needing no one outside of Himself to survive.   Hashem is AWESOME!!

"No one is like you, LORD: you are great, and your name is mighty in power."  Jeremiah 10:6

Photo Credit: DSC00638 by nathan_gamble

Thanksgving

We are so blessed where I live in the United States.  Today we celebrate Thanksgiving which began back in 1621 with the first Thanksgiving.  What we do not think much about is that the first Thanksgiving was after a disastrous winter.  One hundred and two pilgrims set off for the new world and after that first winter, only fifty-one still survived.  During that first winter, they suffered from diseases, scurvy, lack of shelter and hunger.

Some people might think that the pilgrims should be angry with God.  Everyone had suffered so much and half of the people died.  Only four of the married wives survived.  That first year was a time of great sorrow and yet, in the end, they held a three-day feast to give thanks to God.  They had invited the Indians to their feast and thanked them for their help, but they knew God was the one who had brought them help when they needed it.  God was the one who saw to it that their harvest was plentiful.  God was the one who blessed them with life.

The pilgrims could identify with Jeremiah in Jeremiah 33:11  "...Praise the LORD of hosts: for the LORD is good; for His mercy endureth forever:..."

Jeremiah was the prophet who told Israel that because of their sins, Babylon would come to kill and conquer Jerusalem.  Their king would be blinded and taken away to Babylon.  The people would die horrible deaths and the living would wish they had died.  But with all the gloom and doom that Jeremiah spoke of he still blessed the Lord as good and merciful.  Jeremiah knew that even in times of disaster, God would be watching over them and see them through all of it.

God did see the pilgrims through those rough times.  God was watching over those pioneers to the New World.  Their descendants live today among us because of the merciful grace of God.

Perhaps you are going through times of distress and don't know where to turn.  I urge you to be like the courageous pilgrims and trust God to watch over you and see you through those times of trouble.  Give thanks today that God is faithful and merciful.

God deserves our praise and thanksgiving even in times of trouble.

Photo by Gabriel Garcia Marengo on Unsplash

Awake Sleeper and Discern the Times

This could be the most important post I write.  People I see around me think the world is getting worse but tomorrow will be like today for me and every day after will be just the same.  It will not affect me. That is a deception which Satan has foisted upon us.

In Matthew 16:2-3 Jesus scolds the Pharisees for not discerning the times which they lived in.  The signs were there to show that the Messiah had come and he was Jesus who stood before them.  There are even more signs of the times today that Jesus is going to return very very soon.  It is true we do not know the day or hour but this is the season of his return.

The Middle East is in turmoil. The nations of Ezekial 38 are shaping up for war.  There are rumors of wars, with battles going on now like never before.  Any day now we might hear that the prophecy of Isaiah 17:1 has been fulfilled and Damascus is gone.  Today much of it is in ruin but soon the Bible says it will be completely gone.

Does this sound like today? "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.  For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people." 2 Timothy 3:1-5

No, it has not been like this before, because now it is worldwide.  The United States is one of the most guilty, but every other nation is not far behind.  What are we to do?

"But if the watchman sees the sword coming, and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand." Ezekiel 33:6

Are you a Christian?  If so then you are a watchman.  You are to be watching the signs of the times, not to figure out when the rapture will occur, but to warn others of the coming tribulation.  God calls upon you to cry out to the world their need for Jesus so that they might escape the coming judgment. I have only mentioned a small number of signs found in the world today.  There are many more and all of them cry out to us that the time is short and the harvest is ripe. 

God is calling you to wake up and prepare the way of the Lord, for he is coming soon.

Photo by Maeghan Smulders on Unsplash