To be accepted, that is what we all look for to one degree or another. We want to belong. We wear certain clothes, get hair styles (or colors), say and do things that violate our own sense of being just to be accepted by another group of people. Some even will join a church to have this acceptance, this sense of belonging, we attend, join groups, and learn the lingo just to fit in but even that falls short.

Look at what it really says here: we are not acceptable. He makes us accepted in the beloved. Who is this He? Why it I Jesus Christ of course!

Jest think of the story of Levi, also called Matthew. He was a dreaded tax collector for the hated Roman government. The name of Levi means “joined to” and the tribe of Levi was reserved to the service of God. Yet here he was, considered at least a traitor, at worse a thief. He was alone and shunned by his countrymen. Every time someone called his name Levi, it must have mocked him. He was alone, an outcast, not a part of or joined to anybody (except other publicns and sinners).

What did Jesus say to this man? “Follow Me.” He was not acceptable but was made him accepted. And that is what Jesus is doing today. Making those who will follow Him accepted in the beloved, His beloved, His church.

John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (17) For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

We do all kinds of things to be accepted of man and they always let us down. God did the hard part for us. If we believe we are made accepted by Jesus in His beloved.

What promise? Exodus 20:12 tells us that “thy days may be long,” and Deuteronomy 5:16 says “that thy days may be prolonged and it may go well with thee.”

It reminds me of something I heard in a comedy routine, I think it was Bill Cosby said “boy, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out and make another that looks just like you.” Funny yes but not the reason we choose today to honor our mothers.

I am blesse in life. I have a Mom. When I was young she made sure I got to school and did my homework. She was there when I lost my first pet (an injured sparrow I called Birdie) who I nursed back to health. One day I came home from school and he was dead in the bottom of the cage. It was Mom who gave me a hug and said it was OK to cry.

Mom was the nurse, cook (and still is, oh what a cook! I remember a time when two ladies were using the kitchen in the Circle of Love for their cooking show on PBS in Georgia. They made meatloaf one day and this nice lady asked me how I liked.it. I gave it an A-. She asked what was wrong. Nothing, it just isn’t as good as Mom’s. She accepted that.) And bookkeeper in our house. Dad said many times it did not matter how much money he made, if it was not for Mom paying the bills we would be out in the street.

So honor Mom this Mother’s Day. Give her a call, a hug, a bouquet of flowers. Show honor to who honor is due. God bless you Mom.

The lawyer really did not understand the concept of what an inheritance is, you really cannot do anything to earn it, you get it because of the fact you are part of a family. You are loved. The thing is, I can identify with the lawyer’s next question: who then is my neighbor?

I can get the fact about loving God. He had agape for me. That is one of the four Greek words for love and it means “a love feast.” Think about what a feast is, and I imagine an abundance of food of all kinds, being able to eat my fill and there is still food left over. People misinterpret this as a special divine love attributed only to God but the Bible does not say that. The Bible speaks of the fact that even sinners agape those who agape them (see Luke 6:32) but God perfectly has agape love, He loved us so much He sent Jesus to die for our sacrifice (see John 3:16-18). This is the love we should have for each other (see John 13:34-35), which the Holy Spirit shines abroad in our hearts for others to see (Romans 5:5).

This is the love we need to have for my neighbor. I understand his apprehension as this is one of the things that I struggle with daily. I have friends who have the ability to have mercy, be generous, and not worry about it. I admire them but I am not there yet. I worry about things like having enough money to get to the doctors or pay for my needs like food. I am not working right now due to health issues and money is hard to come by but I want to be obedient. So I understand why the lawyer would ask this question, though I would ask it for a different reason, not to justify myself.

So Jesus tells a story about a man mugged and left for dead. A pastor comes by and he passes by, “I am too busy I have a conference to go to.” Then comes the deacon, who passes by saying, “I cannot stop, I have to get to the benevolence board meeting.” But the one who stopped was his mortal enemy and what happened? He had compassion and we see that love cost. (Please excuse the updated paraphrase.)

• It cost him time: he had to stop and care for him
• It cost him resources. He used his own oil, wine, and bandages to treat the man.
• It inconvenienced him: He allowed the injured man to ride his donkey while he walked.
• It cost him money: he paid for the innkeeper to care for him.

Real love is messy. It cannot be done through third parties like the government, homeless shelters, food pantries, and clothes closets. It is really one man showing the love of Jesus to another man (see Matthew 25:32-46). There is no escaping this, Jesus asked the lawyer who was the neighbor. The lawyer answered the one who showed mercy. Jesus told him to go and do thou likewise (Luke 10:30-37). It is not easy, it is not convenient, but if we are going to be called Christians, it is necessary.

The Ten Commandments can give us guidance on how to Love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. Last time we looked at the first two commandments and today we pick up with number three.

Exodus 20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

I knew a pastor one time who hated those who had a “potty mouth” and would deride anyone who would say G-D (and I will not spell it out) as the blasphemy and a violation of this commandment. Yet he would say quite frequently gosh. I hate this word just as much because it is used so loosely by those claiming to be Christian. It is defined as a mild oath, a euphemism for God and if you are not fooling Noah Webster and you are not fooling God, yet this is s most superficial treatment of this commandment.

A bride takes her husband’s name and can make it vain (H7722 tempest, deviation) think about what New Orleans looked like after Katrina. A wife can do this to a marriage by not being faithful and keeping her vows. We do it by taking Christ’s name (Christian) and not acting like it! We devastate His name when, like Israel we go “whoring after other gods.” (Judges 2:17) God equates idolatry to adultery and is NEVER proper for the church which is the bride of Jesus (see Ephesians 5:22-32).

Exodus 20:8-11 remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (9) Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: (10) But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: (11) For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

• Matthew 11:28-29 come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (29) Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Jesus by filling the law has become our Sabbath, our rest.
• But there is still a biblical principle here of resting one day in seven. This is to give a time of rest and refreshment. A day to spend special time with God. This is important. If you tell a woman you love her yet you never call, never talk, never want to spend time with her, in fact you do not even care about what pleases her or makes her happy, after a while she will get the feeling that you do not really love her. We need to spend time lavishly with the God we profess to love. Spending time in prayer, praise, worship, Word draws us closer to Him, helps us to know what to do to please Him and gives us a desire to actually do that.

To love the Lord thy God with all my heart, soul, and mind. From this first table of the law defining our relationship with Him we see to do this we must love Him above all others, show it in the way He defines, be faithful to Him as a good bride, and set aside the time to be with Him. If we can do this we are making good progress in our desire to love God.

Jesus commands us to love God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind. In other words with all of our emotions, all our will, all of our thoughts: with our very being. This is easy to say in theory but how can we accomplish this in practice. One thought comes to mind from the end phrase: on these two commandments hang all the laws and the prophets. Taking a look at the Ten Commandments gives us an insight on how to love the Lord thy God with all of our heart, soul and mind.

• Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. If I love God with all of my heart, soul, and mind I will love nothing more than I love God. Anything I put before God becomes my god. My god can be money, TV, sports, even family or ministry (and you CAN love the service of God even more than God so it can become your god. I have been there and it is not a good place to be). God tells us we cannot love God and mammon for we will love one and hate the other. We must choose to love God above all others. In fact our love for God should be so great it should make the love we have for even our families (and we should love our families) look like hate by comparison.
• Exodus 20:4-6 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: (5) Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; (6) And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. While the first commandment dealt with whom we should love, this commandment deals with how we should love.
  • This commandment does not speak of no art at all, even God used cherubim in His tabernacle (on the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant) and a snake on a pole to heal people,
  • The problem is that we are not to worship the image. When Israel started to worship the brass serpent, then king Hezekiah had to destroy it (see 2 Kings 18:4).
  • Another problem is that no image can truly represent God therefore it mares the glory of God (Romans 1:21-23 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became.) vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. (22) Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, (23) And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things). While a golden calf could represent the strength of God, it cannot show His love, mercy, grace, holiness, etc. While fellowship, praise, worship are all good things, when it was lavished on an idol, it made God angry and Moses had to intercede on behalf of the people (see Numbers 32)
  • If we are going to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind we need to worship Him the way He designates, not how we feel like it: to worship Him in Spirit & truth and not through dumb idols that cannot see, cannot hear, or cannot love like God can.

That is step one and two. Love God most. Worship Him in His way. Next time three and four. Till then God bless. PT

2 Chronicles 29:2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done.

And towards the end of his rein, God had this to say about him:

2 Chronicles 32:26 Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the LORD came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah.

God must judge sin yet because of this godly leader who humbled himself he managed to postpone the wrath of God for his generation. Our nation sins are many, and God’s judgment is true and right, so how can we imitate this leader and help turn the wrath of a just God from our nation?

1. First he set God’s house in order. (2 Chronicles 29:4-19) They cleaned, repaired and got all the articles in place so they could praise and make sacrifice to God. The first step is twofold. Christians, as the temple of the Holy Spirit must first get our own lives in order so we can truly praise and worship God and secondly as the Church, come together for our nation and pray for it, nothing else can happen. This is all part of humbling ourselves, just as Hezekiah did.
2. He sought God’s face. Three times a year an Israelite was to present himself before the Lord God, and one of those times was during the Passover feast. By reinstituting the Passover he was presenting himself and his people before the face of God. (2 Chronicles 29:1 ff.) We as the people of God today who name His name need to be consecrated and ready to present ourselves before God.
3. He tuned them from the wicked ways. He cut down the groves, the high places of Ba’al. (2 Chronicles 31:1 Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned, every man to his possession, into their own cities.) We need to remove the beam from our own eyes to see clearly to remove the beam we perceive in the eyes of others. This starts by us casting down our own high places (2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;)
4. When the threat came, they made proper preparation for the battle. They repaired their walls to the city; they stopped up the water so the king of Assyria could not get any. (2 Chronicles 32:1-9) They armed themselves and prepared for war. We are in a battle and need to make ready. We need to fight the good fight of faith every way we can in accordance to the law. We need to fight homosexual marriage and abortion in the courts. We can legally protest in the streets. However we do not have the right to break the law. Attacks on clinics only hurt the cause of Christ. Active hating of the sinner only drives them from God. Things like this grieve the heart of God. We must always be motivated by not only standing for what is right, but doing so out of a heart that loves.
5. When the emery cried out against them and the True God, and the people became afraid, the king and Isaiah cried out to God all the more. (2 Chronicles 32:10-20) The enemy said no god can stand before our god. All others have fallen. The same thing the devil is saying today. We cannot stand before modernism, humanism, your God and His ideas are antiquated and outdated; you are intolerant and out of touch. You Christians need to get relevant. Just like Hezekiah and Isaiah did, we need to cry out to God all the more.

After this entire God did hear and sent His angel to defeat the enemy. God can and will save our nation but only if we do things His way. Are we as those who claim His name willing to stand up and pay the price to see it happen?

The promises of God in him are yea and amen (2 Corinthians 1:29) but what we fail to realize is that many of the promises of God come in the if-then format.

Back in the dark ages when I was in college there was a new technology coming out called computers. I was on the cutting edge learning how to program in an archaic language called BASIC. One of the important things we had to do to write a program was to flow chart it first. One of the more important functions was the if-then functions. If the value was x then y was to happen, otherwise either nothing happened (that was a result of poor programming) or the program would go off in a different direction to get you back to the right result (sometimes called a “correction loop” if I recall correctly but it has been almost thirty years).but the same principle still applies, if we want the “then” the we must deal with the “if.” We want God to hear from heaven, forgive our sins, and heal our land but we want Him to do this on our terms and not His. He should do this for us just because we want Him to no matter what condition we happen to be in spiritually. That is not how it works. If God gives a prescription on how to get something, we must fill it, and in this verse there are five ‘IF” statements for us to deal with:

1. If my people which are called by my name. This was discussed last time. If there is going to be godly change God does not expect the heathen to initiate it, but those who are called by His name. In the Old Testament that was Israel but in the New Testament that is the Christian (a word literally meaning “little Christ.) and I am not talking about casual Christianity that is so common. I am talking about people who have had a life changing encounter, being “born again” (see John 3:3 literally born from above)
2. Shall humble themselves. The literal translation of this word means to bend the knee, to humiliate, to vanquish. We cannot hope to accomplish anything in our own strength. We need to realize that we are not enough, that we NEED God. We will not pray to God, seek God, turn from our wickedness until we recognize the fact that He is God and we have no hope without Him. Right now we all do what seems right to us in our own eyes because we have not recognized God for who He is: God, Our Creator, and Our Saviour. We need to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God that He might exalt us in due time.
3. Pray, to rush headlong towards and make a wish. Like a child running towards their daddy with a need, we need to come to God with our troubles, concerns, problems, and request.
4. To seek His Face. To search out His presence. Psalm 100 instructs us this comes through praise.(we enter His courts with praise. The court is where the King sits).
5. To turn from our wicked ways. We cannot truly enter the presence of the Living God with sin unconfused, unrepeated. God is not talking about the great sins of our nation here, though we need to be praying for them, but we as the church need to turn from our wicked ways. Our petty sins, the jealousy, the strife among brethren, taking the name of God in vain (like claiming to be Christian but living like the world). God is talking to the church here and not the unsaved world.

The ball is in our court, we as the Church of the Living God, followers of Jesus must take the reasonability. Because the sad truth of the matter is that if we do not, nobody will, and there are too many lives at stake to allow this to happen.

Next time I will wrap up my thoughts on this by looking at a Biblical example of how this works. Till next time, God bless.

PT

Drought, locust, petulance, famine, storms, all these things and more are considered to be judgments of God but we also need to remember that God also used the heathen to judge the people of God. In the book of Judges God used the heathen nations Israel refused to drive out to judge His people when they “did evil in the sight of the Lord.”

It is a popular thought to blame the evil, liberal left for all the woes of our nation but just as God used the heathen nations to judge His people Israel, God is using the liberal left to judge the Christian church for being asleep at the wheel as America has gone “whoring after other gods.” How? We after all are Americans, God’s chosen nation. Two thoughts on this:

Blessed is the Nation Whose Lord Is God

One of the major reasons that this nation has been so blessed over the years is that we are not a democracy, a notion given over to mob rule but a theocratic repressive republic: one nation under God. We learn of things our founding fathers said:

• It is impossible to rightly govern without God and the Bible – George Washington
  
• Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. –John Adams
  

I would like to take a little time to consider John Adam’s quote. As long as we were a Christian people, following the Christian ethics, the Constitution worked fine for us, we were a blessed nation, but we have stopped this practice. I would like to point out a verse from Isaiah:

Isaiah 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

I would like to give two examples of this in action in America today:

1. The Abomination we call a lifestyle. Romans 1:26-27 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: (27) And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. We are speaking of homosexuality; in Leviticus it is called an abomination to God. It is not a lifestyle, we are not born that way, and it is plain sin.
2. Murder we designate as choice. Exodus 21:22-23 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. (23) And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. We are speaking of abortion, the murder of the innocent for convince. The word translated fruit means “offspring,” “lad.” Since Roe v. Wade there have been approximately 56 million innocent lives ended by abortion. Their blood cries out as a testimony against us in the ears of God Almighty.

These two are our greatest national sins. The church is so paralyzed by fear of not being “Politically Correct” or afraid of being branded “intolerant” that we do not stand up for the truth. God’s word is truth and must be defended by those who claim His name. This does not mean I hate the sinner, but the sin. I was asked by a homosexual why his sin was so special that it would send him to hell more than any other sin. I explained to this dear person neither homosexuality, murder, lying nor stealing would send a person to hell but the rejection of Jesus as Saviour is the only thing that would send a person to hell. This is so important and cannot be ignored. This is why Jesus died, to save sinners of whom I am chief. This is love. Jesus said greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends. He added a condition to this: we are His friends if we do whatever He commands us.

However, this does not excuse the general silence of the church on these issues. Just because something has become socially acceptable does not make it morally right. We still have to stand in the gap, be the watchman on the wall crying out the warning. If we fail the blood of the innocent are on our hands. And we have failed and judgment is coming. In my opinion it has started. Our mounting debt is part of it, the aids epidemic is part of it, the increasing number and severity of natural disasters is part of it. We voted for what we wanted as a nation and we got it, and we will reap the consequences of our choices.

Judgment must begin at the house of God. We must weigh ourselves in the balance and find ourselves wanting. That we fall short, that we have missed the mark. We are failing our nation.

So what are we as Christians supposed to do now? That is the next post. Till next time God bless.

PT

In the last stanza as originally written it goes “and as death’s dew lies cold upon my brow, if ever I love thee my Jesus tis now.”

The modern rendition goes, “and as there is a glittering crown on my brow, if ever I love thee my Jesus tis now.”

The difference may seem minor but the difference in thought is paramount. Saints of old understood in a much greater way than us modern Americans the thought that those who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. We do not want to take up our cross. We want the blessings, the miracles, but do not want to pay any price for them. It is part of the entitlement mentality that permeates the United States.

I remember reading some time ago in the magazine put out by In Touch Ministries about how in The Sudan how the believers there would be out praising God, hear the air-raid sirens, go hide, then come back out and praise God in the craters. The saints of old were persecuted, arrested, stoned, and burned at the stake for what they believed. We want to stay home and pout if the church is not set to a comfortable 72 degrees.

As we draw closer to the return of Jesus, things are going to get tougher for Christians around the world and in America. The question I have is this: will our faith stand? I think we as American Christians should thank God for what we have, pray for our nation, read the Foxes Book of Martyrs, and prepare for the worst. I want to leave you with these verses as a closing thought:

2 Chronicles 7:13-14 If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; (14) If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Think on how these verses apply to us today. I will pick up here on my next post. God bless till then.

PT