In the Book of Exodus, God brought His people out of Egyptian slavery to the banks of the Jordan River and said, “This land (the Promised Land) across the river is yours. I have already given it to you. Now go in and possess it.” (Paraphrased). But after they sent 12 leaders to go check out everything, to see if what God had said was true, ten of the men spread fear among the people with a report of giants in the land and only two had the faith to do what God said. There really were giants in Canaan, but God said the land had been given to Israel. Two of the Israelites, Joshua and Caleb, chose God’s word over what their eyes told them. They said, “We are well able to do it” because they had faith in what God said. Ten men spread fear to the whole nation; consequently the nation refused to go in and occupy the property that God had said was theirs. You can find the story in Numbers 13-14. The first generation that was miraculously delivered from Egypt never attained to the fullness of what God had for them.
Continue readingI Have Given it to You
God is Patient With Men
God is very patient with men.
Let us ponder the fact that it took God 4000 years from the beginning of Creation to get Jesus, the Mediator between God and man, the eternal Sacrifice for the sins for all men, into the earth. (If you believe there were more years since creation, then it took more time.) Why did it take so long?
God has a plan. It is a long range plan. He is patient and long-suffering as He brings that plan to pass. God operates by the laws He Himself instituted. He will not break them. What He put into effect in the earth (read Genesis 1-3), He will not change or alter. He put laws into place that even He obeys. If He ever broke just one little bit of His word, the universe, the world, and all that is in it would collapse into destruction. Men lie, but He cannot lie. God needs men to cooperate with Him to get His plan into the earth.
Continue readingIt All Started With a Promise
In the book of Genesis, Chapters 1 and 2, we see that God made His whole creation wonderful and declared it to be good. Every single aspect of creation, the stars, the skies, the sun, the moon, the animals and birds, the seed bearing trees and vegetation, God declared it was all good. Those things still exist today. Every operation of creation remains the same, just like it was in the beginning. All of creation, the animals, the trees and growing things have seeds in them that continue to bear, renew and replenish the earth just as God designed it. He set all of that in motion by His words. Then He made the crown jewel of His creation…he made man from the dust of the ground and put His own spirit within the man. He formed the woman and declared everything to now be complete and He rested on the seventh day, not because He was tired, but because He was done.
Continue readingReclaiming Your Life: Lessons from the Story of Joseph
Are you a human BEING or a human DOING? Most of us live our lives without really thinking about what we are doing…there are so many things we must do and so many things we ant to do. We are driven forward by what is waiting to be done. At least, I know I am, to a great extent. I was raised that you were required to get the things done that had to be done before you got to have “playtime.” It is a hard habit to break, that feeling that you must get the work done before you can have downtime. Today I realize that the “work” is never done, therefore I must choose give myself the time to do the things that I love to do. But I have to make that choice. No one else will do it for me. I find it helpful to give myself time away from the demands of living and ponder spiritual matters. I need to spend some time being rather than doing.
Continue readingJesus the Son of Man, Part 2
A human being sits on the throne of the universe (a resurrected human being). Are you shocked I said that?
I must credit teacher and author Paul E. Billheimer for bringing this fact to my attention. It fiddled with my mind. It stunned me. It is an astounding statement. It changed my understanding of Jesus. I have never heard anyone ever say that before, or if I did, I did not truly hear it. (Billheimer, who died in 1984, made this statement in his book, Destined for The Throne: How Spiritual Warfare Prepares the Body of Christ for Her Eternal Destiny.)
Continue readingJesus the Son of Man, Part 1
Most believers understand that Jesus was the Son of God. That refers to His divinity, but do we understand His role as the Son of Man? That term refers to His humanity. He called Himself the Son of Man repeatedly throughout the gospels. I’m going to list all the passages where He said this. I believe His emphasis is important. He was trying to get a message across. Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of Man all the time. He was speaking to men and I believe He wanted to relate to them on that level. If we keep Him at arms length as the Son of God, we create distance between Him and us. I do not believe this is what He wants. I believe He wants us to know Him as the Son of Man, a human being.
Continue readingThe Kingdom of God is Like…Part 2
Matthew Chapter 13 records many of the parables that Jesus taught. These stories painted pictures for the people (and for us) and speak of what the Kingdom of God is like. It is God’s supreme desire that man have access to the kingdom of God and understand what it is like and how it operates. It’s why He sent His Son to die on the cross, to destroy the works of the devil and give us access to Kingdom benefits. He is the second Adam. The first one failed, but the second One did not. These same parables are found in other books of the gospels as well.
In Matthew 13.24 we read the parable of the wheat and tares. The simplified meaning is that good people and bad people will grow up together on the earth and then be sorted out at the end. This parable is explained by Jesus in Matthew 13:36-43.
Continue readingThe Kingdom of God is Like…Part 1
While Jesus lived here on the earth, He told stories to the people to illustrate what the Kingdom was like. The bible calls these parables. A parable is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. These parables paint visual pictures of what the Kingdom of God (or Heaven) is like. Parables, I believe, are meant to make people think. If the person is spiritually hungry, he or she will pursue God to find out the meaning, just as the disciples did when they were alone with Jesus. They would ask Him what the parables meant and He would speak plainly to them what the meaning was. He would give them the spiritual meaning.
Continue readingIt is Your Father’s Good Pleasure to Give You The Kingdom, Part 2
In the last post, we talked about how a person who is “born-again” gets a heart change. He gets a new life, a chance to “start over.” He will still make mistakes and sin in this new life, but God has wiped his slate of sin away forever. He is totally forgiven. Sin is no longer being held against him as he is now a child of God. Now he lives under God’s grace, His mercy, and eternal forgiveness. Although he still has battles in his mind ahead of him, he begins to think positively rather than negatively. He has joy in his heart because of the new life inside him. This attitude grows as He stays in relationship with Jesus and studies the word of God which reveals how God sees him. This is truth. He has been lifted out of dark thinking and has now come into God’s light, which is reality.
Continue readingIt is Your Father’s Good Pleasure to Give You the Kingdom, Part 1
Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32
A previous post got me to thinking about the word “kingdom,” and how it is a word that is a bit abstract and foreign to those of us who live in the United States because our government is not a kingdom. What picture comes to your mind when you hear that word?
I realized that I don’t really have a good mental picture, having never actually lived in a kingdom. I have been in the kingdom of God for the past almost 40 years, having been saved since 1984 and have been learning about it and living under it ever since. I live in it by my surrender to the will of God and my relationship to Him every day. I study the scriptures and pray to ascertain what the will of God is for my life and what His purpose is for me. As a believer I am a citizen of two kingdoms. I live in a body here on the earth, but the scriptures say I am now also a citizen of heaven.
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Dogtags and Pearls...the plain and the precious 