His!!

Thoughts on Isaiah 4

In verse 1 we see how our self sufficiency comes in to play and how it can make us do things we should not do, in an attempt to take care of what we perceive to be our needs. We need not rely on our own strength and will. We should trust in the Lord and know His sovereignty and legacy outweigh ours. He has a plan and He is good, so we can trust it.
Verse 2 begins expounding on the coming messiah and the goodness that will happen when He arrives. We will be clean, protected, sheltered, provided for. We so often forget that this is true today. Even though it is speaking literally I believe it also has inference to the fact that Christ is preparing us for that day right now. We are cleansed , and protected, sheltered, provided for today by the Love, Grace, and Mercy of our God revealed in The Lord Jesus, through the work He has done on the cross. By the spirit we are able to claim this victory right now. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. We are His! Ames

1 And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach.

2
In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel.3 And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem,4 when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning.5 Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy.6 There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.

Judge me first

Matthew 7
1 Judge not, that you be not judged.2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?4 Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when there is the log in your own eye?5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

So often I am the first to judge. I think I am right by giving somebody some sort of moralistic law to live by. Why don’t I just give them the atonement? What Christ accomplished on the cross is what we really need. Here are a few things He accomplished for me at Calvary.

1. I am accepted
Romans 15:7
2. I have been justified
Romans 5:1
3. I am free from condemnation
Romans 8:1
4. You have the Power of the Holy Spirit
Romans 8:5

(point 1-4 taken from Pastor Tim Gaydos MHCDTS sermon 1/3/2010)

He is the judge. I need to only point people to Him by His power alone. This includes continual repentance and preaching the gospel to myself.

The First Sacrifice

This is the first Sacrifice made was because of sin. It is in Genesis 3:21. God killed the animals to cover the naked bodies of Adam and Eve. There was blood atonement from the first bit of sin. Sin is always paid for with blood. God could have atoned for their sin with their own blood, but instead showed grace and did not just leave them naked. He also showed them mercy by not letting them remain in the garden where they could eat of the tree of life and live in sin forever more. God also promised a permanent solution for sin. He promises Eve that one day her offspring will rise up and crush the head of the serpent. This is a foreshadowing of Christ.

Prayer casts out demons

In Mark 9:19 Christ calls his disciples and everyone else faithless. Then He cast out a demon from a boy. This all happened after His disciples tried to cast the demon out. After the disciples ask him why they couldn’t do it verse 29 gives us Christs responses “these kind can only be cast out by prayer.” I kind of get this feeling Jesus was being sarcastic. Shouldn’t his disciples already know that? Why would they think they could do anything by their own strength at this point? I find it humorous. It is always a good reminder that Jesus loves us no matter how faithless we are at times, and we really do need to pray in all circumstances and situations remembering “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Phil 4:13 AKJV.

Mark 9:14-29

14 And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them.15 And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him.16 And he asked them, What are you arguing about with them?17 And someone from the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute.18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.19 And he answered them, O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.20 And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.21 And Jesus asked his father, How long has this been happening to him? And he said, From childhood.22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.23 And Jesus said to him, If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, I believe; help my unbelief!25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, He is dead.27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.28 And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out?29 And he said to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.

Pray it builds Faith

Lately I have been wondering why we pray, and what is prayer. I started researching it and have been really inspired by it. I am excited to continue looking in to prayer. Here are some initial thoughts.

Pray builds Faith:

As we pray through scripture as worship in the name of Jesus we really see God’s promises come to life. Prayer is not about us, but it does have a distinct sort of comfort to it.
Romans 1:16-17 (from ESV)
¹⁶For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

We live by faith in Christ alone. He is the righteousness of God revealed to us. We become one with Him (1 cor 12:12) because of His atoning sacrifice. He takes away our sin and gives us His righteousness, then takes the wrath of the Father that we deserve.
He gives us faith to believe in him. The gospel is a stumbling block and is foolishness to those who do not believe.

From that beginning faith that he gives us, He then begins to build upon it “Faith for Faith”.  One of the ways He builds our faith is through prayer. When we pray in His name (Jesus), or His will, we see our prayers answered. They are answered in this way Yes, No, or Not yet. As our prayers our answered our Faith grows. In this way it seems as if prayer is for us.

Praise God we get to commune with him!

Hebrews 12 is all about worship!

As I said last week I’ve been reading Hebrews 11 and 12. Chapter 11 is all about Faith that God gave each of  us, and honors His plans for our lives despite where we come from. He regenerated all of our forefathers. He even gave some of them new names, just like the new testament disciples. It is a great reminder of Christ’s faithfulness. Chapter 12 seems to be all about what we should look like and do because we are now regenerate, born again, new creations.

2 Corinthians 6 talks about the things that happen when we are Christians. It should all spawn from our love for Christ. Just like 2 peter Paul is talking about our passion, and how it should be for Christ. Anything else is effectively settling for less.

In verse 18 of Hebrews 12 we are reminded of Gods power, and who He is, and that we are part of His family. We are then called by the end of the chapter to worship God, out of our recognition of the Faith He has given us, that produces change in character and behavior. We worship the living God for who He is and what He is doing to all of creation.

We have a terrible, and majestic, merciful, and mighty God. We should tremble with fear before Him as well as be comforted in his loving arms.

28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.

God calls us to worship Him in all things. He calls us to an acceptable act of worship which Romans 12 defines as offering our bodies as a Holy and living sacrifice. Let’s all worship the Lord not just in a corporate church setting, but in all we do.

Discipline eventually works

I’ve been reading Hebrews 12 lately. All week as a matter of fact and I am stumped by:

“10b but he disciplines us for our good, ​that we may share his holiness. 11​For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields ​the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

I am stumped because I know Jesus justified me, became my propitiation, and atonement for my sin when He was crucified. I know when He rose He conquered satan, sin, and death. I know I am being sanctified, but I never quite get it. How can I be holy and righteous before God, and yet need to be disciplined into righteousness.

This is always a complicated thing that blows my mind, and humbles me. I fail miserably all the time, in regards to taking the rebuke and discipline God allowes and actually applying it. Granted I may remember for a short time, and actually seek Christ first, but not for very long. It is this cycle, that drives me crazy. Yet religion says I need to do something about it, and I totally tend to be religeous, which also sucks considering Christ worst critics were religeous people.

And here we are reading scripture that seems to say do something about it. I guess it is a heart issue. Even when I don’t follow through with what I know I am supposed to do, my heart longs to do what is right, and eventually I do, by God’s grace alone. According to this discipline should eventually produce righteous fruit in me. Praise God. I need it.

Amen

OCD vs ADD

I wonder if have OCD or ADD. I can’t seem to start a major project and ever plan correctly. It seems to take me way to long to get in to working, but once I do I get focused and do not want to stop or change tasks. I get so focused on what I am doing I start focusing on such minor details that it takes me longer than expected to just finish. What is up with that.

I can’t focus then I get too focused. Am I totally nuts? Probably.

The Love of Money

I’ve been thinking on 1 Timothy 6:6-10 since last night. Check it!

6 Now there is great gain in godliness ​with contentment, 7 for ​we brought nothing into the world, and​3 we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But ​if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, ​into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that ​plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

I always remember the first part of verse 10 “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” That is easy, but look at the rest. Verse 6 begins with contentment. That is a heart issue for sure. You can work to be a “godly person” and still have no contentment. So taking from the point of view that this is about our hearts and who, or what we worship it became very convicting for me.

I should be content for food and clothes. Then why is it that I desire a WII and the latest album from whatever band, and new tools, all sorts of things that I can’t take with me when I’m dead, things that don’t really matter anyway. It is because I am selfish and foolishly thinking something other than Jesus will give me satisfaction, comfort, hope, and joy. I’m calling bullshit on myself here!

look at the second part of verse 10 “It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” Paul is talking about money here people! I think I have totally been unfaithful by thinking I need things I don’t and foolishly spending the cash (or credit) God allowed me to have on crap that will not last. I could’ve helped the poor, or invested in charities, or church, but instead I have a scooter, three cars, tv’s, multiple computers, a few houses, a gob of tools, and no time to spend loving and serving others, because I have made myself a slave to making money so I can pay for my crap decisions. I have “wandered away from the faith and pierced myself with many pangs”, because I foolishly, and selfishly laughed in God’s face when He provided me with exactly what I needed, by going out and making purchases I thought I needed. Who am I to think I know what’s best for me. What a lack of faith in God’s provisions. This blog post is the beginning of a long act of repentance. Unfortunately restitution will need to be made to credit card companies, and that may take some time.

Thank you Lord for your grace and mercy that wills me towards repentance and, empowers me to repent.

I got a Zune and like it!

Recently I bought a Netbook. I wanted to try something less expensive than a Mac. It came with XP, and was working well for a while then it started crashing and other annoying things. I installed UBUNTU and once I got it configured It was running great. Idea was to install OSX on it, but due to the difficulty I had getting UBUNTU to do all I wanted and I decided to avoid the headache.

Well a friend offered me the release client for windows seven, I said sure. This same friend had shown me his zune and all that it could do. I wondered instantly why ipods, and itunes didn’t do as many cool things as the zune. Anyway, He gave me a zune 1089 with the windows upgrade. It is amazing! I can download and listen to any music I want from the zune store for $15 a month. It is amazing. I haven’t listened to new music forever, but now if somebody tells me about a new band I can connect to the internet wirelessly with my zune and download it. If I just want to listen to the radio instead of stored music I can. This is an amazing mp3 player and the software for it is so freaking rad. I have been a huge apple fan and was bummed when my ipod broke, but now I am stoked it did. If it hadn’t broke I would’ve been just another mac clone toting apple products as the new savior, and writing off any thing that may actually have merit, and not cost an arm & a leg.

So due to the zune I may be back to dealing with the minor annoyances of windows. The price point still makes windows better than mac especially now that I have to consider buying new computers for a whole family at some point. I am no longer a mac user. And ZUNE literally has way better features and kicks ass over the ipod any day.

Thank you ZUNE