All of me loves all of you.
Who do you love so much that you even accept the hard things from them? Love emotions can be tested by a lot. Your dog could puke in your favorite shoes, your kids could lie to you, your best friend could betray you, your spouse could yell at you, on and on and on; but if you truly love them then you forgive them and continue to love them after this right? Why? Because people mess up and mistakes happen, and you love them more than yourself. But what if it isn’t a mistake? What if nobody messed up? What if what hurts you is not only accurate and true, but something you have to accept? So many people talk about the things they won’t accept, that they love, but not unconditionally. They will take the parts that make them happy and feel good about themselves, but they choose to throw away all else. Is that love? No. At least, not real love.
Oh. I’m not talking about person to person relationships, I’m talking about person to God relationships.
The only time when unconditional love and unconditional acceptance go together is when in context with God. I don’t mean Him accepting us, I mean us accepting Him. Back to the top. What if what hurts you isn’t a mistake? There are parts of the Bible that hurt sometimes, they offend us and are hard to accept, so what do we do? We toss those parts away. We claim them irrelevant or Old Fashioned, we say that we’ve moved past that in our world and that God needs to keep up. Wow. So, is that love? Nope. We don’t love all of God. We only love the Genie in a Bottle bits. We even say rediculous things, like we’d rather be lucky than have God, because God takes effort on our part. We want everyone to accept us, faults, failures, sins, dark sides and all. We want God to do that too. Then when we find out He does we click our heels together and run after Him in joy. But wait, theres more. Our run toward Him comes to a skreeching halt when we realize that, yes God accepts us faults, sins and all, but He plans to change us from that person. We’re supposed to love Him so much that we leave that person behind and become a new creation. But that sounds so hard! And we don’t want to. So we pout and complain and say that God is unfair, and then we do the unthinkable, we try to change Him. If He wants to change us then we should change Him first so we can stay the same. That’s not love and it’s certainly not what a Christian is or does. We don’t love all of God, we only love the easy parts. We love the feelings and the Miracles, we love when someone is healed, we love the worship music, we love the handbag that says Jesus loves you, but we don’t love God. If we did we wouldn’t be trying to fit him into our box, we wouldn’t be trying to change or misrepresent or warp or disregard the word and rules God gave us. Jesus IS God, and yet He cried not my will but yours Father. Why? Because he knew that it was God’s will for him to die even though he didn’t want to. Imagine what would have happened if Jesus had been like us. If Instead of saying “your will father,” he had shouted out “forget this! Your rules, your Authority was all Old Testament, people don’t need to be what you’ve planned for them in this modern world, you’re out of date and I’m not doing this!” Then got up and left the garden. Where would we be now? Hopeless. Broken. Alone. Scared. Lost. We don’t think about it, but the Jerusulem that Jesus was in was a very modern version compared to the Jerusulem of David. Yet He didn’t disregard the old texts or God’s will just because it wasn’t modern, Jesus knew that God and His word was and is still relevant and necessary. If Jesus was willing to be subject to His Father’s will, why aren’t we? Because we don’t truly love God. Sometimes it hurts and feels unfair, but if we love God we will let Him change us. He didn’t make us to be the broken, sinful mess we are, He made us to be followers of Him. Let’s get to the place where we love all of God, even the side of God that is going to change us.
Category: The Bible
Hanukkah- Final day
Hanukkah- final day
Shamash
On each day of Hanukkah an additional branch of the nine branched Hanukkiah is lit with the candle in the middle, the shamash, the helper or servant candle.
As we end our journey through Hanukkah I want to focus on the first candle lit. The helper candle. We don’t realize how important this candle is. In Judaism certain men who work in the temple are also refered to as Shamash, one important job they have os the reading of the Torah.
We too have a helper inside our temple, the temple of our souls. Jesus left His Spirit with us to be our helper candle. We cannot be lit without the Spirit, we cannot truly find God without the Spirit and we cannot serve God to our fullest without the Spirit. We need God’s Spirit to do anything. He tells us where to go, what to do and what is wrong and right. We see a world full of people who ignore and throw the Spirit away, they don’t like that voice that says they should act a certain way and give up certain things that offend God. Because of this we see a world that is dark and broken, void of God’s light. We need the Shamash, we need the helper candle so we can be set on fire for Jesus. The thing is, we see how we work to serve God, but without Him helping us we can’t serve Him. Like C.S. Lewis said, “it’s like a child taking money from their father so he or she can buy him a gift. We take what we have from God and use it to serve Him, but it was always His to begin with.”
We need the Holy Spirit to keep us from riding in the middle complete darkness and complete light, there is no Twilight Zone with God, you either serve him or you don’t.
Look to our helper today and ask Him to guide you in your life.
Happy Hanukkah
Merry Christmas
Which is your favorite gift under the tree?
We all have that one gift. The one we have been eyeing that has our name on it. Be it big with a red bow, or small with sparkly paper, there is usually a single gift that stands out above the others. We don’t know why. It just speaks to us. Then the day comes when we open it and get to see what we have been dreaming of.
Jesus is the greatest gift from God. The only gift that came to us willingly and because He loves us. He’s not under a tree, He’s near our hearts, knocking and waiting for the door on them to be open. He’s the only gift that so many ignore and refuse to open. He’s the only gift that so many others cherish above all joys, friends, family and even life. Someday He will return and we who love Him will get to see whom we have been dreaming of. He came once to save us from our sins, that was Christmas and Easter. But He is coming again to redeem us from this world, that will be our Revelation.
Merry Christmas!
Hanukkah- Day 5
Hanukkah- Day 5
When the Maccabees recaptured the Temple, through the help of God, they had to fix all that was ruined and cleanse the temple after it had been defiled. They also cleared the temple of the idols of the Syrians. God had commanded in the Torah that the lamp of the Menorah should burn continuously. They wanted to light it, but they found only a single jar of clean oil, and that would only last one day. In faith, they relit the Menorah. They waited for the oil to rin out but day after day it kept burning. It burned for eight days, till they were able to get new oil. That is the miracle of Hanukkah.
It is so easy to believe that the evil in the world has corrupted and destroyed the pure things God put in place. In many ways this is true. Yet, just like in the miracle of the oil, God will make a way for all things that are Holy to be redeemed. That may come in the form of God causing a derelect church to be rebuilt, or a lost soul to find it’s way out of darkness back to Him, or in the form of a small portion of oim being streached for eight days, or something else. One thing we know for sure is that Jesus is coming back one day to redeem all that the devil has tried to destroy. That day will be wonderful for those who have stood with God and followed His laws as best they could. That day will be the worst day possible for those who didn’t stand with God and denied His laws. God will provide for us, as He did for His temple with the oil, and He will redeem us when we come into His kingdom. The devil cannot destroy that which belongs to the King.
Hanukkah-day 4
Hanukkah-Day 4
Just like in Redwall, our hero here is a warrior named Matthias. He refused to be forced to sacrifice to the idols like others before him, but he also refused to allow himself to be killed. What I have read might have been a more embellished version of what happened, but I have cross-referenced it a few times and this seems to be the way things went down:
A government official demanded Matthias to sacrifice to the Greek idols; instead Matthias took the official’s sword from him and killed him.
Then Matthias cried out in the town with a loud voice, saying: ‘ let anyone who is zealous for the law and supports the Covenant come with me!’ (Maccabees 2:27)
After that he and his son took their people and hid, then they began to do covert Warfare against their enemy. Some have criticized the revolters claiming that the killing of their own people who followed the Greek ways was wrong, however, we forget that the Jewish people who followed the Greek ways had turned against their own people, according to what I have read the Jewish people who fought against the Maccabean Revolt had sided with the Seleucids against their own people and reported to the Greek officials, telling them who in the Jewish community still followed God and didn’t sacrifice to the idols. These people had become traitors to their belief, to their loved ones, and to God. The Maccabee army isn’t a group of people mindlessly killing those who oppose them, The Maccabees were working to take back their homes, their Temple and their rights.
How often, especially these days, do we as followers of Jesus and His Word find ourselves being accused of doing wrong simply for standing up for our own rights and values? How many who claim to be Christians are really serving the enemy in secret? Some days you wonder who you can trust. But one thing is for sure, you can always trust Jesus. As God Jesus is the only one who can save us from what is unseen. The best part about that is the fact that Jesus wants to save us. He didn’t sit with sinners and tax collectors because He liked to keep company with sin, He sat with them so He could tell them the truth about salvation. He never minced His words, you must sacrifice your old self and be born again to enter the kingdom of God. That offends people because it is so hard to do, but that’s the truth of it. Jesus loves you no matter who you are, but even if it breaks His heart He will turn you away at the gate if you refuse to give yourself to Him as God, King, and Lord of your life.
It took one man to say ‘no, I won’t let you cause me to reject God or compromise my Faith, and I am going to fight you for the sake of my people,’ for the Maccabees to make a stand against against the Seleucids. It takes one true Christian to say, ‘no, I won’t let you cause me to reject God or compomise my Faith, and I am going to fight you for the sake of every soul out there.’ Of course we aren’t speaking to a person, we are speaking to the enemy, the devil, telling him that even though he has tricked some brothers and sisters in Christ to betray God we won’t die yet, we will fight him on our knees before God. Pick up your swords and stand for the lost. Stand against the lies. Stand against the tricks. Stand against the twisting of God’s word to mean something other than what God said. Stand between the pages of the Bible by reading it everyday and remembering what God has said and done. Fight back against the darkness. Pray for deliverance. Pray for God’s will to be done. Pray for the protection of the blood of Jesus on your family, friends, church and on yourself, because the enemy is looking for a place to attack. So stand with God, Sword drawn, shield raised, and eyes focused on Jesus.
Hanukka- Day 3
Hanukkah- Day 3
During the reign of King Antiochus IV epiphanes, a series of persecution of traditional Judaism began. Because Alexander the Great’s Kingdom had become divided it was easy for the Seleucids to attack it and take over. A kingdom divided truly cannot stand.
Now, in my research I have read one person who claimed that the Jewish people were wrong in taking a stand against their persecutors and that they were simply refusing to modernize.
A. The person who said this clearly didn’t read their history.
B. How would you like it if your land was conquered and your ways were being destroyed?
History tells us that the Seleucids tortured to death anyone not willing to sacrifice to their idols. They took over and defiled the Temple of the one true God and killed those who opposed them. When the Jewish people were told to sacrifice to the idols it was an offense against God and their beliefs, but then they were told they had to also eat unclean meat which was an offense to their culture. Refusing to bow to oppression seems to be the staple of being a follower of God. These brave men and women chose death rather than turn away from God and their culture. All willingly gave up their lives. Except for one.
God’s chosen people have suffered so much for so many years. Go through history and you can mark many major world events with a tag that says, ‘Jewish persecution’ either it began or it increased. As a Gentile saved by Jesus’s sacrifice and adopted into His family I do understand this persecution to a point. Not of my culture, but of my religion. I have personally been attacked for just being a Christian, for wearing cross earrings, for softly singing Christian songs while at work, for posting about Jesus on my personal fb page, and yet all my attacks were only words. Words hurt yes, and you never forget them, but I can’t imagine being physically tortured. To be in agony and to still stand and say, “No! I will not bow!” What a mark of true Faith.
You can’t judge people who were attacked and murdered for standing against their enemies, you should applaud them and aim to hold that same standard. Do we love Jesus enough to refuse to defile oursleves before God just so we aren’t attacked by mortal men? Our we so in love with Christ that we are willing to suffer and or die?
We take the love, but do we return it?
We say we should love people back into Heaven. Jesus told us to love, has become the motto of our generation. But are we truly loving? When we tell people their sin is okay because Jesus covered it, that’s not love, that’s a lie. Yes Jesus covered our sin on Calvary, but that doesn’t make the sin okay, it means that as the devil stands before God accusing us of our sin Jesus can say, “but I paid that debt.” Does that mean that the devil having the right to accuse us who claim ourselves Deciples greives God any less? No. Not even a little bit. Every sin hurts God even though it’s covered (when we repent) under the cross. Jesus loved us enough to take all our sin onto Himself so we can ne saved. But we don’t love Jesus enough to stop sinning and change. We can’t spit in God’s face by saying sin is okay because of Jesus, that’s not a proper interpretation of the Bible. We are saved because we follow and love Jesus, but if we keep sinning willfully and don’t ever change or repent then we don’t love Jesus and we aren’t deciples. How many times do we nail Jesus back to the cross by telling people their sin is okay and they can keep doing it because Jesus loves them?
It is so easy to shrug off sin. But if we love Jesus we should recoil at sin and pray for God’s protection from the devil. We don’t sin on our own, we sin by letting the devil in. How do we do this? Through what we watch, feel, think, listen to, read. The devil is always waiting for an open door.
Jesus loves us enough to cover our sin. Do we love Him enough to resist our sin?
I’m just too young to know better
How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, Lord; teach me your decrees.
Psalm 119:9â€-‬12
People write off our falling away from God and sinning as a product of youth, but that isn’t right. The Bible tells us how to live, if we love God we will live according to His word no matter our age or lack there of. I know so many good strong Christ loving young people. I know even more who have fallen away from God. Why? Because we aren’t taught the Bible like we used to be. Our parents no longer require us to go with them to church. We don’t bother to pray. So, we fall away. So many youth don’t even believe in sin. But sin is real. The devil isn’t a scary bedtime cheracter, he’s a seeking enemy looking to kill your soul. Jesus isn’t just a happy go lucky smiling face on a bilboard. Sin eats away like a virus. The devil corrupts and kills and makes it look like what we are doing isn’t wrong. Jesus is the one true powerful king and God, and the only way to Heaven. Don’t let youth be your excuse. Stick to the narrow path and seek Jesus.
Are we willing?
Are we willing?
What does your dream, goal and ambition mean to you? When the government tells you that you can’t be a teacher, lawyer, politician, doctor, and so on, unless you accept certain sins as no longer sin what will you do? Is dream worth so much that you will buckle and bow to the death system. Death system was a term that came up when I was a kid. In books, in TV (mostly anime) it means a system unacknowledgably careening toward destruction, sort of like Chaos Theory. Back then even the secular world could see it coming and what it would bring. Now even Christ followers bow to the death system. Not the death of the planet, though much of the shows that winked at the death system did cover the death of nature, but instead we should focus on the death of our souls and the rape of our minds. Do we even know what’s wrong anymore? Or are we taking a pen and crossing out the parts of our Faith that offend us? I was reminded recently of what Christians face in countries that don’t support the Christ belief. People with high IQs and great talent have demeaning jobs, can’t attend certain schools or social events and live in shamble, because they refuse to deny even a tiny part of Jesus, they embrace Him even though they are left in the street by the world. Do we? Are we willing to take the humble road rather than deny even a speck of our Lord? So often we see “christians” praised for taking a job in a secular setting because they can, “promote their witness” there. But do they? How much of Jesus did they have to deny to get that job? What sins did they accept so that they would be accepted? The devil sits back and gestures to a goblet, “drink this, accept the darkness and I will give you everything.” Jesus takes our hand and says, “don’t! It’s a trap.” We pull away from Christ, “if I drink what he offers then he will give me a place in society where I can promote you better, it’s just a little sip, I’ll be fine.” Our bold statement dies as we drink the whole glass and join the devil. If Jesus says something is wrong then it is wrong no matter our good intentions. Are we willing to live as ditch diggers and serve Jesus by denying the devil? Or have we already taken of the death drink, and now we serve the devil under the badge that used to say ‘Christian’, but now says ‘deceived’?
We are so lost in this death system that we have forgotten what life is. Go back to Jesus. Reach for Him. Don’t let the devil deceive you. Don’t let your heart become poisoned. Give yourself to Jesus. Whatever you end up doing, no matter how valueless it feels, remember- if you are doing it for Jesus, if you are sacrificing it for Jesus, if you are suffering it for Jesus, then what your doing is right. The easy road of compromise leads to death. Not death in this world, but death of your soul. Don’t give in. Fight back. Dare to take God at His word no matter the cost.
Final Level!
Final level
Growing in God is something we hear a lot.
“I’m just growing in God.”
“Don’t forget to grow in God.”
“Always grow in God.”
But what does grow in God mean? What visual does that statement give you? I used to picture a sapling, growing into a tree. But lately I’ve had a different visual. Video Games. Hang on, don’t run away yet. Let me explain. Recently I was reminded of my short stint as an avid gamer, and that brought to mind this simili. I had a game for a time… actually I think it’s still in my closet, anyway- this game was a progressive story arc type. You know, you have an avitar and you follow the cheracter on different quests and so on. I recall the peace of the starter village. Old fashioned cabins, cathedrals and pretty brick bridges. You could walk and never see a monster all day. But as you leveled up the game obviously grew harder. Eventually I reached a level where I had to look up the hacks to pass it. Monsters were everywhere and they didn’t die no matter how hard you attacked them. The only way to win that level was to let your character lose all his or her strength, right before your avatar was down for the count you would get a bonus strength boost, and that was the only way to win. What do I mean by all this?
When we first become Christians it’s nice to go to church, maybe bake for a potluck, perhaps you will even read your Bible once in a blue moon. It’s nice and quiet with no work. But. That’s not how we are meant to stay. We are intended by God to level up. And as we level up things will get harder, because the devil wants to keep us low and weak. Say you keep going. Level after level. Praying every day, reading your Bible with conviction, volenteering at your Church and Church events, maybe even branching into missions work. With each level you grow, but with each level the monsters seem to increase. One day you find yourself in an abandoned town with monsters that refuse to die. Why? Because you are doing things right. Thay doesn’t make sense, does it? But the devil is fighting against you. Whatever that monster is. An illness, debt, a habit, or something less personal, like how the world has gone and the darkness and sin taking over. Everywhere you see the monsters. You have fought and fought and now you are on your last life. But don’t forget. As you were leveling up and growing, God was growing with you. Not that He was ever small, but maybe He was small inside you because you hadn’t let Him grow yet. Now you have been growing in God and God has been growing in you, so when your last life comes up blinking and your avatar gets fuzzy, don’t give up! Hold down the A and Y buttons and use your power boost to kill those monsters. In other words, use your trump card. Pray. Talk to God and use His power within you to win the battle and reach the final level. You are never fighting or growing alone, God is right there, you just need to reach for Him.
So go on friends. Level up. Grow with God.
Carried in the cross 