Category Archives: Christian Life

Walking in faith

Col 1:21-23

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.

  1. We were separated from God by our evil thoughts and actions.
  2. He, God, has reconciled you to Himself through Christ’s death.
  3. You have been brought into His presence
  4. You are holy and blameless before God- totally faultless
  5. But. This is important.
  • Continue to believe this
  • Stand firm in this belief (faith)
  • Don’t drift from assurance

This is the key to walking out this faith in Christ. It is reliant on our believing we are God’s, standing firm in it even in those times we don’t feel like it.

Grace and peace

Marriage?

What is it?

Oxford:

The legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically a union between a man and a woman). A combination or mixture of two or more elements.

Most of our focus now-a-days is on the big event. I was stunned to find that the average wedding in the United States costs $30,000.00. Everything must be just right and all things must be perfect. In 2022 the marriage industry brought in $70.5 billion. I was shocked to see this number!

In the United States if you decide after getting “married,” you’ve made a mistake and need to get out of it… Don’t worry, we have that covered too. The average divorce costs for a couple without children is $14,000.00, $21,000.00 if children are involved.

After getting divorced you can then try the whole process again. Both those doing the marrying, and those doing the divorcing welcome your attempts at this institution.

How Does God Define Marriage?

Gen 2:22–25 NLT

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. “At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’” This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

  • God made a woman for Adam, who was a man.
    • God’s first intention for marriage is between an man and a woman.
  • This union is autonomous from all family
    • A man leaves his father and mother
    • And is joined to his wife
    • and the two are united (married) into one.

Mat 10:6–9 NLT

But ‘God made them male and female’ from the beginning of creation. ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”

  • In the words of Jesus
  • God made them male and female from the beginning. (There are no other genders, no other God sanctioned marriages.)
  • Again an autonomous relationship
    • This explains why a man leaves his father and mother
    • and is joined to his wife
    • and the two are united into one
  • Since they are no longer two but one
    • Let no on split apart what God has joined together.

So now we can say that according to the book of Genesis, and to the words of Jesus, that a marriage is between a man and a woman, and that it is permanent because God has put it together.

How does God put the marriage together?

The pastor, the priest, the JP?

In our western culture we mostly look to the church for guidance in theses affairs. There are however many “professionals” piling in. Like I mentioned before this is a $big industry.

For the west, most if not all of the traditions we associate with a christian wedding are in fact not christian at all. It is all Celtic tradition, the idea of an authority giving a blessing to marry, the white dress, the rings. All of it is Celtic! You can find no part of it in the scriptures.

Since we go to an authority for a blessing to be married. Whether the pastor, or a councilor, or a priest, they now become the authority for the idea of marriage. We make our vows before witnesses, human witnesses, all the while forgetting that God misses nothing. We are pushing Him out of the way, and out of consideration.

God puts it together!

The question then is how.

Gen 24:67 NLT

And Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah’s tent, and she became his wife. He loved her deeply, and she was a special comfort to him after the death of his mother.

  • Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother’s tent
  • and she became his wife

Where was the ceremony? Where was the priest?

Ex 2:21 NLT

Moses accepted the invitation, and he settled there with him. In time, Reuel gave Moses his daughter Zipporah to be his wife.

  • Reuel gave Moses his daughter

No ceremony? No priest?

1 Cor 6:15–16 NLT

Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.”

  • A man who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her.
    • God sees them as married.
  • So God sees sex as marriage!
    • When an man and woman join in sex they are one body.
    • This is a permanent thing.
    • It has spiritual implications.
    • It has physical implications.
    • It has phycological implications.

The cheapening of sex

The cheapening of sex is a plan of Satan, who is seeking the destruction of us all. He has done an excellent job of making sex a trite affair. A little escapade.

1 Cor 6:18–20

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

  • Run from sexual sin!
  • Sexual sin clearly affects the body
  • The body of believers is the temple of the Holy Spirit
  • As believers we don’t belong to ourselves
  • We must live for Christ
    • Jesus said “whoever loves me will keep my commandments.”

Since God sees marriage as sex, there is no such thing as pre-marital sex. There is no such thing as sowing your wild oats! There is no such thing as trying it out to see if you like it.

Yes there is forgiveness, we must repent of our casual indifferent attitude toward sex. We must be pure.

Eph 5:15–20 NLT

So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The times are short. We must return to the simple truths of scripture. We must put aside traditions that cheapen and even ignored God’s will for our lives.

Grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Zacharias Faithful Servant, with Doubts

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Luke 1:5 introduces Zacharias, an aging priest. He has served God as a priest all of his adult life. The passage goes on to explain that he and his wife are blameless before God. In other words they were both faithful servants of God, living life in obedience to God, keeping His law faithfully. We learn from the passage that Zacharias and his wife had never had children, and clearly they had passed the years in which they could have children. They were both old! We also learn in the passage that they had prayed for their whole life to be blessed with a child, but that had never happened, and now was not possible. Still Zacharias served God in the Temple. I can imagine that just like us Zacharias was going through the hum-drum daily grind of life, doing the daily routines, almost subconsciously, automatically going through the days. He was not ready for what God was going to bring loudly into his life.

It would seem that the priests took turns to perform the various temple rituals. It was now Zacharias’ turn to burn incense before God in the Temple. From the passage we can see that typically the priest would go into the temple burn the incense at the altar of incense, then come out to deliver a message to the attendees of the temple service. He would not dwell in he temple, that part of the ritual is short, only long enough to set up and get the incense burning.

Zacharias’ life would now be turned upside-down! In the process of doing his duties an angel of God suddenly stands to the right hand side of the altar of incense. Finding himself in fear, the angel announces to Zacharias that his prayers for a child would be answered. Not only would Zacharias be blessed with a son, but he will be a great servant of God. Wow, his lifelong prayer is going to be answered! but his reaction was not so. I and my wife are too old he said to the angel.

This is where I find myself often, and I don’t think I’m alone. I know what God says He will do. I know what God expects of me. But I get in the daily grind. The hum-drum of life, and I think, God will not do those things that He says He’ll do. I doubt! Our lives as believers, followers of Christ are not that different from the life of Zacharias. We know what we are supposed to do as believers, we do our best to walk in integrity, in the will of God, but doubt creeps in, that is at least how it goes in my life, in my walk with God. Pay attention, God will bring things, circumstances, people into our lives to bring us back on track. For Zacharias it was a bit drastic. He was made to not be able to speak until the baby was born. It was a statement not only to Zacharias that God had done a thing in his life, but this sudden inability to speak was meant to alert the temple goers that day that God was about to do something. After all to fulfill his duties that day Zacharias needed to deliver a speech to those temple goers. The passage tells us that he tried to speak to the people, I suppose if you think about it, once again doubting what the angel had told him. He tried to speak! The passage tells us that all the people in attendance knew that God had communicated with Zacharias through a vision. God had communicated that something was about to happen through a man that could not speak.

God’s will is not dependent on us, His believers, His followers. Even though Zacharias doubted what the angel had said to him, God did that miracle, Zacharais and his wife would have a son. Thank God that he is not dependent on us, or on our perfect execution of His will. If God’s will depended on our carrying it out, it would fail. We would fail. God cannot fail! His will is going to happen, and there is no way to stop it. God does His work in spite of us, and still involves us in that work. Oh how great He is, how gracious He is. To Him be all gory, honor, and power!

Pay attention to God’s working in life. He is active in our lives, I think we need to make an effort to be aware of His working in us. Look for it. Trust Him, as He guides us. When doubt creeps in look for his working to strengthen us.

Three Lessons From The Temptation of Jesus

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Jesus had just been introduced by John the Baptizer as the Christ, God on earth, and the savior of mankind. The one that John had been telling everyone was to come. People had been flocking to John to hear his message, that all must repent because the kingdom of God was near at hand. John was considered a profit of God, or to put it another way, a messenger of God.

After John had declared Jesus to be the coming Christ, the book of Mathew states in chapter 4 verse 1: Then Jesus was let by the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The temptation of Christ was then intentional, for our benefit. This temptation is not merely written of so that we can not only see the reactions that Jesus had to these temptations, but where our minds should be when we experience the same temptations.

We are told that Jesus after fasting for 40 days and nights experienced these temptations. We can assume then that He was in a state of great need, and great weakness, desperate even.

Our Immediate Need

Our physical needs are the needs that we are most aware of. The pain of hunger is true and present. When we have not eaten for a while, we know without doubt that we have a need. In fact that need becomes actual physical pain. A gnawing pain, a constant reminder of our immediate need. This need becomes desperate, and people will be driven to do all sorts of things to satisfy this need. Finally this need if not satisfied will lead to death, it’s quite final.

Jesus says that this need is real, but there is another real need that we face, but more important than the need for food. He said people will not, future, live only by filling his belly. Jesus looks beyond the immediate, beyond the importance of this life, to the eternal life. What good is it to fill your belly for the moment without the word of God? Food will fill the momentary need, but only God can fill the eternal need.

The lesson is that we need to look to God in order to truly live.

Faith in God

We are continually testing. Testing our relationships. Testing ourselves. Testing God. We all do it. Oh Lord if you get me out of this situation, I’ll do thus and such. There are those who test God by handling of poisonous snakes. Some test God by doing quests. Some of us test God by comparing ourselves with others. At times we say to God, if you’re real why is this happening?

The devil quoted scripture to Jesus, saying didn’t God say that He would always protect you? If God said He would protect you, jump off this high point and let’s watch Him do what He said He’d do.

Jesus’ response, quoting scripture, it is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

Don’t test God. Believe what He has said. This very emphatic statement is really strong. We are not to try to force God to prove himself to us. We are the created, we need to simply believe what He says to be true.

The lesson: we need to have faith in God to truly live.

Worship God

The devil is looking to Jesus to worship him. He is trying to buy the worship of the Christ. Is this not what he does to us? Worship the devil and you will be rich, he will give you the world! We have all heard the phrase “to sell ones soul to the devil.” That is exactly what he is always doing, bribing us to forget God and to worship him instead.

Jesus makes two statements in one here. He said “you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.” The use of the two words worship, and serve are no mistake. You see, to worship is to serve. In other words the work you do is your worship. If your work is to achieve riches, then the worship is of the riches. If your work is to please God, then it is worship of God.

The lesson: Worship God by what you do.