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Saturday, December 30, 2017

HIs Commands are Spoken to His Life

Year ending words of wisdom from Derek Prince and others.

"You can't crucify a demon and you can't cast out the flesh, you need to know what you are dealing with.
Evil spirits

     1. Entice (tempt)
  1. Harass (frustrating events anger comes out)
  2. Torment (God doesn't love you, arthritis, fears...anxiety?) Unforgiveness in the Christian leads to torment by demons
  3. Compel (making you do things you do not want to do)
  4. Enslave (addiction)
  5. Defile (project evil impure images and thoughts in to our mind especially to keep us from worshipping)
  6. Deceive (deception to cause falling away)
  7. Weak sick tired or death. (to tired to read the Bible or pray, spirit of slumber)

You have to decide where you will go for comfort, Jesus or food, entertainment, drink, what is at the root what is frustrating you and causing you to need comfort?"  Derek Prince


Like Jonah we first must be “swallowed up” in consciousness of our own rebellion before we can realize that we are undone, and that we are without remedy apart from God's direct intervention and deliverance... עָקב הַלֵּב מִכּל וְאָנֻשׁ הוּא מִי יֵדָעֶנּוּ (Jer. 17:9). We start there - in the "belly of the fish" - and later are resurrected to go forth by God's mercy and grace. Likewise we first see ourselves as undone and go to the cross, finding pardon and given the power of the ruach HaKodesh to live unto God according to the truth. But note that the imperatives of the New Testament are directed to the new nature given to us by God, and not to the old nature that has been crucified and done away. (This is such an amazingly simple, true, key point in the walking in the Spirit.  The commands are given from Him to His life in us, so when we obey, it is actually His life obeying and He gets all the glory.)  We are admonished to live in accordance with the truth of what God has done for us through the Moshia', the Savior. You are a new creation, therefore be who you are in the Messiah! [Hebrew for Christians]

"For many walk (πολλοὶ γὰρ περιπατοῦσιν) ... as the enemies of the cross of Messiah (τοὺς ἐχθροὺς τοῦ σταυροῦ τοῦ χριστοῦ; Phil. 3:18).” Paul’s statement is directed to those who profess faith in Yeshua. Those who minimize the need for the cross invariably stress the importance of “religion,” of good works, and even of the supposed virtue of faith... The cross, however, scandalizes the aspirations of human pride by presenting the righteousness of God (צִדְקַת אֱלהִים), not the righteousness of men. The message of deliverance is not about how good you are, but about how good God is. Test yourself: In what are you trusting for eternal life? Salvation is "of the LORD," which means that it is His work done for the glory of the Name above all Names. As Jonah the prophet testified: "Those who cling to lying vanities forsake their own mercy..." [Hebrew for Christians]

Eyes on Jesus, rest and trust in His life in you. 

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

More Questions Than Answers

It is amazing how alive the Bible still is after all these years of reading and studying.

I come away from reading just a few chapters with more questions than answers.

In Leviticus the strange fire of Aaron's two sons results in their being killed by the fire of God.
This means 2 out of the only 5 people living on the earth at that time, consecrated to offer sacrifices
to God were dead.  The remaining 3 (dad and 2 more brothers) were not allowed to leave the area of their consecration and show typical signs of grief.  The word that Moses received from God was that the congregation would do the mourning.  Then at the end of chapter 10 one of the sin offerings was burnt up by the other 2 brothers and apparently it was to be partially burnt and partially saved and eaten.  Moses becomes angry when he sees this, but Aaron (the dad) comes to their defense something like, "Who wants to eat at a time like this?" and Moses calms down.

The Bible says so very little about that whole incident that it leaves you with more questions than answers.  God does that frequently with His written word.  It is as if He wants us dependent on relationship with Him, seeking His face, more than having a book that contains all the answers.

I agree that nothing we hear from Him personally should contradict His Word, but we had better be careful that we have not added our interpretation to the Word, where the Word is silent, because then we will be in the place of those who questioned Jesus and doubted the way of Yeshua simply because He appeared to be not obeying the Word.

Reading through Isaiah 7 through 12 the same thing happened to my heart that happened to Habakkuk.  How can You use this "God hating" nation to bring covenant discipline upon Your people to the point that only a remnant of them survives?  Is this really You?  Is this how You act?  Do I really know You?  When Your wrath breaks out, we are like David when Uzzah died, "Who are You?"

We should be probing these questions now, in the relatively "green tree" before the necessary time of the "dry tree" comes upon us.

Draw us Lord, to redeem the time to seek the face of the God of Jacob.

To know You.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Do Not Boil a Kid in its Mother's milk.

Reading Exodus and came across this verse twice and I could not make any sense of it, so I started to look it up.
Play the theme music from the movie "Jaws"!
Hours later I found that the verse also occurs in Deuteronomy and I found that a lot of people have a lot of opinions.
Some thought it was connected to an incantation and false god ritual that would guarantee a good crop the next year.  Turns out there is no factual basis for assuming such a ritual ever existed.
Some thought it was to teach civility, because it just seems cruel to use the mother's own milk to cook her kid in.
Some thought it had to do with a principle in scripture of, no mixture, so you shouldn't mix the milk, meant to give life to the kid with the death and subsequent cooking of the kid.
Some thought the translation had been messed up and it should have said, wait until the kid is weaned from the mother, but when you start to say the text is wrong you go down a bad road.
One guy connected all three passages to the context of going up to the feasts and so it was a prohibition associated with festival sacrifices whether done by the person or purchased by the person.
Bottom line, nobody knows, but Jehovah said it, the words themselves are very clear so there should be obedience.
One thing productive did come out of it.  With the destruction of the temple and the sacrifice all sorts of adjustments had to be made to the Jewish religion and this verse was used as the basis for a whole lot of rules about keeping milk and any dairy product separate from meat.  (No cheeseburger for you!)  That was not hard enough so you had to buy separate cooking utensils for dairy and meat so that they would never be cooked or served on the same thing because what if some tiny drop of milk was still on the plate!  But it was also used to say that you could not sit down at the same table with someone who was combining those two, so it took the separation of the Jewish people out and beyond the intent of God.  Humans have a tendency to make coming to God way way way harder than He intended it to be.  And that is the lesson I got hours and hours later after looking up this simple verse.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Why are you angry?

God's question to Jonah regarding the shade tree that sprung up overnight and withered the next day is a good and deep question. He also asked it earlier regarding the repentance of the people of Nineveh.  (Jonah 4:1,4,9)


I am a grumbler.


Why are you a grumbler?  I imagine that would be His question to me and it would be good for me to pause and reflect and be convicted of ingratitude. 


By His grace the next time I am grumbling, it will be a Selah moment and He and I can talk about it.  I long for Him to say with the words that carry the power of God within them.  "Go and sin no more."



Monday, December 4, 2017

Phoebe a deacon a minister a servant

Diakonos, Strong's G1249 can be translated deacon, minister or servant.  One time Paul and Timothy introduce themselves as servants.  This is one of only 2 places that the KJV translates the word servant when it is used regarding the community of the Messiah (ekklesia).  The other is when the word is used to reference Phoebe.  Phoebe was given the most important letter ever to be written, Paul's letter to the Romans.  She was the one who transported it to Rome. 
When Paul finished the 16 chapters where he beautifully and systematically lays out the overwhelming plan of God for all time, he hands it to a woman, a servant, a deacon, a minister.

Nothing to see here, move along!

Or is this an insight into Paul, that is a very inconvenient truth, one that will cause us to reevaluate
and reconsider other scriptures?