I don’t own the copyright to this video, but this is a song called I want to know You more, by Sonicflood, and at the end of the clip it has a very important message about the founding of America and the Nation’s Laws and what they were based upon, and the foundation of the nation.
Heavenly Father,
I pray that you refresh us all with Your Presence today, and remove anything that may be hindering us today and strengthen us with might in the inner man. I pray that You anoint my hands to type this message that You want me to type, and I pray for a clarity and focus to be able to preach this Word today. I pray that You open the minds and the hearts of the people reading this message today and let the Holy Spirit just flow through me. Thank You Blessed Father.
In Jesus Mighty name I pray,
Amen.
Some clarification and teaching needs to be built up in the body of Christ. Do you say that the Law is bad, or that there is nothing good about the Law? Do you say that because of the New Testament that the Old Testament has been done away with? Do you often feel condemned by the Law, but do not know how to understand the benefits of the Law. Have you been listening to other preachers and teachers instead of digging out the Word of God for yourself? Confusion needs to be put aside, and clarity needs to be put into picture. These are the last days and we need to have the whole Word of God as our breastplate of righteousness. Do you believe that the New Testament is the only valid part of Scripture? Do you believe that Pauline epistles are the best revelation of Scripture and everything else needs to be ignored? Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the whole Scripture is about Him. So here I am going to attempt, Lord willing, to make clear some things. But it is my encouragement to you to search out the Scriptures for yourself. My message is not meant to condemn anyone or to bring any confusion, and it is geared for people that are able to search out the Scripture for themselves.
Way – 1) way, road, distance, journey, manner- Jesus is the Way to the Father’s heart and bridges the gap that was made through sin
a) road, way, path- Jesus is the road and the path we have to take
b) journey- Jesus is the journey we have to take through the Holy Spirit
c) direction- Jesus is the direction in which we have to go
d) manner, habit, way- we must strive to the best of our ability, taking on His strength to help us to be like Him to have his habits – for the places where we fail and make mistakes Jesus understands, and that’s where His grace comes because otherwise He knows we would all have OCD trying to keep up with all the 613 ways, but it is the way to enter into His gates
e) of course of life (fig.)- This is the course of life in which we must take, and that is Jesus
f) of moral character (fig.)- Jesus moral character is what we need to take on.
Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for derek (Strong’s 1870)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2012. 30 Apr 2012. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=H1870&t=KJV >Jesus is the Way – and the journey into the Father’s heart, which is the ultimate goal of our life as Christians.Precepts (piqquwd)– principles or rules intended to regulate behavior or thought, Statute – something prescribed or bound or limit, ordinances – boundariesBlue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for piqquwd (Strong’s 6490)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2012. 30 Apr 2012. < http:// http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H6490&t=KJV > We have the principles, but we need the Person and without the person we are lost. We must strive to never lose sight of the person, and even though we don’t feel Him, or get excited every time we hear about Him – because we must love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, sometimes, we will not always feel like He is there, or that we are in passionate love with Him, but that our hearts need to be purged and purified before Him so I pray that He ignites our hearts, minds, souls, and spirits, to be on fire and to love Him, and to thank Him in everything because there will be times, when we cannot or do not have the strength or energy to read the Bible in the last days, and we will be tested and shaken, but be calm and steady because our God and our Lord has equipped us for every good work.
Commandments (mitsvah) – things prohibited by God.-Somethings for our own good need to be prohibited- if we’re doing things that are harmful to ourselves, and God knew, which is why He created all these things, but the greater commandment, which is to love God with all our heart, our mind, all our soul, all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves…We need to remember to keep these things forefront in our hearts. We must choose our thoughts, and live beyond our feelings, and sometimes your body and your emotions will tell you things which don’t agree and line up with the Holy Spirit, but that doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with you as a Christian, but that the Spirit of God is taking you through a refining process and He is taking out the leaven in your life.
So to summarize, we need to love each other and that is the fulfillment of the law and when we don’t love and forgive each other we feel miserable, and God does not want us to be that way, and when we don’t love others we do injustice before them, and God sees that and He tries best to rectify the matter, but we are limited to the free-will that is in our hearts to choose Him for eternal redemption, and He is not going to let you go without a fight, so don’t lose heart, don’t be discouraged, and don’t lose faith because God is an awesome God and He will never leave you alone, and He has known things since time began and He is working mighty miracles.
Heavenly Father,
I pray that you ignite us with passion to serve You even more, and that You remove sicknesses away from all of us, and remove all the burdens and the yokes, that come from living in these evil last days, and that You shower us with Your mercy and Your grace, and do not let us grow weary in well doing, because we know in the end that everything is about You and all this is for You and for Your glory and we ask You to draw near to all of us today, and remove any anger or bitterness, resentment, fear, guilt, shame and insecurites in all of our lives, as we draw close to You as we draw nearer and nearer to You and farther and farther away from the world and it’s wickedness. Forgive us Lord, for the times we have taken out anger on other people in our times of distress, forgive us Lord for any thoughts that are unpleasing to You, and forgive us Lord for any way that we have not acted and according to Your Word and let us receive the Word with clarity and insight and purpose, and just let us walk away with restoration peace, and bring divine healing to all of Your precious saints, everywhere from the top of their heads to the souls of their feet and let Your glory be shone throughout the Earth Lord God, fasten us to You with the glue of the Holy Spirit.
In Jesus Mighty Name I pray,
Amen.
I have come to the conclusion that I still don’t understand the Law vs. Grace and was condemned by my own message. It was a mistake and I cannot put in the Trash, it is in error when I do it. But I believe the Ten Commandments are still valid, but we have a better covenant, and after I have thoroughly researched and understood it, and I apologize for that mistake.
I am going to do some teaching and I’m sorry if it makes your head hurt, but this I have to share because it has really been put on my heart.
Before I start off I am going to define what a Covenant is.
A Covenant is an agreement between God and another party which cannot be broken based on the conditions of the Covenant.
The Old Covenant, and this particular Covenant of Moses was made by God and Moses and it could not be broken.
The New Covenant is made between God and Himself – that’s why the Bible says that because He could not find anyone greater, He swore by Himself – Hebrews 6:13, and that is the Blood Covenant that He had with His Son.
I’m going to start off by saying that we are in no way bound by the Law or Torah, or the curses in it because Jesus paid the price for the curse and we are now under a New Covenant which is much better than the Old Covenant. It is the Holy Spirit that leads us through the conscience with the law written upon our hearts, which is part of the New Covenant, a much better covenant and we are justified by grace and faith alone!!
Now the Law, which is not the same as the Old Covenant was not all bad either, and many people Christians and non-Christians alike still follow the law for whether consciously or unconsciously. There were reasons for eating animals that chewed the cud, and with divided hoofs, and reasons for that were mostly sanitary and hygienic. Most of the laws were guidelines for being sanitary and hygienic during those times because the society was not as developed with technology as we are now, so they had to find a way to take care of their lives and obey the laws. For example, I want to ask a question to you – Take a typical 5 year old girl….would she want to eat a lizard? Yet the lizard is considered unclean. If you ask her she would say, “Yucky”. If you asked a 9 year old girl she would probably say, “that’s disgusting.” I’m trying to find the right age group to pose this scenario with, but in reality a typical girl would say no. You have animal rights groups protecting the rights of the eagle, and other animals, and I am sure they include some of the animals mentioned in Leviticus 11. Also there is a law that says if that if an insect has landed into your bowl you are to break it and not to use it. Would you want to eat out of a bowl with a fly in it? Probably not, so these laws are already ingrained in human nature and are by most cases common sense. So that’s where it came from and the principles of how to live are there. So that shows the benefit of the law and maybe hints at the reason why it was there. It was there to ingrain into the society the proper way to live, and whenever they strayed away from the Law there was destruction.
Now we are no longer bound under the Law anymore, we are under Grace, which is unmerited favor. That means that you don’t have to do anything to earn the favor of God.
Here is the definition of the word charis for favor –
”
1) grace
a) that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness: grace of speech
2) good will, loving-kindness, favour
a) of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues
3) what is due to grace
a) the spiritual condition of one governed by the power of divine grace
b) the token or proof of grace, benefit
1) a gift of grace
2) benefit, bounty
4) thanks, (for benefits, services, favours), recompense, reward”
Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for charis (Strong’s 5485)“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2012. 27 Mar 2012. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
Strongs=G5485&t=NASB >
Paul brings in clarification between sin, law, and grace –
Romans 2:12-16
12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law 13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.
Same verses in the Easy to Read Version –
12 People who have the law and those who have never heard of the law are all the same when they sin. People who don’t have the law and are sinners will be lost. And, in the same way, those who have the law and are sinners will be judged by the law. 13Hearing the law does not make people right with God. They will be right before him only if they always do what the law says.
14 Those who are not Jews don’t have the law. But when they naturally do what the law commands without even knowing the law, then they are their own law. This is true even though they don’t have the written law. 15 They show that in their hearts they know what is right and wrong, the same as the law commands, and their consciences agree. Sometimes their thoughts tell them that they have done wrong, and this makes them guilty. And sometimes their thoughts tell them that they have done right, and this makes them not guilty.
16 All this will happen on the day when God will judge people’s secret thoughts through Jesus Christ. This is part of the Good News that I tell everyone.
Same verses in the Message Bible –
12-13If you sin without knowing what you’re doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you’re doing, that’s a different story entirely. Merely hearing God’s law is a waste of your time if you don’t do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.
14-16When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God’s yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences.
Before I go into this, I want to point out there are things that all people have in common regardless of whether they believe in Jesus. For example, everyone has a spirit. The believer’s spirit is subject to the Holy Spirit, and the unbeliever’s spirit is subject to the kingdom of darkness. So even though Gentiles or Jews who are unbelievers, when they naturally obey the Law, they still have a conscience that proves them guilty or not guilty, and since they do not have Jesus they either write off their conscience as saying that, “I do not have to seem guilty for anything” or they say “I really feel bad for what I did because I know it was wrong.” The believer has this hope that Jesus Christ will forgive them for their sins and cleanse their transgressions as far as the east is from the west, but the unbeliever does not have this hope because they do not have this hope. The New Covenant replaced this overbearing burden of following the religious Laws that were becoming a burden, with replacing them with a Law of Love or Agape, and now under this new Law, it does not matter whether you break the Mosaic Law (but God still wants you to follow the ethical guidelines in the Law especially the Ten Commandments), as long as you act out of a unconditional self-sacrificing love that comes only through Jesus Christ, and with a desire to become more like Him. Granted we are not all perfect, and still a work in progress, but the Lord is merciful and patient with us to make sure we develop the fruit of the Holy Spirit that He has put in as seeds, which will grow and bear fruit. But if you are weighed down with feeling unclean, or burdened by all the Laws in Leviticus don’t be because God knows your heart, and He is testing you to see how much you will follow and obey Him. Sometimes people, especially unbelievers, end up with a seared conscience when they have done something wrong so many times that they don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, and that really effects the society.
The thing that really helped me is knowing and having that vision that we are already in Heaven, those that sincerely and with a pure heart believe on the name of Jesus, and the life here on earth is just temporary, and like the Bible says, “but a vapor”. We have to be eternity minded. On the big scheme of things is it really going to matter whether you had a ham sandwich, or ate that piece of shrimp. Probably not, but if you want to live and make the most out of the body you have been given here on earth then you should probably not eat that.
The Message has a pretty good explanation of what happens to a society after they don’t obey God, and are not motivated by a pure and sincere heart to believe Jesus of the Bible and love Jesus of the Bible and to do whatever He tells them to do, –
18-23But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.
24-25So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen [imagine hoarders buried alive- but in this sense made their lives a mess], smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!
26-27Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.
28-32Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!
So now before I get a bucket of slime poured out over my head, I just want to say that this was a historical trend throughout civilizations, time and time again, what happened when people took their eyes off of God and did what was right in their own eyes.
Romans 2 again – The Message Bible –
1-2Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done.
3-4You didn’t think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? Or did you think that because he’s such a nice God, he’d let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.
5-8You’re not getting by with anything. Every refusal and avoidance of God adds fuel to the fire. The day is coming when it’s going to blaze hot and high, God’s fiery and righteous judgment. Make no mistake: In the end you get what’s coming to you—Real Life for those who work on God’s side, but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!
9-11If you go against the grain, you get splinters, regardless of which neighborhood you’re from, what your parents taught you, what schools you attended. But if you embrace the way God does things, there are wonderful payoffs, again without regard to where you are from or how you were brought up. Being a Jew won’t give you an automatic stamp of approval. God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up his own mind.
In the NASB – Romans 2 –
4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But [d]because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6 who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: 7 to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; 8 but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. 9 There will be tribulation and distress [e]for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.
2 Timothy 3:2-6 says:
2For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane.
3[They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good.
4[They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God.
5For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them].
6For among them are those who worm their way into homes and captivate silly and weak-natured and spiritually dwarfed women, loaded down with [the burden of their] sins [and easily] swayed and led away by various evil desires and seductive impulses.
Some people especially unbelievers think God is softhearted, and He is not going to take into consideration all the wickedness that is done, that He is not going to do anything about all the stuff going on right now – you see it, it’s on the news, but believe me, the day is coming when He will no longer overlook, but for those by perseverance {precondition believing on Jesus} in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, and eternal life. But those that don’t do what is right are storing up for themselves a time of wrath. Point being that if you’re an unbeliever seek God first through His Son Jesus Christ, and if you are a believer, then don’t Judge because the greatest law there is in this world, is the Law of Agape or love through His Son Jesus Christ. This kind of love builds on relationships you have with people, and makes you want to help people out. And you may see people who are not Christians that might seem to have more of this unconditional self-sacrificing love – it literally means affection, goodwill, love, and benevolence, or brotherly love or loving one’s neighbor, and since we are all created in the image of God, we all have potential for this kind of love, but for the potential to be maximized, the only way is through Jesus Christ. Because despite being just a nice or good person you are not perfect and your sin still has to be redeemed and that is through the Blood of Jesus Christ. The safer side for a Christian with a pure sincere heart is to be on the side of Grace, because Jesus is the Personification of Grace…and if you want God’s favor you will need Grace, but if you make mistakes and you honestly feel bad about it and you don’t want to do it, and if you have accepted Jesus then you have nothing to fear as long as you keep up with it, don’t give up and don’t lose faith!!!
Recently, I’ve been swung back and forth like a pendulum between radical Law for Christians, and radical grace for Christians, so what I had to do is go back to the basics and read the Word of God for myself. If the Word of God contradicts my opinions or what I have been taught, then I essentially have to go back to the Word of God and agree with what it says, and change my own mind, or repent for my opinions or beliefs that do not line up with God’s Word.
So here’s where I started this week –
2 Corinthians 3 –
4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit;[a] for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, whichglory was passing away, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. 10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. 11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
12 Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech— 13 unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. 14 But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. 15 But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. 16 Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
The context of this passage begins with Paul’s exhortation to the believers in Corinth in stating that they are the “proof through the Spirit” or epistle that is not written with ink, but is a testimony of what Christ has done through the efforts of Paul’s ministry.
Some people like to believe that we take “too seriously” Paul’s epistle’s, and not the four Gospel books. But in reality all the books from Genesis to Revelation are inspired [to be breathed upon] by God. If you discount all of Paul’s epistles, then you also discount the book of ACTS too, which spoke of the ministry of Paul. Paul went to the Jews to preach the Gospel or Good News, not Bad News, but they were too bull headed to believe it, so then he ran back and said, ok, “if you won’t believe in Jesus, then I’ll go to the Gentiles, and maybe they’ll receive the news better.” The Early Church discussed on what should be done on what rules and laws that the Gentile believers are supposed to follow and the settled on a few and those are mentioned in the book of ACTS. I believe they are to stay away from idolatry, fornication, and eating animals that were strangled, or the blood of animals. If I remember correctly that was pretty much it, and they did what was “good as it seemed to the Holy Spirit.”
So then in Galatians 3 I read the following –
19 What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. 20 Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.
21 Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. 22 But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
Galatians 1 says –
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
Phillipians 3:
2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit,[a] rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, 4 though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; 6 concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul had all the “qualifications and requirements” to meet the Law, but he suffered a loss of all those things and his so called status symbol in the Jewish society, and he reached for something greater and when he found it he came to the conclusion that all of those things really didn’t matter.
So if the ministry of the death and condemnation is the Law, and the ministry of the Spirit and justification is by faith, then why still hold on to the Law, what benefit is the Law? We have examined the Purpose of the Law, and that it is a teacher, but now the majority of the people getting saved are not Jews, so how do we distinguish? The book of Romans goes through this quite a bit and I have studied on it, and I recommend that you do too as well as the book of Hebrews that goes quite into detail the depth of the study of the better covenant.
Then this statement from Jesus leaves us in a bit of a conundrum –
17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
There is another time that Jesus mentions “being great in the kingdom of Heaven” – 24 And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. 26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Also there is a mention of first and last where Jesus says that those who are “first will be last”, and “last will be first”.
I think the problem comes in is in the fact that our beloved Messianic Jewish Brothers and Sisters and the fellow Gentile Brothers and Sisters don’t seem to come eye to eye on the subject of the benefit of the Law and the Torah because the Messianic Jews have been taught all their life that the Torah is a Blessing, but in reality even the definition of the word, Torah means to “teach”, and that is how Paul used to define the purpose of the Law. God is not the author of confusion. Confusion comes from the enemy.
Matthew 23 –
Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, 2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 Therefore whatever they tell you to observe,[a] that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. 4 For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 5 But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. 6 They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, 7 greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’ [or Pastor, Pastor] 8 But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher [or Pastor], the Christ,[b] and you are all brethren. 9 Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10 And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. 11 But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
There is only One that is the Teacher, and that is Christ – what is the implication there, that Christ teaches you all that you need to learn taking the place of the Torah because the Torah teaches, but Jesus is the Teacher.
From personal experience I’ve learned then when I listen to teachings about Christians or Gentile believers obeying the Law, and when I open up books like the Complete Jewish Bible, I don’t experience freedom, it actually seems like I’ll never measure up so that’s why I thank God for His Son who has given us freedom. The Truth shall make you free, and if you sincerely believe in Jesus Christ, and follow the guidelines given the New Testament, then you are no longer under bondage and you are free. You just need to be completely free and for that you really need Jesus to come in and teach you through the Holy Spirit.
I’d like to thank my fellow blogger mtsweat for his blog: Resting in His Grace because it makes me realize that truly be able to rest is to know what Grace is all about.
This prayer is for me as well as for anyone else that might be struggling with this issue:
Dear Precious Heavenly Father,
We know that Your Word is Truth and in Your Word there is liberty. We thank You that You are beyond our comprehension and that You have allowed as much as needed to understand You. Thank You for revealing to us little by little who You are and what You are doing. Help the believers to set the record straight so that Truth may abide in us and be made to dwell in our body, soul, and spirit, so that we are whole and undivided just like You are whole and undivided. I thank You that You are revealing the Truth of God’s Word to all of your saints, and give us the eyes of understanding and ears to hear what You have to say Lord God, We Thank You. You are not the Author of confusion, but you are the Author if wholeness, soundness, and You are abound in mercy. Thank You dearly.
In Jesus Mighty Name I pray,
Amen.
This video showed that we still have a lot to learn as a Church, and we really need to get our act together.
I don’t know what the exact Copyright Laws are about the Bible, but from what I can gather – if you quote beyond what is the Copyright Law for the Bible, and especially if you use resources like Biblegateway or Bible.com, then according to SOPA and PIPA you could end up in a lot of trouble. If I mention how much I might end up into a Copyright infringement. Stop Online Piracy Act, and Protect Intellectual Property Act, are bills being passed in Congress today, that would stop people from freely being able to copy or quote online sources, without direct written permission from the writer. That makes things like Online Evangelism more difficult and hard to maintain. All of the Bible Translations except for KJV is under Copyright protection or so I heard. We need to urge Congress not to pass these Acts. We need to stop these Acts from passing. You know me, I quote a lot of Bible passages, and if I feel restricted from using a certain amount in a piece of work (with the threat of 10 years in jail or site redirecting [so I’ve read]) for using that translation. We need to pray that this bill gets stopped in its track. Urging all Christian Bloggers, and Online Evangelists to pray for these bills not to be passed.
One thing I am learning is about consistency in the Christian walk, and also what I say on my posts. Forgive me if I seem to be going from one extreme because I am going on this journey along with you guys, and we are one Body so if I say something that doesn’t seem to be right or consistent with any of my messages, you can point it out, but just be patient with me.
When cooking a cake or even a brownie, you need to have consistency, and that means being smooth, or being the same everywhere you look. In the Christian walk, it is ideal to not to believe one thing one day, and then the next day believe something totally different. Because of media overload in this generation it is hard to remain consistent because we get so many differing viewpoints and it is difficult to distinguish or discern without a proper Biblical foundation, what to do when contradictions appear or people argue with you or even when your own curiousity gets you into trouble. Through the Holy Spirit, you get guidance in your Christian walk, and sometimes it takes some time shutting everything off and freeing yourself from distractions to just sit there and study and meditate on God’s WORD. Remember that satan is always there to try to confuse you and get you discouraged, and when you don’t understand what’s happening, what you need to know is “Trust God and lean not on your own understanding.”
While I was studying about consistency today I fell upon many passages in Psalms and Proverbs that mentioned about the consistently righteous. But the passage(s) that really touched my heart were found in 1 John 3.
1 John 3:6-10
6No one who abides in Him [who lives and remains [e]in communion with and in obedience to Him–deliberately, knowingly, and [f]habitually] commits (practices) sin. No one who [habitually] sins has either seen or known Him [recognized, perceived, or understood Him, or has had an experiential acquaintance with Him].
7[g]Boys (lads), let no one deceive and lead you astray. He who practices righteousness [who is upright, conforming to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action, living a consistently conscientious life] is righteous, even as He is righteous.
8[But] he who commits sin [who practices evildoing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one], for the devil has sinned (violated the divine law) from the beginning. The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil [has done].
9No one born (begotten) of God [deliberately, knowingly, and [h]habitually] practices sin, for God’s nature abides in him [His principle of life, the divine seed, remains permanently within him]; and he cannot practice sinning because he is born (begotten) of God.
10By this it is made clear who take their nature from God and are His children and who take their nature from the devil and are his children: no one who does not practice righteousness [who does not conform to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action] is of God; neither is anyone who does not love his brother (his fellow [i]believer in Christ).
In vs. 7, Apostle John is talking to boys, but this is applicable to all of us…that we lead a consistently conscientious life in order to be righteous. Conscientious means painstaking, diligent, or persistent life. Then in vs. 8, it has a warning about sin. The reasoning is that when you are born again, and have the seed of the divine God in you, you cannot sin. He says that this is made clear that we are either children of God or children of the devil, and we cannot be both.
Once you receive the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and accepted Him as your Savior, nothing in short of blaspheming the Holy Spirit can take that away from you unless you choose to reject Him, after you once accepted Him. When that happens that means that your foundation was not strong, but you can still recommit, and give your life to Christ again, if you have done that. The only thing impermissible by God is the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit, which is looking at someone who is performing miracles in Jesus Name, and say that it is demonic. That’s what happened when Jesus was performing miracles and the Pharisees said that He was “demonic”.
Now I am going to go into the issue of sin.
After the original sin, there was the sin of Cain, who brought an offering tilled from the ground, but the Lord did not respect it.
So the Lord said, “Why are you angry? And why do you look sad and depressed and dejected?” Genesis 4:6
“If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
What was Cain’s sin? It was, incidentally, to not love his brother, that led him into sin. Because he was jealous that he God respected Abel’s offering more than Cain’s, he became sad, depressed, and dejected. There is a lot of significance in the Bible to why Abel’s offering was more significant than Cain’s, and you can go very deep into that issue, but the emphasis is on, what we are to do with sin.
We are to master sin, but Jesus has already mastered sin, through His blood on the Cross.
1 Corinthians 8:3 says:
But if one loves God truly [ with affectionate reverence, prompt obedience, and grateful recognition of His blessing], he is known by God [ recognized as worthy of His intimacy and love, and he is owned by Him].
Affectionate reverence and awe comes with recognizing the spectacular amazement of who God is, and grateful recognition of His blessing can really take away a condemning mindset quickly. But we often we get caught in a trap.
The enemy often comes to steal, kill, and destroy our love for God, one another and ourselves. Delayed obedience is still disobedience. We don’t want to disobey God, as children of God, and we want to please God with our faith, but then there are those temptations – those lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and that pride of life. Some of you may be thinking that you have no lust of the eyes, or no pride of life, but how disciplined are we particularly in America, with watching what we eat and the lust of the flesh? In this particular verse, the context was talking about eating food sacrificed to idols so that we can approach ourselves and others to be careful to offend anyone.
Before this verse was 1 Corinthians 8:2-
2If anyone imagines that he has come to know and understand much [of divine things, without love], he does not yet perceive and recognize and understand as strongly and clearly, nor has he become as intimately acquainted with anything as he ought or as is necessary.
Basically saying that if you think you know so much and are puffed up, and thinking, “I am better than you because I don’t eat these things,” then that’s the wrong attitude to have. The “I am better than you” attitude is the absolutely wrong attitude have. The Bible says that we are supposed to consider others better than ourselves, and not to consider ourselves more highly than we ought.
How God responds to our disobedience is examined in Romans:
Romans 5:19
For just as by one man’s disobedience (failing to hear, heedlessness, and carelessness) the many were constituted sinners, so by one Man’s obedience the many will be constituted righteous (made acceptable to God, brought into right standing with Him).
I want to bring up a few more verse:
Romans 11:30
Just as you [Gentiles] were once disobedient and rebellious toward God but now have obtained [His] mercy, through their [Israel’s/Jews] disobedience. (emphasis mine)
31So they also now are being disobedient [when you are receiving mercy], that they in turn may one day, through the mercy you are enjoying, also receive mercy [that they may share the mercy which has been shown to you–through you as messengers of the Gospel to them].
Romans 11:32
For God has consigned (penned up) all men to disobedience, only that He may have mercy on them all [alike].
Romans 11:26-27
26And so all Israel will be saved. As it is written, The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will banish ungodliness from Jacob.
27And this will be My covenant (My agreement) with them when I shall take away their sins.
See because of what Christ did, He brought Gentiles into the covenant, He actually did this to provoke the Jews to jealousy, and not the other way around. The jealousy in the sense (not like Cain with his brother Abel), but in the sense that they see what favor and grace that the Gentiles have and they want to have that.
We are made righteous through Jesus on the Cross, because we were sinners, He died for us.
We are supposed to be ministering the Gospel to Israel, God’s chosen people, according to these passages and what has been forgotten is that while we have been trying to minister the Gospel to the world, which is good, but God’s chosen people are neglected.
The Jews and Gentiles are actually brothers in covenant with a founding father in Abraham. One by blood, and the other by adoption, but they are actually brothers under the same covenant of salvation.
I think I have strayed a little away from the point, but one thing we have to realize is that we must love God, love another as we loves ourselves. It seems like an impossibly high standard for people to do on their own because they were born out of a natural tendency not to have a God kind of love. Jesus said “Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as you love yourself, on this one commandment hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Sometimes this is hard to see in places in the Old Testament, and even in books like Revelation, but when you put Jesus into picture, when you shift your focus on to Him, then you will be seeing at divine vision. You won’t need the glasses that you were so used to. The whole book is the Bible and the Bible is all about Jesus and what He did so if someone else tells you otherwise than don’t listen to them. The Bible is the WORD of God, and it is actually Jesus Himself as it is written in the Book of John. His WORD, is exalted above His name, and definitely above any internet sites you go to. When you study make sure not to go into too many different sources. These are all lessons I am still learning. Of course we need help and guidance in our walk, and the support of other believers, so reading and sharing and feedback on other blog posts is ok because this is how build up and encourage one another in this walk of faith.
We need to shift our focus off of sin, and more onto Jesus to the point where we become saturated with His love. I mentioned about pruning and chastening of the Lord, but as I mentioned in the post about the Sound of Music, if you have love you are more effective. I heard a pastor say today, “If the tree is full of sap then the leaves just fall right off” That sap represents the love of God. It is like Jesus said in Revelation 2:
1TO THE angel (messenger) of the assembly (church) in Ephesus write: These are the words of Him Who holds the seven stars [which are the messengers of the seven churches] in His right hand, Who goes about among the seven golden lampstands [which are the seven churches]:
2I know your industry and activities, laborious toil and trouble, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot tolerate wicked [men] and have tested and critically appraised those who call [themselves] apostles (special messengers of Christ) and yet are not, and have found them to be impostors and liars.
3I know you are enduring patiently and are bearing up for My name’s sake, and you have not fainted or become exhausted or grown weary.
4But I have this [one charge to make] against you: that you have left (abandoned) the love that you had at first [you have deserted Me, your first love].
5Remember then from what heights you have fallen. Repent (change the inner man to meet God’s will) and do the works you did previously [when first you knew the Lord], or else I will visit you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you change your mind and repent.
I learned something today about how sometimes we take God’s grace for granted sometimes. We went shopping today at a store, which shall be nameless to protect privacy. Two things happened, which made me reflect on the prospect of not knowing the rules, and just getting by and knowing the rules and being prevented from future mistakes. I’ll start with the coupon for “Tree-Nuts”.
Scenario #1:
For the past 2 weeks we have been getting store brand trail mix, in 24 oz package, with a coupon for tree-nuts in same brand in the same 24 oz. Both weeks the computer at the cashier wouldn’t let the coupon work, but we found grace through the cashier who just made a decisive decision and just let us have the trail mix for the discount for the tree-nuts. This week we got a different flavor, but the same thing – a 24 oz container of trail mix, but then the cashier and the manager wouldn’t let us get discount for it. My dad tried to debate with them saying they’re still tree-nuts, but this time as much as we tried to we didn’t get the discount.
Scenario #2
There’s a discount we were told of by someone who worked in the store, that if you bring in plastic bags for the groceries, as we understood it, that you would get a discount for every plastic bag you bring in. Turns out we were wrong, the store policy is actually if we bring in fabric bags then we would get a discount per bag. This whole time since around September, which would be like two or three months we’d been bringing in the same plastic bags, and every time the cashiers would allow us to have discount on the bags we were bringing in. They probably only once tried to mention it to us, but we were still ignorant. So today we found out we were wrong. There was no real harm done, but I particularly learned a very important lesson about the walk of faith.
What was to be learned from this? We were unintentionally deceived because of our lack of knowledge. This whole time, we’d been getting away with things we shouldn’t be getting away with. Had the rules changed? No. But what did change? What changed is that we found out we did not know the whole truth. We only had part of it. We had been getting grace and favour in our shopping, but then that all stopped today. But we were informed for the better, so that we can make the right choices, like decide to pay full price for the trail mix anyway or start bringing in fabric bags, so we could change and adapt to the situation.
How does this apply to the Bible? This is not to bring any condemnation whatsoever because there is no condemnation in Christ, but sometimes knowing the rules helps. Knowing the foundation helps. Knowing the roots helps. Knowing what the Bible has to say about the Law in the Bible helps. The Bible says “My people are destroyed because of lack of knowledge,” referring to the LORD. Not knowing what the WORD of God has to say about a certain issue can bring us to a point where we are walking by blindly, and just sliding by, by the hair of our teeth. We may just be barely making it, or “scarcely saved”, as the Bible puts it. Some of us are beyond that, and we know that we are the righteousness of God in Christ, but there are others, and if it’s you read this you know it’s you, are one step away from falling to the point, that grace can’t pick you up. It’s happened in the Bible before like with Esau when he sold his birthright, and with Saul when he sought the LORD, and He could not be found. There are those times, “The Silent Years”, or the times when you are clinging on to the last hope that you have. That it seems like everyone has turned against you, and even the crowd that was for you is now against you. To those people, and you know it’s you God still has a plan in all this – He has plans to prosper you and not to harm you; to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 The Scripture in this passage are about the captives that were carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon. It was about the elders, prophets, and priests, that were being yanked out of their homeland, and sent to live in a foreign land. God brought them back didn’t He. He will get you through this time, but you have to make the effort to invest time in God’s WORD, and get to the point where you begin to know the zoe (or abundant kind of life) that God has for you. Don’t give up now you brothers and sisters.
For those if you, which it doesn’t apply, for those of you who are walking right with God, know this – that the closer you to get to God and His WORD, and an intimate relationship with Him, you will come to that point where you cannot sin and you do not want to sin because you first don’t want to be operating out of love, and you know that you abide in Christ and Christ abides in you….This is not saying that we are Christ, but it is saying that we are at the level that the world around us, is only a place where we can shine the light of Christ, and be a blessing to other people. We can get to that point where we realize that even though we were sinners Christ died for us, and allowed His Holy Spirit, and like Benny Hinn said, “that it is only skin that is separating us from Christ”, but before we get there it is a refining process and it may hurt, it may have ups and downs. I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten to the point where I see God in everything. It’s like what David said in Psalm 139:8 – “If I ascend into heaven, You are there, if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there,” and the vs. that says that “nothing can separate us from the love of God.”
As I was reading Psalm 139, I found the part that says, “Such knowledge is so high, I cannot attain it.” That is so true. The God of this universe, our LORD GOD, our Heavenly Father, and Blessed Trinity, knows everything from each and every detail with such an intricacy. Nothing that we do, say, think, or feel is a surprise to Him. He knows us beyond anything. At the end of this Psalm it says, “Search my heart, know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me.” Because He knows you so well, you don’t have to be afraid, He’s right there, it’s not like He didn’t know that you were going to sin, because He foreordained everything from the foundation of the world, but when times go by when you’ve been taking Him for granted, and the things that He has done for you for granted, is when you have to go back to realize all that He has done for you and just appreciate Him.
In my walk with God I have been trying to have a balanced perspective and the whole picture. I don’t want to be on the extreme of either side, but yet show a characteristic of radical life changing walk with Christ in my life. While I was praying last night, God showed me something in the form of an illustration, taken from real life, and it actually comes in the form of a movie. That movie is “The Sound of Music”. The movie is about a woman named Maria who is a nun and she is not fitting in with all the other nuns and just hasn’t learned to be obedient. Well the Mother of the Abbey (the place where the nuns live together), tells her after praying about it, that it is the will of God for her to leave them and to live in a house and raise seven children for Captain Von Trapp, a man who used to work for the navy. He had several what you call “governesses” that tried to raise the children, and all of them had run away from the children. His wife had died several years earlier.
So Maria went on this adventure trying to face whatever was to come to her, but she didn’t know what to expect. When she got there she met the Captain, he had these whistles, and he did not call his children by name, but by whistle sound, and they were very scared of their father. At one point Brigitta, one of the girls who I believe if I remember correctly was a pre-teen or an early teenager, was reading a book, and the father took the book and spanked her with it.
They spent some time in the movie showing how strict the father was, but whenever the father wasn’t looking they were rebellious to the governess, Maria, and liked to play tricks on her, to “test” her. When the father was gone she built up a relationship with the kids, and she had a confrontation with the Captain, and said to him, “they just want to be loved, love them all” about the children. She also brought music into the home. In those days music was a lot more pure than it is these days, but point being she restored an actual relationship with the father, instead of all these rules and regulations they were following, but only when the father was around, but they were still pretty rebellious to the governess. She knew the best way to win them over was with love. She ended up marrying the Captain and being the kids’ mother.
There are something that I want to point out from this illustration. Maria used love to repair the relationship of the father with the children where Jesus used love to repair the relationship of God’s people, Jews and Gentiles, to their Father. Before that He was called LORD, or YHWH, and in some cases even ADONAI, which means Master. But Jesus wanted to reveal Him as “Abba, Father” or Daddy. That’s the same thing kids in the movie wanted. They really wanted to be loved by their father, and they didn’t want to be called by a whistle. They wanted him to call them by name. They didn’t want this strict, harsh, stern, authority figure. They wanted a father who would love them. Jesus came to restore the Jews relationship, and also bring a new relationship for the Gentiles to the Father, or Daddy who is their God. He wanted to bring that closeness, and intimacy, that a father has with a child. I posted in a previous blog entry about “Girls and their fathers” about how the father loves to give good gifts to his children.
There is even a prophetic and an angle of spiritual warfare that can be seen from this illustration. According to this movie there was the Naval forces of the Third Reich, under Nazi Germany under this time, and they were after Captain Von Trapp. But fortunately at this point, he was married to Maria and had a love relationship with his children, so they were all able to work as a team because the enemy did come and try to destroy their family. What ended up is that they were able to escape into the hills after a clever escape plan. But because the love relationship was restored, they were a lot more effective in escaping the enemy.
So that made me think about, if our walk is rooted and grounded in love for God, neighbors, and ourselves, instead of all these rules and regulations that don’t bring us closer to God, but pull us away from God, won’t that be so much more effective spiritual warriors, and be able to walk with wisdom in the last days? Someone once said that the Bible is progressive, and that you learn more and more about God through revelation as you go from Old Testament, to New Testament. We have to change our mindset about God, and even the Heavenly Father. He is not a cold, distant, stern, authority figure who is waiting and just waiting to judge the people and make them pay for everything they have done (at least for believers). He is a loving, merciful, gracious, Abba, Father and loving Daddy that wants you to love Him. Even in the Old Testament it talks about how God wants the people to turn from their wicked ways and just turn to Him. He just wants them to love Him.
I am going to clarify again the word, “love”, in case you missed it last time. There are four types of love in the Greek: Agape, Eros, Phileo, and Storge. Agape, is the unconditional love that God has for us through Christ, someone put it best – “Agape is the love of an object/person despite the condition of the object of the affection”. EROS, is the romantic kind of love between the husband and a wife. Phileo is the love between the brothers and sisters of the church, and the type of love that Jesus said we are to have for our neighbors. Storge is the love we have for our family members.
After Jesus had resurrected and He had come to meet Peter by the sea, He asked him, to redeem Peter for denying Him, “Do you love/Agape Me?” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Peter said, “Lord, you know I love/Phileo You.” Then He asked again, “Do you love/Agape Me?” Peter said yet again, “Lord, you know I love/Phileo You.” Jesus said “Shepherd, (tend) my sheep.” Then Jesus came down to his level and said, “Do you love/Phileo Me?” This time Peter was sad, and then Peter said, “You know I do love/Phileo you.” Then Jesus said “Feed my sheep.”
I think Amplified plays out this passage very well in John 21 –
15When they had eaten, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these [others do–with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father]? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You [that I have deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. He said to him, Feed My lambs.
16Again He said to him the second time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me [with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father]? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You [that I have a deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. He said to him, Shepherd (tend) My sheep.
17He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me [with a deep, instinctive, personal affection for Me, as for a close friend]? Peter was grieved (was saddened and hurt) that He should ask him the third time, Do you love Me? And he said to Him, Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You [that I have a deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. Jesus said to him, Feed My sheep.
Jesus was trying to get this Agape, love, a love that is a choice, with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion out of Peter, and I think He is trying to get that out of all of us. For us to look at the Heavenly Father, who we can talk to as a Daddy. There is a seeking in this type of relationship. It is an act of devotion. It is going after God till you find Him. It is to yearn and hunt after God. It is to pour all you have on finding this loving Father in your life. In the same way that Maria restored the relationship that Captain Von Trapp had with his children. The same way Jesus was and is trying to change our view and relationship of the Heavenly Father. Sometimes as Christians we take the Heavenly Father for granted, or because so many of us have an orphaned spirit, we don’t know how to have a relationship with God as our Father. We thank the Holy Spirit for giving us insight into who the Father is and to Jesus for revealing to us who He is, and lovingly we call him Abba, or Daddy.
If you want to know the descendents of the Von Trapp children are still alive. They sang beautifully on a television interview I watched. I didn’t want to disgrace that family name and in putting this posting up I hope it brings honour to the family and to God.
singingsinglev4 