Eternity is a Long Time

  Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) I was going to name this article “Requirements of being a Christian” when I realized there are so many examples of people prior to the incarnation of Jesus who show the faith of true believers that I would be doing them, and God, a great disservice. Plus, there are all those people who have lived and never heard of Jesus. Before we begin to explore this topic, it is important to point out that Jesus is the ultimate judge of whether someone is born again. As He says – John 10:14-16 14  I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,   15  just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.   16  And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd...

  We misname the last meal Jesus had with His disciples before His crucifixion. We call it The Last Supper when it really should be called The Last Passover. Why? Because Jesus actually says so -  14  And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him.  15  And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.  16  For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 22:14-16) Notice when Jesus says He will not eat "it" in verse 16, He is referring to the Passover meal. Why is this important? Well, we have to remember what Passover is. It is the celebration of God passing over the houses of the Children of Israel who had the blood of the lamb over their door sparing their first born sons but killing the first born sons of those who were not covered by the blood of the lamb.  This 10th plague, the Passover, is a foreshadowing of what is to come...

The Bible says in Romans 10:9 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. What about those people who lived before the crucifixion or lived in places where they never heard of Jesus, are they all condemned? I do not think so. Romans 6:10 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.  And  Hebrews 7:27 27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.  “Once for all” is a pretty definitive phrase said in both these passages. But if these other people never heard about Jesus, how can they believe like it says in John 3:16? Paul answers this in  Romans 1:19-20 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his ete...

[ This is a devotional/study I put together for my department at work (Christian organization) ] Jesus talks about the sign of Jonah and the Queen of the South together in both Matthew and Luke’s gospel. He makes His point speaking to Pharisees and Scribes as well as to other people.  Can’t you hear some people saying: “Oh no, not Pharisees again. We do not have any Pharisees anymore and Scribes went out with the printing press. This is another example of how the Bible is not relevant these days.”  This is where we need to understand the principle Jesus is getting at and not get caught up with the particulars of the story. Too many people do not want the Bible to be relevant so it gives them the opportunity to do what they want with no consequences. As we go forward, consider that you may be the Pharisees or scribes in these verses.  Let’s first look at how Matthew relates the story.  Matthew 12:38-42 (ESV) 38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, say...

  Pentecost (Greek for 50 th day) is a celebration too many Christians overlook. For many, they are uncomfortable with the “speaking in tongues” aspect of it. For others, it is hard to appreciate what other day could be as important as Good Friday and Easter/Resurrection Day. Yet Pentecost, or better said, the celebration of “The Most Special Pentecost”, should be almost as high on our list as the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Before we begin, there are two things to keep in mind. First, redemption without revelation leads to regression back to condemnation and bondage. Secondly, what happened in the Old Testament is so often a foreshadowing of greater fulfillment depicted in the New Testament. Why do we keep going back to the Old Testament? Because Jesus is the fulfillment of scripture – ALL scripture. The only scripture at the time of His death and resurrection is what we now call the Old Testament. If you don’t understand or appreciate the connections, you lose out on the gre...

God is love . We know this not only because the Scriptures explicitly tell us but they also show us. God provided ways to come to Him even when we had turned our backs on Him. Yet the pride people have in themselves or their fear in trusting God cause them to not take advantage of God’s generous mercy. When we do not take advantage of what God offers, then the natural consequences of the condemnation we live with is the result. It started with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden listening to Satan rather than God. Yet God provided for them even as He evicted them from the Garden not only materially but with the  promise of ultimate salvation by one of their posterity . It continued with Cain ignoring God’s desire to be worshiped with a whole heart and becoming jealous of his brother Abel’s close relationship with God. This ultimately lead to Cain’s murder of Abel even after  God encouraged Cain to do what he knew was right . It reached its first wide scale demonstration of Go...

Things that make you go hmmm... In 2008 I was deployed to Kuwait. While there, I walked past two guys who were sitting at a table outside the barracks where I lived. The Holy Spirit made it extremely clear that I was supposed to go over and talk with those guys - I didn't go. I've always wondered what would have happened if I had obeyed God instead of me. Today, I was reminded of how I used to climb through the window of the chapel of Norwich University at night just to sit there and ponder life. I wasn't a born again Christian in those days - that came 20 years later - but I was certainly open. Was someone supposed to come and talk with me during that time and, like I did years later, ignored the direction of the Holy Spirit? If so, what would have been different - for me and others - if I had given my life to Jesus in 1982 rather than 2002? In the end, it is what it is. God's ultimate plan will happen despite his children not obeying Him all the time. That being said,...

  People usually respond first to another person's appearance since we generally see people before we hear them speak. What we see bounces off our prejudices and experiences. If we have a predisposition against someone who is a very large and round person because of some experience in our past, any person who has that physical characteristic will be judged more critically than someone who does not. If we have been brought up to believe left-handed people are that way because of evil influences (as was believed by many for centuries), then any left-handed person is not easily given the benefit of the doubt. These are just two of an innumerable list of reasons why people react to trivial differences in other people and judge them based on those trivial differences. It could be what a person wears, how the person wears what they wear, the color of their hair, the way they keep their hair, the way they walk, the way they gesture, the color of their skin or a zillion other things. This ...

  Below is my response to a post stating: "Looking at church behavior over the centuries, it's rather clear that if saving anyone was really the goal, Jesus and Christianity were a complete failure. Which makes sense, as Jesus was really only trying to reform Judaism, not create a whole new religion; that would be Paul's doing." ------------------------------------------------- My response: When you look at "church" behavior you are looking at fallible, imperfect, illogical, irrational, impetuous and often misguided human behavior - just like everyone else in the world. I'm sure you have a litany of examples of "bad" Christians. Yep, so do I. However, what your seemingly myopic view does not take into account is the fact that our Western Civilization would not have come about except for Jesus and His followers. The ending of slavery would not have happened except for Christians. The tremendous generosity the world has seen over centuries from i...

 

  One of the guys I'm mentoring who is in jail, wrote to tell me he is having some interesting issues regarding reading the Bible. First, he's being led to read the Book of Revelations which is a great book but not the easiest to deal with, especially for a fairly new believer like Clyde. What he says is interesting: "I've been in revelations for a week now I don't know what I'm getting out of it but I've went to other stuff like job and paul and James but something keeps telling me to get back to revelations.... sometimes I feel like I know what it means and sometimes I feel like I'm not getting anything at all ....I'm not going to lie I feel like I'll never learn anything from it" In the next email I received from him he said this: "hey dale sorry to bombard u with all of this but I find myself in the book of Matthew chapter 7 I think that I've been judging god on how I see things and not trusting gods judgment..... I don't k...