Sunday, August 21, 2016

The horrors of this world do not disappear in our faith, they are magnified.

Do you want to be blessed? Seriously? Do you want to be blessed?  We are blessed if we read and keep the things in this very special book of prophecy. We are blessed if we do our God's commandments. Do we? Are we reading and keeping? Are we doing the commandments?  We know, over and over we've discussed it and it bears going over again and again, that the commandments are the MORAL LAW we have in our lives. This moral law defining our place in mankind, as creatures obeying their Creator.  Yes, many choose to rebel rather than obey and that is their choice, but how glorious it is to obey! To obey is to comprehend that eventually we will be fully and wholly at one with our Creator in a world without sin. To obey is to cling through faith to our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. To obey is to finally live in the city whose maker is God! The horrors of this life do not disappear in our faith, if anything they are often magnified. The evil we are allowed to see, to bear witness to is all the more evil in the light of God's love. We cry out- "Come, Lord Jesus, come! We can scarcely bear beholding the evil surrounding us! Evil strikes out at the core of Your love! Evil so cruel our hearts are torn by its unfathomable depths! Please, Lord Jesus, please… we cry out for You! Have mercy upon us! Please, have mercy!"

We would be Yours, wholly, wholly Yours now and forever!

In the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord, the Beginning and the End.  Amen!

Revelation 22 VERSE 13. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.  14.    Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

(Excerpt taken from Daniel and Revelation by Uriah Smith 1897-1911 Editions)

Christ here applies to himself the appellation of Alpha and Omega. As applied to him, the expression must be taken in a more limited sense than when applied to the Father, as in chapter 1:8. Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, of the great plan of salvation.

Verse 14, as before noticed, is the language of Christ. The commandments of which he speaks are his Father's. Reference can be had only to the ten commandments as delivered on Mount Sinai, He pronounces a blessing upon those who keep them. Thus in the closing chapter of the word of God, and near the very close of the last testimony which the faithful and true Witness there left for his people, he solemnly pronounces a blessing upon those who keep the commandments of God. Let those who believe in the abolition of the law, candidly consider the decisive bearing of this important fact. 

Instead of the reading, "Blessed are they that do his commandments," some translations, including the Revised Version, have, "Blessed are they that wash their robes." On this point Alford's Testament for English Readers has this note:       "The difference in the readings is curious, being in the original that between poiountes tas entolas autou, and plunontes tas stolas auton, either of which might easily be mistaken for the other."       In view of this statement, it is not surprising, perhaps, that this difference of reading is found. But there seems to be good evidence that the first is the original, from which the latter is a variation by the error of transcribers. Thus the Syriac New Testament, one of the very earliest translations from the original Greek, reads according to the common English version. And Cyprian, whose writings antedate any extant Greek manuscript (Ante-Nicene Library, Vol. XIII, p. 122), quotes the text as reading,        "Blessed are they that do his commandments."       We may therefore safely consider this as the genuine reading.

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Jesus said these words-

Rev 22:12  And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
Rev 22:13  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

And then we read…

Rev 22:14  Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

Our Savior's reward is with Him.
Every man will receive according to work.

If our work is to worship, then we obey the commandments through our worship, through Christ!

If we do not worship, our work will reflect that, and our Savior cannot know us if we do not know Him through our worship.

Keeping the commandments are important and our God did NOT leave us without the ability to discern them through His word.  Our heavenly Father went to great lengths to give us the knowledge of His commandments. And yes, we should study them once more, by the grace and will of God!

If we are blessed if we read the prophecies of the book of Revelation, and keep the sayings there in, we are doubly blessed if we are told we are bless if we DO His commandments.

Please Father, please open our hearts, our minds, our spirit to Your truths, the truth in Your commandments!

In the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord, help us, enlighten us!

Amen!

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