Life Happens.

 Life happens. What exactly does that mean? There are so many facets to life happening we couldn't begin to count them. When something not so nice happens, we tend to say stuff such as, life happens. We say it to perhaps remind ourselves that life is filled with things that we don't expect and don't like. The idea of living a life happily ever after is a huge fallacy if you're expecting that life to be here and now. The fairy tales tell us that we will suffer unjust hardship but in the end all works out and then you go to live happily. Not true. Fairy tale is named fairy tale for a reason, it's not real just as fairies are not real. The tale part is that it's a made up story, not a true story. True life stories have a much different meaning. That's not to say we don't have true life stories of people suffering and overcoming hardships, that occurs all the time. But a true life story will never end with that person living happily EVER AFTER. That person's life will be filled with ups and downs because that is what life now is all about. The richest person alive will have ups and downs. The richest person alive may not have to suffer hunger, cold, discomfort in most any way, but they will still have to deal with illness, diseases, the common cold. The richest person will still have to lose their loved ones. The richest person will still suffer accidents. The money of the richest person may make all these things out of their control a bit better to handle, but it won't take away all of it by a long shot. 

Life happens and life happening in our world is filled with the unknown. We have no clue what tomorrow may bring, not a clue. We live in a constant state of the unknown. We fill our lives with constants as we attempt to have some knowledge of tomorrow, but in a blink of an eye everything can be turned upside-down on us, and often is. 

Such turmoil mentally and emotionally, yet this is what we call life happening. Some roll with the inconsistencies a lot better than others. Some have adopted an attitude of dealing with life as it comes without letting it upset them. Some go through major tragedies and continue with the belief it's all a part of life, can't change it, can't do anything so why let it bother me.  I'd say those people are mostly rare. Most people rage against life's upsets and then only after raging do they come to some sort of terms with what's happening so they can continue to live their lives.  Some rage on and on and on letting the rage become their lives. 

Life happens. We are blessed with life happening to us because without life happening to us we would never have the opportunity to comprehend that the very fact life has happened to us can give us the knowledge that all these life happening events we dread are not how life was intended for us.

We have knowledge of the wrongness of life happening events, and the mere understanding there is a wrongness mean there is a rightness. There is a rightness that tells us life shouldn't be this way. Suffering shouldn't be a part of life. We know this deep down in our very core, that something messed up the way life should be for us. We know this every time we seek to get better from some illness, accident, disease and so on. Life is not supposed to be suffering, we know this because we don't always suffer, or haven't always suffered, and if for some reason you have, you can see others who don't suffer through life as you have.  We know, we truly know this is not how it is all supposed to be. This knowledge can be painful to confront because it means either it will never change and this truly is going to be how it is going to be without any true consolation, or that there is something different intended for us that can become a reality. 

Yes, this is how it is. But, no, this is not all there is to our lives. The problem arises when we come to realize that we have to believe without actually experiencing our future reality. We have to believe that there is more after this part of our life, that in fact, because life isn't how it's supposed to be and we know that, we know there is hope for how it is supposed to be. Hope.

Expectation. 

With truly irrefutable proof from an historical logic perspective that has been researched in depth countless times, we know that one man died and rose again and many were witnesses to this happening. That man wasn't knocked unconscious, he wasn't in a coma of any sort, he was conscious when he died and not in a position to receive any head injury that would result in a brain injury that would only incapacitate him for a short few days. The historic facts from more than one perspective speak for themselves and tell us this man died completely- brain, body - cold stone dead, lifeless, no chance to recover- we've had lots and lots and too numerous to count dead people in the same position of death- no breath at all, not even the tiniest. No heartbeat, not even the faintest. The life blood gone and the body cold, stiffening quickly as they tend to do, within hours after death.  He was dead, dead, and dead. Yet, this man came back to life after his body went through the beginning of the decaying processes. It happened. Doubt if you choose, but many have doubted and sought proof and delved into the study of it with the ability to research it in ways the average person can't seem to, and they have come to the conclusion it happened just as we are told it happened. 

A movie (book) called The Case For Christ….. If you want proof watch/read it. If you'd rather stick with your own suppositions based on your own study, that's your choice.  Here's a blurb on it from the internet--

'“The Case for Christ” is an upcoming film that is based on Lee Strobel's 1998 best-selling book of the same name. ... The true story follows Strobel (Mike Vogel) as a Chicago Tribune investigative reporter in 1980, as he tries to disprove the newfound Christian faith of his wife Leslie (Erika Christensen).'

This is just one man, there are other people who have undertaken the same journey in different ways. C.S. Lewis was a staunch Atheist, but something changed his view. Do some reading, some studying. If you're reading this you have internet access. 

This man who died and rose did so to ensure that we ALL have a chance to do likewise- have a life after dying promised to us when this man returns for us. 

1Co_15:52  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

1Th_4:16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first

This man came and lived among us to leave us with a rich history of the truth that there awaits us all the opportunity for the life we know we should have had, the life that awaits us without-  life happens - events we resign ourselves to. 

We have hope through this man- Jesus Christ, Son of Man, God's only begotten Son.  He gives us the truth that we all know deep down whether we want to admit to it or not. Life as we know it will not always happen, there is so much more.

All through His grace and mercy, His love, now and forever! Amen.

Choose God First.

 What does it mean to put God First?

Mat 22:37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 

Mat 22:38  This is the first and great commandment. 

The FIRST command. LOVE GOD.

What does it mean, to love God? We choose to love. Love is a choice. Love isn't some emotionally charge, physical reaction, a feeling, but a choice! 

You can be mated to someone and not love them, marriage doesn't automatically mean love. Being physically active with someone doesn't mean love. Love is a choice! We CHOOSE to love one another. No one is forced to love someone. If you pretend to love someone, that's your choice. No one can make you love them, not a single person can force that on another. You can be ordered to act like and talk like you love someone but each action and each word could be fabricated, a lie, not truth, not love. How many parents mouth the words of love to children but have no real love for them? A mother is told she'll automatically love her newborn, but that isn't true. A mother will choose to love her newborn, or not. Yes, there are maternal factors of hormones that can mess up brain chemistry and interfere with the choices we make, not just between mothers and newborns but in a lot of life's facets. A choice for me might be easy to make while for another it could be something that takes a long, long time, if ever to make. We have knowledge and with that knowledge we make decisions. We choose even to not make a choice. We choose to love. Even after we're raised to believe we owe love to those who share our bloodlines, we choose. We like to say family first before others. This isn't always the case. Some people have absolutely horrendous family members and why should a person be forced to love them simply because they're family? We aren't forced to love. We choose. We choose to love the seemingly unlovable. We tell ourselves we have to love our family members, we make that choice often to our own detriment. How many people have chosen to love a family member who has hurt them, when they know if it were any other person other than family they would cut off all ties with them? We can choose to love the unlovable, there is nothing wrong with making that choice. God did.

When God chose to love us first, He was choosing to love creatures that had the potential for great hatred of Him. God was choosing to love the seemingly unlovable. God was choosing to love those who would break His heart over and over, and over again in countless ways. 

What does it mean to love God? It means we CHOOSE GOD. When we choose God, we choose all that He is and He is love. He chooses us. 

As God chose us unlovable, detestable, people He showed perfectly how to love the unlovable. God chose to love His professed enemies giving them ample opportunity for enough knowledge to make a choice for Him or not. 

1Jn 4:19  We love him, because he first loved us. 

He chooses us for ETERNITY! No exemptions! We are all CHOSEN for eternity! We all have received the GOLDEN TICKET FROM GOD. HEAVEN HOME FOREVER. 

We are chosen by God for ETERNITY and that doesn't mean we aren't going to suffer horrifically right now. God offers HEAVEN ETERNITY, God doesn't not offer supplications answered now so life might be lived in a way endurable to you. You pray for a roof over your head and that roof is taken away. You pray for a life of a loved one to be spared, and you watch them suffer and die. You pray for just enough to live comfortably, and you are often very uncomfortable wondering day to day where your next meal will come from, where the means to stay living an acceptably livable life are. You pray for pain to be taken from you only to feel it increase. You pray for the good fortune for others, just to witness life torture them making them life lives of extreme discomfort. You pray for an innocent child's life and they slip away to death's sleep. You pray for so much, you make supplications to God and you want Him to hear your supplications and grant your requests how you perceive them to be best answered. God hears every word you think, every prayer prayed by you He has heard, but He did not promise you comfort now…

2Co 6:5  In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; 

2Co 6:6  By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned

2Co 1:7  And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation. 

2Co 1:8  For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: 

2Co 1:9  But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: 

2Co 1:10  Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us

Whipped, imprison, despairing of life itself all wrongfully, all unwarranted and yet choosing to remain Christ's! 

This world PROMISES temporary tortures - the minimum to the extreme and all in-between for all of us. Prayers or no prayers those tiny to extreme tortures will beset us all. A prayer, a supplication, a praise, a worship, a glorying, a beseeching, we cry out in agony and in joy to our God. We know He offers us ETERNITY A HEAVEN HOME after all is said and done with our temporary to eternity life.

We choose- and God must be FIRST CHOICE, not once, but ALWAYS.

If we do NOT have God first, then any attempt to put others second will fail. If we put others first before God, we fail them and us.

God FIRST, the spiritual FIRST, the heavenly FIRST. In EVERY and in ALL situations GOD NEEDS TO BE FIRST.  

When God is first, then others will be second, and we will be last.

God first is eternity all else is temporal.

God help us to this end, to this finish line, to be winners of eternity through our Savior, Jesus Christ now and forever! Amen.

Lay Aside All Sin.

 Lay aside- ALL malice (all intent to wish or do harm, hatred, spite, meanness, nastiness, cruelty, wickedness, mischievous) 

Lay aside- ALL guile (cunning, deceitfulness, treachery, slyness, wiliness, craftiness) Lay aside- ALL hypocrisies (insincerity, pretenses, duplicities, double standards, falseness) 

Lay aside- ALL envies (jealousies, resentments, spites, greed, bitterness) 

Lay aside- ALL evil speakings (morally bad, deliberately harmful, causing misfortune, maliciousness) 

We have to determine to be without any hatred of any kind, without any evil, we cannot deliberately hold onto anything untoward in any way at all. We can't cling to anything that would keep us from being open to the truth of God. We need to be willing to let go of ALL we are as sin corrupted beings. We can't defend our sinful selves in any way. We can't make excuses for our sins not the greatest of them, not the least. We can't justify our sins. We are tempted to give a reason for the sins we commit as if that can excuse them and make us righteousness somehow, it can't. There isn't a single good reason for sin. We sin because we are weak beings of flesh. We strive not to sin and pray constantly for the power of Christ in us to overcome the evil, the temptations, the sins in our lives. We can't overcome by our own power, but Christ in us can. All glory to God, all glory! Let us lay aside any and all sin we knowingly cling to. Let us renounce it right now, and if we find ourselves overcome by any of the sin we've laid aside- let us lay is aside again and again and again, never ceasing to comprehend we have to fight, to strive against sins that truly so easily beset us.

Heb 12:4  Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us

*

Articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner Chapter 15 Excerpt

"Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." 1 Pet. 1:1-3.

"One Faith." We may now stop to see how this that the apostle has said connects with what he has said in the fourteenth chapter, about Christ's being the minister of the circumcision, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, in order that the Gentiles might glorify God.

"Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations." Mark this: They who are to be received "as Christ also received us to the glory of God," are those who have the faith. Now there is but "one faith," as there is but "one Lord." Eph. 4:5. And faith comes by hearing the word of God. Rom. 10:17.

Since there is to be but one fold, and Christ, the one Shepherd, is not divided, there must be no division in the fold. Disputings, which come from human wisdom and human ideas, are to be left out, and the word of God alone followed. That allows of no disputing, since it tells ever one and the same thing. This is the rule:  "Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." 1 Pet. 1:1-3.

One Fold, One Shepherd

 Articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner Chapter 15 Excerpt

"One Fold, and One Shepherd." 

In the tenth chapter of John we find some of the most beautiful, tender, and encouraging words of the Lord Jesus. He is the Good Shepherd. He is the gate by which the sheep enter into the fold. He gives his life to save them. Then he says, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd." Vs. 16. Therefore when his work is completed, there will be but one fold, and he will be the Shepherd. Let us see who will compose that flock.

The Lost Sheep.

In the fifteenth chapter of Luke, that wonderful bouquet of blessed illustrations of the love and mercy of the Saviour, Jesus represents his work as that of the shepherd going to seek the lost and wandering sheep. Now who are the sheep that he is seeking? He himself gives the answer: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Matt. 15:24. This is emphatic. Therefore it is evident that all the sheep whom he finds, and whom he brings back to the fold, will be Israel. And so it is just as evident that the "one fold" will be the fold of Israel. There will be no other fold, since it is to be "one fold." And he will be the Shepherd. To-day, as well as in the days of old, we may pray, "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock;  thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth." Ps. 80:1.

The Characteristic of the Sheep. 

Those who are following Christ are his sheep. But he has "other sheep." There are many who are not now following him, who are his sheep. They are lost and wandering, and he is seeking them.

What determines who are his sheep? Hear him tell: "The sheep hear his voice." "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice." "Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice." John 10:3, 16, 26, 27. When he speaks, those who are his sheep will hear his voice, and come to him. The word of the Lord is the test as to who are his sheep. Every one therefore who hears and obeys the word of the Lord is of the family of Israel; and those who reject or neglect the word, are eternally lost. "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal.  3:29.

God of All.

 The God of Israel, the God of the Jews, and yet… through the Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, He is God of ALL. Yes, GOD of ALL! 

Our God is willing to be God to all who would seek Him, leaving none from that promise. It doesn't matter what religion a person is born into, finds him or herself in, God the Father wants to be God to all. He is NOT a God who demands obedience blindly, offering nothing, giving no hope. He is a God with PROMISES to all of us! These promises, as all of His promises, will be fulfilled! We have HOPE in God through Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit! HOPE. 

Articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner Chapter 15 Excerpt

The "Tabernacle of David." 

At the time when the apostles and elders were assembled in Jerusalem, Peter told how he had been used by the Lord to carry the gospel to the Gentiles. Said he, "God, which knoweth the hearts,  bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." Acts 15:8, 9.

Then James added, "Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up;  that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." Acts 15:14-18.

That is, the house of David is to be built up only by the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, and the taking from them of a people for God. And this was the purpose of God from the beginning, as the prophets witness,  that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." Acts 10:43.

"The Blessing of Abraham." Again we read that "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; . . . that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Gal. 3:13, 14. The curse that Christ was made for us, was the cross, as is stated in the words omitted from the text just quoted.

Therefore we learn that the promises to the fathers were assured only by the cross of Christ. But Christ tasted death for every man. Heb. 2:9. He was "lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:14, 15. Therefore the promises made to the fathers were simply the promises of the gospel,  which is "to every creature." By the cross, Christ confirms the promises made to the fathers, in order "that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy."

Jews and Gentiles- Christ's.

 

Peace In Believing.