Month: May 2018

Friday 5/4 ~ Jesus: The only crown giver

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The scripture for today, May 4 (5/4), is 1st Peter 5:4 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

0-HS-592 VersesExamined-COVER-Thumbnail“And when the Chief Shepherd [Jesus] appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.”

The world is frustrated with and has left “organized religion” and it is our fault.  We brought it on ourselves. We have organized our denominations to death, and the spiritually minded have said, “Enough is enough. I want none of it. I just want Jesus.”

Look at all the denominations that appoint someone to be the head of their religion at their world headquarters. He goes by different titles ~ bishop, high priest, father, president. Their headquarters may be a small office or a multi-story building, or an entire complex of buildings.

From here the head meets regularly with others to make decisions for their denomination. They pass regulations on who can hold office, where their contributions must be spent, amendments to their particular creed, and on and on.

Here is a unique thought: Let us set this system aside and replace everything with Jesus as the only head, and let the world headquarters be in heaven! We do not have to rely on the decisions of men but only on the decisions of God the Son who loved us so much that he became human for a while so he could die for us. Maybe we need to sell our big buildings, give the money to mission work and the poor, and return to meeting in unorganized homes.

We don’t even need a creed, because if it is less than the Bible it isn’t enough, if it is more than the Bible it is too much, and if it is the same as the Bible why have it?

No more “organized religion.”  No more divisiveness. No more denominationalism. Just one united church of Christ with its divine Founder as our sole leader, and His divine words as our sole creed. This will never fade away.

Jesus is the crown giver. Return Him to His throne and watch the world return to Him.

Don’t blame God for the bad. Thank him for the good.

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Don't blame, thank for good-med

Thursday 5/3 ~ Soon will come your morning

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The scripture for today, May 3 (5/3), is Psalm 5:3 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

05-Joseph-KindleThumbnail“In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”

Morning. The time of new beginnings. Birth is a morning. Graduating from a school is a morning. Marriage, a new job, birth of a child ~ these are obvious mornings.

You can create your own morning of life in a spiritual way too. You can stop depending on yourself and begin following and depending on God. You cannot fix all your problems. Sometimes you get yourself into your own problems and don’t know how to get yourself out. But God knows.

Lay your requests before God. Then wait. The waiting can create frustration. But wait in peace. God does things in his own timing.

He loves you as his child and knows when the moment is right. Sometimes when you look back, you are most grateful he did not answer a prayer for you; he had something better in mind. And then, it was morning.

God loves to answer prayer. Therefore, wait. Wait in peaceful expectation.  Soon will come your morning.

 

Wednesday 5/2 ~ People are asking, “Who is the Higher Power?”.

On By In Bible, eternity, faith, judging, ScriptureLeave a comment

The scripture for today, May 2 (5/2), is Micah 5:2 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

365 Dat by Date-Front-ThumbnailIn today’s world completely connected and interconnected universally, people are asking “Who is the Higher Power?”.  Some say the Muslim Allah is, some say the Hindu Brahman is, some say the Buddhist Nirvana, some say the Jehovah of Christianity is. This is called the “New Age Movement”.

Buddhism (though most people do not realize where it came from) has infiltrated the young American culture by declaring there is no such thing as truth.  One thing is true to one person, an opposite thing is truth to another person, so believe what you want. 

None of the writings of these religions have been proven true. The Bible is the only religious book in the world with built-in proofs that it is of divine origin. Prophecies of many events in the life of Christ and entire empires flow throughout the Old Testament. No human could have known these hundreds of known facts hundreds of years before they happened. And, if these prophecies were truth, then the rest of the Bible is truth.

Today’s amazing scripture prophecies where the “ruler…from ancient times” will be born. It gives the exact city Jesus (who had been in heaven before his human birth) would be born in but was written seven centuries before his birth.

The Word of God in flesh wasn’t just a prophet, he wasn’t just a good man, he wasn’t a fraud. Thank God, He thought of everything to help us believe Jesus was, indeed, the Son of God! 

Tuesday 5/1 ~ It stretches our mind, our heart, our soul

On By In attitude, Death of Jesus Christ, forgiveness, Heaven, Saved from hellLeave a comment

The scripture for today, May 1 (5/1), is Romans 5:1 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

00-PAUL COVER-Thumbnail-“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Of course, if we do not have faith in Jesus, we will not obey any of his commands. He said in John 15:14, “You are my friends IF you do what I command.”

How do we become his friends?  By obeying all his commands. But we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) and the wages we earn with our sins is body and soul death (Romans 6:23).

That makes it impossible for us to live in heaven. Only the just can enter heaven. Otherwise, heaven wouldn’t be heaven. But how do we become just when the fact remains that we sin by actions, attitudes, and good things we leave undone?

Every time we sin, we come in the clutches of Satan, the originator of both body and soul death.  He holds us hostage. So, God came to us in flesh, paid our fine, our bail, and bought us out of the death prison of Satan. He got us out and declared us not guilty.

But we have to believe he did that for us.  What amazing God we have. We can barely comprehend it. It stretches our mind, our heart, our soul.

Yes, it is a beautiful thing what God did for us. That was his part. Our part is to believe it, accept it, and actively follow it.

That, too, is beautiful.