Thursday 7/11 ~ Overwhelmed

The scripture for today, July 11 (7/11), is Matthew 7:11 as found in the New Testament of the Bible.

00-PAUL COVER-Thumbnail-“If you, then, though you are ‘evil’, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Yes, we are evil.  Evil and sin mean the same thing.  Let’s face it:  If we are sinful, then we are evil.  Hard to think of ourselves that way.  Could we do nice things to someone who did bad things to us every day?  God can. God does. He is the God of the impossible. The God who absorbs the black hole of sin and brings light into it, not to reveal it but to forgive it.

The Creator of the Universe our Father? The master-mind behind the intricacies of our bodies our Father? The Creator of over two trillion galaxies (not stars, but galaxies of stars) our Father?  The one who occupies the tiniest atom our Father? The One who can be everywhere at once our Father?

How unworthy we are. All we can do is fall at his feet and whisper, “You are so great. I am so small. I am overwhelmed by your love.”

 

00-PAUL COVER-Thumbnail-PAUL: THE UNSTOPPABLE called himself a violent man, and that he was.  He imprisoned, tortured, and executed people for believing in Jesus.  Then he switched sides. So overwhelmed was he for God’s ability to forgive him, he endured beatings, slashings, storms, floods, hunger, shipwrecks, and each time he cried out, “Jesus! This is for you!” To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://amzn.to/2SHeQPg

 

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Thursday 7/4 ~ This is that Jesus

The scripture for today, July 4 (7/4) is Romans 7:4 as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

0-BK 5-FloodGates-Cover-Thumbnail-New“So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.”

This is not talking about just any law. It is talking about the law, a specific law ~ the Law of Moses.

Have you ever tried wading through Leviticus, the third book of the Bible? It’s full of all those laws in the Law of Moses (over 600 of them). Thank God Jesus nailed them to the cross and we are no longer bound by killing animals, stoning people for adultery, tithing, having priests, burning incense, going to the temple three times a year, only traveling 1/3 of a mile on Saturday, paying for traveling mercies, and on and on.

How did “we” in today’s scripture die to the law? He said in the previous chapter (6:4) “we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death” and in Colossians 2:14 where Christ “having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross” and in Hebrews 9:13, 10:1 “By calling this covenant ‘new’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear….The law was only a shadow of the good things that are coming.”

God now freely gives you and me His gifts through Jesus Christ.  This is the Jesus who overcame Death, overcame Satan, overcame our having to be perfect when his body came back to life. This is the Jesus who sacrificed everything to bring you to him.

 

0-BK 5-FloodGates-Cover-Thumbnail-NewTHEY MET JESUS:  FLOOD GATES.  Indeed, Jesus did release the flood gates when he announced he was greater than the prophets and greater than Moses.  All the prophecies about some day God coming to be their king were thrown out the window. The religious leaders needed him out of the way. The religious leaders decided to kill their competition.  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://amzn.to/32c5UTQ

 

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Monday 7/1 ~ Take the time

The scripture for today, July 1 (7/1), is Leviticus 7:1f as found in the Old Testament of the Bible.

0-BK 7-ShadowOfDeath-Cover-new-Thumbnail“These are the regulations for the guilt offering, which is most holy. The guilt offering is to be slaughtered in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered, and its blood is to be sprinkled against the altar on all sides.”

Romans 3:23 says the wages of sin is death. The earnings are paid by Satan, the author of death.  God told everyone to appease Satan by killing substitute perfect animals during the Old Testament era. The earnings for your sins were collected by these perfect animals over and over in the Old Testament. But one day Jesus nailed the Old Law to the cross (Colossians 2:14), and with his one sacrifice made it so that no more bloody deaths of substitute animals were necessary (Hebrews 8-9).

In a sense, Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, laid down on the altar of the world where his blood flowed from all sides of the cross to all sides of the earth. Why would anyone want to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and nullify that horror Jesus went through in our place?

Jesus collected your wages from Satan for your sins to save you from facing both body and soul death. You can never, ever thank him enough.  But, instead of temple ceremonies, he asked you to commemorate his death with the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Communion each week.  Do you?  On Sundays, the day he came back to life, do you care? Take time to remember his death. He took time to die in your place.

 

0-BK 7-ShadowOfDeath-Cover-new-ThumbnailTHEY MET JESUS: SHADOW OF DEATH dramatically describes Jesus’ illegal all-night trial, with two chapters of him hanging on the cross, and his surprise return to earth alive again. Read it and you will never be the same.  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://amzn.to/2LO8yGO

 

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Saturday 6/29 ~ Invincible Faith

The scripture for today, June 29 (6/29), is John 6:29 as found in the New Testament of the Bible.

00-LUKE-KINDLE Cover-Thumbnail“Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: To believe in the one he has sent.’ “

Yes, it is true that the gift of salvation is just that ~ a gift, a free gift. That’s because God was the only one powerful enough to overcome Satan.  Satan wanted God’s death as a ransom in order to free you from your bondage to him. God gave Satan what he wanted, then tricked Satan and came back to life. You could have never freed yourself.

And it is true that you cannot be good enough to earn salvation from Satan because you don’t know how to be sinless, and heaven can only be occupied by the perfectly sinless. Satan is always lurking in the shadows to lure you back. It only takes one sin to be a sinner.

But at the same time, James 2:18 says “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” In other words, there are things you need to do to obtain salvation. You have to believe there is a gift for you somewhere, walk over to it, reach out, and grasp it.

Believing is a work because you have to find and spend time listening to or reading the Word before you can believe. And Jesus himself said believing (faith) is a work.

How do you go about obtaining faith? By believing what other people tell you to believe? Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing/reading the Word of God ~ the Bible. It is going directly to God’s Words to find out for yourself. It takes a little bit of work to read through it. But then, you can know that what you believe is really what God said.

What a marvelous, delightful, magnificent thing it is to find out what this invisible God did for you and to bask in the glory of such knowledge through invincible faith.

 

00-LUKE-KINDLE Cover-ThumbnailLUKE: SLAVE AND PHYSICIAN started out his life being a slave and believer in may gods. All physicians in the first century were slaves. Then, one day, he met Paul, learned about the one God who would free his soul from slavery to Satan. Then, his master, Theopholis, who had learned to love him, gave him his physical freedom.  After that, Luke was unstoppable. To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this: https://amzn.to/323txxV

 

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Friday 6/28 ~ It’s okay to smile again

The scripture for today, June 28 (6/28), is Luke 6:28f as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

0-BK 7-ShadowOfDeath-Cover-new-Medium“Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” 

There was a book published several years ago entitled, Hurt People Hurt People. Have you been hurt? Perhaps by an insult, a neglect, an illness, losing your job?  Have you turned bitter? Do you lash out at everyone, or a group of people or a particular someone?

One method of lashing out is when someone tries to console someone who has lost a loved one in death by saying, “I know how you feel.” Then the hurt person lashes out at the other person and says, “You DON’T know how I feel!  How dare you pretend that you do!”

That is a hurt person trying to hurt someone else. It’s as though they are bragging, “My hurt is so amazingly great, any effort on your part to understand is puny and not worthy of the greatness of my hurt.”

How do you react to your pain? Do you run people off?

Stop letting that old hurt punish you. Stop putting your life on hold and living in the moment over and over for eternity. Stop being the victim and the aggressor both. You’re killing yourself ~ your mind, your spirit, your soul.

It is okay to smile again. Try it in private. Then in public. It is okay to let it go and hand it over to God. It is okay, when you feel cursed, to not curse back. It is a blessing to bless.

 

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Friday 6/21 ~ Slave Trading

The scripture for today, June 21 (6/21), is Romans 6:21ff as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

00-LUKE-KINDLE Cover-Thumbnail“What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Sometimes you do things you are ashamed of and decide God would be too ashamed of you to accept you as his child. But God can get rid of the shame, for he can forgive so completely, it is as though you never did those things.

Do you bristle at the phrase “slaves to God” or “slaves to Christianity” or even slavery at all? But we’re all slaves to something ~ a big car, high position, beauty, a hobby, chasing after the opposite gender, reading, eating, music, sports, etc.  What are you a slave to?

From the beginning of time, anyone giving up their perfection by sinning always belonged to Satan who rewarded anyone following him with death. Death means “separation”, and in the case of sin, it means separation from God and belonging to Satan instead. God appeased Satan and held him off in Old Testament times whenever a sinner (everyone) killed a perfect animal in their place. But they had to keep doing it throughout life. Then Jesus came as our perfect Lamb of God and allowed himself to collect the wages for all of everyone’s sins and be killed in our place.

The reward of death was collected from Satan by Jesus.  Yes, Satan paid mankind’s wages to Jesus. He set us free from Satan. Now we voluntarily make ourselves slaves to the one who freed us.

00-LUKE-KINDLE Cover-ThumbnailLUKE: SLAVE & PHYSICIAN  is about a young man raised by Theopholis as his slave. But Theopholis learned to love him, gave him a medical education, and set him free.  Then Luke became a slave to Jesus.  To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://amzn.to/2ZDMkOk

 

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Friday 6/14 ~ The gratitude day

The scripture for today, June 14 (6/14), is Numbers 6:14 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

0-BK 7-ShadowOfDeath-Cover-new-Thumbnail“There he is to present his offerings to the Lord…a year-old ewe lamb without defect for a sin offering…. “

A lot of people don’t understand what Jesus dying on a cross has to do with going to heaven. Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death.” ~ both physical and soul death. It is Satan who pays us our wages. In Old Testament times, God intervened and arranged for people to kill a perfect animal in their place whenever they sinned to satisfy Satan’s bloodthirst.  But it was only a temporary fix because it is impossible for us to be sinless ~ without defect.

Finally, God the Word came to earth as a human, and John the Baptist called him the Lamb of God (John 1:29). Jesus was perfect and without defect; that is, he never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). Then he took the wages of sin from Satan and died as the perfect Lamb of God in our place ~ both physically (separation from people on earth) and spiritually (separation from God the Father). After Satan released his hold on mankind, Jesus even went a step further and miraculously came back to life!

Then God said, “If you’ll believe and imitate Jesus, I will consider your debt paid in full and consider you perfect too (Romans 6). Then I’ll bring you back to life in heaven.” How amazing!

And, by the way, since he came back to life on Sunday, that’s what makes Sunday so special. It’s an I’m-sorry-you-had-to-die-for-my-sins Day. It’s the “Do-this-in-remembrance-of-me” Lord’s Supper Day.  It’s the Gratitude Day.

 

0-BK 7-ShadowOfDeath-Cover-new-ThumbnailTHEY MET JESUS: SHADOW OF DEATH takes the reader through the middle-of-the-night trial of Jesus, two chapters of the actual crucifixion, and the agony of his closest friends as they say goodbye to a man with love beyond comprehension and his now-dead cause. To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://amzn.to/2MPmDcj

 

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Tuesday 6/4 ~ “Turn, Oh Lord. Turn.”

The scripture for today, June 4 (6/4), is Psalm 6:4 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

000-COVER-KINDLE-Thumbnail“Turn, O Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.”

Have you ever walked away from God then couldn’t figure out how to make a turnaround and get your life back on track? Are you there now?  Stop!

Stop whatever you are thinking and feeling and considering.  Look behind you.  God is a gentleman and will never force himself on you. When you turn away from him, he turns away from you.  But, oh, how he misses you.  He wants you back so you can feel his love again.

All you have to do is stop everything and call for him to come get you. “Turn, O Lord! Turn! Deliver me!”

Why would God be so good to someone walking away from him? Because he loves you and is always listening for your voice calling out for him. His love is unfailing.

 

000-COVER-KINDLE-ThumbnailLAZARUS: THE SAMARITAN lives through all Jesus’ parables over a period of 45 years. One of his sons was the “prodigal son”.  How he ached when his son was gone, for he knew he was not mature enough and he had gone to a dangerous country. His sister was the “Woman at the Well”, his wedding to a Jewess was attended by people “on the highways and biways”, his daughter’s wedding was attended by the “ten virgins”, when he was held for ransom in Persia, his workers at home killed every servant he sent to them and finally… Well, read the book.  This is a perfect book FOR FATHER’S DAY.  So, to BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this: https://amzn.to/2IjojVR

 

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Monday 6/3 ~ Do you say no to what God says yes to?

The scripture for today, June 3 (6/3), is Romans 6:3f as found in the New Testament of the Bible:

0-Joseph-Cover-Thumbnail“Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life….because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”

Oh! Baptism does all that? Some people say no. God says yes. Some people hate this topic because their church leaders have rejected it as unimportant and even call people who quote such verses in God’s Word as dangerous.  Why?

Look at the list in that verse that baptism does for us.  In baptism, we obtain a new life ~ are born again. And in baptism, we are freed from sin ~ forgiven. Look at it this way: Just as Jesus died carrying our sins on himself, we die to our sinful nature ~ the part of us that sins and doesn’t care. Then just as Jesus was buried in his tomb, we are buried in our watery tomb. And just as Jesus came up out of his tomb the Savior, we come up out of our tomb the saved ~ with a “new life” and “freed from sin.”

Everything works together beautifully ~ hearing, believing, confessing, dying to sin, being baptized. What an honor and privilege we have been given to imitate what he did for us! 1st Peter 3:21 says it is an answer of a good conscience toward God.

Just as the crucifixion was a physical thing to obtain a spiritual outcome, baptism is a physical thing to obtain a spiritual outcome.  How beautiful. How amazing.

 

PERFECT FOR FATHER’S DAY GIFT ~

JOSEPH: THE OTHER FATHER had the greatest challenge in the history of the world ~ to raise God’s child in a violent world. A year before Jesus died, he visited his hometown of Nazareth. The people there said, “ISN’T this the son of the carpenter?” not “WASN’T”. Read the story of Joseph and all he may have gone through to keep Jesus protected until he was grown. To BUY NOW, click a book title or paste this:  https://amzn.to/2HTIcE6

 

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Friday 5/31 ~ When perfection finally came

The scripture for today, May 31 (5/31), is Deuteronomy 5:31 as found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

0-Cover-Medium“But you [Moses] may stay here [on the mountain] with me [God] so that I may give you all the commands, decrees, and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess.”

Many people believe that the “Law of Moses” consisted only of the Ten Commandments. But there was much more. It took Moses 40 days to write them all down. How many? Over 600 “commands, decrees and laws.”

Some people today want to dip back into the Law of Moses to get showy types of worship ~ candles, incense, stoning for adultery, instruments of music, choirs, animal sacrifices, separate priesthood, special clothing for priests, and tithing to pay for it all. Jesus nailed the old law to the cross (Colossians 2:14) and created a much simpler New Testament/Covenant!

Other people want to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.  Why? So they can revert to animal sacrifices and thus nullify the sacrifice Jesus made of himself?  James said that, if we keep part of the Law, we are obligated to keep it all (James 2:10).

By calling this covenant [testament] ‘new’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear’ “ (Hebrews 8:13). Not part of it. All of it. Hebrews goes on to say that the Holy of Holies is now in heaven, the curtain in the temple is now Jesus, etc.  Rebuilding the temple would mean going backward from grace to legalism.

Thank God we do not have to keep all those 600+ commandments in the Law of Moses. They were controlling and tedious, and some were impossible to keep. Why would God give a law impossible to keep? To help us understand that it is impossible for us to be perfect. Finally, when we understood that, he was ready to send his Son to earth to be perfect for us.

 

00-Cover-ThumbnailVACATION BIBLE SCHOOL can be FUN WITH BIBLE NUMBERS. This book has 525 automatic problems from the Bible, half from the Old Testament and half from the New Testament. Did you know Abraham was 150 years old when Noah’s son, Shem, died? There was 3 trillion dollars worth of gold in the temple? Jesus walked on water 3-1/2 miles? To BUY NOW, click a book cover or paste this:  https://amzn.to/2HOi39x

 

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