To Be Least

   Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
   Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
     In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat-
for he grants sleep to those he loves.

      Tomorrow being Sunday I thought this verse would apply. God asks us to honor the Lord's day. Here, this psalm starts out by simply saying that unless the Lord is with you, whatever you do is in vain. However, the next verse really pulls it together for me. In the foot notes it says that it can also be translated as, "for while they sleep he provides for." You get up real early, go to bed real late, just to work. But according to these scriptures, he will provide while you "sleep."
      So is there any need to work on the Lord's day, whatever day that might be for you? Of course not, God will provide, he will take care of you. God bless.

P.S. Sorry I haven't been updating recently, I've been feeling rather sick. By the way I am officially 15 years old. My birthday was the twenty fifth.

During my short life so far, I have seen three types of people that attend the church.

1) A person that is not ashamed of the gospel in church as well as in the secular world.
2) The most common type of person is one who is ashamed of the gospel in the secular world, but is not in the church.
3) Finally, a person does not even believe the gospel, period.

      I often see kids during the youth group service who seem to be devout Christians. Later, I see them in school and they are completely opposite. It is very rare to see a someone who is not ashamed of the gospel in both church and in school. Just some thoughts.

May God's will be done. Later.

25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple.

Let us look at the first verse here. Now, Jesus is not saying that we are to actually hate our family. He is extremely exaggerating the idea that we are to love him, Jesus, more then our own family. If we love things of this world more then him, we are not his disciple. However, he goes on to say that we also must love him more then ourselves. I know that in my own life I often fail miserably in this aspect. It is always about me, for me, for my pleasure. Pride is rooted in selfishness, all we care about is our image, others perception of us. I can not emphasis enough the truth in this statement. When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior we are putting his will, ahead of our will. We are putting him ahead of us.

I am yours Lord, do with me as you will. Amen.

4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Rev 2:4-5)

      What did God hold against this church? The have "forsaken" their first love. What does forsaken really imply?

forsaken
1. To quit or leave entirely; to desert; to abandon; to depart or withdraw from; to leave; as, false friends and flatterers forsake us in adversity.

2. To renounce; to reject; to refuse.

[Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary]

      So obviously these Christians have abandoned, renounced their love of Jesus, the Son of God. If they do not repent, God will remove their "lampstand." What is the lampstand exactly?

20The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. (Rev 1:20)

      So a lampstand is symbolic for one of the churches. So God, if this church does not repent, will remove the church from them. All Christians have the Holy Spirit in them; a church is made of Christians. If these Christians do not repent for their sins, they will no longer be a church, the will not have the Holy Spirit in them. The Holy Spirit, as I pointed out in an earlier post, is a "deposit" which guarantees what is to come, eternal life in heaven.

I am interested what your interpretation of these verses is. God bless.

     Jesus states in Matthew 5:11 that, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." This idea was displayed by the apostles actions in Acts 5:41, "The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name."

In the book of James the issue of how to respond to "trials" is discussed.

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1)

     This passage restates the idea of being joyful and glad when you encounter trials and persecution for you faith. As it clearly says these trials develop perseverance which "must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete."

     I have read many accounts of persecution of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ where despite all the persecution they experience for their faith in Christ they are firm in their faith. Through out all the trials they grow in the Lord and in their walk with Him. I have concern for these Christians, but what even more concerns me is that fact that here in America Christians can grow lukewarm all too easily. Being a Christian becomes a habit, not a lifestyle.

God bless.

      My fear is that many people when they hear the idea that you can not lose your salvation once you have received it will grow dormant, cease to grow and turn back to their sinful ways. If eternal life is definite, then what will make us keep living according to God's will?

26If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people.' 31It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Heb. 10:26-31)

      Look closely at these scriptures. The first reference to losing your promise of salvation is talking not about a casual knowledge, but an in depth personal knowledge that they have received. They have become Christians. However, even more convincing to me is the talk about the man who "who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?" Notice that it says the blood of the covenant that sanctified him. He was sanctified by the blood of Jesus. He received Christ into his life at one point! He committed sin, he disregarded the Son of God. Obviously looking at the context this was not one action, this was deliberate sin continuously.

      With this idea in mind lets look in the prophetic book of Revelation where John writes to the church in Ephesus.

4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Rev. 2:4)

      These are Christians who have fallen, they need to repent and turn away from their sinful ways by doing what they used to do as practicing Christians. However, if they do not repent God will remove the church, or "lampstand" (Rev. 1:20). What makes a church a true church of God? The presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enters us when we become Christians. This church if they do not repent will cease to become a church, cease to be indwelled with the Holy Spirit. Does this not apply to the church of today? Is it truly possible that if we keep on sinning, forsake our "first love" and do not repent the Holy Spirit can leave us?

"Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come." (2 Cor. 5:5)

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (2 Cor. 1:22)

      The Holy Spirit guarantees what is to come. What is to come? Eternal life with our God in heaven is what is to come. So if the Holy Spirit is removed, so is the guarantees which we have as long as we have the Holy Spirit in us.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people.

      These words really spoke to me. Jesus, our Lord and our Savior, went through incredible pain and torture. He was so disfigured that he no longer looked human. He went through all this for you, and me. It was our sins that placed him on that cross, our sins that he carried.



      A mere human most likely could not endure that pain, that agony that our Lord did. He was willing to die even though he was perfect and without sin.



      The penalty of sin is death. Jesus had committed no sin, yet he was put to death. Because he had committed no wrong death had no hold on him. Three days after he died on that rugged cross he rose again and met with the disciples. He talked with them and ate with them for a period of forty days. Then he ascended into heaven before their eyes.

      What joy do we as followers of Jesus Christ have that we possess the promise of eternal life with him. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus has defeated death. Through his death and resurrection he paid for each and every one of our sins. That after our body here on earth dies we can live in with our Father for eternity.

      I praise God for his goodness and faithfulness. How is it that I, a wretched sinner, would be shown amazing grace by God? I am humbled by his forgiveness and love for me. I pray to Lord Jesus Christ that I would continue in him, who's blood has set me free from bondage of sin.

Words are not enough to express my appreciation of all that he has done for me.

God bless.

While I was reading the March 6, 2004 edition of a christians news magazine called World I came across this disturbing sentence about homosexual marriage.

"Former talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell called Mr. Bush's announcement 'the most vile and hateful words ever spoken by a sitting president.'"

The fact that today's culture labels good as evil and evil as good troubles me. We need to pray that the truth would be seen as truth and sin would be seen as sin.

God bless.

      We are to be a light in the darkness. What good is it if we are only light in with others who also have the light? In the same way, we should not hide the light in us. No, a light is most needed in the dark. There in the dark, it can be of good use.
      We are to represent the Lord Jesus our Savior in the secular world. We are to spread the good news throughout the nations. What good is it if we only act like Christians among other Christians? No, we are to be the beacon of truth for the lost. Among the lost they can see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven.


"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."  (Matthew 5:14-16)

     I think often time in this modern culture we as a society put to much emphasis on success and money. We put all our effort into obtaining things of this world, yet forget of things of eternal value. We want to be like people with their high paying jobs, with a mansion for house. We work our entire life to gain success. Eventually however, we die like the rest of mankind before us. I heard an interesting survey of the whole human population which stated that one hundred percent of humans have died. As shocking as this may be, we as Christians have nothing to worry about as we have the promise of eternal life as long as we continue in him, as long as we remain in him. Unfortunately, we as Christians fail at this; we put worldly things ahead of Godly things.

     We need to reprioritize our life. God bless.