The Real Deal

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, ² where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
³ The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
⁴ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
⁵ The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶ And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. ⁷ If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
⁸ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
⁹ The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. ¹⁰ For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you carefully;
¹¹ they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

¹² Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

¹³ When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
                                                                                       Luke 4:1-13

There's always someone ready to offer you the deal of a lifetime.  It may be a "get rich quick" scheme or some other easy road to happiness. Opportunity only knocks once so you better be ready when you hear it knocking or you will be left behind.  Just follow directions and your success is guaranteed!  You owe it to your family and you can show off to your friends. 

Jesus met similar situations with temptation from the devil himself.  "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread."   "I will give you the authority and splendor over all the nations." "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from the highest part of the temple."  Satan used everything in his arsenal to get Jesus to denounce his Sonship by taking the easier road.  But it didn't work.  Jesus responded with statements like, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone."  "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only." "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

I am thankful Jesus didn't take the easy way out.  As much as Satan worked to get Jesus to follow the devil's scheme, Jesus put him on the run until a more opportune time. Such temptations come our way, too.  And the way we should be making our decisions is by examining closely the one making the offers.  Rather than attempting to follow the easy way to happiness, consider the plan of God as he welcomes every one of us into his presence.

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15 minutes of your weekend

What's up for you weekend?  Shopping? Working? Watching football? Fun time with the kids?  Whatever is on your schedule devote some of that time to reading from the Bible.  You can read entire chapters of some of the Psalms in a couple of minutes.  So let's do this, randomly select three of the psalms and read them while searching for a message that might be in the verses especially for you.

After your Bible reading, spend some time in prayer, asking God to bless your work this past week.  Pray for your family, your church, your health, your example, and anything that has been heavy on your heart.

As you plan for worship on Sunday, bring to mind someone from church you haven't talked to in a while. Make a point to find them this Sunday, visit for a few moments, and let them know you have been thinking about them.

Any weekend will be blessed if we read God's Word, pray, and fellowship with the people of the church.  Make this one special to you and it will be special to others.

All of this weekend suggestion will take no longer than 15 minutes of your time.  I promise, You and others will be blessed.

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Walking in the Light

Are you keeping up with this continuation of 1 John 1?  Yesterday we studied the first half of that chapter, and today we will look at the second half.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
                                                                                                      1 John 1:5-7

John gets to the meat of the matter when it comes to the message he had heard from God, making him declare that message to his readers.  "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all."  John wants the hearers of this truth to take it very seriously.  Declaring that God is light and in him is no darkness is a declaration of bold truth.  If a tiny speck of darkness could be found in God, he would not be God. Thus, being a personality of light would mean he was constantly light. Now look at verse 6:

"If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth."  Just as God cannot be God if there is a speck of darkness about him, we cannot lay any claim to fellowship with God while we still walk in darkness.  In fact, John says if we make that claim, we lie and do not live out the truth.  A statement such as that not only convicts us, but declares the importance of striving to be people walking in the light.

Now verse 7: "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."  What a promise!  From God, who always longs for a pure and true relationship with his people, comes the assurance of that fellowship with those who, like God, walk in the light. In that fellowship we also have the promise that the blood of God's Son purifies us from all sin. 

The last three verses of 1 John 1 continue with words which encourage us as well as warn us. Read them carefully.  There is deceit in the life of the person who claims he has no sin, and the truth is not in him.  "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. 

May we always be people of light, enjoying fellowship with our God.  He loves us.  He will forgive our sins. He will keep us from all unrighteousness.

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Proclaiming Eternal Life

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. ² The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. ³ We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We write this to make our joy complete.
                                                                                                                  1 John 1:1-4

These words make up the first four verses of the Bible book we know as 1 John.  Yes, John has written before and we should be able to tell from his style of writing, this text carries some of the same writing characteristics as the gospel of John.  Its the type of writing that gets the reader involved in coming to understand, which, in turn brings the reader into an even deeper understanding. 

Much of the first four verses of the book could have been replaced with the simple statement, "I am going to write to you about Jesus."  But John wanted his readers to know so much more about our Lord.  That's why the opening of this discourse emphasizes it's content is about one which was "from the beginning."  Here we are near the end of the written word of God and John uses an introduction which takes us all the way back prior to Genesis to let us know he is writing about one who has been around since the beginning. 

Not only that, John said, "We have heard him, we have seen him with our eyes, we have even touched him, and here is what we proclaim ......he is the Word of life!"   John continues, "The life appeared, " and notice John's words and some additions to his introduction, "we have seen it and testify to it, and make the proclamation that this one who was with the Father has also appeared to us."

Here then, is the reason John uses this way to introduce his book of the Bible. by a somewhat extravagant introduction of Jesus.  "We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ."

 John then says, "We write this to make our joy complete."  The complete joy, according to John, comes with the sharing of the "Word of life."  John's writings touch on subjects like fellowship, loving one another, forgiving, and relationships.  The beauty of this section of scripture comes into focus when we realize our walk with the "Word of life" takes us into that fellowship and love, and forgiving, and most important, a relationship with God and his eternal family.

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Living Water

We can learn a lot about God by the way he dealt with his chosen people in Old Testament times. The children of Israel had many of the same problems we have, in remaining faithful to the Heavenly Father. Most of the prophetic writings of the Old Testament not only give us glimpses of the coming Jesus, Messiah, but also let us see some very specific qualities of God that we might otherwise miss.

Jeremiah was the prophet chosen by God to proclaim messages which contained doom and destruction to the unfaithful, and messages which portrayed God as one who longed for his people to return to him, and seek his forgiveness for their disobedience.

We've looked at some of this before and noted Jeremiah's message from God to the people included the mentioning of the Israelites defiling the land, they followed after worthless idols, they did not seek God, and even their leaders, the teachers of the law, were in rebellion. 

Jeremiah 2 gives the message and the picture for Israel looks bleak. The people who had known of God's deliverance and his provision, were now turning their backs on God and practicing idolatry. God is so displeased with them he and lets them know about it.  He asks this question, "Has a nation ever changed its gods?" (Yet the gods they turn to are not really gods at all.)  We can sense the sorrow and sadness from the throne of God to the entirety of Israel.  And yet, through God's displeasure, he still wants to show his love and forgiveness to  every one of them. 

Through the sins of the people itemized to this point, we can understand why God expresses his displeasure. Further down in Jeremiah 2, God sums up the root of their problem.  Verse 13:

“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:13

There are the two sins. They have forsaken God, the spring of living water, and they dug their own cisterns, that cannot hold water.  Both the Old and New Testaments have examples of the life giving source of spirituality illustrated by the provision of water. These people could have turned to God at any time and enjoyed an  awakening to the spiritual blessings from above.  Instead, he said they built their own cisterns that cannot hold water, a demonstration of their lack of trust and faith in God. 

Mankind still refuses to drink the water of life from God, the only sustaining source. We still like to call all the shots and make all the decisions.  We, like Israel in Jeremiah's day, need to learn the calamity that awaits when we choose our own way, our own abilities, our own strength.  The grace of God gives us the better perspective of knowing him, loving him, and following his direction. 

Come to the fountain, the source of the water of life, and drink from the spring of living water. 

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Wisdom From God

"The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight;  for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair;"  Proverbs 1:1-3

Anyone that has even limited knowledge of Bible topics, knows when you want to discuss wisdom, you will have references from the book of Proverbs.  Solomon must have been a smart man because his words and phrases were considered beneficial for those attaining wisdom. 

What do you think of this wisdom? Does it mean you should study a particular topic such as mathematics,  to the point you become an expert so you can become known as one who is wise? My picture of those which the Bible considers wise, included some elderly gentleman with lots of life experiences, sitting on some hillside in a biblical country, waiting for people to come to him and ask questions about the meaning of life. 

Perhaps the better picture of the wisdom which the Bible encourages us to have is not dependent on our smartness, but rather has its birth in an attitude.  It's an attitude of fear and respect of the Lord, not from the standpoint of being afraid of God, but awed at the opportunity of knowing his presence.  Solomon also says in Proverbs 9:10 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

Back to the opening verse above, we see the importance of godly wisdom by its mention at the head of the list. It is vital we understand this, because of the things we are to grasp in following some other things in Solomon's advice.  These proverbs of Solomon are given so that we can attain wisdom. Then he adds another benefit we can receive and that is attaining discipline. Often we consider discipline in the context of a parent spouting off rules and regulations to misbehaving children and expecting them to be followed, "because I said so."  While discipline does include correction of wrongdoing, in this case the implication continues onward to proper instruction. 

The verse continues to include understanding words of insight.  Another translation uses, instead of the word insight, the word prudence. Rather than giving us a picture here of a shrewdness in our dealings, Solomon would have us to know the full meaning that our wisdom and discipline will help us be wise in making decisions, and above all we will always seek what is "right and just and fair." 

Do you see in just these three verses, the beginning of some good advice for the person who is wanting to be a seeker of God? These are the essential things we need to develop if we are to grow in the Lord.  Now see some additional information that is valuable in your day to day walk, by turning to Proverbs 2: 7-22.  Here you will see some everyday situations from your own life and Solomon's wisdom and insight in dealing with them.  Take them to heart. Make them a part of your life.  God bless your study. 

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The Power of Paul's Prayer

We have been looking at Paul's prayer from Ephesians 1. Today's blog will bring the closing segment of this three part study so be sure you go back for a couple of days and read the first two instalments again.  The prayer is found in Ephesians 1:15-23. 

We have noticed Paul's prayer has concentrated on three elements, for which Paul has expressed thanksgiving.  Those elements for which he is praying are seen in verse 18 and the beginning of verse 19.   I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. So there are the three elements in his prayer: the hope to which we are called, the riches of his inheritance, and the power which belongs to the believer.

Verse 19 continues: That power is the same as the mighty strength ²⁰ he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, ²¹ far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. ²² And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.  Remember, Paul is now specifically mentioning again the power of the believer, and expanding his description of that power. (Here's where it gets good!)

1. Paul says this power is the same as the strength he exerted when he raised Jesus from the dead. Paul emphasizes the power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that is at work in the life of the believer!

2. Next, we learn the power that placed Jesus above all rule and authority is the power available to us as believers.

3. Then verse 22 lets us know the power that placed Jesus as the appointed head of the church is the same power which is working in believers. 

God's mighty strength is given to us as believers and when we recognize the magnitude of the gift of this power, we can understand the plan of God for us to be active in accomplishing God's will.  Spend some time considering these three areas where God's power is at work through you.  We must yield ourselves to God's will and become instruments of his power working in and through us. 

Praise God!  Through his great love for us we can know  "the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe."

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