Epaggelia

Recently, the Pentagon launched a nimble new satellite called the ORS-1 that will enable commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq to track enemy combatants more effectively than ever before. They can run, but they can not hide forever. In this age of incredible technology, news like this is often met with a yawn. So when we read that Jesus saw Nathanael under a fig tree from afar, it seems rather ordinary, considering we watch people from outer space almost routinely. But there was something very special in the statement Jesus made. “Because I said to you, “I saw you under the fig tree”, do you believe? You will see greater things than these” (John 1:50) People have long speculated about what it was exactly, but only Nathanael knows for sure. Whatever it was, it convinced Nathanael that Jesus was Lord & King. God often works this way. He may reveal Himself in a way no one else notices…but to you it is clear. “Here I am,” He says. “I know who you are. I love you. I have great things to show you.” Today, look for God’s message to you in the ordinary things, and pray that others in your neighborhood and Nation will recognize Him and say, like Nathanael, “You are the Son of God.” The Bible may look ordinary to you, but it’s message is unique, just as unique as you are.

This world we live in for now is a tricky place. Temptations and trials lurk around almost every corner of this journey. Sometimes it is hard to tell if even our best friend is our “bestie” or a “beastie”, as the kids say in school. Your temptation is yours, not mine, your weakness is different than mine. The uniqueness of the Bible holds a solution and power that fits you. When trying to decide who we should give our time and allegiance to, we must keep in mind what James the brother of the Lord Jesus said, “friendship with the world is hostility toward God…whoever wants to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy” (James 4:4). Worldly people will always be less gracious than godly people. Why? Because “God gives greater grace” (v6), and worldly people don’t befriend God in Jesus Christ. It is Jesus that brought the greatest amount of grace and truth into this world. Don’t misunderstand me, I know worldly people can be gracious, but they don’t have access to the source of grace. They run out and eventually become selfish. The opposite of grace is selfishness, and the farther we as Christians get away from Jesus Christ, the more we find selfishness growing in us! That is why James always advises us to never make friends with the world. Christians are indeed victorious in Christ, but we are vulnerable in the world. “Be strong in the grace of Christ Jesus” (2nd Timothy 2:1). Pray about The Bible’s message and read it, then learn how God’s grace is shown to you in everyday life. Praise God for His work on us.

I do believe that there is an area in a Christian’s life where the devil appears to hurt us most often, it is in the matter of trust. Our lives seem to say we can trust God for eternal salvation but we hesitate to trust Him to guide our life; we can trust Him for His promise that He will save our soul, but we won’t trust Him to guide us every moment of every day. That kind of doubt, can lead to a sad life filled with more pain than gain. If we try to guide our own life by our own standards and desires, we inevitably make selfish decisions that lead to cheating ourselves of God’s blessings. Are we trying to remedy our problems by our self? It is a mistake to exclude God from our decision-making. Trust Him to guide you. “He leads the humble in what is right…All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant.” (Psalm 25:9-10). Do we even know what his covenant is? It is our agreement with Him, that if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1st John 1:7). Do we believe we benefit from His blood only on Sunday in the communion? Or is His cleansing a part of our daily lifestyle? If we want to stay on the path of His love and faithfulness, then we should show our trust in his promises daily.

The Bible as a message stands alone, there never has, isn’t now, nor ever will be a message so enlightening to humanity. As there is but one sun to enlighten the earth physically, there is only one book to enlighten the human heart. Pray God’s message becomes to us a real counselor, the guide for our life’s journey, the inspiration for our thoughts and strength for our temptations and trials unto death. Prove to yourself, that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, and for conviction, and for correction and for instruction in godliness” (2Tim. 3:16) You may never have all your problems solved, but you will be sure of your foundation, you will feel that your feet are planted on the only foundation that can never be shaken, Jesus Christ (1Cor. 3:11) We must place him in our hearts, the very message of God. Why? Because His Spirit uses the Bible to solve every problem with a solution that is God’s goal, not ours. We may not reach every one of them on this side of eternity, but we will in the next. As we day to day face a temptation and overcome it, we just took one step closer to being that new creation He is creating in our heart. Keep walking in faith, to see all the glory, his message is creating in you. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation, the old is passing away.(2Cor. 5:17) Get into the Message

English has some wonderful uses of words. Look at collective nouns for various groups of animals. We are all familiar with a Herd of cattle, a Flock of seagulls, a School of fish and a Gaggle of geese, and less widely known is a Pride of lions, a Murder of crows, a Crutch of lobsters, an Exaltation of doves and, I suppose because they look so wise, a Parliament of owls. Now consider a group of Monkeys. They are the loudest, most obnoxious, and least intelligent of all primates, and what is the proper collective noun for a group of monkeys? Believe it or not, a Congress! I’m not sure what lay in that name, but one thing I’m certain, they need a good leader. Christians are instructed to pray for their leaders. Which leads me to ask you. What is the proper collective noun for a group of Christians? Church. What does that say about us, it means: “people called out of the world and into assembly”. Yes that is right, you can’t be part of a church, while you worship in the fields, mountainside or forest, and certainly not the riverbank where there may be lots of fishing poles! Worship is loving God, and the way God wants us to love him on Sunday is in the Assembly, that is what is in our collective noun as Christians. Love Him with all your heart, soul, body and mind! That is the command of Jesus, not advice, but an authoritative mandate from our Master, see Mark 12:30 & Luke 10:27. Why would a Christian neglect the assembly? Especially when we consider the opporunity for love that is there?

Just a few decades after Jesus left his disciples to carry on the work of their apostleship, many problems arose. One of those problems is that Christians who had a Jewish background did not grow as zealous as Christians who had a pagan background. Jewish Christians became sluggish and were in danger of losing their faith in Christ because persecution was fast approaching. Hebrews 6:1-8 is a warning. The author is trying to show them that although they are grieving the Holy Spirit of Christ, it is in His nature to patiently encourage them, so that they do not continue to be sluggish and lose their faith completely, Hebrew 6:10-12.

Grieving the Holy Spirit of Christ is very dangerous, Ephesians 4:30. A lifestyle of apathetic self-satisfaction can breed hate, when persecution arises. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit can get you condemned, Mark 3:28-20 & James 2:7. The Jewish Christians were not interested in being mature, they were satisfied with what they knew about Jesus and were bored with the doctrine of Christ, Hebrews 4:11-12. This attitude is an ongoing lifestyle, and if we continue living it, it is impossible to turn around from it while feeding spiritual laziness, Heb. 6:4. The term “crucifying once again” is present tense. If we stop that lifestyle, then we are no longer blaspheming His Spirit, and THEN we can turn around. Christ’s Spirit takes on this abuse and still pleads for us to STOP, even while we are refusing to grow. Faithful Christians should pray for sluggish Christians losing interest in Christ, so that God may give them an opportunity to repent, see 2nd Timothy 2:25. What can motivate them to stop being lazy?

Perhaps we need to remember the picture of burning crop fields? If you water a seeded field, but actually end up producing more thorns & weeds than actual harvest of the crop you wanted, what happens? You burn it, and start again. Hebrew 6:7-8. If these Christians won’t grow, then God will find Christians that WILL GROW the fruit of His Spirit. Meanwhile, this chapter is a reminder that Christ is patient and does not want to break a bruised reed, or extinguish smoking flax, Matthew 12:20.

The basics of our faith refresh us and are good, but we can not live exclusively on just the basics. The subjects of repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of hands, the resurrection and the judgment, are all fundamentals of the faith. For some of us, they are complicated subjects but to Jewish Christians they were basic and simple. This teaches us to be understanding of a person’s religious background, what is simple to one person, may be very complicated to another person. So no matter where we are in our spiritual growth, we should always be willing to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ, 2nd Peter 3:18.

God made a promise to Abraham and He kept it, even though Abraham was a sinner. What was that promise? That he would bless his descendant and multiply him innumerably, Gen.15:3-7. This came true in Jesus, and these Jewish Christians were proof. The “two immutable things” are firstly His promise made to Abraham, in which He did not lie, and also secondly the fulfillment of His promise being His Word in Jesus proving a multiplicity of growth in them and the Gentiles, in this God could not lie. Jesus does not change, or grow fickle like them, He motivates, Hebrews 13:8,
2nd Corinthians 1:20 & Jude 1:25. He is our hope 1st Timothy 1:1, and allows us to enter into the place behind the curtain, Colossians 1:27, the Holy of Holies in the new Jerusalem. We have every spiritual blessing in Christ, seated with him in the heavenly places, Ephesians 1:1-6. What a wonderful place to be as a Christian! Don’t drift away, Galatians 5:4-5.

The most popular version of the Bible uses the phrase “Word of the Lord”, 255 times. It is the King James Authorized Version of 1611, turning 400 years old this year. It has gone through many revisions over the centuries and is seldom used now because of it’s archaic phrases. But as our Nation turns 235 years old tomorrow, we should remember that our Founding Fathers all believed the Bible was the Word of the Lord. Their faith was the basis for creating our Constitution, which has needed many amendments, but the Word of the Lord needs no amendments. Whatever version of the Bible you read, it is still:

Good, (Hebrews 6:5) “taste the goodness of God’s word”

Holy, (Romans 1:2-3) “God promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son…”

Truthful, (Daniel 10:21) “I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth”

Living & Active, (Hebrews 4:12) “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword..”

Do you believe your Bible is the Word of the Lord? How do we come to believe that the Bible holds God’s authority and that He is able to place His Kingdom in our heart? Consider it’s composition, durability, prophecies & application.

Composition. It was composed over sixteen centuries by forty authors with one central theme. Written by soldiers, shepherds, scholars, and fishermen. Begun by Moses in lonely Arabia, finished by John on lonely Patmos. Penned by kings in palaces, shepherds in tents, and inmates in prisons. Forty writers, most unknown to each other, writing in different countries and three different languages, separated by three times the number of centuries since Columbus discovered America — was it possible for these authors to produce a book of singular theme unless behind them there was one mind, one designer? The Bible is remarkable in composition.

Durability. It is the single most published book in history. The top seller for over three hundred years. Translated into twelve hundred languages by an army of translators. Bibles have been burned by dictators and banished from courtrooms, but God’s Word continues. The death knell has tolled a hundred times, but each time the grave is opened, and God’s Word continues. The Bible is indomitable in durability.

Prophecy. The pages of your Bible contain more than three hundred fulfilled prophecies about the life of Christ. A subtle but substantial biography was written about Jesus five hundred years before he was born. Can you imagine if the same occurred today? Can you imagine if we found a book written in 1900 that prophesied two world wars, a depression, an atomic bomb, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King? What would we think of the book? Wouldn’t we trust it? The Bible is stupendous in fulfillment of prophecy.

Application. Paul says the Bible “is useful for teaching, for showing people what is wrong in their lives, for correcting faults, and for teaching us how to live right” (2 Tim. 3:16 NCV). Apply this wisdom to your budget, and see if you don’t get out of debt. Apply the principles of fidelity to your marriage, and see if you don’t have a happier home. Apply the principles of forgiveness to your relationships, and see if you aren’t more peaceful. Apply the principles of honesty at school, and see if you don’t succeed. Apply the Bible, and see if you don’t agree—the Bible works. This book’s veracity and message can make you desire His power, not your past life, as you turn into an abundant, eternal life in Jesus Christ.

146 years ago today, in Galveston Texas, the call for Slaves to be given freedom was REPEATED. Many States were not observing any recognition of Lincoln’s emancipation given 3 years earlier. The stubborn pride and fear of many white people would not act on the courage of Lincoln to publically express freedom towards their slaves. Freedom came at a price they were not willing to pay, but over time, sacrifices paid off. Patience is such a priceless virtue, and love for our fellow man is even greater than freedom.

In the Old Testament, freedom is most commonly understood in the Exodus, where God rescues, or frees, his people from slavery in Egypt. In Judaism, this episode of freedom is considered the central narrative of faith-a story where God demonstrates his faithfulness to his promise to his people as he sets them free and calls them to set others free. Essentially, Israel is to be for the world, the very gift God is for them. But since Israel does not always embrace their calling, God sends prophets to them in an attempt to correct their course. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah are two who get pretty riled up about Israel’s lack of purpose and power to do what is right (read Isaiah 61-65 and Jeremiah 34 for a taste). This is actually a loss of freedom, because their sin, enslaves them to a spiritual Egypt, which binds them from doing what is right.

Hundreds of years after Isaiah and Jeremiah, another prophet appears on the scene, one who a group of Jews considers to be the promised Messiah. His name is one that means “God saves” and in his own description of the purpose for his coming, Jesus says he was sent by God “to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18). Freedom is at the heart of Jesus’ ministry and if we read the Gospel accounts of his activities while on earth, we find that he did indeed free people from captivity and slavery in a myriad of ways. In this way, Jesus can be seen as ushering in a new Exodus. If anything, Jesus demonstrates that God is a God who loves to set people free.

The Scriptures have much more to say about freedom, particularly in the letters of Paul and Peter. Does living a life of freedom necessarily entail that someone has been enslaved?, If we consider ourselves to be people of freedom, from what have we been freed?

Freedom is not the right to do as one pleases, but the power and capacity both to will and to do as one ought. True freedom is never freedom from responsibility, but responsibility not only for choice, but right choices. Freedom is an inner contentment with who we are in Christ and with what we have. It means we have the ability to covet only heavenly treasure. It means the willingness and ability to allow God to be in control of your life. It means single-mindedness which turns the control of one’s life over to Christ which in turn frees us psychologically to follow the Lord. It means the liberty for self-responsibility to both God and man under the grace of God.

A train is a good illustration because it is only effective when it is on the tracks for which it was designed. Tracks don’t inhibit a train, but enable it to run freely as long as it is running under the power of the steam or fuel of its engines.

Understand that freedom is particularly concerned with human relationships which flow from a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. This is a key point throughout the fifth chapter of Galatians. Five times the apostle uses “one another” in relation to our freedom—once in verse 13, twice in verse 15, and twice in verse 26. Central to each reference is the presence & power of the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 2 :19. promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved

Galatians 5:1. It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
13. For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

1 Peter 2 :16. Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.

We use power to get different jobs done, and without energy, we
are in a world of hurt. We pay lots of money for our electricity and
gas, but what do we pay for the power to do the job God wants us to
do? Have you ever thought of how much it costs to get God’s job
done? Power is important, and the spiritual task of spreading the
word of God to the lost world around us is expensive. God
addresses this problem of the cost of power by teaching us in the
Bible, how we should treat the money He allows us to make. Read
1st Corinthians 16: 1-2. This addresses the physical price we pay to
do God’s work physically, like buying Bibles and paying for gas to
distribute lessons, and paying for electricity to offer preaching in a
chapel. But do we think about the power to do the spiritual jobs God
wants us to do? What about the power to make the right choice?
What about the power to follow through on the right choice? What
about the power to learn how to make the right choice or what
the right choice really is? I don’t know about you, but this seems to
be the hardest for me. Where do we get the power to do what is
right? The answer is in God’s word. The Spirit of Christ is our
teacher and can convict us of sin, righteousness and judgment, see
John 16:8. His presence is powerful and his wisdom is enlightening.
Let Him pour His love into your heart and prayerfully ask Him for
the power to do what is right. Don’t be fooled into thinking that physical
power is more desirable and greater than spiritual power, like love, forgiveness and the power to humbly submit your desires to obey God. It is more glorious to empower a sinner to change into a saint, than it is to make a lame man walk or a blind person see. It takes more power to create a new person than it does to fix a person’s limb. God has this power and the good news is this: It is freely offered to you in Jesus Christ. Enter into His abundant life. Read Romans 6:1-7 to learn more about this great and powerful place!