Epaggelia

According to an ancient legend in Lystra Greece, two gods, Hermes and Zeus, had once visited their city with a promise to return. When the Apostle Paul and Barnabas arrived doing miracles, some of the people were certain that those gods had come back. With patience and confidence, Paul let them know that no mythical gods had bestowed goodness on Lystra, but it was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who had blessed their land – as a testimony of the very real Spirit of Christ in their midst all along. Today, most people in our society believe in the spirit of Christmas, instead of the Spirit of Christ. It was Christ, that God The Father of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob promised to us. It was Christ in God that fulfilled that promise. Therefore, Christmas is here and we are thankful ! We are thankful for a real God that keeps real promises, because He really came and made another promise to come again. The Lord’s brother, James wrote, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). How many good & perfect gifts have you received in past Christmas mornings? God just keeps on giving and giving, He is good all the time, Christmas or no Christmas. God didn’t promise us Christmas, but He did promise us His Son. Thank God, He keeps His promises, and gave us His Spirit of Promise, (Galatians 3:14).

God had made many promises in His work with us throughout the ages past. The most important promise for us, is that He would come to live with us in our heart. Read Matthew 28:18-20 & Romans 5:1-6:14 to understand how He made the promise and keeps it. Our God is both powerful and loving to do this for us.

God is Love, He is Spirit and He is The Father of Jesus Christ. Every true Christian learns that He is the best Father, they could ever ask for. Better than the wildest dream of any child, dreaming about Father Christmas! The Apostle Paul says, “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry, Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15) God is our Father, and he is best at giving us what we really need. God is good all the time and He gives us The Spirit of Christ. His Spirit pours out His love into our hearts (Rom. 5:5) This helps us discover His love and learn about how much better He is than any other kind of Father. We can emulate and experience and share His love. We become true lovers. God takes this picture to it’s greatest height, when He compares Christians to the Bride of Christ in Eph. 5:30-32 & Rev. 21 –22. Spiritually we become lovers of God and for love, there is no limit! His wisdom and His word helps us value Him above everything and everybody in this world. A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver. God has given us an indescribable gift in Jesus Christ. Please read 2Cor. 9:8-15. The more we learn about this and grow in faith, the more we discover his innumerable gifts for here and into eternity.

Elias Boudinot was the head of our Continental Congress for 1782-1783 and served as a Representative for several years from New Jersey during the formation of our Federal Government. Elias also is the founder of the American Bible Society (ABS) which was led by such famous men as John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and John Q. Adams & James Fennimore Cooper. The ABS always appointed one Sunday a year to publically venerate the Bible, and to this day, makes a special effort to give thousands of Bibles away, especially to our Armed Services. Traditionally the ABS has chosen the Sunday before Thanksgiving in preparation of our Nation’s focus on God’s grace. Today the ABS asks the public to pay special attention to the Bible. Do you think the public will listen? If Elias Boudinot was alive today, do we think he would be impressed with how the Bible has affected our society? More importantly, do we know how the Bible has affected our society? Elias once wrote, “Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of people degenerate, their political character must soon follow.” The character of our politicians today is a reflection of their families moral character, that is for sure! God says, “Bad Company Ruins Good Morals”, (1st Corinthians 15:33) The only way to correct this is for each of us personally to feed on and promote God’s Word publically ! God tells us to pray for “all those in authority” ( 1st Timothy 2:2). Combiming the power of God’s word with personal prayer is effective and can help us overcome evil with good. Have you written your Representative recently? Have you prayed for our President? Christians should be making time to do this and keeping this a priority as a Christian duty. If every Christian took this godly duty seriously and fulfilled it, our Nation would be blessed in greater ways than any of us can even imagine!

Everybody loves the change in weather and cooler fall temps, but no one wants the sun to stop shining! We need light, it’s essential. Yes it’s fierce at times and even dangerous if we don’t take precautions. But without light from the sun, two terrible things would befall us all. Our food would stop growing and we would gradually grow sick. Secondly, our society would be instantly very dangerous and fall into frightening rates of violent crime. Many people do not realize it, but just as physical light is taken for granted, there is great benefit from spiritual light. Spiritual light is from the one and only living God, who provides wisdom and strength to protect us from a dark evil that invades every human soul, it’s the very nature of sin. However, God gives light and reveals what is wrong and dangerous in our life. Without God as our Light, and His word as a lamp, we would be hopelessly groping for safety and strength to do what is right. Isaiah called God our permanent source of light and His splendor would shine on us, (Isa. 60:19-20). When John the Immersionist publicly introduced Jesus to the crowds, he called Him, “light” and a “lamb”, (Jn. 1:3-5, 36). Why? Because the truth would be proven and revealed in The Revelation, “Now I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God, the All-Powerful, and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God lights it up, and its lamp is the Lamb.” Can anyone get enough of this kind of light? Have you got just a glimmer? (Rev. 21:22-23)

God knows how much we need His light. If you do not enjoy this kind of light, it is most likely because you have not entered into Christ. He is the only true light for all humanity, read of this claim by Himself in John 8:12. We are promised entrance into the resurrected body of Jesus Christ by faith right now, if we will take his command of baptism seriously. This means we must trust & obey Him in baptism for the specific purpose He assigns to baptism, read Acts 2:38 & Romans 6:1-7 for yourself and see if you are not enlightened?

For many of us, those are strange words. But they are real descriptive of how God looks on a true Christian. Jesus said “if anyone would follow me, they must deny themselves, pick up their cross and follow me daily”, (Lk 9:23) Following Jesus every day means we are refusing to call this world home, because Jesus never did. Jesus was a transient teacher and when he ended up in front of the governor Pilate, he said “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.” (John 18:36) The disciples of Jesus never fought their enemies, they prayed for them and loved them. Today, our enemies still need Jesus. Enemies come in many different forms, so-called friends that tempt us into abusing drink or drugs are actually enemies. Co-workers that tempt us to take home products or money from work are not helping us, they are hurting us. Even family members that demand we take trips away from church on Sundays, are not loving, they are actually ignorant of God’s love. “Enemies against God” is a phrase that describes you and I at one point in our life, before we became a Christian. Before Christ, we were exiles from God’s promises, love and wisdom. We were aliens from His Kingdom and spiritually set against His law of love and faith. But after we became His disciples and put on Jesus Christ, we became exiles of this world and gained a citizenship in Heaven. We should love our enemies no matter how ignorant they are of God’s love and His wisdom in our life. With God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE, so let us journey together.

The Apostle Paul suffered from stress. (Read 2nd Corinthians 11:28) Sometimes we think it’s only something modern humanity wrestles with, but stress has hurt humanity for ages. Here is some wisdom that works if you believe God can use past examples for today.
Jesus did !
1. Wake up early and pray every day, (Read Mark 1:35)
2. Write your blessings down so you can count them (Read Php. 4:8)
3. Remember this is a lost world & be ready to forgive (Eph 4:32)
4. Get at least 20 minutes of moderate exercise daily (1st Tim. 4:8)
5. Make a budget and don’t forget it or God (2nd Cor. 9:7)
6. Make friends with positive godly people (1st John 1:3-7)
7. Keep a small Bible handy and read it while waiting on people, or simply keep notes posted up around you of relevant verses, however you read the Bible, make it daily & prayerful! (2nd Peter 1:12-15)

Anxiety is not dismissed, nor ignored, or even prayed away, it must be faced and handled with God’s wisdom. Let Him use this wisdom in your daily life and join Him in His peace that guards our hearts and minds (Philippians 4:7). Last but not least, God does use doctors, if you need one, do what they say! It is more than interesting that God used a doctor to write the gospel of Luke. (Col. 4:14) Dr. Luke also recorded the Acts of the Apostles which gives us the best example of what God expects a church to look like. Do you believe God uses doctors? You know he does! There are bad ones and good ones, so use prayer and faith to distinguish between them.

Spiritually there isn’t a better doctor than Jesus Christ, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) His words will judge us in the last day, (John 12:48), and until that day comes, we need to heed THE Doctor’s advice. If we do, our faith will pass ANY test. This is good news!

Have you heard about Christians leaving the church because they get tired and frustrated at the friction and problems of differing Christians within it’s membership. Surely you have heard people talk about desiring Christ but quiting the church. Many people that end up making poor decisions based upon Christian’s sinfulness in the church, often tend to express a desire to hang on to Christ and leave the church. They seem to want and even need a form of spirituality, but give up on religion in general. In the world, people talk about being “non-religious”, and ‘expanding our consciousness’, or meditating into a new self realization…. instead of taking Christianity and the church serious and trying to be a part of the solution instead of the problem in leaving the things of God.

The apostle Paul put it this way. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (Ist Corinthians 2:14).

The Lord’s brother James wrote about religion, he said, “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. ” (James 1;26-27). So we know from then to nowadays, that if Christians let their tongues get out of control, they make their religion truly worthless. This is why some Christians just give up. But if we understood what is truly valuable in Christianity, we would not leave it because of the sin. We would value it and try to be part of solution by helping people in need. This is real religion that both God and the world is benefited by. We need pure religion in order to attract worldly people to a God who will save us and them from our own sins.

Religion itself, no matter how pure and valuable will not give us forgiveness and redemption. The deliverance of our soul from the dire consequences of our sin, only comes from the rich grace of God. Paul told Titus, ” But when the kindness of God our Saviour, and his love toward man, appeared, not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7) It is so important to understand what God’s Spirit will do for our hearts, if we will submit to his washing, regeneration and renewing. This is explained by Paul in Romans 6:1-7, where baptism is appointed the venue for God’s work of cleansing us and giving us life from the victorious death of Jesus. Thank God for his grace in this work of His on every human heart that trusts and obeys this precious promise.

Today, Louise Joy Brown is 32. The origin of life for Louise is a milestone marker in medical history. She was concieved in a glass tube, and is the first successful IVF baby. Medical science has come a very long way since 1978, now many scientists actualy believe we have incapsulated and defined the origin of life in listing the entire human genome. Genetical Engineering is the next huge development in making our species stronger. But have we really improved? Are we winning the battle? In 2009 we broke the record for treating HIV with new medicine by dosing over 5.2 million people. But now in 2010, full blown AIDS from HIV is risen by 2.9%. What is going on? This is what is happening. Yes we are getting smarter, but knowledge does
indeed “puff up” as the Apostle Paul instructs in 1st Cor. 8:1. Worldly people are quick to replace God with their own knowledge and tend to neglect giving God any recognition for our advancements. So the smarter we get in solving our own problems, who needs God? Louise Brown needs God just as much as the scientists who helped her parents concieve. Every person with HIV needs God just as much as you and me. The conclusion? Being smarter doesn’t make us better, but if we glorify God, it certainly makes us happier. “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice”…, for He has blessed us & Louise !