PRAYERS

Welcome to this site. My prayer is that you take a look at the site and as you do, let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart and reveal what God wants you to discover. (in Jesus' name)

God tells us that if we see a brother (or sister) in need we should do that which is within our means to help. Prayer is always within our means but we never know what doors Father may open through them. Should you desire prayer for anything (healing, direction, etc.) or if you want supportive prayer along with your own please feel free to e-mail that request to sharbu3@gmail.com and be assured that there are others who will be praying with or for you.


In this blog, I share what the Lord shares with me. I reference scripture a lot in support of what is being said. I realize that what is in each entry is NOT a complete 'word' on what is being said, but is rather enough information to stimulate our spirits to dig deeper (remember the Bereans Acts 17:10-11) thereby gaining a fuller understanding for ourselves.

At the end of each post are the options to share, forward or make a comment. Click 'comment' to respond. Let us know if you like, don't like or are helped by what you read. Comments can be made or read by anyone. All you have to do is select the "comment" at he end of the entry.

Saturday, February 25, 2023

 

2-25-2023     Encouraging Words

            Disciples listening to our Lord Jesus

2 Thess. 2: 1-17

Paul encourages the Thessalonians (and us) to keep our faith until the return of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  He’s describing the situation of the end times so we can be aware of what we need to be careful about so we can ‘hang’ strong in Christ Jesus.  Not to get worried, but to keep strong in our faith that God is with us – all the way.

1          Now, we comfort you, brothers, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him.

2          Don’t be shaken in your mind or troubled (in your heart) neither by a spirit, nor word nor even a letter from us.

Things will be said, things will happen, even in and from the church, but if it isn’t in agreement with the truth we have received in the beginning, don’t even flinch, but hold firm to the truth in Jesus.  And that truth is always in agreement with God’s Essence – love.

3         Don’t let any man deceive you by any means for that day won’t come unless there is first a falling away, so the man of sin can be revealed, that is the son of perdition.

A falling away?  Paul says that the church will start straying from God’s truth in the end times.  Even though God produced miracle after miracle, deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, the manna, the quail, the water, Israel still moved away from God by fashioning the golden calf (Exod.32:1-4).  Look around.  Has today’s church strayed (in any form) from the truths God (Jesus) has taught us?  Look at the Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:1-17) and, then consider God’s love.  That is “agape” love.  Agape love (G26) is derived from ‘agapao’ (G25) and means to love in a social or moral sense, with affection or benevolence, (hold) dear.  All this adds up to considering the welfare of another as, at least, equal to our own welfare and to do so not because we are ‘supposed to’, but because we desire to.  When we delight ourselves in who God is and what He is truly all about, Father will give us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4).  Understand, as the church falls away from God this enables the doors to open for the man of sin, that son of perdition, to operate in this world, more freely.  Why have things become so bad?  Today, people, even in the church, have not only set God up on a shelf, but have stuffed Him in a box and put Him somewhere in the basement, or worse.  God who?

4          He (the son of perdition) is the one who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or even worshipped, so that he could sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

Remember Satan’s nature is that he tried to raise himself up over God, our heavenly Father (Isa. 14:12-17).  Jesus said that He saw Satan fall from heaven as lightening so it is no wonder his followers can look pretty good to us in the world (Luke 10:18, 2 Corinth. 11:13-15).  And don’t forget, Satan was cast out of heaven because of his desire to replace God (Rev. 12:7-13).

5          Don’t you remember that when I was with you, I told you these things?  (writes Paul) 

6          And now you know what withholds his being revealed in his time.

7          For the mystery of iniquity is already at work, but now, only He who lets shall let until he is taken out of the way.

8          And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.

9          Even He who is coming after the working of Satan, with his (Satan’s) power, signs and lying wonders

10        And with all the deceptions of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they did not love the truth that they might be saved.

 11       For this reason, God will send them a strong delusion that they should believe a lie.

Because God has given man ‘free choice’ (Joshua 24:15) God is allowing Satan what he does – but only for a ‘season’. 

The prayers of the saints are what delays the rise of the beast.   Are those prayers diminishing?  Because of man’s disobedience to God, Father will allow a delusion to rise up that man should believe those lies (Rev. 13:11-18).  And yet, in the end, Satan does lose!

12        That they might be damned because they didn’t believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

And because man believes those lies and even rather enjoys the doing of the same.  Father will let man exercise his ‘free choice’ to live in Christ or suffer eternal loss (Rev. 29:1-15).  How many will choose Jesus?  God loves all His creation but only a few (Matt. 7:13-14) will hear the words “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21) and enter into His kingdom.

13        But we are always bound to give thanks to God for you, brothers who are beloved of the Lord, because from the beginning, God has chosen you for salvation through the sanctification and Spirit and belief in the truth.

Understand, God calls all to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), He doesn’t want any to die, but not all will listen to His call.  Remember the seed?  Some fall by the wayside that is they won’t even consider God’s gift of life.  Some fall on stony ground and the trials and tribulations of this life discourage them and they turn away from the Lord.  Others decide they can’t follow Jesus because they just plain don’t want to give up the things of this world so they turn their back to God.  So, only a few actually experience the “Judgment seat of Christ” where we are rewarded for our good works.  Even if we don’t have a lot of good works to present before the Lord, because we have received Him into our heart and have not turned away, we are still welcomed into His kingdom (Rom. 14:10-13).

14       Because of this, He called you by our gospel so you could obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How do we learn about Jesus and eternal life?  Because somebody has shared the eternal gift of life, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, with us and we joyfully received it.  How do those who don’t believe come to the Lord?  Because someone has come to share the faith with them.  And that ‘someone’ had to have been sent by the Lord.  Blessed are the feet of them who bring the gospel of peace and glad tidings of good things (Rom. 10:14-15).

15        Therefore, brothers, stand fast and hold on to the traditions which you have been taught whether by word or by our letter.

Why would Paul put this sentence this way?  What did the early church have?  All the people, of his time, had was the Hebrew bible (what we call the Old Testament, the Tanakh (which included the Torah [law]) or the Septuagint which was an accepted Greek translation of the Hebrew bible.  Yes, the early church also had the writings of the apostles and historians (as Luke) but not until 405 AD were all these writings compiled into a single book when Jerome completed the Latin Vulgate (which contained both the Old and New Testaments).  So Paul wanted to make sure that the people were hearing and reading the ‘right stuff’ so they could grow strong in Christ Jesus. 

26        Now, let our Lord, Jesus Christ Himself and God, even our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and hope through grace.

17        Comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.

God is with us and guiding us (as we listen to Him) and it is His grace which encourages us to keep pressing forward, that is awaiting the resurrection of these temporary bodies into eternal life in Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:8-14).

Amen!

Also note that Jesus gives a pretty good picture of the end times in Matt. 24:1-51.

 

Saturday, February 11, 2023

2-11-2023        JUST A CLOSER WALK WITH THEE

 


Genesis 17:1    When Abraham was 90, the Lord appeared to him and said “I AM the almighty God.  Walk before Me and be perfect.”

Gen. 5:21-24   Enoch walked with God ….  and was not for God took Him because he walked with God.

Matt. 6:32-34  (For the Gentiles seek after these things [earthly, physical needs]) Your heavenly Father knows you need all of these things BUT you first of all seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things (natural needs) will be added to you.  Don’t worry about tomorrow, it will take care of itself.  It is enough to be concerned about the evil that faces us today.

Gal. 5:25                      If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit

John 4:23         The hour comes and is even now when the true worshippers will worship

                        the Father in Spirit and in Truth for the Father seeks such to worship Him.

Just a closer walk with thee

Grant it Jesus is my plea

Daily walking close to thee

Let it be, dear Lord, let it be


I am weak, but thou art strong

Keep me Jesus from all wrong

I’ll be satisfied as long

As I walk, let me walk close to thee

 

Through this world of toil and snares

If I falter, Lord, who cares

Who with me my burden shares?

None but thee, oh Lord, none but thee

 

When my feeble life is o’er

Time for me will be no more

Guide me gently, safely o’er

To thy Kingdom’s shore, to thy shore 

God tells Abraham to walk before Him and be perfect or, if you will, do His (God’s) will.  Or should we rather say walk with Him?   Now in the Old Testament, walking with God was difficult because God is in heaven yet Enoch found a way to do so.  The implication is that he walked in God’s will.  However, we do know that God did come to earth to commune with Adam (Gen. 3:8).  We may consider that the third “angel” that visited Abraham was not actually an angel but would have been Father or Son because Abraham worshipped Him.  But being that Jesus is the incarnation of God’s Word, was this third ‘angel’ Jesus (Gen. 18:1-33)?  We know that Jesus is Emmanuel (God is with us – Matt.1:23).  We know that Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1-18).  We know that God spoke and all things were created (Gen. 1:1-31).  We know that God is love (1 John 4:8) and Jesus has become that personification of that love which God loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life (read the whole passage – John 3:14-21). 

So, Jesus tells us that if we love Him we should keep His commandments (John 14:15) and what are His commandments? Only two, which is actually one commandment but which contains two parts.  That commandment is to love!  A” love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength (Mark 12:29-30).  And “B” to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:31).  Why?  Jesus explains that on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (Matt. 22:40).  The “10 commandments” and all the law (all 600+ adjustments) are based on God’s love for us and everything the prophets spoke to Israel (and us) is grounded in God’s love.

God, the Father, is love.  Jesus is Father’s manifestation of Himself to us in this world.  Jesus told the disciples “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father (John 14:9).  So we see that God is love and that Jesus is the manifestation of love in this (our) world.  So, to walk with God is to walk in His love.

So, how do we walk in love, closer with God?  How does the song start?  “Grant me a closer walk with you, oh Lord, daily”.  The Ten Commandments are a description of God’s love so even in the Old Testament, God operated in love.  Today, we ask Jesus into our heart (John 3:16, Rom. 10:9-10) so we can abide in that love.  We continue then by asking God to help us to walk closely with Him and then believe He will do so.  Whatever we ask, we believe God can and will do (Mark 11:24). We also recognize that we are human (duh!).  We realize that we are weak and unlikely to succeed (on our own) so we ask Him to help us ‘toe the line’, walk the straight and narrow (Matt. 7:13).  Personally, I have discovered that as I ask for His help, God is faithful to help me and in that I find then I am satisfied in all that He provides for me.  I know that the enemy (Satan) will try to trip me up every chance he gets and I know that should I stumble or even fall(and skin my knee), even though most humans could give a ‘rat’s derrierre’ whether I do.  Though I see that though the world may not care much about me, my God has not left me.  He is still is with me and He shall never forsake me (Heb. 13:5).  He’s always there to pick me up.  I just need to listen, then be obedient to what He says.  I live in the knowledge that as I keep Jesus’ commandment to love and seek God’s companionship, my place in eternity is secure.

Jesus says that if we know Him, we know the Father (and vice versa) (John 14:7).  So (again) what does walking with God mean?  Walking in LOVE.  We glorify His name (Psalm 86:12, Isa. 12:4-5),we give thanks to God for all that He does (Psalm 75:1, Phil. 1:3-5), we seek His counsel in all things (Psalm 139:1-24, Prov. 3:5-6) and we are obedient to His will (Deut. 11:1, Luke 11:28).  When given the choice on whom he would follow, Joshua said “… as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Josh. 24:15).

Walking with God is all about our relationship with Him.  He IS our best friend and we can share anything with Him.  As Jesus dealt with the woman caught in adultery, He didn’t condemn her but said “Go and sin no more.” (John 8:3-11).

Walking with God is like our ‘natural’ relationships with our parents, our siblings, our friends.  That relationship doesn’t ‘just happen’.  It takes effort (work) on our part to make it work.  As we endeavor to walk with our Lord by continuing to seek and do His will, we discover that He has always been there, drawing us closer to Himself.

Walk before God?  Walk with God?  Walk in love!

Amen