Tag Archives: Christ Jesus

Slaves to Freedom?

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Old Leg irons

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All men want freedom to do as they please.  And look how we balk and complain when we are forced, by any means, to do something we don’t want to do.  Listen to how many grumble as they are required to end their weekend and serve others on Monday morning.   Listen to them as 5 pm comes nearer.  Listen how they cheer as the moment comes near for them to be released back to their “freedom”.

Billions have lived their entire life chained to the will of others.  We called them slaves and prisoners; the masses of men, women, and children who lived under the horrible hand of someone else’s ideals.  It was the life they knew from birth to death.  Did they complain also?  Of course they did!  But they were not able to gain even one second of freedom more than the one allowed who ruled over their very breath.

It is not acceptable before God to grumble at restrictions placed on you.  It is honorable, however, before God to accept these restrictions with a certain joy; knowing that we are but a short number of years in this place of testing.  I know I speak the truth in this.  Yet I also know I will find myself grumbling today because I am forced to wait for someone else as they push their way in front of me.  How pitiful is man that he should know to do good yet not be able to find the ability to do it.

Christians are those who are learning to submit to the absolute rule of the One who made them.  We serve Jesus because He shows us that He knows what is best.  We love, because He first Loved us and gave His life for us.  He has said, “Whoever would be first will be last”.  And He has said, “”If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  24  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.  25  What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self ?” (Luke 9).

Men crave freedom.  Jesus tells us clearly that freedom in Christ Jesus is not the freedom of man.  We are set free, not of submission as a slave, but set free to serve as a slave to righteousness.  So let us consider how to spur ourselves and others into a life of service to the Most High God through the Spirit.  Jesus plainly said to us that He would ask the Father and the Spirit would be sent to His people to guide us into all righteousness.  Are you a willing participant in the things of God through Jesus?  Or are you still looking to be set free, as men count freedom?

Isaiah 53:2 An Ordinary Human Body, An Extraordinary God.

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JESUS

Image by Daniel Y. Go via Flickr

Jesus, such a magnificent personage.  And isn’t it just like the world to look to authorities to vet the beautiful people in this world.  None compare to Him, yet very few come to admire Him for who He really is.

“He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”

This place we live in is indeed a place of testing.  The heart of every man is tested every moment of life to see what he will do with this Jesus.  How blessed are we who know Him; that the Father has seen fit to open our eyes like this.  Let all God’s people in Christ Jesus give thanks for the fact that they are learning to worship the One whom God the Father has set above all.

By His Grace.

Romans 12: 18

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Wisdom

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“If it be possible, as much as in you lieth, be at peace with all men.”

Ok.  I hear the meaning of this passage loud and clear.  Some passages in the Bible are not easily divided in their meaning.  But this is certainly not the case here.  Or is it?

Men are corrupt by their very nature.  We can’t know all things, so we often get involved with things we don’t understand.  On top of that, there are millions of men who plot to gain the upper hand every moment of every day.  Then we have those who decide to refrain from fighting all together.  Somehow we are expected to make sense of these things and learn to live at peace with everyone?  Not really.

There are moments of clarity we all receive.  There are situations which demand that we take a stand against the desires of another.  I’m not talking about judging others here.  But we all have faced a situation or thousand, in which, we were expected to simply cow tow and shut up, take it on the chin….. and other weird responses to evil.

I could go into detail about our responses to such things.  I could use a million examples to help any reader come to an understanding about how to live at peace with others.  But who would read it?  And even if they would read forty billion words typed, who could live it?  Any situation encountered would surely have a subtle difference from any example I could come up with.  So I will use common sense here and simply say that, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”  (James 1: 5)

Who can navigate the morass of human expectations?  And the more people involved, the worse it gets (if that is possible).  And what shall we say if the world begins to take on “good deeds” without Christ Jesus at the helm?  How do we hope to please all men?  We simply can’t.  That is why we are given the perfect wisdom of God; so that we can maneuver through this world without getting caught in the stupidity of the world’s perplexing puzzles.

If you want to please everyone, you’re welcome to try.  But you’ll quickly become nothing more than a stick in the path.  And someone will surely come along and kick you out of the way.  We are compelled to stand strong for certain things.  The answer to all this ends up where it starts:  God.

By His Grace.

Relevant Elevant.

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The eye of an asian elephant at Elephant Natur...

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The story of the blind men and the elephant is a cool story.  But it approaches the Truth of God from man’s perspective.  That story is based on man’s understanding of the nature of things apparent.  But it does little to clarify the Holy and Living God in Christ Jesus.

“I Found One!”

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Puzzle piece

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Two people work together to put a puzzle together.  It’s not a small puzzle, built for a child.  There are 600,294,385,001 pieces.  And they search with furrowed brows to find even one match.

“I found one!”  One of the people screams out with great joy.  The other’s head levels with inspecting eyes.  “Are you sure?”  Deft little fingers put the two together.  All the edges match perfectly.  The colors blend in seamlessly.  “YES!”

“What is it?”  A pause ensues.  Turning the two joined pieces around and around, they inspect the item of joy for any hope of understanding.  But in the end there is no possible way to know what it truly is.  Oh there’s colors that could be identified in various ways.  But in the end, there is simply joy that an answer has been found.  And back to their work they go.  But now they search with a renewed vigor.  For they have been given proof that some of the pieces DO fit.

This is what walking with God in Christ Jesus is like.  We hold in our hands only the answers we know we have found.   But we leave the Glory of understanding the bigger picture to the Lord who supplied both the puzzle and the two who work together.

By His Grace.

“The Faith”, Fuel to Drive into Eternity.

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Petrol Guage

Image by drocpsu via Flickr

When the Son of man returns, will He find The Faith?  My soul is given pause to consider the meaning of this.  I take note that it is not called faith.  The Lord was speaking of “The Faith”. 

The Faith is not the faith of demons or the wicked men of this world.  To them, faith might mean anything.  Or it might mean an awareness that there is a God.  The Faith, however, is not like that.  The Faith we have in Christ Jesus teaches us to do the will of the Father in Heaven.  It teaches us all things good (The Good of God).  It teaches us to abstain (that is to “not do”) the things of this world; it teaches us to say “no” to sin and “yes” to the Righteousness which comes from God.

Don’t let the world fool you into believing that Jesus will receive everyone because they intended to be a good person.  Only what is God will survive the judgment.  And to whatever extent God’s will lives in you and is accomplished through you, this is the part of you which will survive the coming judgment. 

So I am given pause to consider the things of God within me.   Jesus offers, we receive.  One without the other is no faith at all.

By His Grace.