Predestined To Die

Acts 4: 27-28

For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
To do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.

Herod and Pilate and the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, this sounds like everybody. No one is exempt from this list. We are all guilty.

God decided ahead of time what would happen. Before anything was created, I can picture the Father and the Son and the Spirit hanging out together, discussing what they could do. And when they decided that this Mankind would have a free choice to choose God, they knew that Man could also choose to reject God. And the Son stepped up and took responsibility for him, to redeem him back.

So the Lord God gave the Law and sent His prophets so that the people would recognize Messiah when He came. And the Child was born and the Son was given, and His Name was called Jesus. 

So Jesus grew up and lived just like we do, as our example. And He proved who He was by His miracles. And He taught the people with authority. 

Then He completed His mission as the Lamb of God, our Sacrifice. He fulfilled the personal Sacrifice to save us one-by-one; and He fulfilled the corporate Sacrifice to purchase us, making Him our rightful Judge. 

So we are all His property, His possession. He owns us by Creation and by Purchase. And we who have realized He took our death, belong to Him also by Redemption. 

When we all got together, the Leaders and the Gentiles and Israel, to put Him to death, we were sacrificing our Lamb. We all agreed that He needed to die. 

And His Blood splattered on the sides of His altar, the Cross, washes away our sins. And His Blood poured out at the foot of the Cross purchases us all, everybody, of every time, every Nation, every language; no one is left out. 

Every person who ever lived is offered this opportunity to be saved from the sins that beset us all, and redeemed out of this slave-market of sin to be welcomed into the family of the King. 

O my Father, we are all born to live; but Your Son was born to die, so we can Live. Your grace and Your mercy are great! Your Love is beyond anything I can imagine; to know me, my weaknesses and failings, and to Love me anyway! 

Father, Your plans for me are so much better than I could think up for myself. You are good, and everything You do comes from Your great Love for us all. 

I don't know why people can be so foolish to not seek You and Your wonderful gifts. How Your heart must break to have people You Love to rebel and fight against You. But You will not force Yourself on anyone, You respect the choices You enabled us to make, even when they harm ourselves. 

O Father, send me to Your lost sheep who are seeking You. Let my reach extend into every area where the fields are white for harvest. Use me, Father, to find them and draw them into the safety of the One Fold with One Shepherd. Use my life and my words to show them Your Love and what You have already accomplished on their behalf through Your Son. 

And every eye will see, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess in every language, Your glory and honor and wisdom and praise and authority and riches and wealth and joy!

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

To Be Plugged In

John 15: 4-5

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
I am the Vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 

To "abide" is to dwell there, to reside there. That's where you live. Jesus says we must live in Him. We must be aware of His presence with us, and trust Him to always stay with us and never leave. 

When we want to use an electric appliance, we need to make sure it's plugged in. When I had my coffee this morning, I plugged the coffee maker in, and it worked, it made my coffee. 

We also need to be "plugged in" in order to "work." 

I need to be connected to the source of Life and power in order to do anything of any value. I need to live every day in the presence and power of Christ, in His Holy Spirit. Life is spirit, and eternal Life is God's Spirit living in me. 

So we who have trusted Jesus' death to be our personal Sacrifice, and believe that He was buried and rose again, then His Blood has washed away all of our sins and His Spirit abides in us, to never leave. It's like we've been born spiritually, comparable to how we were born physically. 

That's why Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be "born again" to be able to see and enter God's kingdom (John 3:3, 5-8). 

A branch that is not connected can look like part of the vine, but if it's not attached to the vine, it will wither. It needs the constant flow to maintain its vibrancy and to bear fruit. Otherwise it's not good for anything. 

O my Father, thank You so much for grafting me into the Vine. Thank You that Your Spirit of Life has given me Life, and that I am living in the Life of Your Kingdom now, looking forward to when that Kingdom is established on the Earth. My King rules in my life now, and He will rule over the whole World when He returns. 

O Father, Your plan for my life is such a good path for me to follow! I find Your blessings of wonderful nuggets of Truth and Life and goodness every day. Keep my hand in Yours, Father; don't let me pull away or run ahead or lag behind. Let me not turn to the right or to the left or wander off. 

You are so good to me, Father, in every way. Strengthen me to lean only on You in all my interactions with others. Help me to think before I speak, keeping me from spouting off from my flesh. So that Your Name will be honored in all my dealings, and You will receive the credit for what You enable me to do. 

Father, help all Your children to know You better every day, and trust You more freely every day, and love You more deeply day by day. Weave all of the strands of our lives into Your great Tapestry of Time, working all the colors and shimmerings and shades into the beautiful patterns You have designed to display throughout all eternity. 

And You will receive all the honor, all the glory, all the blessings, all the wealth, all the power, all the might, all the authority; because You created all things, because of Your will they exist. We are all what You have imagined, and if You weren't thinking of us, we would not be! 

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

What's New About The New Commandment

John 13: 34-35

A new commandment I give to you , that you love one another, even as I have Loved you, that you also Love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have Love for one another. 

The commandment was to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. But we already treat other people according to how we see ourselves. When we have low self-esteem, then we will not treat others very well, either; and when we realize our worth that God has valued us at, then we also treat others as valuable.  

God's Love is not like our human, natural love. What is new about this commandment is that we are to love one another, not as we love ourselves, but as God Loves us. Not to consider one another only according to our natural affection for them, but to treat them as the valuable person they are in God's sight. 

God has Loved us with His agape Love which is unconditional. It doesn't matter what we have done in our past, God Loves us the same. Even when we were still sinners, enemies of God, He sent His Son to be our personal Sacrifice. He gave His very best, His most precious, for each one of us. That's how He loves us.

And that's the new commandment, that we are to give this unconditional Love to one another. This is not a feeling of affection, it's a decision of our will to treat one another with the value God places on each of us; the respect and honor due a special creation of the Almighty. Even when some brother or sister in the Lord has not treated us favorably, we are still to be gracious and forgiving toward them, as Christ has been toward us.

We cannot do this. We tend to see those who love us differently from those who hate us, so we have much affection for some and none for others. That's why we are not to depend on our feelings. We are to depend on His Spirit dwelling in us to be able to decide to deal with our sisters and brothers in Christ according to the value God has placed on them, and follow through to do it. Even if they still react negatively. God's Love can draw them.

O my Father, please help us to realize the great Love wherewith You have Loved us, even when we were still in rebellion against You. You Loved us with a Love far beyond our understanding, to draw us to Yourself and cause us to be born spiritually into Your own family. 

Father, You have given us Your own Holy Spirit to live in our spirit, making us alive right now, and on into eternity. Only with Your Love can we love others the way You have determined, and this supernatural Love that we are to demonstrate will show the World that Jesus really did come and die for us, and is alive forevermore. 

And all the glory and honor and praise and blessing and power and might and wisdom is Yours forever. 

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Follow The Money

Acts 16: 11-40

Now they are in Philippi, the the city of the church Paul wrote the Epistle to the Philippians to, which was a Roman colony. 

Their first convert there is a business-woman named Lydia, who invited them to stay at her home. 

It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. 
Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.
She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the Name of Jesus Christ to come out of her! 
And it came out at that very moment.

It just so happened that a demon-possessed slave-girl was following them, crying out after them; but it annoyed Paul for a demon to be doing this, and he cast out the demon from her. He didn't want the promotion of a demon any more than Jesus had (Mark 1:23-25--Jesus told the spirit to "be quiet"). 

But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities,
and when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews,
and are  proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or observe, being Romans.

The crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods.
When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely;
and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

But when the girl's owners saw that they couldn't make money off of her any more, that's when the accusations came. And it doesn't look like they even had a chance to defend themselves, but were immediately beaten and thrown into the stocks in jail!

Just like today, when righteous people are persecuted, lied about, and slandered--follow the money. 

But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them;
and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. 
When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, Do not harm yourself, for we are all here! 

I wonder how many of the other prisoners' interest was piqued by their music? God was not going to let this situation go, but He provided supernatural help using the natural processes of the Earth to show His approval of Paul and Silas. 

And when the jailer thought the prisoners had escaped, Paul had to reassure him, and the result was that the jailer and his whole household were saved. 

In the morning when the magistrates found out that they were Romans, they were afraid, as they were going to just let them go quietly. Now they know that these men are asserting their rights, so they asked them to leave the city, to avoid any trouble with their superiors. 

So they stopped by Lydia's house and encouraged their friends there and left. 

O my Father, I pray for those people of Yours who are being slandered and persecuted today. There are people who are doing much good for the people and for Your Kingdom. And their enemies hate them so much that there is nothing they can do to gain agreement with them on anything. 

O Father, our enemy knows his time is short, and is so fierce! But he is no match for You, my sovereign Lord. Please protect Your servants, especially the ones who are in the public eye and seem vulnerable to damage from attacks. 

Keep Your servants, Your children, in Your sovereign care, Father. Protect us all as we go about doing Your work among the heathen and others who don't know You. Lead us to Your lost sheep, Lord, to draw them into Your One Fold with One Shepherd. 

And we will all give You all the glory, all the honor, all the praise; for it is You who has done it all! You thought it up, planned it out, designed how it would work and function, and are working everything out to completion. 

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!




 

The Spirit's Leading

Acts 16: 8-10

And passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.
A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us.
When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the Gospel to them.

Now God is leading Paul to the people He had prepared to hear the Gospel. The Holy Spirit had forbidden him to minister in Asia, then he had a dream, and took off right away to go to Macedonia. 

By the pronouns used, they and we, us, we see that Luke joined Paul's group at Troas. Luke wrote this book so we could know the correct history of what took place. 

Luke was a scientist, a doctor, and I think that he traveled with Paul to help him with his "thorn in the flesh," as it may have been a medical condition. 

We're not told what it was, Paul was not focused on himself that much, so we can apply this principle to whatever "thorn" we might experience.  

Paul was sensitive to the Spirit's leading, recognizing that it was the Spirit closing the door, and using the vision to show him the door that was now open. 

O my Father, please help me to be sensitive to Your Spirit as Paul was; help me to have the courage and boldness to go forward, recognizing Your leading in the closed and open doors You set before me.

Lead me, Father, to those lost sheep who are seeking refuge, give me Your words to share with them so they will know Your Love, and keep Your arm around my shoulder and Your hand over my mouth to say only what they need to hear, not my own fleshly desires to spout off. 

And You will receive all the credit, all the glory and honor for all You have done. Every eye will see and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess in every language, Your praise and authority throughout all eternity, forever and ever.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

A Split Or A Disagreement?

Acts 15: 36-40

After some days Paul said to Barnabas, Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the Word of the Lord and see how they are.
Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them also. But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphilia and had not gone with them to the work.
And there occurred such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.
But Paul chose Silas and left, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord.

This has been called the first church split. But the church didn't split here, it's just Barnabas and Paul having a sharp disagreement. 

Paul was remembering how Mark was so overcome by the ruggedness and perils that he quit and went home, and was probably concerned that it was too soon to subject him to the same hardships again. It looks like he didn't trust Mark to follow through on his commitments. 

So Barnabas, the perennial encourager, took Mark to Cypress by boat, a different route than he had taken before that had discouraged him. Then we hear nothing more about where they went or what they did. 

The story continues following Paul in his journeys. 

O my Father, thank You for giving us this history book, recounting the first halting steps of Your church, until it is firmly established in the whole known world of the time. 

Thank You for showing us the courage and boldness of Your Apostles in their zeal to spread Your Word, the news that Jesus did it all! 

Thank You for preserving Your church through every generation, that we would not lose the precious Truth that our faith is founded on. That we can trust You to be strong enough to not allow the loss of a single idea, a single brick in the constitution of this building made of living stones. 

You have promised to never leave us, and You are still with us today. We can count on Your Word. 

Father, thank You for Your faithfulness, that You have also given to Your church to be faithful in the purpose for which You leave us here after saving us, and not taking us home immediately.  

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

How The Church Would Be

Acts 15: 1-35

The First Church Council

The church is still in its infancy and is struggling to clarify what it is they need to believe and practice. 

Some of the Jewish believers from Jerusalem wanted to hang on to portions of the Law and how God had given circumcision to distinguish His people from others. So they insisted that these new believers should also be circumcised. 

But Barnabas and Paul saw that God saved Gentiles and gave them His Holy Spirit and made no difference between the Christian Jews and the Christian Gentiles, but that they were all Christians together.

So Paul and Barnabas gathered in Jerusalem with the other church leaders from both Jerusalem and Antioch, and discussed how they should proceed. 

This was the first Church Council. 

After much discussion on both sides, they wrote letters to all the Christians in the whole area to share what they had agreed on for how the church would be. 

They realized that God had saved the Gentiles and accepted them without being circumcised or following any of the Old Testament laws, so they wrote:

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden that these essentials:

That you abstain from things offered to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. (Vs. 28-29.)

So Judas and Silas went with Paul and Barnabas back to Antioch, and when they read the letter they rejoiced because of its encouragement (v. 31). 

Then Judas went back to Jerusalem, and Silas stayed there with Paul and Barnabas. And it looks like they established a school there, because they continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the Word of God, with many others also (v. 35). 

The instructions to the church didn't include anything about circumcision or any of the other Levitical laws; only that they wouldn't participate in any of the idol worship that was so prevalent there, and not consume blood or animals that died of unknown causes, and to reserve physical relations for marriage. 

We also would still today do well to observe these prohibitions. 

We don't need to worship or pray to any other than God; we can be careful to eat only foods that are safe; and we must reign in our passions to confine them within the bonds of matrimony. 

The Ten Commandments have never been repealed. We follow them now as principles of attitude and conduct. 

When we love God back, and we love one another as Christ Loves us, then we will be obeying all the Laws; because they are all based on God's Love for us. 

The World's view of "love" is a scewed concept that is narrow and even damaging to relationships and our own health. Love is confused with lust, and with permissiveness, and even with ownership. 

But God's Love cared so much for us that He sacrificed His own Son for each of us, to cleanse us thoroughly, so we could live with Him. His Love will not allow any shadow of a stain of sin to dwell in His home, and He will not force Himself on anyone. So those who refuse Him are cutting themselves off from Life and light and goodness. 

O my Father, You are so good and gracious and gentle. You have all power and authority over everything that exists, because You made it. 

And You have given Your Son to have possession of all creation, because You made it all together, and He purchased it with His own Blood. 

Thank you so much, my Father, for loving me so much, knowing me as You do. Thank You for cleansing me, so that I am now fit to live with You. Thank You that you want me to live with You! 

Father, I pray for all those who don't realize Your great Love!  Please send me out into Your fields that are ripe for harvest, Your mission fields where Your lost sheep are seeking You. 

And You will receive all the praise and honor and glory, because it is You who have done it all. You thought it up, designed it, planned it all out, and You are carrying out Your plans, to complete this whole program, just like You want.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!