2014/12/31

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another." 

These are words spoken by Jesus, written in the gospel of John, words Jesus was telling His disciples while dining with them at the last supper before being crucified. The reality of the laying down one's life for his friends was to be fulfilled by the literal laying down of His life at His crucifixion. Jesus was commanding His disciples to follow this example, "that you love one another, just as I have loved you."

This is the only passage in the gospel of John where Jesus addresses His disciples as 'friends.' However, he says, "You are my friends if you do what I command you." If I turn that phrase into negative terms, he's saying, 'You are not my friends if you don't do what I command you.' So Jesus is not negating being enslaved to Him, because His commandment is clearly to be obeyed and followed. By saying, "No longer do I call you slaves," and saying, "I have called you friends," Jesus is speaking of those being drawn closer to Himself. By telling His disciples that the crucifixion He is soon to face is the laying down His life for His friends, He is telling His friends what the Master is doing, saying "for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you." 

"You did not choose Me but I chose you," Jesus is telling you that it is not by your free will that you are disciples or 'friends,' but by the sovereign will of His Father, He chose "and appointed you that you you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain". The image of bearing fruit came up earlier in the conversation, where Jesus Introduces a metaphor saying, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser". When telling of his relationship with His disciples, He later states, "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." 

Finally, Jesus reiterates His words, "This I command you, that you love one another." We must call Jesus 'Master' if we are to obey His commands. In this way, we are enslaved to Him, because to be truly His, our free will cannot be thought to exist apart from abiding in Him. However, as Christ draws us closer to Himself, making known His Father's will, we abide by His command to 'love one another,' restoring our free will unto the salvation of Jesus Christ, that we understand His Father's will of salvation for the saints,  so that whatever we ask of the Father in the name of Jesus Christ the Father may give to us.

2014/12/30

The so-called 'season of singleness' is a myth. A better epithet for the period of time of a person's singleness is a 'season of waiting' or even perhaps a 'season of misunderstanding'.

The idea of embracing your singleness as a virtue is a foolish idea unless you are planning to be single for the rest of your life. It would be like holding to the virtue of purity before marriage, yet planning to only live in purity for a portion of your unmarried life instead of for the whole duration. If you plan to be married, start planning to be married. If you plan to be single, you're contradicting yourself to even consider the future possibility of marriage.

For those who plan to be married, start planning and be patient. As long as we live in the realm of time, there will always be a season of waiting. This period of time may be long, or it may be short. Take full advantage of your 'season of waiting' so that you can properly plan for marriage. For men, if you can earn favour among men, do so. If you can put away salary for a future date of taking care of a wife and children, do so. For women, if you can develop skills that would enable you to be a benefit for your future husband and children, do so. Find someone to marry, and don't delay. Because delaying is the denial of the responsibility you embraced by considering marriage.

Don't be fooled. Marriage is a necessary step for those who will consider it. But don't consider marriage to be a replacement for the riches of glory that is to be revealed at the joining of Christ to His bride. Marriage can point to these riches. But so can suffering, disease and death. If you consider your period of waiting to bring hardship upon you, you should consider that being married will also bring hardship upon you. Live for the glory of God, and eagerly wait to be joined to Him.

There are many who consider to be joined to a partner in sexual union. These people are called by God for marriage. There are a select few who don't make these considerations. These people are called to singleness. Whatever God calls you to, embrace and fulfill your calling immediately, because you are called by the God of salvation for His purpose in the world.

Modern Dating

The modern dating relationship is not something that I adhere to. If a woman wants to find out my intentions, she can read the Bible. Everything else she needs to know about me can be known by observing and interacting with me in a way that does not require a dating relationship. If my intention is to marry her, I will make that known to her. The reason why I have delayed marriage is because I have only had of a partial understanding of the Bible concerning marriage. It is not because I have trivialized dating.

2014/12/28

Praise the Lord!
Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
Praise Him for His mighty deeds;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.

Praise Him with trumpet sound;
Praise Him with harp and lyre.
Praise Him with timbrel and dancing;
Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe. 

Praise Him with loud cymbals;
Praise Him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord! 

Worshiping the Lord of hosts, the almighty God, is an outworking of our drawing near to Him. Our worship is to be organized and officiated, yet it is to be an act of the free will unto Christ's salvation, that all the actions resemble the hearts of those who are acting them out and reflecting them in the congregation of saints.

We can sing, shout, make noise with instruments and proclaim His Word to the nations, that every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall give praise to God. We are to resemble the order of heaven, by which the only thing we know by witness is the One who is to be worshiped⎯Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Everything else, we wait in active anticipation.

Where God's Word is proclaimed, some who gather in this age will fall away. We worship in the age of Christ's sanctifying of His bride, being prepared to join the Groom for eternity. Some will harden their hearts and not enter into His perfection. Those people will be eternally damned in their subjection to the glory of God.

O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord,
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving,
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God
And a great King above all gods,
In whose hand are the depths of the earth,
The peaks of the mountains are His also.
The sea is His, for it was He who made it,
And His hands formed the dry land.

Come, let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you would hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
“When your fathers tested Me,
They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
“For forty years I loathed that generation,
And said they are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not know My ways.
“Therefore I swore in My anger,
Truly they shall not enter into My rest.”

2014/12/27

When Jesus appeared to His disciples in His resurrected form, He told them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” 

All authority has been given to Jesus, who was from the Father, and was accompanied by the Holy Spirit from the beginning. But it is the name of Jesus that authority has been granted, by the works of grace presented in the completion of His gospel story. While still breathing, Jesus said, "It is finished!" He then died and was buried, but He was raised up on the third day and ascended to be at the right hand of the Father.

By the authority given to Him by the Father, Jesus told His disciples to go make disciples of all nations. His authority is handed down from heaven to those who receive His gospel. He commands His authority to be handed down to those of all nations, through the disciples He handed down His authority to, calling all nations to Himself, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit⎯the Godhead, in completion, immersing the saints being drawn to Himself.

He instructs His disciples, the eyewitnesses of His ministry, to teach others to observe all that He commanded them. The final gospel scriptures reveal many of these commands including the great commandments from the book of Deuteronomy: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might;" and from the book of Leviticus, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 

While these commandments are a summary of the law that was handed down by God centuries earlier, Jesus says, "and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” This is a promise that exists beyond the law that was handed down, that Jesus is present with us to the end of the age. The complete gospel story is handed down to those Jesus calls to Himself for the completion of His bride which is to be revealed at the end of the age⎯His second coming. His completion is revealed for our completion unto Him. Hallelujah!

2014/12/23

Oh, how I must be restored to a life of prayer⎯times of prayer spent alone, so that I will not fall into temptation. For many have come to tempt me; some of them have caused me to misstep, but my path is to be restored unto the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jesus was led into the wilderness for forty days without a bite to eat to spend this time alone in prayer. He was tempted by Satan, who offered the kingdoms of the world to be granted into His dominion, but He did not misstep; He remained true unto His Father.

The apostle Paul, upon his conversion, did not immediately go to Jerusalem to congregate with the other apostles. Instead He spent three years in Arabia before finally going to Jerusalem.

When I was converted to Christianity at fifteen years of age, I did not even join a church for a full year, but remained true to the faith, prayerfully considering my hope in the Father.

I am not advocating a Christianity that is walked with God without other believers. I was associated with other believers in the first year of my conversion, but in my alone time, my faith was sealed as being tested and true.

What good is a disciple of Christ who easily falls into temptation because he doesn't have a firm foundation of faith? He is surely going to lead others astray, isn't he? As Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, immediately prior to His betrayal, He ordered the disciples to pray so that they would not fall into temptation. Not realizing the magnitude of what was to take place, the disciples were drawn to sleep.

I don't want to fall asleep in the faith, I want to be faithful in my times spent alone. I thank God that He has drawn me to awake from my slumber, so that I may be tested with temptation in order to stand firm as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

2014/12/22

There is much sorrow to be had. Sorrow for a world gone astray; sorrow for the blind who love their blindness; sorrow for the church becoming like the world, blaspheming the name of Jesus Christ.

The hand of the Lord will draw the church unto Himself, naming the names worthy of the calling of Christ, to become His unadulterated bride. O, how many will fall away, especially those who gather to the house of God who never obeyed His commands. The Lord will say to these, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness." Oh, how I long for the season where God will separate the wheat from the tares, that the church will once again be named by the calling of Christ.

So, I will explore the practice of being sorrowful. Not for the sake of piety, but for the love of the church, so I will be lifted when the church is lifted from its slumber. I have no hope to be awakened with the church from its slumber without sharing in the sorrow of Christ displayed on the cross for His beloved.

Because the grace of God is sufficient to the sufferings of Christ. Therefore, through sorrow, I can freely rejoice in thankfulness and worship of the living God who rose from the dead. Oh how sorrowful the cross of Christ, that we can be lifted to join in the sufferings of Christ⎯the true works of the gospel!

I wish I could explain my joy, for it is in gratitude that I rejoice! Because I know that suffering in obedience to Christ is the assurance of my salvation, that His grace is sufficient for me to obey His commands to the end, that my name be written among those, who are the church and the bride, in the Book of Life!