7/9/13

From Gary... That nose right in front of you


Those of us who are blessed with sight often forget how blessed we are.  If we are able to see, that probably means that both eyes and a major portion of our brain is functioning as it should.  But, with this concept comes a question:WHAT DO WE SEE???  As the picture says, we see our nose all the time and our brain ignores it.  (A little aside here... if you want to see your nose, just close one of your eyes.)  As I considered sight, it occurred to me that not only our subconscious brain controls what we see, but we consciously ignore things as well.  Why?  Often because we do not want to face the facts of what is happening.  When the kids are bad or the dog pees on the rug or when a family member is just being stubborn for no good reason- we often just refuse to see it. As one of the greatest kings of ancient Israel put it...

Psalm 69
 5 God, you know my foolishness.
My sins aren’t hidden from you.


As you may have already guessed, David wrote these words.  With good reason, as he had his own sins brought to his attention in a very clever way...

2 Samuel, Chapter 12
 1 Yahweh sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.  2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds,  3 but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him, and with his children. It ate of his own food, drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was to him like a daughter.  4 A traveler came to the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man who had come to him, but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man who had come to him.” 

  5  David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As Yahweh lives, the man who has done this is worthy to die!  6 He shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity!” 

  7  Nathan said to David, “You are the man. This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.  8 I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that would have been too little, I would have added to you many more such things.  9 Why have you despised Yahweh’s word, to do that which is evil in his sight? You have struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.  10 Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 

  11  “This is what Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he will lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.  12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’” 

  13  David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against Yahweh.” 

The God of Heaven sent the prophet Nathan to confront David in a way that David pronounced judgment upon himself.  And David LISTENED!!!  There is no doubt that this went beyond just a one sentence acknowledgement, as David penned the following Psalm...

Psalm 51
 1  Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

  2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin.

  3 For I know my transgressions. My sin is constantly before me.

  4 Against you, and you only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight; that you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge.

  5 Behold, I was born in iniquity. In sin my mother conceived me.

  6 Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

  7 Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

  8 Let me hear joy and gladness, That the bones which you have broken may rejoice.

  9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all of my iniquities.

  10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.

  11 Don’t throw me from your presence, and don’t take your holy Spirit from me.

  12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit.

  13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways. Sinners shall be converted to you.

  14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. My tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

  15 Lord, open my lips. My mouth shall declare your praise.

  16 For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering.

  17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

  18 Do well in your good pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem.

  19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offerings and in whole burnt offerings. Then they will offer bulls on your altar.


What you really see is a reflection of what your heart is like.  If you don't wish to see anything wrong with your life- you WON'T!!!  But, if you really spend a little time in reflection about the way you are living- well, your sins may just become as plain to you as the nose on your face!!!  Only one last questions remains- Have you closed one eye to see what is right in front of you??? Go ahead, you know you want to...  You may be surprised at what you see!!!!

From Bill Dayton... Thinking Like Jesus (Phil.2:1-11)




“More About Jesus”
Thinking Like Jesus (2:1-11)
7/7/13 AM



INTRODUCTION


A. “Our thoughts are the beginning process of all we do and how we live.” Betty Bender

B. In 2:1-4 Paul called upon the Philippians to:

C. In verse 5, Paul continues to exhort them to have "this mind" the attitudes listed (1-4)

D. In the following verses (6-11), Paul explains the "mind of Christ" (Think Like Jesus)



I. LACKED SELFISH AMBITION OR CONCEIT (6)


A. Before Christ became flesh… "in the form of God, equal with God.” “He existed as one with God.”(Jn.1:1-3)

B. Yet Christ did not consider being equal as robbery "a thing to be grasped"; something to cling on to, jealously

C. Do we “Think Like Jesus? Do we consider ourselves more important than others, and preserved at all costs?



II. LOOKED OUT FOR THE INTERESTS OF OTHERS (7-8)


A. When Jesus became flesh…He "made Himself of no reputation" "emptied Himself" (Jn.17:5) Glory

1. He took upon Himself "the form of a servant"

2. He came "in the likeness of men" He was tempted and suffered – Heb. 2:14,17-18; 4:15; 5:7

3. He "humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death,even the death of the cross" Heb.5:8

B. Do we think like Jesus? Looking out for the interests of others; 1Jn.3:16



III. HIGHLY EXALTED BY GOD (9-11)


A. "He that humbles himself shall be exalted" (Lk.14:11)

B. God has highly exalted Jesus by giving Him "the name which is above every name" Acts 4:12…(salvation)
that at His name "every knee should bow... that every tongue should confess" He is Lord!




CONCLUSION


A. To “Think Like Jesus involves: Humility; Obedience; Sacrifice; Great Reward

B. As Christians, let's be diligent to “Think Like Jesus” in our relationship to God and to each other


C. If you are not a Christian, why not “Think Like Jesus” by following His example of humble obedience to God’s Will?

From Jim McGuiggan... Billy's gone!

Billy's gone!

Our friend and brother in Jesus Christ died in his sleep sometime in the early hours of Monday morning (10th December). His name was Billy, he was about my age and he was such a lovely soul. We aren’t devastated though we’re shocked because at the Sunday assembly he was in his usual exuberant and very much alive spirit and then, without warning, gone in the night.
I don’t know if there’s an easier way for Death to come calling for us than when we’re in a deep sleep and I can’t avoid saying that we’re all pleased he didn’t suffer long with some painful and emotionally destructive disease. Still, there is now and will be for a while an awful ache, something will be gone from our tiny assembly and this Sunday (God allowing us one) we’re going to feel the burden to be a burden.
He was always there; always positive, always trying to please and always sensitive to what was going on around him. We think we knew him—and so we did—but there’s a day coming when Jesus comes and makes this world better and brings Billy with him. I fully expect to see someone of inexpressible beauty and honour and we’ll know then that what we knew was only the lovely curtain thrown around the man. The glory that was him couldn’t fully show itself in his limited physical and social make-up.
Still, the ache’s there right now.
Ah Death, to hell with you!

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.

From Jim McGuiggan... A waiting-room after death?

A waiting-room after death?

A reader asked, "After we die, where do we go to await judgment?" If there was a text that definitively settled this question for believers the question might not keep coming up so there must be some ambivalence about the New Testament witness. But I’m one of those that think Philippians 1:21-24 settles it or comes so close as makes no difference. I say that despite the fact that a mountain of material has been written on these verses and scholars continue to debate it. Still, for the most part, the argument revolves round the precise meaning of "with" Christ. Most believe the believer goes to be with Christ but for one reason or another they think the believer "sleeps" until the resurrection or receives the resurrected body immediately and there are even some that think the believer literally ceases to exist until newly created. (You might take a look at the brief remarks on Conditional Immortality.)
Paul says he feels himself in an emotional quandary and doesn’t know which to prefer (1:22). There’s the possibility that he’s close to dying at the hands of the Romans (he may be writing from Rome or, perhaps more likely, Caesarea) and that generates the two strong desires he feels. He’d like to stick around and continue his work here because above everything else he was a missionary with a glorious gospel that filled him to the brim. It looks to him that the Philippian needs require his continued presence and, of course, others that would reap the benefit of God’s ministry through him. On the other hand there was something that was so much better and grander for him—to depart this phase of human history and go to be with Christ. He uses a word that soldiers used when they pulled up the stakes of their tent (and march home) or when a ship was loosed from its mooring (to sail on home).
I’m of the opinion that Paul’s words here should be taken at face value. The believer dies and goes wherever Christ is (spatial geography is another matter—a rocket ship can’t take you to some cosmic location that is "heaven"). I don’t think we should go for an immediate resurrection body and I certainly don’t think Paul would have thought a state of unconscious sleep was very far better than his present life of adventure and service. But even though he knows he will go to be with Christ, between his death and the resurrection, he would be in anintermediate state since he would be disembodied and that is not the completed work of God. God completes his work in Christ when the believer experiences full redemption from the curse (see Romans 8:18-23 and Philippians 3:20-21). To speak of the intermediate state is not to speak of an intermediate place. There is our present earthy state (we are embodied beings), there is the intermediate state (when we suffer death and are robbed of our bodies—the notion of death as the enemy comes in here) and the final state when we are gloriously transformed and immortal. While we wait the glorification that comes with the end of this phase of human history those who die are with Christ. 

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.

From Jim McGuiggan... I don’t give it any thought.

“I don’t give it any thought.”

Recently in a snatch from the very influential Oprah Winfrey show I heard Oprah ask a gentleman (essentially), “So what do you think happens to us when we die?”
Oprah’s question was not what do you think happens to the plundered and butchered millions when they die but what happens to us when “we” die. It’s astonishing how the complexion of the question changes when we ask what happened to the raped and murdered children and what happens to the rest of us who are well fed, housed healthy and befriended.
This gentleman’s answer was, “I don’t give it any thought.”
Precisely!
In this mode and religion everything's about himself and ourselves.
I gather from the brief remarks in the dialogue that the poor man’s view of God was that God is an “experience” and not someone independent of our experience, not someone to believe in.
“Now, let’s all sit in silence and feel ourselves breathing!”
There now, don’t you feel better?
Who cares if there is a Final Judgment?
Who cares if the multiplied millions never see justice and restitution?
Who cares if they aren’t allowed to feel themselves breathe while others wallow in sheer self-indulgence of a religion that feeds their own hunger for emotional experience?
Who cares if there is no resurrection to life for the beaten, starved and defenceless children, butchered by machete-wielding brutes?
“Let’s all sit here in silence and feel our divinity.”
It’s interesting to me that the atheist Dennett and Ms. Winfrey end up at the same point—Godless and content that it should be so.
Hmmm.
Here lies the corrupt heart and rotting centre of all these synergistic religious movements—they’re designed to feed us who are already so well-fed (in every sense) that we’re bored witless.

This much is clear: Say "God" is your experience or that "God" is wishful thinking and you've sealed the doom of the multiplied millions of the plundered poor. Remember that when you sit down to worship your inner divinity and fix your mind on your breathing.

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.

From Jim McGuiggan... To hell with you!

"To hell with you!"

Is victory over death always sweet? Always! Though for some poor souls, wrestling in agony and too high strung, life is no prize to be cherished and death no enemy to be conquered. A host of our fellow-humans lie wishing for death, sometimes even begging for it and asking those that love them to wrench their lives from them. But it’s only the ill and those for whom life is indeed a crushing weight and utterly without discernible purpose—it’s only people like these that beg to be freed once and for all from the experience of living. (I grant that sometimes they’re made to feel that they are burdens on those that “love” them and that dying is the only decent thing to do.) All this is understandable and those that say they don’t grasp the reason for their fevered request should keep their mouths firmly shut about matters in this area. An iron horse would have enough feeling to have some grasp of a situation like that! Those for whom life is better than just tolerable and those for whom life is a glorious dance—these have no wish to die. And so it should be.
But victory over death is truly gained in and through resurrection. To win over death would have to mean more than surviving serious surgery or overcoming a major disease. For later, death would return and—whatever some silly people think—it will grasp them and take them with it to the “realm” of the dead. Only the word “resurrection” makes Death grow pale and only the reality of the word turns Death into a vapour that will finally vanish as if it had never been.
George Herbert knew what he was talking about. Here in one of his poems is his brief dialogue with death.
Christian: Alas, poor Death, where is thy glorie?
Where is thy famous force, thy ancient sting?

Death: Alas poore mortal, void of storie,
Go spell and read how I have kill’d thy King.

Christian: Poor Death! And who was hurt thereby?
Thy curse being laid on him, makes thee accurst.

Death: Let losers talk: yet thou shalt die;
These arms shall crush thee.

Christian: Spare not, do thy worst, I shall be one day better than before:
Thou so much worse, that you shalt be no more.

But that vibrant and glorious hope is only for those embraced in the redeeming work of the Death Destroyer. This galvanising truth is not the pathetic self-assuring thing offered by Hollywood movies, where the amoral or half-decent or self-sufficient have nothing to fear in death.There is everything to fear in Death for those who cheapened life and expelled from it any thought of God or the gospel or their fellow-humans.This promise of full and immortal life is always and only given as a gift in and through Jesus Christ and the life that is given will be lived out in Christ-imaging righteousness.
Hollywood lies when it says: “You have nothing to worry about because you have within you what it takes to beat death. The other side is a continuation of the partying you have come to know and love so well.”
And so, are we to settle for misery now in hope of a vibrant life in the future? I’ll grant that some believers are such misery-bound moaners that they shame the promises of scripture. And I’m well aware that hosts of believers have lived tortured lives of deeper level pain and loneliness; but ignoring the extremes, there’s more life in the weakest believer, more adventure and engagement with life, than in the masses of the beautiful bed-hopping people or the disco addicts that whirl like dervishes.
We watch the heroes in the Lord of the Rings as they battle their way through pain and loss and fear and uncertainty, with a stubborn refusal to bend to the enemy. We watch them, and it isn’t their misery that we’re taken with—it’s their mission. Fiction or no, we wish them well, admire their bravery, we wish to be like them and we rise to our feet inside to applaud their victory. And after that we should go back to our discos, booze, drugs, record-breaking and the trivia that we call life? Well, some will.
We believers believe in life before death! No one enjoys a well-cooked steak—if a steak is to be had—more than a free believer does! No one takes more pleasure than a free Christian when biting into a crisp apple or drinking a clear cold glass of clean water, or making passionate love to a husband or wife, or wrestling with kids and grandkids, or camping or trekking or climbing or the smell of fresh-baked bread—no one! Not any one! And these blessings taste better and are more pleasant because the believer knows they are part of the proof of something more wonderful than all these. World! You have nothing on us. We outlive you even if we out-suffer you. We outlive you, even now, because we have come to know the Death Killer and even now we sense the beginnings of immortality.
Ignoring the immediate context of Revelation 20:14 let me make use of the imagery. The entire section (chapters 20-22) is a description of God’s triumph over enemies aTo hell with you!"
Is victory over death always sweet? Always! Though for some poor souls, wrestling in agony and too high strung, life is no prize to be cherished and death no enemy to be conquered. A host of our fellow-humans lie wishing for death, sometimes even begging for it and asking those that love them to wrench their lives from them. But it’s only the ill and those for whom life is indeed a crushing weight and utterly without discernible purpose—it’s only people like these that beg to be freed once and for all from the experience of living. (I grant that sometimes they’re made to feel that they are burdens on those that “love” them and that dying is the only decent thing to do.) All this is understandable and those that say they don’t grasp the reason for their fevered request should keep their mouths firmly shut about matters in this area. An iron horse would have enough feeling to have some grasp of a situation like that! Those for whom life is better than just tolerable and those for whom life is a glorious dance—these have no wish to die. And so it should be.
But victory over death is truly gained in and through resurrection. To win over death would have to mean more than surviving serious surgery or overcoming a major disease. For later, death would return and—whatever some silly people think—it will grasp them and take them with it to the “realm” of the dead. Only the word “resurrection” makes Death grow pale and only the reality of the word turns Death into a vapour that will finally vanish as if it had never been.
George Herbert knew what he was talking about. Here in one of his poems is his brief dialogue with death.
Christian: Alas, poor Death, where is thy glorie?
Where is thy famous force, thy ancient sting?
Death: Alas poore mortal, void of storie,
Go spell and read how I have kill’d thy King.
Christian: Poor Death! And who was hurt thereby?
Thy curse being laid on him, makes thee accurst.
Death: Let losers talk: yet thou shalt die;
These arms shall crush thee.
Christian: Spare not, do thy worst, I shall be one day better than before:
Thou so much worse, that you shalt be no more.
But that vibrant and glorious hope is only for those embraced in the redeeming work of the Death Destroyer. This galvanising truth is not the pathetic self-assuring thing offered by Hollywood movies, where the amoral or half-decent or self-sufficient have nothing to fear in death.There is everything to fear in Death for those who cheapened life and expelled from it any thought of God or the gospel or their fellow-humans.This promise of full and immortal life is always and only given as a gift in and through Jesus Christ and the life that is given will be lived out in Christ-imaging righteousness.
Hollywood lies when it says: “You have nothing to worry about because you have within you what it takes to beat death. The other side is a continuation of the partying you have come to know and love so well.”
And so, are we to settle for misery now in hope of a vibrant life in the future? I’ll grant that some believers are such misery-bound moaners that they shame the promises of scripture. And I’m well aware that hosts of believers have lived tortured lives of deeper level pain and loneliness; but ignoring the extremes, there’s more life in the weakest believer, more adventure and engagement with life, than in the masses of the beautiful bed-hopping people or the disco addicts that whirl like dervishes.
We watch the heroes in the Lord of the Rings as they battle their way through pain and loss and fear and uncertainty, with a stubborn refusal to bend to the enemy. We watch them, and it isn’t their misery that we’re taken with—it’s their mission. Fiction or no, we wish them well, admire their bravery, we wish to be like them and we rise to our feet inside to applaud their victory. And after that we should go back to our discos, booze, drugs, record-breaking and the trivia that we call life? Well, some will.
We believers believe in life before death! No one enjoys a well-cooked steak—if a steak is to be had—more than a free believer does! No one takes more pleasure than a free Christian when biting into a crisp apple or drinking a clear cold glass of clean water, or making passionate love to a husband or wife, or wrestling with kids and grandkids, or camping or trekking or climbing or the smell of fresh-baked bread—no one! Not any one! And these blessings taste better and are more pleasant because the believer knows they are part of the proof of something more wonderful than all these. World! You have nothing on us. We outlive you even if we out-suffer you. We outlive you, even now, because we have come to know the Death Killer and even now we sense the beginnings of immortality.
Ignoring the immediate context of Revelation 20:14 let me make use of the imagery. The entire section (chapters 20-22) is a description of God’s triumph over enemies and the resulting triumph of his people. 20:14 in particular says, “Then Death and Hades [the "place" where the dead are] were thrown into the lake of fire!” These two figures are presented as two enemies of God’s people and their end is utter destruction in the lake of fire.
In the name of the resurrected, glorified and deathless Jesus the Christian’s final word to Death is this: “Death! To hell with you!”

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.nd the resulting triumph of his people. 20:14 in particular says, “Then Death and Hades [the "place" where the dead are] were thrown into the lake of fire!” These two figures are presented as two enemies of God’s people and their end is utter destruction in the lake of fire.
In the name of the resurrected, glorified and deathless Jesus the Christian’s final word to Death is this: “Death! To hell with you!”

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
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