8/12/13

From Gary... Off to a great start???




Why?  Why would someone make such a creepy cake? I don't have an answer, but just look at the cake. The wife still has her arms open, so she probably didn't do the deed; so who did?  A former someone who just couldn't take the marriage; maybe even an inlaw who really didn't want him in the family.  I suppose it could be any one of a thousand reasons, but to me the most likely is that someone just wanted to be different and make a "statement" at their wedding reception.   If this is true- what a marriage they are going to have!!!  Its hard not to look at this and not think of the following passage of Scripture...

Ephesians, Chapter 5
22  Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  23 For the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ also is the head of the assembly, being himself the savior of the body.  24 But as the assembly is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own husbands in everything. 

Love, respect and marriage.  Necessary, important and appropriate even today.  Christ gave everything for his followers and they owe him everything.  So it is in the marriage relationship.  God gave leadership to the husband and not to the wife.  However, this is a LOVING LEADERSHIP!!!  Anything less leads to disharmony and eventual chaos.  Hopefully, the wedding cake was just a joke (a very poor one, though) and both parties to the union have the others best interest at heart!!!!  Men, take note- remember to give her leadership that is based on genuine committed love!!! If not, you are headed for BIG TROUBLE!!!  

From Jim McGuiggan... Keep a civil tongue in your head!


Keep a civil tongue in your head!

I’m disappointed in myself when I see clearly (for I don’t always see clearly or remember what I’ve seen) that I swing like a pendulum from one extreme to another. I may go from a weak-kneed indulgence with sinners to a flinty hardness or from dismissing knowledge of God as close to "optional" to being virtually everything. You get my point. I can see this pendulum syndrome better in others. Somehow my vision improves when I’m eyeballing others. It’s funny that. Well, one of the things that hacks me off is the Christian (I’m generalising) capacity for jumping on bandwagons, for gorging on what’s new on the religious menu and for coming out dressed in the latest garments of piety.
The issue is complex so I’m not pretending I have it all worked out—the simple things often baffle me—but I have to confess a strong feeling about the matter. I think that over this past generation we’ve become too "understanding" with others and ourselves. It can be one...rugged...life and it’s only to be expected that we’ll get fed up with it and wonder why "the Great Underachiever" in the sky isn’t making it better. When I speak of a rugged life I’m not talking about the vast majority of us (at least in the Western world). No, I’m talking about those among us that have good reason to think that their lives are very hard. It isn’t surprising that they protest before God. Who’ll stand up, in his or her fine clothes in his or her fine house with his or her fine family and with his or her mouth full of fine food, and point the finger at such people and call them whiners? (May they trip and spill their home made ice-cream on their fine carpet if they do. That’ll give them something to whine about—and they might.) Besides, didn’t Job rattle on about his troubles and who’ll call him a wimp?
But it’s right there that I feel my pulse speed up. The way some teachers and preachers talk and write you’d think that the book of Job was written to encourage us to insult God. Whatever else it was meant to do, it wasn’t written to teach us to slander the Holy Father. I’ve mentioned this to a number of people and relatively few have owned up to saying such a thing about the book. Well, fair enough, I haven’t heard anyone put it quite that way but I think I’ve heard one that took Job to task, even while he understood the pressure Job was under. The rest that have expressed an opinion in this area and about the Joban connection seem to think that if you don’t really turn on God and put him in the screws that your faith isn’t "authentic". It’s the mark, don’t you see, of authentic faith that you keep nothing back, that you pour out the bile and insult God.
One fine man insisted that this was the case though he did acknowledge that "it’s better to keep a civil tongue in your head." But why is it "better" to keep a civil tongue in your head? If authentic is better and without the slashing criticism of God we lack authentic faith, why is it better to keep a civil tongue in our heads?
We’re offered the extremes of Joban criticism (that at times is insult and slander) or the grovelling and crawling submission that is pathetic. (A Western world in its quest for authentic "freedom" and their "rights" might despise that mode of life above all else.) We’re offered as a model a hurting man that sometimes spoke in thankless libel or a tortured soul that is too filled with fear of God to breathe a word of protest, one that thinks she must like a whipped mongrel mutter, "It’s the will of God." The book of Job forever obliterates the notion that God demands that his children grovel. But why only these two extremes?
Does anyone really find it difficult to understand someone under terrible stress, hotly protesting before God? I doubt it! There’s no need for us to apologise for understanding their irritation or frustration directed toward God. But to so speak and teach that people come to think that they’re only true believers if they take a swipe at God every other day—now that’s something else. Worse, to give those who shoulder their burdens and protest little or none—to give them the impression that they’re really gutless wimps and that they lack authentic faith, that’s a damned lie! A pox on such talk! Is there no 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 in the NT? Is there no Garden of Gethsemane in the Gospels? No Habakkuk chapter 3?
Does it not sometimes sicken you to hear this individualist lust for "freedom" and self-expression dress itself up as scripture teaching that requires people to have an "authentic uncivil tongue" in their heads?
God isn’t brittle and he won’t break if we insult him; but let’s not pretend that insult and slander is really what God wants to nurture in us. That’s not what the book of Job was written for.

©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 Mark Copeland... Keeping The Commandments Of God (1 Corinthians 7:19)



                 "THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS"

                 Keeping The Commandments Of God (7:19)

INTRODUCTION

1. The idea of "commandment-keeping" is not a popular one among many
   people today...
   a. Some equate it with what they call "legalism"
   b. Others look at keeping any kind of commandment as an unpleasant
      task
      1) Perhaps a carry-over from childhood?
      2) Where they feel like they were constantly being "commanded" to
         do things?

2. Yet keeping the commandments of God should not be looked upon by
   Christians in this way...

   "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping
   the commandments of God is what matters." (1Co 7:19)

[In this lesson, I want us to consider some things about keeping the
commandments of God, which I hope will change any adverse feelings we
may have towards doing so...]

I. WHAT IS THE PROPER ATTITUDE TOWARD COMMANDMENT-KEEPING?

   A. IT SHOULD NOT BE ONE OF "LEGALISM"...
      1. Legalism is that idea that one earns or merits salvation by
         their obedience
      2. Such an attitude would be wrong on the part of Christians - Ti
         3:3-7
      3. Unfortunately, many react to legalism by going to the extreme
         of saying keeping commandments is not important
      4. Yet Paul, whom none could accuse of being a legalist, penned
         the words of our text!

   [Here is a different perspective, based on two verses that start out
   like our text, but end differently...]

   B. THINK OF IT AS "FAITH WORKING THROUGH LOVE"...
      1. Compare 1Co 7:19 with Ga 5:6
      2. Cannot keeping the commandments of God be an expression of
         "faith working love"?
         a. By keeping the commandments I demonstrate my faith - Jm 2:
            14-18
         b. By keeping the commandments I show my love
            1) To Jesus - Jn 14:15; 15:14
            2) To God - 1Jn 5:3
            3) To the children of God - 1Jn 5:2
      3. Thought of in this way, keeping the commandments of God is very
         important!

   C. THINK OF IT AS PRODUCING "A NEW CREATION"...
      1. Compare 1Co 7:19 with Ga 6:15
      2. Cannot keeping the commandments be thought of as helping to
         produce a "new creation"?
         a. Becoming a new creation is a blessing we enjoy by being in
            Christ - 2Co 5:17
         b. But to enjoy this blessing involves keeping certain
            commandments...
            1) For example, baptism to receive Christ - cf. Ga 3:27
            2) Also, putting off and putting on qualities to become like
               Christ - cf. Col 3:5-17
      3. Again, when we think of keeping the commandments of God as
         necessary to become a new creation in Christ, then it becomes
         very important!

[This I believe is the proper attitude toward "commandment-keeping":

* A demonstration of our faith and love!

* Part of the process by which we can become a new creation in Christ!

But is "commandment-keeping" hard, laborious?  Is it something
unpleasant...?]

II. IS COMMANDMENT-KEEPING A DIFFICULT TASK?

   A. NOT ACCORDING TO THOSE WHO HAVE DONE IT LONGEST...!
      1. Like the apostle John - 1Jn 5:3
      2. I strongly suspect that if you were to ask some of our elderly
         saints, that they would concur with both John and the psalmist
         - Ps 119:129-136

   B. THE HARDEST PART IS DECIDING TO DO IT...!
      1. Laboring over whether to make a decision is often harder than
         carrying it out
      2. For example, keeping commandments given by parents to children
         a. E.g., to clean the room, take out the garbage
         b. The hardest part is making the decision to do it willingly
         c. Once that is done, the "chore" really isn't one!
      3. The same is true with keeping the commandments of God (e.g.,
         baptism)

   C. IT IS MADE EASY FOR US WITH THE HELP OF GOD AND CHRIST...!
      1. God will protect and provide as we try to keep His commandments
         - 1Co 10:13
         a. Protect you from what you are unable to overcome
         b. Provide you with ways of escape for that which you do face
      2. Yes, we are not alone as we try to keep the commandments of God
         - Php 2:12-13; 4:13
      3. Even if forsaken by all others in times of greatest need, God
         is still there! - 2Ti 4:16-18

CONCLUSION

1. But such blessings, and such assurance of faith, comes only to those
   who like Paul live as though "keeping the commandments of God is what
   matters"!

2. How important is keeping the commandments of God...?
   a. It is essential to receiving mercy from God - Ps 103:15-18; Mt 7:
      21-23
   b. It is essential to receiving the love and the abiding presence of
      God - Jn 14:21,23
   c. It is essential to having our prayers answered - 1Jn 3:22

Dear friends and brethren, are you keeping the commandments of God?


Executable Outlines, Copyright © Mark A. Copeland, 2011

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