Much of the time, I have people who are not Christian or anti-religion ask me why we clam to love but show so much hate. They see us teaching about sin as teaching hate.
Setting in church today made me think about what the advent candles means are. first Sunday of Advent represents "Hope", second week represents "Piece", third week represents "Joy" and the forth week "love".
Hope represents the hope we have for the world, to come to our Lord and Savior. Hope for people to come to repentance and moving to change their lives controlled by sin to a life in Christ working in them to over come sin.
Piece represents what we find when we come to know our Lord and Savior. It represents what one can find through a relationship with God through his son Jesus.
Joy is for all those that have come to Christ and are part of his body, sharing what they have found in Christ.
Love is what one finds and feels as part of the body of Christ, and why we share Jesus with those that come and ask us why? or what? or How?
But there is a fifth white candle in the middle, that is lite on Christmas Eve service, which represents Christ him self as he was pure, without sin, and is why he was able to pay the price for our sins with his death.
But the journey isn't always easy, and sometimes we have to learn that we are sinning, and what we need to change in our life. It isn't hate to teach someone what sin is, it is out of love we teach, as God wants a relationship but our sins separate us from him. We need to know what it is we need forgiveness for.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Workers Together
Our adult Sunday school lesson ended today with this statement, “We are to be “workers together” with Christ, rebuilding lives, relationships, values, and communities.”
When the Bible/God talks to people in the old testament, who is He talking to? Israel or those that were following him at the time, Noah, Abraham, and on, until the the people of Israel became a nation in the promise land. God was always talking to his people, and by through his prophets many times to nations around his people. But he was not telling the world as a hole how to live, he was wanting the world to learn from seeing his people following him.
In the new testament God spoke to his disciples and made it hard or impossible for those not called to follow him to understand. So when he speaks, he is speaking to his people, either of old or now under the new covenant which was made and sealed by Christ's blood on the cross. So when we read the Word of God it is to us, not to those that are not following him.
When God started out with Israel, he gave Israel mandates, laws, ordinances, and commandments. He did this for us today to learn from. He showed us that we can not solve the problems of the world by mandates laws, because the world will always walk away from God and will do what isn't right.
We can say that murder is against God's law but law for who? Israel which God set up with a law, which couldn't and wouldn't follow? You could say that God would want us to mandate laws for society to follow and against such things as murder. And the world does create laws.
But we need to look at those area's we are told, in the statement from our study lesson from today, “rebuilding lives, relationships, values, and communities”. When we do these, we are doing it with people, but they are people coming out of the world and coming to God through Christ, as they will only be able to rebuild their lives with his help. In the process, they learn about the relationship that God wants with them, and they start building that relationship with God, which is a large part of rebuilding their lives. As they learn, we should teach them values, it is within the body of Christ the church, that this is done, not outside in the world, as the world has no desire to follow God.
The last word here needs more look at it. I live in Bloomfield Iowa, is that the community it is talking about? Is the state of Iowa or even the nation of the US the community we need to be considering here? Not at all. The community we relate to here is the Church, the community of believers not the world around us. The statement came from a study of Haggai, and it was related to the nation of Israel which at the time was God's people, not another later nation within the world that considers to be by a large portion of it's population to be a Christian nation which it isn't.
If God wanted a nation, he had one. What he wants is a people from all nations to love him with their hole hearts and to love their neighbor as themselves. His nation is no longer of this world, we are told we are just ambassadors to this world from God's. He doesn't want us to attempt to mandate our morals or beliefs on the world, God should us in Israel of old it wouldn't work already. He wants a people to come to him and willingly obey him.
One of the pet area's my pastor likes to bring up is that abortion is murder and it should be outlawed. I would agree, and in a perfect world lead by God it would be. But the world out there isn't a perfect world and says no. They say no to many things that should be against the law, and are against God's Law! They will always do this even up to the end of this world. Pastor used a verse that says (paraphrased) “that God new you before you were in your mothers womb”. Who did he know? The one he was working with, and many times God worked out protection for those he was going to use, by protecting them from the world that wanted to kill them. Why would the world want to do that, because the supernatural leader of this world is not God himself as yet, but the one God sent here after his attempt to over throw God at his throne, Satan! Satan has worked to prevent God's plan from the beginning, not knowing he was not preventing but furthering it all along.
God through prophets prophesied that the offspring boys of Israel would die, yet he would protect the one who would delivered them from Egypt and out of slavery. Moses should have been put to death, but his mother thought better than to allow him to be killed and placed him in God's hands and God rescued Moses by way of the Pharaohs daughter. Many baby boys died in Israel at the hands of the Pharaohs soldiers.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, there was a prophesy of the slaying of the children of Bethlehem, and Herod ordered the murder of all boy children under the age of two years old, God used it but also protected the on he was going to us, his own son, by telling Joseph to to flee from there to Egypt. If God was so concerned over the murder of incest children, he could of inspired someone to prevent it or make a law to out law that at that time. God hasn't prevented abortions and will use it as well for his purpose one day.
And another thought, God commanded Joshua to have Israel kill every living thing in one of the cities they were to take. Not even to allow the women or children to live. Put to death all, so women that were pregnant at the time were killed. Children of all ages were killed. No one was allowed to live. And one time, when they were allowed to take spoils of war, he commanded that only the virgins and children under a certain age to be kept, and the rest were to put to death, women and boys over a certain age.
Sure we live in a world during a time that is doing many things that God would dislike, but he hasn't put us here to make them kneel to God's will, but to be an example so they would willingly kneel to God, through His son Jesus Christ.
So our focus within the statement I quoted at the beginning isn't to do this to the world or our worldly community around us, but to do it within the community of God we are a part of, our church body.
When the Bible/God talks to people in the old testament, who is He talking to? Israel or those that were following him at the time, Noah, Abraham, and on, until the the people of Israel became a nation in the promise land. God was always talking to his people, and by through his prophets many times to nations around his people. But he was not telling the world as a hole how to live, he was wanting the world to learn from seeing his people following him.
In the new testament God spoke to his disciples and made it hard or impossible for those not called to follow him to understand. So when he speaks, he is speaking to his people, either of old or now under the new covenant which was made and sealed by Christ's blood on the cross. So when we read the Word of God it is to us, not to those that are not following him.
When God started out with Israel, he gave Israel mandates, laws, ordinances, and commandments. He did this for us today to learn from. He showed us that we can not solve the problems of the world by mandates laws, because the world will always walk away from God and will do what isn't right.
We can say that murder is against God's law but law for who? Israel which God set up with a law, which couldn't and wouldn't follow? You could say that God would want us to mandate laws for society to follow and against such things as murder. And the world does create laws.
But we need to look at those area's we are told, in the statement from our study lesson from today, “rebuilding lives, relationships, values, and communities”. When we do these, we are doing it with people, but they are people coming out of the world and coming to God through Christ, as they will only be able to rebuild their lives with his help. In the process, they learn about the relationship that God wants with them, and they start building that relationship with God, which is a large part of rebuilding their lives. As they learn, we should teach them values, it is within the body of Christ the church, that this is done, not outside in the world, as the world has no desire to follow God.
The last word here needs more look at it. I live in Bloomfield Iowa, is that the community it is talking about? Is the state of Iowa or even the nation of the US the community we need to be considering here? Not at all. The community we relate to here is the Church, the community of believers not the world around us. The statement came from a study of Haggai, and it was related to the nation of Israel which at the time was God's people, not another later nation within the world that considers to be by a large portion of it's population to be a Christian nation which it isn't.
If God wanted a nation, he had one. What he wants is a people from all nations to love him with their hole hearts and to love their neighbor as themselves. His nation is no longer of this world, we are told we are just ambassadors to this world from God's. He doesn't want us to attempt to mandate our morals or beliefs on the world, God should us in Israel of old it wouldn't work already. He wants a people to come to him and willingly obey him.
One of the pet area's my pastor likes to bring up is that abortion is murder and it should be outlawed. I would agree, and in a perfect world lead by God it would be. But the world out there isn't a perfect world and says no. They say no to many things that should be against the law, and are against God's Law! They will always do this even up to the end of this world. Pastor used a verse that says (paraphrased) “that God new you before you were in your mothers womb”. Who did he know? The one he was working with, and many times God worked out protection for those he was going to use, by protecting them from the world that wanted to kill them. Why would the world want to do that, because the supernatural leader of this world is not God himself as yet, but the one God sent here after his attempt to over throw God at his throne, Satan! Satan has worked to prevent God's plan from the beginning, not knowing he was not preventing but furthering it all along.
God through prophets prophesied that the offspring boys of Israel would die, yet he would protect the one who would delivered them from Egypt and out of slavery. Moses should have been put to death, but his mother thought better than to allow him to be killed and placed him in God's hands and God rescued Moses by way of the Pharaohs daughter. Many baby boys died in Israel at the hands of the Pharaohs soldiers.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, there was a prophesy of the slaying of the children of Bethlehem, and Herod ordered the murder of all boy children under the age of two years old, God used it but also protected the on he was going to us, his own son, by telling Joseph to to flee from there to Egypt. If God was so concerned over the murder of incest children, he could of inspired someone to prevent it or make a law to out law that at that time. God hasn't prevented abortions and will use it as well for his purpose one day.
And another thought, God commanded Joshua to have Israel kill every living thing in one of the cities they were to take. Not even to allow the women or children to live. Put to death all, so women that were pregnant at the time were killed. Children of all ages were killed. No one was allowed to live. And one time, when they were allowed to take spoils of war, he commanded that only the virgins and children under a certain age to be kept, and the rest were to put to death, women and boys over a certain age.
Sure we live in a world during a time that is doing many things that God would dislike, but he hasn't put us here to make them kneel to God's will, but to be an example so they would willingly kneel to God, through His son Jesus Christ.
So our focus within the statement I quoted at the beginning isn't to do this to the world or our worldly community around us, but to do it within the community of God we are a part of, our church body.
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