JustJeff

God found fault with the Old Covenant in that it would tell people what was sin but it could not help them to stop sinning. The primary promises in Jer 31:31-34 are; God writes His laws in our hearts and minds, He will be God to us and we are His people, there is no need to be taught of Him for all know Him from the least to the greatest, and He is merciful to us in our unrighteousness and forgets our sins and iniquities.

For the first time I entered a response to a Christian blog from a major magizine, responding to an editorial about and article concerning the questionable finances of the pastors of a major church. My questions and response were all based upon scripture. Wow! Replies were all over the place. People were in support of prosperity messages, pastors living in the lap of luxury while others in the congregation lived in virtual poverty, complete lack of knowledge as to the Lord's walk, the Acts of the Apostles as to the standard by which our Christanity should be governed and on and on. Those who agreed with what I stated were slammed, insulted and literally abused, by supposed Christians. In all of this I have learned to speak my piece, give a retort if needed and walk away. It does no good to cast pearls begore swine and argue with people who have become heretics because of those false prophets who have led them astray.

Jesus became our mediator when He conquered death, hell and the grave and ascended to the right hand of God in heaven. In doing this He established the New Testament (covenant), that which contains far better promises than the Old, eg; eternity with Him in heaven. He is continually interceding for you and me, a go between us and the Father

"And the Lord God,...breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Gen 2:7). To me this illustrates the Spirit of God and how he operates. He comes into us and brings life to our souls. The Word is life and just as a vital organ, it is necessary for existence. So, how much closer can God be to us than living inside of us, by His Word and His Holy Spirit? In John 14:26 Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will teach us and remind us of His Word. Without the Holy Spirit we are doomed to ignorance in understanding God by the Word. Think of trying to read a book in Japanese and not speaking a word of the language.

In 1 Peter 4:11 the brother tells us that if any man speaks let them speak as the oracles of God. I see us as a people, who when led by the Holy Spirit, will be the voice for God in prophecy. That is, of course, during those times when we are in His will, submitting ourselves to Him. So then, as a ship is allowed to be driven by the wind so too are we when we give ourselves over to the Holy Spirit. It is He who will direct our thoughts and give us words to speak.

For me the Holy Bible are words of life the light my path through a sin darkened world. The word illuminates me by purifying me, cleansing me, sanctifying me and preparing me for the coming of the Lord. Darkness is sin and separation from God while light is freedom and a loving relationship with the Savior, the Holy Spirit and God the Father.

Our culture avoids the subject of death because there is no hope in God and eternal life. The only thing the world has is today and they live for it. A tent is a temporary structure which when used and is done with can be put away. The occupent is free from the confines of the tent. Our bodies are just temporary vessels for our soul and when we die, we are freed from the corruptible flesh. When we are done with our tents, and it is indeed refreshing to know that those who are dead in Christ will be with Him forever more, we are free. As did the Jews have their exodus from the bondage of Egypt so too will we have our exodus from this filthy world. Thank you Jesus!

Jesus is perfect, in spirit and in flesh. No priest on earth can make that claim. As such I am fully pursuaded that nothing can separate me from the confidence I have in my Savior, Lord and Master.

Our whole being should be a reflection of the character and nature of the Lord. Above all things, His demeanor draws people to Him, through us. As we are called to walk as He walked and to walk worthy of our calling it is apparent that the Father has this expectation of us and our salvation hinges upon it. Luke 3:8-9 and John 15:3-4. In the first John the Immerser tells us to bring forth our sinful fuit and repent of it, while in the latter, the Lord tells us that we need to depend upon him to produce good fruit, spiritual growth. Coupled together these scriptures offer the hearer much to think about in terms of giving Jesus a chance.

In my case I live with my brothers and church members and since I do, or we do, we are all exposed to one anothers idiosyncrasies, you know, those strange little personal habits that we pick up during ours lives. I don't believe that I am imagining anything when I say it is more difficult to love church members than offer the same agape love to strangers. Strangers are more often than not a fleeting moment in one's walk, an opportunity presented by the Lord to plant good seed. Family members (the body of Christ) on the other hand help us to mature by revealling our faults to each other, and by giving us the ability to allow the Holy Spirit to teach us to overcome those faults and establish lifetime relationships. At the same time, our brothers and sisters are able to help us to see our own infirmities that are often blinded by pride so that we too can be overcomers. We grow together.

As our High Priest forever the Lord is ever present before the Father, interceding for us during the entire course of our lifetime. He is able to bring us to perfection in this manner. It is the obligation of the priest to pray, or intercede on our behalf as he is called to be the intermediator between we and the Lord (the Holy Spirit also being in that capacity) by their role as shepherds. This relates to the High Priest being the only one allowed into the Especially Holy Place. A singular calling for this person. So is the priest called to pray for the flock, corporately or individually. It is the essence of the commission.

I have developed a healthy fear of the Lord. I believe that He takes my vows seriously and therefore I am committed to seeing them through. One such vow is my commitment to devotion time with Him. As such I have becomed disciplined over the years to not forget and to always make time, no matter the hour. As a disciple, God is first and the Holy Spirit keeps me tune in to the fact that my life is hid with Him. I am His, bought and paid for on the cross. What He says I do.

A guarantee is that the debt will be paid by the guarantor. Jesus paid the debt for our sin on calvary and as our High Priest He continually intercedes on our behalf. Thus He is the final sacrifice and the last High Priest, fulfilling the Old Covenant and paying the guarantee due on the New.

Jesus is our shelter in a time of storm, a place of refuge that weas Christians have run to for salvation. We grab onto this hope because it is the basis of our faith and we build upon it as we grow closer to the Lord and increase in Spirit. This hope is not a wish for something to come true. This hope is God's word that He will give us eternal life with Him and the Son, and that we will be together for evermore. By throwing this anchor of hope into our hearts we are grabbing hold of the promise, not to be driven away by the winds of change, religion, false doctrines, the world, the flesh and the devil.

Knowledge has been the easiest of virues for me as I truly enjoy the Word of God and gaining intimacy with Him by it. The most difficult has been self-control, food in particular. I believe it is because I have given my life over to the Lord as a full time servant. He has delivered me from addictions, many addictions. As a result I deny things that I know are sinful to me such as sex, alcohol, cigarettes, Sunday activities that I do not consider holy, et al. That leaves me with food, for which there is a bountiful amount as my church is a registered social service agency that helps people 24/7 and the food flows in. In answer to prayer, this question came up and convicted me. Please pray that I have the strength to get self -control in this area. Thank you.

Strong desires can erode our faith by supplanting God as first in our lives. Seeking the Kingdom of God and it's righteousness should be our foremost desire. Doing so will add other desires, like prayer, praise, worship, study, works, fellowship, et al. By doing all of these our knowledge of the Lord will most certainly increase as these are His acts that we are desireous of and in doing, we become more like Him. God's promises are designed to build our faith and increase our desire to do good as opposed to evil things that we desire which make us live for the day and lose sight of our blessed hope. That will destroy our faith.

Faith and patience. Great faith is built upon longsuffering. The more that we go through, the more we learn to depend upon the Lord. Over the long haul, our entire earthly pilgrimage, we gain knowledge of how He raises us, increasing our intimacy with God which adds height and depth to our perceptions of Him. We should always bear in mind that it is by grace that we are saved and not of any works that we can do.

My answer to all of the above is complete awe, an inabilty to realize the full magnitude of the Creator having anything at all to do with me, joy and yet sorrow that I am by no means the humble person that I should be for of all of what God Almighty has given me.

Apostacy is abandoning the faith and the doctrine from which it is built upon. Peter wrote in 2 Peter 2:20-22 of the disaster that will fall upon those who return to their worldly ways. Once a person does go back to their old nature a number of things that occur make it impossible to return to the Lord: 1. People who have turned away from the faith develope ill feelings toward God, who they often blame for their failures in being unable to go through the fire and grow spiritually. 2. Many simply cannot or are unwilling to crucify the flesh and once entangled back in a sinful lifestyle they simply do not want to give it up. 3. Shame. Often quitters are to ashamed to live up to their error and too proud to rejoin the flock. 4. False doctrine causes many to fail because it is false and does not work. As a result people often turn to other religions or, cults. In the two parables Jesus is declaring that there are still other reasons why we lose so many, namely, the devil, always at work amongst us, the above mention fire or persecution and worldly desires. Then there are the tares. Those whose only intention is to destroy the body of Christ by causing gossip, backbiting, slander and accusations to bring about strife. As the church grows their motives soon become obvious and the Lord moves them out.

Our God is Jehovah Jireh, our God Provider. He gives us everything we need, materially and spiritually. We lack fo nothing. To realize the fullness of His benefits we must know His character and nature which we find in His word where we learn intimacy with the Lord. We then see that He provides all of our needs, not our wants. Accepting that is where the godliness part comes in.

Personally, I'm not aware of a conflict in these scriptures since I am not familiar with either religious opinion. I feel that the heavenly gift that the writer is referring to is God's grace, which becomes visible to us when we walk with Him through His word, illuminated by the Holy Spirit. Since Christians are Christian no matter the age we live in there is no difference between then and now. By the way, this letter was written to Jewish believers or wannabes so it would be somewhat shallow to refer this to Christians only as Jewish believers are Messianic Jews. With that in mind, the writer is going to great lengths to establish Jesus as the new covenant, the final sacrifice and the last High Priest. It would seem that whoever wrote this letter is trying to gain closure and final acceptance of that fact, addressing the penalty for turning back on God which, historically, the Jews are notorius for doing (see the Old Testament).

To become mature in God's word you have to walk the walk, talk the talk and do the do. As Brother James said; "Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only,..." (Jas 1:22). To grow into a mature Christian you need to be a church, 24/7. Today, Sunday, May 27, is Pentecost. It is also a Global Day of prayer. Let us join 176 nations across the world in praying for the world's needs. And, let us celebrate the greatest gift of all. The memorial of our Lord Jesus' sacrifice and the gift of the Holy Ghost that He gave to us thereby.

God has given us a gift of unparaleled value, one to be beloved, faith. This gift, which is identical to that which Brother Peter was given is available to all as the Lord Himself stated that we are all born with a seed of faith which He likened to a tiny mustard seed. While because of the many miracles that Peter did and the fact that he walked with the Lord, it may seem that Peter was gifted with greater faith than we. Not so. Peter simply was exercising his faith which he learned to do through many trials. We too, after we go through our trials, can have such faith. It's just a matter of not sinking into a sea of doubt.

In this instance, Jesus has been made complete as in entire, as to being devine and human, still without spot or blemish, having had the full benefit of all of the trials of a man. For this reason He is the ideal judge and mediator having the entire perspective of flesh and spirit. He has attained the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

When one suffers for God we are crucifying the flesh. As we stay the course, through the pain, we grow and are obedient. It is called experience which is what Jesus gained. The difference in Jesus' suffering as to ours is that He is a holy God and the stench of sin is an abomination to Him. It makes Him sick to His stomach. I can't imagine the pain of having to live in this world and then taking all of our sins upon Himself. We on the other hand seem to tolerate sin quite nicely. A huge difference indeed.