Blasphemer

Leviticus 24:15 - "15 Say to the Israelites: ‘Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; 16 anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death."

A couple of weeks ago, I was standing in one of the classrooms in the Children's Church area in the church chatting with a guy.  In the middle of our conversation he used the Lord's Name in vain.  It made me do a double take, but knowing that this individual was a fairly new believer and still maturing in his faith, I chocked it off to a lack of knowledge concerning spiritual things. Yet, I still found it hard to believe that someone would not know that using God's name in a profane way is wrong. 

According to the scripture above, this individual can be thankful that he lives under God's grace and not under God's law.  Thank God that Jesus came and died for our sins, past, present and future, and set us free from the law of sin and death or we would have been having a party where thisd individual would be getting stoned and not in a way that people get stoned today. 

But, aren't all of us worthy of being stoned for all of us have violated God's law in one way or another.  Thank God that we live under God's grace and mercy and Jesus' blood cleanses us from all sin. Thak God that Jesus took our place.

Today would you take a moment and give God thanks for his grace and mercy.  Would you offer a pray of thanksgiving that all of your sins have been forgiven and that you stand justified in His sight.  It is a beautiful thing to know that we are in right standing with God and that no parties will be thrown in our behalf.

Distinguishing Between the Clean and the Unclean!

Leviticus 10:10 "... so that you can distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean..."

Why is this such a challenge for many people today..."distinguishing between the holy and the common, the clean and unclean."
We want to skirt the issue and act like the rules do not apply to us.

• We have people living together (not married) and coming to church and acting or believing that everything is alright between them and Jesus when the scripture makes it absolutely clear that fornication is a sin and that sin will be judged.
• We have married couples going through divorce and showing up to church with another man or woman on their arm and even flaunting an engagement ring while still legally married to the other person and yet the don't see anything morally or ethically wrong with their actions.
• We have individuals belly-up to the bar on Saturday night, going home drunk and showing up to church on Sunday morning sporting a hang-over and trying to serve Jesus in their arena of ministry.
• We have people who call themselves Christians who smoke, get drunk, cuss, chew, view pornography, abuse their wives and children, cheat on their taxes, and the list goes on and on...

In these verses of scripture, God calls us to distinguish between the holy and the common, the clean and unclean. If our life is not changed because of our relationship with Christ, they what difference is there between us and a common sinner who does not know Christ. Paul made it clear that "if any man has come to Christ, old things pass away and all things become new" but if there is no newness have we really come to Christ?

If there is no difference between the sinner and the saint, then how will the world ever see how Jesus can make a difference in their lives? If we continue to be like everyone else in the world and yet claim to be a Christian, too, isn't that a contradiction. Light and darkness cannot occupy the same space.

I know this is hard today, but I love you enough to tell you the truth.  And, on my watch, that is what I intend to do, tell the truth.  We need to continually ask our self, “What Would Jesus Do?” If you and I will ask him that question, we will probably make some very needed changes in our life.

Keep Watch!

Matthew 24: 42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into."

There is much speculation as to when the Lord might come. We have all heard the multiple prophecies and have seen the dates come and go and we might get the feeling that all is well and we have plenty of time. Of course, that might be true for no man knows the day or the hour when Jesus is coming, but the words of Jesus still ring true. KEEP WATCH!

The truth to stay focused on is not when he is coming, but the fact that He is coming.  KEEP WATCH! He tells us to keep focused on Him for when we least expect He will arrive.  Keeping watch is more than just reminding ourselves that He might come today, even though that is important.

•Keeping watch means that I keep my heart right, I stay away from anything that might hinder or slow down my walk with Him. 
•Keeping watch means that i stay connected to Him through prayer and the study of His word. 
•Keeping watch means that I stay connected with other believers so we can strengthen and encourage one another. 
•Keeping watch means that I am faithful to God's house and go in weekly for instruction in His Word.
•Keeping watch means that I keep my attitude right and I love at all times,.
•Keeping watch means that I support the work of God financially with my generous giving so that God's Word can continue to be spread around the world...

KEEP WATCH!  If you haven't been doing so, today would be a good day to start.

Friend of God

Exodus 33: 8 And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. 9 As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. 10 Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. 11 The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.

There is such power in prayer.  When Moses would go into the tent to meet with God, God's presence in the form of a cloud would cover the top of the tent.  It is called the Glory of God.  While in the tent, Moses and God would speak as friends.  The would talk face to face.

That is the same relationship we have with God.  The Word tells us that "Jesus is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."  We can go into His presence and talk with Him, face to face, as one friends talks to another.  We should not make prayer so complicated.  If we have a friend, we call tell him or her anything, or we should be able to if they are a true frined who loves us unconditionally.

Jesus loves us unconditionally.  He knows all about us...he knows everything we have ever done or ever will do and He still loves us and calls us friends.  The Bible tells us that "while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us."  And it also says, "No greater loves has any man than this, that he would lay down His life for His friends."  And, Jesus laid down His life for us. 

YOU ARE A FRIEND OF GOD!  Walk in that truth...walk in that knowledge today and make a decision to spend some time with your friend.

The Last Shall Be First

Matthew 19: 28 "Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

 

 

I shared in church on Sunday that serving Jesus requires sacrifice. This thing called Christianity is no walk in the part. Don't kid yourself into thinking that it is easy, for it is not. To be a true disciple means that you have to give up a lot of things. We aren't like everyone else and cannot have the same attitude and mentality as everyone else. Jesus said we must "deny ourselves daily, take up our cross and follow Him."

 

Daily denial! I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like any fun at all! And, if we life a life of daily denial, cross bearing and following of Jesus, we have to forgo many of the worlds pleasures that everyone else enjoys. Make no mistake about it, sin is pleasurable. The Bible makes that clear for it says that "sin in pleasureable...for a season." But that season will come to an end and we will "reap what we sow."

 

We have choices to make. We can either walk in the Light or we can walk in the darkness but each choice has consequences. " If we walk in the Light as Jesus is in the Light, we have fellowship with Him." If we walk in the darkness, then the opposite is true...there is no fellowship for what fellowship does light have with darkness. So that brings me to my point.

 

If we choose to walk in the light, Jesus makes it clear that we really don't give up anything. He says that all that we have given up in this life will be returned to us a hundred fold. That is 10,000 times as much as we let go of and the beauty is that which we receive in eternal rewards remains ours forever and ever. What we gain in this life is fleeting and temporary yet I find it ironic that we hold on to it so tightly.

 

Today, you have a choice. You can gain it all or lose it all. Which do you choose?

Can We Be Astounded?

Proverbs 24: 30 I went past the field of a sluggard,

past the vineyard of someone who has no sense;

31 thorns had come up everywhere,
the ground was covered with weeds,
and the stone wall was in ruins.
32 I applied my heart to what I observed
and learned a lesson from what I saw:
33 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest—
34 and poverty will come on you like a thief
and scarcity like an armed man.

Thomas Edison made the following quote…

Very few people work at full capacity. Very few give it all they got!  And, because of that, we get out of life what we put in.  We are the tenders of our own garden and how much fruit we produce is in proportion to the effort we put in.  It is not bad luck or the economy or the signs of the times or someone else’s fault that we are where we are in life.  It is our fault.  We are reaping what we have sown or have not sown whichever be the case.

But it can all change!  If I change it will change, if you change it will change.  Which decision will you choose? A little sleep, a little slumber or doing more that you that you were capable of doing?

A Threat to the Enemy

As the Israelites became more and more blessed while they were in Egypt, more and more sons and daughters were born to them and the word says they filled the whole land. This increase threatened the new Pharoah and he put the Israelites into slavery and determined to kill all the new sons born to Israelite women.

That is just the way it is, when we begin to experience God's favor and blessing, as the church begins to grow and more and more families are added to our ranks, the enemy rises us and tries to stop what God is doing. Trials and troubles come our way and try to steal the blessings of God. Some people leave the church and we become discouraged because of it, but Jesus talked about this in Matthew 13 when he talked about seed being sown and how it fell on different types of soil.

Matthew 13: "He hs the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.20 The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 22 The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. 23 But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."


Jesus makes it clear that there are different types of people in the Kingdom of God. Some people are have no real grounding in the Word and are spiritually immature and they don't last long. Because they have no strong roots in the Kingdom, when trials and troubles come, they get discouraged and quidkly fall away.

 

Others are way too concerned about the things of this world and the worries of life and the allurement of this worlds wealth keeps them from getting a strong footing and the Word of God does not take hold in their life because they are too attatched to this world and they are unfruitful.

But others, the hear the Word and they understand it and they apply it to theif life and they gain a strong footing in Jesus and they are blessed and they are fruitful and they multiply.

So what do we do, we keep throwing seed. We keep planting the Word into peoples lives and they choose how they want to accept it. The people choose if they want to grow in Christ or not. They choose if they want one foot in the world and the other in the Word. But eventually, the Word will continue to fall on good soil and the church will continue to grow and mnultiply and we'll keep trowing seeds.

Build Bigger Nets

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Genesis 48: 15Then he blessed Joseph and said,

“May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully,

the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, 16 the Angel who has delivered me from all harm

—may he bless these boys.

May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,

and may they increase greatly on the earth.”

Consistently throughout the Old Testament you will see the leader of the household conveying a blessing on his sons. In the case of Israel, the blessing contained and promise of increase. Over and over you would hear the head of the household say "I am going multiply you as numerous as the stars in the heavens" or "as numerous as the sands of the sea." In this verse of scripture he says, "...and may they increase greatly on the earth.”

 

I believe it is God's will to bless us. I think the promise of blessing is scattered throught the Old and New Testaments and I am convinced that we can claim these promises.

I recently shared with my leadership team the story of Jesus telling the disciples to throw their nets back into the water after they had fished all night and caught nothing. When they did, they caught so many fish that the nets could not hold them. In our own lives we see the same thing. At first it may seem like we are spinning our wheels and nothing positive seems to happen, but then Jesus says, "throw your net back in." From a human perspective it may not make any sense to do so, but as Peter said, "Nevetheless, at your word, we will thrown them back in."

Today you may be waiting on a promise of increase...maybe you desperately need it. Just keep throwing in your net. Just keep doing what you are doing and Jesus will come through for you and when he does it is usually when you least expect it.

I am so convinced that God is going to bless me that I am making plans today by building the biggest net I can to receive it all.

Circumventing God's Promise, Part III

It would be another 13 years after the birth of Ishmael before God's promise would be fulfilled through Abram and Sarai. Abram was 100 years old when God reaffirmed His promise to Him and Abram laughed.

Genesis 17: 17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” 18 And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”

19Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him."

In this situation it might seem like God was slow in giving His promise, but when we are dealing with an eternal God who has the times and seasons in His hands nothing can be considered slow, but only His perfect timing. That is what I need and want to learn. I want to patiently wait on Him and know everything is being fulfilled in His perfect time therefore I do not want to get ahead of Him nor behind Him, but keep in perfect step with His plans.

How about you? What promise has yet to be fulfilled that you are becoming impatient with? Let me encourage you to just hang in there. 
God hasn't forgotten about you.  You aren't even 100 years old yet. Plenty of time to go. :-)

 

Where are the Workers?

Matthew 9: 37 "Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

I was raised on a ranch owned by Zananovich Farms. This ranch had thousands of acres that spread across the San Joaquin Valley, almost as far as the eye could see. On this ranch you could find grapes of every size, color and flavor, oranges, cherries, lemons, Kiwi's and other assorted fruits and vegetables.

During the winter months, the labor force was small and the ranch seemed quiet, but then when spring arrived, more and more people would show up to prepare the vines, water the fields, and do a host of other chores, preparing for the evental harvest which was only months away. When harvest arrived, the entire valley was a buzz saw of activity. Trucks of all shapes and sizes, tractors of all shapes and sizes, and men and women too numerous to count were hard at work from sun up to sun down, feverishly working to bring the harvest in on time.

Having seen that firsthand, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it would have been virtually impossible for the fruits and vegetables to have been harvested and brought to market without the may hands of the laborers. That is why the saying, "Many hands make light work" is so valuable during the time of harvest.

Jesus is saying the same thing here to his disciples. He is showing us a vivid picture of fields, fields of souls, that are ready to be harvested, men and women of every size, shape and color, but there is not enough laborers to bring the harvest in. As a result, some of the harvest will be lost. So he, the owner of the harvest, asks us to pray for more laborers. Pray that more people will get into the fields and get their hands dirty in order to finish the task of bring in the harvest.

The question today is: Are you a worker who is not in the field? If you are not in the field, what could you possibly be doing that is more important? People are more ready now than ever before to come to Jesus. The world is ripe for the picking, but Jesus needs you. Will you respond to the call?

Circumventing God's Promise, Part II

Genesis 16:6 "...Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

7The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.

8 And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

9 Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” 10The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

In this story we see the repercussions of our impatience with God. When we get ahead of God, we will always create more problems for ourselves. In this case, the reprecussions are huge. Abram's new son Ishmael would be the father of a new nation.

10The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

 

He is the father of the Arab nations, most of whom are Muslim and this annomisity that was created between Sarai and Hagar through their sons, Isaac and Ishmael, has continued throughout centuries and is the source of all wars in the Middle East. We are even seeing this annomisity brought to the shores of America through Islamic terrorist activities. Hal Lindsay wrote:

"This conflict that has raged between these two half brothers for 4,000 years is destined to ignite the last war of the world, according to the Bible prophets."

 

11The angel of the Lord also said to her:

“You are now pregnant

and you will give birth to a son.

You shall name him Ishmael,

for the Lord has heard of your misery.

12He will be a wild donkey of a man;

his hand will be against everyone

and everyone’s hand against him,

and he will live in hostility

toward all his brothers.”

Of course, our impatience with God may not bring about such devestating effects, but none the less, it will circumvent God's timing in bringing about our promise. Here is a tip: JUST LET GO AND LET GOD! God knows exactly what he is doing and he has the timeline already set. And unless He asks for your help, just wait!

Do I Believe God?

Genesis 15:6 - Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

You can gleen so much from these four short verses..."Abram believed God." Here he is without a son to carry on his name and he cries out to God that he wants an heir for he does not want a servant in his household to be his heir. God then takes him outside and asks him to count the stars in heaven and then tells him that his offspring shall be as numerous as the stars of heaven.

5 "He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Quite a promise, don't you agree? I mean this promise is huge...offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven...and I don't even have a son yet! From a human standpoint it would seem a little farfetched to believe something like that, but when you understand the awesomeness of our God and that with God "nothing is impossible" then when God speaks you can believe Him.

We have a tendendncy to believe it when we see it, but God asks us to believe it and then we'll see it. Here at the church, we have been given so many promises and we are seeing a little trickle of those promises come in, but nothing like we believe God has told us will happen. So where do we put our focus, on what we see or on what God has said? We are tempted to keep our eyes on what we see but I choose to believe what God has said. I choose to "believe the Lord."

Whatever promise God has given you, at this moment, get your eyes off of your lack and on to his provision. If God said it, you can believe it!

The Power of a Unified Effort

Genesis 11:5 "But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

This, of course, is the story of the Tower of Babel where Nimrod and his people chose to build a tower to heaven.

Genesis 11: "3They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

But, God saw that the motivation of their heart was to exalt themselves above God so he confused the language of the whole world and scattered them over the face of the earth.

Genesis 11:8 "So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth."

But what if we could extract a truth from this story and apply this truth to our life. What if we apply this truth to our families, to our church and to our communities. What if we could all get on the same page, not to exalt ourselves above God, but to exalt God above ourselves, to further his Kingdom in our lives, our homes, our churches and our communities?"

If the church could be unified in its efforts and its speech... "then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."
 

Why do you think Satan works so hard to destroy the unity between husbands and wifes and the unity between parents against children? Why do you think that he works so hard to destroy the unity in our churches and get one believer pitted against another? He does so because he knows that when we do get unified and we are all on the same page, moving in the same direction, speaking the same things, to accomplish the same goals and dreams then nothing will be impossible for us.

Let's choose to lay aside our petty differences and our own personal agendas this year and unify our efforts. Let's choose to speak the same language, the language of love, acceptance, and faith. Because when we choose to build our own towers then confusion is the ultimate outcome. But when we choose to build His Kingdom, then impossible situations become possible.