The Bible?

Why do I read the Bible?

Life is full of all choices and decisions! How do we know which are the correct ones to make?

The Bible is a book first and foremost about God - it begins with God and ends with God and the bits in between are all to do with God's dealings with mankind!

The Bible is also like a manual - how we should live our lives to have a close relationship with God (after accepting Him)

If we add to the Bible or take away from it then it's like buying a microwave oven, looking at the instructions and adding bits from your fridge manual or taking bits away which you don't like! Will the appliance work properly if you do that? Of course not, so it is with Scripture. We work properly (how God intended for us to live) if we follow His word, after asking Him to come into our lives!

Bits of a couple of Psalms and Romans 8

Where shall I lift up my eyes?

Unto the hills which surround His people!

Where does my help come from?

From the Lord God omnipotent

Who reigns over all the earth.

Who will lead me like a shepherd?

The Lord God who feeds His flock

Who gathers the lambs with His arm

And gently leads those with young.

Who shall separate us from God's love?

Nothing or no one shall for

We are more than conquerors

With Christ as our Captain! 

Christmas Time - Christmas 2013 poem

Christmas is a time for giving.

A time for joy.

A time for living.

Christmas is a time for meeting.

A time for friendships.

A time for greeting.

Christmas is a time for emotion.

A time for remembrance.

A time for devotion.

Christmas is a time in history.

A time written down 

For eternity

Christmas is a time to see a boy.

A time of birth.

A time of joy.

Christmas is a time of our Father's giving.

A time of love.

A time of living.

Christmas is a time for praising,

Of angels' songs - 

Hallelujahs raising

Christmas is a time for thought

Of the Gift God gives

Which can't be bought.

Christmas is a time to receive

The gift of life

Only God can give.

Christmas is a time which leads

To a certain place

 Called Calvary.

If it wasn't for that time in history,

There would be no gifts,

No lit up tree,

No children singing

Christmas songs,

No Man who came 

To right our wrongs

Let us remember this Christmas time

That Jesus came

To make Him mine,

He lived a life

We could never live,

To offer a gift 

No one else could give. 

©  Carolyn Davison 29th November 2013

You can't choose...

You know the saying

You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family?

Well I was thinking today:

God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world (look up Ephesians 1), despite us being in a mess, sinful, disobedient, dead as doorposts spiritually, we wouldn't choose Him over our sin etc! 

Isn't that truly AMAZING...

The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments were given for all men throughout the ages. They set God's standard. 

Exodus 20:

³ “You shall have no other gods before Me.

Pop 'stars', footballers, film 'stars' are worshipped today as if they are gods

⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image

Cars, posters of favourite film stars etc, shrines to them, shrines to relatives - same thing as graven images

⁷ “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, 

OMG (I hate it - in your face, on billboards, on the internet, in films, on Facebook profiles), people saying the name of Jesus as a cuss.

⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

Shops opening on a Sunday (do they really need to open? Not really they have 6 (SIX) other days to make money.)

¹² “Honor your father and your mother, 

So often we hear about children murdering their parents (and vice versa). Being cheeky isn't honouring them, disrespecting them

¹³ “You shall not murder.

Murder comes in a variety of forms - to take someone's life by stabbing (etc) them. Murder can also include character - how many times have we seen in newspapers, the murder of someone's reputation only to see them commiting suicide because they have lost everything in life! Abortion, Euthanasia! Murder is taking the life of someone who is created in God's image.

¹⁴ “You shall not commit adultery.

You only have to look at someone in lust and that is committing adultery. There are many dating sites which advocate no strings sex for married people etc

¹⁵ “You shall not steal.

Stealing, like murder isn't necessarily something tangible - stealing could be coming back from your break deliberately late, but getting paid for it. Getting paid for something you havne't done. Stealing is taking anything which doesn't belong to you. Envelopes from work, that pen you haven't [deliberately] returned

¹⁶ “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Gossip is bearing false witness - this is so prevalent in our society, with the magazines spouting a load of dramatic sensationalisation rubbish about people! Don't like someone? Keep it to yourself because if you diss someone to others, you are tainting their judgement on the person and it more than likely isn't true what you think anyway - it's only YOUR perception!

¹⁷ “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house 

Coveting leads to stealing, it leads to murder, it leads to adultery, it leads to gossip. Be happy with who you are and what you have! 


Looking at the ten commandments and how we break them every minute of every day - is it a surprise that God is angry with the world?

Why should He get involved when He has given us consciences which have these written in them? If God intervened in our lives we would soon get fed up of Him. He doesn't intervene in cases of wars, famine etc because they are the by-product of our disobedience and we have to live with the consequences. He HAS given us a way of peace, love, joy through Jesus Christ but so many reject Him - so God lets us do what we want as society falls into ruin because of our disobedience towards Him!
 

Jesus enduring the curse pronounced upon fallen Adam

The ground was cursed (Genesis 3:17)
The Son of God was made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13)

Man was cursed to eat his bread in sorrow (Genesis 3:17)
The Lord of Glory was so thoroughly acquainted with grief that He became the 'man of sorrows' (Isaiah 53:3)

The earth brought forth thorns and thistles (Genesis 3:18)
The Lord Jesus Christ came forth from the judgement hall, wearing a crown of thorns (John 19:5)

Man was required to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow (Genesis 3:19)
The First Adam got His bread by the sweat of His face; but Christ, the Last Adam, got His bread, His soul's satisfaction, by the sweat of His heart (Luke 22:44)

Man must return to the dust of the earth (Genesis 3:19)
As Adam returned to the dust, so the dying Christ cried, "You have brought Me to the dust of death." (Psalm 22:15c)

A flaming sword barred the way to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:24)
That sword of justice buried itself and was swallowed up in the Son of God (Zechariah 13:7)

Adam was separated from God in death (Genesis 2:16,17)
Christ the Last Adam was separated from God in death (Matthew 27:46)

In the film Mulan - Ping (Mulan) saved the young Captain's life, when he found out 'Ping' was really the young girl Mulan - her penalty would have been death, but because she had saved him he said - "Your debt has been repaid!"

This is the same with Christ - our debt has been paid by Him! We owe God our lives - the wages of sin is death. But through Christ's death we have eternal life. He gave what wasn't really meant to be given, to give us something which doesn't really belong to us (eternal life).  A debt can only be repaid by a debtor, but Christ became our Surety; He became our Debtor - He was rich enough to pay our debt for us!   

In the film Mulan - the debt could only be repaid by the Captain, no one else, whereas Christ has paid, with His life, the debt of those who come to believe and trust in Him. This is how Christians can say Christ is our Substitute, because He died (paid the price) we should have paid, but we couldn't afford it. Because every minute of every day our debt (sin) mounts up - it's impossible to clear it!

As humans we only see things in one dimensional terms - ie, what we can see now, what's in the physical realm, but being a Christian means we see things in 2D - we see the spiritual as well as the physical (and by spiritual, I don't mean some wishy washy emotional thing). 

The Garden vs The Gospel

I am reading a book called Discovering Christ in Genesis by Don Fortner and this morning was just mind blowing. Below are some of thing things gleaned from the book.

In the Garden of Eden there was one tree - the eating of the fruit brought death upon all men
In the Gospel there is one tree - the cross of Christ. All who eat of the fruit of that tree will live forever

In the Garden there was one man, Adam, he represented the human race before God, he fell therefore we have all fallen
In the Gospel there is one Man, Christ, the Second Adam, the Last Adam - He represents an elect race before God. By Him and in Him all God's elect live forever.

Adam brought destruction and death upon his race
Jesus Christ has brought redemption and life to His race, God's elect

I began to ponder what I had read and this is what I can see more clearly now:

Man has failed to do what he was created to do (to have perfect communion with God) and only Christ can put that right (He restores the broken relationship we have with God)

Man was created to tend the garden not to till the ground, but because of the Fall, we all have to work by the sweat of our brows to live - I think that's why we resent doing work - we weren't created to slog our guts out!

Man was created to have communion with God, not with Satan.

A poem based on Psalm 1:1-4

Let us be blessed as men
Who love the law of God
Who praise and glorify His name
And rest upon His word

Let us be like the tree
Which drinks the waters deep
And meditate upon God's word
And all His statutes keep

Let us produce fruit
Which yields much heavenly good
'Tis manna to the hungry soul;
Divine and filling food 

From my poetry book - Pools of Living Water (ISBN: 978-0-9561573-1-7)

Women in the Bible

I've heard feminists say that the Bible is anti-women! Well they obviously haven't read it because:

Old Testament:

Sarah embraced motherhood at the age of 90
Naomi loved God with all her heart 
Ruth went back to Israel with Naomi despite being a pagan
Rahab hid the spies so that God;s enemies wouldn't kill the Israelites
Hannah prayed for a child and was willing to give him back to the Lord in thankfulness
Abigail placated David  after her husband stropped and threw a temper tantrum
Esther risked her life to save God's people from the wrath of Artaxerxes (the king)

New Testament:

Mary (the mother of Jesus) had a deeper faith than her cousin's hubby
Elizabeth (Mary's cousin) embraced late motherhood

All the women Jesus had time for, to heal them, speak to them, save them:

Samaritan woman at the well
Woman with the issue of blood
Syro-phoenician woman
Jairus' daughter
Mary Magdalene
The widow of Nain
The widow in the temple with her mite (small amount of money)
Peter's mother in law was healed

I'm sure there must be more!

Paul (feminists would say is a misogynist - they obviously haven't read the rabbinical attitude towards women in those days) was gracious to women

Lydia, Julia, Synthyche, Eudia and many others he greeted in his epistles!

Unfortunately people believe anything they are told without examining the evidence!
 

A. W. Tozer quote

Christians don't tell lies - they just go to church and sing them!

True - how many times have I (and maybe you too) sung hymns like - all that thrills my soul is Jesus - and not really meant it?

Ye shall know them...

Matthew 7: 19, 20 - Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Christ said the above verse about discerning who true believers of His are. How shall we know those who claim to be Christians?

They proclaim Jesus as Lord and Saviour over their lives
They strive to live according to His ways
They love their neighbour
They love their enemies (that's a tough one)
They are forgiving
They are kind
They are filled with compassion
They strive to be filled with the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, longsuffering (patience), gentleness, goodness, faith,  meekness, temperance (self control) )
They are peacemakers
They have a heart for good and honest things
They strive to be conformed to Christ
Gossip grieves them
They build up and don't knock down
Edification is their way
They look to the hope of glory 
They look out for others and not for their own interests
They desire to know their own hearts