Repent

Living and loving through the New Covenant; eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus our Messiah (reading and doing all of His Word). “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31–34, ESV. See also Exodus 20:6; Deuteronomy 5:10; Ezekiel 11:19-21)

Learn More

Posted in Hanukah

Hanukah 2012 Day 1

By Comments:

From a friends status:
A few of the reasons we celebrate Hanukkah: To remind us not to compromise obedience to God’s Word, to fitting in with the world.
To remind us that it is better to worship God than obey man, even if that means death.
To remind us that our God is a God of miracles (in large things like military battles and small things like 8 days of oil)
To remind us that obedience in every moment is important and that we must leave our tomorrows in God’s hands and do what is required in THIS day.
To remind us that God does care about obedience as found in His Word.
To remind us that Jesus is the light of the world.

Posted in Hanukah • Music • Videos

Hanukah 2012

By Comments:

HAPPY CHANUKAH (HANUKKAH)!!!!! However you spell it – hope you have a great Festival of Lights!!! First Night

Rock On with the rest of us!!! 🙂

Posted in Daily Living • Whole Bible Christianity book

Whole Bible Introduction

By Comments:

Whole Bible Christianity, Introduction

Bouncing around, I searched and searched for the fruit of the Spirit. I was told I needed it and didn’t have it, and I was told lots of different ways to get it. I desperately wanted it, but couldn’t seem to make much headway. The Assembly churches tell me that getting “baptized in the Spirit,” is the way, and the evidence would be “speaking in tongues.” But much of that not only didn’t work for the people I met, it appeared false compared to the Word. (Not that tongues are wrong, just most of the practice.) Baptists and Methodists like Bible study, but cloud a walk with all sorts of man-made rules that don’t produce much fruit. I did learn I wasn’t supposed to drink or dance, though. And if I listened to rock music or watched ‘R’ rated movies I was going straight to hell (tongue firmly in cheek here). Uh oh.

Presbyterians and Lutherans have a little more objective truth, and a little more of the whole Bible in some ways, but spiritualize many parts of the Word out of my reach. Catholics not only spiritualize (when they let you read the Word at all for yourself) but also tell me that liturgy and praying to people besides God is the way to go. Mormons have their secret temple stuff and Jews have the Talmud (neither in the Word). Seventh Day Adventists insist on a Sabbath, but stop short of whole Bible belief. I hear all sorts of strange ideas too, like “allow Jesus to be the person inside of you that He wants you to be.” Or “don’t try to do, just be.” Some people told me I needed to see or have “a vision of the resurrected Christ.” Yeah…..huh? Too much pagan philosophy in there if you ask me.

There are those in any group that seem to get at least some fruit of the Spirit some of the time, in spite of the system they find themselves in. The prophets, apostles, and disciples seem to have it in full measure. But generally I couldn’t get the straight scoop on how to get the fruit myself from those around me. I still don’t have all of the fruit perfectly, but I’ve found the simple steps to get it. God didn’t hide them. He’s been telling us where it’s at for 6,000 years.

Posted in Bible • Law • Tradition • Whole Bible Christianity book

Only the Moral?

By Comments:

Whole Bible Christianity, chapter 6, ‘Only the Moral’

The next objection you have heard is that the Word (the Law) is split into three parts: ceremonial, civil, and moral. Ceremonial commands are supposed to be about sacrifices and holidays, laws of clean and unclean, and similar stuff. Civil commands, it is claimed, are the ones for government and punishment for violations. Moral commands are said to be universal in nature. These commands are allegedly fewer in number and include laws such as the prohibition of murder or stealing.

After dividing the Word into these non-biblical sections, some teachers pass judgment (James 4:11) on which parts apply to modern believers. In their opinion, the civil or ceremonial laws don’t apply. But I say to you the Bible doesn’t divide itself this way. No believer described in the Bible ever sets aside any part of it. There is nothing that gives us the right to toss anything out, no matter what fantasy divisions we make.

The rich truth is that the designations of civil, ceremonial, and moral are not found in the Word. We are warned on many occasions in the Word not to add to or take away from it. There is no hint that God thinks of any part of His Word as simply ‘ceremonial’ and therefore not worth doing, or limited only to Jewish people.

Everything God says is moral, whether we call it moral or invent some other category. All of His Words are eternal, and we are not to change any. That, of course, doesn’t keep us from trying, which we’ve been doing ever since the Garden.

A simple reading of the Word, by a humble and tender heart willing to respond, is sufficient to overturn the complicated, extra-biblical arguments for disobedience. Anything He asks us to do is part of His morality, whether we think it’s important or not.

Posted in Prophecy • Whole Bible Prophecy book

Cycles in Prophetic History

By Comments:

From the book, ‘Whole Bible Prophecy’

Complicating our interpretation of prophecy is the fact that some of it seems to keep happening in various ways over and over. Empires rise and conquer other empires, then dominate for a while only to fall back into the dustbin of history. Dictators come into power and behave exactly like their predecessors; so much that we can’t tell one from another without name tags. Hitler was not the first to try and wipe out the Jewish people. He was only the latest in a long string of murderers used by the deceiver who have tried to sidetrack God’s plans.

When Nebuchadnezzar got his dream interpreted by Daniel (chapter 2) he found out that his kingdom was only the head and was not going to last as long as he was thinking. In response he had an image made entirely of gold (Daniel 3) as if to say, “I repudiate the dream and my kingdom will last forever.” What a bummer for him that it only lasted a few years after his death. God was right and ol’ Nebby was wrong.

Prophecy has a cyclical nature because people keep repeating the same mistakes, and the deceiver keeps trying the same plans over and over (and so do individual unbelievers). People forget history and forget God and keep trying the same stupid plans time and again. The deceiver keeps jumping the gun trying to build his own world empire, and God smacks him down to make him get back into line.

The deceiver also has to start fresh all the time because he just can’t get his human puppets to live long enough. His kingdom is based on selfishness and greed among other weaknesses and his followers keep trying to knock each other off too. Truly the deceiver’s kingdom is divided against itself and cannot stand (Matthew 12:25-26). God keeps short-circuiting the deceiver’s plans because He has His own plan. A few paltry efforts by also-rans aren’t going to get in His way. The only reason the Beast has any kind of success at the end is because God allows the deceiver to do what he wants. Finally. For a while, anyway.

Posted in Church • Daily Living • Gospel • Whole Bible Christianity book

Mike Adams Searching for Bonhoeffer

By Comments:

Mike Adams in an online column titled ‘Searching for Bonhoeffer’ tells of his trip through 22 states and several mega-churches. He found a watered down gospel message that wasn’t satisfying anyone’s thirst.

“…the one thing that has started to change in the mega-church is the message. What once was a slightly watered-down seeker-friendly version of the Gospel is now a slightly Gospel-flavored bucket of water. And it’s not enough to quench the thirst of the masses.”

He recounts such foolishness as the announcement of a Bible Study class that might not have answers but “just want(s) to start a conversation.” Then there was the church that “doesn’t focus on doctrine. We focus on hope.” And the one that said “If Christianity is to survive in the 21st century, everything about it must change.” Some of his conclusions:

By watering down their message to be even more seeker-friendly, today’s mega-churches are not going to achieve their crass objective: To avoid offending people in order to keep their numbers up (read: Keep the money flowing) and eventually pay their mortgage down. Instead, their gains with seekers and the easily offended will be offset by their losses among those who are farther along in their walks and, hence, more traditional in their beliefs. This is consequential because the traditionalist, not the liberal Christian or the seeker, is always the first one to open his wallet.

Posted in Daily Living • Law • New Testament • Whole Bible Christianity book

Law in the New Testament, Stepmothers

By Comments:

Chapter 7, Law in the New Testament, Whole Bible Christianity

If the Law had been ‘fulfilled,’ (twisted to mean ‘eliminated’) then the following is a very curious thing for Paul to say.

1It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. 2You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. (1 Corinthians 5:1-2 NASB95)

Why would he care about a man who marries his stepmother? Wouldn’t all marriages be okay? According to the modern church, isn’t everything and everyone clean? Why would Paul appeal to the Law at all (Leviticus 18:8; Deuteronomy 22:30 and 27:30)? Why also would Paul appeal to the fact that this is something even Gentiles didn’t do?

There might be a thin argument here for the fictitious ‘moral law.’ Except how do we pick and choose what is ‘moral’ and what isn’t when God speaks? Isn’t everything He says by definition ‘moral?’ Could it be that the congregation had changed the law to say that ‘everything was clean?’ Were they perhaps practicing their ‘freedom in Christ?’

Paul doesn’t make up any new commandment here. He certainly doesn’t cherry-pick nor does he apply only the law he chooses. Not only does he say that the Corinthians should be following this Law, he implies it is a natural fact everyone (even the non-believing Gentiles) knows. In other words, God’s people should at least have the sense God gave a pagan. He also gives the punishment for the sin outlined in Torah (“remove the evil from your midst”). Later, it looks like they were “obedient in all things”(2 Corinthians 2:5-11).

Posted in Daily Living • Law • Whole Bible Christianity book

I Don’t Hear Jesus

By Comments:

Chapter 6, Whole Bible Objections, Whole Bible Christianity

When I talk about obedience, or anything to do with the Law really, one of the big objections I get is that “I don’t hear Jesus” (in my teaching). What they mean is that I don’t say ‘Jesus’ every other word. Or that I don’t constantly refer everything back to the crucifixion, or some other point of their Jesus dogma. I usually pose this question in reply – Is it that you don’t hear Jesus, or that you don’t hear? Am I not saying, or are you not hearing?

Jesus is all about obedience. It’s His Word in the first place that we obey. He showed up all through the Old Testament preaching and reinforcing the Law He delivered, and had Moses write down at Sinai. After He was born as a human, He consistently taught repentance and a return to God’s Law. He instructed the disciples to take this gospel to the whole world, making other disciples (a word related to ‘discipline’). We have His Spirit who only repeats what He hears from Jesus (John 16:14) and leads us into all truth, which is the Word. Jesus is God’s Word, with the Law, in form and action. You can’t read more than a few verses in the Scriptures without tripping over the issue of staying true to His Word, or returning to His Word, or teaching His Word. There is nothing about obedience that is not intimately connected to Jesus.

If someone doesn’t “hear Jesus” in the Law, or in teachings on obedience to His Law, they are probably 100% correct. They don’t hear (Matthew 13:13, Luke 16:31, John 8:43).