Kit and Caboodle

Something to think about.

Kit and Caboodle

¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶ For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. ¹⁷ And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17 (ESV)

If this verse only ended with"visible and invisible" but no it doesn't. It goes right on to claim ownership of the whole kit and caboodle.  I am not able to manipulate the words in these verses and turn it into something other than what it says. God is taking responsibility for all things that exist.  Which is only logical if you accept what it says in verse 16, or in Genesis 1:1.

Now we can get into a philosophical discussion on cause and affect about the genesis of evil and attempt to place it at God's feet. Thereby accusing him for all the evil in the world. After all, he does take responsibility for everything that's been created. Except for taking responsibility for something is not the same as saying I am the creator of the thing. 

For instance, if your child goes out and performs acts of violence as in "Son of Sam" his parents must take responsibility for him but not for his actions. You might argue that the parents are responsible because they bore and raised him. The reality is that at some point you can not continue to blame the parents. The blame is solely on the perpetrator, it is on the child who decided of his own accord to be violent.  Likewise, God is responsible for creating all things, but He is not responsible or to blame for the choices we make. In the end, it is not Gods fault we sin. He created everything for His glory and our pleasure. We perverted that intent of our own accord. By the corruption of perfection with sin, we turned perfection into principalities and powers of evil.  

"All things were created through him and for him." If we accept all things were made by Him, why would have he created evil? All things were not just made by Him they were made through and for Him. So all things have there origin Him, and He is perfect as the bible claims. It is impossible for perfection to come from imperfection as it is impossible for imperfection to come from perfection. Sin was introduced into the world through choice resulting in the corruption of perfection. Evil came into being not because God created it but because He gave man a choice. Man made a choice, and the choice man made lead to evil.  

God is responsible for creating the condition where a choice could be made.  We could have chosen perfection or imperfection. The choice we made had the inevitable consequence of evil. God is still offering us the same choice pick Him and live in eternal perfection, i.e., sinless perfection. Or choose imperfection, i.e., sin which leads to inevitable self-destruction. Whichever choice you make whether perfection or imperfection it will not be Gods fault it will be your choice and hence your fault. 
If you choose perfection, evil can't exist. If you choose to sin, evil is the prerequisite result.

Leia Mais…

Day of Disaster

Something to think about.

Day of Disaster

4 The Lord works out everything to its proper end—

even the wicked for a day of disaster. Proverbs 16:4 New International Version (NIV)

For those of you who think you are outside the will and plan of God. This is for you. This verse states two realities. The first is that no one is outside the plans of God. He will not waste anything you may not understand how it all comes together, but God does. Secondly, the wicked will be used by God to accomplish His purpose. It does not say He created the wicked it says He will use the wicked. God knows you, He knows everything about you. If you think that you are beyond His reach that you are beyond anything He can do you are wrong.  There is no side line in the journey of life you are in the game you can't opt out. You are going to be used by God for His purposes. Make no mistake God is going to use you, and it will always be to His glory. The only choice you have is if you are going to be saved and glorified by Him. Or will you be condemned and cursed by Him?

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Commanded

Something to think about.

Commanded

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

³⁷ Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ” Matthew 22:36-38 (NKJV) 

If you look at the meaning of command, you will not find any reference to choice. But to the question  "what is the great commandment" Jesus replies "love the Lord your God." He did not say fall in love with God He said, "love the Lord your God." In our culture, we are taught that we will eventually fall in love with someone, or we will find someone who will love us or that we will love.  Jesus is commanding us to love at will. Then He reiterates it in verse 38 "great commandment." It 's hard for me to negotiate the concept of a command to love God and what I've been taught all of my life. 

I wonder if the person asking the question had this response as a possible answer. If I had asked the question, I would have expected a response along the lines of the ten commandments or some other Jewish law.  But He responded with a command to love. This commandment the most the difficult to obey is the single greatest commandment. It is a commandment, not a choice, not a get to know you then chose scenario.

The way I understand this command is that we are to make a willful, intentional effort to love God. A deliberate attempt to know who God is in order to love Him. This command is not accomplishable without personal intent. You are not going to fall in love with God by coincidence. You can only love God when you make an intentional fully cognizant attempt to know Him.  

God does not want you to love Him because of what He can do for you, He wants you to love Him because you want to. He wants you to love Him unconditionally. He wants you to love Him when your bank account is overflowing He wants you to love Him when your account is overdrawn. He wants you to love Him when you are in the best of health He wants you to love Him when your baby dies. Sometimes love is no more than a choice and at those times He wants you to choose Him.

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Get Off The Fence

Something to thnk about.
 
Get Off The Fence

And Elijah came near to all the people and said, "How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." And the people did not answer him a word. 1 Kings 18:21 ESV

Elijah is speaking to his people, the Jewish people. Nothing of what he said at that time was intended for anyone other than the Israelites. He is talking to a nation that has experienced the direct intervention of God. You would think with that history these people would have lived with an abundance of faith. Yet, they are straddling the fence. 
 
It is amazing to me that humanity at its core has not changed in thousands of years. We have people not just in one nation but throughout the world who are sitting on the same fence.  Humanity struggles with conflicting beliefs within ourselves, we want to comingle two sets of opposing beliefs. You cannot have both fire and water in the same space either the water will put out the fire or the fire will evaporate the water. 

As Joshua said, "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15

Jesus said, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Rev 13 15-16
 
Get off the fence.

 

eordering note

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Choose This Day

Something to think about.

Choose This Day

"But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15

This is a famous quote and declaration by Joshua. It, in essence, says I have decided my family, and I will stand for God. However, let's take this in context.

¹⁴ “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! ¹⁵ And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:14-15

He is talking to all of Israel, and he is drawing a line, a litmus test. He is defining a clear distinction between the God of Israel and the gods of the world. Joshua is saying you can't have it both ways, you must choose. Then He says, "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” He is saying you are free to choose the Gods of this world but even if you do, even if all of you do, me and my house will serve the Lord. He is saying I have determined that if I am the only one that will stand with God so be it, I will. Before you make the same declaration as Joshua are you really ready to stand alone in your school in your university, job, community, city, state, and country? Are you willing to stand alone against all others and say I will serve the Lord?

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The Chosen

The Chosen

As a Christian and in the interest of civility I have restrained myself from commenting publicly about the upcoming election, but I cannot any longer. I am writing to Christians, because the secular world will not comprehend what I am writing about.  The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Corinthians 2:14 (ESV)

“Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”( Genesis 2:7) I don't know how many of you appreciate the significance of this verse. God formed man from the dust of the earth. Man is not alive after he is formed. He is laying, I suppose on the ground in a lifeless body. Do you realize every other creature on the earth was spoken into existence, but not man! God breathed the breath of life into man. The essence of man's existence is not his wonderfully made body. The spark that began life was the very spirit of God that He “God” breathed into man. God did not speak man into existence. He formed him with His own hands and breathed His life into man.

There was, and I suppose there still is, within some circles an argument about when life begins. God answered that question in Genesis 2:7. Life began when God breathed life into Adam. The practical means by which life is propagated on this earth is the blessing God has allowed us to experience through the birth of a child. But make no mistake; life began when God breathed into the lifeless, perfectly designed body of Adam. The amazing reality of this breath of life is, it never dies. The breath of God that he breathed into Adam is part of the essence of God and therefore will never cease to exist. Humanity does not continue to exist because of sexual copulation. Humanity continues to exist because the spirit that was breathed into Adam is the eternal spirit of God. All of humanity exists because of the living breath of God, the Spirit of God sustains humanity.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  John 1:1-3 John says all things were created through Him and without Him nothing can exist. That unborn child is not something that can be created without Christ.

What does God say about the beginning of life?

5 “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.

    Before you were born I set you apart

    and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”

Jeremiah 1:5 (NLT)

The only way God could have selected Jeremiah before he was born was if He already knew everyone else. You cannot make a selection without having others to select from.  And, if He knows everyone before they are born, it must be He knew us before we were born. 

 David says:

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well.

Psalm 139:14 (NIV)

    

David is talking about How God made Him. He is not just talking about himself because we are all made the same way we are all “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Look at what Job says:   

                            

The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Job 33:4

Job understands that the breath of life that was breathed into Adam now gives him life. Job was not brought into existence directly from God as Adam was.

Jeremiah, speaking on God's behalf said: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;“I Appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV)

God is no respecter of persons. If He formed Jeremiah in the womb and He knew him before he was born, God knows every unborn child, and God has chosen each one of them to receive the same breath and spirit He gave Adam.

    The standard, the call of defiance is women have a right to chose. That is a lie! God chooses that woman to have that child. Regardless of the condition, socioeconomic, poor, or rich and everything in between God has chosen to give that child His breath of life. No one, no woman or man, has the right, authority or moral superiority to tell God He made the wrong choice.

The choice of life was made by God long before the creation of the world. He knew, and He knows the condition of all humanity, and he has predetermined, pre-chosen to give life to every unborn child in the world.

Who are you Hillary Clinton to decide that the creator of the world was wrong and to condemn His chosen ones to death? Who will we be if we chose to side with her? Will we stand with her in defiance of the choice of God? If we do so, we are openly sacrificing our children on the altar of self. We are no better than those who in the past sacrificed their children to wood and metal gods. The one and only God has been replaced by the god of self. We have determined that we have the right to exterminate life on the basis of our own selfish desire.

If you are a Christian and believe in the biblical narrative, how do you justify the unrelenting genocide we are committing against the unborn. Consider this for a moment. What happens to the spirit of the unborn child? That same eternal spirit that is in you exists in that unborn child. The breath, yea, the Spirit of God that gives life has been discarded as a piece of trash by an ideology of selfishness.

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, (Hebrews 9:27 ESV) Christians, we will all stand before God on the day of judgment. What will you say when God asks you what did you do when America was killing my children? I voted for Hillary!!! Will that be your answer? This election is not about economics. It is not about an ignorant buffoon. It is not about foreign policy. It is not about free education. All of these issues will continue to be debated and addressed throughout the existence of the United States. This election is about the continued sanctioned murder of the unborn.

You might try to say I never supported abortion but I can not stomach Trump and all he stands for. All he stands for can be fixed. The dead unborn child can't be fixed. Don't be a fool! Do not be misguided! God will not allow us to prosper if we as a nation continue to defy Him. The continued unjustified assault on His life will not go unpunished. We will reap the rewards of spiritual adultery. God will judge us not only on judgment day, but also today. We are powerless to prevent His judgment against this nation and on us as individuals. 

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14 KJV)

God is talking to you, not to the rest of the world. He is talking to all who believe they are His people. This is our responsibility.

               

               

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