Month: March 2018

Lessons from Jonah, the Whale, and Nineveh: Salvation is of the Lord

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God alone is mighty to save. “For there is no restraint to YHWH to save, by many or by few,” or by the strong or the weak.

The most successful prophet in the Old Testament appears to be Jonah. God told him to go to Nineveh, and tell the people there that God would destroy their city in forty days because of their sin. Hating the Ninevites and fearing that they might repent and God would spare their city, Jonah ran away. After a storm arose that threatened to drown the ship in which he was fleeing from God, and after being thrown into the sea and swallowed by a whale, Jonah finally repented. He went to Nineveh and preached the message God had given him. The people were eager to respond, and sent riders across the city spreading Jonah’s message ahead of him. Everyone repented in sackcloth and ashes and prayed to God for mercy. This made Jonah so angry that he went outside the city to watch and to mope. Continue reading “Lessons from Jonah, the Whale, and Nineveh: Salvation is of the Lord” →

Free to Live and Free to Die

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“We who are free to worship and serve the Lord must never forget those who are not.” At first glance these words seem, at least to me, to be saying that Christians should remember, pray for, and preach the Gospel to those who do not know that God sent His Son to be the sacrifice for our sins. They appeared, though, in a context of remembering our brethren who are persecuted (which is clearly commanded in the Bible)! I believe they were attributed to Chuck Swindoll. However, who said them does not matter. What matters is not even that anyone said them. What matters is many Christians think that, in persecution, Christians are not free to worship and serve the Lord; to be more careful, many who think they are Christians think this, and many Christians think that they think this. Continue reading “Free to Live and Free to Die” →

Temples of the Holy Spirit and Living Sacrifices

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“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? You are not your own; you were bought with a price; so honor God with your body.”

Just earlier, Paul was writing about how when a man is joined to a woman he is one flesh with her and that Christians are one in spirit with the Lord. He is explaining to the Corinthians why they should not commit adultery. “Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?” It is basically the same concept as “Be holy, because I am holy,” “Come out from among them and be separate, you who bear the vessels of YHWH,” “What fellowship then is there between light and darkness? Or what fellowship is there between Christ and Belial?” We are called to holiness because our God is holy; we are being transformed by the glory of the Lord; we are being conformed to the image of Christ. We love Him because He first loved us. Continue reading “Temples of the Holy Spirit and Living Sacrifices” →

Father, Son, and Spirit Blest (A Poem on the Trinity and the Rest of God)

On By Raina NightingaleIn Enthralled By Love Blog, PoetryLeave a comment

I wrote this poem thinking of John 17, “… I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one, Father, You in Me and I in them, so that the world may know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me… Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am and to see My glory, which You have given Me because You loved Me before the world was.” I was also thinking of Hebrews 4, “… God rested from all His works… So, then, there remains a Sabbath rest for all who believe…”

Father, Son, and Spirit blest

Guide us to eternal rest

That is Thy sacred oneness

The source of all blessedness Continue reading “Father, Son, and Spirit Blest (A Poem on the Trinity and the Rest of God)” →

(Part II) Who Are You That You Fear: I, Even I, Am He…

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“I, even I, am He…”

Doesn’t that sound a lot like “I AM?” That’s followed by “who comforts you.” It sounds a lot like, “YHWH is my Shepherd.”

“I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mortal men, the sons of men who are like grass, that you forget YHWH, your Maker?”

“YHWH is my Shepherd. I will not lack. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me besides quiet waters… Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.”

A lot of what I am going to say may apply to very different sins and struggles than that of fear; sin is sin; all sin flows from and to idolatry, from and to death; sin leads to sin. Pride – fear – hatred – at the bottom, they are all the same; they are all opposed to God, to salvation. They are all the opposite of faith; instead of being the gaze of the soul upon God – “One thing I have asked of YHWH, that I shall seek… to gaze upon the beauty of YHWH” – sins are the turning of the soul towards self, the setting of attentions and vision not upon God, but upon self and other selves. “Who are you that you… forget YHWH, your Maker?”

The remedy is beautifully depicted in this verse from Galatians: Continue reading “(Part II) Who Are You That You Fear: I, Even I, Am He…” →