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God Bless You Today, Lena B
Luke 24
The Resurrection
1But very early on Sunday morning F115 the women came to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2They found that the stone covering the entrance had been rolled aside. 3So they went in, but they couldn't find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4They were puzzled, trying to think what could have happened to it. Suddenly, two men appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. 5The women were terrified and bowed low before them.
Then the men asked, "Why are you looking in a tomb for someone who is alive? 6He isn't here! He has risen from the dead! Don't you remember what he told you back in Galilee, 7that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again the third day?"
8Then they remembered that he had said this. 9So they rushed back to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. 10The women who went to the tomb were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several others. They told the apostles what had happened, 11but the story sounded like nonsense, so they didn't believe it. 12However, Peter ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened. F116
The Walk to Emmaus
13That same day two of Jesus' followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles F117 out of Jerusalem. 14As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. 15Suddenly, Jesus himself came along and joined them and began walking beside them. 16But they didn't know who he was, because God kept them from recognizing him.
17"You seem to be in a deep discussion about something," he said. "What are you so concerned about?" They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. 18Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, "You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn't heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days."
19"What things?" Jesus asked. "The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth," they said. "He was a prophet who did wonderful miracles. He was a mighty teacher, highly regarded by both God and all the people. 20But our leading priests and other religious leaders arrested him and handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. 21We had thought he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. That all happened three days ago. 22Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. 23They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! 24Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, Jesus' body was gone, just as the women had said."
25Then Jesus said to them, "You are such foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. 26Wasn't it clearly predicted by the prophets that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his time of glory?" 27Then Jesus quoted passages from the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining what all the Scriptures said about himself.
28By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus would have gone on, 29but they begged him to stay the night with them, since it was getting late. So he went home with them. 30As they sat down to eat, he took a small loaf of bread, asked God's blessing on it, broke it, then gave it to them. 31Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!
32They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?" 33And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem, where the eleven disciples and the other followers of Jesus were gathered. When they arrived, they were greeted with the report, 34"The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter F118 !"
Jesus Appears to the Disciples
35Then the two from Emmaus told their story of how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along the road and how they had recognized him as he was breaking the bread. 36And just as they were telling about it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them. He said, "Peace be with you." F119 37But the whole group was terribly frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost! 38"Why are you frightened?" he asked. "Why do you doubt who I am? 39Look at my hands. Look at my feet. You can see that it's really me. Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost, because ghosts don't have bodies, as you see that I do!" 40As he spoke, he held out his hands for them to see, and he showed them his feet. F120
41Still they stood there doubting, filled with joy and wonder. Then he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" 42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he ate it as they watched.
44Then he said, "When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me by Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must all come true." 45Then he opened their minds to understand these many Scriptures. 46And he said, "Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah must suffer and die and rise again from the dead on the third day. 47With my authority, take this message of repentance to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: 'There is forgiveness of sins for all who turn to me.' 48You are witnesses of all these things.
49"And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven."
The Ascension
50Then Jesus led them to Bethany, and lifting his hands to heaven, he blessed them. 51While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up to heaven. F121 52They worshiped him and F122 then returned to Jerusalem filled with great joy. 53And they spent all of their time in the Temple, praising God.
FOOTNOTES:
F115: Greek But on the first day of the week, very early in the morning.
F116: Some manuscripts do not include this verse.
F117: Greek 60 stadia [11.1 kilometers].
F118: Greek Simon.
F119: Some manuscripts do not include He said, "Peace be with you."
F120: Some manuscripts do not include this verse.
F121: Some manuscripts do not include and was taken up to heaven.
F122: Some manuscripts do not include worshiped him and.
Lena Journals to Luke 24
The whole world is looking for” the body” of the Lord Jesus. They inwardly want to know, is He dead or alive? Is the hope, and the promise of forgiveness, of healing, of supernatural power among men, really possible or not?
There is a Body, and it is not in the same form as one would expect the Body of the Lord to be, for it is not as it was before His death. It is now many membered; many people make up what His body is and looks like. Life, resurrection life, came into His body, into anyone after His resurrection who would believe in and receive of His finished work.
In death a life is sown, even buried in the ground as a seed. In resurrection power that seed is given as it is in the form it was, to die so it could change, become another form. Jesus sowed His own life into the ground to be raised a different life! He knew that principle and did it on purpose. So can we.
We symbolically, by faith in Him, must sow our own lives, dead to what we figured life was about. As we give up our own life and let what we thought it was for, to God, who will define it for Himself and for His own use. Only in this intent response will we see the power of God in resurrection form bloom and grow awesomely, into an unrecognizable form!
This never happens without the willing death of self. Jesus willingly died physically, mentally and spiritually to His self life, to His earth life. It even seemed the true reason for His earth life never appeared, for was He not to be the King of kings and Lord of lords? He didn’t reign with royal robes on earth, or did He? Jesus laid down His will to rule and reign forever for His Father and for who His Father loved!
Do we lay our own wills down for who our Father loves? Do we love Our Father as Jesus loved Him, giving Himself for who His Father loved? Do we as His body now, today, give ourselves wholly and completely for who Our Father loves?
The point is the willingness to do whatever love asks for. Not my will, but Yours be done, through my earth life now.
When we love one another, as He also loved us, the world will find the body of the Lord, even if they are not looking!
What are you telling others about the Lord, about His body?
That’s huge. Beware not to speak against the body of the Lord, or his church, no matter what her present condition is. It is His place to identify her sins and shortcomings; it is our place to pray she makes it as a spotless bride prepared for her husbandman.
How we choose to speak of the body of the Lord, is also important to how the world sees her, and whether they will seek to find her or not. Do we speak of His forgiveness of her imperfections or do we hold her sins against her? Do we tell of His great grace and mercy to lead her to repentance, or do we say her behaviors are hopeless and impossible to be changed?
Where is our faith, and who do we have faith for? It is time to pray for and believe our Father for the resurrection life and power to come into the body of the Lord! To stand with Him that she’d desire Him, want to live for and as Him, and that she’d be all out to please Him, preparing herself for His return.
Do we love His body, who He calls His very own, flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, the many membered body we, who call Jesus our Lord, and what we are a part of?
Have you been in communion, in unity with His body, His blood? Do you participate and count your life as one with who He calls Himself one with? In this, in giving of one’s self along with others, as kingdom of God family members, the eyes that were blind will see. I’m speaking of religious well meaning, blind eyes!
In the unity of the body, in willing participation with the members of the body, in the dying of whatever we thought we wanted whatever way we wanted it, is where we will begin to really see Him. We may hear a familiar voice, but the revelation of Him, comes in becoming one willingly with who He has chosen to become one with!
If He chose to become one with an imperfect for now, but by His faith, being perfected - bride, who are we to separate ourselves from her and act as though we know more, and are somehow better than to be called a part of her?
I’ve seen many people separate out from their local churches, because of disagreements with the leaders, and I’ve seen them tire of church “politics”, or programs, but more than anything, because they want to do what they want to do, what they see to do, their way. They may have asked their leaders if they could do their thing at their church, and it was “shot down”, so rather than submit what they saw, and let it die, they separate and go off doing what they saw anyway. I’m sorry to say, this is not unity, and is not pleasing to the Lord. Resurrection life will only occur with death and burial. That does not mean, now die and act like a zombie while still going to that church. It means die to self and live to the vision of the house. Give yourself for that man’s vision wholeheartedly, as though it were your own. In this, you will begin to see the Lord!
Alone, a seed stays as it is, it lives in the lonely form it began as, if it gets planted, it bursts forth into something that looks nothing like it is! It is empowered with life!
Many fear to give their lives, is to not be, but this is not the case. We die to self life, solitary life that He may live through us!
Many of us are way more comfortable to have communion, common-union, intimate relationship, face to face accounting between us and God alone. We’ may even be great with just our family members. It really takes a stretch of faith to commune with a whole body of believers! Especially when that body of believers makes us accountable for our actions that are outside of the behaviors of Christ.
Have you ever given an account because you wanted to? Of sin? Of wrongdoing? Of actions or behaviors? That’s called running into the arms of God! The idea in the kingdom is to adapt this as your kingdom of God lifestyle.
The Lord shows Himself to those who are disciples. Jesus can’t make men become disciples, men make themselves, submit themselves, willingly, to becoming a disciple. Men who do this will see the body of the Lord, will see the Lord!
He doesn’t just appear to anyone.
When I say “see”, it may not be a physical seeing, but it is a seeing, a beholding, a perceiving of who He really is.
Discipleship is costly. When Jesus gave the invitation saying, “follow Me…” they left all they were and became who He is. A seed alone, planted into the ground, that dies and willingly gives its life to become something far more magnificent than any seed alone would ever be.
Do we want to see Jesus? Really? We can say that all day long, but let me ask it this way, Are we willing to do what it takes to see Him? Die to ourselves, live another man’s vision that we barely agree with or barely see, and become a disciple on earth, who is trained by men?
When Jesus says things, they are always much deeper than one can see on the surface. Disciples inquire of the meanings and they count the cost, they ask God to provide them what they need to buy this truth, and then they guard the truth and will not sell out by excuses or the distractions of serving other things.
Jesus asks disciples, is there anything here, among you, for Me to eat? Can you give Me what I’ve come for, what I’m looking for, Do you care to satisfy My hungry and thirsty soul, to do the will of My Father as I have done? Will you serve Me food, as I have so willingly done for you?
Did you ever consider God hungry for anything? Remember Jesus saying My meat and My drink is to do the will of Him who sent Me? Disciples do this for God. They care that He is hungry for souls and their life is about giving Him His due. They appreciate what He did for them so personally, so much that they want Him to have what He sent His Son for. They want to help Him get His anyway they can. They ask Him how to do it best, and they just do it.
“Oh, You mean through being a part of a local fellowship unified with other believers?” Yes, Lord, I’ll do that.
“Oh, You mean help another man You showed to do something with an army of people as one all doing the same type of work?” Ok, Lord, I’ll do that.
“Oh, lay down my own hopes and dreams for earthly (or what I perceive as kingdom) success?” Yes, Jesus, I’ll do that too.
What else, Lord?
How can I as a man with wrong desires do these things?
I have sent you the power to overcome your own flesh nature, to be made new in Me, to be as I am. In the willing laying down of life, you will receive the power of the very spirit of Christ Jesus. In allowing the Lordship of Christ Jesus, you’ll feed the spirit, welcoming His presence in your life. If you take up your old life and follow yourself as your own lord, He’s a gentleman and will be silent, until you choose again to live for and with Him.
I AM THE WAY
I AM THE TRUTH
I AM THE LIFE!
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Acts 3 Today With Journalin'
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God Bless You Today, Lena B
Acts 3
Peter Heals a Crippled Beggar
1Peter and John went to the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o'clock prayer service. 2As they approached the Temple, a man lame from birth was being carried in. Each day he was put beside the Temple gate, the one called the Beautiful Gate, so he could beg from the people going into the Temple. 3When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for some money.
4Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, "Look at us!" 5The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting a gift. 6But Peter said, "I don't have any money for you. But I'll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!"
7Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man's feet and anklebones were healed and strengthened. 8He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk! Then, walking, leaping, and praising God, he went into the Temple with them.
9All the people saw him walking and heard him praising God. 10When they realized he was the lame beggar they had seen so often at the Beautiful Gate, they were absolutely astounded! 11They all rushed out to Solomon's Colonnade, where he was holding tightly to Peter and John. Everyone stood there in awe of the wonderful thing that had happened.
Peter Preaches in the Temple
12Peter saw his opportunity and addressed the crowd. "People of Israel," he said, "what is so astounding about this? And why look at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power and godliness? 13For it is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of all our ancestors who has brought glory to his servant Jesus by doing this. This is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, despite Pilate's decision to release him. 14You rejected this holy, righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murderer. 15You killed the author of life, but God raised him to life. And we are witnesses of this fact!
16"The name of Jesus has healed this man—and you know how lame he was before. Faith in Jesus' name has caused this healing before your very eyes.
17"Friends, F13 I realize that what you did to Jesus was done in ignorance; and the same can be said of your leaders. 18But God was fulfilling what all the prophets had declared about the Messiah beforehand—that he must suffer all these things. 19Now turn from your sins and turn to God, so you can be cleansed of your sins. 20Then wonderful times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will send Jesus your Messiah to you again. 21For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his prophets. 22Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up a Prophet like me from among your own people. Listen carefully to everything he tells you.' F14 23Then Moses said, 'Anyone who will not listen to that Prophet will be cut off from God's people and utterly destroyed.' F15
24"Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today. 25You are the children of those prophets, and you are included in the covenant God promised to your ancestors. For God said to Abraham, 'Through your descendants all the families on earth will be blessed.' F16 26When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you people of Israel, to bless you by turning each of you back from your sinful ways."
FOOTNOTES:
F13: Greek Brothers.
F14: Deut 18:15.
F15: Deut 18:19; Lev 23:29.
F16: Gen 22:18.
Lena Journals to Acts 3
A 3 o’clock p.m. prayer service?
When’s the last time you participated in a regular prayer service? At an inconvenient time for your day? Not just prayer in your own house, or in your car, or in the shower, but prayer with others, about others?
When people willingly and regularly participate in meetings with other Christians, with the same set of Christian believers regularly, it is that person who will grow, have growth spurts, be blessed by the power of unity.
Yes, being with others is not always easy. The reason for this is usually when I join w/ you I cannot remain as I was when I joined w/ you, I must adjust to you and you to me. We both change and we make His image clearer in the earth!
There is purpose in gathering with a body of local believers, as we would daily gather at a dinner table at home w/ family. We are the family of God. When a family member is rarely there, and is unaccounted for, the family wonders about them. Wonders about the strength of the family unit.
It takes a me to make a we and a we to make an obvious Him. He isn’t shown as strongly or clearly through just me alone. When I gather and join with other parts of the body, He is shown as He is. I myself am only one specific part, only one piece. Without the joined connected body, I cannot function as His body very well.
Can anyone count on you to pray for them, to make a difference in their lives, by the power of Christ in you? Have you yet seen the power of God activated by your faith in God and His word? Have you yet used what has been so freely given you?
In a treatment program, there are 12 steps (yes you know of it too), one of the steps says, you must turn and give of what was given to you. This is a Godly and a Biblical principle. Give what was given you, or else, as stated in the 12 step program also, you’ll lose what you’ve been given!
We cannot afford to lose what we’ve been given, right?
I can’t. The way to get more and grow more, is to give more! With God and His kingdom, the more one gives the more they get in any area of life, if they give by faith.
Peter & John did not say, look to Jesus, they said look to us! Jesus gave them of Himself, of His very Holy Spirit. If the spirit who raised Christ from the dead dwells in us, in our mortal bodies, then we are made alive unto God! We are alive with the very same life of Christ. Christ is in us! He desires to set captives free, through Christians everywhere at the same moments over time zones, borders and anywhere a willing vessel will be of His use.
Peter & John were willing vessels, Are we?
We are!
People are waiting to stand in awe of what will happen through us.
We allow God or hold Him back. He’s waiting to do something marvelous through us, if we allow it. If we believe.
There is nothing impossible to Him who believes!
Faith is a gift from God, acting on it is a gift to God from us.
The name of Jesus is above every name!
Monday, August 06, 2007
John 12 Today w/ Journalin'
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God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 12
Jesus Anointed at Bethany
1Six days before the Passover ceremonies began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. 2A dinner was prepared in Jesus' honor. Martha served, and Lazarus sat at the table with him. 3Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar F54 of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet with it and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with fragrance.
4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples—the one who would betray him—said, 5"That perfume was worth a small fortune. F55 It should have been sold and the money given to the poor." 6Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief who was in charge of the disciples' funds, and he often took some for his own use.
7Jesus replied, "Leave her alone. She did it in preparation for my burial. 8You will always have the poor among you, but I will not be here with you much longer."
9When all the people F56 heard of Jesus' arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. 10Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, 11for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus.
The Triumphal Entry
12The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A huge crowd of Passover visitors 13took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted,
"Praise God! F57 Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hail to the King of Israel!" F58
14Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:
15 "Don't be afraid, people of Israel. F59 Look, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt." F60
16His disciples didn't realize at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered that these Scriptures had come true before their eyes.
17Those in the crowd who had seen Jesus call Lazarus back to life were telling others all about it. 18That was the main reason so many went out to meet him—because they had heard about this mighty miracle. 19Then the Pharisees said to each other, "We've lost. Look, the whole world has gone after him!"
Jesus Predicts His Death
20Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem to attend the Passover 21paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee. They said, "Sir, we want to meet Jesus." 22Philip told Andrew about it, and they went together to ask Jesus.
23Jesus replied, "The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory. 24The truth is, a kernel of wheat must be planted in the soil. Unless it dies it will be alone—a single seed. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. 25Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who despise their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26All those who want to be my disciples must come and follow me, because my servants must be where I am. And if they follow me, the Father will honor them. 27Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, 'Father, save me from what lies ahead'? But that is the very reason why I came! 28Father, bring glory to your name." Then a voice spoke from heaven, saying, "I have already brought it glory, and I will do it again." 29When the crowd heard the voice, some thought it was thunder, while others declared an angel had spoken to him.
30Then Jesus told them, "The voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31The time of judgment for the world has come, when the prince of this world F61 will be cast out. 32And when I am lifted up on the cross, F62 I will draw everyone to myself." 33He said this to indicate how he was going to die.
34"Die?" asked the crowd. "We understood from Scripture that the Messiah would live forever. Why are you saying the Son of Man will die? Who is this Son of Man you are talking about?"
35Jesus replied, "My light will shine out for you just a little while longer. Walk in it while you can, so you will not stumble when the darkness falls. If you walk in the darkness, you cannot see where you are going. 36Believe in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light." After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them.
The Unbelief of the People
37But despite all the miraculous signs he had done, most of the people did not believe in him. 38This is exactly what Isaiah the prophet had predicted:
"Lord, who has believed our message? To whom will the Lord reveal his saving power?" F63
39But the people couldn't believe, for as Isaiah also said,
40 "The Lord has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts— so their eyes cannot see, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them." F64
41Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he made this prediction, because he was given a vision of the Messiah's glory. 42Many people, including some of the Jewish leaders, believed in him. But they wouldn't admit it to anyone because of their fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue. 43For they loved human praise more than the praise of God.
44Jesus shouted to the crowds, "If you trust me, you are really trusting God who sent me. 45For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me. 46I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the darkness. 47If anyone hears me and doesn't obey me, I am not his judge—for I have come to save the world and not to judge it. 48But all who reject me and my message will be judged at the day of judgment by the truth I have spoken. 49I don't speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me gave me his own instructions as to what I should say. 50And I know his instructions lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say!"
FOOTNOTES:
F54: Greek took 1 litra [327 grams].
F55: Greek 300 denarii. A denarius was equivalent to a full day's wage.
F56: Greek Jewish people; also in 12:11.
F57: Greek Hosanna, an exclamation of praise that literally means "save now."
F58: Ps 118:25-26; Zeph 3:15.
F59: Greek daughter of Zion.
F60: Zech 9:9.
F61: The prince of this world is a name for Satan.
F62: Greek lifted up from the earth.
F63: Isa 53:1.
F64: Isa 6:10.
Lena Journals to John 12 Today
Ever heard of the god of mammon? Though it is lower than God Most High, and is only a “god” and not The God of the whole universe, he is highly exalted. He is not highly exalted by God Most High, but by men, who seek its wealth, power, allure, prestige, titles, value system, fame etc. Even the poorest person can be lured towards it and live their whole life to seek after it.
Jesus said the love of money is the root system of all evil, He also said the two greatest commandments are, Love God with everything you are and have, and then turn and love people the same way God loves you and you love Him in return.
When someone loves money and gives in to its call to service, they do not like people very much. They do not love God Most High enough to try to or learn to love people. People are a bother. People get in the way, people matter less than things do.
These are symptoms of being drawn to the love of money or serving the god of mammon.
Judas obviously exemplified for us, this fault, this weakness.
A humble heart can learn of another’s mistake without repeating the same pattern of it.
A yielded heart will look at the symptoms of the possibility of loving money more than God Most High, and willingly says, wow, that looks like what I’ve been doing, I’ve been being irritated by people easily, feeling they get in my way, always protecting things at the expense of relationships, etc, and that yielded teachable person will use seeing this as a tool for change!
It appears even the religious leaders were under a certain sway and allure of mammon.
Mammon kills, Jesus brings life!
In the triumphal entry, people laid their cloaks down for the donkey Jesus rode upon to walk on. It was like they were using each individual cloak to join other cloaks in unity to make a “red carpet” for Jesus’ pass through. Anytime in the Bible that people take off a cloak, or robe, or a covering, if they strip, or disrobe anything of what they are presently wearing, it shows surrender, It shows yielding of who I am, no matter how high in life or how low I am in position with others. It shows I’m willing to give who or what I presently am, what names I may have made for myself, positions I’ve gained, and titles I’ve earned, I willingly call them nothing in comparison to who He is.
These were willing to strip off their titles to grant Him His, as their personally professed Lord and Savior. That would mean such titles as, Business owner, millionaire, jack of all trades, professor, politician, teacher, leader or whatever else, would be willingly laid down for a donkey to walk on!
That type of giving up of what identifies who I feel I am in life, is a sign of a true covenanted faith filled relationship based on revelation of resurrection life that comes from willing death of self.
This deliberate behavioral action, comes and stands up against the god of mammon in one’s life. It takes that god right off of the throne of one’s heart, and allows God Most High to sit on the seat of my heart and rule.
To allow Jesus to really be Lord of me is not automatic! I make Him Lord of me by my deliberate decisive actions. I decide daily who I will serve, who I will bow to and lay my own red carpet out for. If He is to remain Lord of me, I have to displace all others who want His throne in my life. I’m a keeper of my own gates, a watcher on my own walls.
Certain gates and entryways that need guarded daily by His words of Life instructing me what is truth and what is a lie, are my ears, eyes, thoughts, heart. I keep these or I don’t. God doesn’t protect these areas for me, I do.
I keep my own heart from loving mammon, or being enticed by it. I myself, take mammon worship down in my own life, as it tries to exalt itself, I bring it down, as I choose to lift Jesus higher.
This might sound silly, but I’ll share an experience I had while on a trip to California, my home state. I was visiting family there. I flew into the LA area and drove to Orange County. I was there to help my Aunt who was 42/7 being w/ my Gma and she needed a vacation. A friend of mine came down from the Santa Barbara area where we used to live by one another. We visited at the home of my family member who really lives very simply. I used to live there in their home when I was in Middle school. The home was simple, the lifestyle in the home simple, loving and family oriented. They’d had the home for some 30 plus years and all around them the community had changed, orange groves were now homes, condo’s and businesses. Though the world around was moving very quickly, they almost seemed on pause with it. They were in but not of it.
My friend’s and my moms were visiting together and said they’d be w/ Gma if we wanted to go shop or whatever. We decided to go to the mall together. Driving through the community was neat. I noticed I liked everything I saw. I liked the fast pace, I liked buildings everywhere, with greenery for the most part (except for the orchards!). I loved all the choices of stores, restraunts, entertainment, how easy it was to go anywhere, like the beach was 25 minutes away and the mountains were 45 minutes away, acres of orchards were within 30 minutes, (where they grew the Valencia oranges). Man I miss this place I used to call home.
We arrive at the Brea Mall, wow! What a mall, I knew my girls would LOVE it, so I start looking through their eyes, or trying to, so I can get them something, while there. We ate at a nice place I’ve never been to yet, here in FL, and enjoyed one another’s company….
I realized there were voices, in the form of offers being made me that day. Offers like, “Hey look at this, isn’t THIS what you’ve always wanted in life? Isn’t this how you want to look? Isn’t this the place you could be important? Isn’t this the place you could have more fun, make more money, be in the fast pace….? Ya know, there’s a lot to offer YOU here?”
As I walked the Mall I felt this allure, as I drove the streets I felt the invitation. The thing is I knew it, I recognized what it was/is. I became tuned in to what IS important as I heard this “voice” calling out to invite me. I wondered how many do not recognize it as a “voice” of invitation, as an offer given them, each day? How many become its servants, how many are in and of this world? I knew it was not for me. (Now I’m not saying I can’t live IN California and not be OF the world and its ways, but for me that was where the specific allure was offered to me. If I did live there I’d be on a heightened alert system for a time, till I overcame what I recognized trying to snare me there).
To someone else that “offer” could come in the form of being called to live all alone in the country, to own land, set up a personal or family business, and be and stay alone. Both could be sort of building a “kingdom” unto one’s self, the country living could be the way to get away from it all and not have to “deal” with people and their “stuff”.
The point - who’s kingdom are we a part of establishing, where?
Ours or His?
We cannot serve both God Most High and mammon, we’ll hate one and love the other. There is NO middle road. His kingdom is the one we establish His way if we’re all in.
Those who love their (own) life in this world will lose it. Those who despise their (own ways of living-) life in this world will keep it for eternal life. All those who want to be my disciples must come and follow me,
Those who laid their cloaks down, were decisively doing this!
Those who stand on the outside looking observing, not participating, not striping themselves…..
…..they loved human praise more than the praise of God.
We’ve got to love His life most of all, enough to demonstrate it, by not bowing to who we could become in this life, or how much we can make. The important thing is, does Jesus get who and what He died for? Does He get help getting it, through us? Do we help Him invite others into His kingdom and to also be trained as kingdom workers?
Do we serve others? Do we give our lives for someone else’s vision? Do we plant our desires into someone else’s kingdom work, unifying with a leader who has seen something to do for God? Or are we independently spirited, knowing what God wants for ourselves? Submission of any thought or idea is a demonstration of a kingdom practice. Serving, loving, and Not doing things our own way first are all evidences of the Kings praise in one’s life. I’ve heard church goers say, ”Oh I’m not doing this or that with you guys because I have my own ministry!” All the while the church they go to needs workers in the field of harvest God has called that specific church body to. The laborers are few, those willing to follow men and unify with one vision. It is always the easy road out when a person does their own thing (ministry). Why do people come to churches anyway? Not just to be fed, but to become a participator, wholeheartedly I another man’s work. Not to express one’s self, but to die to self and express Him.
I heard a scripture lately, how can they hear unless there is a preacher? And how can there be a preacher unless one is sent? In other words, if you go out uncovered in a ministry birthed out of your own ideas, and you are uncommitted, not submitted to a local body, local spiritual leaders in one place, and not in participation with a leader in your church’s vision. If you do not go through specified training another’s way, how do we expect to really be heard? We may preach, or share or even gather, but the words are cheap and people may not really hear them, they are not as powerful as words that come through submitted accountable unified vessels. God turns up the power of words earned the right to speak, by those who willingly pay the price through discipleship and submission. He who seeks to save his own life, will lose it, but he who seeks to give it up, will reap in this and in eternal life…..
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 12
Jesus Anointed at Bethany
1Six days before the Passover ceremonies began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. 2A dinner was prepared in Jesus' honor. Martha served, and Lazarus sat at the table with him. 3Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar F54 of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet with it and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with fragrance.
4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples—the one who would betray him—said, 5"That perfume was worth a small fortune. F55 It should have been sold and the money given to the poor." 6Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief who was in charge of the disciples' funds, and he often took some for his own use.
7Jesus replied, "Leave her alone. She did it in preparation for my burial. 8You will always have the poor among you, but I will not be here with you much longer."
9When all the people F56 heard of Jesus' arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. 10Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, 11for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus.
The Triumphal Entry
12The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A huge crowd of Passover visitors 13took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted,
"Praise God! F57 Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hail to the King of Israel!" F58
14Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:
15 "Don't be afraid, people of Israel. F59 Look, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt." F60
16His disciples didn't realize at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered that these Scriptures had come true before their eyes.
17Those in the crowd who had seen Jesus call Lazarus back to life were telling others all about it. 18That was the main reason so many went out to meet him—because they had heard about this mighty miracle. 19Then the Pharisees said to each other, "We've lost. Look, the whole world has gone after him!"
Jesus Predicts His Death
20Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem to attend the Passover 21paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee. They said, "Sir, we want to meet Jesus." 22Philip told Andrew about it, and they went together to ask Jesus.
23Jesus replied, "The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory. 24The truth is, a kernel of wheat must be planted in the soil. Unless it dies it will be alone—a single seed. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. 25Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who despise their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26All those who want to be my disciples must come and follow me, because my servants must be where I am. And if they follow me, the Father will honor them. 27Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, 'Father, save me from what lies ahead'? But that is the very reason why I came! 28Father, bring glory to your name." Then a voice spoke from heaven, saying, "I have already brought it glory, and I will do it again." 29When the crowd heard the voice, some thought it was thunder, while others declared an angel had spoken to him.
30Then Jesus told them, "The voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31The time of judgment for the world has come, when the prince of this world F61 will be cast out. 32And when I am lifted up on the cross, F62 I will draw everyone to myself." 33He said this to indicate how he was going to die.
34"Die?" asked the crowd. "We understood from Scripture that the Messiah would live forever. Why are you saying the Son of Man will die? Who is this Son of Man you are talking about?"
35Jesus replied, "My light will shine out for you just a little while longer. Walk in it while you can, so you will not stumble when the darkness falls. If you walk in the darkness, you cannot see where you are going. 36Believe in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light." After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them.
The Unbelief of the People
37But despite all the miraculous signs he had done, most of the people did not believe in him. 38This is exactly what Isaiah the prophet had predicted:
"Lord, who has believed our message? To whom will the Lord reveal his saving power?" F63
39But the people couldn't believe, for as Isaiah also said,
40 "The Lord has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts— so their eyes cannot see, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them." F64
41Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he made this prediction, because he was given a vision of the Messiah's glory. 42Many people, including some of the Jewish leaders, believed in him. But they wouldn't admit it to anyone because of their fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue. 43For they loved human praise more than the praise of God.
44Jesus shouted to the crowds, "If you trust me, you are really trusting God who sent me. 45For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me. 46I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the darkness. 47If anyone hears me and doesn't obey me, I am not his judge—for I have come to save the world and not to judge it. 48But all who reject me and my message will be judged at the day of judgment by the truth I have spoken. 49I don't speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me gave me his own instructions as to what I should say. 50And I know his instructions lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say!"
FOOTNOTES:
F54: Greek took 1 litra [327 grams].
F55: Greek 300 denarii. A denarius was equivalent to a full day's wage.
F56: Greek Jewish people; also in 12:11.
F57: Greek Hosanna, an exclamation of praise that literally means "save now."
F58: Ps 118:25-26; Zeph 3:15.
F59: Greek daughter of Zion.
F60: Zech 9:9.
F61: The prince of this world is a name for Satan.
F62: Greek lifted up from the earth.
F63: Isa 53:1.
F64: Isa 6:10.
Lena Journals to John 12 Today
Ever heard of the god of mammon? Though it is lower than God Most High, and is only a “god” and not The God of the whole universe, he is highly exalted. He is not highly exalted by God Most High, but by men, who seek its wealth, power, allure, prestige, titles, value system, fame etc. Even the poorest person can be lured towards it and live their whole life to seek after it.
Jesus said the love of money is the root system of all evil, He also said the two greatest commandments are, Love God with everything you are and have, and then turn and love people the same way God loves you and you love Him in return.
When someone loves money and gives in to its call to service, they do not like people very much. They do not love God Most High enough to try to or learn to love people. People are a bother. People get in the way, people matter less than things do.
These are symptoms of being drawn to the love of money or serving the god of mammon.
Judas obviously exemplified for us, this fault, this weakness.
A humble heart can learn of another’s mistake without repeating the same pattern of it.
A yielded heart will look at the symptoms of the possibility of loving money more than God Most High, and willingly says, wow, that looks like what I’ve been doing, I’ve been being irritated by people easily, feeling they get in my way, always protecting things at the expense of relationships, etc, and that yielded teachable person will use seeing this as a tool for change!
It appears even the religious leaders were under a certain sway and allure of mammon.
Mammon kills, Jesus brings life!
In the triumphal entry, people laid their cloaks down for the donkey Jesus rode upon to walk on. It was like they were using each individual cloak to join other cloaks in unity to make a “red carpet” for Jesus’ pass through. Anytime in the Bible that people take off a cloak, or robe, or a covering, if they strip, or disrobe anything of what they are presently wearing, it shows surrender, It shows yielding of who I am, no matter how high in life or how low I am in position with others. It shows I’m willing to give who or what I presently am, what names I may have made for myself, positions I’ve gained, and titles I’ve earned, I willingly call them nothing in comparison to who He is.
These were willing to strip off their titles to grant Him His, as their personally professed Lord and Savior. That would mean such titles as, Business owner, millionaire, jack of all trades, professor, politician, teacher, leader or whatever else, would be willingly laid down for a donkey to walk on!
That type of giving up of what identifies who I feel I am in life, is a sign of a true covenanted faith filled relationship based on revelation of resurrection life that comes from willing death of self.
This deliberate behavioral action, comes and stands up against the god of mammon in one’s life. It takes that god right off of the throne of one’s heart, and allows God Most High to sit on the seat of my heart and rule.
To allow Jesus to really be Lord of me is not automatic! I make Him Lord of me by my deliberate decisive actions. I decide daily who I will serve, who I will bow to and lay my own red carpet out for. If He is to remain Lord of me, I have to displace all others who want His throne in my life. I’m a keeper of my own gates, a watcher on my own walls.
Certain gates and entryways that need guarded daily by His words of Life instructing me what is truth and what is a lie, are my ears, eyes, thoughts, heart. I keep these or I don’t. God doesn’t protect these areas for me, I do.
I keep my own heart from loving mammon, or being enticed by it. I myself, take mammon worship down in my own life, as it tries to exalt itself, I bring it down, as I choose to lift Jesus higher.
This might sound silly, but I’ll share an experience I had while on a trip to California, my home state. I was visiting family there. I flew into the LA area and drove to Orange County. I was there to help my Aunt who was 42/7 being w/ my Gma and she needed a vacation. A friend of mine came down from the Santa Barbara area where we used to live by one another. We visited at the home of my family member who really lives very simply. I used to live there in their home when I was in Middle school. The home was simple, the lifestyle in the home simple, loving and family oriented. They’d had the home for some 30 plus years and all around them the community had changed, orange groves were now homes, condo’s and businesses. Though the world around was moving very quickly, they almost seemed on pause with it. They were in but not of it.
My friend’s and my moms were visiting together and said they’d be w/ Gma if we wanted to go shop or whatever. We decided to go to the mall together. Driving through the community was neat. I noticed I liked everything I saw. I liked the fast pace, I liked buildings everywhere, with greenery for the most part (except for the orchards!). I loved all the choices of stores, restraunts, entertainment, how easy it was to go anywhere, like the beach was 25 minutes away and the mountains were 45 minutes away, acres of orchards were within 30 minutes, (where they grew the Valencia oranges). Man I miss this place I used to call home.
We arrive at the Brea Mall, wow! What a mall, I knew my girls would LOVE it, so I start looking through their eyes, or trying to, so I can get them something, while there. We ate at a nice place I’ve never been to yet, here in FL, and enjoyed one another’s company….
I realized there were voices, in the form of offers being made me that day. Offers like, “Hey look at this, isn’t THIS what you’ve always wanted in life? Isn’t this how you want to look? Isn’t this the place you could be important? Isn’t this the place you could have more fun, make more money, be in the fast pace….? Ya know, there’s a lot to offer YOU here?”
As I walked the Mall I felt this allure, as I drove the streets I felt the invitation. The thing is I knew it, I recognized what it was/is. I became tuned in to what IS important as I heard this “voice” calling out to invite me. I wondered how many do not recognize it as a “voice” of invitation, as an offer given them, each day? How many become its servants, how many are in and of this world? I knew it was not for me. (Now I’m not saying I can’t live IN California and not be OF the world and its ways, but for me that was where the specific allure was offered to me. If I did live there I’d be on a heightened alert system for a time, till I overcame what I recognized trying to snare me there).
To someone else that “offer” could come in the form of being called to live all alone in the country, to own land, set up a personal or family business, and be and stay alone. Both could be sort of building a “kingdom” unto one’s self, the country living could be the way to get away from it all and not have to “deal” with people and their “stuff”.
The point - who’s kingdom are we a part of establishing, where?
Ours or His?
We cannot serve both God Most High and mammon, we’ll hate one and love the other. There is NO middle road. His kingdom is the one we establish His way if we’re all in.
Those who love their (own) life in this world will lose it. Those who despise their (own ways of living-) life in this world will keep it for eternal life. All those who want to be my disciples must come and follow me,
Those who laid their cloaks down, were decisively doing this!
Those who stand on the outside looking observing, not participating, not striping themselves…..
…..they loved human praise more than the praise of God.
We’ve got to love His life most of all, enough to demonstrate it, by not bowing to who we could become in this life, or how much we can make. The important thing is, does Jesus get who and what He died for? Does He get help getting it, through us? Do we help Him invite others into His kingdom and to also be trained as kingdom workers?
Do we serve others? Do we give our lives for someone else’s vision? Do we plant our desires into someone else’s kingdom work, unifying with a leader who has seen something to do for God? Or are we independently spirited, knowing what God wants for ourselves? Submission of any thought or idea is a demonstration of a kingdom practice. Serving, loving, and Not doing things our own way first are all evidences of the Kings praise in one’s life. I’ve heard church goers say, ”Oh I’m not doing this or that with you guys because I have my own ministry!” All the while the church they go to needs workers in the field of harvest God has called that specific church body to. The laborers are few, those willing to follow men and unify with one vision. It is always the easy road out when a person does their own thing (ministry). Why do people come to churches anyway? Not just to be fed, but to become a participator, wholeheartedly I another man’s work. Not to express one’s self, but to die to self and express Him.
I heard a scripture lately, how can they hear unless there is a preacher? And how can there be a preacher unless one is sent? In other words, if you go out uncovered in a ministry birthed out of your own ideas, and you are uncommitted, not submitted to a local body, local spiritual leaders in one place, and not in participation with a leader in your church’s vision. If you do not go through specified training another’s way, how do we expect to really be heard? We may preach, or share or even gather, but the words are cheap and people may not really hear them, they are not as powerful as words that come through submitted accountable unified vessels. God turns up the power of words earned the right to speak, by those who willingly pay the price through discipleship and submission. He who seeks to save his own life, will lose it, but he who seeks to give it up, will reap in this and in eternal life…..
Sunday, August 05, 2007
John 11 Today's Daily Bread
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God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 11The Death of Lazarus
1A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. 2This is the Mary who poured the expensive perfume on the Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair. F48 Her brother, Lazarus, was sick. 3So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, "Lord, the one you love is very sick."
4But when Jesus heard about it he said, "Lazarus's sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God. I, the Son of God, will receive glory from this." 5Although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, 6he stayed where he was for the next two days and did not go to them. 7Finally after two days, he said to his disciples, "Let's go to Judea again."
8But his disciples objected. "Teacher," they said, "only a few days ago the Jewish leaders in Judea were trying to kill you. Are you going there again?"
9Jesus replied, "There are twelve hours of daylight every day. As long as it is light, people can walk safely. They can see because they have the light of this world. 10Only at night is there danger of stumbling because there is no light." 11Then he said, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but now I will go and wake him up."
12The disciples said, "Lord, if he is sleeping, that means he is getting better!" 13They thought Jesus meant Lazarus was having a good night's rest, but Jesus meant Lazarus had died.
14Then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. 15And for your sake, I am glad I wasn't there, because this will give you another opportunity to believe in me. Come, let's go see him."
16Thomas, nicknamed the Twin, F49 said to his fellow disciples, "Let's go, too—and die with Jesus."
17When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. 18Bethany was only a few miles F50 down the road from Jerusalem, 19and many of the people F51 had come to pay their respects and console Martha and Mary on their loss. 20When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask."
23Jesus told her, "Your brother will rise again."
24"Yes," Martha said, "when everyone else rises, on resurrection day."
25Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. F52 Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. 26They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish. Do you believe this, Martha?"
27"Yes, Lord," she told him. "I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God." 28Then she left him and returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the mourners and told her, "The Teacher is here and wants to see you." 29So Mary immediately went to him.
30Now Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him. 31When the people who were at the house trying to console Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus's grave to weep. So they followed her there. 32When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell down at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
33When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, he was moved with indignation and was deeply troubled. 34"Where have you put him?" he asked them. They told him, "Lord, come and see." 35Then Jesus wept. 36The people who were standing nearby said, "See how much he loved him." 37But some said, "This man healed a blind man. Why couldn't he keep Lazarus from dying?"
Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead
38And again Jesus was deeply troubled. Then they came to the grave. It was a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. 39"Roll the stone aside," Jesus told them. But Martha, the dead man's sister, said, "Lord, by now the smell will be terrible because he has been dead for four days."
40Jesus responded, "Didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory if you believe?" 41So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, thank you for hearing me. 42You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so they will believe you sent me." 43Then Jesus shouted, "Lazarus, come out!" 44And Lazarus came out, bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, "Unwrap him and let him go!"
The Plot to Kill Jesus
45Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen. 46But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council F53 together to discuss the situation. "What are we going to do?" they asked each other. "This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. 48If we leave him alone, the whole nation will follow him, and then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation."
49And one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, "How can you be so stupid? 50Why should the whole nation be destroyed? Let this one man die for the people."
51This prophecy that Jesus should die for the entire nation came from Caiaphas in his position as high priest. He didn't think of it himself; he was inspired to say it. 52It was a prediction that Jesus' death would be not for Israel only, but for the gathering together of all the children of God scattered around the world.
53So from that time on the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus' death. 54As a result, Jesus stopped his public ministry among the people and left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the wilderness, to the village of Ephraim, and stayed there with his disciples.
55It was now almost time for the celebration of Passover, and many people from the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the cleansing ceremony before the Passover began. 56They wanted to see Jesus, and as they talked in the Temple, they asked each other, "What do you think? Will he come for the Passover?" 57Meanwhile, the leading priests and Pharisees had publicly announced that anyone seeing Jesus must report him immediately so they could arrest him.
FOOTNOTES:
F48: This incident is recorded in chapter 12.
F49: Greek the one who was called Didymus.
F50: Greek was about 15 stadia [about 2.8 kilometers].
F51: Greek Jewish people; also 11:31, 33, 36, 45, 54.
F52: Some manuscripts do not include and the life.
F53: Greek the Sanhedrin.
Lena’s Journals to John 11 Today
This passage of scripture is so key to understanding death and life. In understanding the difference between natural and spiritual death, and natural and spiritual life.
The way Jesus handled all of the comments made, were based on the eternal security He knew. They were spoken the way He spoke them, because of what He knew, and beyond a shadow of a doubt, because He was relational with God His Father the Creator of the whole deal, He could be at peace when it seemed an end was there and the impossible raised its head.
People in that day said, and still say, why didn’t God, or why did not Jesus do this or that? Why did He wait, or today they may say something like, why didn’t the pastor come right away? They blame death or life and the quality of it in the here and now in a shallow perception of situations.
There is always a HUGE picture we all may only have one small glimpse of. In fact, even today in reading this scripture, one may not see the big picture with the same trust and reliance Jesus based His faith on.
This is why we read it today to see if we can at all grab it with our faith and learn from it personally.
Jesus seemed to speak in riddles. Why’d He do this? Because faith is very important and so are words spoken. God gave each of us a mouth to speak. His will is that we’d speak as He’d speak, and with our words create as He creates, and change our present day world and the circumstances that threaten it.
Jesus did not want to say what is, Jesus desired to speak what would be, through creative and responsive words of faith.
What was, was Lazarus was ill, even unto death. Jesus came to give life, not agree with the threats of death. In bringing life, life would need to be created with words, no matter what anything else looked like. The impossible would be made possible through God’s words coming out of human mouths!
Speaking as God does is practically a miracle for humanity in our day, because of the way we so cheaply spend our God-given words, we use them as though we do not believe or as though we do not know they are powerful and have creative merit.
Have you ever said to Jesus, Lord, the one (I believe) You (say You) love, is quite ill, so much so that it may even be unto death? What was being said in that? I believe we’ve been very hopeful, very wishful that Jesus would choose us and our loved ones to love, to grant a miracle to, as though miracles are magically given to the ones He, so called, loves. I think we have been deceived into thinking maybe God will give us specific favor and grant us, or our loved ones’, life if He is really Love, as people say He is. I hear all of the time the words, IF God is God, or IF God loved us why’d this or that happen to us? It’s like we use what happens after we pray that prayer to gage whether we’ll serve or believe in God or not, and whether we really feel His love for our specific family or not. Faith and wishes are NOT the same. God is not randomly choosing certain people to bless. He looks through out the earth to see who will live by faith in Him. Faith pleases God. Wishes do not. They do nothing.
Living wishfully just does not work in God’s kingdom order. The Lord already gave to each of us an offer, we must accept or reject. We accept or reject the offer to walk by faith in Him, and not by what we see. He gave each of us an offer to create a world different than the one we currently live in, through words of faith that agree with what He’s set out for us to grab a hold of.
Do not allow your heart or mind to be deceived, He does love us, He does love our family members. This is why he paid the price He did for sin, and this is why He gives us the offers we have received. The question is, how much do we believe that no matter what happens, and do we love Him enough in return to believe it and stand by it, no matter the other offers that come our way, not to?
Life here is a test of faith. Faith works. It believes God at His words and then responds with action on the words of God, It comes into agreement with the words of God even when it is the most impossible thing on all the earth to do. It pulls out of the unseen realm heaven’s wishes, by creative faith filled God agreeing words. It brings heaven to earth, by active lifestyle participation based upon faith in God.
When Jesus said Lazarus is sleeping, He was offering something for the disciples to agree with Him on. Not what was seemingly truth, but that which would be truth, as willed by God. When Jesus said, he will rise again, He was offering Mary something to sink her faith into and what to act upon to become powerful in the earth by agreeing with the very words of God!
These were lessons for us today to learn by.
Ok now, there’s that question of practicality that comes up from the human mind. What if I try that and it doesn’t work? What if I do all the “right things” and my family member isn’t made better?
What if? The question is about you now. What will happen to you? Will you turn away from, or run closer to God who is still your Father? Is God’s word still true, even if it looks like it didn’t work out for your situation this time? Will this situation be able to take you away from God’s destined purposes for your life? Will this test of faith kill yours off? Is your faith shallow or deep?
There is earth life and eternal life, which is the most important? To you?
Jesus cried- wept, why?
There was another passage where He wept also, over unbelief. God sent His Son to make more sons who live by faith in what they do not yet see, and who will stand until they see it, by bringing it out into the seen world from the unseen world. If your plan depended upon certain ones, how would you, in God’s position feel, if the very ones you offered the plan to, refused to work it?
Seeing through big picture eyes, in the spirit, it could be a grievous thing.
This is what life here is all about, no matter how much of it we personally get to live.
"I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish. Do you believe this, _____________?"
Then it says :
And again Jesus was deeply troubled. (He says to the one the offer was made to live by faith both now and later on to) - Didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory if you believe?"
Jesus died that everyone in the world could believe in Him and walk a life of faith now. He died to offer that life, one that sees what others do not yet see, and one that agrees with God until what God desires to be seen appears here. The offer is made to anyone who would believe and receive that life, living it to its fullest.
The timing of His death in His day was at the Passover, for He willingly offered Himself up as the sacrifice Lamb before His Father. He was here to tell God he believed enough to give His whole life up for who His Father loved with corresponding actions. Even if in His day it appeared no one really believed yet, His death would be a response to faith in the prophetic act that would bring the birthing of many kingdom of God believer, disciples in the whole earth. It would birth many sons and daughters in the earth who would willingly choose to walk as He walked, and speak as He spoke in agreement with His Father.
One must see there is so much more than the life we now see, and that the life we now see is all about the life we do not yet see.
That makes it easier to want to live this way, share this with who we love and let someone we love go on to that next place, if we believe in eternity.
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 11The Death of Lazarus
1A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. 2This is the Mary who poured the expensive perfume on the Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair. F48 Her brother, Lazarus, was sick. 3So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, "Lord, the one you love is very sick."
4But when Jesus heard about it he said, "Lazarus's sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God. I, the Son of God, will receive glory from this." 5Although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, 6he stayed where he was for the next two days and did not go to them. 7Finally after two days, he said to his disciples, "Let's go to Judea again."
8But his disciples objected. "Teacher," they said, "only a few days ago the Jewish leaders in Judea were trying to kill you. Are you going there again?"
9Jesus replied, "There are twelve hours of daylight every day. As long as it is light, people can walk safely. They can see because they have the light of this world. 10Only at night is there danger of stumbling because there is no light." 11Then he said, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but now I will go and wake him up."
12The disciples said, "Lord, if he is sleeping, that means he is getting better!" 13They thought Jesus meant Lazarus was having a good night's rest, but Jesus meant Lazarus had died.
14Then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. 15And for your sake, I am glad I wasn't there, because this will give you another opportunity to believe in me. Come, let's go see him."
16Thomas, nicknamed the Twin, F49 said to his fellow disciples, "Let's go, too—and die with Jesus."
17When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. 18Bethany was only a few miles F50 down the road from Jerusalem, 19and many of the people F51 had come to pay their respects and console Martha and Mary on their loss. 20When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask."
23Jesus told her, "Your brother will rise again."
24"Yes," Martha said, "when everyone else rises, on resurrection day."
25Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. F52 Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. 26They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish. Do you believe this, Martha?"
27"Yes, Lord," she told him. "I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God." 28Then she left him and returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the mourners and told her, "The Teacher is here and wants to see you." 29So Mary immediately went to him.
30Now Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him. 31When the people who were at the house trying to console Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus's grave to weep. So they followed her there. 32When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell down at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
33When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, he was moved with indignation and was deeply troubled. 34"Where have you put him?" he asked them. They told him, "Lord, come and see." 35Then Jesus wept. 36The people who were standing nearby said, "See how much he loved him." 37But some said, "This man healed a blind man. Why couldn't he keep Lazarus from dying?"
Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead
38And again Jesus was deeply troubled. Then they came to the grave. It was a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. 39"Roll the stone aside," Jesus told them. But Martha, the dead man's sister, said, "Lord, by now the smell will be terrible because he has been dead for four days."
40Jesus responded, "Didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory if you believe?" 41So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, thank you for hearing me. 42You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so they will believe you sent me." 43Then Jesus shouted, "Lazarus, come out!" 44And Lazarus came out, bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, "Unwrap him and let him go!"
The Plot to Kill Jesus
45Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen. 46But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council F53 together to discuss the situation. "What are we going to do?" they asked each other. "This man certainly performs many miraculous signs. 48If we leave him alone, the whole nation will follow him, and then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation."
49And one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, "How can you be so stupid? 50Why should the whole nation be destroyed? Let this one man die for the people."
51This prophecy that Jesus should die for the entire nation came from Caiaphas in his position as high priest. He didn't think of it himself; he was inspired to say it. 52It was a prediction that Jesus' death would be not for Israel only, but for the gathering together of all the children of God scattered around the world.
53So from that time on the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus' death. 54As a result, Jesus stopped his public ministry among the people and left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the wilderness, to the village of Ephraim, and stayed there with his disciples.
55It was now almost time for the celebration of Passover, and many people from the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the cleansing ceremony before the Passover began. 56They wanted to see Jesus, and as they talked in the Temple, they asked each other, "What do you think? Will he come for the Passover?" 57Meanwhile, the leading priests and Pharisees had publicly announced that anyone seeing Jesus must report him immediately so they could arrest him.
FOOTNOTES:
F48: This incident is recorded in chapter 12.
F49: Greek the one who was called Didymus.
F50: Greek was about 15 stadia [about 2.8 kilometers].
F51: Greek Jewish people; also 11:31, 33, 36, 45, 54.
F52: Some manuscripts do not include and the life.
F53: Greek the Sanhedrin.
Lena’s Journals to John 11 Today
This passage of scripture is so key to understanding death and life. In understanding the difference between natural and spiritual death, and natural and spiritual life.
The way Jesus handled all of the comments made, were based on the eternal security He knew. They were spoken the way He spoke them, because of what He knew, and beyond a shadow of a doubt, because He was relational with God His Father the Creator of the whole deal, He could be at peace when it seemed an end was there and the impossible raised its head.
People in that day said, and still say, why didn’t God, or why did not Jesus do this or that? Why did He wait, or today they may say something like, why didn’t the pastor come right away? They blame death or life and the quality of it in the here and now in a shallow perception of situations.
There is always a HUGE picture we all may only have one small glimpse of. In fact, even today in reading this scripture, one may not see the big picture with the same trust and reliance Jesus based His faith on.
This is why we read it today to see if we can at all grab it with our faith and learn from it personally.
Jesus seemed to speak in riddles. Why’d He do this? Because faith is very important and so are words spoken. God gave each of us a mouth to speak. His will is that we’d speak as He’d speak, and with our words create as He creates, and change our present day world and the circumstances that threaten it.
Jesus did not want to say what is, Jesus desired to speak what would be, through creative and responsive words of faith.
What was, was Lazarus was ill, even unto death. Jesus came to give life, not agree with the threats of death. In bringing life, life would need to be created with words, no matter what anything else looked like. The impossible would be made possible through God’s words coming out of human mouths!
Speaking as God does is practically a miracle for humanity in our day, because of the way we so cheaply spend our God-given words, we use them as though we do not believe or as though we do not know they are powerful and have creative merit.
Have you ever said to Jesus, Lord, the one (I believe) You (say You) love, is quite ill, so much so that it may even be unto death? What was being said in that? I believe we’ve been very hopeful, very wishful that Jesus would choose us and our loved ones to love, to grant a miracle to, as though miracles are magically given to the ones He, so called, loves. I think we have been deceived into thinking maybe God will give us specific favor and grant us, or our loved ones’, life if He is really Love, as people say He is. I hear all of the time the words, IF God is God, or IF God loved us why’d this or that happen to us? It’s like we use what happens after we pray that prayer to gage whether we’ll serve or believe in God or not, and whether we really feel His love for our specific family or not. Faith and wishes are NOT the same. God is not randomly choosing certain people to bless. He looks through out the earth to see who will live by faith in Him. Faith pleases God. Wishes do not. They do nothing.
Living wishfully just does not work in God’s kingdom order. The Lord already gave to each of us an offer, we must accept or reject. We accept or reject the offer to walk by faith in Him, and not by what we see. He gave each of us an offer to create a world different than the one we currently live in, through words of faith that agree with what He’s set out for us to grab a hold of.
Do not allow your heart or mind to be deceived, He does love us, He does love our family members. This is why he paid the price He did for sin, and this is why He gives us the offers we have received. The question is, how much do we believe that no matter what happens, and do we love Him enough in return to believe it and stand by it, no matter the other offers that come our way, not to?
Life here is a test of faith. Faith works. It believes God at His words and then responds with action on the words of God, It comes into agreement with the words of God even when it is the most impossible thing on all the earth to do. It pulls out of the unseen realm heaven’s wishes, by creative faith filled God agreeing words. It brings heaven to earth, by active lifestyle participation based upon faith in God.
When Jesus said Lazarus is sleeping, He was offering something for the disciples to agree with Him on. Not what was seemingly truth, but that which would be truth, as willed by God. When Jesus said, he will rise again, He was offering Mary something to sink her faith into and what to act upon to become powerful in the earth by agreeing with the very words of God!
These were lessons for us today to learn by.
Ok now, there’s that question of practicality that comes up from the human mind. What if I try that and it doesn’t work? What if I do all the “right things” and my family member isn’t made better?
What if? The question is about you now. What will happen to you? Will you turn away from, or run closer to God who is still your Father? Is God’s word still true, even if it looks like it didn’t work out for your situation this time? Will this situation be able to take you away from God’s destined purposes for your life? Will this test of faith kill yours off? Is your faith shallow or deep?
There is earth life and eternal life, which is the most important? To you?
Jesus cried- wept, why?
There was another passage where He wept also, over unbelief. God sent His Son to make more sons who live by faith in what they do not yet see, and who will stand until they see it, by bringing it out into the seen world from the unseen world. If your plan depended upon certain ones, how would you, in God’s position feel, if the very ones you offered the plan to, refused to work it?
Seeing through big picture eyes, in the spirit, it could be a grievous thing.
This is what life here is all about, no matter how much of it we personally get to live.
"I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish. Do you believe this, _____________?"
Then it says :
And again Jesus was deeply troubled. (He says to the one the offer was made to live by faith both now and later on to) - Didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory if you believe?"
Jesus died that everyone in the world could believe in Him and walk a life of faith now. He died to offer that life, one that sees what others do not yet see, and one that agrees with God until what God desires to be seen appears here. The offer is made to anyone who would believe and receive that life, living it to its fullest.
The timing of His death in His day was at the Passover, for He willingly offered Himself up as the sacrifice Lamb before His Father. He was here to tell God he believed enough to give His whole life up for who His Father loved with corresponding actions. Even if in His day it appeared no one really believed yet, His death would be a response to faith in the prophetic act that would bring the birthing of many kingdom of God believer, disciples in the whole earth. It would birth many sons and daughters in the earth who would willingly choose to walk as He walked, and speak as He spoke in agreement with His Father.
One must see there is so much more than the life we now see, and that the life we now see is all about the life we do not yet see.
That makes it easier to want to live this way, share this with who we love and let someone we love go on to that next place, if we believe in eternity.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
John 4 Today Long, but good & Important stuff :-) !!!
Note- IF this e-mail is at all encrypted and is unreadable, scroll down to the end of the passage and click on the underlined blue words "Lena's Discipleship Journalin' For Today ", this will take you straight to the website where you'll enjoy a readable copy
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 4
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
1Jesus F21 learned that the Pharisees had heard, "Jesus is baptizing and making more disciples than John" 2(though Jesus himself didn't baptize them—his disciples did). 3So he left Judea to return to Galilee.
4He had to go through Samaria on the way. 5Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. 7Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Please give me a drink." 8He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
9The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, "You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?"
10Jesus replied, "If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water."
11"But sir, you don't have a rope or a bucket," she said, "and this is a very deep well. Where would you get this living water? 12And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his cattle enjoyed?"
13Jesus replied, "People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. 14But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life."
15"Please, sir," the woman said, "give me some of that water! Then I'll never be thirsty again, and I won't have to come here to haul water."
16"Go and get your husband," Jesus told her.
17"I don't have a husband," the woman replied. Jesus said, "You're right! You don't have a husband—18for you have had five husbands, and you aren't even married to the man you're living with now."
19"Sir," the woman said, "you must be a prophet. 20So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, F22 where our ancestors worshiped?"
21Jesus replied, "Believe me, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans know so little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. 23But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way. 24For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth."
25The woman said, "I know the Messiah will come—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26Then Jesus told her, "I am the Messiah!" F23
27Just then his disciples arrived. They were astonished to find him talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why he was doing it or what they had been discussing. 28The woman left her water jar beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, 29"Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?" 30So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
31Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus to eat. 32"No," he said, "I have food you don't know about."
33"Who brought it to him?" the disciples asked each other.
34Then Jesus explained: "My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. 35Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields are ripening all around us and are ready now for the harvest. 36The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! 37You know the saying, 'One person plants and someone else harvests.' And it's true. 38I sent you to harvest where you didn't plant; others had already done the work, and you will gather the harvest."
Many Samaritans Believe
39Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, "He told me everything I ever did!" 40When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay at their village. So he stayed for two days, 41long enough for many of them to hear his message and believe. 42Then they said to the woman, "Now we believe because we have heard him ourselves, not just because of what you told us. He is indeed the Savior of the world."
Jesus Heals an Official's Son
43At the end of the two days' stay, Jesus went on into Galilee. 44He had previously said, "A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own country." 45The Galileans welcomed him, for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen all his miraculous signs.
46In the course of his journey through Galilee, he arrived at the town of Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a government official in the city of Capernaum whose son was very sick. 47When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea and was traveling in Galilee, he went over to Cana. He found Jesus and begged him to come to Capernaum with him to heal his son, who was about to die.
48Jesus asked, "Must I do miraculous signs and wonders before you people will believe in me?"
49The official pleaded, "Lord, please come now before my little boy dies."
50Then Jesus told him, "Go back home. Your son will live!" And the man believed Jesus' word and started home.
51While he was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well. 52He asked them when the boy had begun to feel better, and they replied, "Yesterday afternoon at one o'clock his fever suddenly disappeared!" 53Then the father realized it was the same time that Jesus had told him, "Your son will live." And the officer and his entire household believed in Jesus. 54This was Jesus' second miraculous sign in Galilee after coming from Judea.
FOOTNOTES:
F21: Some manuscripts read The Lord.
F22: Greek on this mountain.
F23: Greek "I am, the one speaking to you."
Lena Journals _
The religious people were looking for something to snag Jesus on, to stop the words of Life from spreading throughout the earth.
That sounds like an assignment of the evil one to stop the truth from going forth. It sounds to me like religious people, who live to dot every “i” and make sure everyone else crosses every “t”, can actually be used by God’s enemy!
That is something we, as those who dwell in the house of God, need to realize we are not so far from being tempted to become, even an enemy of God’s work. If we become religious, this can be a danger.
It is very easy to fall into religious dutiful activity and lose faith. Faith is what keeps us from being religious. Faith must be nourished, grown, and managed, to be kept alive.
It is only faith which pleases God, not mere religious goodness. If one does good deeds that are not in faith, one must know, those deeds are empty where pleasing God is concerned. Yet one can do those same deeds in faith, and be full of life! The difference is a life in relationship with God, a life lived by faith, a faith that continues, not activity that replaces relationship. Now, Be aware, this is such an easy trap to miss as a Christian believer who loves God, or at least starts out by loving God.
Jesus went elsewhere, His time to be taken out by enemy force was not yet! He did not give the enemy any place. He was wise to the enemy’s tactics. If one is wise like this they can avoid many a trap, when they know their time is not yet up here.
Are we on the watch for those who need Jesus, and His life introduced to them?
Ya know the well was a gathering place, a place people gathered at everyday, a marketplace. Jesus went there sat down, and struck up a conversation with a woman who came there all of the time anyway. I bet the well goers know who came to the well and when. So she may have recognized a newbie there and was ready to find out who He was.
This is how kingdom life would be. Not religious life, but kingdom life. It is meant to be spread everyday. Someone notices our lives being lived in a normal place and they inquire of the life in us. We may be open to asking them a key question to open up a conversation, or we ask God to tell us a secret that will open a conversation for His glory and honor.
In the kingdom, this is a daily occurrence. Kingdom ambassadors speak and live for Him in everyplace, everyday, in what they are already about, business-wise. While they do business in the marketplaces, they shine, show forth His life from the inside out and are open to the leading of God’s Holy Spirit alive in them, because they are about their Father’s business, as Jesus was.
That is quite contrary to the thoughts we have of only leading people to the Lord at church. Church is a fine place to do so, especially when if a person is at church, they must be seeking God, right? Maybe, or maybe not. They may be their doing what they’ve thought is a religious duty and not seeking God at all. People out in our communities need Christ to, some may not even yet know how much they need His life revealed, and then again how much He needs them!
When I first came to Christ I saw people handing out tracks in the street in Hollywood, CA. I thought wow, that’s a real evangelist! What a nice and bold Christian! Many years later I got to thinking, how ineffective that is, to stick a little booklet in some stranger’s face. I heard the spirit of the Lord tell me, open up your home, let people see your day to day life and family, be vulnerable and forced to make more changes towards godliness where it really counts and then invite people to hang with you and look at how you interact with your kids, husband, etc.
God is a relational father, a family oriented kingdom “man”. He’s interested in a faith that stays, not one that prays a quick magical prayer after reading a few words printed on special paper, and goes on as they were!
There was a statistic I heard lately. Of millions of professing Christians in our own land, 85% of them only confessed Christ in a “saving” prayer. These who confessed Christ, did not go home from that prayer with any intent to be trained the rest of their lives on how to change their lifestyle and live as a Christian!
Where God looks upon us a children and sons, means if He is relational, familial, He sees out of those millions, 15% who’s heart is truly after what He is after! That shows how ineffective the ”give me a magical formula”, rather than ”watch me live” ministries are!
This woman at this well, who did not even know she was looking for Jesus, who was not apparently seeking Him, was just going about her normal day, asking spiritual questions of no man. Yet from that very place where she was asking nothing of the Lord, she went and saved her whole city, in a day! Don’t let people’s countenances fool you, there may be a man or woman of God inside of the grouch you have for a boss!
Is there living water in you for them to drink of?
Are you connected relationally to the Father by the spirit of Christ in you that you are willing to be a channel of God to tell someone all they are, or maybe who they’ve been , or maybe even, who they’ve been with until now? Sharing this with one person, can cause a domino effect far beyond what you purposed the day you acted in faith and in boldness as the person you were created to be for Him.
Those who step out in faith like this, always looking up, in case there is an opportunity for the harvest, will see the glory of God revealed.
We train ourselves to think and live this way. It’s up to us, how hungry and thirsty are we for His righteous to be made known for people of the earth through us? It is those who hunger and thirst for righteousness who will be filled full of more , and will end up giving more? That is the principle of His kingdom, to get, is to give, to give, is to get. The more we give, the more will be given us. If you feel dry Or weary, sad or diseased, give water, strength, joy, peace…such is the kingdom of God. Righteousness, peace.and joy
Since I’ve realized how important kingdom business is. I love this scripture more than most. Reading it keeps me focused on what is royally important!
"My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields are ripening all around us and are ready now for the harvest. The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! You know the saying, 'One person plants and someone else harvests.' And it's true. I sent you to harvest where you didn't plant; others had already done the work, and you will gather the harvest."
Why am I alive, why are people on earth, why only for a time, whether long or short?
This is it!
What is better to eat than any delicacy ever offered? What is worth living and even dying to and for, especially to self will and personal desire and lusts?
Life is far too short to just take our sweet time mustering up enough bravery or boldness to show and talk about the good news of eternal life, people die daily, people we know, work with, and see in the marketplaces all the time. One soul is a family of influence.
People’s family members die daily, people we know. If we shared with who we know, they’d in turn share with who they know, also.
My mom & I went into a business one day, it happened to be a place where a mom of a casual friend lives, the friend’s mom was not there. We met the lady in charge, asked our questions and visited w/ her for probably a half an hour. It seemed she was really struggling, with some sort of addiction, plus pain and really could barely make her way around. My guess she was 40, maybe even younger. I felt compelled to ask her if I could pray over her, she consented and I did. I wasn’t sure what to pray, and it seemed a bold thing to ask a stranger, anyway……within days of this “meeting” a change of events happened for us and we would not have needed the services of the place, in other words, would not have returned there again to show our faces to this particular lady, This would be our only meeting w/ her….come to find out, she was dead by that weekend.
DO NOT hesitate.
Do NOT let fear tell you what to do. You tell it where to Go!
People are waiting for Christ in us to appear, and to show up for them.
Without the miraculous saving power of Jesus Christ, who is the only way a man’s spirit can be saved and transformed, translated from eternal death to start eternal life on a journey now, men are doomed.
Have you ever watched Pirates of the Caribbean- Dead Man’s Chest? That movie has such a great picture of what is happening spiritually speaking as each human is either walking dead because of their unpaid for trespasses and sins, or walking alive by having believed, received, and walked in the revelation of the bloodshed to save them through Jesus Christ.
In the movie, in the moonlight one would see the men as they really were. They looked normal in darkness, but when light shined in darkness, it was clear to others who they really were.
Eternal Death is that ugly, that horrendous.
If you noticed many of the pirates were at different stages of being eaten away by death’s sting. This is such a good picture. If we had eyes to see in the spirit, we’d put our bold clothes on and save some people as soon as is possible. We’d get our sickle in our hands and go, we’d make a way no matter what, especially with people we love, people in our families.
There’s a Christian song that says, how can we sing (praises) or what we do not see? That is so true. How can man live fully without purpose, and what man who does not know it, is not driven to find it? If you now know you should find it. Go for it, but I’ll just tell you now, it is only found in Christ and His will for the earth.
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 4
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
1Jesus F21 learned that the Pharisees had heard, "Jesus is baptizing and making more disciples than John" 2(though Jesus himself didn't baptize them—his disciples did). 3So he left Judea to return to Galilee.
4He had to go through Samaria on the way. 5Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. 7Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Please give me a drink." 8He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
9The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, "You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?"
10Jesus replied, "If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water."
11"But sir, you don't have a rope or a bucket," she said, "and this is a very deep well. Where would you get this living water? 12And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his cattle enjoyed?"
13Jesus replied, "People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. 14But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life."
15"Please, sir," the woman said, "give me some of that water! Then I'll never be thirsty again, and I won't have to come here to haul water."
16"Go and get your husband," Jesus told her.
17"I don't have a husband," the woman replied. Jesus said, "You're right! You don't have a husband—18for you have had five husbands, and you aren't even married to the man you're living with now."
19"Sir," the woman said, "you must be a prophet. 20So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, F22 where our ancestors worshiped?"
21Jesus replied, "Believe me, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans know so little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. 23But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way. 24For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth."
25The woman said, "I know the Messiah will come—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
26Then Jesus told her, "I am the Messiah!" F23
27Just then his disciples arrived. They were astonished to find him talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why he was doing it or what they had been discussing. 28The woman left her water jar beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, 29"Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?" 30So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
31Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus to eat. 32"No," he said, "I have food you don't know about."
33"Who brought it to him?" the disciples asked each other.
34Then Jesus explained: "My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. 35Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields are ripening all around us and are ready now for the harvest. 36The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! 37You know the saying, 'One person plants and someone else harvests.' And it's true. 38I sent you to harvest where you didn't plant; others had already done the work, and you will gather the harvest."
Many Samaritans Believe
39Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, "He told me everything I ever did!" 40When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay at their village. So he stayed for two days, 41long enough for many of them to hear his message and believe. 42Then they said to the woman, "Now we believe because we have heard him ourselves, not just because of what you told us. He is indeed the Savior of the world."
Jesus Heals an Official's Son
43At the end of the two days' stay, Jesus went on into Galilee. 44He had previously said, "A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own country." 45The Galileans welcomed him, for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen all his miraculous signs.
46In the course of his journey through Galilee, he arrived at the town of Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a government official in the city of Capernaum whose son was very sick. 47When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea and was traveling in Galilee, he went over to Cana. He found Jesus and begged him to come to Capernaum with him to heal his son, who was about to die.
48Jesus asked, "Must I do miraculous signs and wonders before you people will believe in me?"
49The official pleaded, "Lord, please come now before my little boy dies."
50Then Jesus told him, "Go back home. Your son will live!" And the man believed Jesus' word and started home.
51While he was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well. 52He asked them when the boy had begun to feel better, and they replied, "Yesterday afternoon at one o'clock his fever suddenly disappeared!" 53Then the father realized it was the same time that Jesus had told him, "Your son will live." And the officer and his entire household believed in Jesus. 54This was Jesus' second miraculous sign in Galilee after coming from Judea.
FOOTNOTES:
F21: Some manuscripts read The Lord.
F22: Greek on this mountain.
F23: Greek "I am, the one speaking to you."
Lena Journals _
The religious people were looking for something to snag Jesus on, to stop the words of Life from spreading throughout the earth.
That sounds like an assignment of the evil one to stop the truth from going forth. It sounds to me like religious people, who live to dot every “i” and make sure everyone else crosses every “t”, can actually be used by God’s enemy!
That is something we, as those who dwell in the house of God, need to realize we are not so far from being tempted to become, even an enemy of God’s work. If we become religious, this can be a danger.
It is very easy to fall into religious dutiful activity and lose faith. Faith is what keeps us from being religious. Faith must be nourished, grown, and managed, to be kept alive.
It is only faith which pleases God, not mere religious goodness. If one does good deeds that are not in faith, one must know, those deeds are empty where pleasing God is concerned. Yet one can do those same deeds in faith, and be full of life! The difference is a life in relationship with God, a life lived by faith, a faith that continues, not activity that replaces relationship. Now, Be aware, this is such an easy trap to miss as a Christian believer who loves God, or at least starts out by loving God.
Jesus went elsewhere, His time to be taken out by enemy force was not yet! He did not give the enemy any place. He was wise to the enemy’s tactics. If one is wise like this they can avoid many a trap, when they know their time is not yet up here.
Are we on the watch for those who need Jesus, and His life introduced to them?
Ya know the well was a gathering place, a place people gathered at everyday, a marketplace. Jesus went there sat down, and struck up a conversation with a woman who came there all of the time anyway. I bet the well goers know who came to the well and when. So she may have recognized a newbie there and was ready to find out who He was.
This is how kingdom life would be. Not religious life, but kingdom life. It is meant to be spread everyday. Someone notices our lives being lived in a normal place and they inquire of the life in us. We may be open to asking them a key question to open up a conversation, or we ask God to tell us a secret that will open a conversation for His glory and honor.
In the kingdom, this is a daily occurrence. Kingdom ambassadors speak and live for Him in everyplace, everyday, in what they are already about, business-wise. While they do business in the marketplaces, they shine, show forth His life from the inside out and are open to the leading of God’s Holy Spirit alive in them, because they are about their Father’s business, as Jesus was.
That is quite contrary to the thoughts we have of only leading people to the Lord at church. Church is a fine place to do so, especially when if a person is at church, they must be seeking God, right? Maybe, or maybe not. They may be their doing what they’ve thought is a religious duty and not seeking God at all. People out in our communities need Christ to, some may not even yet know how much they need His life revealed, and then again how much He needs them!
When I first came to Christ I saw people handing out tracks in the street in Hollywood, CA. I thought wow, that’s a real evangelist! What a nice and bold Christian! Many years later I got to thinking, how ineffective that is, to stick a little booklet in some stranger’s face. I heard the spirit of the Lord tell me, open up your home, let people see your day to day life and family, be vulnerable and forced to make more changes towards godliness where it really counts and then invite people to hang with you and look at how you interact with your kids, husband, etc.
God is a relational father, a family oriented kingdom “man”. He’s interested in a faith that stays, not one that prays a quick magical prayer after reading a few words printed on special paper, and goes on as they were!
There was a statistic I heard lately. Of millions of professing Christians in our own land, 85% of them only confessed Christ in a “saving” prayer. These who confessed Christ, did not go home from that prayer with any intent to be trained the rest of their lives on how to change their lifestyle and live as a Christian!
Where God looks upon us a children and sons, means if He is relational, familial, He sees out of those millions, 15% who’s heart is truly after what He is after! That shows how ineffective the ”give me a magical formula”, rather than ”watch me live” ministries are!
This woman at this well, who did not even know she was looking for Jesus, who was not apparently seeking Him, was just going about her normal day, asking spiritual questions of no man. Yet from that very place where she was asking nothing of the Lord, she went and saved her whole city, in a day! Don’t let people’s countenances fool you, there may be a man or woman of God inside of the grouch you have for a boss!
Is there living water in you for them to drink of?
Are you connected relationally to the Father by the spirit of Christ in you that you are willing to be a channel of God to tell someone all they are, or maybe who they’ve been , or maybe even, who they’ve been with until now? Sharing this with one person, can cause a domino effect far beyond what you purposed the day you acted in faith and in boldness as the person you were created to be for Him.
Those who step out in faith like this, always looking up, in case there is an opportunity for the harvest, will see the glory of God revealed.
We train ourselves to think and live this way. It’s up to us, how hungry and thirsty are we for His righteous to be made known for people of the earth through us? It is those who hunger and thirst for righteousness who will be filled full of more , and will end up giving more? That is the principle of His kingdom, to get, is to give, to give, is to get. The more we give, the more will be given us. If you feel dry Or weary, sad or diseased, give water, strength, joy, peace…such is the kingdom of God. Righteousness, peace.and joy
Since I’ve realized how important kingdom business is. I love this scripture more than most. Reading it keeps me focused on what is royally important!
"My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields are ripening all around us and are ready now for the harvest. The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! You know the saying, 'One person plants and someone else harvests.' And it's true. I sent you to harvest where you didn't plant; others had already done the work, and you will gather the harvest."
Why am I alive, why are people on earth, why only for a time, whether long or short?
This is it!
What is better to eat than any delicacy ever offered? What is worth living and even dying to and for, especially to self will and personal desire and lusts?
Life is far too short to just take our sweet time mustering up enough bravery or boldness to show and talk about the good news of eternal life, people die daily, people we know, work with, and see in the marketplaces all the time. One soul is a family of influence.
People’s family members die daily, people we know. If we shared with who we know, they’d in turn share with who they know, also.
My mom & I went into a business one day, it happened to be a place where a mom of a casual friend lives, the friend’s mom was not there. We met the lady in charge, asked our questions and visited w/ her for probably a half an hour. It seemed she was really struggling, with some sort of addiction, plus pain and really could barely make her way around. My guess she was 40, maybe even younger. I felt compelled to ask her if I could pray over her, she consented and I did. I wasn’t sure what to pray, and it seemed a bold thing to ask a stranger, anyway……within days of this “meeting” a change of events happened for us and we would not have needed the services of the place, in other words, would not have returned there again to show our faces to this particular lady, This would be our only meeting w/ her….come to find out, she was dead by that weekend.
DO NOT hesitate.
Do NOT let fear tell you what to do. You tell it where to Go!
People are waiting for Christ in us to appear, and to show up for them.
Without the miraculous saving power of Jesus Christ, who is the only way a man’s spirit can be saved and transformed, translated from eternal death to start eternal life on a journey now, men are doomed.
Have you ever watched Pirates of the Caribbean- Dead Man’s Chest? That movie has such a great picture of what is happening spiritually speaking as each human is either walking dead because of their unpaid for trespasses and sins, or walking alive by having believed, received, and walked in the revelation of the bloodshed to save them through Jesus Christ.
In the movie, in the moonlight one would see the men as they really were. They looked normal in darkness, but when light shined in darkness, it was clear to others who they really were.
Eternal Death is that ugly, that horrendous.
If you noticed many of the pirates were at different stages of being eaten away by death’s sting. This is such a good picture. If we had eyes to see in the spirit, we’d put our bold clothes on and save some people as soon as is possible. We’d get our sickle in our hands and go, we’d make a way no matter what, especially with people we love, people in our families.
There’s a Christian song that says, how can we sing (praises) or what we do not see? That is so true. How can man live fully without purpose, and what man who does not know it, is not driven to find it? If you now know you should find it. Go for it, but I’ll just tell you now, it is only found in Christ and His will for the earth.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
John 3 Today w/ Journalin
Note- IF this e-mail is at all encrypted and is unreadable, scroll down to the end of the passage and click on the underlined blue words "Lena's Discipleship Journalin' For Today ", this will take you straight to the website where you'll enjoy a readable copy
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 3
Jesus and Nicodemus
1After dark one evening, a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, 2came to speak with Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are proof enough that God is with you."
3Jesus replied, "I assure you, unless you are born again, F15 you can never see the Kingdom of God."
4"What do you mean?" exclaimed Nicodemus. "How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?"
5Jesus replied, "The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. F16 6Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven. 7So don't be surprised at my statement that you F17 must be born again. 8Just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit."
9"What do you mean?" Nicodemus asked.
10Jesus replied, "You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don't understand these things? 11I assure you, I am telling you what we know and have seen, and yet you won't believe us. 12But if you don't even believe me when I tell you about things that happen here on earth, how can you possibly believe if I tell you what is going on in heaven? 13For only I, the Son of Man, F18 have come to earth and will return to heaven again. 14And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole, F19 15so that everyone who believes in me will have eternal life.
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
18"There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God. 19Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. 21But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants."
John the Baptist Exalts Jesus
22Afterward Jesus and his disciples left Jerusalem, but they stayed in Judea for a while and baptized there.
23At this time John the Baptist was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim, because there was plenty of water there and people kept coming to him for baptism. 24This was before John was put into prison. 25At that time a certain Jew began an argument with John's disciples over ceremonial cleansing. 26John's disciples came to him and said, "Teacher, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you said was the Messiah, is also baptizing people. And everybody is going over there instead of coming here to us."
27John replied, "God in heaven appoints each person's work. 28You yourselves know how plainly I told you that I am not the Messiah. I am here to prepare the way for him—that is all. 29The bride will go where the bridegroom is. A bridegroom's friend rejoices with him. I am the bridegroom's friend, and I am filled with joy at his success. 30He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
31"He has come from above and is greater than anyone else. I am of the earth, and my understanding is limited to the things of earth, but he has come from heaven. F20 32He tells what he has seen and heard, but how few believe what he tells them! 33Those who believe him discover that God is true. 34For he is sent by God. He speaks God's words, for God's Spirit is upon him without measure or limit. 35The Father loves his Son, and he has given him authority over everything. 36And all who believe in God's Son have eternal life. Those who don't obey the Son will never experience eternal life, but the wrath of God remains upon them."
FOOTNOTES:
F15: Or born from above; also in 3:7.
F16: Or spirit. The Greek word for Spirit can also be translated wind; see 3:8.
F17: The Greek word for you is plural; also in 3:12.
F18: Some manuscripts add who lives in heaven.
F19: Greek must be lifted up.
F20: Some manuscripts omit but he has come from heaven.
Lena Journals to John 3
What are signs, wonders and miracles about and for?
To lead us to Christ and His Lordship.
God is not our Great Entertainer.
Jesus is telling this interested man, Nic, the reason you’ve seen what it is you’ve seen about Me and about My Father, is to cause interest to spark inside of you, to show you God, who is your true Father and who will give you eternal life!
You were born a man, as Jesus was also born a man on earth, and your natural born man, must be made spiritually alive or else he’ll die for his own sins someday when he stands before God to give an account of life lived here on earth lived out for whoever it was lived out for.
Life on earth is all about being made spiritually alive and to help lead others to also be made spiritually alive.
Miracles may be seen with natural eyes now, but men need to see the kingdom of God and their reason and purposes for being here for an earthly timeframe. Man needs to see more than just mere signs and wonders, they must see and have and give life, eternal life!
Just as Jesus came to the earth and lived for a time, so does every human being alive, come to earth born as a baby, living here for a time, and then leaves earth whenever their timeframe is over and they then return to God to stand before Him to see if they embraced and lived out His truth all of their earth time when they had opportunity to!
Looking upon Jesus like we have of statues of Him crucified was not the idea God had to save men. He wanted to point us to the redemptive power of His Son’s life born here, lived out on earth, and given up to God for others’ sins.
When Jesus said I’ll be lifted up for all men to see Me, He meant that. That they’d see and copy that, not by being physically crucified, but willfully offered, alive and living on earth as wiling sacrifices, not killed, but demonstrators of lives who live for only this. This, the promise, eternal life being the most important thing to live for. For our earth days not being enough, no matter how many one has, to accomplish enough of His will through as many as will see it, go for it, live it, exemplify it, as he would, and give it for others to also see this, everyday.
God did not come to condemn the world but to save it. When we hear His messages as condemnation, we’re not hearing them in their correct light. Any instruction God gives to us is to show us a better way to go. He’s teaching us things we’ve not known, all we need to do is embrace the instruction, learn new ways and live.
John the Baptist’s statement should be our statement – as earthly messengers of God’s words of life to those who need His great love revealed. He said here - The bride (His church will follow the ways of her husbandman Jesus, She-) will go where the bridegroom is. A bridegroom's friend rejoices with him. I am the bridegroom's friend, and I am filled with joy at his success. He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
And all who believe in God's Son have eternal life. Those who don't obey the Son will never experience eternal life, but the wrath of God remains upon them."
Obedience is a sure sign of everlasting and true love.
Have you sensed His great love for you yet?
Do you know He went to the very depths of the ocean for you? He sent His Son. His Son was killed for your sins. He loved YOU specifically that much.
How much today do you love Him in return? Do you give of your life for Him, now, while you’re still alive? Do you hold anything back for yourself?
Give it ALL, all of your life, all of your earth days for Jesus.
He gave it ALL for you!
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 3
Jesus and Nicodemus
1After dark one evening, a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, 2came to speak with Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are proof enough that God is with you."
3Jesus replied, "I assure you, unless you are born again, F15 you can never see the Kingdom of God."
4"What do you mean?" exclaimed Nicodemus. "How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?"
5Jesus replied, "The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. F16 6Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven. 7So don't be surprised at my statement that you F17 must be born again. 8Just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit."
9"What do you mean?" Nicodemus asked.
10Jesus replied, "You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don't understand these things? 11I assure you, I am telling you what we know and have seen, and yet you won't believe us. 12But if you don't even believe me when I tell you about things that happen here on earth, how can you possibly believe if I tell you what is going on in heaven? 13For only I, the Son of Man, F18 have come to earth and will return to heaven again. 14And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole, F19 15so that everyone who believes in me will have eternal life.
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
18"There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God. 19Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. 21But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants."
John the Baptist Exalts Jesus
22Afterward Jesus and his disciples left Jerusalem, but they stayed in Judea for a while and baptized there.
23At this time John the Baptist was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim, because there was plenty of water there and people kept coming to him for baptism. 24This was before John was put into prison. 25At that time a certain Jew began an argument with John's disciples over ceremonial cleansing. 26John's disciples came to him and said, "Teacher, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you said was the Messiah, is also baptizing people. And everybody is going over there instead of coming here to us."
27John replied, "God in heaven appoints each person's work. 28You yourselves know how plainly I told you that I am not the Messiah. I am here to prepare the way for him—that is all. 29The bride will go where the bridegroom is. A bridegroom's friend rejoices with him. I am the bridegroom's friend, and I am filled with joy at his success. 30He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
31"He has come from above and is greater than anyone else. I am of the earth, and my understanding is limited to the things of earth, but he has come from heaven. F20 32He tells what he has seen and heard, but how few believe what he tells them! 33Those who believe him discover that God is true. 34For he is sent by God. He speaks God's words, for God's Spirit is upon him without measure or limit. 35The Father loves his Son, and he has given him authority over everything. 36And all who believe in God's Son have eternal life. Those who don't obey the Son will never experience eternal life, but the wrath of God remains upon them."
FOOTNOTES:
F15: Or born from above; also in 3:7.
F16: Or spirit. The Greek word for Spirit can also be translated wind; see 3:8.
F17: The Greek word for you is plural; also in 3:12.
F18: Some manuscripts add who lives in heaven.
F19: Greek must be lifted up.
F20: Some manuscripts omit but he has come from heaven.
Lena Journals to John 3
What are signs, wonders and miracles about and for?
To lead us to Christ and His Lordship.
God is not our Great Entertainer.
Jesus is telling this interested man, Nic, the reason you’ve seen what it is you’ve seen about Me and about My Father, is to cause interest to spark inside of you, to show you God, who is your true Father and who will give you eternal life!
You were born a man, as Jesus was also born a man on earth, and your natural born man, must be made spiritually alive or else he’ll die for his own sins someday when he stands before God to give an account of life lived here on earth lived out for whoever it was lived out for.
Life on earth is all about being made spiritually alive and to help lead others to also be made spiritually alive.
Miracles may be seen with natural eyes now, but men need to see the kingdom of God and their reason and purposes for being here for an earthly timeframe. Man needs to see more than just mere signs and wonders, they must see and have and give life, eternal life!
Just as Jesus came to the earth and lived for a time, so does every human being alive, come to earth born as a baby, living here for a time, and then leaves earth whenever their timeframe is over and they then return to God to stand before Him to see if they embraced and lived out His truth all of their earth time when they had opportunity to!
Looking upon Jesus like we have of statues of Him crucified was not the idea God had to save men. He wanted to point us to the redemptive power of His Son’s life born here, lived out on earth, and given up to God for others’ sins.
When Jesus said I’ll be lifted up for all men to see Me, He meant that. That they’d see and copy that, not by being physically crucified, but willfully offered, alive and living on earth as wiling sacrifices, not killed, but demonstrators of lives who live for only this. This, the promise, eternal life being the most important thing to live for. For our earth days not being enough, no matter how many one has, to accomplish enough of His will through as many as will see it, go for it, live it, exemplify it, as he would, and give it for others to also see this, everyday.
God did not come to condemn the world but to save it. When we hear His messages as condemnation, we’re not hearing them in their correct light. Any instruction God gives to us is to show us a better way to go. He’s teaching us things we’ve not known, all we need to do is embrace the instruction, learn new ways and live.
John the Baptist’s statement should be our statement – as earthly messengers of God’s words of life to those who need His great love revealed. He said here - The bride (His church will follow the ways of her husbandman Jesus, She-) will go where the bridegroom is. A bridegroom's friend rejoices with him. I am the bridegroom's friend, and I am filled with joy at his success. He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
And all who believe in God's Son have eternal life. Those who don't obey the Son will never experience eternal life, but the wrath of God remains upon them."
Obedience is a sure sign of everlasting and true love.
Have you sensed His great love for you yet?
Do you know He went to the very depths of the ocean for you? He sent His Son. His Son was killed for your sins. He loved YOU specifically that much.
How much today do you love Him in return? Do you give of your life for Him, now, while you’re still alive? Do you hold anything back for yourself?
Give it ALL, all of your life, all of your earth days for Jesus.
He gave it ALL for you!
John 2 Today w/ Journalin'
Note- IF this e-mail is at all encrypted and is unreadable, scroll down to the end of the passage and click on the underlined blue words "Lena's Discipleship Journalin' For Today ", this will take you straight to the website where you'll enjoy a readable copy
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 2
The Wedding at Cana
1The next day F12 Jesus' mother was a guest at a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. 2Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. 3The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus' mother spoke to him about the problem. "They have no more wine," she told him.
4"How does that concern you and me?" Jesus asked. "My time has not yet come."
5But his mother told the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
6Six stone water pots were standing there; they were used for Jewish ceremonial purposes and held twenty to thirty gallons F13 each. 7Jesus told the servants, "Fill the jars with water." When the jars had been filled to the brim, 8he said, "Dip some out and take it to the master of ceremonies." So they followed his instructions.
9When the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from (though, of course, the servants knew), he called the bridegroom over. 10"Usually a host serves the best wine first," he said. "Then, when everyone is full and doesn't care, he brings out the less expensive wines. But you have kept the best until now!"
11This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was Jesus' first display of his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
12After the wedding he went to Capernaum for a few days with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples.
Jesus Clears the Temple
13It was time for the annual Passover celebration, and Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; and he saw money changers behind their counters. 15Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and oxen, scattered the money changers' coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. 16Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, "Get these things out of here. Don't turn my Father's house into a marketplace!"
17Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: "Passion for God's house burns within me." F14
18"What right do you have to do these things?" the Jewish leaders demanded. "If you have this authority from God, show us a miraculous sign to prove it."
19"All right," Jesus replied. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
20"What!" they exclaimed. "It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can do it in three days?" 21But by "this temple," Jesus meant his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, the disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed both Jesus and the Scriptures.
23Because of the miraculous signs he did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many people were convinced that he was indeed the Messiah. 24But Jesus didn't trust them, because he knew what people were really like. 25No one needed to tell him about human nature.
FOOTNOTES:
F12: Greek On the third day; see 1:35, 43.
F13: Greek 2 or 3 measures [75 to 113 liters].
F14: Or "Concern for God's house will be my undoing." Ps 69:9.
Lena’ Journals to John 2
I love the statement of Jesus’ mother, “whatever He tells you to do (JUST) do that thing!” Thus is the way of seeing the miraculous.
Just Do It. (Nikeo Greek - Nike- Victory in Just doing!).
In Hebrew hearing and doing are one in the same. If a person is not doing, then it is made clear they have not yet heard.
We all would like our water turned into wine, we all hope to be “chosen” to have the miraculous happen to or for us, but do we know that by doing Jesus’ words we invite and unleash the eternal power of His words? Not in trying out the word of God as though it is a remedy of some sort, but doing what is learned and understood from the word of God, as in, living its words as though they are our very life’s essence. Making His words to us such a vital part of our lives, that even if we do not understand, we go after it and get understanding of it and seek understanding until we get it.
Continuing in the words of life, doing them, until the end, no matter what comes to tell us it is not “working”.
6 stone water pots standing there, ready to hold something, maybe today water, if the fillers will just do what He says. Then waiting wondering if change will come, they are waiting to be served, as water or wine?
The 6 pots each had the same opportunity to be changed, so do we.
6 is the number of man.
Stone
Pots
Think about it.
Stone, vessels, immoveable, but there is a part of that vessel that could change if only someone would do whatever it is He tells them to do. That vessel changed on the inside! What was the essence, was what was changed and served out for others to enjoy.
3200 approximate ounces of liquid substance changed in each pot.
This is the glory of God when servants of God are obedient and fill vessels up full and through obedience invite the spirit of God to do a miraculous inner work.
What busyness is your day about, your week, month, year, life?
What are you up to?
Who do you work for? Do you go out working for men, or are you self employed, or in all you do are you a purposeful kingdom ambassador, and field worker, one who finds and fills earth pots so He’d be glorified?
There are many focus’, many offers, in each day, each week, each month, and year, and life.
Which offers and focus’ have you taken up, embraced, are living for and spending your life on?
The money changers were religious do good people, they were in God’s temple, but they were emphasizing the wrong aspect of eternal life. They were busy doing something in the right place, but they were not effective at what God would have had them do and where He’d of liked to see them work.
What business was Jesus about doing? His Father’s will.
This is our same business.
Communication w/ God and accomplishing God’s will in any specific way on any given day was what Jesus’ purpose was. This is the exact same purpose for us today.
Jesus would go to His Father each day, (in prayer - which is communication) and He’d receive specific instructions for that specific day and then, because He purposefully had dedicated His life to doing whatever it was His Father wanted, that’s the thing He’d go about doing.
His meat and drink was to do the will of His Father. He’d rather do what God wanted on a specific day than to eat or drink. Why was he here anyway, unless it was to do what God wanted? Eating and drinking hold us as humans to life, it’d do good to eat, then drink and DO the Father’s will, which is the essence of every life’s purpose!
That was the business He was involved in. In whatever place He was found, with whichever people, that was the business He was all about. Is that yet what we’re all about? Have we yet found this is God’s will for our lives?
This can be the same for us. Yes, we may live in the same city, go to the same job everyday, see the same people, and be about our Father’s business in all we do. We who are about our Father’s business use His business guidelines (found in His word) to decide where we will and will not go or what we will and will not do, each day. We pray, communicating with God to see if there are any specific instructions to any given day, are there any words our Father would like for us to specifically say to any specific people?
Jesus went about in possibly more of a broad area of the world than we may be privileged to go to, He may have even traveled more area than some of us ever will, but He was showing us how to do and be who and what we are here for, for our Father. Then He left us the Holy Spirit so that many people wherever they already are at, will show Him in all places all at once, covering more of the globe than anyone could - alone.
Wrong use of something is called abuse. Jesus was angry over abuses of His Father’s house.
Do we know our bodies, which were given to us by God to live here in, are God’s temple and house now? Wrong use of that house makes Jesus angry, especially when we choose the abuse. May times we do not know it, so whenever we are told, when we hear truth and know it, we have an opportunity to change and begin to use what He so graciously gave us, for the use of the Father. We are the Father’s house and should be about our Father’s business, everyday.
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 2
The Wedding at Cana
1The next day F12 Jesus' mother was a guest at a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. 2Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. 3The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus' mother spoke to him about the problem. "They have no more wine," she told him.
4"How does that concern you and me?" Jesus asked. "My time has not yet come."
5But his mother told the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
6Six stone water pots were standing there; they were used for Jewish ceremonial purposes and held twenty to thirty gallons F13 each. 7Jesus told the servants, "Fill the jars with water." When the jars had been filled to the brim, 8he said, "Dip some out and take it to the master of ceremonies." So they followed his instructions.
9When the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from (though, of course, the servants knew), he called the bridegroom over. 10"Usually a host serves the best wine first," he said. "Then, when everyone is full and doesn't care, he brings out the less expensive wines. But you have kept the best until now!"
11This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was Jesus' first display of his glory. And his disciples believed in him.
12After the wedding he went to Capernaum for a few days with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples.
Jesus Clears the Temple
13It was time for the annual Passover celebration, and Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; and he saw money changers behind their counters. 15Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and oxen, scattered the money changers' coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. 16Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, "Get these things out of here. Don't turn my Father's house into a marketplace!"
17Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: "Passion for God's house burns within me." F14
18"What right do you have to do these things?" the Jewish leaders demanded. "If you have this authority from God, show us a miraculous sign to prove it."
19"All right," Jesus replied. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
20"What!" they exclaimed. "It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can do it in three days?" 21But by "this temple," Jesus meant his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, the disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed both Jesus and the Scriptures.
23Because of the miraculous signs he did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many people were convinced that he was indeed the Messiah. 24But Jesus didn't trust them, because he knew what people were really like. 25No one needed to tell him about human nature.
FOOTNOTES:
F12: Greek On the third day; see 1:35, 43.
F13: Greek 2 or 3 measures [75 to 113 liters].
F14: Or "Concern for God's house will be my undoing." Ps 69:9.
Lena’ Journals to John 2
I love the statement of Jesus’ mother, “whatever He tells you to do (JUST) do that thing!” Thus is the way of seeing the miraculous.
Just Do It. (Nikeo Greek - Nike- Victory in Just doing!).
In Hebrew hearing and doing are one in the same. If a person is not doing, then it is made clear they have not yet heard.
We all would like our water turned into wine, we all hope to be “chosen” to have the miraculous happen to or for us, but do we know that by doing Jesus’ words we invite and unleash the eternal power of His words? Not in trying out the word of God as though it is a remedy of some sort, but doing what is learned and understood from the word of God, as in, living its words as though they are our very life’s essence. Making His words to us such a vital part of our lives, that even if we do not understand, we go after it and get understanding of it and seek understanding until we get it.
Continuing in the words of life, doing them, until the end, no matter what comes to tell us it is not “working”.
6 stone water pots standing there, ready to hold something, maybe today water, if the fillers will just do what He says. Then waiting wondering if change will come, they are waiting to be served, as water or wine?
The 6 pots each had the same opportunity to be changed, so do we.
6 is the number of man.
Stone
Pots
Think about it.
Stone, vessels, immoveable, but there is a part of that vessel that could change if only someone would do whatever it is He tells them to do. That vessel changed on the inside! What was the essence, was what was changed and served out for others to enjoy.
3200 approximate ounces of liquid substance changed in each pot.
This is the glory of God when servants of God are obedient and fill vessels up full and through obedience invite the spirit of God to do a miraculous inner work.
What busyness is your day about, your week, month, year, life?
What are you up to?
Who do you work for? Do you go out working for men, or are you self employed, or in all you do are you a purposeful kingdom ambassador, and field worker, one who finds and fills earth pots so He’d be glorified?
There are many focus’, many offers, in each day, each week, each month, and year, and life.
Which offers and focus’ have you taken up, embraced, are living for and spending your life on?
The money changers were religious do good people, they were in God’s temple, but they were emphasizing the wrong aspect of eternal life. They were busy doing something in the right place, but they were not effective at what God would have had them do and where He’d of liked to see them work.
What business was Jesus about doing? His Father’s will.
This is our same business.
Communication w/ God and accomplishing God’s will in any specific way on any given day was what Jesus’ purpose was. This is the exact same purpose for us today.
Jesus would go to His Father each day, (in prayer - which is communication) and He’d receive specific instructions for that specific day and then, because He purposefully had dedicated His life to doing whatever it was His Father wanted, that’s the thing He’d go about doing.
His meat and drink was to do the will of His Father. He’d rather do what God wanted on a specific day than to eat or drink. Why was he here anyway, unless it was to do what God wanted? Eating and drinking hold us as humans to life, it’d do good to eat, then drink and DO the Father’s will, which is the essence of every life’s purpose!
That was the business He was involved in. In whatever place He was found, with whichever people, that was the business He was all about. Is that yet what we’re all about? Have we yet found this is God’s will for our lives?
This can be the same for us. Yes, we may live in the same city, go to the same job everyday, see the same people, and be about our Father’s business in all we do. We who are about our Father’s business use His business guidelines (found in His word) to decide where we will and will not go or what we will and will not do, each day. We pray, communicating with God to see if there are any specific instructions to any given day, are there any words our Father would like for us to specifically say to any specific people?
Jesus went about in possibly more of a broad area of the world than we may be privileged to go to, He may have even traveled more area than some of us ever will, but He was showing us how to do and be who and what we are here for, for our Father. Then He left us the Holy Spirit so that many people wherever they already are at, will show Him in all places all at once, covering more of the globe than anyone could - alone.
Wrong use of something is called abuse. Jesus was angry over abuses of His Father’s house.
Do we know our bodies, which were given to us by God to live here in, are God’s temple and house now? Wrong use of that house makes Jesus angry, especially when we choose the abuse. May times we do not know it, so whenever we are told, when we hear truth and know it, we have an opportunity to change and begin to use what He so graciously gave us, for the use of the Father. We are the Father’s house and should be about our Father’s business, everyday.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
John 1 Today's Daily Bread w/ Comments
Note- IF this e-mail is at all encrypted and is unreadable, scroll down to the end of the passage and click on the underlined blue words "Lena's Discipleship Journalin' For Today ", this will take you straight to the website where you'll enjoy a readable copy
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 1
Christ, the Eternal Word
1In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make. 4Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone. 5The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
6God sent John the Baptist 7to tell everyone about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. 8John himself was not the light; he was only a witness to the light. 9The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was going to come into the world.
10But although the world was made through him, the world didn't recognize him when he came. 11Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted. 12But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan—this rebirth comes from God.
14So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. F1 And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.
15John pointed him out to the people. He shouted to the crowds, "This is the one I was talking about when I said, 'Someone is coming who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before I did.'"
16We have all benefited from the rich blessings he brought to us—one gracious blessing after another. F2 17For the law was given through Moses; God's unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. But his only Son, who is himself God, F3 is near to the Father's heart; he has told us about him.
The Testimony of John the Baptist
19This was the testimony of John when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Temple assistants F4 from Jerusalem to ask John whether he claimed to be the Messiah. 20He flatly denied it. "I am not the Messiah," he said.
21"Well then, who are you?" they asked. "Are you Elijah?" "No," he replied. "Are you the Prophet?" F5 "No."
22"Then who are you? Tell us, so we can give an answer to those who sent us. What do you have to say about yourself?"
23John replied in the words of Isaiah:
"I am a voice shouting in the wilderness,
'Prepare a straight pathway for the Lord's coming!'" F6
24Then those who were sent by the Pharisees 25asked him, "If you aren't the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet, what right do you have to baptize?"
26John told them, "I baptize with F7 water, but right here in the crowd is someone you do not know, 27who will soon begin his ministry. I am not even worthy to be his slave. F8 " 28This incident took place at Bethany, a village east of the Jordan River, where John was baptizing.
Jesus, the Lamb of God
29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look! There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30He is the one I was talking about when I said, 'Soon a man is coming who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before I did.' 31I didn't know he was the one, but I have been baptizing with water in order to point him out to Israel."
32Then John said, "I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. 33I didn't know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, 'When you see the Holy Spirit descending and resting upon someone, he is the one you are looking for. He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' 34I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the Son of God. F9 "
The First Disciples
35The following day, John was again standing with two of his disciples. 36As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and then declared, "Look! There is the Lamb of God!" 37Then John's two disciples turned and followed Jesus.
38Jesus looked around and saw them following. "What do you want?" he asked them. They replied, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
39"Come and see," he said. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when they went with him to the place, and they stayed there the rest of the day.
40Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of these men who had heard what John said and then followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother, Simon, and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means the Christ).
42Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, "You are Simon, the son of John—but you will be called Cephas" (which means Peter F10 ).
43The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Come, be my disciple." 44Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter's hometown.
45Philip went off to look for Nathanael and told him, "We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth."
46"Nazareth!" exclaimed Nathanael. "Can anything good come from there?" "Just come and see for yourself," Philip said.
47As they approached, Jesus said, "Here comes an honest man—a true son of Israel."
48"How do you know about me?" Nathanael asked. And Jesus replied, "I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you."
49Nathanael replied, "Teacher, you are the Son of God—the King of Israel!"
50Jesus asked him, "Do you believe all this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this." 51Then he said, "The truth is, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down upon the Son of Man." F11
FOOTNOTES:
F1: Greek grace and truth; also in 1:17.
F2: Greek grace upon grace.
F3: Some manuscripts read his one and only Son.
F4: Greek and Levites.
F5: See Deut 18:15, 18; Mal 4:5-6.
F6: Isa 40:3.
F7: Or in; also in 1:31, 33.
F8: Greek to untie his sandals.
F9: Some manuscripts read the chosen One of God.
F10: The names Cephas and Peter both mean "rock."
F11: See Gen 28:10-17, the account of Jacob's ladder.
Lena’s Discipleship Journalin’
Think practically about what and how this is saying what it is literally saying. The world was made at the commands of God words. He spoke and it appeared. Out of atmosphere, out of nothing, His eternal ideas were made clear. Words were the creative substance bringing God’s ideas out into a seen realm. Ideas are invisible, until expressed in such a way as to make them visible.
Christ was the substance, the word made visible (fleshed out). He was who moved at the command of the Father. When spoken to, He was assigned to manifest the will of the Creator. He, the executor of the will.
From the very inside of the being of God there was the Son, inside of every Father is a son, the son comes forth from the Father, out form the inner parts, and is made “real”, comes into visible form outside of the idea world, the invisible realm.
Did you not exist inside of your own parents? Were you not inside of them even when they were being formed in their own mother’s womb, which means you were also inside of their mother and fathers? You were an idea at some point, but more than an idea, yes microscopic, but real. One day you were manifested, made to be flesh.
Do you ever tell people of what you do not yet see? You are a trumpet, a mouthpiece for God when you tell what others cannot yet see, you create a world for them with words that someday will be made manifest to them, words that will someday be fleshed out by faith.
The difference between the saved and the unsaved is faith in God and His words, which bring life. To all who will believe and who accept Him, to these He gave rights to be His own children, children of faith, children infused with eternal life.
Has the word become human in you? Yet?
Have you seen Him?
The world needs to hear and know it, be led to see for themselves.
Have you shown Him to the world?
A voice crying……in the wilderness?
What is wilderness? A place where there’s more us than there is acknowledgement of God and of His will. A place where we’re given food, and are fed, rather than getting and giving food for ourselves and others, a place where our enemies are kept away from us, rather than us keeping God’s enemies willfully away. A place of complaints and unthankful ness.
The voice cries, “make way for the Lord”.
In the embrace of the LORD, there is a promised land. The difference between wilderness and Canaan is are we getting ours or is God getting His from us giving it to Him?
Make a way for Jesus to be the Lord, not only the sweet Savior who died for our sins. Enter responsive life, where we give back to God what is due Him, we ask what He’d like done, and no matter how difficult it seems, we use it for the increase of faith and Go do His will. Doers rather than hearers only. We enter the throne room daily in the very face of God, where we with impure motives could be smote, but because we choose responsiveness in faith motivated by love, we live!
What are you saying about yourself, about Him?
Even if you do not use many words, what are you speaking with your life? Does your life lead others to the Lordship of Christ?
Do you recognize Him when He comes? Is He recognizable by others in your life, and daily faith walk?
Has the Holy Spirit found a place to rest in and live in and be able to be used inside of your personal life? Does he have a vessel that yields to doing the will of God no matter what?
“Teacher, where are You staying, I wanna go see where You live; I wanna see living proof that You are alive in my day now. Where might I find that? Where might I see that in living flesh form?”
Is there a place on earth right now in my day I can see that, follow that?
Does anyone say, “Lookie here, He looks like Him.”?
Does anyone follow the lead of another who follows God as Father and Lord?
The world needs Jesus. Yes it does, all over the world it needs Jesus’, ones who became Him by receiving Him. Ones who display Him, by the infilling and indwelling of His Holy Spirit breath of life.
He gave men His spirit, that He would dwell all over the whole earth in different places all at once, we as Christians are reproductions of Him. He was only the firstborn among many brethren. Brethren who are still being birthed, brought forth today. Those being pushed out of the mother church’s spiritual womb, and raised in His and her home. Disciples.
He has seen us, do we look for and at Him in body form, in a many membered body, do we see Him? Show Him? Are we a part of a body being perfected, or have we separated ourselves out to try and look like Him on our own, with our own expression?
Who are you oh man of God, but one man? The body is many, yet one, one alone is just one alone.
Come home to the house of God, the place where a me becomes a we and a we becomes a Him, plurally yet one. This is God’s will.
God Bless You Today, Lena B
John 1
Christ, the Eternal Word
1In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make. 4Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone. 5The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
6God sent John the Baptist 7to tell everyone about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. 8John himself was not the light; he was only a witness to the light. 9The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was going to come into the world.
10But although the world was made through him, the world didn't recognize him when he came. 11Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted. 12But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan—this rebirth comes from God.
14So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. F1 And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.
15John pointed him out to the people. He shouted to the crowds, "This is the one I was talking about when I said, 'Someone is coming who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before I did.'"
16We have all benefited from the rich blessings he brought to us—one gracious blessing after another. F2 17For the law was given through Moses; God's unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. But his only Son, who is himself God, F3 is near to the Father's heart; he has told us about him.
The Testimony of John the Baptist
19This was the testimony of John when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Temple assistants F4 from Jerusalem to ask John whether he claimed to be the Messiah. 20He flatly denied it. "I am not the Messiah," he said.
21"Well then, who are you?" they asked. "Are you Elijah?" "No," he replied. "Are you the Prophet?" F5 "No."
22"Then who are you? Tell us, so we can give an answer to those who sent us. What do you have to say about yourself?"
23John replied in the words of Isaiah:
"I am a voice shouting in the wilderness,
'Prepare a straight pathway for the Lord's coming!'" F6
24Then those who were sent by the Pharisees 25asked him, "If you aren't the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet, what right do you have to baptize?"
26John told them, "I baptize with F7 water, but right here in the crowd is someone you do not know, 27who will soon begin his ministry. I am not even worthy to be his slave. F8 " 28This incident took place at Bethany, a village east of the Jordan River, where John was baptizing.
Jesus, the Lamb of God
29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look! There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30He is the one I was talking about when I said, 'Soon a man is coming who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before I did.' 31I didn't know he was the one, but I have been baptizing with water in order to point him out to Israel."
32Then John said, "I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. 33I didn't know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptize with water, he told me, 'When you see the Holy Spirit descending and resting upon someone, he is the one you are looking for. He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' 34I saw this happen to Jesus, so I testify that he is the Son of God. F9 "
The First Disciples
35The following day, John was again standing with two of his disciples. 36As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and then declared, "Look! There is the Lamb of God!" 37Then John's two disciples turned and followed Jesus.
38Jesus looked around and saw them following. "What do you want?" he asked them. They replied, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
39"Come and see," he said. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when they went with him to the place, and they stayed there the rest of the day.
40Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of these men who had heard what John said and then followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother, Simon, and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means the Christ).
42Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, "You are Simon, the son of John—but you will be called Cephas" (which means Peter F10 ).
43The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Come, be my disciple." 44Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter's hometown.
45Philip went off to look for Nathanael and told him, "We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth."
46"Nazareth!" exclaimed Nathanael. "Can anything good come from there?" "Just come and see for yourself," Philip said.
47As they approached, Jesus said, "Here comes an honest man—a true son of Israel."
48"How do you know about me?" Nathanael asked. And Jesus replied, "I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you."
49Nathanael replied, "Teacher, you are the Son of God—the King of Israel!"
50Jesus asked him, "Do you believe all this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this." 51Then he said, "The truth is, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down upon the Son of Man." F11
FOOTNOTES:
F1: Greek grace and truth; also in 1:17.
F2: Greek grace upon grace.
F3: Some manuscripts read his one and only Son.
F4: Greek and Levites.
F5: See Deut 18:15, 18; Mal 4:5-6.
F6: Isa 40:3.
F7: Or in; also in 1:31, 33.
F8: Greek to untie his sandals.
F9: Some manuscripts read the chosen One of God.
F10: The names Cephas and Peter both mean "rock."
F11: See Gen 28:10-17, the account of Jacob's ladder.
Lena’s Discipleship Journalin’
Think practically about what and how this is saying what it is literally saying. The world was made at the commands of God words. He spoke and it appeared. Out of atmosphere, out of nothing, His eternal ideas were made clear. Words were the creative substance bringing God’s ideas out into a seen realm. Ideas are invisible, until expressed in such a way as to make them visible.
Christ was the substance, the word made visible (fleshed out). He was who moved at the command of the Father. When spoken to, He was assigned to manifest the will of the Creator. He, the executor of the will.
From the very inside of the being of God there was the Son, inside of every Father is a son, the son comes forth from the Father, out form the inner parts, and is made “real”, comes into visible form outside of the idea world, the invisible realm.
Did you not exist inside of your own parents? Were you not inside of them even when they were being formed in their own mother’s womb, which means you were also inside of their mother and fathers? You were an idea at some point, but more than an idea, yes microscopic, but real. One day you were manifested, made to be flesh.
Do you ever tell people of what you do not yet see? You are a trumpet, a mouthpiece for God when you tell what others cannot yet see, you create a world for them with words that someday will be made manifest to them, words that will someday be fleshed out by faith.
The difference between the saved and the unsaved is faith in God and His words, which bring life. To all who will believe and who accept Him, to these He gave rights to be His own children, children of faith, children infused with eternal life.
Has the word become human in you? Yet?
Have you seen Him?
The world needs to hear and know it, be led to see for themselves.
Have you shown Him to the world?
A voice crying……in the wilderness?
What is wilderness? A place where there’s more us than there is acknowledgement of God and of His will. A place where we’re given food, and are fed, rather than getting and giving food for ourselves and others, a place where our enemies are kept away from us, rather than us keeping God’s enemies willfully away. A place of complaints and unthankful ness.
The voice cries, “make way for the Lord”.
In the embrace of the LORD, there is a promised land. The difference between wilderness and Canaan is are we getting ours or is God getting His from us giving it to Him?
Make a way for Jesus to be the Lord, not only the sweet Savior who died for our sins. Enter responsive life, where we give back to God what is due Him, we ask what He’d like done, and no matter how difficult it seems, we use it for the increase of faith and Go do His will. Doers rather than hearers only. We enter the throne room daily in the very face of God, where we with impure motives could be smote, but because we choose responsiveness in faith motivated by love, we live!
What are you saying about yourself, about Him?
Even if you do not use many words, what are you speaking with your life? Does your life lead others to the Lordship of Christ?
Do you recognize Him when He comes? Is He recognizable by others in your life, and daily faith walk?
Has the Holy Spirit found a place to rest in and live in and be able to be used inside of your personal life? Does he have a vessel that yields to doing the will of God no matter what?
“Teacher, where are You staying, I wanna go see where You live; I wanna see living proof that You are alive in my day now. Where might I find that? Where might I see that in living flesh form?”
Is there a place on earth right now in my day I can see that, follow that?
Does anyone say, “Lookie here, He looks like Him.”?
Does anyone follow the lead of another who follows God as Father and Lord?
The world needs Jesus. Yes it does, all over the world it needs Jesus’, ones who became Him by receiving Him. Ones who display Him, by the infilling and indwelling of His Holy Spirit breath of life.
He gave men His spirit, that He would dwell all over the whole earth in different places all at once, we as Christians are reproductions of Him. He was only the firstborn among many brethren. Brethren who are still being birthed, brought forth today. Those being pushed out of the mother church’s spiritual womb, and raised in His and her home. Disciples.
He has seen us, do we look for and at Him in body form, in a many membered body, do we see Him? Show Him? Are we a part of a body being perfected, or have we separated ourselves out to try and look like Him on our own, with our own expression?
Who are you oh man of God, but one man? The body is many, yet one, one alone is just one alone.
Come home to the house of God, the place where a me becomes a we and a we becomes a Him, plurally yet one. This is God’s will.
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