Oh How I Love You

Oh How I Love You!

If romance could build houses

Would love build a home?

If mice were called mouses

We’d leave mooses alone.

Here’s my heart for you

Take it and do as you must.

I hope you won’t make me blue

My heart is easy to bust.

Be mine, please do

My heart’s all aglow.

Be yours? Who you?

Sorry, the answer is NO!

 

 

You’ve heard the story of Dick and Jane, and we’ve all heard about Tom, Dick, and Harry. This is a once upon a time story about Dick and Jane who live in Never-Never Land. In Never-Never Land the heroine meets the hero, they fall in love; the hero kills all the dragons and they live happily ever after. The end? Not quite! Let’s go back to the beginning. Okay, in the beginning god created… No, not that beginning, Dick and Jane’s “us” beginning. A character study of our old friends might look like this:

• Dick: the hero and a real he-man who knows how to hold his liquor – and a lot of it! And, of course, he makes his own rules – no one’s going to tell Him what to do. He is also very daring and he’s always in command. He doesn’t need anybody and he doesn’t feel anything. He’s macho! He’s the tall dark stranger, “sigh, pant, pant.”
• Jane: the heroine. Almost nothing is too much trouble or takes too much time, if it will help Dick. He’s hard to please but she’s willing to wait, hope, and try harder to placate. She has an all expending, reckless yearning for Dick. She is consumed with him, willing to endure pain and distress for him. She knows she loves him because of the agitation, abandon, tragedy, anguish, suspense, perplexity, and longing she feels on his account. After all, every love story she’s ever read told her this was how she would feel. She’s a good hearted woman in love with – ? – well, who knows what – anyway she’s a good hearted woman. She’s very helpful. Does she really find this dizzying relationship exciting? No, but we hope the reader will.                                                                                             We can hardly wait to see how this “loving”, helpful, unselfish innocent turns our cruel, indifferent, abusive, emotionally unstable hero into a kind, stable, reliable man who cares about her. Can we?
• Tom: the villain. He tells Jane she is helping Dick out of the need to control him. He is an irritating liar who makes Jane’s life miserable by telling her that she is afraid of being left alone and will do anything to keep Dick – to make him need her. He tells her she doesn’t know what it is like to be loved and is afraid to try to find out so she would rather be involved in a situation that is chaotic, uncertain, and emotionally painful. He is a total bore! He says Jane is using her obsession with dick to avoid her own pain, emptiness, fear, and anger. He insists she finds Dick exciting because he is unstable, challenging because he is unreliable, romantic because he is unpredictable, charming because he is immature and mysterious because he is moody. He further states that she wouldn’t be happy with a man who wasn’t cold, inadequate, and angry because she couldn’t fix him and suffer for him.
• Harry: Jane’s best friend and confident. She really likes Dick and encourages their “Us-ship”. She becomes dick’s champion and confidant. Aren’t they lucky?

The story gets more confusing and less uplifting as we go along. It doesn’t leave us with much hope for a lasting, loving, romantic relationship that is beneficial to both partners. It leaves us wondering if there is such a thing as romantic love and lasting marriage. To find the answer we will have to go back to the beginning

In the beginning God made the rules for the benefit of his creation; but the rules are all messed up because of sin and the fall, and the muddle the world is in today. How is a Christian to know what to do about love and marriage? Is love and romance something a Christian has a right to look forward to?

To be continued

The Revelation Given To John Through The Angel

The Revelation Given to John by Jesus Through the Angel

Lesson Four

Smyrna is a port on the west coast of Asia Minor. The church was spiritual and the city has survived through the ages. Smyrna was a great trading city, and a religious seat. The first temple in Rome was erected there. It was a city with political heritage and clout. Culture was its vanguard. It had libraries, stadium, music, theater, etc. the city was also the home of man influential Jews. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, was burnt alive there for refusing to say, “Caesar is Lord.”[i]

The church in Smyrna was laboring under a burden of affliction, poverty[ii], and imprisonment. Ten days is a way of saying “a short time, which will oon come to an end.”[iii]

Dr. David Jeremiah[iv]says, “Living in a country where we are not tortured or killed for our faith in Jesus, it seems remote that we might be called upon to be martyrs. However, martyrdom is not just a torturing death. What if we lose our jobs because we are Christians? What if our children are taunted because they believe in Jesus Christ? Suffering takes many forms.”

Before we go on to see what Yeshua has to say to the assemblies at Smyrna, we must take a moment to contemplate again the fact that Yeshua was dead and is alive. He is alive for all eternity; he has conquered death and the grave and we can shout jubilantly with Job, “I know that my redeemer lives and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though, after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see god, whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold him even after my control has been consumed within me.”[v]

Now listen to the words of the living Redeemer.

I know your works and tribulation and poverty, but you are not poor; you are rich. I know the perversion of those who declare themselves to be Jews and are not; they belong to the synagogue of Satan[vi].”

There is nothing hidden from the all-seeing eyes of Yeshua; he knows our works and the motives behind the works. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He knew the Smyrna Christians labored to enter into his rest through the powerful word of God. He knew they were and we are rich with an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled; an inheritance that does not fade away and is reserved in heaven for us, kept there by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. They, and we, are rich is faith that is being tried by fire but will come forth in praise and honor and glory when Yeshua appears.

Yeshua understands that one of the things that were a sore hardship to the assemblies in Smyrna was the legalistic Jews without faith who spoke evil of the believers and the way that leads to eternal life. It is hard to spread the truth when there is a group with perceived authority, with many years of tradition behind them, who argues with the weight of their predecessors behind them[vii].

“And unto the angel of the Church of Smyrna write: I, who speak to you, am the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive…”

The first part of each of his messages to the congregations is an introduction to, or a reminder of, a different part of his character. We can well imagine the assembled believers of Smyrna eagerly waiting the reading of this special letter to them from the Mashiach, who most of them had never seen, delivered by an old man and sent by an angel.

As they held their breath listening to the first words of the message, they must have been struck with the same wonder that filled Martha’s heart as she listened to him say, “I AM the resurrection and the life…” They must have paused and meditated on this glorious truth, before going on to the rest of the message, with tears of joy in their eyes and surrender in their hearts. They would have remembered that their identity with Yeshua in his death, burial, and resurrection was dependent on his resurrection power. Identifying with him through faith immersed them in his death and burial, and they lived in eternal life, free from the bondage of sin and death[viii].

It is because he is the resurrection and the life that the believers at Smyrna and all that came after them down through the ages have the blessed hope that looks forward to the call of the last trumpet, when these bodies of corruption – where we live our time on earth – will be changed in the twinkling of an eye and become incorruptible for infinity. Because he lies, we can live through all eternity in boundless joy even through the hardest trials of this earthly sojourn.

He is the first and the last, the one who watches while we sleep, and even goes into the grave with our mortal bodies to comfort and support. He will not leave us alone through pain or poverty while we are on this earth; and therein rests our wealth, along with the Christians of Smyrna.

To be continued

 

[i]  Ferguson, Everett (16 June 2005), “4: The Church and the Empire”, Church History: From Christ to pre-Reformation, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, p. 80, ISBN 978-0-310-20580-7

 

[ii] Revelation 2:9

[iii] Revelation 2:10

[iv] Escape the coming Night

[v] Job 12:25-27

[vi] Revelation 2:9

[vii] Romans 11:7-10

[viii] Romans 6:3-9

Running the Race as a Winner Day Thirty-one

Running the Race as a Winner

Day Thirty-one

“Who am I that I should go?”

“Come with me and I will send you.”

“You don’t want me, I’m too old.”

I AM God; eternal, faithful, and true.”

“No one would believe you want me to go.”

“If you believe, you’ll do as you’re told.”

 

“I am not qualified, and I’m afraid.”

“I said, come with me, not, go alone.”

“Why should I go? What will I do?”

“I will do it. I can work through a stone.”

“Yes, that’s true. Out of dust I was made.”

“I used a donkey. I can use you too.

“A vessel of honor I AM making of you.”

“Who am I?”

“No – I AM – not you.”

Paul told the Corinthians Mashiach[i] was speaking in him; and, though he was crucified in weakness, his is now alive and living by the power of God. Then he said we are also weak in him but in our dealings we live by the power of God[ii]. Paul knew about weakness. He had been beaten within an inch of his life, so bad that the ones beating him left him for dead. It left him with what he called a “thorn in the flesh”[iii] that was so bad he asked to be healed of it three times. Yeshua[iv] told him his grace was all he needed because the power of God was made perfectly obvious when others, and Paul himself, saw how God worked in his life in spite of this weakness.

It is a wonderful thing to know we can do anything, in spite of our weakness, because the power of God works in and through us. We can know that power first hand in the darkest hours of our lives as we run the race, over obstacles so hard and treacherous we are cut and bruised from the encounter. Yeshua lifts us up on spirit wings so, even though we feel the pain in our flesh, our spirits are free and full of joy as we, through the power of God, overcome the blockades and keep on running.

We go where Yeshua, through Rauch Ha Kodesh[v] leads us. We are his ambassadors in a foreign land. Our eternal home is with him. This is our temporary dwelling place while we are on our assignment to demonstrate his love, compassion, mercy, and grace to the world we live in.

We are strong in the strength of his might and can go anywhere and do anything he asks us to.

 

 

[i] Christ

[ii] II Corinthians 13:3, 4

[iii] II Corinthians 12:8-10

[iv] Jesus

[v] The Holy Spirit