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Showing posts from July, 2010

Living in Egypt

Greetings in the Lord! Do you ever have situations that go so array you say, "OK, what else could possibly go wrong??" The Israelites had many situations like that--in fact, the whole book of Jeremiah pretty much goes along that way. Jeremiah was sent as a youth to speak words of warning to Israel about changing their ways--and they ignore and mock him, including his own family. Next he had to warn them about Babylon coming to devastate Jerusalem and tells them that they should just submit to go into exile and it will go well for them---and they abuse him for speaking the word of the Lord and call him a traitor. Then after Babylon comes and destroys Jerusalem and takes many into captivity, the remnant of Israelites left in Jerusalem come to him and inquire of the Lord; so, Jeremiah tells them to stay in Jerusalem and trust God. They reject his words and go to Egypt for "safety." Finally, Jeremiah tells them that God is sending Babylon to Egypt to overrun them

GO the Extra MIle

Greetings in the Lord! Have you ever had one of those "Eureka" moments when you realize in an instant something that has been hidden from you? Like, you finally see what others have been telling you all along or the moment when clouds of confusion blow away and you can see clearly that the choices you've been making were wrong? It's actually kind of a cool thing, huh? That even if you so totally believed the wrong thing for a long while in a flash can see through the darkness--like a bolt a lightening that lights up a darkened room to reveal what's really there in the room. That's how I read Ezra 10:12-17 today. In that passage, Ezra begins to pray and weep for the people, telling them of their sin and, lo and behold, the people got it. "The whole assembly responded with a loud voice: 'You are right! We must do as you say." Ezra 10:12 But of course, their sin of marrying foreign wives wasn't as simple as just saying, "I'm sorr

White Horse Advancing

Greetings in the Lord! I want to share with all of you a dream I had this morning and the Scripture verse that went along with it. In the dream I recall looking at the concrete base of a huge statue of a horse and rider. On the base were the Olympic rings that indicated an association to Greece. As I stepped back to look at the horse and rider statue I focused on the rider for a moment: he had long flowing hair, almost like that of a woman, but had weapons strapped to his body and a bow in his hand. The horse almost seemed as if all its legs were not touching the ground but simply suspended there, which was impossible for a statue. I tried to think of the supposed meanings of raised horses' legs in statues: 1 leg raised meant the rider was wounded in battle but survived, 2 legs raised meant they died in battle, and all four on the ground meant they survived all the battles and died of natural causes. But this horse statue had all 4 legs in midair like it was charging into bat

Ready to Re-Join Class Yet?

Greetings in the Lord! Recently the Lord has been talking to me about false prophets and "leaders" in the Body of Christ leading people astray. And even though the strong hand of the Lord has come against them in a variety of ways, they chose to not recognize it as such and move forward callously without Him, continuing in their ways and not acknowledging sin in their lives. It is an arrogant disregard for the Lord and His corrective measures. I had a student like this before. At first meeting I could see his blatant disrespect for me as the teacher and after a couple of times of addressing his poor behavior, I sent him out of the class for being incorrigible. That is, he refused to be corrected or reform his ways--because he had acted like this so often it was now a bad habit of his to disrespect authority figures. Many Christians are incorrigible like this, too. So after a short time I went to talk to him and ask if he was ready to rejoin the class, but he still was

Truth on the Menu

Greetings in the Lord! You know, its funny how the Holy Spirit will quote a secular saying sometimes to shed light on a particular passage or theme He may be teaching about. Like, for example, recently He said this to comment on Jeremiah 23, Micah 3, and Zechariah 13: "You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." I've always had an appreciation for little bits of conventional wisdom with humor. It's like a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, ya know? In this case, if you were to read the above passages in Jeremiah 23, Micah 3, and Zechariah 13, you may very well desire a little sugar to go with those Scriptures as they pull no punches about people telling lies and making up stories to mislead others--all in the name of the Lord. These are called false prophets. This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to