We begin a new year.  Yet each page on our calendar is tentative.  What do I mean?  We may not live to see this day come.  Or the Lord may descend and time as we know it will cease.  What really does the Lord wish of each of us this year?
To love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind.  To love our neighbor as ourselves.  Jesus said this sums up the law.
Jesus also told His disciples, to go and under His authority, to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them all things Jesus had commanded, baptizing them into the new life found in the work of the Father who sent the Son who was given the power of the Holy Spirit to perform such signs and miracles to prove that truly God, the Eternal Son had come to bring light into the darkness of the cursed world.  Many of you probably sang this last week.. "far as the curse is found"..one of the lines of Joy to the World.
I encourage you this year to look with eyes of faith to how God will use YOU to be part of this work of His; to see His kingdom come on earth as in the heaven already His will rules.  Start with a regular time of reading of the Word of God with the intent of obeying all you read.  Write down what you learn.  Find an accountability partner who truly loves you enough to speak into your life.  Local church, not blog or social media church.
Write me as my blog title remains: Devoted to Prayer.  Part  of this prayer time includes intercession for all men [and women].
Riches and treasures found only in Christ Jesus be yours in 2013.

It is not Death to Die

Created4Health.org - How God Speaks to Us Today

Created4Health.org - How God Speaks to Us Today please read. listen. read the Bible.

Bow the Knee - YouTube

Bow the Knee - YouTube  One day every knee will bow.. willingly or unwillingly.  Jesus IS the  only way to the Father.  Eternal life is to KNOW God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Bow..today!

فيه واحد بيحبك - ترانيم اطفال - فريق قلب داود

Urdu - The Way to God

Urdu - The Way to God

Lies Young Women Believe | When He Butters You Up . . .

Lies Young Women Believe | When He Butters You Up . . .

Created4Health.org - The Creation of Wealth

Created4Health.org - The Creation of Wealth

True Woman | Powerfully Peaceful Music for Every Age

True Woman | Powerfully Peaceful Music for Every Age

Please listen..shalom and joy to you.

DEFAULT SETTINGS PART 5

WHERE MERCY AND JUSTICE MEET


God is just. God is also merciful and gracious.  This doesn’t mean God overlooks sin or that God would allow just any payment for our sins.  The life is in the blood.  Blood sacrifice of an innocent animal covered the daily sins of the people.. By faith or trust that God would be satisfied in a perfect substitute animal and its shed blood, mankind could be considered right with God again.
In the Old Testament, we see that it is always by faith that mankind is justified.  The Old Testament sacrificial system points forward to that offspring of a woman Who would crush the head of Satan.
Look at how Ephesians 2 explains what God did for our helpless condition as slaves to sin and trapped in Satan’s Kingdom of Darkness.
“4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

This looks like good news!  A brand new “Default Setting”.  Reconciled, Redeemed, Restored.  Let’s read more about this free gift..motivated by a heart of love.  And when did God come up with this plan? After man’s rebellion? Or before? The answer will astound you and let you see the mystery of the God Who Is There.

We read in Ephesians 1:3-4 NLT, “ ³ All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. ⁴ Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.”

[I added the bold and italics.]  This plan occurred  BEFORE the world or any of us are made!  The very nature of the heart of love is to redeem, reconcile and restore rebellious sinful man to a holy God. 

However, how does this happen? Does every human become ‘holy and without fault’ in God’s eyes?
The answer is NO.  The basic problem is the enmity of God toward the insurrectionists.. each person born is an enemy of God, remember this.  So how to abolish this enmity?  Not just put a temporary covering as the Old Testament sacrifices.  There must be two things; the satisfaction of God’s justice.. there must be punishment appropriate to this heinous crime.  The sin debt must be paid in full.  Also, the sins must be removed from the presence of God.  Second, either the insurrectionist himself must offer his own life as payment OR a suitable substitute would be accepted.  God’s holiness and justice could NOT accept a final solution in any other way.  We know Genesis 3:15 identifies this person would be a man child born of the seed of the woman.  NOT the seed of Adam, which was corrupted beyond usefulness as a perfect substitute.  In essence, there must be a Second Adam.  So we have the birth of Jesus, who was named by the angel, for He would save His people from their sins.  Yeshua or Yesu or Jesus means, “God saves or God delivers”.  Jesus born of the seed of the woman does NOT have the default setting of ‘sin nature’.  Now would this man sent from God, called Emmanuel, God with us, this man called the unique Son of God [born not of human father or sexual intercourse of a man and a woman, but born as the Son of the desert, the Ibn of God]---would this Yeshua be able to live a life of perfect obedience to God?  Only a perfect [sinless] man, tempted in all ways to sin, and yet a willing victim would be able to accomplish this salvation to remove mankind from under the authority of Satan and his evil empire.
So we read in the gospel accounts of the birth, life, works of Jesus.  We learn He was the Eternal Word of God and given power and command to undo works of the devil, to heal the sick , repair the broken of heart, exercise complete dominion over the creation, including the miracle of provision of food, the stilling of the raging tempest on the sea, the raising of the dead, healing of blind and deaf and mute and deliverance of the demonic.  None of these miraculous signs were done except as Jesus heard from God. In other words, Yeshua always obeyed God, unlike the first Adam.
And on to the cruel cross, this type of death prophesied over 700 years earlier in the prophet Isaiah’s account in chapter 53.  Roman soldiers were given authority to crucify Jesus.  His death, burial and resurrection was attested to being true not only by those who witnessed it and later became His followers, but also Roman historians who refused to worship Jesus as God.
So did God accept this sacrifice? Was God’s wrath against mankind satisfied? YES! The Bodily resurrection of Jesus Messiah proves this! Death could not hold Jesus because Jesus had NO sin. With sin came death.  With resurrection comes Life Eternal.
How about you? Have you repented of your sins and by faith accepted that Yeshua died in YOUR place?  If only you had been on this earth, would Jesus have died in YOUR place?
Quiet your heart, read in the New Testament about this Jesus.  Ask God to reveal these things.. Who is Jesus?  What is your present position …If God would judge you today—Human, why should I allow you to My perfect Paradise, when the first human is thrown out for only one small act of disobedience, what would you say? 
Moses brought the Law. Grace and truth came through Jesus Messiah. At the cross mercy triumphs over judgment. 
Please watch this youtube,

Come to Jesus

Here are the words.

Weak and wounded sinner, lost and left to die,

O raise your head for Love is passing by,

Come to Jesus, Come to Jesus, Come to Jesus and live.

Now your burdens lifted and carried far away,

and precious blood has washed away the stain,

so sing to Jesus , sing to Jesus, sing to Jesus and live.

Like a newborn baby, don’t be afraid to crawl

and remember when you walk, sometimes we fall,

so fall on Jesus, fall on Jesus, fall on Jesus and live.

Sometimes the way is lonely and steep and filled with pain,

so if your way is dark and pours the rain,

then cry to Jesus, cry to Jesus, cry to Jesus and live..

O and when the love spills over and music fills the night,

and when you can’t contain your joy inside,

then dance with Jesus, dance with Jesus, dance with Jesus and live.

And with your final heartbeat kiss the world goodbye,

then go in peace and laugh on glory’s side,

and fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus and live.

DEFAULT SETTINGS PART 4

TWO KINGDOMS: A HOPE AND A FUTURE: TO THE KING, TO THE KINGDOM: TO THE RESTORATION

The situation looks very bleak, yes?  Is it possible for Adam to tell God something like this..
“God, I am sorry I made this mistake.  I didn’t think You were serious about the consequence of eating from this tree.  I won’t disobey again. I promise. “

We need to know more about the character of God before we can determine if God will accept Adam’s plan.
God is not only Creator. God is King. What is needed to have a Kingdom?  A King and loyal subjects.  God has no co-regents.  No shared rule.  God is morally perfect. He does no evil. He tempts no one to do evil.  God has zero tolerance for challenge of His absolute authority.

God is just.

This means that all wrongdoing must be punished.

 

God determines the nature of the punishment.  God refuses all bribes and there are no plea agreements. God had made very clear to Adam.. the day you eat..you die.  Adam didn’t forget or misunderstand the full implications of disobedience. 
Before Adam’s sin, Adam lived in the Kingdom of Light.  By misusing his freedom, Adam entered the Kingdom of Darkness.  Ephesians 2 NASB talks about this.
“1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
Every person born after Adam is born dead.  Each person is under the authority of Satan, who is the prince of the power of the air.  By nature a child of wrath means that from birth we all deserve the wrath of God which is expressed by justly sentencing us to eternity in the Lake of Fire for insurrection and high treason against the Kingdom of God.

  Now you are thinking, Mrs. B, this is a little harsh!  Remember there is a promise in Genesis 3:15.  A way that one day the power of Satan to rule over mankind will be broken.
How is this to happen?  For the answer we must consider another attribute of God.. Next post we will study this. The way will surprise you. 

DEFAULT SETTINGS PART 3

CONSEQUENCES FROM MANKIND’S FREE CHOICE TO DEFY THE COMMAND OF GOD

Sin is the Biblical word that means ‘to miss the mark’.  What is God’s ‘mark’?  Perfection.  No ‘mistakes’.  Forgetting is not an excuse.  The standard of God is perfection.  Morally pure God-- Man, made in God’s image and to reflect this image of moral purity. 
What does God say and do for this one act of disobedience from Adam?

First to the serpent we read:

14 The LORD God said to the serpent,

"Because you have done this,

Cursed are you more than all cattle,

And more than every beast of the field;

On your belly you will go,

And dust you will eat

All the days of your life;

15 And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel."

Next to the woman:

16 To the woman He said,

"I will greatly multiply

Your pain in childbirth,

In pain you will bring forth children;

Yet your desire will be for your husband,

And he will rule over you."

Now for Adam, who acted as a federal representative for the whole human race, you and me included!

17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';

Cursed is the ground because of you;

In toil you will eat of it

All the days of your life.

18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;

And you will eat the plants of the field;

19 By the sweat of your face

You will eat bread,

Till you return to the ground,

Because from it you were taken;

For you are dust,

And to dust you shall return."

This doesn’t look like what Satan promised, right? It gets worse.

20 Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

22 Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"— 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

What has changed?

·        Fear-based relationship between mankind and God

·        Sense of shame and guilt between mankind and God and between husband and wife

·        Continual enmity between Satan and humans. 

·        Woman—pain in childbirth, yet desire for her husband

·        Woman—submission to her husband will never be easy; there is the seed of distrust and the memory of her own guilt in her disobedience to God by way of her deception

·        Woman—her husband will experience great difficulty in safely trusting in his wife’s counsel and advice…yet the woman will have a strong desire to please the man

·        Man—his deliberate disobedience to God and the resulting curse on his family and the earth will forever cause him grief; all of mankind forfeits Paradise as a result of his rebellion toward a Holy God

·        Man—ground is cursed, work no longer fun and easy

·        Man and woman—body will die, return to dust

·        Man and woman—need skins to cover them; own efforts not sufficient; God’s Holy eyes cannot look on sin unless the blood of an innocent victim comes between the wrath of God against sin and the sinner.  The life of the flesh is in the blood.

·        Man and woman—driven out of Paradise..for just one mistake

·        Mankind takes on a new “Default Setting” which operates according the new nature, the “sin or flesh nature”.  Mankind continues to have no ability to choose good and no way to avoid doing that which is evil and God’s eyes. 

·        One day the human body dies and returns to dust.  Death came to all humans because of sin

·        The need for and the promise of a Deliverer, a Saviour; Genesis 3:15 Amp “And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; He will bruise and tread your head underfoot and you will lie in wait and bruise His heel”

DEFAULT SETTINGS PART 2

OBEDIENCE—THE TEST OF LOVE

So man’s ‘Default Setting’ at creation

provided freedom to obey or to disobey God.

But God wanted to test how mankind would use this freedom  .  So the test is simple.  Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the day you eat of this tree, you will surely die.  God told Adam this.  Eve was not yet created.  There was another tree in the Garden that God wanted Adam to choose.  The Tree of Life.  What was wrong for Adam to eat of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Man had no ability to choose good.  God created man to be in a dependent relationship with God.  By choosing to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam was telling God, I don’t need or want Your authority in my life.  I am smart enough to live without Your control.

Why would a man choose to risk everything that is perfect?

THE VOICE OF A STRANGER

Perfect God. Perfect man.  Perfect environment.  God has set eternity in the heart of man.  “Default Setting” was no death, no disease, work to do but with no boring days. 
Now enters this Paradise on Earth, an enemy of God.  The Father of Lies, whose name is Lucifer, or Satan, the adversary of God. This created being, once a beautiful and powerful angel in the presence of God, brought about a coup in Heaven, declaring that He would ascend above God’s Throne and rule from Heaven.  He was defeated and thrown to earth.  Now how could Satan best  show hatred toward his Creator? Incite the created humans to do same as he had done.. rebel and decide to live without dependence on God! The results would be that just as Satan was cast out of Heaven and no longer had his exalted position as God’s angel, mankind would be forever cast out of the Paradise of close and intimate fellowship with his Creator.  Man would die.

 But how to do this?
Temptation must be toward the woman species who was created to be always under the loving side of her husband, from which this woman was formed.  Adam’s headship over his wife, Eve, has always been part of God’s design.

Satan’s method of temptation included the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Satan caused Eve to think about the Word of God.  To doubt God.  To believe a lie about God, that God was withholding something that God knew would make the woman happier.  In fact the woman could actually become as God, knowing good from evil.  As the woman chose to listen to a strange voice, she opened the door for a major change in the pre-programmed “Default Setting”. 
Genesis 3:6 NASB records this tragic moment when forever the condition of the whole human race changed ..for the worse!

“6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”
And what is the results? Do the humans become as God? All knowing? Wise? No longer needing God to tell them how to live? Or..do they die?
Verse 7-14 records: “7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" 10 He said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." 11 And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" 12 The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

So now enters shame and guilt.  The couple attempts to cover this shame by making external coverings.. But the shame and guilt proceed from a dead heart, a black heart, a heart that chose to defy the command of a Holy God.  Now enters blame shifting, the man blaming God and his wife, the woman blaming the serpent. Humans have partnered with Satan, the adversary of God.  Once in perfect fellowship with God, now enemies of God.  Mankind failed the test.  Mankind had reset his own God-ordained Default Settings.  So no big deal? Adam just ate a bit of a fruit which was good to look at and desirous for making one wise..and very tasty! 

DEFAULT SETTINGS PART 1

Default Settings


Hello my readers.  Today I want to discuss a topic I touching all people of all cultures.  Let me know how this article helps shape your thinking, ok?

Many of us think of computers when we hear the term “Default Setting”.  An example is my choice of Comic Sans MS in size 14, black color font for this Word Document.
However, I will use the term “Default Setting” as an analogy to the human condition.

MANKIND’S BEGINNING

A careful study of the account of the creation of the world, the creation of mankind [male and female He created them], and the nature of the relationship between the Creator, God, and the created human, helps us to understand our own lives and struggles in life.
To understand this message, we must make some qualifying statements about who is God.  God is good. God is sovereign.  God is all powerful and Almighty.  God always acts in accordance with His own perfect nature.  For example, God never tells a lie.  God does not say one thing, and then need to change His mind.  God is all knowing.  God never had to learn anything.  God has always known everything.  For example, God already knows what word you will speak before you have it as a thought.  God knows your every thought, action and attitude. God is a personal God.    God is the Creator of all.  God is self existent, has no beginning or no end.  No one created God. God is perfectly satisfied with Himself, He needs nothing to be complete.  Yet God desired to create a being in His own image, with many of the character qualities of God.  This creature would know God and be known by God.

The history of the forebears of all humans, named Adam and Eve, the first humans, created by the Hand and the Breath of God Himself, shows us something about “Default Setting”.
Humans are not and will never evolve into God.  Humans are created to give glory to God by means of our willing submission to God. 

We submit to God, not out of duty, but out of design.

Our original ‘Default Setting’ was one of trusting in the wisdom of God, allowing God to be the ‘boss’ our lives.  There was no sign of rebellion toward the rule of God over every area of our lives. 

Mankind was created morally pure, not knowing good from evil.  There was no need.  Mankind was incapable of choosing good, as well as discerning between that which is good or non-good. 

Evil is not the opposite of good; evil is the absence of good. 

Since God is good, evil is the absence of God.

Mankind was created in the image and for the purpose of displaying the image of God in the created world.  The angels looked on as God took of the dust of the ground and made Adam.  What made Adam unique to the rest of creation? Animals? Mankind has a spirit, breathed in by God’s Spirit. Man has a soul [individual mind, will and emotions] and is ‘wired’ with a free will capable of choosing to obey or to disobey the Creator.  Man is therefore capable of being ‘relational’ with God.  Knowing God.  Enjoying God!  Intimate knowledge of the Creator.  Animals have no such choice. 

    Man was created under the authority or rule of God.  Animals were to be under the authority of the rule of mankind.  God in fellowship daily with mankind would oversee mankind’s stewardship of the created world.  What a beautiful thing this must have been as Adam exercised dominion over the animals and plant life.