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CR18Day_02 @ nkjv@Genesis:1 @ RandyP comments: What does it mean to be made in God's image? Does it mean that we are god's in and of ourselves? No, it means that we are to be reflections of HIS light. Mirrored surface reflecting HIS holiness into this world. Image bearers. There is only need for one God to exist. More gods than that in any past/future respect is nothing but a defilement.

CR18Day_05 @ nkjv@Genesis:11 @ RandyP comments: There are two remarks to be made drawn out by the this and the last chapter regarding human choice whether it is free or not. We have the issue of a curse Noah placed on grandson Canaan in response to Ham's actions. Canaan is being directly effected by something his father was guilty of doing. This curse effects human will and self determination on a man to grandson level with God's own involvement unclear. Then there is the splintering of human language into several diverse languages having a direct/purposeful effect upon the will and ability of man as a whole; God seeking to keep human self determination from harming itself. Though human will and self determination apparently remains in both cases, it has thus become limited/restricted to some extent either by man in the first case or else by God in the second (perhaps in the first). Perhaps the will was never completely unrestricted from the Fall. Perhaps the will is free, but the options available for it to chose from are limited. From just the text of two chapters nothing can be said for certain except that there are early indications that man's will is somehow being imposed upon to some mysterious extent, perhaps from various sources.

CR18Day_05 @ nkjv@Mark:4 @ RandyP comments: It is a marvel to think that any one could listen to Jesus shore-side or later read His parables in Mark's gospel and assume that just anybody could easily understand them as they are meant; yet that is how most people approach it. They rather understand them as they want to understand them, that His words say what they themselves want them to say. It is even more of a marvel that they largely disagree with what they want them to say and somehow feel superior to believers having seen through the myth or obvious contradictions. Or else they minimize the meaning that they are willing to take from it to such an extent that it is nothing more than what good advice anybody else could have come up with. It serves the purposes of man's deceitful heart to do this so. Why would Jesus hide His meaning from all but a select few? Because few have the heart to hear it as is truly meant. Most are too busy listening to their own thoughts about they are hearing Him say rather than the actual words themselves within their meaningful context.

CR18Day_09 @ nkjv@Genesis:17 @ RandyP comments: "Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!" It is obvious the Abraham's faith is not yet quite there. God needs for Abraham's faith to be precisely what HE needs it to be and is working with Abraham to bring that faith to light. You see, too often we look at faith as hope as best as we ourselves see it. Sarah is now another thirteen years older, Ishmael has grown into such a fine dear son, why not let things be as they are? Well, that is not the faith God needs Abraham to have. It is often not he faith that God needs us to have thinking that we've already done this and have that already available, let's just make something more of these. To know and believe God and what HE is going to do is to know things as HE sees it, the way HE desires to perform it, nothing less; and to trust in only that. This then is the beginnings of a faith that can be imputed truthfully as righteousness.

CR18Day_12 @ nkjv@Psalms:4 @ RandyP comments: How long? That is the real question in a nut shell. We were created in God's image, to capably reflect HIS holiness glory and light but, for our desire to be wise in our own eyes reflect nothing but our own shame and guilt. We were created capable of love yet what is it that we love? Worthlessness in a word, something if anything that only gets eaten by moth and rust. Created to partake of God's truth yet all that is squandered away for a whole lot of falsehood. How long? That is the question. How long will this be the choice? How long will this be the consequence? How long will this be the blindness, the hardness, the casualty? Another year? Another month? Another day? "..know that the LORD has set apart for Himself him who is godly...". "Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, And put your trust in the LORD."

CR18Day_13 @ nkjv@Mark:10 @ RandyP comments: "He taught them (multitudes) again". The multitudes might be there for miracles and wonders and food but, Jesus at the same time is making sure to keep up the teaching. Here we have His teachings on divorce, receiving the kingdom of God, keeping of the commandments, the cost of discipleship, the disciples path to greatness through servitude; all within one chapter. Even as people are coming to Him to test Him, He is using each occasion as a teachable moment. There is nothing too radical to His teaching but, it is amazingly consistent and authoritative. The radical portion comes because of His death and resurrection and the light it sheds on the fulfillment of these smaller case teachings.

CR18Day_19 @ nkjv@Psalms:12 @ RandyP comments: "The words of the LORD are pure words, Like silver tried in a furnace of earth, Purified seven times". Look at what the Lord is saying: that HE will rise for the cause of the oppressed, that HE will preserve the godly man. Now those are fighting words from a supposedly all compassionate God. Because of the unrighteousness of the ungodly who say "who will lord over us" (in other words many of those who are trying to tell us that God is nothing but compassionate, that all paths lead to heaven, that God doesn't trifle himself with man's doings) there are few godly men to be found (men who stand for God's poor/needy); God must arise in return. The godly were viewed as having been lord's over them. The righteous God is viewed as attempting to lord over them. The battle ground they choose to fight this fight is over the poor and needy; with their tongue note they intend to prevail. Sounds almost like the modern battles between Leftism and Libertarianism. It may be wise to remember that just because the words of the Lord are purified seven times that does not mean that are not still fighting words.

CR18Day_20 @ nkjv@Genesis:38 @ RandyP comments: Why should we be told anything of this odd seemingly inconsequential story? We know to watch the line of Judah closely for the promise of the messiah is to come through it. Through which of Judah's sons would the line continue? Judah's son by this widowed daughter in law Tamar: Perez (Pharez) nkjv@Matthew:1:3 nkjv@Luke:3:33. Knowing the story now we should all collectively raise our eyebrows in unison; this is just about as strange as strange can possibly get. Tamar's husband is wicked. God kills him he is so wicked. How wicked do you have to be to be killed directly by God, no middle man involved? It is almost as if the line is going to continue through Tamar regardless of who the father is. Er is taken out so that it wouldn't be him. The next suitable brother Onan was taken out because he wanted nothing to do with her but to go into her. The next son is too young at the time but is promised (a promise broke by Judah). Judah, a widower himself is out propositioning harlots and goes into her not knowing it was her. Doesn't this go to show that the line has nothing whatsoever to do with good men and women doing what is right, it has everything to do about whom God has chosen? Tamar births twins and nearly a miracle unto itself the first twin out is not the twin who first stuck his arm out, no God had other plans. God had chose the one Tamar declared "the breach be upon you".

CR18Day_20 @ nkjv@Genesis:39 @ RandyP comments: "But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him mercy". It is a popular notion that the Lord's blessing brings nothing but good, it is not of the Lord if it brings bad. Being largely superficial we see that on the surface that it doesn't look good for Joseph; sold into slavery, falsely accused of sexual misconduct, imprisoned, forgotten. If this is what being righteous brings, why consider being righteous then? On the other hand, looking deeper we see that the Lord truly is with Joseph raising him to the top each and every time. Other people could see that the Lord was with Joseph, they trusted him so much with their businesses that they themselves didn't even know what business was being done; yet they prospered like at no other time. The question as we would have it becomes why then should other people prosper when the righteous man remains a slave? This friends is often the dividing point between the mind set of a righteous man from a not so righteous man: the righteous will continue trusting and serving the Lord regardless of/with little consideration of what it will mean to himself, the not so righteous will do so only when it means a foreseeable good unto himself. One such person should ask how righteous being not so righteous really is.

CR18Day_23 @ nkjv@Genesis:42 @ RandyP comments: "Joseph remembered the dreams which he had dreamed about them, and said to them..". For Joseph, his long journey began with some dreams given him as a youth that his family would one day bow themselves before him. Much has happened to Joseph along this journey but, nothing that would suggest to us that Joseph's will and determination has brought this moment now to take place. In fact for the longest time those dreams seemed to be nothing but dreams, dreams had made him to suffer; not so. This certainly is not the course one would plan out if to engineer an event when the making of the dream to come true would pass. This is because this event was not engineered by Joseph, it was engineered and brought to pass by the LORD; there can be no doubt of that the way the story is presented, everything described here tells us that it was by God's hand and God's hand only. What we now must consider about the movement of God's hand is that it moves upon God's favor, favor is what makes all of this to occur, favor actuated by promise. In the natural sense everything can appear to be working against the man. Because of God's favor though, even that which appears to be working against the man/woman is unknowingly working for him/her by God's hand. And in the end it can only be said that it was by God's favor and therein God is praised.

CR18Day_24 @ nkjv@Galatians:1 @ RandyP comments: "..any other gospel.." How many times must it be repeated? Just as not every path leads to heaven not every gospel leads to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The apostle raises a grave concern for us today. Note that Paul ties the issue of there being other gospels directly to the human tendency to please other men rather that be bondservant to Christ. Men need to be pursuaded of God's gospel not God pursuaded of man's. In the end man's various gospels aren't going to be of any use to them; the men that they were designed to please will all be in a unpleasurable place eternally unsatisfiable. The first example given is Paul's own previous conversation, his years as a Jewish zealot/enforcer, a life of pleasing other men even to the extent of willingly doing the dirty work they themselves did not wish to do. Everything he did to please those men (as Jesus wisely predicted) he did thinking that it was heroic service to God. These men above him relied upon that sentiment, they fostered it, they empowered themselves by being able to direct it towards their own purposes. The good news is that the gospel of Christ has nothing to do with pleasing these men. In fact if one chooses to look at it this way, the bad news is rather that this type of man will be extremely displeased by it and will be sending other zealous pawns out against you now. There are so many different directions that these "other gospels" can point believers that it will take a much larger discussion of this Epistle to the Galatians to grasp.