kjv@Acts:26 @ @ RandyP comments: It is important to remember as you consider your salvation and the salvation of others that God isn't just turning you/them from their own personal sins, He is turning you/them from the power of Satan. It does little good to deal within the micro and to still leave you within the cords of deceit and destruction in the macro.
kjv@Psalms:54 @ @ RandyP comments: Mentioned here are "those that uphold" David's soul in the same sentence as God being David's helper. Shall we assume that amongst other things God is using certain people in David's life to comfort and sustain David's will and judgment? As we are often prone to gathering the wrong people around us, it would be wise to not only pray for the right people to enter and surround us, but to seek out and nurture these necessary relationships well ahead of our time of need, and for His hands to guide them in these times of our crises?
kjv@Psalms:62 @ @ RandyP comments: Salvation is not only a word for the future day of judgement, it is a word for the day here and now. Too much surrounds us in a day not to be aware of and in need of His salvation. He is strength. He is refuge. Mischief, inward cursing, oppression, lies, vanity, robbery are but a few of the things that either do or could affect us each and every hour. He is our defense, salvation, and our rock. We shall not be moved.
kjv@Psalms:63 @ @ RandyP comments: David thirsts and longs to see God's power and glory. So what does he do? He praises with reason, he blesses and raises his hands. He is satisfied and joyful. He remembers and meditates, rejoices, follows hard.
kjv@Psalms:64 @ @ RandyP comments: These enemies plagued David. The battle field was political but, the warfare was spiritual. We may see them merely as personal conflicts but,Satan knew the prophecies and importance God was placing on lineage. He had plenty a willing minions to combat what God was doing. We could also see Jesus surveying His situation similarly in a much larger battle. We would see such if we were engaged in this fight as well.
kjv@Psalms:71 @ @ RandyP comments: We are reading this as it appears in the order of the book of Psalms and not in the chronological order of his Davids life. It will be interesting in the next devotion to see where David is at in his life when he pens this. We know by I reading thus far of Samuel Kings and Chronicles that there was a good part of his life in exile being hunted by Saul or later his son. These may be some of the enemies which he writes of so frequently of. It can be the spiritual enemies while he is on the throne as well.
kjv@Psalms:77 @ @ RandyP comments: To realize what our spiritual infirmity is and what effect it has upon us is crucial. It makes us to doubt. It makes us to invent attributes to God that are clearly not in His nature. These attributes are concocted to place Him off into the distance. Somehow I fear as well for the doubters that are just as likely to look for God only in the earth shaking bolts from the sky. The more we know of His true attributes the more likely we are to see Him in each and everything in this life with manifold ways. Look for these ways today!
kjv@Psalms:81 @ @ RandyP comments: Other gods, the plague of Israel. Why was it so easy for them to slip back into this? After all the reproofs, the bondage and countless turning back. It would be wise for us to consider this answer. It may not be as simple as finding the right god and sticking to it. It could be that we use gods to serve us which the false gods are very willing to do. It could be that we feel better being fulfilled and exalted than being brought low and humbled. It could be that we believe the here and now and not the future, that our hearts are never satisfied, that we are driven by lust and fear. There are processes and separations being used by the Lord to make us what we will one day be. It is easier though for us to think that we are now what we will be. Such are our presumptuous sins. Such is the shame of what this life should have been.
kjv@Romans:8:19-39 @ @ RandyP comments: This chapter being one of the most quoted in the Bible is often being picked apart into bite size pieces instead of being taken in as a whole. In bites we can make it say all sorts of nice comfy things. As a whole we should see it as an intense spiritual battle over the souls of men. Being saved by hope, helped even still in our infirmities, being drafted into the allied ranks, being counted as sheep for the slaughter, Paul is persuaded that nothing can separate believers from the love of God, that all these trench level struggles and persecutions work for together for the good. No matter what this war can throw against us our Supreme Commander is there.
kjv@Psalms:100 @ @ RandyP comments: TSK has some good notes on what we should know tsk@Psalms:100:3
kjv@Psalms:105 @ @ RandyP comments: All this He did for the purpose that they might observe His statutes and keep His law. We might say well they didn't really do that, at least not for long. Is that to say that God was wrong or had failed? That God could have found a better way? Or is that to say that it was and is the right way? That by us failing to do this by our own means serves to draw us toward His son the true fulfillment of statute and law? Surely God's doings each and every one are perfect and without failing.
kjv@Romans:15:21-33 @ @ RandyP comments: Finally Paul will make a visit to Rome on a trip that will eventually take him into Spain. His work never ends. He mentions that the saints in Jerusalem have provided spiritual blessing to the Gentiles in Macedonia and Achaia and in response these Gentiles are contributing to the saints physical needs in Jerusalem which at this time were dire. By going into Judea to perform this gift Paul is placing himself in great danger in several ways. In that day before money wires and bank transfers I imagine a great deal of care and secrecy/diversion was required to safely do transfers like this. Having a well known and greatly despised envoy do this was even more risky.
kjv@Psalms:110 @ @ RandyP comments: David has a Lord. David's Lord has a Lord. How can the Jew explain this? This intermediary Lord is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. He is waiting at His Lord's side until that Lord puts their enemies under this Lord's foot stool, Surely this Lord is not a human lord or king yet to be born for He sits there now and has sat there at least from the time of David. Compare this with kjv@Psalms:2
kjv@Psalms:113 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord God's Son not only was high above doing these great and countless things, He humbled Himself to become part of these experiences as well, to the effect that now He is by no means a stranger to the human feelings and human nuances and human temptations that we experience within these great foundations and frameworks. He has been both here and there. Having returned back to His position alongside the Father, having completed the necessities for our redemption, He waits at the right hand as the Father puts His enemies beneath His footstool so that He the Son can return in His much deserved glory. Who is like unto our Lord God?
kjv@Psalms:114 @ @ RandyP comments: The sea parted for Israel. The Jordan river became dry land for them to cross. As a foreign nation watching on from a distance, one would have to ask why such a mighty god would do these things for Israel and not us? Later, after our foreign nation had infiltrated and commingled our gods and idols into Israel, one would have to ask why is this god Jehovah so jealous over Israelite people and not us? What are these many legends being retold about their time in the desert? Surely, Israel is being used as an injection point for His inoculation needle. The surrounding area festers, it fevers, it changes, the remainder of the body takes sudden and frequent notice. The body collectively resists, the body swells against, it is whipped into a frenzy, but, in the process of fighting against the injection the body takes on and spreads the antibody unknowingly, receiving and carrying about that which the Doctor behind the needle had fully intended from the start. 'Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob'.
kjv@Psalms:115 @ @ RandyP comments: They that make these idols are like unto them and so are those that would trust in them. So what idols have we made today? What idols have we trusted in today? What preconceptions? What false notions? What religious forms and identities have we taken on that are similarly vacant? Where have we imagined a vain thing? Where have we placed anything other above our God? The people of Israel had done it; even after their tremendous experiences with God. Time and time again it was their down fall. What is it that makes us think that today this is no longer a factor in our lives? That we've gotten it all figured out? That we are somehow different from them? Perhaps this false illusion is one of our many idols.
kjv@1Corinthians:2 @ @ RandyP comments: The spirit of a man alone knows the secrets held within a man. How is it that we think that knowing God would be any different? To know of God one must inquire of His Spirit, search through that which is spiritually discerned, compare spiritual to spiritual. The Spirit searches all things. This is where the natural man fails to understand.
kjv@1Corinthians:6 @ @ RandyP comments: Just as this divides itself over it's leadership, just as this assembly tolerates fortification, just as they tolerate civil matters between themselves to be brought before a secular court, this body joins itself as if in marriage to these grievous forms of unrighteousness. The leaven mentioned in the previous chapter has raised up into a spiritual adultery of congregational proportions; and this among fellow believers. Surely not all have done individually these sinful things, but, the congregation is effected as a whole none the less. Tolerance and passiveness in this case is a sin just as pungent.
kjv@Psalms:128 @ @ RandyP comments: I am seeing this as a blessing of God to the individual believer and it revolves around being to eat the fruit of your own hands. There is a blessing of sustaining and protection and multiplication here allowing one to plant and to be able to see and partake of the return. If your hands have not planted there probably wouldn't be all that much to eat but, then none of us really plant as much as we eat. We know that there is a multiplication at work even for us. The man who fears God will plant. Wife and children will be a blessing, grand children and peace upon Israel. What I am considering is a general blessing, for not everyone will see this. Some brothers will die valiantly for us in war, Jerusalem may not even be occupied or obedient, enemies may at once amass along the borders of Israel. But, in a spiritual sense, in a general sense, in a sense we may not have even considered God will bless every man that fears him.
kjv@Psalms:131 @ @ RandyP comments: When the heart is haughty and the eyes lofty the soul takes upon itself a great deal, increasingly large matters it really has no business in. I think of the political campaigns we are suffering these months ahead of elections. Presented are entire shopping lists of big and grandiose ideas/programs that each and everyone of us knows will never once be addressed. So why are we making concern over them, why to the near exclusion of the things that we would be able to address? This same type issue is true in our individual hearts as well. Oh yes, grand dreams and visions, miraculous intentions, marvelous causes, big and frequent squawks and chatter. It hardly ever results in any more than that. For some though, a new found calm and quietness, a weaning from the demanding tantrums of a suckling child, a trust and obedience to a more modest constantly maturing godly nature.
kjv@1Corinthians:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Seems that there is always a fuss over money, be it tithes or church salaries or building funds or pastor's portions etc. It comes to the point where the gospel is hindered by all the fuss. Some concern is rightly placed. Most concern is nothing more than serving the master of mammon more than the master of grace. Paul was well within his rights to eat of the grain he had milled, but, made a personal decision as an apostle not to partake of his portion simply because it would surely become an offense to weaker less mature believers. Not all ministers are in that same position nor should they be expected to be either.
kjv@Psalms:140 @ @ RandyP comments: Here is an interesting look at what we should know from Psalms kjv@STRING:Psalms+AND+know . A similar link regarding the wicked kjv@STRING:Psalms+AND+wicked . What do we know about them currently and what should we know.
kjv@Psalms:141 @ @ RandyP comments: This constant talk about the wicked and of his own travail concerns me. Surely this not just any typical man nor situation nor prayer. The psalmist is being oppressed and surrounded for reasons not common to most of us in our personal daily lives. My concern is that we look at our common worldly difficulties in the light he looks at here, which is an intense spiritual warfare set against him as anointed king of anointed Israel being in the direct and announced blood line of the coming Savior. There may be a similarity to the persecution of the apostles and saints and martyrs, but to having ourselves a bad hair day?
kjv@Psalms:142 @ @ RandyP comments: Consider that over and over again the man has called out to pour from his soul his desperate troubles. The Lord hears and the Lord delivers and yet they come up again and again. Where is the righteousness in that? It is in the life long process that molds the man into what he spiritually needs to be, not just for this life but the life to come; it is in the inspiration ignited in others to aspire to the same. Snares have been privily laid by others, harm is meant, there is only one refuge and it is not in mankind. He complains of these others and their harmful intents but not the process and not the master that by this shapes the man into a vessel of honor.
kjv@1Corinthians:11:1-15 @ @ RandyP comments: There will always be a tension between the sexes that the mischievousness can manipulate into near frenzy. The fact is that Paul could have said anything about male female relations, gone any direction with it and still have been sharply criticized. In the culture to which Paul was specifically addressing certain customs took on profound spiritual meaning. Their assembly was being torn on both sides by the debate over these roles as related to public worship. The debate inflamed them to the point that meaningful worship and assembly ceased. Our culture is plagued by much the same debate and sadly to much the same end. What then is the principal to follow? Subjection for the sake of worship. Do not let your liberty inflame the conscience of a weaker believer or your worship get in the way of everyone else's. And remember if allowed into worship that God is not the author of chaos.
kjv@Psalms:149 @ @ RandyP comments: In the new covenant we think of the two-edged sword as God's written word and the bringing forth of His agape to all peoples as our mission. We Gentiles might not have this honor today had it not been for the establishment early on of Israel and it's place in the history of our ancestors who often received it's vengeance and punishments. This tiny nation inflamed us. By standing allied against it yet being strongly defeated we saw it's God Jehovah. It's Jehovah eventually led us to His Son our Lord. Now we reach back to Israel with His agape and His word to complete the circle.
kjv@1Corinthians:11:16-34 @ @ RandyP comments: There is concern over the way this congregation views and implements it's Holy Communion. This is not to be a drunken party nor a food line, it is a solemn partaking symbolically of the flesh and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Anything other, anything reason less becomes a curse or judgement.
kjv@Proverbs:3 @ @ RandyP comments: In many of the proverbs I notice that the child or the son is receiving the teaching and lives it forth through a process of correction and refinement. There is a personal reward continuously in that. The reward from others seems sometimes to come later as a man, sometimes much later. So often our youth are looking for the reward of others here and now to make their personal reward; correction is not part of the equation at all.
kjv@Proverbs:7 @ @ RandyP comments: The wise son and Israel are taught in the same breath. There is a practical street sense to this and a loftier spiritual sense nationally. Spiritual warfare can produce the same enticing fascinations. Because of the nature of the content addressed here it may be better understood this wise son must be at least an adolescent.
kjv@Proverbs:8 @ @ RandyP comments: I sense the suggestion that before creation the plan was all laid out, Jesus was to be our redeemer. Wisdom became all that which moved that plan forward, the establishment of the covenant, the law, Israel, the prophecies, the conviction of the Holly Spirit. Wisdom was there when all these essential things were framed, it is there evident in all creation revealing even the Godhead so that we are without excuse kjv@Romans:1:20. Wisdom is the purpose and direction and establishments leading all men back to their savior.
kjv@Proverbs:2 @ @ RandyP comments: Chapter marks are a more recent development added to the Bible for purposes of easier reference. Sometimes they get in the way of the more fluid reading that the writer intended. It is interesting way to read these proverbs to remove these chapter partitions and read larger chunks of instruction. kjv@PLAIN:Proverbs:1-8
kjv@Proverbs:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Simple mindedness can be thought of as open mindedness; it can be both good and bad. An open mind can lead to the acceptance of the possibility of wisdom all ready being prepared beforehand there for the taking, for the shedding of and separation from foolishness. It can also lead to nothing more than an attitude permitting oneself to scorn the notion of true wisdom and an investigation into stolen and secret sensual pleasures. One way leads to life the other to hell. Ones focus should not be on having an open mind just for the sake of having an open mind and being able to self justify any and everything, one should have an open mind for the sake of seeking absolute truth for it will catch up with us sooner than later. Perhaps having a clear mind should be a better objective.
kjv@Proverbs:11 @ @ RandyP comments: Several of these proverbs in this section are dealing with the rewards of pursuing righteousness, many rewards here in this life. So often we view the wealthy as having received their wealth by ill means without knowing the slightest thing about how they achieved/maintain it. To wrap all rich men/women into the same corrupt bundle is to ignore what God is saying about what He wants to do.
kjv@Proverbs:12:17 @ @ RandyP comments: Speaking truth is associated with being a trust worthy witness; a witness that sheweth forth righteousness. Whose righteousness? God's
kjv@Proverbs:15:14 @ @ RandyP comments: What does it mean to have understanding? It means to know to seek after knowledge. If we purse an issue thinking that we know everything about it from the start, this is not understanding. If we pursue thinking that simply by the strength of our own determination exerting force we will bend the issue to our favor, this is not understanding. Seeking knowledge means first seeking the fear of the Lord, humbling ourselves and our cause to His presence, listening for direction and knowing that it may well include correction and faithful obedience, this is understanding.
kjv@Proverbs:15:20 @ @ RandyP comments: A father would be most pleased if a son would deeply respect and have a warm open connection to his mom. It wouldn't matter as much to the father about the son's relationship with him; that would just be the cream on the cake. Should the son not have this connection to his mom neither father nor mom would be pleased especially the father.
kjv@Proverbs:17 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:Proverbs:17+AND+fool Look at how many times a fool is mentioned in this chapter. kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+fool makes for an interesting study as is kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+righteous
kjv@Proverbs:18 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+lips kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+tongue kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+mouth kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+word
kjv@Proverbs:19 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+of+the+LORD
kjv@2Corinthians:4 @ @ RandyP comments: Is Paul saying that only the Apostles are called to this stringent a life? That we should just sit back and bask in the glory that has been revealed in their work and sacrifice? Surely we are not Apostles, but, we are disciples, we are followers, we are partakers of the divine nature. If this is what Christ suffered, if this is what the Apostles suffered, then we too should be willing/expecting to suffer the same. It is in this manner after all the life and glory of Christ is revealed.
kjv@2Corinthians:5 @ @ RandyP comments: There is a constant debate over works and faith. If because of faith you no longer live to yourself what do you now do? Some would say nothing for Christ did it all, grace not works. Others would counter you do what He would do, you work His work having given us the ministry of reconciliation, not for the salvation which is by grace but for the reward as His ambassadors.
kjv@Proverbs:25 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+false+witness kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+honey kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+woman kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+spirit
kjv@Proverbs:26 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+conceit
kjv@Proverbs:29 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+abomination
kjv@2Corinthians:8 @ @ RandyP comments: The ministry to the saints should be a ministry assumed by all believers. There is an expectation of equality where by my surplus at this time supplies to your needs and your surplus at another time will supply mine. Even during the difficult times, there are wonderful examples of believers squeezing extra out resources to others. We should not only commit to such causes but follow through on our commitments. In this we prove our love for the brethren. Sometimes we just expect God to take care of it not realizing that this is often how God takes care of it.
kjv@Ecclesiastes:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Peter kjv@2Peter:1:4 described this world as a corruption that is in this world because of lust. Corruption can mean death and decay as it does for the sons of the lusting to be wise Adam/Eve. The thought of this death makes us to lust for all that we might have and make out of this short time which brings us to a corruption of all that is good and intended; lust upon lust and it's many other corruptions. What God has done by putting us through this is to be looked at in terms of forever that men should fear Him; a tremendously good and righteous work of making us righteous within the righteousness of His Son; raising us up from this corruption much as His Son a new spiritual creature. From this nothing can be put to nor taken away.
kjv@Ecclesiastes:5 @ @ RandyP comments: If not for God in the heaven, why would you not oppress the poor? Why would you not lie and cheat and steal for your larger portion? No it wouldn't be as satisfying as you had imagined but, hey it is better than being one of the oppressed. Really, what is there to stop a man from thinking this way? Love of country and nation? Love of doing right? Fear of what others might think of you? Surely the fear of the LORD is the beginning of Wisdom; wisdom for ourselves and for our nation.
kjv@Ecclesiastes:7:7 @ @ RandyP comments: I am wondering how this works. A gift is given that destroys a man's heart, his heart to seek out a matter, his heart to proceed forward, his heart to stand firm against his oppressor, provide for his own. Sounds a lot like welfare and food stamps does it not?
kjv@Ecclesiastes:7 @ @ RandyP comments: Solomon has spent a great deal of time considering the ends of things. Sure they seem right to us here and now but, what of it in the end? He concludes that while somethings are better, some are wiser, all things are temporary, that they all end as vanity. Not everyone goes as far as to consider these things, the thought being "what does it matter?". It matters to the life to come and the abundant entrance ministered unto us into Christ's eternal kingdom kjv@2Peter:1:11.
kjv@2Corinthians:11:1-15 @ @ RandyP comments: The fact that Paul has been addressing these things throughout this letter must mean that somebody(s) were accusing Him him of such. Other Jesus's are what we still face today. Selling another Jesus often involves placing doubt upon character of the saints of the true Jesus. Paul is attacked even today by numerous groups presuming to have a clearer definition of Jesus. It is not the same Jesus however.
kjv@Ecclesiastes:10-11 @ @ RandyP comments: In his proverbial style Solomon shares his wisdom on sowing, on avoiding folly, on the poor, and on folly in the upright standing out like a stinking perfume. This section almost seems to break the previous train of thought that all is vanity. All is not vanity if the Lord blesses what is being done.
kjv@Ecclesiastes:12 @ @ RandyP comments: Upon our deaths nothing more can be said or done. That in which we put ourselves to on this earth will cease and no longer be remembered. We have the option of spending this remaining time doing for ourselves or we can follow after our Lord and Shepherd to His final pastier. Fear God, and keep His commandments: for that is the whole duty of man. The end of all things is vanity if not for God.
kjv@Songs:1 @ @ RandyP comments: geneva@Songs:1 compares the female character as the church longing for her groom.
kjv@2Corinthians:12 @ @ RandyP comments: An uncleanness/fornication/lasciviousness is sweeping through this church. Instead of being repentant and chaste they are seemingly becoming accusatory and slanderous of Paul. He had sent Titus but, it is quickly becoming an issue that he will have to address himself to answer his accusers. Sin has this manner where it puffs itself up, justifies itself by attacking/diminishing the person that represents righteousness.
kjv@2Corinthians:13 @ @ RandyP comments: There is a fine line between edification and destruction when addressing situations like this. The sense that Paul has is that his accusers are attempting to rattle him, make him say something or do something that would turn out to their advantage. By challenging him to prove himself as an Apostle their hope is to make him over react or be over bearing enough to push people away, show that he is operating from his own pride and sense of possession. There is also the chance that he may shy away and underplay the situation as well. We, much like Paul, must be prayerful, direct and and Spirit led in these situations too.
kjv@Songs:6 @ @ RandyP comments: A possible explanationhttp://www.gotquestions.org/Song-of-Solomon.html http://www.angelfire.com/sc3/we_dig_montana/Song.html
kjv@Songs:5:16 @ @ RandyP comments: There are internet reports that the Moslim's believe lovely here to be a reference to Muhammad. They translate the Hebrew muhammadim as Pbuh (Muhammad). Strong's does not us muhammadim it uses machmâd and I am not sure of the correlation. Even so, 956bc usage of the word does not necessarily suggest that the word is accurately translated into 700ad counter-evangelical doctrine. It could have meant "lovely".
kjv@Isaiah:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Should now we Gentiles glory that we have done better than Israel in obeying the Lord? No, no man shall glory except in Christ kjv@1Corinthians:1:27-31
kjv@Galatians:4:25 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:easton Sinai
kjv@Galatians:4:25 @ @ RandyP comments: Did you know that this Mount Sinai is supposedly also where Mohammed's horse Boraq ascended into heaven?
kjv@Galatians:5 @ @ RandyP comments: For Paul to say be not entangled in the yoke of bondage means that it is quiet possible to if not likely. It is something that we must guard ourselves from. In this case it centers around our perception of what justifies us in the end, the Law or Grace. In other ways it seems to be in resembling too closely the ways of this world or reverting back into our fleshly appetites and habits. The works of the flesh are manifest as are the fruits of the Spirit.
kjv@Isaiah:17 @ @ RandyP comments: The judgement continues throughout the region; Israel, Moab, and now Syria and beyond. The impact was devastating to all. History confirms that the Babylonian Empire was brutal and massive. It was not by accident nor their own doing however, but God's used their violent possessive treacherous nature to achieve His righteous purposes. Everyone had to take notice and the prophecies of Isaiah had to have been known/searched by many I would think.
kjv@Ephesians:2 @ @ RandyP comments: I sense that Paul is describing the larger body of believers; us, all, ye, we, both, together, strangers, foreigners, household, temple. The Holy Spirit inhabits a body of believers. He may work on/in us individually but, always for the benefit of the body. We often reverse this foundational truth, blaming/accusing the body, separating ourselves from it, criticizing/judging what is the work and dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
kjv@Ephesians:4 @ @ RandyP comments: We see the importance of the body of believers to our own personal growth process; it can not be escaped. Much of our development is in the striving for the unity of the Spirit, a most difficult but yet essential task. The bonds of peace, the unity of faith, the whole body fitly joined together, these are the works of the Holy Spirit and the directions given our pastors teachers and evangelists. When we give ourselves over to Christ this is what we give ourselves over to. Anything other is of our old corrupt selves.
kjv@Ephesians:6 @ @ RandyP comments: The amour of the Lord is not occasional attire; it is not 'Parade Dress'. Each item points to spiritual necessity not option. Spiritual warfare does not stop on those days that we wish not to play. These are the days which we need it most.
kjv@Philippians:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Christ is being preached, by Paul's life and by his death, by others responding to Paul's absence some in contention some in love, by the churches outreach and operation even under extreme persecution. Some would think that they have the upper hand but, who has the upper hand over God? Is this not how He said it would be? Is this not a necessary part of our sanctification to share in His sufferings? Is He not sovereign and in complete control? Has any one or anything snuck up on Him that he had mistakenly underestimated or poorly considered? Of course not, for Christ is preached!
kjv@Philippians:4:5 @ @ RandyP comments: How do we best show moderation to all men? Something to seriously consider.
kjv@Isaiah:41 @ @ RandyP comments: You can imagine a tyranical king thinking that his mighty hand had done all this. How does he explain the fact that wonders have occurred even where his feet have not gone? that there is a momentum and wave far beyond his? Surely he will not admit that he has been played like a pawn just as all the rest. These things even are by God.
kjv@Colossians:4:12-13 @ @ RandyP comments: Some are given the burden of prayer. It does not say what other positions or responsibilities this person may of held. To be saluted as a warrior of prayer and acknowledged for a particular burden for some specific congregations is illustrative of how Paul's team operated.
kjv@Isaiah:52 @ @ RandyP comments: The confidence of the couple chapters can be found in this: that there will be a 'Servant'. He shall deal prudently, exalted, extolled, be very high. His visage will have been marred more than any other man. The nations have been told of Him and soon shall see and consider and know that all that was told them was true. All eyes will be astonished. For the eyes of Zion's daughters will be opened and Zion itself returned. Who is this marred man? What is it that He will return to dothat we have been told about Him that will astonish us when we see it come true?
kjv@Isaiah:53 @ @ RandyP comments: Again we read of the 'Servant' as being the 'Arm of the Lord'. His visage so marred beyond any other; a tender plant wounded for our transgressions. He has poured out His soul unto death. The details here are exquisite. Can there be any doubt as to who Isaiah is talking about? The Father sees the travail of this particular soul and shall be satisfied. He bares their iniquities and justifies many.
kjv@Isaiah:54 @ @ RandyP comments: The effect of the 'Servant's' redemptive work is glorious. The life to follow extreme. For now we have this eternal hope. It guides us and feeds us and inspires us. Soon it will be our reality. Instead of a flood of destruction it will be to us a flood of supreme love and good will.
kjv@1Thessalonians:1 @ @ RandyP comments: People do notice. There is not a particular individual mentioned here. The congregation is likely acting together as one, they are working and laboring doing things as a body that are being observed and talked about. One thing that stands out is that they are not doing what everybody else is doing, in this case having turned from idols. For this they suffered affliction yet withstood the pressure with patience and hope. Such things stand out and are talked about distances beyond our personal knowing and causing the gospel to be spread. Where can we stand out in our churches today?
kjv@1Thessalonians:2 @ @ RandyP comments: We know from past writings that Paul was aware of when the Lord had closed or opened a door for the ministry. Given the level of public opposition, affliction and persecution etc.. it makes me wonder what a closed door looks like. Here we see Satan hindering. How does that look different enough to know the difference between the two?
kjv@1Thessalonians:3 @ @ RandyP comments: It is hard to know how people will react to pressure. You work hard to establish something. You may have to step aside knowing that the work is not yet completed but progressing forward. You hope and pray and send envoys to check in now and then, but, it is a nerve racking ordeal no doubt. The pressure these early churches were under was considerable. The forces (even Satanic) specifically following the team of Paul extreme. The hindrance mentioned may not have been so much upon the team being able to travel there as much as what their arriving might have brought. Were they ready? Was the lack in their faith something to do in the armament of believers against the Satanic warfare being experienced?
kjv@Isaiah:56 @ @ RandyP comments: The call goes out to all peoples not just Israel. Israel has gotten itself into big trouble at this point because it has forgotten the Sabbaths. They have proven and illustrated over and over the nature of all men having had difficulties laying maintaining the Law and fulfilling their end of the covenants. If not them then certainly not the Gentiles. For them this Sabbath will become this 'Servant' (the promise to and mercies of David) described previously t(he salvation to come, the righteousness to be revealed). His watchmen Israel for a time will be blind, but, they too will come from their own drunk fest around to this gracious feast at the table of a greater covenant.
kjv@Isaiah:58 @ @ RandyP comments: The fast and the Sabbath are mentioned together in one passage. We see illustrated how easily the fast can be contorted into something lesser that it is not. The true fulfillment of the fast is much more wide spread than we most often allow. Can the same be said of the Sabbath then being that they are placed within the same prophetic declaration? Is this the fast He has chosen? Is this the Sabbath He chosen?
kjv@Isaiah:62 @ @ RandyP comments: It may seem odd that there is such a focus on singular objects, Jerusalem and Zion in the age to come. Surely the focus will be on the Lord, but, the tangible proof of that focus will be these symbolic things. That the Lord has done this, that it is now viewed by others as He had said it would is the proof of His commitment. That we would come to do this in this manner is then proof of ours.
kjv@Isaiah:63 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:Spirit+of+the+LORD The Holy Spirit has been active all along.
kjv@Isaiah:64:6 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:our+righteousness
kjv@1Thessalonians:5:18 @ @ RandyP comments: So what is the will of God concerning us? What is it that He is grooming in us no matter what our situation? Intelligence? Superior charm and tolerance? Personal mastery and the ability to channel His energy to achieve our many goals? No, thanks!
kjv@1Thessalonians:5:18 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@1Thessalonians:4:3 suggests that the will is to sanctify us. Could these two seemingly different concepts go hand in hand? kjv@STRING:will+of+God
kjv@2Thessalonians:2 @ @ RandyP comments: For those who say that the Bible does not teach about Hell and a Satan, one would have to remove 2Thessalonians from the Bible to make that conclusion. While they were at it they would have to remove the very words of Jesus Christ and the remainder of the Old and New testaments as well.
kjv@Jeremiah:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Signs of sin of the nation Israel here are refusing to be ashamed, adulterous idolatry, dealing treacherously, seeking salvation from hills and mountains, perverting ways, not obeying voice of Lord. In their division with Judah, which may have been rightful in and of its self, they had moved the their center of worship from Jerusalem to the two high places within their own borders to avoid having to go into Judah to worship. Which was a massive transgression. They were also fighting apparently over the possession of the Ark of the Covenant. The cure? Return from backsliding, acknowledge your transgression against the Lord and the scattering of your ways to strangers.
kjv@Jeremiah:6 @ @ RandyP comments: The Word of the Lord to them is a reproach and their ears will hear nothing of it. How then should this be dealt with by Yahweh? Does the people's 'god of unconditional compassion' have to just sit back and take it? Many today continue this notion of God's unconditional compassion not knowing what compassion even is nor knowing what an extremely compromised position a righteous God is placed under by such faulty/selfish definition. Rather, God's unconditional compassion is in that no matter what one has done/no matter how badly one may have sinned and acted, Jesus Christ died and raised for the purchase providing means for your return. Should you choose to return/repent/compromise yourself and thus receive this unconditional grace He will unconditionally pardon and accept you into His everlasting kingdom. God's great compromise is in the giving of His Son. If you are unwilling to accept that alone for your salvation, what more can/would He do?
kjv@Jeremiah:8 @ @ RandyP comments: How could one say after having seen these things come to pass that they were not from the Lord when He told them before hand what exactly He was going to do and why? This did happen as it was foretold and we have a considerable amount of historical proof. We do know how they reacted and what their religion became after this up to the time of Jesus on earth; that they saw it as exactly this as well. Even that however was not enough. So then, how can we say today even that the Lord did not do this and that this was not why?
kjv@Jeremiah:9:3-5 @ @ RandyP comments: Could any of us say today that we have been valiant for the truth on earth? God makes Himself and His will known to man at great expense to Himself and yet may continues not to know Him? He perpetuates the testimony and revelations of His Son throughout all time at great expense to His valiant ones and we see it as irrelevant and unapproachable? We proceed from evil to evil never satisfied with the evil just committed? Never filled full of our evil to the point of drawing back from the table and declaring that is enough for me, I can take it no more? Asking our neighbor and or brother as if they would know truth and be valiant for truth any better?
kjv@Jeremiah:11:3-5 @ @ RandyP comments: It all sounded well and fine at the time. God promises all of this and all they had to do is simply obey. They did not though in that day nor did they in Jeremiah's. No where along the way did they, they could not. This is the nature of sin. Despite all the good intentions from both parties the sin nature will not do that which is in the best interest. It always works against that thinking that it alone is in the right/has it's best interest at heart. It may not always be a conscious decision as well but, more as an impulse of the flesh that is intellectually justified after the fact. The purpose of God's dealings are to prove to us this nature so that the necessity and redemption of His Son's blood may be depended upon.
kjv@Jeremiah:12 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord promises that He will do all this but, it will not be without purpose, they will be brought back into their inheritance for one more test. Should they not pass that final test, He will utterly pluck the nation out of the land. He did just that. For nearly two thousand years Israel had been plucked/scattered and destroyed. Even the land itself largely became a desolate place. So when He had said 'But if they will not obey...' we could have guessed what their response was when they came back from this first testing was going to be.
kjv@Jeremiah:17 @ @ RandyP comments: The Sabbath became the kings test. If they were able to do this one thing all of this would pass. They were not able. Most likely they gave barely an ear to Jeremiah there at the gate.
kjv@Jeremiah:28 @ @ RandyP comments: One must ask themselves "do I speak for the Lord"? We all intend well. It would have seemed good for this all to end within two years. Good for the people, but, what about for the Lord. Is it that the Lord is only concerned for our good and not for His own? His good was being served in a thorough purging of our rebellious hearts, a rooting out of the spoiled figs and tainted prophets. Sure the people were put to shame and humbled, but, isn't that better than being stiff necked and hard hearted? If you intend to speak for the Lord you better well know what He would have you to say.
kjv@Jeremiah:29 @ @ RandyP comments: I am just as confused here as the people must have been. Multiple messages coming from multiple places? Who is right and who is wrong? Do we listen to Jeremiah or Shemaiah who wants Jeremiah killed? Remember, we are reading the story line clinically detached; we know who is right in the end. They did not have such luxury. Would you vote for seventy years of peaceful subjection (running the risk of deep foreign integration) or a few years of radical revolt and resistance? Which prophets are true and which are false? Aren't they all about the same from ground level? Again, luckily we know the story.
kjv@Jeremiah:35 @ @ RandyP comments: We are given an example of proof that it is within the heart of man to keep some form of covenant, that it is a matter of choice. This example was a very difficult and sacrificial choice. The right choice is always rewarded. Judah long ago had made their choice. God could have carried out their chastisement long ago, but, He has been careful to let us know that He has gone more than the extra mile towards them before executing this. It has given us plenty of opportunity to realize that this is not only the way it must be, it is also done for their ultimate good. We should see the certainty of our own depravity and the need for the Lordship of His Son and the redemption provided by the gracious gift of His Son's own blood.
kjv@Titus:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Having been reading through Jeremiah of late it is plain to see that not much has changed over these hundreds of years with the zealous Jew (they profess to know, in works deny, unto every good work reprobate). Structure and backbone are being developed in the early church with a focus on Elders and Deacons, in part to be able to withstand the pressures of these self serving gainsayers.
kjv@Titus:1:15 @ @ RandyP comments: This is the type of opposition I most often run against. They set out only to disprove my position, not that they have any better position of their own, to them all positions are faulty. To them the fact that I would have a position suggests a flaw within me, regardless of what it is. So is it that I need to argue my position better? Or is it that I need to argue their defilement in this particular mindset better?
kjv@Titus:3 @ @ RandyP comments: The necessity of maintaining good works; all of us. It is not just having an intention to do them, it is not just us studying to know how they might be done, it is us stepping forward into them and adapting within them to get them done. It is not just beginning them, it is us maintaining them for the long run. Notice how many people Paul has involved in his good works. They are part of his, he is part of theirs, we are part of the Lord's; small works, large works, works we don't even know are being done we are striving to be fruitful in. Peter shared a similar vision of being fruitful in the knowledge of Christ kjv@2Peter:1. See also kjv@Romans:12. In fuller context, these works are to be done yet with an eye on reasonable subjection to the civic and legal principalities that govern all.
kjv@Jeremiah:41 @ @ RandyP comments: The United States itself has learned successfully the type of concerted and focused effort and force to conquer a complete nation, but the nearly impossible dispersed effort of maintaining the rule over it. Here bands of rogue men are able to nearly do as they pleased, even assassinate the appointed leader at will.
kjv@Hebrews:1 @ @ RandyP comments: The Son is even above the angels. They minister unto His needs. All things including angels were created to be His inheritance. They minister for us the heirs of salvation.
kjv@Jeremiah:44 @ @ RandyP comments: Suggested here in this text is a goddess largely worshiped by the women. We sense that men were typically excluded. Many of the male gods now have fallen yet the complete destruction of a nation has not rooted this one out; it has only strengthened it in the void. We are again looking down on this from a clinical view as readers knowing beginning/context and end. They are living it in real time without the top down insight. They are left to decide by observing the mounting evidence around them. The idolatrous mind certainly sees the evidence in a much different fashion. For those of you lead by your heart this should be a warning; the heart may be 180 degrees off.
kjv@Jeremiah:46 @ @ RandyP comments: Egypt is in a bad spot. Not only are they being cursed for harboring the adulterous remnant of Judah (who were told not to go into Egypt or they would be a curse) they are judged by all the gods and idols of their own making. Surely the Lord has not kept this secret from them, we have some evidences of His dealings with them from this and other prophets. Other nations should be warned of this as well. When they see what and why this has happened to Egypt they should realize that this could be them as well.
kjv@Hebrews:3 @ @ RandyP comments: The unbelief of Israel in the wilderness is given as a example to us of the deceitfulness of sin. They saw many great wonders on their course, but, even seeing was not enough as they were still deceived by their hearts into many things that angered God. We too must examine ourselves daily as we think that we are doing right toward God. So much though is done in unbelief, by our own fear, limited by our perception of the size and scope and purposes of the Lord. We may not be in the promise land yet and we may not be in the bondage from which we were delivered out of, but, we certainly are in the middle of a considerable and lengthy process.
kjv@Hebrews:6 @ @ RandyP comments: The belief is that Jesus arose to the right hand side of God the Father. The hope is that we will see and be with them there; that we too will enter because of Him. This hope is our anchor, it is our strong consolation, we take refuge in it, it enters within the veil. Along with this belief and hope there are evidences that accompany this salvation, living works, works that He does upon us, works of obedience that lead us toward His perfect obedience with a similar obedience of our own. Many of these works that we obey Him in are toward the saints and the brethren. Some, having tasted of this goodness, have still yet removed themselves from this obedience, from this hope, their living works having become dead works deceive them into a complete apostasy. They become as briers and thorns whose only use is to be burned.
kjv@Jeremiah:52 @ @ RandyP comments: What does this completion of judgment mean in the grand scheme of spiritual things? Does it mean the the experiment is over? Israel is finished and we move on to plan B? Does it mean that God has learned from His mistakes and will start up in a different fashion again? Or does it mean that there is something vital for all of mankind to understand? Something of our depraved sinful nature that even with promises, even with miraculous deliverance and provision, even with tremendous blessing and tremendous cursing and every sort of intention revival and effort, none of this has any effect upon the true core nature of man's deceptive heart. The heart does not obey because it cannot. The heart cannot be spiritual because it is not. All that we intend and invent and contrive is but utter vanity. What is blind cannot see. In this unfamiliar light we sense that only by His grace and by His election are we separated from this wretchedness.
kjv@Lamentations:4 @ @ RandyP comments: From this distance we may loose the scope of context a contemporary of Jeremiah may have sensed. One thing we now we might miss is just how impossible this all may have seemed. All of the eyes of the other nations looking on this would have known how unbreachable the defenses of Jerusalem would have been and yet they were utterly destroyed; and if Jerusalem then surely theirs. It was known to them as well that Jerusalem was the Lord's and that the Lord had not let iniquity go unpunished even/especially amongst His own. Predicted now is the fall of great Babylon, an even greater impossibility. Surely there would be the sense that if this is to happen that all of this can only be of the Lord.
kjv@Lamentations:4 @ @ RandyP comments: The other thing we might be missing as to the real time context is just how complete and desperate the destruction is all around Jeremiah. What he is seeing at ground zero is simply unfathomable. He speaks of the destruction of Sodom to have been merciful compared to this.
kjv@Hebrews:10:24-39 @ @ RandyP comments: There are times in all Christians lives where they miss the mark, where they become drowsy or sloppy or unfruitful even counter productive. There are times even when we shake our fist and blame God (as in the death of our young child). We have all encountered times when we wondered if this draw back passage wasn't written for us. Self condemnation can be a tremendously discouraging thing. I would imagine however, if it is still in your heart to get back to the things of God, if there is still the will to repent and rejoin the body in fully restored standing, if the love of God is still wanted and sought after, then you definitely have not crossed this final point yet. This is written for the man where there is none of crushing sorrow, confussion and desire that remains, he has completely given himself over to his own condemnation, forever sealed in the hardness of his own heart.
kjv@Ezekiel:11:19 @ @ RandyP comments: Some of Israel (not all) was regathered at the end of the seventy years. The Temple was rebuilt and put back into service but, the hearts of Israel barely changed. They awaited an even more horrific judgment that Jesus himself would prophecy. In Jesus Christ a new spirit is given and hearts were changed but, Israel not regathered awaiting a final gathering yet to come in the end of the age of Gentiles. We see that every word of this prophecy is accurate, the time-line however not as direct as we might read.
kjv@Ezekiel:14 @ @ RandyP comments: Three righteous men of the ages are given as repeated examples. The righteousness of these men can only save themselves; not even their immediate sons and daughters can be saved unless by their own individual righteousness. So too, only you yourself is saved if so be, your family and friends will have to be saved themselves by their own righteousness. Any righteousness any of us would have is found solely in the righteousness of Christ Jesus and on the personal confession of that alone will any individual be delivered.
kjv@Ezekiel:15 @ @ RandyP comments: From one fire into another, from time to time as individuals we may feel this so, this though is speaking of an entire nation. How would it not be known that the Lord has set His face against them? Few of us have ever felt this type of judgment upon us. In our own lives we may think it or even make it be so. Often we perceive His instruction/correction falsely as so but, rather that is His love. Some moments we may feel as if persecution suffered in His name is so but, rather that is simply sharing in His sufferings. When the Lord however sets His face against an entire people it no doubt will be known by those people. These are not moments where the possibility will be debated or interpreted.
kjv@Ezekiel:18 @ @ RandyP comments: He hath no pleasure in the death.. Several times here it is illustrated what the righteous man would be doing and what the wicked do as well. These are not new things, they have been known all along. Yet so many choose the wrong path. There appears to be a decision, one can make themselves a knew person by choosing to do right. So why then do people not choose? Elsewhere we learn that this answer has to do with the sinful nature of man, a nature only curable by the sacrifice and resurrection of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ; imposing moral law upon this nature only illustrates its depravity all the more. Did great numbers turn to the living God by in the time of this prophecy? Certainly not.
kjv@Ezekiel:20:1 @ @ RandyP comments: It never starts out good when the elders come to Ezekiel. So why do they come? They will not hear God, God will not hear them.
kjv@Hebrews:11 @ @ RandyP comments: I have often look at this definition of faith as if it was me looking out into life's vastness and seeing the evidences of what I hope; if I looked hard enough and sincere enough I would see actual proof. Suddenly I have considered that it may well be intended to be the reverse. If I truly believe, the activities of my life will naturally become living proof that I believe; my faith will become evident. I have faith despite the appearance here of things, I live forward out of trust. Like Abraham, others can discern that I believe by the manner I proceed in trust and obedience, what I am willing to sacrifice, how and where I am willing to sojourn, what spiritual promises I am willing wait long past my physical death patiently for and how such waiting guides me. Faith is not a collection of scientific insight, it is a substance born of hope.
kjv@Ezekiel:23 @ @ RandyP comments: The Holy Spirit by these writings has gone to great lengths to have us understand what exactly is going on here. There should be no uncertainty as to what God wants us to know about this judgment. Multiple accounts, multiple graphical pictures, all similar in detail. The two sisters here are Israel (Samaria) and Judah (Jerusalem). Their adultery is religious and then political/economic and likely physical as well. They are depicted as doting upon their lovers. God is depicted turning their lovers against them, it will be the same foreigners they've doted on that will brutishly destroy them. Judah is especially coppable having watched Israel go through this beforehand and having had extended opportunity to repent. The question is why is it God is having Ezekiel go over and over again on these details, is it for our behalf?
kjv@Ezekiel:28 @ @ RandyP comments: The questions raised by this description of Lucifer are numerous. Of primary importance would be when did this fall happen and where, especially if the where was here on earth. If on earth, that would most likely place the when between kjv@Genesis:1:1 and kjv@Genesis:1:2 suggesting a gap between creation, a world that then was, and later a complete 6 day restoration following a major judgment perhaps like the world has since never known (not even the flood). This would explain why the Spirit hovered over a earth that was void and without form.
kjv@Ezekiel:28 @ @ RandyP comments: The warning to Ziddon seems to get lost here with the curiosity of the earlier passage. Its importance should not be overlooked. My sense is that like with the other nations the Lord has been working long and hard with them but, Israel itself is far too despised. It is right for the Lord to judge because they know Israel is His but they can not get over their vile hatred. We should look at this as a warning to ourselves and our nation as well. The second sense is that after being judged that many of these nations are wiped completely even out of the history books. For a long time the existence of these nations and cities mentioned were disputed. Of late however, archaeological evidences are mounting to re-confirm their one time existence and stature. Surely, God was not kidding when He said they'd be remembered no more.
kjv@Ezekiel:34 @ @ RandyP comments: The flock here is identified as Israel. The Lord had set shepherds over them; they fed themselves on the flock instead. Some were driven away, some lost, some diseased, many scattered. Their good pasture was trampled and their good water muddied. These shepherds are no doubt spiritual and civic leaders. The answer is that the Lord himself becomes the shepherd; He is the Good Shepherd. In the end, when His glory is come, He will set David over them (David is not the Shepherd himself). There is a shame of the heathen that they bare (perhaps that the heathen recognize this Shepherd before they do).
kjv@Ezekiel:35 @ @ RandyP comments: The descendants of Esau from the Seir mountains, the Edomites are to be judged. Esau and Jacob had reconciled, but, his seed had renewed the quarrel and become frequent enemies of Israel shedding their blood. They had supposed that both lands Judah and Israel would one day be their own and had taken strength in the desolation of Israel. I am unsure of the time frame for this judgment as it seems to be when the whole earth rejoices (which may refer to the Millennium?). The Geneva notes call the people mentioned Idumeans, I'm not sure if there is a link.
kjv@Ezekiel:37 @ @ RandyP comments: Some of the dispersed have been regathered here since 1947 + 1968. Many are still left to come. Judah and Israel are again solidified as one. The things not yet achieved is the revelation of the true Shepherd, the cleansing of their hearts, the installment of David as His king. Whether the raising of the bones is literal or symbolic, it would have to be at least in the case of David. These things are moving ahead quickly.
kjv@1Peter:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Again Christ is given as the absolute example. Not only how He acted, but, how He saw Himself in the role of obeying The Father. Having this mindset more naturally produces these particular actions and influences this certain outlook. The picture is complete in the symbolism of water baptism, the good conscience answers to God, dying to the flesh and alive to the Spirit, fully immersed in sanctification. In the same way, whether in marriage, or business, or fellowship, conducting all daily activity being willing to suffer unjustly for His good rather than be condemned for participating in their bad. To the hope of perhaps saving some of their souls along with.
kjv@Ezekiel:39 @ @ RandyP comments: Seven years of burning nothing but weapons for fuel. A gathering of many birds and creeping things to eat on the carcasses. Seven months of flagging and burying the dead. A national effort by every citizen to cleanse the land. This would be an effective way of making yourself known again to your people. It would certainly lift the veil from their eyes. Imagine being in Israel at this time. Given the odds of the battle this sight would only be by the hand of God.
kjv@1Peter:4 @ @ RandyP comments: So should we go out a stir up some suffering? The gospel is preached that men dead to Christ might be judged as men of the flesh. They are this to begin with, their reaction once presented condemns them all the more. One does not have to go out purposely to stir things up, the Gospel of Christ does this by itself. By presenting the Gospel in it's truest form man's very nature is stirred against Him/Us.
kjv@1Peter:5:12 @ @ RandyP comments: Silvanus would be an interesting man to interview having been a vital member of both Paul's and Peter's teams.
kjv@1Peter:5:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Peter's motivation by now should be clear. It should be our motivation as well. Peter considers himself a witness of Christs suffering and a partaker in the glory to be revealed. Peter is this in the truest sense perhaps like no other having been there with Him. Thanks in great part to His testimony/obedience we are/can be this as well. The sufferings of Christ are so crucial to our proclamation because they point to the hands of those for whom He willingly suffered for. The glory to be revealed is equally crucial because it tells us that this was no ordinary man that suffered these things on our behalf, it was the very son of God, the promised one of Israel, the name above all names, Jesus Christ and Savior the King of all kings. Those that are thus inspired and motivated will be partakers of both the sufferings of and later the Glory of.
kjv@Ezekiel:42 @ @ RandyP comments: It may be that having seen the original temple that Ezekiel's contemporaries would have known how this Temple would have differed from the first. Perhaps they are following along in their mind right and left and forward as Ezekiel's vision goes. Many men today would be able to study comparisons of the two even the third yet to come, but it would be interpretive, their best guess. index:WEBLINKS temple has some videos and maps of the Temples in the bible search - images and bible - video sections.
kjv@Ezekiel:44 @ @ RandyP comments: I find this an extremely challenging section of prophecy. The consequences of interpretation shape deep doctrinal foundations. The reader must study and ponder this deeply and come to their own conclusions; which is a very good thing. We are challenged by scripture every day. We are stirred. We are unsettled. We are encouraged to examine and re-examine. Nothing but Christ at times seem fully settled. This is what makes faith in the Bible real and living and dynamic; the constant challenge. Thereby we grow, we are shaped, we are moved. Some seek the answers that are readily available and figure if it is not readily there it is not there at all. Others however seek deeper into the broad context and the doctrinal consequence to shed light upon that which is not readily answered. Just because I am presently confused over this passage does not mean that the answer is not there, it means that I am being challenged. My curiosity is thus thrilled to explore it much further.
kjv@Ezekiel:45 @ @ RandyP comments: A large parcel of land is sectioned off for the the ministers of the temple as a sanctuary for their homes. The home of particular interest is the home of the prince. Weights and measures are corrected by the princes under the prince to make right the tithes and gifts and commerce. Sacrifices are being made for errors, there remain sin offerings, reconciliation is mentioned twice. New moons and Sabbaths are ordained, there is a monthly cleansing performed for the alter and for the priests. All of this specifically detailed as for the children of Israel.
kjv@2Peter:3 @ @ RandyP comments: The mass distribution/reading of the Holy Scriptures to the unlearned is also our church's only security besides the Holy Spirit that those proclaiming themselves as being 'the learned' are in fact 'The Learned'. Otherwise the door is opened wide for those wicked apostates to whom this passage and context alerts us to. We see this very thing occur through out the history of our church. To get to the essentials of falsehood one must bypass the essentials of truth. Truth number one = Scripture!
kjv@1John:2 @ @ RandyP comments: To abide in Him is to love and to walk as He walked. This does not come naturally. The special anointing that we receive as repentant believers teaches us of all new and necessary spiritual things. We are taught by abiding in Him, abiding is our school. We love as He, we learn. We walk as He, we learn. How then can we love unless we abide in Him? His love is not just any love, His walk not like any either. This love and walk we are unfamiliar with even to the point of being at enmity with it. It is only by His unction that we are able to do it. Some then by not abiding have come out from us and have become our opposite, the antichrists.
kjv@Daniel:3 @ @ RandyP comments: What is it about the appearance of the fourth figure that made even such a godless man come to the conclusion that it was the Son of Man? Apparently the Son of Man is not such a foreign concept to other religions and cultures. Apparently there is something universally identifiable about Him. We are not told what physical features were evident. We are not told whether others drew the same conclusion. We do know that such a conclusion would be humbling to man that sought for the masses to worship himself. It must have convincing enough at least for a time for him to make the second decree. Could he have spun this to his own political advantage?
kjv@Daniel:7 @ @ RandyP comments: Such a vision is troubling for all of us but yet we must keep the matter in heart. It is a terrifying time for the people of this world. The turmoil and suffering of the past world wars are pale in comparison. It is not just the exhibition of the wickedness of man but, the brutal demonic nature of spiritual principalities in full view. For Daniel, having the big picture brought down to human perspective through the use of descriptive symbols and characters is astonishing. Though difficult to know exactly who each character is and what the details mean, we all sense the general motion.
kjv@1John:5 @ @ RandyP comments: I find the rhythm in the end odd. Such a metered and descriptive examination of godly love throughout the passage, to end in such an abrupt change of cadence 'keep yourself from idols' (out!). Is the transition from love to idols as so abrupt however? Are they not essentially the same thing? All that he has spoken of love and heavenly wittiness and sinlessness and divine providence, can they not be wrapped up in the few words of keeping yourself from idols? Where then do our idols exists?
kjv@1John:5 @ @ RandyP comments: The idols spoken of here can be as simple as a Jesus other than the one testified of by the Father. A Jesus that isn't God made flesh. A Jesus who is not His only begotten Son. A Jesus who is not His beloved. A Jesus who is one of many ways acceptable to the Father. Any other Jesus makes this Jesus a liar. Try this translation: "keep yourselves from the Jesus that makes this Jesus a liar".
kjv@Daniel:10:13 @ @ RandyP comments: This is an insight perhaps like seen no where else in the Old Testament. Spiritual warfare 21 days with the prince of Persia, Michael coming in to assist the Lord. What else is going on around us that we are unaware of?
kjv@2John:1 @ @ RandyP comments: It really wouldn't surprise me if there weren't a great number of these letters written to various individuals by all of the Apostles. What is surprising is that this one was still able to be verified years later when the New Testament was canonized. This great lady must have been extremely well known, must have cherished this and taken such good care of it. She must have shown it to some influential people as well. I can see her eyes light up when she would begin to recount receiving it.
kjv@Daniel:12 @ @ RandyP comments: I know many people that have had much opportunity for productive spiritual fruit fall from the limb because of their insistence in figuring all of these prophetic clues together. It almost becomes a destructive addiction. If our commandment is to love one another as God loves us, certainly there must be a balance between the mental pursuit of knowing and the spiritual pursuit of simply acting based upon trust. Knowing how to comfort a friend is just as important as knowing 3 1/2 years for this and this king was... Some times sealed means sealed. Not to diminish the importance of prophecy mind you, but, to elevate the importance of being amongst the living and being fruitful in the knowledge of Christ.
kjv@Hosea:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Israel's love for God is not the same as His love for her. This now is a second wife. She was a whore before they had met and she will continue. She has been told that she shall not play the harlot and the prophecy is given that there will be a time shortly that she will not be a nation, abide many days without a king or sacrifice and afterwards return.
kjv@Hosea:4 @ @ RandyP comments: No truth, no mercy, no knowledge. Swearing, lying, killing, stealing, adultery. The Apostle John had said that God is light and in Him is no darkness. How can Israel be in Him and yet have this obvious darkness? His plan is for them to be removed from their darkness. First, they must be made to realize and understand their darkness. How does one that doesn't listen, that thinks opposite come to realize? Something is done to get her attention.
kjv@Jude:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Compare this with 2Peter. In kjv@2Petter:1:5-8 contenders for the like precious faith begin by adding to their faith virtue (valor towards excellence) knowledge (revealed, spiritual) temperance (against similar brute knowledge) patience (persistence) godliness (living forward, spiritual obedience) brotherly kindness (striving for the unity of the Spirit) and charity (Agape love).
kjv@Revelation:1:13 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@Luke:9:28-36 John has seen this glorified Son of Man before. He knows of whom he is talking.
kjv@Revelation:2:8-11 @ @ RandyP comments: Nothing said about what the church in Smyrna is doing right or wrong, only what they have been and what some will be suffering for Christ's namesake. Be thou faithful unto death He exhorts.
kjv@Hosea:11 @ @ RandyP comments: Hosea has spoken almost exclusively about judgments on Israel as a whole and namely the component areas of Ephraim/Samaria with little mention of Judah which for now remains mostly faithful. He is a prophet for this region. Comprised of 10 of the tribes, Ephraim itself being 3, their first and foremost transgression is that their worship of Jehovah was moved to two unsanctioned high towers in their own land so that they wouldn't have to cross into Judah to get to Jerusalem. Worship of Jehovah quickly morphed into worship of Baalim. Their jealousy toward the seat of David (corrupt as many descendant kings were) and resultant hatred was the beginning of the end for themselves.
kjv@Hosea:13 @ @ RandyP comments: I get the sense that Ephraim was the dominate coalition driving Israel (he exalted himself). Samaria was just plain rebellious (she rebelled against her God). Still we see throughout the desire of God to have them return. He sets about them as a lion/leopard/bear to devour in their faithless idolatry but as a king in their faithful regathering. In Him is their help/ransom.
kjv@Hosea:14 @ @ RandyP comments: We tend as readers to read these things clinically from the top down knowing how the Lord feels about them. Imagine these things down looking up from the street view. Who is this Hosea? Why does he say the things that he does? Does he not love his nation Israel? What wrong has Israel done and who have they harmed? Sure there are idols but then where is the God who delivered us from out of Egypt? Why does He not deliver us now? You see how deceitful hearts work; they work the same today as yesterday. When it comes to blessings everyone is all for it, when it comes to correction there is nothing to be corrected for/by. As if God needed correcting, we pray to God for Him to change His mind. Who then shall be wise to these matters?
kjv@Revelation:3:1-6 @ @ RandyP comments: Works? What works? I thought that everything was strictly by grace? The church at Sardis is of great concern. Individuals remain that have not left or deserted and they shall be rewarded, they are exhorted strengthen that which remains, but, what about the rest of them? Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved by grace however we that hear are exhorted to overcome. Our faith is planted in circumstances that necessitate immediate growth and action, from which our faith only grows stronger. If there are not these works and actions the local church body itself dies away. Avoiding and/or ignoring the work that must be done because of some personal tantrum is spiritually immature.
kjv@Revelation:3:7-13 @ @ RandyP comments: Philadelphia on the other hand is a church that will be kept from the hour of temptation that the earth will suffer. They are being opposed by a temple of Satan hiding under the cover of some Jews yet have exhibited strength, kept His word (of patience), and not denied His name. Notice how none of these churches have it easy, but, some hold fast, hold true, gain the Lord's strength and overcome.
kjv@Revelation:3:14-22 @ @ RandyP comments: Laodicean, the lukewarm church, what a terrible thing to be. Many consider this church to be the closest to our modern American church. Some even suggest the the churches listed here in Revelations mark out specific church ages and that we are in the last age. The things that most identifies this church is that it is affluent and coasting not receiving much persecution but not extending itself outward into any situations that it might receive any reproof or chastisement. It is the polite to everybody, let's not stir anything up, we got it too good church.
kjv@Revelation:4:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Must be. So many consider this book as what could be if we don't straighten ourselves up, that the power to hold this off is in our hands. All of scripture suggests different. As bad and as wrong as all that follows seems to be, it is right and part of the course God has mandated. His faithfulness is contrasted by man's deprived nature given every opportunity to repent and by the spiritual war of Satanic powers and principalities that have been hidden all about us till this time. It is the time that His chosen people come awake, their eyes opened to His Messiah, His covenant to their fathers Abraham Issac and Jacob towards them finally realized.
kjv@Amos:3 @ @ RandyP comments: So this is where that quote comes from "shall two walk together lest they be agreed". Some sayings just stick. Do you walk with the Lord? Then do the two of you agree? Do the two of you not agree? Then you don't walk together. For Israel and also Judah there is a whole lot of agreeing needing to be done and there is only one way left for the Lord to get them to see that; they apparently think that everything is now settled.
kjv@Amos:4 @ @ RandyP comments: All of this and yet 'ye have not returned to me'. Sure there is the attempt at worship, the attempt at sacrifice, but, this religion is hollow and puffed and idolatrous. Bethel was one of the two temples of the golden calf. Gilgal (there were a couple) was either a religious landmark of the 12 stones by the Jordan or a school of prophets. They are called kine of Bashan (cows from east of the Jordan) and the calf that they worship at supposedly symbolic of Jehovah as a replacement for having to go into Jerusalem. Nothing God has done to this point has worked. They are told to prepare to meet their God.
kjv@Amos:5:26 @ @ RandyP comments: The Ammorite god of fire Moloch has had influence upon this nation for a long time. Solomon had even built a temple to it during his decline. Chuin is probably the Phoenician god Saturn to whom human sacrifices were being made. The mention of the star I will have to look into. I do not know when the traditional Star of David came into use, but, is curious if the two would be similar.
kjv@Revelation:6 @ @ RandyP comments: Six of the seals from the book are now open. Remember that the only one worthy of opening these was the Lamb our Lord, no other could have done this but, a great many wanted it to be done. Having been sealed means that each of these were predetermined yet held off until the right to do so had been claimed. Even when He was proved worthy upon resurrection He then had held off until certain numbers had been fulfilled and the go ahead was given by the Father. Each unsealed judgment alone would be devastating. Together or in sequence they become a time like the earth has never known.
kjv@Revelation:6 @ @ RandyP comments: From our limited perspective it would be quiet logical to wonder why anyone would want to become worthy in order to open up such judgments upon mankind. Our perspective limits the nature and effects of our sin. Becoming worthy meant dying to take these natures and effects away. Our perspective limits the fact that for ions these judgments have been held off to one seven year period. Till now we have tasted enough judgment to see the need to repent but, little of the judgment that sin actually deserves. If God's mercy is not enough to turn us, if His occasional and limited judgments upon us are not enough, if His word and testimony are not enough, if His grace and provision is not enough, if the love shown in the giving of His own Son is not enough, even for having the threat of these predetermined judgments opened, what then is there that would be enough? At some point can it not be said that the remainder of mankind will not turn? Thus is the truest nature of sin exposed; it will not let go and it limits everything down to it's own justifications. Why not then this judgment? If seen from the perspective of the heavenly host looking down on this, one would have to ask why hasn't this judgment come already.
kjv@Revelation:6 @ @ RandyP comments: We must also not leave off that this judgment not only has to do with us and our sin nature, but, also towards ending the spiritual war against Satan.
kjv@2John:1 @ @ RandyP comments: It really wouldn't surprise me if there weren't a great number of these letters written to various individuals by all of the Apostles. What is surprising is that this one was still able to be verified years later when the New Testament was canonized. This great lady must have been extremely well known, must have cherished this and taken such good care of it. She must have shown it to some influential people as well. I can see her eyes light up when she would begin to recount receiving it.
kjv@Revelation:7 @ @ RandyP comments: There are those 144k of the tribes of Israel that are sealed and on earth. There are are a innumerable number present at the throne from all nations and tongues washed in the Blood before the opening of this seal. Somewhere in this time frame many gather that either the dead in Christ or the actual living church has been raptured. When exactly is debated. Most assume that the dead in Christ are already with Christ.
kjv@Revelation:8 @ @ RandyP comments: The prayers of the saints; thy kingdom come... thy will be done... on earth as it is in heaven... thine is the power and the glory. Special pause is given to acknowledge that this is precisely what the saints have prayed for all along. To get to the answer of those prayers from here this judgment must first take place. Perhaps we didn't fully realize the depths of sin's nature or the fierceness of the spiritual war all around. Perhaps we thought God could just change this thing and that, otherwise everything else is cool. There are however some drastic changes that have to occur beginning with the elimination of evil; an evil that runs deep. Remember God is light and Him there is no darkness. How then can He dwell amongst us if there is yet evil in our midst? Evil must be judged and use of these natural forces should make it clear to the inhabitants that this is none other than THE JUDGEMENT so clearly prophesied.
kjv@Jonah:1:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Tarshish is estimated to be a far west sea port perhaps in Spain or northern Africa. Though we don't know for certain where it was we know that it couldn't have been farther nor harder for for Jonah to get to. Jonah was going well out of his way in disobeying God.
kjv@Jonah:1 @ @ RandyP comments: These mariners certainly had seen many of tempest before enough to fear for their lives. Something about this tempest though told them that it was being caused by someone on this ship. Today we might be amused at simplicity and superstition of these seafarers, but, when it comes down to the facts they were precisely right.
kjv@Revelation:9 @ @ RandyP comments: The end of the world is often thought of as men inflicting evil upon men, mankind out of hand. What we are seeing here however are things totally outside the scope of man's doing. Stars falling and rivers contaminated by the fall out, pits being opened up, Grasshopper like scorpions stinging with five month agonies, one third of this and that and of man. Even this is not enough to change the hearts of many as if they blame God for allowing this to happen.
kjv@Micah:1 @ @ RandyP comments: We are back into the time of Isaiah looking at primarily Judah. There is a consistency amongst the prophets as to why it's judgment, idolatry and graven images. Here Micah points to a similarity between Samaria (the north country) and Jerusalem. One wouldn't expect to see the same idols and images in Jerusalem that would be seen in filthy Samaria, but, in this time one does. If Samaria is judged then why shouldn't Jerusalem? Samaria's incurable wound has come to the gates of Jerusalem. The many cities addressed here are all in Judah near to Jerusalem, some having historic interest.
kjv@Micah:2 @ @ RandyP comments: You may recall that property was divided amongst the early Hebrews by blood line and passed by inheritance. By the Law, property was a spiritually/morally a civic right. Even when a family member got into debt or trouble and the property was taken from him, 49 year Sabbaths existed for him/his descendent's to be restored back to it. Property according to Micah now is being stolen by violence and oppression. Because of the drunkenness of idolatry, little is being done against this violence and oppression, institutions are far too corrupted. People have taken to listening to the prophets of falsehood. How similar this sounds to today!
kjv@Revelation:10 @ @ RandyP comments: Six angels have opened their seals, the seventh is mentioned in yet future tense. It is almost as if we are at a pause, as if the focus has briefly changed from the prophetic time-line to the current tense restriction and enablement specific to the John the prophet. John himself and by his writings has gone on to prophesy before many people and nations and kings (and continues to today).
kjv@Revelation:10 @ @ RandyP comments: John is kept from revealing too much. There is an importance to mentioning vaguely what he was about to record, but, being told not to reveal it any further. Instead he is given a book to eat that will make him to prophesy that which is required by others to be known. We must consider that not everything is for us to know outright, though to a few it may have been shown. Somethings are to be searched for like hidden treasure, other things to be merely trusted. This may in part be because of our best interest, more fully it may also be because of who else would be reading this.
kjv@Revelation:11:18 @ @ RandyP comments: It is a time for judgment and reward. How do the nations respond? They are angry. It doesn't say repentant notice, doesn't say sorry, doesn't say softening or contemplative. Such horrific events they have witnessed, so many catastrophes. Yet they see these matters in the opposite. To them it is not their anger and hatred and transgression that destroys the earth, it is God's.
kjv@Revelation:12 @ @ RandyP comments: The perception of time seems to warp in this passage as the child is caught up and placed on the throne (a definite reference to the ascension of Christ nearly two millennium ago) and Satan coming after the woman with floods of water. Somewhere between there and here Satan his minions are overcome by the Blood of the Lamb, tossed from heaven by Michael. The woman is hidden in the wilderness for three and a half years.
kjv@Revelation:12 @ @ RandyP comments: Some things we are told about Satan. He has had access to the courts of God in heaven being an official accuser day and night of the brethren. He is overcome by the Blood of Christ and the word of testimony, cast out of heaven along with a third of the other angels by Michael. He is wroth with the woman who had delivered the Messiah and wars against the remnant of her seed.
kjv@Micah:5 @ @ RandyP comments: We have a Messianic prophecy here. Someone whose goings forth are from old (2000 years ago?) and from everlasting (deity), once born in Bethlehem (human) becoming Ruler (to the ends of earth). When? The key to understanding seems to be the time frame of Assyria. Assyria did not hold Judah in Jesus' time, Rome did. Assyria in the end times will again attempt to control but, will this time be beaten back once and for all by none other than the triumphantly returned Christ Jesus.
kjv@2John:1 @ @ RandyP comments: It really wouldn't surprise me if there weren't a great number of these letters written to various individuals by all of the Apostles. What is surprising is that this one was still able to be verified years later when the New Testament was canonized. This great lady must have been extremely well known, must have cherished this and taken such good care of it. She must have shown it to some influential people as well. I can see her eyes light up when she would begin to recount receiving it.
kjv@Revelation:13:4 @ @ RandyP comments: The thought of warring against the beast is there it seems but, the futility of doing so is obvious. Can you imagine the United States for instance backing off from a war due to it's inferiority? Worse yet, could you imagine the strength of the USA standing firmly behind such a leader?
kjv@Revelation:13:7 @ @ RandyP comments: The point I am trying to make is that if the Church and these saints are one in the same, then it is the Church that is overcome. In order for the Church to be overcome then the Holy Spirit has to be overcome or He has to leave us to our own. Scripture suggests that neither can happen! To be overcome is to be put back into bondage to. The Church being put back into bondage after the blood and resurrection of Christ? After the forever indwelling of the Comforter? Even for a short time - Where is the sense? If instead these are new believers after the Church has been raptured, they are by virtue of this peculiar time frame merely transitional (Spirit-less/Church-less) believers still awaiting the Spirit with patience and faith.
kjv@Habakkuk:2 @ @ RandyP comments: So this is where Paul twice and the author of Hebrews once get "the just shall live by faith". Now we have the original context. Given our tendency to box God into the corners of what we think He should and should not be doing, given our blindness to everything except what is immediately before us, given our own personal track record and what we ourselves are being chastised over, we if seeking through this to become just should live by faith. kjv@Romans:1:17 kjv@Galatians:3:11 kjv@Hebrews:10:38
kjv@Zephaniah:3 @ @ RandyP comments: The Lord's determination is to gather the nations. He has done it before, He will do it again. Some would think that this would be a good thing, the nations assembled together. However it is not for their own good they are drawn, it is to pour out His indignation. He is jealous for all the peoples of all the kingdoms. He pours it out with the hope that they will turn and see.
kjv@Revelation:15 @ @ RandyP comments: His judgments are made manifest. How can these be known as being from anyone/anything other? None of these things before this could be analyzed honestly and be said to result from nature gone bad or coincidence or misfortune; especially when He has made it known so far in advance. Instead, I would say that the people are fully aware of where these judgments are coming from but, are all the more angry that this God would be judging them. These times are flushing out those who no matter what the situation proves to be, no matter what evidences are on the table, will not allow themselves to be part of nor worship Jehovah God or Son Jesus Christ. God is proven then to be fully justified to discontinue His grace and presence amongst these rebel tares. These vials are brief tastes of that absence, not even this will change many hearts.
kjv@Haggai:1 @ @ RandyP comments: The consideration of time frame is important dict:easton Haggai . The time is of Ezra and Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the Temple has stalled out two decades. The people have tried to resume their lives outside of captivity but it is as if despite their energetic effort things are falling short or they are loosing ground. The Lord has wanted to bless them but the His hand has been held back because of the lack of progress on the Temple project. What had been dedicated to the Temple is being used in their own roof tops. Spiritual matters should always come first and goods and time dedicated should remain clearly purposed. Without such perspective we can work twice as hard for half the return.
kjv@Zechariah:2:7 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:daughter+of+Babylon kjv@STRING:daughter+of+Zion some interesting contrasts and detail.
kjv@Zechariah:3 @ @ RandyP comments: The Angel of the Lord and Satan stand near Joshua the high priest. The Angel intends to change the filthy clothes of the priest (cleansing) and alter his mitre (position of authority). The Branch (Messiah) will remove the iniquity of the land in one day. Satan not only knows the plan but, is powerless to stop it. (some details as to the stone tsk@Zechariah:3:9)
kjv@Revelation:17:5 @ @ RandyP comments: MYSTERY seems to imply a sworn secrecy as in an initiation rite. HARLOT and ABOMINATIONS both imply idolatry, BABYLON tyranny.
kjv@Revelation:17:18 @ @ RandyP comments: This is very revealing, a power/principality that rules over the kings of earth. It is put into their hearts, it is God's will (just as He has given them over kjv@Romans:1 ) to follow. They will follow wholly to make war against the Lamb. She is identified as a city with seven hills (often thought of as Rome). The seventh and eight king of which are the beast. She is presented in continuous present tense as old as Babylon and young as the martyrs of the Lamb.
kjv@Zechariah:4 @ @ RandyP comments: The work of restoring the Temple has begun and will be finished the Angel assures, but, not by human might or power. Two anointed ones stand by the Lord at that time, we presume to be the King Zerubbabel and the Priest Joshua. The Lord will work through these two to get this done. Christ now is our king and He is our high priest. We are to abide in Him, His strength, His power. We are the temple He works like clay and anoints with His Holy Spirit to restore and set apart. He shall be brought forth as the corner stone with shoutings crying 'Grace, grace unto it'.
kjv@Zechariah:5 @ @ RandyP comments: A two sided curse flies over the entire earth, one side curses all theft, the other curses all swearing. Theft and swearing comes in big and small ways, ways each of us try to justify and reduce, but, assuredly spring from the same heart. Think of it for now though as one whole. The collective heart can be measured out like a ephad of wheat, often Jesus described the Kingdom as wheat. Yet in the middle a woman is found sitting in the wheat adding to the weight thereof as a weight heavy as lead. This complete measure of wickedness is transported to be housed in Babylon. A woman of similar geographic description is described in Revelation as 'MYSTERY, THE GREAT HARLOT OF BABYLON' who reigns over the kings of earth. Could she be tied to the theft and swearing as well?
kjv@Zechariah:6 @ @ RandyP comments: For those who have difficulty discerning the relationship of the Father God to the Son God, perhaps it is better understood them as Trunk and Branch. Human words have deficiencies, but, individually they can be viewed as Tree, more importantly they are collectively Tree. It is perhaps easier to discern Tree seeing them both together. This is not the first time Christ has been identified as the Branch.
kjv@Revelation:18 @ @ RandyP comments: It might be easy to think of this Babylon as a terrible foe or enemy and nothing more. Why would God allow such a thing? Well, think of it then as a magnet to which all wickedness is eventually drawn. As all nations have been deceived, to see all it's power pinpointed to one point, to see that point become the hold of every devil and foul spirit and unclean bird, to see all this drawn together and put down in one hour would be indeed be shocking to the deceived but now enlightened merchants and kings of these nations. So, if one asks what purpose, what purpose does this all serve, one can reply every good and righteous purpose of God. The nations are freed from it's wicked pull.
kjv@Zechariah:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Perhaps the Jews of Jesus' day forgot the lowly part of this Messianic prophecy. Maybe they thought that He would first be the lightning. The lowliness was to gain the larger Salvation needed however, without which He could not ever be the Lightning. Because of their rejection of Him, their sentence of Him upon their cross, the Divine seal of His resurrection, He was able to speak peace to the heathen. With all of this fully in hand then He could then return to them and be for them the Lightning; the Keeper of the Covenant; the eternal King of Heaven and Earth. Perhaps the Jews of this day now should consider.
kjv@Revelation:19 @ @ RandyP comments: The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. It all comes down to Him. No greater picture can be formed in our minds than that of Him with all might and power along with the heavenly host coming to receive His young adoring beatiful bride. His name Faithful and True, the event THE MARRIAGE SUPPER OF THE LAMB, the title on His vesture KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS. Say what you will about His lovely bride dressed in the righteousness of the saints, the day is more about His love and what He was willing to do for her, the dowry He had to pay, the lengths and distances He had to go, the patience and endurance to bring this day about. She could do no better than to accept His hand, believe with all her heart and excitement His vow, offer herself to Him completely and without reserve, become as one to Him forevermore devoted. He has won her heart completely over. Are we agreed - It is not all that hard to understand the spirit of prophecy when you understand the testimony of Jesus in this great light?
kjv@Zechariah:10 @ @ RandyP comments: Idols don't speak, men hear what they want to here from them and over the years they have heard plenty, all of it vanity. The signs are plain for all to see, but, what the diviners take from it is a lie, they see what they want to see, all of it vanity. Men are troubled because there is no shepherd or so they think, they comfort each other in vain. These were the shepherds they thought missing and the Lord's anger was kindled against them. Shepherds must stand for what is true, often a most difficult and sacrificial task. Instead, as a whole they lead the flock away and so the Lord dispersed them. Faithful leaders need to add to their faith virtue (Valor/Excellence), knowledge (revealed), temperance (physical/spiritual), patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity (agape) in order to be fruitful in the knowledge of Christ kjv@2Peter:1:5-8 . There are leaders amongst us today that need much of the same. We have one Shepherd but several pastors.
kjv@Zechariah:12 @ @ RandyP comments: Jerusalem is a cup of trembling to all around it. Seeing what the Lord has done makes it as a burdensome stone. Seeing what the Lord has done makes them fearful in themselves. Those that burden themselves with it are cut in pieces. From this point of world view, imagine how astonished they will be when the Lord puts it all back together, when Judah and Ephraim and the house of David again for no humanly reason becomes His power and might. In the midst of a spirit of grace and supplication there will be a mourning in Jerusalem for the one, the only Son, they had pierced.
kjv@Zechariah:14:19 @ @ RandyP comments: kjv@STRING:feast+of+tabernacles dict:all tabernacles
kjv@Revelation:21:8 @ @ RandyP comments: There are those that say that the Bible does not teach of Hell. Or that God's love is unconditional, that He will not allow even the more deserving souls to be lost. There is the hope amongst some that having seen all of this, having better understanding of the sin nature, having seen God face to face, having understood His will and process, that even these would have the needed change of heart and gladly accept their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Perhaps for the intellectual atheist or agnostic. Perhaps for those deceived all this time by others. For some perhaps so, but, what about the remainder? What about those who blame God? Those who yet cling to their universalism or false god? Those who cannot forgive themselves or refuse release from their lusts and cravings?
kjv@Revelation:21 @ @ RandyP comments: The glorious new heavens and new earth. Jesus said that He goes to prepare a new place for us. It took Him six days to prepare the place that we are at. He has been over 2000 years preparing the place upcoming. It is a place obviously much different than this place, for one thing it is a place where the internal beauty of man's cleansed and purified heart unites as one to commune with its Lord and maker. In another way, it is a place where there is no more death, no more fear of death, no more pain, no more sorrow. It is a place too good to be true from a God too good for it not to be true. Today then, it is a faith, a hope, a truth unseen that guides us through the darkness of this day, an evidence of the long time goodness and intents of our Savior.
kjv@Malachi:1 @ @ RandyP comments: After this many years and this much history, it can still come back to the Lords consideration of Jacob and Esau. Something about Esau He hated and his descendants alike. Jacob He loved even though it has been a constant struggle. The descendants argue with the Lord at almost every turn when He says that they are doing this or that. Then there are the gentiles who the Lord wants to look on Him honorably, but, the religious inconsistencies of His chosen alter that perception. If Esau be this way and Jacob be another why does the Lord even continue with them? I believe the answer would be the same no matter who He choose, it is a matter of the truest nature of sin, the spirit of man is at complete enmity with God in all cases. In fact, the best results obtainable may be from Jacob's seed. Remember that is not from these people that the Lord will be praised it is from the actions of Lord upon these people, His incarnation and redemptive plan. The gentiles may be the first to see and bring Him honor, but, the lines of the two brothers will someday wonder what it is that the gentiles see and begin to wonder and look into it themselves.
kjv@Revelation:22 @ @ RandyP comments: It is interesting to compare kjv@Revelation:1 where we started this journey with kjv@Revelation:22 where we end. A lot will take place in a very short amount of time. But, when will it take place? We don't know. Here in this chapter Jesus repeated 'I come quickly' 'I come shortly' 'the time is at hand'. In human terms it can be argued that it has been a long time. Did Jesus lie? How long is long? How short is short? How soon is soon? Isn't it better to think that if it means that we have been given time then we would be use this time as wisely as possible? From an eternal viewpoint, is not any amount of time here but brief? In terms of relativity, can not this have happened, be happening, and be yet to happen all at the same time? So much to ponder!
kjv@Genesis:2 @ @ RandyP comments: There must be purpose to the delay of Eve's creation. We do not know how long of a delay, but, it was long enough for Adam know the need for a help mate. The other beasts were created male and female from the start and reproduced after their own kind, Adam was no doubt observant of such. Eve is taken out of Adam by a rib which makes her creation unlike any other. She was not taken directly from the dust.
kjv@Genesis:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Many liberal interpretations have been made of this story as to what the forbidden fruit might have been. The fruit however is not the import object here however, it is the transgression. The fruit could have been anything, the fact is that they were told not to do it, the transgression that they did it anyway. Some see the freedom of choice given Adam/Eve as broad as their own, and hold the freedom of choice as essential to sin. The fact is that because of the sin of these two all of mankind has been cursed and quarantined, the choice not to sin removed, not one man escaped. This is why the prophecy of a particular seed of Eve against the seed of the serpent.
kjv@Genesis:4 @ @ RandyP comments: Did you notice that Abel and Cain were offering sacrifices, but, men did not call on the name of the Lord until Enos? What men? Were there others? Remember that incest at this time was not forbidden, logically it was the only way for these people to reproduce. Notice that sisters of Cain and Abel and Seth are not recorded, there may have been many (perhaps in modern terms 7 to 1 or more). Seeing how quickly Cain's numbers grew, Abel's could have been just as quick, along with Seth's. Given the either of these brothers could have had any number of other unrecorded brothers the human race could have grown quite quickly. Only later when incest was not needed and began producing genetic flaws was it legalized against.
kjv@Matthew:2:1-12 @ @ RandyP comments: Some suggest that the Magi may have been influenced historically by the wise writings/influence of Daniel, at least indirectly. There is a lot of mystery over who these men are and how they knew what they did.
kjv@Genesis:10 @ @ RandyP comments: Great names, great cities, eventually great nations and kingdoms; it doesn't take long to repopulate the earth. Many of these names we will see in several other places in the Bible. Most will become enemies of Israel. Some are even spoken of in the end times.
kjv@Genesis:12:7 @ @ RandyP comments: This is the first of three times that the Lord appears to Abraham (kjv@Genesis:17:1 kjv@Genesis:18:1). If no one can look upon the Father and live the Lord must be the Son or else this is figurative. Jacob also has an appearance but, specifically states that he saw the Lord face to face kjv@Genesis:32:30 .
kjv@Genesis:12 @ @ RandyP comments: This is the beginning of what we call the Abrahamic Covenant. It is a covenant based totally upon God's grace; the land will be a gift, the seed will be a gift. The Lord leads Abraham away from his kin to show him this land. The seed will not begin to come for another 20 some years and the land not for another 450+ years. In the mean time Abraham and Sarah stumble trying to make it happen on their own.
kjv@Genesis:13 @ @ RandyP comments: We are seeing now a repetition of alters built at places where either the Lord has appeared or where He has spoken. We see these personal alters as the places to call upon the Lord. There were priest such as Melchizedek in the day, no Levitical priests yet, no temples, no Mosaic Law, no written scripture, perhaps some oral tradition (not mentioned), feasts and Sabbaths (?). From Cain and Abel we know that there would be some form of offerings. This is a glimpse into the religious life of Abraham at that time.
kjv@Genesis:15 @ @ RandyP comments: Abraham believes enough to be inventoried as righteous yet he asks for reassurance. How strong was his belief? We can expect the same. The Lord strengthens his faith by allowing him deeper into the future prophecy showing more of the grit and hardship his seed's seeds will face. Sometimes belief in what will be is fed by more of what will be, not necessarily some direct tangible evidence. But, then the Lord also lights and burns Abraham's offering right before him. It all began however with a certain measure of belief in the Lord Himself. That then extends into the assurance of what He is able and will do.
kjv@Genesis:16 @ @ RandyP comments: I think it is a part of all of us when considering God's promises to rationalize how God would be able to do that unless I do this (fill in the blank). Though we may start out strong in the trust, after delay, we begin to think that God is waiting for me to do this, or that He has left it up to me, or that He must have meant something other; well you can see how the purer form of trust dissolves. Like Sarah, we can create a lot of turmoil and anguish for ourselves. I don't see this as a peculiar fault of Sarah, it is more of a trait in all of us. This is not to say that there may not be something that we do need to do, it means we should continuously seek the Lord's direction and wait upon His answer before proceeding.
kjv@Genesis:18 @ @ RandyP comments: Is there anything too hard for the Lord? Of course not. Is there anything that He will not do? Yes, sin. Did Abraham or Sarah ask this blessing of Him? Did they ask Him to spare a city for sake of the righteous? No and yes. There are times we can ask Him to do something for us that as long as it doesn't ask Him to sin and is in agreement with His further plan that He'll gladly do. There are things that we ask that are intended to bend His will, demote Him as servant to our whim and pleasure, things based out of fear or pride or foolishness or ignorance that He certainly will/can not be part of. There are times where His grace alone must be sufficient. There are times when He intends to do for us great things that we don't even need to ask.
kjv@Genesis:20 @ @ RandyP comments: Remember that Sarah is an older women now and yet her beauty is still much desirable by kings. The king knows that he acted out of the integrity of his heart, the Lord knows it as well and warns him, but, the whole thing has the appearance of a threat and the functionality of a curse. How many other things might there be in our lives that are ways of warning us about grave danger that are likely perceived as threats? The Lord is protecting His chosen man as well who fears the unrighteousness of others, fears for his life the possible consequences of the obvious beauty of his wife. This event must have taken place over the amount of time for it to become noticeable that the kings maidservants were not birthing.
kjv@Genesis:21 @ @ RandyP comments: I know that everything works according to God's purpose in the end here, but, I find it interesting that Sarah's poor decision of giving her servant Hagar to Abraham in the first place and then her poor (perhaps jealous/threatened/guilty) reaction afterwards is driving the story forward. The Lord needs to place a separation between the two lads (covenants) and uses this humanness as the vehicle. In a spiritual sense we need to keep the covenant of grace separated from our own efforts to force by our own hand the same covenant to happen. It may take the Lord working through some our humanness to get us to see this as well.
kjv@Genesis:22 @ @ RandyP comments: It might be thought that all men are tested in this severe of a way. No other man has received a covenant from God the size of Abraham's however. Should we expect that any other man's test would be so large? Abraham's belief in the promise of God that in Isaac the covenant will continue is what was being tested, that God will provide. While certain religions focus upon what Abraham was willing to sacrifice, the deed that would have been done, the supposed earning of grace, we as Christians focus on what God alone eventually sacrificed/provided, we focus on the prophecy that by His hand alone did come true. It remains a covenant totally comprised of His grace; the Lord used Abraham's willingness in this case to sketch out plainly to us that it was nothing other than this grace.
kjv@Matthew:4:1-11 @ @ RandyP comments: Tempted - as in tested, examined. Of - as in by, from. Was there a chance that Jesus would not pass the test? Think of this as you examining a mirror. Is their any chance that it will not pass the test of being a mirror? Not if it is a mirror. Can you entice the mirror to be something else? An orange? By examining the mirror, you are testing your understanding of what a mirror should be, evaluating by your understanding if this is indeed a mirror. Satan is testing his understanding of Jesus just as we would. Literally, does the text say that He was being examined by God? Or by the Devil?
kjv@Genesis:23 @ @ RandyP comments: A mighty prince amongst us. Notice how the people of that land viewed Abraham. No doubt Abraham was blessed from above and therein a blessing to others. Even strangers could sense that of him. They were not only willing to sell land for a burial plot, they were willing rather to give it and protect it a great many years after. He was a man of tremendous faith, imagine how that carried through his daily dealings and business with others. Sarah had lived to be 127 years, almost 40 years after birthing Isaac. If Abraham was a prince, then she was a princes.
kjv@Genesis:25:8 @ @ RandyP comments: Is this a just saying a saying? Or is giving/yielding up the ghost a biblically accurate description of the process of death? You be the judge kjv@STRING:up+the+ghost
kjv@Genesis:25:17 @ @ RandyP comments: Is this being gathered unto ones peoples a saying? or a biblical truth of death? I don't know kjv@STRING:gathered+unto+his and kjv@STRING:gathered+unto+thy . If so, would Ishmael's people be Abraham? The Egyptians? Who? Most likely, at least in the end, people of the same regenerate or non-regenerate spiritual heart. The fuller interpretation is that physically it simply means that they ended up in the same spot 'dust to dust' as all the loved ones who have gone before him. Spiritually however, added to 'giving up the ghost' it means dead in body (dust), the ghost yeilded, spiritually gathered to their just reward.
kjv@Genesis:25:34 @ @ RandyP comments: We have a spiritual birth right similar to what is discussed in this passage. Any number of us at any number of times have sold our rights for mere morsels of common bread and drink thus in effect despising our birth right. What is the intellectual make up of this? Could it be our narrow perception of our Father's love and wealth? What this birthright means? Could it be our own appetites? Is it that we feel that in the long run we have no right or that our right is somehow ordained to be given another? Some would say in this case 'didn't God make it so?' to which I reply 'didn't God foresee?'. In Jesus we not only have the opportunity to be born again but, also to be born into an inheritance of saints. Where does this heavenly birthright stand with you today?
kjv@Genesis:29:31 @ @ RandyP comments: Having children wasn't going to change Leah's situation with Jacob. She may of thought so, may have wished so, may have prayed for it to be so; for one reason or another it was just this way. Though the Lord had granted her children, they may have been more for her own good than for her marriage; that is one way to look at it. Perhaps the Lord wanted Jacob to change his heart, but, the decision was still all his; that is another take. Maybe this growing conflict between sisters is a sign of the internal tension amongst the tribes latter on. Either way, the Lord was moving on to begin his establishment of the twelve tribes starting with Leah's four sons. There may be design and will for each of us individually, but, there is also the overall plan/will as well. She may have come to this honest and sober conclusion by the time she had Judah. To have children in order to save a marriage is a huge burden for children to have to bare.
kjv@Genesis:30 @ @ RandyP comments: Some fun at the Jacob household huh? In the context of a single chapter I am sure our lives would sound pretty crazy as well. This home however? This is reality television material here! Seriously, life is what it is. God has to work in it and on it and through it and around it and somehow by the end make it work to His purposes. I am just glad it is Him that does it. I'm just saying!
kjv@Genesis:35:29 @ @ RandyP comments: Sometimes the story line moves on without you even before your death. Less frequently to that, it may even come back to you for a final mention. Isaac was a great enough patriarch to have had both. How he had spent this time was no doubt important for himself, hopeful peacefully and content and richly blessed, important to those closest to him. God's written record allows him that privacy yet pays him the respect at his end.
kjv@Matthew:5:13-16 @ @ rpritts comments: Believers in Jesus 'are' this by no work of their own therefore they should continue to 'be' this. Should we abide in this (His completed work and grace) we will by nature produce worshipful works to His glory and praise, good works preordained that we should walk in. Should we step outside of that by again striving for selfish favor or personal salvation, though we 'are' salt our salt loses it's savor, though still light our light becomes hid. This is not a permanent situation if we repent and get back on course, it is a permanent situation only if we insist on trying to produce our own works towards salvation/favor.
kjv@Genesis:37 @ @ RandyP comments: The harder we work against something at times, the quicker it comes to be. Did anyone stop to think that the dreams Joseph was dreaming might be from God? Did Jacob? If anyone did, their judgment was clouded by the image that they had of their brother/son. It is one thing to dislike a sibling but, to dismiss that God could work through them is another. Some brothers became uncomfortable with outright murder; that would have been a good place for them to check their intents, but to substitute murder with slavery and forgery not much different.
kjv@Matthew:5:31-32 @ @ RandyP comments: mFaithOfJesus kjv@Matthew:5:31-32 BUT I SAY UNTO - The common understanding again falls short. The purpose of a writ of divorce isn't only to protect the wife, it is to curb the effectual adultery that would result. If either spouse is unchaste then adultery is made. If both spouses are being chaste but have grown tired and loveless therewith adultery will be made should either take a new partner. We are not released from an eternal vow just because we want it to be unless the defilement of the vow by the one has forced the God fearing decision of the other. We are seeing the weakness of the Law in that it is interpreted and implemented by the human heart that is already deeply influenced by sin. The human heart at it's sincere best is searching from the inside out to see what God may have meant by the commandment. The faith of Jesus is looking from the outside in, knowing as the Father would know, looking in on the injured and entrapped heart knowing it's faulty logic and reprobate reasoning.
kjv@Genesis:44:29 @ @ RandyP comments: This would be the first Joseph heard of how the brothers covered up his enslavement by faking his death. Surely a difficult moment for him here.
kjv@Genesis:45:5 @ @ RandyP comments: This is a solid offer of forgiveness to pattern our own after. First, it does not seek anything further from them to make it or keep it happening. Second, it is based upon God's intentions and not either of the two parties involved. Third, it is concerned for reaction of the guilty towards their own selves.
kjv@Matthew:6:25-34 @ @ RandyP comments: The 'therefore' here seem to point back to the singleness of eye and one master service preciously discussed. The key verse appears to be the 'seek ye first'. If you seek the food and raiment first then the worry for it becomes your master. It is not that you don't need these things for the Father knows that you have need of these things. It is not that the birds do go about the task of seeking out a field in which to eat, it is that it doesn't worry them. Serving two masters makes us to hate the one (most likely our Father) should the worry consume us.
kjv@Genesis:49:5 @ @ RandyP comments: dict:all Simeon dict:all Levi
kjv@Exodus:5:20-23 @ @ RandyP comments: So the first approach did not work, in fact things got worse. The people blame Moses and Moses blames the Lord. It was actually a pretty lame approach to begin with, but, one has to realize that you don't just go up to a pharaoh and ask him to let my people go. Things have to be proven, leaders have to be tested, effort and sacrifice invested, God has to be depended upon.
kjv@Exodus:6:3 @ @ RandyP comments: Two forms of God's name are used here El Shadday the God Almighty and Jehovah the national form so reverent that it was not verbally pronounced. At this point these names are known by the Hebrews in terms of how He had spoken to their fore fathers and the future promise He had made; His more tangible connection to them was just now beginning to be brought forth.
kjv@Exodus:6:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Just as the people have little working field knowledge of Jehovah they have little knowledge of Moses. All that they know is that the ambition of Moses has made their bondage much more harsh. When we today read this we kind of know how the story is going to progress and we see the peoples hearts as immature and disbelieving. Stepping into their shoes though one can see that from their immediate vantage point that they are absolutely right. The key then for us to learn is that of vantage point. While something may appear to us to be a certainty in one direction, they actually could be opposite and with good reason; it is all a matter of vantage point.
kjv@Exodus:6:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Does God work miracles in an instant? He certainly can. Does it ever take longer? It certainly can. If you are in the market for a good healthy miracle, perhaps you should consider this Exodus passage. Sometimes miracles are purposely a lengthy process. Hearts are stirred, personalities tested, set backs are encountered, belief is pressured to it's core. In the end it is no less of a miracle, in fact it may now be more so. Delay does not mean that it will not happen, it may just mean that it will not happen by the means one first expects.
kjv@Exodus:8:15 @ @ RandyP comments: He hardened his own heart. He may have been sincere during the crisis. Seeing the relief of such a curse is just as impressive as seeing the power of seeing the curse come about in the first place. What should have been convincing and convicting to him merely emboldens him further.
kjv@Exodus:13:9 @ @ RandyP comments: Think of what the perception of God was before these acts. He was mostly full of promises. He had accomplished some necessary judgments (flood, Sodom), talked now and then to direct an individual. This is the first though that He had revealed with a mighty hand a entire people; first He had used one people to show forth His power to all other people and thereby spread the prophesy of the coming Christ. Now He will be right on top of these chosen people for a time to show us His precise nature.
kjv@Exodus:15 @ @ RandyP comments: In this the Song of Moses it is easy to see the overwhelming jubilation and sense of God being able to do absolutely anything for the Israelites. In the very same chapter however we see that there yet remains a work that the Lord will have to do on them. Having the knowledge and the experience and the faith exhibited in this jubilation is one thing, having the heart to change from one's sinful nature and the heart to submit to His authority and obey quite another. The fact that it will take another 1500+ years before Christ arrives testifies to the gravity of the sin nature we possess to be exposed. We will see many a revival (many in recollection of this singular event) and we will see many similar jubilations, but, the weight of sin will in every case quickly blanket the spiritual exhilaration with grieving and bondage. Thus the need for Christ.
kjv@Exodus:16:9 @ @ RandyP comments: How many of our prayers are not prayers at all but, murmurings? A couple? A few? Some? A lot? A whole lot? God hears hears our words. He knows what we need before we ask it. Often, He has to sift through all the complaints about what He hasn't done or needs to be doing. Often He has to see past the complaints about others we are making in prayer form. So do we not pray to Him at all? No. We pray to Him in a manner worthy of His Holiness. Prayers where we focus on who He is and what He is doing big picture and where we fit in His big picture and where He fits in ours. He will answer either way, the difference is that the exchange has benefited our appreciation and attitude all the more.
kjv@Exodus:16:35 @ @ RandyP comments: Not to get ahead of ourselves, but, it was forty years of Manna only because of their disobedience and lack of trust. Since the chapter began with God wanting to prove whether they would obey or no, we should know that almost immediately from outset onward the answer was no. For the manna obedience was somewhat locked in, it would spoil overnight and not grow on Sabbath. For the many other things God was doing the obedience was more voluntary. You have to remember also that these people were in a desert isolated from foreign influences and still had these disobedient tendencies. Is our nature any different? Where do we stand in our proving yet today?
kjv@Exodus:20:10 @ @ RandyP comments: It is easy for one to honor the Sabbath personally by setting all one's employees out to continue the work. The commandment applies to your use of them as well. One can disobey the commandment even when personally honoring it if the others that serve you are not included. Respect should be shown to those corporations today that follow the entire commandment not just the half.
kjv@Matthew:11:25-30 @ @ RandyP comments: Who does the Son reveal His Father to? Those who come to the Son toiling and heavy ladden in the convicting burdens of sin. Once relieved of such burden, having taken on His yoke humbly and with meekness, shouldering a sample of His burden, then one comes to know the Father. Such immense time released revelation is only by exchanging our burden for His Son's and carrying His Son's burden forward. It is not any other way around. The so called wise and prudent systematically avoid to see this.
kjv@Matthew:13:19 @ @ RandyP comments: This understanding is not a matter left to human intelligence, it is plain and evident to persons of all IQ's/literacy/backgrounds. Satan is not omnipresent so he utilizes man's sheep like pack and conforming nature. He will twist and distort ones intentions and honest curiosity, even God's own words to produce doubt and apparent contradiction to foster rejection and rebellion. It is not understood because the heart has fattened and calloused against it. A mans own peers become the fowls of the air as much as any demon.
kjv@Matthew:13:20-21 @ @ RandyP comments: From whom does the most pressure/persecution come from? Those just described as the wayside. Those here now without root expect peace and pleasantry. If the gospel is obvious to them it should be obvious to others they presume, and yet it is not obvious, ridiculed, divisive, persecuted against, even deadly. The young fledgling becomes disheartened, embarrassed, offended. A process - sunlight that is supposed to bring about growth instead kills off the plant. Though passive from ther out typically by number they are used by the wayside (therefore Satan) to increase the pressure on the remaining believers.
kjv@Matthew:13:23 @ @ RandyP comments: For the few strong that remain all of this process works to produce fruit in them 30 60 100 fold; supernatural returns. Fruit like this would not be possible if it were not for the entire process the necessitated it and brought it about. We should not consider it odd that these many things go into producing spiritual fruit. It is producers like these that the Lord wants with Him in His Kingdom. These souls are basically the humble and meek He spoke of in the Beatitudes that His light and Spirit have shown through, His redemption has fashioned, branches abiding in His vine, created unto good works; they are the blessed.
kjv@Matthew:13:37 @ @ RandyP comments: filter:NT-GOSPEL Son of man speaks largely of His betrayal cruxifiction and return.
kjv@Matthew:19:1-12 @ @ RandyP comments: What would Jesus know about marriage fidelity? Funny you should ask. Who is Jesus married to (future tense)? The Church Israel/Gentile. Has She been faithful? Is She unblemished? Has there not been cause for a writ of divorcement? Continuously. Why then has He not? What is it in Her that He sees in Her future and is willing to go to His grave for? What God has joined together... let no man put asunder. The principal is true as a church. It is true as a couple. Is Christ righteous in not serving us His papers? Is He merciful in this? Shouldn't we likewise be?
kjv@Matthew:21:12 @ @ RandyP comments: There is the physical temple and there is a temple of individual men's hearts. Where a man's heart is there will be his treasure. There are men who treasure making money from the religious needs of many. There are men who treasure peace that do not confront them. There are men who treasure their position in the church that allow for even profit from such allowance. There are men who treasure the way things just the way they are, the way things have long time been. There are those who treasure their own ideals of the temple and not the ill image it projects to those it mistreats. These are the types of men who would be displeased by Jesus' message carried out in the temple for they do not treasure Him. When we look as individuals upon a collective temple such as this we look upon men's collective hearts. The object is not to avoid coming to the collective temple, it is to call upon all men's hearts by a higher calling; to call upon all men to come observe the most holy heart of our Lord and Savior; to meet with Him by His grace then and there. And if need be, shake a few tables of our own.
kjv@Psalms:60 @ Psalms:60 @ RandyP comments: By the time of son Solomon's reign, God had used David as an instrument of bringing Israel from the pits of "hard things" to a nation with all enemies subjected to it. It was a time like never before and never again for Israel. David from the start believed in God's promise and God's ability. These neighboring nations were to be overcome by God's hand if only there be a leader such as David faithful and fully expectant. It is a hard lesson to learn when we go about electing our own way and our own man, going about by our own resource as they had done in the reign of Saul. Israel was taught in hardship that it really didn't have it's own resource and had little ability to stand against such hardened external/internal foes. It is also taught by prosperous times that God can bring about a great many essentials outside of their normal resource to surround faithful leaders such as David. Battles begun being won for the cherished nation that by their own strength would have undoubtedly been lost (or not even pursued) largely by the faith and petition of a God fearing/seeking man. God surely teaches by the hard times and by the prosperous times; the message either way is much the same. This lesson unfortunitely would have to be relearned every few short generations.
RecentComments @ Genesis:3 @ RandyP comments: This is the first recording of an external influence being placed upon man: the fallen angel Satan. This appears rarely in scripture as it then is depicted as the damage man himself is responsible for. We know that the influence is present (prince of the air/this world etc..), but the bible is not written to be about Satan per se. As the Holy Writ continues however it is Cain that becomes murderous, Lamech that is murderous and boastful, the antediluvian world prior to Noah that becomes wicked in it's every imagination etc... It is not said much at all how much blame is Satan's directly (other than him having deceived the nations), but it is stated repeatedly and compellingly how much this present state of affairs is man's.
RecentComments @ kjv@James:2:21 @ RandyP comments: Justification can be thought of on two scales, one being made right with God overall (this is by faith and faith alone), the second as proof one to another of our pre-existing overall faith (the faith that I have can be proven to you by the works that this faith has executed on/through me). If faith has not produced demonstrable works, one must wonder if that having been made right with God actually exists. For, the "made right with God" faith will unalterably cause corresponding demonstrable proofs. The larger scale justification is all important first and foremost, each of us must be made right with God by the imputation of Jesus' own righteousness covering over us. This is the justification Paul largely speaks to us of. The smaller scale justification then (and only then) is inevitable should this first condition be met. This is the obvious point James here in chapter 2 furthers.
So many unbelievers today look at Christian faith as a dead thing. One response is that they (unbelievers) want that to be. The opposing response might be that perhaps on an observable scale it indeed is dead is if we (Christians) have not the works to counter their disbelief with. Dead in this inference is to mean unprovable or yet to have tangible effect, not necessarily that the faith in some smaller but saving form does not exist.
RecentComments @ kjv@James:2:21 @ RandyP comments: Justification can be thought of on two scales, one being made right with God overall (this is by faith and faith alone), the second as proof one to another of our pre-existing overall faith (the faith that I have can be proven to you by the works that this faith has executed on/through me). If faith has not produced demonstrable works, one must wonder if that having been made right with God actually exists. For, the "made right with God" faith will unalterably cause corresponding demonstrable proofs. The larger scale is all important firt and foremost, each of us being made right with God. This is the justification Paul largely speaks to us of. The smaller scale justification then (and only then) is inevitable should the first condition be met. This is the obvious point James furthers. So many unbelievers today look at Christian faith as a dead thing. One response is that they (unbelievers) want that to be. The opposing response might be that perhaps on an observable scale it indeed is dead is if we (Christians) have not the works to counter their disbelief with. Dead in this inference is to mean questionable as to whether the first scale has actually been met.
RecentComments @ kjv@Proverbs:1:2 @ RandyP comments: The first of several statements as to why the proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel are important. Just as important as the ability to see skill/wit is the ability to see chastiement/correction; the two go hand in hand. The skillful are not simply skillful because they have avoided making foolish mistakes, they are so because they have learned well from the mistakes they have made. We live in an era where young men and women are so deathly afraid putting themselves out there where they might make mistakes because they are so adverse to being corrected. Ask any skillful person you can think of, they will consider that they are skillful where so many others are not precisely because they have come to peace with the constant need for correction. Everybody wants to be skillful, few have the heart to be corrected. Correction is not pleasant at the time, but certainly the skills gained from correction are.
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