Comments - bible RecentComments

kjv@Psalms:84 @ @ RandyP comments: It is often calculated that a compassionate God is not a God of judgement. Here we see a soul longing/fainting for the courts of the Lord. What is it that makes His courts desirable? Judgement is what is most needed in order for true compassion to stand out and take hold. It is because judgement is missing that our position is as it is. We have delegated judgment to ourselves but fail to pursue it. We do what is right in our own eyes and the world becomes a hateful desperate place because of it. Better is a day in His courts than a thousand with the wicked indeed!

kjv@Psalms:109 @ @ RandyP comments: This world is filled with the truly poor and needy. There are countries we can think of that are in a constant oppressive state, countries where it's own refugees are congregated in camps just across it's borders, some for years and decades. We pray for them of course but, what to pray? There are people in the name of the Lord that are standing up for these people but they are lied against, falsely detained, immobilized. We pray for them but, what? There are those that are at the root of this. What shall we pray for them? David must have been square in the middle of some of these skirmishes. Is it wrong for him to pray this? Wrong to sing about this in the congregation? Will the wicked man ever change his ways once he has tasted blood in the waters?

kjv@Psalms:118 @ @ RandyP comments: It is common to think of righteousness as something personal that you build up with good works. Here we find righteousness as a entry way that has been opened which one person, the subject of this psalm walks into. Who is this person that does not die but declares the works of His Lord? If we think of Jesus as the one the nations and wicked have come against like bees, if we think of Him as the head cornerstone they've refused, Him that will execute the judgement against these haters, the sacrifice bound to the alter, then we see how that entry way has been made. Now then by this gate the righteous plural can enter in as well. His mercy does endure for ever!

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:19 @ @ RandyP comments: The sight of Jeremiah breaking the ancient potters vessel at the east gate should burn in the hearts of Judah even to this day. The words he then proclaimed echoed true. Unfortunately, they still did not listen, whatever they had thought to gain from worshiping Baal was more convincing than loosing it all, being captive, and becoming so desperate as to eat their own children. Was it really?

kjv@Jeremiah:20 @ @ RandyP comments: Jeremiah is imprisoned for message at the east gate by the chief priest Pashur. He imprisons himself at the same time in a fit of depression. Every word that he had spoken in this prophecy is later proved to be right but, that is not of console to the prophet. I would imagine that even in these times the Lord brings people alongside to comfort, but, what really can be said? It is a tough time for all of Judah especially those in the right. The name given Pashur - Magormissabib suggests moved by fear all around.

kjv@Ezekiel:40 @ @ RandyP comments: What is the importance of these details to us today? That God has a great many (if not all) details planned out; that He is trying to tell us something needed to be known. Consider that this temple fell and was desecrated just as the first and yet it is not a mistake that God gave it such detail and foresight; it is all part of a much greater plan/dialog. Often physical things and events described in the Bible are shadows/pictures/blue prints of things occurring in the spiritual world put into a language we could more readily understand. I have heard men like Dr. Vernen Mc Gee attempt to show how the Temple, the things of it, the predetermined rituals spell out a spiritual description of salvation and atonement; things like the 'holy of holys' that only the high priest was able to enter after being cleansed once a year. North gates, south gates, having to go in one gate and out another, tables and hooks, borders of pomegranate and palms, etc..., they all have their meaning in a spiritual sense. The thing for now to know is that Jesus is the complete fulfillment of all of these descriptive types. To go back and rediscover what each of these types means is to study what Jesus was able to accomplish and who we are in Him; for us each detail measured out precisely.

kjv@1John:4 @ @ RandyP comments: If I were to ask nearly any non-believer 'what is God?' the near unanimous reply would be "God is love". If I were to ask then 'what is love?' I would receive a multitude of varying replies mostly having something to do with tolerance for their sins. The question then to ask is 'doesn't that mean that love is whatever one wants/needs it to be?' or better 'that God is whomever we want/need Him to be?'. What kind of god can we ourselves make up? Is your wife whomever you wish her to be? Is your son? Is there any other working relationship that you know of that is determined by what you wish it to be? Are we not individual? Do we not have structure and backbone, interests and opinions and needs of our own that you yourself have to accept navigate and familiarize your self with? Isn't that the beauty of relationships? Why should it be any different with God? We love God because he first loved us. It was not our minute and varying personal perceptions of God with which He loved us, it was His gigantic eternal design for present and future, a love that would redeem us from our sins and set us aright into eternity. It was not our selfish 'I need you to be this' love or 'do this now for me or else' love or 'if you even exist' love for His love came before our love. What then is love? God is love? What is God? Creator and perfecter and possessor of our souls in whom no darkness dwells and in that He is absolute love.

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@Zechariah:8 @ @ RandyP comments: If you could imagine a place and a time when every man speaks truth to his neighbor, truth and peace are executed at the gates, evil intent and false oath are far removed; God imagines much the same. Ten men of ten different languages come to the Jew and say let us together go speedily to worship your God in His city; that day friends will come. The seed shall be prosperous and the vine give her fruit, the ground her increase and the heavens their dew. The Lord shall cause this. How? How will He cause this? This causation is what we are experiencing now. It takes all of this to get us to there!