Learning the Art of Forgiveness

                                My Marriage Advice

  Marriage is an adventure in learning about each other.

I think of my own like an amusement park ride: Bumper Cars.

It always has one of the longest lines, yet people are willing to stand in line for it.  While your waiting, it's always exciting. I think about who will out run everybody else, or how many people we can bump into, and the ones who get stuck in some corner.  Then the ride starts and everybody is screaming- in fun and laughing that is till somebody bumps you really hard and your head whacks the bar or your neck does this whiplash thing, then the fun ends for you.

It's a lot like marriage.  Your so excited to be getting into to it, and the first year is full of laughter and life seems fine till one day "BUMP" you get hit with something, (finances, screaming children- not in fun, or sickness), and marriage isn't so much fun anymore.  That's when you need to remember this very important advice:

   let it go!  

 Yes, because when things in life give you a good o'l bump, 

you'll end out doing or saying things that you shouldn't.

Solomon 2:15 says “Catch us the foxes, The little foxes that spoil the vines, For our vines have tender grapes.”

It's all those little things, that if you do not allow them to go, they will pill up and cause the vineyard of your love to spoil, and eventually die.

Not only do we need to let it go; we also need to forgive.

Matthew 18: 21,22  “Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”  Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

Do not wait for the your other half to say they are sorry, forgive them even when they don't. This will not be easy especially if your other half doesn't realized what they have done. Whatever you do, do not make the mistake of the o'l “eye for eye” because that will only lead to bitterness. Instead we need to extend mercy, even when they do not deserve it. Since that is what the Lord did for us.

 

Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

We need to follow the Lord's example in forgiveness which He extended to those who did not deserve it. An example of this

can be found in Luke 7  when Jesus was invited to one of the Pharisees home, a prostitute came and anointed His feet with oil and washed His feet with her tears.

   Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”

Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 

 

When Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven” He did not wait

for another day to bring them up to her. He let it go and so must we. How far do we let them go? As far as the East is from the West, that's how far. 

 

Did you catch this verse: “for she loved much” Why?

Because much was forgiven. When you forgive one another

seventy times seven, (in other words; always), then I believe you will end out loving each other very much. 

 

Also the opposite is true when you forgive little;You love little.

So, How can you forgive? You can do all things through the messiah who strengthens us.

Through Jesus we can let go and forgive and have our

"Happily Ever After”.

Behold the Lamb!

   ^{BEHOLD THE LAMB!}

^{Exodus 12: 12-13} 

 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. 

Only those who had placed  the blood of the Lamb were saved from the destructive plague.  This lamb that was chosen was not just any lamb,

 it had to be perfect without any blemish.

^{V 5} The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect.

Also, this lamb was not slaughtered at any random time:

back in verse 1 and 2
"The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year."

then verse 6

  ^"Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight."

According to God's calender * that would be in about the month of April!

Do you see a pattern yet?

There was another perfect Lamb who was slaughtered

and not just any random day of the year.

Before we go there; let's look at some testimony. 

John Testified About Jesus in John 1:29

^" The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

 

 Now you've seen the testimony

Jesus is the Lamb

 

Now for the time of year:

Mathew 26:17 

 "Now on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?”"

 

I can hear the bleating in my ears now...

  all the little lambs were taken and slaughtered;

  their blood was placed on the door posts of their home .  

People were getting ready to celebrate the passover meal.

 

MEANWHILE...  another Lamb was

getting ready to lay down His life!

 

Mathew 27:35

  ^"When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots."

 

 The perfect Lamb, on the same day as the passover lambs, died for us, so we could escape destructive!

How? 

 Not by applying the blood of lambs on our doors 

but by applying the blood of The Lamb- Jesus on the door posts of our hearts!  

***

I will leave you with this last verses to medtitate upon:

 

Isaiah 53:4-6

"Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all."

 

 ****

 

 

*Note: the Jewish calender is a lunar calender, so when transferred unto our solar the dates 

will be different every year, but always remains the same on their calender.   

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

What is a Resolution?

~Every year people talk about New Years Resolutions.  However I ask you what is a resolution?  I decided to look that word up and  I found several definitions; however I liked these two the best:

-a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something.

 

-the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc.

~The word that stands out the most to me is the word "determination or determining upon"  As followers of the LORD we most be determined to live for Him in the face of growing opposition. I find that Noah is a fine example of someone who had made a resolution to not be like others of his time.

     Genesis 6:5 ^" The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. ^{V9b "}Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God"

~Because Noah found favor in the eyes of Lord, the Lord choose him to build an ark so that a remnant would be saved from the punishment God was going to bring upon the earth.

     ^{V17-18 "} I am going to bring flood waters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you."

     V ²² Noah did everything just as God commanded him. 

~Noticed I underlined the word everything because this shows Noah's resolution (or determination) to follow God although everyone around him was wicked. Can you imagine that?  Do you have neighbors that fight in their front yard and nothing but curse words can be heard?  Or that grouchy old man who yells at your kids the minute they step even one toe in his yard?  Well, that's nothing!  Look back at verse 8, it says that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was evil all the time.  Noah did not get any breaks.  He was surrounded.  Talk about "Sin City"- this was "Sin World"  and quite frankly God was fed up with it!  Everything was going to washed out- literally! 

      ^{Gen 7 V11-12} In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.  And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights... ^V17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.    
V 21-23 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.  Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.  Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

~Only Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives and two of every kind of animal, (7 pairs of the clean animals).  Everything else had been washed away.  Only those who were in the ark had been saved. Why?  It all goes back to Genesis 6:9b "...he walked faithfully with God"

         ^{Hebrews 11:7 says "}By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith."

  Noah obeyed God even though everyone around Him was wicked.  He had made a resolution to follow God.  He was determined to be faithful no matter what! How do you find yourself today?

            What will your resolution be this year, the next and for the rest of your life?  

                                      May you always be found faithful!

 

 

Time for spring cleaning!

     Have you done your spring cleaning yet?  Opened the windows, wash the walls, clean out the closets, get rid of unnecessary things that you no longer use... like that bridesmaids dress from ten years.  The concept of spring cleaning is nothing new, just take a look at at 

Exodus 12: 17-20

        “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.  For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel.  Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.  

        Every year around the world Jewish women would clean out all their cupboards of everything that had leaven in it, (yeast), all the breads, cakes, donuts, and Twinkies.  They would bag it up and give it to their Gentile neighbor.  Then they would scrub down everything.  They did this so that their homes would be ready for the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. Why all this fuss about leaven?  Well according to the Bible leaven (or yeast) was quite often refereed to as sin. 

1 Corinthians 5:8
Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

     In order for Lord to come and dwell within, we need to get rid of all the leaven (sin) within our hearts.

This can only come when we first accept Him as our Savior, but then step two is to continue to make sure we keep our house (our bodies) clean by confessing any sins that may enter in. 

 1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

      Step three is to be in the Word of God.  With all the propaganda out their, we need to have God's truth wash our minds and scrub us clean.

Ephesians 5:26
... to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.

         So this spring...clean out the closet of your soul and allow the Lord to wash you with His word.  You may find a few thing you need to get rid of through confession, but in the end you will feel squeaky clean! 

     

WHO WILL GO?

     “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
      The whole earth is full of His glory!”

 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.  So I said:

     “Woe is me, for I am undone!
       Because I am a man of unclean lips,
      And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
      For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.”

 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. ⁷ And he touched my mouth with it, and said:

     “Behold, this has touched your lips;
      Your iniquity is taken away,
      And your sin purged.”

⁸ Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:

     “Whom shall I send,
      And who will go for Us?”

Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

     ~Isaiah 6:3-8 NKJV 

Are you ready to say. "Here am I! Send me." ?  To go, do or say whatever the Lord directs you to do?  It may not be Africa that He wants to send you, it could be the neighbors next door.  There are people right here, in our own backyard that need to know that their is hope.   If you look further into the chapter, Isaiah did not have a very happy message for the people of Israel. God was tired of waiting for His people to turn away from worthless idols and turn back to Him, so he allowing another nation to carry them away. 

 Then I said, “Lord, how long?”

And He answered:

“Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant,
The houses are without a man,
The land is utterly desolate, The Lord has removed men far away,
And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

However, there is a small hope:

  But yet a tenth will be in it,
And will return and be for consuming,
As a terebinth tree or as an oak,
Whose stump remains when it is cut down.
So the holy seed shall be its stump.”

A tenth of the people will be left, so that through them God's seed will remain, and not just any seed; the holy seed...

        And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.  And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

      ~ Luke 1:31, 32  

     THIS is our Hope!

“And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You!
     ~Psalm 39:7

     So who will go?  Who will share this hope with a dying world? Who will will say?  Here am I?  
      ~Oh Lord, stir up our hearts and let us be obedient to your calling in our lives.  Let us share the hope that we have in You with others. In Jesus' name. Amen.

The Right Seasoning

     The Lord works in marvelous and interesting ways.  Today as I went out shopping I encountered a fellow brother in the Lord and somehow we got into a conversation about friend potatoes.

     In order to make delicious fried potatoes, it all starts with the right potato.  For me, it has to be the Red Potato. Then you need to add just the right seasoning to your potatoes; dried onions, rosemary, chives, and some salt.  Shake these up and bake them in the oven and your on your way to a mouth watering dinner.  

     In all this the Lord spoke to me and gave me this illustration for the kind of people the Lord is looking for. 

     First, He needs just the right person.  In order to be the right person, you need to be born again.  Repent, turn from your sin, ask forgiveness and believe on Jesus as your Lord.  Congrats; your passed the first test.  Now you need some seasoning, and that can only come by spending time with the Lord in prayer and in His word.

    Mathew 5: 13 says, "Let me tell you why you are here.  You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.  If you lose your saltiness, How will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage."  (The Message)  God want us to be seasoning, so that the world will be able to taste the goodness of the Lord.  Psalm 34:8 says, "Oh taste and see that the Lord is good..." (NKJV)  But as you saw, the verse in Mathew, says we can loose our seasoning.  How is this possible?  We're not talking about our salvation here.  We are talking about our effectiveness.  If we are not spending time in God's word or in His presence in prayer, then we will not be as effective.  It would be like eating those same potatoes without all the seasoning. Oh sure it would be eatable, but it wouldn't have much flavor.  I don't know about you, but I would rather have some flavor to my food.  Not only that, but when you make that one dish that others talk about, why would you want to change it and leave out the secret ingredient?  When we include the Lord in our lives then people will talk about it!


     The Lord wants to season your life today, so get into His kitchen and let Him add just the right seasoning, so that others around you will taste the goodness and want to have your recipe!  Secret ingredient: JESUS!

What's in a name?

     I really like the little city that I live in, not too big or too small.  One of the things I like the most is it's name: La Porte.  La Porte is a french word which means "The Door" or opening in the trees, which later gave birth to this city. When I think of the meaning of "The Door", immediately I come to John 10:7 "Then Jesus said to them again, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep."  Jesus is the door, the gate, the only way to get to the Father. The very name of Jesus Christ, which in Hebrew is Yeshua Ha'Mashhiach means God saves/ The Messiah. Unfortunately, when you translate YeShua Ha' Mashiach into English it looses it full meaning.  Since it should be Jesus the Messiah not Christ. In the new testament the Greeks did not have a word for Messiah, so as a result they rendered it to the closest thing: anointed one.  However, this rendering does not give the true meaning of who Jesus was, especially not for the Jewish people.  As far as they are concerned, Abraham, Moses, David and the patriarchs were anointed, but the Messiah? Now that's a different story!
     Now you may be saying, so... so what's in a name?  Everything!  The Jewish people have always put a lot of thought into the importance of names. Children were given names because of what it meant, not just because it sounded pretty.  Example: Hannah names her son Samuel because it means heard of God; God answered her prayers and gave her this son.  Names are important, so how much more then the name of Jesus.  Try talking about Jesus Christ to your Jewish friend, neighbor or co-worker.  They may raise their eyes at you, but they'll just say to themselves. "Oh, the gentile's god", but mention the name Yeshua Ha'Mashiach and you'll get their attention.... either they'll want to know more or they'll get anger and walk away.  Either way, you'll have their attention and they'll know whom it is you believe in.
     It is the Messiah that the world was waiting for, it the Messiah who came, and it is the Messiah who will come again. However, for many Jewish people they are still waiting for Him to come the 1st time.  This is why it's important to not only pray for them but talk to them about your relationship with YeShua Ha Mashiach.
The Jewish Messiah who came to save Jews and Gentiles alike, so that we could be one in HIM!