How To Understand Scripture

HOW TO UNDERSTAND SCRIPTURE

Our Creator God knew we humans would need a standard by which to govern our lives, so He chose certain men to record His Word in print. This written Word of God we call "The Holy Bible", and it is now available in many languages and various translations. The original word was given to these men over a period of many years, and recorded in basically two languages Hebrew and Greek. Because we are mostly dependent on our English translations, we need certain guidelines to follow, to make sure we are getting the exact meaning of what these original writers intended us to know. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 3:16), the same Holy Spirit who indwells us followers of Jesus today, so we should be sure to seek His guidance for the correct understanding of what we read from His Word.

A fairly simple way of understanding scripture came to me from a little booklet called "Understanding Scripture at Face Value". The authors Robert Van Kampen, and Charles Cooper explain face value as "the normal, natural, customary sense of the text intended by the Author/author at the time it was written. This booklet has helped me to understand how the church has been led to believe certain doctrines that are not really based on God's Word. The 5 principles given in this booklet are as follows.

1/ Seek to discover the Author/author's intended meaning. Each and every passage of scripture has only one meaning, although it may have more than one possible application. This meaning was determined by the author at the time of writing, never by the reader!
2/ Recognize the importance of context. Only when we know and understand the context in which a text is written, will we know how the writer intended the passage to be understood.
3/ When ever possible, let scripture interpret scripture. Always interpret difficult passages in the light of clear passages.
4/ Determine the literal reference of figures of speech. A figure of speech is "any deviation either in thought or expression, from the ordinary and simple way of speaking.
5/ Look for near/far implications and applications in prophetic passages. In other words the same scripture may apply to more than one certain time. For example in
(2 Sam 7:5-16) the prophet Nathan's message to King David applied to his son Solomon, as well as to Jesus,  who is referred to as the heir of David's throne forever!

If these 5 principles are followed faithfully when studying scripture, be prepared for finding out that many doctrines you have been taught as truth, are really not! In other words, some people have presented their own theories as if they were truth based on God's Word, when if fact they were trying to make the scriptures confirm their theory by putting their own meaning on them. We must never be guilty of doing that! Someone has referred to this as "Experiential Theology", or in other words taking some experience and attempting to find scriptures to support their experience, instead of checking to make sure their experience lines up with scripture! God's Word properly interpreted and understood is "Absolute Truth"!!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

THE WEDDING GARMENT

THE WEDDING GARMENT

Jesus told a parable as recorded in (Matt 22:1-14), which involved a king who arranged a wedding for his son, and sent out invitations to various people to come to the wedding. But verse five states that "they made light of it", and refused to come. After several attempts failed, he sent his servants out "into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests" (Matt 22:10) NKJV. When the king went in to inspect the guests, he found one man who didn't have on a "wedding garment", who was cast out into "outer darkness". The parable ends in verse 14 with "For many are called, but few are chosen".

Like all of the parables that Jesus told, this one is definitely meant to teach us a lesson. This one would seem to be telling us that there needs to be a proper garment that must be worn to qualify us to attend the wedding of the King's Son, which we can safely assume, is referring to is the marriage of Jesus to His true Church. In other words not everyone who is invited to be at this special event will accept the invitation. And even not everyone who accepts will be qualified, unless they are wearing the proper garment. These people would be like those listed in (Matt 7:21-23), who thought their spiritual attainments would qualify them for entrance into the Kingdom! So what is this special wedding garment that is essential for entrance into the eternal Kingdom of God?

One scripture passage that helps to give the possible answer I believe is found in (2 Cor 5:17-21). Here we read about all those who are "in Christ", become new creations, and that "God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" NKJV. As I understand this scripture, the moment we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are "born again" of the Spirit, and then become "in Christ", and receive our own personal "wedding garment"! This is our true ticket, so to speak, for admission into the wedding ceremonies in heaven. This is when Jesus and the true Church, that He has been in the process of creating for the last 2000 years, finally come together! (Matt 16:18). So we can see that obtaining this wedding garment is the most important thing that you can receive. And remember it is a gift from God, and we can never do anything to earn it, it is definitely grace plus nothing. Religious activities will never take the place of this, no matter how much we may strive for it!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

Tough And Tender Truth

A HUGE QUESTION

The Holy Scriptures gives us many examples of the contrast between people who are considered the "righteous", and those that are considered "wicked". Proverbs chapter 37 would be a case in point, there are at least 8 times the little word "but" is used to distinguish between the two. We can see there is a tremendous difference between the two, especially regarding their eternal destinies! And yet we read that "God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). And we know from (John 3:16) that God so loves the whole world that He sent Jesus to redeem us from the penalty of sin. This leaves us with a huge question, what then constitutes the difference between the righteous and the wicked in God's eyes, that His Word would make a clear distinction between the two?

I'm sure there are deep theological issues here that my simple mind can not comprehend, but just consider these points of truth. First off, Jesus declared that "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), so we can be sure that He knows the answer to this question. Before He left this earth after He had finished His task of providing redemption for mankind, He sent the Holy Spirit to take His place here on earth. (John 14:26). Since, as followers of Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, all we need do is ask Him the answer to questions like this. I have done this, and what came to my mind was the fact that God created each of us with a free will, that allows us to make choices. We sometimes make right choices, but sometimes make wrong choices, like Paul explains to us in chapter 7 of his letter to the church in Rome. Our carnal fleshly nature always wants us to make the wrong choices, while the Holy Spirit tries to guide us to make the right choices. Paul explains this struggle in (Gal 5:16-17), and we can all relate to this fact!

Because of the foreknowledge of God, He knew the choices we will make, before we make them. (Rom 8:29), but we must allow His Holy Spirit to help us make the right choice every time! This requires a complete yielding of our will to His, but even when we fail, we have the provision He has made for us as recorded in (1 John 1:9), so we are covered, providing we obey His Word. Thank God He loves us enough to provide everything we need, but we must provide the obedience, which He cannot do for us! So the answer to our problem as I see it is to follow the advice of the apostle Paul in his letter to the churches in Galatia that we mentioned above!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

WWJD orWDJD

WWJD or WDJD?

Most of us have heard and probably were involved in the recent fad of repeating WWJD (what would Jesus do), in any given situation. That is a good question for anyone to think of before making any major decision in their life. But recently I heard a take off on this expression, expressed by the letters WDJD (what did Jesus do). In my mind this expresses a much more important question that we should carefully consider. This takes in the complete matter of salvation, or our redemption from our sinful condition inherited from the first Adam. (Rom 5:12) If we read more in the letter of Romans, the apostle Paul gives a clear presentation of what the Bible often refers to as the "Gospel of the Kingdom". He starts with chapter 1:16 where we read "For I am not ashamed of the good news about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile" NLT. Then he goes on in chapters 1 and 2 to define the sins that God hates. In (Rom 3:10-18, and 23) he makes it clear that all of us have sinned, and absolutely no one is righteous before a holy God, and in (Rom 6:23) he clearly states that the wages (what we earn for our labor) is death!

Here is where the good news, which is the gospel of the Kingdom, comes into play. Only God Himself could provide the cure for the human dilemma that we all found ourselves in. Only the death of a perfectly sinless human being could satisfy the wrath of our holy God against the sin of mankind! This is what we celebrate on December 25th, the birth of Jesus Christ, the only "virgin born man" who ever lived on earth! He became "Immanuel" (God with us) see (Matt 1:18-23) for the message given to Joseph by the angel Gabriel. In spite of all the pagan practices that have been introduced into church traditions over the years, this day is meant to be a sacred day to give thanks to Almighty God for this incredible gift of a Savior!

Our New Testament portion of the Bible, which is God's written word, gives us the complete history of the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As well as the history of the early years of the Church that He is in the process of building for over 2000 years now. (Matt 16:18). As well as the record of His coming return to earth to receive the true Church, when the Father gives Him permission. This can only happen when this true Church makes herself ready, and God's time is right! So in the meantime this is a brief history of WDJD!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

TWO GREAT APOSTLES

TWO GREAT APOSTLES

In the first century after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, two men rose up as apostles in the early church. At that time the whole known world was divided between "Jews" and "Gentiles" (non-Jews). The Jews were descendants of Abraham, and were known throughout scripture as God's "chosen people", that He had set apart from the other nations to show them how God, their Creator expected them to live. Paul is known as the apostle to the Gentiles, while Peter is known as the apostle to the Jews. It seems to me that they must have made some agreement between themselves, that If Paul would allow Peter to write a two part letter to the Gentile churches that he had established, he in turn would allow Paul to write a letter to the Hebrew church centered in Jerusalem. This is only speculation on my part, but the evidence seems quite clear to me, that they were clearly addressing the churches in each others area of responsibility. I know the theologians can't agree on who wrote Hebrews, because no author is named, but the writing style points to Paul in my opinion!

Paul was given clear revelation about the true church consisting of both Jews and Gentiles when he wrote his letter to the church in Ephesus. This is part of the great mystery that God revealed to Paul as recorded in (Eph 2:14-22). And then in (1 Peter 1:1-2) he clearly identifies who he is writing to, and later in (1 Peter 2:9-10) you would think he was writing to Jews. He refers to them as "God's chosen people" and a "holy nation"! These people were born as Gentiles (non Jews), but are now "new creatures in Christ" (2 Cor 5:17), as were the Jews in Jerusalem after they believed in Jesus, and accepted Him as their Savior! God is no respecter of persons, but loves the whole world with His Agape love. (John 3:16), and expects us as followers of Jesus, to do the same!   

We may not be apostles like Paul and Peter, but we are considered as "Christ's ambassadors", with a ministry of reconciling people to God. We often think that this is reserved for pastors or missionaries to far countries, but now God is bringing a great mixture of these nations, with various religious backgrounds, right here to our own city! What an opportunity to practice our ministry of reconciliation, without leaving our home city. God is bringing the nations to us, to learn about His amazing love and acceptance!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

THE TRUE GOSPEL

THE TRUE GOSPEL

Today we hear of many "different gospels", or we might say counterfeits of the real thing. Because there is a real thing there can be counterfeit copies, as in the case of counterfeit twenty dollar bills. Satan is a liar and a deceiver, and is able to duplicate all of God's gifts, except "love". As far as I know that is the one thing he doesn't know anything about! Jesus said all he knows about is how to "steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10). So we can be sure he is behind the different gospels circulating throughout the "church" today.

Jesus used the term "gospel of the Kingdom" in (Matt 4:23-24, 9:35-36, and 24:14) to explain the gospel (good news) that He preached. He explained that it included healing and deliverance from demons, as well as salvation and forgiveness of sin. In chapter 24:14 he states clearly that this gospel of the Kingdom must be preached to every group of people in the world before He can be given clearance from His father to return to receive His Bride, and then "the end will come". So this is the true gospel that we should be hearing from our pulpits, but sad to say it is often a "watered down version" we hear that leaves out sin, the cross and the blood of Christ that cleanses us from sin.

Paul defined the gospel he preached in (1 Cor 15:1-4) in his first letter to the church he had founded in the wicked city of Corinth. In his letter to the church in Rome in (Rom 1:16) he states "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek". I'm sure he was referring to the same gospel of the Kingdom as Jesus was. But only a year later in his second letter to the church in Corinth, I was surprised to read in
(2 Cor 11:3-4) about some false teacher coming to these same believers, and corrupting their minds with a "different spirit", preaching a "different gospel", and presenting "another Jesus" to them. And they believed this false teacher and were deceived! And this only one year after being saved by believing the true gospel that Paul preached! It's almost impossible to believe, but shows clearly the power of deception. If this were possible back then, we better believe the same thing can happen in our day, and indeed has been happening in many parts of the modern 21st century church. Jesus warned us that this would happen. (Matt 24:4,5,11 and 24)!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

KEY TO VICTORY OVER TEMPTATION

KEY TO VICTORY OVER TEMPTATION

Everyone has trouble with temptations of many kinds, while listening to a teaching CD by Bob Mumford recently, this thought came to me. It is tied to a little poem that Bob quoted, which goes like this.
"Tobacco is a dirty weed,
they say it fills no human need,
it makes you thin, it makes you lean,
it takes the hair right off your bean,
But I like it!"
The moral of this silly little poem as I see it, is that we can never be delivered from a habit that we like, even if it is destroying you. I think you can apply this to any evil habit that you might be trying to quit. God has promised us victory over our enemies, but not our friends, or things that we love to do! So if you like some evil habit that you are perhaps even "addicted" to, the only hope of being set free from it, as near as I can see, is to count it as an enemy.

Another fact that I learned from listening to this teaching by Bob, is that what we focus on always enlarges, or expands. In other words if we see a sign like "Wet Paint Do Not Touch", or "Keep Off The Grass", what is the first thing you want to do? Our fallen nature, which has been handed down from Adam, just naturally wants to disobey every restriction placed upon us. If we focus on positive, God honoring things, the scripture from Paul given to the church at Philippi, gives us some good advice. (Phil 4:8-9). Then there is a passage in Paul's letter to the churches in Galatia, recorded in (Gal 5:16-26) that speaks to this same issue. God has provided us with His Holy Spirit, to help us with this struggle with our fleshly nature. A careful reading of these verses point out clearly the difference between the "works of the flesh", and the "fruit of the Spirit". The works of the flesh will result in our failure to enter into our heavenly inheritance, (verse 21). While the fruit of the Spirit will produce in our lives, the character of Jesus Christ. This Is the real 7 fold DNA of God the Father, as outlined in (Exod 34:6-7). These qualities recorded by Moses were God's own self described parts of His very being, 1/ Compassion,
 2/ Grace, 3/ Slow to anger, 4/ Merciful, 5/ Truth, 6/ Faithful, and
7/ Forgiving. When Jesus said "I and the Father are one", we know that He came to put a face on the Father, so to speak, since God is a Spirit and is invisible. (John 4:24)!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

BULL'S EYE

BULL'S EYE

We are all familiar with this expression, which represents the center of a target we might use for target shooting with a gun or a bow and arrow. The goal is always to hit the bull's eye, but we seldom do. (Rom 3:23) tells that "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God". In other words we have not hit our goal which is always the bull's eye. For us as followers of Jesus, this would be the perfect will of God, or as scripture defines it as "holiness". In (Heb 12:14) we read "Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord". NKJV. I heard of a man who bragged about hitting the bull's eye painted on the side of his barn with an arrow, which he left in place to show his friends. The truth was however that he had first shot the arrow, and then painted the bull's eye around it! In (Prov 14:12) we read "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death". In other words our ways or ideas are not always in line with God's ways!

We might say that God has painted a bull's eye around certain truths, so to speak, and these should be targets for us to aim for as we live our lives as followers of Jesus. God's overall goal is for us to become more like Christ in our behavior day by day. And for this reason He has written His Word as our guide. (2 Tim 3:16-17). We need to read the scriptures daily, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what He gave to the authors who wrote the words they used in the original documents. Remember, whichever English translation we use is some translator's choice of words, and not necessarily always the best choice. That's why we need to check out important passages in other translations, to get the best understanding of the real meaning. Like the believers in Berea did, as recorded in (Acts 17:11). We need to pray "Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth" (Ps 86:11)

We all need to aim at the right target, which God has been faithful to direct the original authors of His Word, to use plain easy to understand words and phrases. Some theologians have complicated God's Word with their theories, which have been accepted by the church as being inspired by God. Some of these theories line up with scripture, but some do not, and have brought a lot of confusion to believers. To borrow a phrase from a recent ODB devotional "When we aim our lives at God's Word, we'll discover that His ways are right on target—every time"!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer   

How to Understand Scripture

HOW TO UNDERSTAND SCRIPTURE

 

Our Creator God knew we humans would need a standard by which to govern our lives, so He chose certain men to record His Word in print. This written Word of God we call "The Holy Bible", and it is now available in many languages and various translations. The original word was given to these men over a period of many years, and recorded in basically two languages Hebrew and Greek. Because we are mostly dependent on our English translations, we need certain guidelines to follow, to make sure we are getting the exact meaning of what these original writers intended us to know. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 3:16), the same Holy Spirit who indwells us followers of Jesus today, so we should be sure to seek His guidance for the correct understanding of what we read from His Word.

 

A fairly simple way of understanding scripture came to me from a little booklet called "Understanding Scripture at Face Value". The authors Robert Van Kampen, and Charles Cooper explain face value as "the normal, natural, customary sense of the text intended by the Author/author at the time it was written. This booklet has helped me to understand how the church has been led to believe certain doctrines that are not really based on God's Word. The 5 principles given in this booklet are as follows.

 

1/ Seek to discover the Author/author's intended meaning. Each and every passage of scripture has only one meaning, although it may have more than one possible application. This meaning was determined by the author at the time of writing, never by the reader!

2/ Recognize the importance of context. Only when we know and understand the context in which a text is written, will we know how the writer intended the passage to be understood.

3/ When ever possible, let scripture interpret scripture. Always interpret difficult passages in the light of clear passages.

4/ Determine the literal reference of figures of speech. A figure of speech is "any deviation either in thought or expression, from the ordinary and simple way of speaking.

5/ Look for near/far implications and applications in prophetic passages. In other words the same scripture may apply to more than one certain time. For example in

(2 Sam 7:5-16) the prophet Nathan's message to King David applied to his son Solomon, as well as to Jesus,  who is referred to as the heir of David's throne forever!

 

If these 5 principles are followed faithfully when studying scripture, be prepared for finding out that many doctrines you have been taught as truth, are really not! In other words, some people have presented their own theories as if they were truth based on God's Word, when if fact they were trying to make the scriptures confirm their theory by putting their own meaning on them. We must never be guilty of doing that! Someone has referred to this as "Experiential Theology", or in other words taking some experience and attempting to find scriptures to support their experience, instead of checking to make sure their experience lines up with scripture! God's Word properly interpreted and understood is "Absolute Truth"!!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer

APPLICATIONS

APPLICATIONS

I understand that many cell-phones are now "smart phones", to which can be added all kinds of features. You can do almost everything on them that you can do on a computer! These various additions are called "apps", which is short for applications. Most of us may not have a smart phone with lots of apps added to it, but we have something far superior! Our Bible, which is the written Word of God, is readily available to all of us, and contains all the apps we will ever need to meet any situation! These apps are personally made available by our Creator God, through His Holy Spirit, using His Holy Word, to help us solve problems. We don't need the Internet.

Consider certain scriptures like the second chapter of Paul's letter to the church in Philippi for example. In verse 2 we see the "unity app", in verse 3 the "humility app", in verse 14 the "no-grumbling app", in verse 15 the "shine-as-lights app", and so on etc, etc. You get the point, I'm sure!  Or take the fifth chapter of Ephesians as another example, the "imitate-God app" (5:1), the "walk-in-love app" (5:2), the "purity app" (5:3) and so on. The book of Proverbs is loaded with apps, as well as many other books in our Bible.  So we have no excuse, and don't need to depend on any "smart phone" to live a full active life.

Modern technology has more or less taken over our lives in this 21st century world, and most of it is meant for our benefit. It all helps us do things faster, and easier, but is that necessarily better? It seems the most often used expressions these days refer to time. We never seem to have enough to accomplish what we want to do. Some of us older folks can remember when we seemed to get more done without all the modern technology that we have today. Have the use of "smart phones", and all the other gadgets available today really made our lives better? Or have they only added more stress, and taken time that could be spent searching for answers to our problems in our Bibles? I don't pretend to know the answer, but do have a lot of questions about how much time these modern technologies really save us? Probably the answer is a proper balance in how we make use of the 24 hours that we each have available to us, and how we set our priorities! We read in
(Ps 31:14-15) NKJV "But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord; I say you are my God. My times are in your hand". If this is true, and we know it is because it is His Word, then we have the answer, just trust Him to lead us!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

OFFENCES

OFFENCES

We have all been offended at one time or another on our spiritual journey by people, and how they have treated us. There is a very interesting verse in the OT about offences. (Ps 119:165). In the KJV it reads "Great peace have they which love Thy law:  and nothing shall offend them." Other translations use different words, such as the NLT "Those who love your instructions have great peace and do not stumble". But the message is the same, offences are a cause of "stumbling", and knowledge of, and love for God's Word, is the means of preventing offences! This would seem to be an easy answer to preventing this problem of being offended. Then why don't we just read and heed God's eternal Word, that is "Forever settled in heaven" (Ps 119:89)? That is probably one of those questions that are difficult to answer!

In the NT we read of people being offended by some statements of Jesus. For example in (Matt 13:53-57) when Jesus taught in His home town of Nazareth, verse 57 states "And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in Him" NLT. Jesus often made statements that offended people, and His Word still offends certain people today. Especially when it clearly states something that they don't want to hear! Our society has become so "ego-centric", or focused on self, that we only want to hear things that make us feel good. Our Creator God knows what we need to hear, to help us grow in our faith, and to become more like His Son. So when He sees us getting off in our pursuit of other things, and following the ways of the world, He will use His Word to bring correction to us. But because of our carnal nature that wants its own way, we can become "offended" by the truth of the Word.

There is a very scary scripture recorded in (2 Thess 2:9-11), in the NLT we read about the effect of believing the lies of the coming Antichrist "He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those who are on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. So God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe these lies. Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil rather than believing the truth". Paul is very clear in this chapter that Jesus cannot come back until after the Antichrist appears on the scene. This truth offends certain people who have believed in a "any moment" rapture. We need to "love and accept the truth" in order to prevent being deceived! This is a critical truth for followers of Jesus to understand!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

ELECTION

ELECTION    

The residents of New Brunswick have just come through an election that has seen the ruling Liberal Party defeated after only one term in office. So for the last month or so, we have been bombarded with election talk. However I have a different type of election in mind, one that is mentioned in the Bible in various places. One of these places is in (Eph 1:3-14), where Paul uses the term "in Christ" several times. This is a very important NT phrase, and implies that the moment we repent from our sinful ways (Rom 3:23), and receive Jesus as our Savior, we are "born again" into the Family of God, and are then "in Christ" for eternity. (see John 1:10-13). Then in (2 Cor 5:17) we read about anyone who is "in Christ" is a "new creation", this refers to our new birth (John 3:3-5), or our now being part of the "New Covenant".

This is the position we find ourselves in as followers of Jesus, we didn't deserve it, as members of the fallen race of human descendants of Adam, but because of God's grace, He accepted us as part of "His Forever Family"! This is the heart of the gospel, that our Creator God would make provision for us to become part of His family. This is all part of what the Bible refers to as "election", or "predestination" (Rom 8:29-30). In other words, as I understand it, even before He created our universe, He knew by His "foreknowledge", those humans who would accept His offer of grace, and receive the gift of salvation, and those who would not. He created us all with a free will to make choices, and He always respects our freedom to choose. Some people believe that predestination means that God has predestined some to be saved, and some to be lost. But this is a false teaching, based on a lack of understanding of God's foreknowledge. Because He knows everything in advance, he knows the choices we will make, before we make them! That should put the "fear of God" into the heart of all of us, and make us a lot more thankful for His grace!

A brief study of scriptures that mention election, like (Rom 11:28) and
(2 Peter 1:10-11), along with (Rom 8:29-30), should help us to understand a little more how great and marvelous God's provision for us is in His Son!
The next time you read Paul's letters, like Ephesians or Colossians, count the number of times he uses the phrase "in Christ". And then thank God for the words of Peter to "make your call and election sure" (2 Peter 1:10)!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

VIRUSES

VIRUSES

I recently read an article on viruses like the H1N1 pandemic last fall. The statement was made that viruses are living organisms that need a "host" in order to survive and wreak their havoc. In some cases a virus can be present for years before the host is even aware of it. Also a virus can mutate into a different form in order to avoid detection, as if it had a mind of its own! When I read this I thought about evil spirits, or demons, as the scriptures describe them. As you are aware Jesus spent a lot of His ministry time casting them out of people. Actually often when He cast them out, the person received their healing. So demons and sickness or disease are closely connected. People who live with an "Eastern World View" understand the invisible realm of the spirit much better than those of us who live in the West, with a "Western World View". We tend to see things through a lens based on a humanistic, rationalistic, mindset, which has no understanding of anything that can't be proven scientifically. This leaves us at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to the supernatural invisible realm, which according to Paul is more real than what we can detect with our five senses.
(2 Cor 4:18)   

However, because Father God has given to followers of His Son Jesus, the Holy Spirit, to replace Jesus when He went back to be with the Father; we now have the ability to understand the invisible spiritual realm. In Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth, he gave instructions on receiving, and properly making use of the spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit. We find this information in chapters 12, 13, and 14, which should be studied carefully, to know how to mature in the use of these gifts. In (1 Cor 12:10) we read "He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or another spirit" (NLT).  The "other spirit" would of course be a demon, and Satan's purpose would be to lead people into deception. He is known as the "deceiver of the brethren", and there have been many cases in church history where this exact thing happened. We need to heed the warning of Jesus and the apostles to beware of false teachers or prophets who will come into our midst in these last days. See (Matt 24:23-25), and (2 Cor 11:12-15) for clear warnings from both Jesus and Paul! In light of these warnings, we should be praying for this gift of discerning of spirits mentioned above.
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer

TEMPTATION

TEMPTATION

Many people confuse temptation with sin, as if it were sin to be tempted. We know from reading (Matt 4:1-11) that Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness immediately after being baptized by John in the Jordan River, and receiving the Holy Spirit from heaven. But we know that even though He was tempted in all ways such as we might be, He remained "sinless"! So we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that temptation and sin is not the same thing. If Jesus had accepted any one of Satan's suggestions, He would have disqualified Himself from being the Savior we know Him to be! The devil offered Him three chances to short circuit going to the cross, but He answered every one with "it is written". In other words, He defeated every attempt by Satan to temp Him to disobey the Father's plan of redemption.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, addresses this subject in his letter. (James 1:13-15). He makes a clear statement that God is never involved in temping us, but "Temptation comes from our own desires which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death." NLT. So temptation always starts with an evil desire, followed by yielding to that desire, both of which involve a choice on our part. We can never claim "the devil made me do it", like some comedian made famous. Even though he might have been involved in tempting us like he tempted Jesus, we can choose not to listen to him! The same answer Jesus used is the best, providing we know enough scriptures to use it effectively at the right time!

We must remember that if we are a born again follower of Jesus, we have the same Holy Spirit living in our redeemed life that Jesus had. He never did any ministry until after receiving the Holy Spirit at His baptism, so we are in the same position. If the Spirit has come upon us, as He did on the disciples on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:8), then we have the same power source as Jesus had. This is hard for us to believe, because Jesus was the Son of God, and we have a hard time believing that we too are "children of God", and "joint heirs" with Jesus. (Rom 8:12-17). Don't let the devil tell you that you are just a "sinner saved by grace". God's Word says you are now a "saint that sometimes sins", but He has made provision for that! (1 John 1:9)!

Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer