CHRISTMAS DAY Dec 25, 2013

CHRISTMAS DAY Dec 25, 2013

 

The calendar tells me that today is the day that we celebrate each year, the day that Jesus came from heaven to earth as a tiny babe in Bethlehem so that we might know what our Creator God looks like. (Heb 1:1-4) NLT. "Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, He has spoken to us through the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son He, God promised everything as an inheritance, and through the Son He created the universe. The Son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God, and He sustains everything by the mighty power of His command. When He had cleansed us from our sins, He sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the God in heaven. This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the Name God gave Him is greater than their names". To realize the true significance of why Jesus came, we must add to the "cradle" in the hay filled manger, "the Cross on mount Calvary", plus the "empty tomb" in which He spent three days, in order to understand the full meaning of our "salvation" that is ours, who are "born again" members of the "body of Christ" on earth today!!

 

Most of the people in our world who have never been exposed to the "Gospel of the Kingdom", unfortunately don't have a clue about the real meaning of this special day that we followers of Jesus celebrate as a "Holy Day". And especially in our Western World we have allowed "materialism" and the desire for "things", to be the focus of this day and very little, if indeed any thought, of it being the day to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, who came to earth to destroy the effects of sin, is even mentioned. I'm sure this must be very displeasing to our loving heavenly Father, who sent His Son down to our sin-cursed earth to "reverse the curse" brought on creation by the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. (Gen 3:1-7)

 

What sets the Christmas season this year apart from past years is a rather severe freezing rain storm that affected parts of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces, with heavy ice build up on the trees and power lines, causing wide spread power outages. Toronto was particularly hard hit with a lot of damage, and our part of NB where we have a lot of trees scattered among our housing developments. Our power was off for most of two days, with just a few minutes return periodically which caused much confusion to many households. I happened to be in SJRH rehab, recovering from another stroke, and managed to get home shortly after 5:00 PM the day before Christmas, when our power returned. So this year will go down in our memories as the year of the "Christmas Ice Storm", but thank the Lord for His grace to our family!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                        25/12/13                                                                                      

GENESIS THREE VERSES 20-24

GENESIS THREE VERSES 20-24                    

 

After Adam and Eve had listened to the lies on the enemy in (Gen 3:1-7) and ate the fruit from the tree of good and evil that God had forbidden them to do, their eyes were opened to the fact that they were naked, and they felt shame for the first time and tried to hide their nakedness with fig leaves. They also tried to hide from God because of their guilt, which of course is an impossible thing to do. It always amazes me to see what people think they can do that God does not see, when of course He knows not only everything we do, but every thought we have before we think it, the amazing thing to my mind is that He loves us with His Agape love in spite of every sin we are guilty of when we confess and repent, that is truly "amazing love" (1 John 1:8-9). The important thing on our part is to acknowledge our sin and confess it and repent, and not try to hide it. Paul tells very clearly in (Rom 3: 9-31) NLT that everyone is not only born as a sinner because we all inherit the effects of the original sin of our first parents, but as soon as we are responsible for our actions, we sin because we are a sinner. So no matter how much we may try to deny it, we are all sinners who deserve to spend eternity in hell, (Rom 6:23). This is especially hard for religious people to accept because they are taught that if they do enough "good works" they can earn their way to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus, but this is just another lie of our enemy Satan.

 

The "Good News" of the "Gospel of The Kingdom of God" is that the sacrificial death of Jesus, the Lamb of God on that "Old Rugged Cross" on Mount Calvary some 2000 years ago, settled our account of sin. It has been wiped from the record by this act of Jesus, and the record was stamped "Paid in Full", so to speak, and no longer exists. This is the message the world needs to hear, once they confess to being a sinner, and repent of their sinful life style, and put their faith and trust in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, at that moment Father "adopts" them into His family and gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit to abide them forever. That is the simple fact based on the scriptures, and any other so-called gospel that tells that you can get to heaven in any other way is a "false gospel" that Paul warns us about in his second letter to the church in Corinth, (2 Cor 11:1-4) that some false teacher had told them soon after Paul had explained the true gospel to them a few years before, see (1 Cor 15:1-6) for the details. And we have many of them appear in the last few decades, as Jesus and Paul warned us about!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                        07/11/13                                                                                  

Logos and Rhema

LOGOS and RHEMA

 

Both of these words in Greek are translated into our English language as "word", but are not the same in meaning. That is why the English language can be considered a very poor substitute to represent either Hebrew or Greek.

Thank God He used these two languages to have His Word, the Bible written in, and not English! The Greek words [Agape] and [Eros] are two other examples of the same thing. Agape is really the God type of love, which is always "giving" unconditionally, with no thought of receiving anything in return. Whereas, Eros is nearly the opposite in meaning and is a love that has the intent of "taking", or always with a hidden motive. It can be considered sensual or sexual, and is often used in that context!

 

"LOGOS" always applies to the complete Word of God, as represented by Jesus in the first chapter of the gospel of John (John 1:1-14), where He is called the "Word of God". It is always used when referring to what we know as the Bible, the written Word of God.

 

"RHEMA" refers to a portion of the Logos that is spoken, or revealed to us for special occasions. We might say that God spoke a word to us, either verbally or revealed to our spirit, but we "know" it was from God. This often happens to followers of Jesus, but however it comes to us it "must" be in line with the Logos! If it is does not line up with some concept that is clearly outlined in the written Word, then it should be discarded! This is especially true if some other person gives you what they consider to be a "word from the Lord" for you. Don't accept it, unless it only serves to confirm some Rhema He has already revealed to you personally! If you are a follower of Jesus, you can hear His voice for yourself (John 10:14, 27), and don't need some so-called "prophetic voice" to speak to you. Perhaps they could be one of the "false prophets" that Jesus warned us would appear on the scene in these last days. (Matt 24:5. 11, 24). In every case, we need "discernment" from God to determine the spirit operating in the various different situations.

He has made available to us a specific gift of His Spirit (1 Cor 12:10), for just such occasions!! PTL!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer

 

A NEW NAME FOR CHURCH

A NEW NAME FOR "CHURCH"

 

I recently read an editorial in the magazine called Mission Frontiers, by Ralph Winter, in which he quotes a man named Bob Goldman. Mr. Goldman makes the point that we should no longer use the term "church planting", but instead we should adopt the term "movements to Christ", or in other words fellowships built on families, not groups made up of loose individuals. His point is well taken because of the misunderstanding of what "church" really means to the average person in our Western society in this 21st century. In recent articles about the church we pointed out the scriptural meaning of the term church, and how it has come to mean something completely different in our day. To quote Mr. Winter "We Americans live in a country where families are almost expected to drift apart, creating artificially 'individualized' people. Thus as a result, we produce artificial 'church' fellowships which collect loose individuals or family fragments into a surrogate family--which we then call a 'church'".

 

In much of the world this fragmentation of the family unit hasn't happened. There we still see families that are truly "multi-generational", which is more like those from NT times. In the scriptures we often read about whole families becoming "worshipping households" when one person from that home accepts Jesus as Savior. This is more the pattern of a local "church" as we see them in the NT. They didn't have buildings called "churches", so they met in each other's homes. This all changed of course in the 4th century when the church became part of the Roman Empire, and large cathedrals were constructed and called churches.

 

Today in our Western world we are seeing a definite move toward so called "house churches", where people can experience true "koinonia" which is more like that mentioned in the NT. Perhaps these groups should even drop the term church from their name, and simply be known as "home fellowships". At least until we understand that the scriptural term "church" does not mean a building, a denomination of churches, or anything other than a group of followers of Jesus meeting for fellowship with their Lord. Jesus did say that wherever "two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among you" (Matt 18:20). It seems to me that is a proper description of "church" as it should be held, according to Jesus. And He should know because He said "I will build My Church" (Matt 16:18). 

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                    2/10/11                                                                      

Forgiveness

FORGIVENESS

The Word of God has a lot to say about the act of forgiveness, but there are certain "myths" that have been circulated throughout the church about forgiveness that are not true! I would like to mention a few that come to mind, and comment briefly on them. The first one that is often heard is "Just forgive and forget!", but this is impossible for us to do in the natural. Yes we can forgive the other person who offended us, but to forget about the damage it did to our relationship is a completely different matter. God forgets, or actually chooses to not remember, our sins once they are confessed, but we humans cannot do that. Our memory bank is such that once that offence has been registered in our brain it is there to stay. To forgive requires an act of our will, but the damage has been done to our emotions and recorded in our memory. So although we may forgive with our mind, and be very sincere about it, the damage caused to our emotions is not healed, and we may never be able to trust that other person again to have a close trusting relationship.

 

Another other thing I consider to be a myth, is believing that you cannot forgive the guilty party unless, and until they confess their wrong actions, and ask for forgiveness. Lots of times they are not even aware that their words or actions have offended you. So you could wait for a very long time, and continue to be offended. The important thing to remember is that you are the one who is suffering, but forgiveness will end this. Someone has said that forgiveness is simply "letting go" of the offense, and beaming out forgiveness in the spirit toward the party involved. They are certainly not suffering, if they are not even aware of the incident, but the act of forgiveness will release you from the pain. After all forgiving actually is the act of canceling out the offense, or writing "paid in full" over the record we have been holding! After all, this is what our loving God does with the record of our sins against Him! (Col 2:13-15)

 

In order to accomplish this however, we must first forgive everyone for every sin ever committed against us. (Matt 6:14-15). Then in (Matt 18:21-35) Jesus tells a very important story of the man who owed his master an enormous debt, but in mercy he forgave it completely. Then he had a friend who owed him a very small debt that he refused to forgive. This man was turned over to the "torturers", or Satan's demons, for not showing mercy to his friend! This is meant to be a warning to us!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer

WORK OR WORKS

WORK OR WORKS

 

We find this word "work" quite often in the Bible, sometimes in the singular and often in the plural form. It can be used both in a positive or a negative sense, like a lot of other words. We want to look at a few samples of both. First we will look at (Heb 6:1) where we see the phrase "repentance from dead works and faith toward God". Today we hear a lot about the word "faith", but very little about "repentance", and I think this could open the door to a lot of wrong doctrine to come into certain parts of the "church". It would appear that these words repentance and faith should always go together. In (2 Peter 3:9) we read that God "is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance". On the Day of Pentecost this same Peter said "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit". (Acts 2:38). Many other scriptures mention "dead works", and our need to repent from them, for example in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, we see John used it in his letters to most of the churches that Jesus told him to write to.

 

But this word is used in lots of time in a positive way, for example in

(Gen 2:2) we read "And on the seventh day God ended the work which He had done". And in (Ps 102:25) "The heavens are the work of Your hands".

Then in (John 17:4) where we read the real Lord's prayer to His Father just before going to the cross, "I have glorified You on the earth, I have finished the work which You have given Me to do". And of course from the cross Jesus cried out with His last breath "It is finished", referring to the work of redemption which only He could do for us! Then in various scripture passages we read about the work He expects us as His followers today, to complete for Him. For example in (Matt 28:18-20) "And Jesus came to them and said all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Sprit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen". This last commandment given to His original followers, would naturally apply to those of us today over 20 centuries later who claim to be followers of Jesus! Are we doing it? And if so, where and how are we doing it, is my parting question!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                             16/05/12                                                          

THE CATCHER

THE CATCHER

 

This was the title of an article in Our Daily Bread this morning by Joe Stowell, one of my favorite authors, He tells of hearing a pastor at a funeral who had told about a trapeze artist who told about always having another person prepared to grab him from another trapeze bar in case he should miss his grip, and start to fall, this teammate could grab him and prevent him from falling to his death. They referred to this man as "The Catcher", and the pastor compared this man to the role of Jesus, and used the common scripture of (John 14:1-3) as his text. This scripture is often used at funerals to bring comfort to the family members. The Greek word that is sometimes translated as "mansions" in verse 2 is translated as "abode" or sometimes as "home" in verse 23 of the same chapter. Paul,  "the apostle to the Gentiles", when he wrote his letter to the church he had started in Ephesus, used this very same Greek word in (Eph 2:22), where it is translated as "dwelling" in the NLT version, or "abode" or "home" in others. Paul here is clearly referring to the "Church" that Jesus has been in the process of building for the past 2000 years.

 

This confusion that was caused by using "mansion" in this one instance has caused most people to believe Jesus is up in heaven building their idea of a personal luxury home for every "Christian". When it is very clear that this word refers to "His Church" that He is building, with the help of the Holy Spirit here on earth, that will be transported from heaven to earth someday. (Rev 21:1-3) The Holy Spirit was sent to earth to replace Jesus when He returned to the Father, after He had completed the work of "redemption". Now He is awaiting the Father's permission to return to earth at the proper time to receive His "Church/Bride", that is being prepared here on earth now. This true Church is composed of all "born again" sinners from every tribe, nation, and race, who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and been "adopted" by the Father into His Forever Family! So this title used by Joe in this short article, can indeed be used for Jesus in His role of "Savior", or as "The Catcher" to save His people from their sin. That makes me think of an old hymn called "He Hideth My Soul", and the first verse states "A Wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord, a wonderful Savior to me". I remember one time in the hospital a few years ago when I was waiting for a transfusion after losing a lot of blood, early in the morning about 3:00 AM, and the enemy thought he had me, those words revived me!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                 14/03/12                                                                   

The Promised Helper

THE PROMISED HELPER

 One of my favorite passages of scripture is found in the gospel of John chapters 13-17, starting with Jesus washing the feet of His 12 disciples and ending with the rather lengthy prayer of Jesus to His Father. Here is where we see clearly as Jesus realizes His time on earth in His physical body is approaching the end; He tries to prepare his disciples for the soon coming events that must happen in order to fulfill the "cosmic plan" that was made in "eternity past" before creation. This plan included the words of God recorded by Moses "Then God said let us make human beings in our image, to be like us" (Gen 1:26) NLT. This plan included the Son Jesus coming down to earth as "Agape Incarnate" to redeem the result of the "fall of Adam" into sin. This required the death of a perfect "sinless man" like the First Adam was when he was created, before God's enemy lied to Adam and his wife Eve, and they believed his lies and disobeyed the only command of their Creator, about not eating the "forbidden fruit" of the tree of good and evil. See particularly (John 16:7-11) where Jesus told them what this "Helper", the Holy Spirit would do when He came to replace Jesus.

Jesus clearly explained to His disciples how their lives would be different after He returned to be honored by Father after He completed His assignment that He was sent to earth for. After He arose from the tomb on the third day, He remained for 40 days before ascending to heaven spending time with the disciples, and telling them to stay in Jerusalem "until" they received the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-11), and as this scene was recorded by Luke to explain what was happening on earth, King David had already given us the scene in heaven. See (Psalm 110:1) for a description of His arrival in heaven. Because God has always existed in eternity He knows the past, present, and future events as happening "now" because of "perfect foreknowledge". Once we understand this supernatural ability of God, it helps to explain how certain passages of scripture start to make sense. That is why we need a "spiritual mind" as Paul explains in (1 Cor 2:9-16), and when we are born again spiritually and Father adopts us into His family and gives us the gift of His Holy Spirit as a seal of this transaction, He abides with us permanently from that moment on. We are then a citizen of heaven having received "eternal life" and will be assured of spending eternity in the New Jerusalem that John saw coming down from heaven (Rev 21:1-7)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                    29/07/13 

 

Bring Glory to God

BRING GLORY TO GOD

 Recently I was reading (1 Peter 4:10-11) from my NLT version of the scripture and was amazed when I read the words "Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to Him forever and ever! Amen". I'm sure I had read this passage from Peter many times in the past, but this time from this newer version this closing phrase from verse 11 of chapter 4 really caught my attention! So I read the whole chapter again to get the truth in context, and was particularly touched by verse 8 and 14. I would suggest that you read this chapter over again a few times in several different translations carefully and see what the Holy Spirit will reveal to you. In the NLT version the heading over verses 1-11 is called "Living for God", and verses 12 to the end of the chapter is called "Suffering for Being a Christian". I don't know many people who look forward to suffering for any reason, but scripture is very clear that if we intend to live a life that pleases our Father we can expect some suffering.

Verse 8 states "Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins". The Greek word translated as love here is [Agape] which is the same word that is used in (John 3:16) and several other place when speaking of God's kind of love. And verse 14 states "So be happy when you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you". So if we combine the intent of Peter in the overall theme of this chapter we will see that the possible suffering we may be expected to endure as a follower of Jesus should not surprise us. In fact I think the overall theme of scripture is that "everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution". (2 Tim 3:12). There is no way to escape it, and anyone who tells you that a life with Jesus is a wonderful "problem free" existence is  lying to you, and is either very ignorant of scripture or else are false prophets. We need to have a basic understanding of both the OT scripture as well as the NT to grasp the need for understanding the Gospel of the Kingdom. And when we read (Matt 24:14) we can see how important Jesus considers this to be, "And the Good News of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come". The "end" He refers to here is the end of life as we have known it on Planet Earth. So we must realize how important it is that all the "unreached peoples groups" hear the gospel, some of which don't yet have the scripture in their native tongue!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                       02/08/13                                                                                  

Difficult Words

DIFFICULT WORDS

In our English language we have a lot of words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have a very different meaning. For example a common word that we use a lot is "there" that sounds the same as "their", but as we all know has a completely different meaning and use in a sentence. Another word that I have trouble with is "separate" and "separete", only one letter different but an entirely different meaning. I often feel sorry for the immigrants coming to Canada from various countries and are required to learn English before they can get a job. It is a very difficult language to learn, and even those of us who learned it as children because it is our "mother tongue" still have difficulty keeping it straight. These 2 illustrations that I used are only ones that I have difficulty with, but I'm sure there are lots more we could add to the list. And these are just in the normal way of communication, but consider some of the words we use to communicate spiritual or religious subjects, here is where I see more confusion as to what we mean by the words we use. 

It would seem that each denomination has a certain number of words or phrases they use that are unique to them. A few that come to mind are "transubstantiation" which is a term used in the Roman Catholic Church which means to them that in the celebration of the "Eucharist" the host and the wine actually become the body and blood of Christ. I assume this is based on the scripture (John 6:53-58) where Jesus was referring to something that happens when we are "born again" spiritually and Father adopts us into His family as His child. This statement was never meant to have a physical interpretation. The natural mind we are born with cannot understand the things of the Spirit (1 Cor 2:10-16), there is a huge difference between a "natural mind" and one that is controlled by the Spirit of God. Another phrase that is applied to certain people is "hyper-grace", meaning they have taken the Biblical meaning of grace beyond its limits and it has become "error". Some people have done the same thing with the word "faith" to make it into "hyper-faith". Any truth taken beyond its actual Biblical meaning can become error when it is taken "out of focus", so to speak, like a set of binoculars, until you adjust them into the proper "focus" all you see is a blur. As I understand it this can happen with certain words from the Bible, so we need to be aware of this and let the Holy Spirit lead you into all "Truth" who is Jesus (John 14:6)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                               22/08/13                                                                                                            

A Time To Ponder

A TIME TO PONDER 

This word "ponder" comes from a Greek word that means "placing together for comparison". It is used in (Luke 2:19) "But Mary keep all these things and pondered them in her heart". Just try to image how many things she would have to ponder about, since she met Gabriel the Archangel, one of the three highest created beings who shared the rule of the Kingdom of God with Father. It would seem that his responsibility was in the area of "Communications" between God and man, for example Daniel in the OT, and both Mary and Joseph in regard to the birth of Jesus the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the whole world, (Matt 1:20-21). Read the account of Gabriel coming to Daniel in response to the prayer of (Dan 9:20-28) and assuring him that his prayer had been heard and that he had been sent to give Daniel the answer to his prayer. Then of course the many incidents in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus must have left lots of things in her mind to "ponder".

As we consider the complete story of Jesus Christ the Son of God who left His position in heaven with the Father to come down to our sin-cursed earth to become the "Last Adam", or "Agape incarnate", or "Immanuel" (God with us), we can really appreciate His Self Sacrifice. He paid the supreme sacrifice of giving His life for a world that hated Him, "The Lamb of God" who died for the sins of humanity. We often hear discussions about who killed Jesus? Some blame the Jews, some say the Romans etc. but the truth is that no one "Killed Jesus", He gave up His life freely for all of us because of the Agape love of the Father, Son and Spirit. This was all in accordance with the cosmic plan revealed by God to Paul and expressed in (Eph 1:1-8) this was accomplished on the "old Rugged Cross" outside Jerusalem where He shed His blood for you and me. The true Gospel of the Kingdom that Paul preached and described so well in (1 Cor 15:3-6) explains the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus as the real core of the gospel that has not been clearly understood by many people. Certain church doctrines have made the "gospel" to be something other than the true thing. We hear of the "social gospel", the "prosperity gospel", the "Feel good gospel" etc. but be assured they are not the real thing. There is only one true Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus mentions in (Matt 24:14), and anything else that claims to be "the gospel" is a counterfeit. There seems to be many of these counterfeits showing up in church circles lately, as we were told!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                          04/08/13   

CONSTANT UPGRADES

CONSTANT UPGRADES 

I was impressed by a devotional by Joe Stowell in Our Daily Bread (ODB) on Aug 18/13 that he called "Always An Upgrade" in which he said his wife Martie would often stop him on his way out the door to go to work and suggest his tie didn't match well with his shirt, or his slacks didn't go with his sports jacket or some other corrective improvement toward his outward appearance was needed. Apparently Joe usually took her advice, as most wise husbands would, since most wives are better equipped to judge such things. Then Joe switched to the topic of our inward character qualities, as compared to our outward appearance. And that is what I would like to draw your attention to in this article. As followers of Jesus our character should always match our outward behavior as a "citizen of God's Kingdom" because we are His "Ambassadors" (2 Cor 5:20) as Paul describes those who are "In Christ", or are "born again" believers. So we will look at a few passages of scripture that deal with our behavior based on our character. 

One of the best scripture passages I can think of for defining our behavior would be the third chapter of Paul's letter to the Colossian church. In the NLT version the heading for chapter three reads "Living the new life", and verses 1-17 are full of lots of instructions to individual believers, then from 18 to the end of the chapter it reads "Instructions for Christian Families". Paul starts the chapter with "Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand". In verse three he continues with "For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God". Then in verse five we read "So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don't be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshipping the things of this world". In verses 12-14 we read "Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts". From these verses I trust we can all see that there is much more to living a life that will please the Father than just "accepting Jesus" and going to heaven when we die!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                              24/08/13

                                                                                     

Snowflakes

SNOWFLAKES 

Snowflakes are beautiful, uniquely crafted ice crystals, and they tell us no two are exactly alike. In a typical snowstorm here in Canada probably consists of multiplied billions that fall from the sky in a few hours. They can transform a bare bleak Dec. forest into a "Christmas Greeting Scene" within a few hours by covering trees and bushes, because they "stick together". Snow can be made into "snow balls" and "snowmen", or cover hills to accommodate sliding or skiing, or create drifts that can shut down whole cities and airports for days. They are truly amazing little things, and also are similar to individual little human individuals when they "stick together", like their Creator intended for them to do. We were never intended to live in "isolation" but to work together to be a great force for God to promote His Kingdom being established here on our planet. The Apostle Paul declares we are to be "one body with many parts", read (1 Cor 12:12-31) for details of how we as "followers of Jesus" should "stick together". 

The OT prophet Isaiah stated in (Is 53:6) "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all". This statement from scripture tells it like it is, there are no exceptions, and the Apostle Paul expands on this truth (Rom 3: 9-31). So every human who was born as a descendant of our first parents Adam and Eve, who introduced the sin of Lucifer/Satan into our world by listening to his lies and disobeying the one commandment their Creator gave them sinned. This caused our world that was created "perfect" by our Creator, to become "fallen". Then the plan of God was put into action, by allowing the Son Jesus to become "Agape Incarnate" as the "Eternal Seed" to be placed in the womb of a Jewish virgin named Mary of Nazareth to produce a human body for Jesus. Now when ever anyone responds to the promptings of the Holy Spirit to "receive" Jesus Christ the "Last Adam" as their Lord and Savior, they are "born again" by the Spirit of God (John 3:1-8), and Father adopt them into His Eternal family. At this time they become a member of the Church that Jesus has been building here on earth for some 2000 years. This "Biblical Church" goes under the title of the "Body of Christ" which is like tiny snowflakes that are meant to "stick together" to accomplish the task of extending the Kingdom of God on our planet. This task is referred to as "The Gospel of The Kingdom", and all God's children have an active part to play and it demands that we work together!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                  28/06/13                                                            

What About Hell

WHAT ABOUT HELL?

 We don't hear much about hell lately, and a lot of people believe that a "God of Love" would never send a person to hell, even if there is such a place. The Bible clearly speaks about a place called hell, and Jesus mentioned it more times in the gospel accounts that he does heaven. So we can be sure hell is a "real place" that people will go to if they refuse to accept the truth about what Jesus accomplished on the Cross of Calvary, when He shed His precious blood as the "Lamb of God". Read your Bible which is the Word of God, and every word it contains is true from cover to cover. When I read scriptures like (2 Thess 1:7-9) from the Apostle Paul who was a faithful servant of Jesus, I know he must be talking about the same place of "eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord" that Jesus mentioned. Check (Luke 12:4-5) for example to see the other side of our loving Father, who loves us all but because He is a righteous judge of those who truly fear Him, He must have a place for those wicked persons who don't fear and obey Him. Otherwise how could He be the perfectly righteous Ruler that we know Him to be?

Recently I was reading #74 from Bob Mumford's book Mysterious Seed, that he called "Difficulty of Being a Fallen King". He was dealing with the "fall" of out first parents Adam and Eve who were created to be the king and queen of creation,  under God. Bob started by quoting (Gen 3:20-24) about their fall into sin following the serpent's lies, and disobeying the single commandment their Creator had placed on them. Then I had occasion to read (Rev 21:1-7) which tells of the description by John of the "New Jerusalem" coming down from heaven dressed like a bride. Then in verse 8 he continues with "But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death".

If we don't believe in a place for these kinds of people to spend eternity, where do we expect a loving God to send them when they die? They certainly would not fit comfortably into John's description of heaven unless they were born again and adopted by Father into His family and become citizens of heaven, would they? How else could a loving God respond to these wicked people who refuse to believe in and accept Jesus Christ as their one and only Lord and Savior?

Sincerely submitted. 

Dave Jamer                                               16/07/13  

A Biblical Overcomer

A BIBLICAL OVERCOMER

In (Rev 21:1-7) we read a very encouraging message to followers of Jesus in the present world. Then in (1 John 4:4, 5:4; Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21), all these verses refer to the victory to be had by those who are called to overcome obstacles in this life. So it would appear that every person who has believed in what Jesus has accomplished for us on the Cross of Calvary, and have accepted Him as Lord and Savior is now an adopted child of our Father God, and will have a wonderful life in the future, "IF" they are an "overcomer". Does this sound like it depends on a life of religious works, trying by your good works to earn your way to heaven? No definitely not! Salvation is a gift of God and not by works (Eph 2: 8-9) clearly states that, so these works accredited to those who overcome must be those that are associated with verse 10. Paul here clearly states "For we are God's Masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.

Being an overcomer in our resurrected life with Jesus has nothing to do with any type of good works we might try to do to earn God's approval, these are simply "dead works" (Heb 6:1) NKJV, and have nothing to do with salvation. Many church attendees who have little or no understanding of Bible truth often are under the illusion that their religious deeds are being laid up in heaven somewhere to their account, something like monthly deposits in a bank account gradually accumulate to increase your estate. There is absolutely no truth to that false information, that many sincere people are depending on for their life in heaven in their "mansion" that Jesus has gone to prepare for them. It never ceases to amaze me how much false information some people are depending on for their existence in eternity. God has made the good news of the gospel so simple in the Bible, that even a child can understand it if the [Agape] of their Creator is explained to them. Here is a good quote from the ODB devotional today by Randy Kilgore, "When the trials of today seem more daunting than your strength, let the Lord show you the end of the story when you will be in His presence forever". He finished with the following words from an old hymn. "Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the strife will not be long; this day the noise of battle—the next the victor's song. To him that overcometh a crown of life shall be; he with the king of glory shall reign eternally". Randy ended with this line "For hope today, remember the end of the story-eternity with God"

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                          15/07/13                                                                               

THE PROMISED HELPER

THE PROMISED HELPER

One of my favorite passages of scripture is found in the gospel of John chapters 13-17, starting with Jesus washing the feet of His 12 disciples and ending with the rather lengthy pray of Jesus to His Father. Here is where we see clearly as Jesus realizes His time on earth in His physical body is approaching the end; He tries to prepare his disciples for the soon coming events that must happen in order to fulfill the "cosmic plan" that was made in "eternity past" before creation. This plan included the words of God recorded by Moses "Then God said let us make human beings in our image, to be like us" (Gen 1:26) NLT. This plan included the Son Jesus coming down to earth as "Agape Incarnate" to redeem the result of the "fall of Adam" into sin. This required the death of a perfect "sinless man" like the First Adam was when he was created, before God's enemy lied to Adam and his wife Eve, and they believed his lies and disobeyed the only command of their Creator, about not eating the "forbidden fruit" of the tree of good and evil. See particularly (John 16:7-11) where Jesus told them what this "Helper", the Holy Spirit would do when He came to replace Jesus. 

Jesus clearly explained to His disciples how their lives would be different after He returned to be honored by Father after He completed His assignment that He was sent to earth for. After He arose from the tomb on the third day, He remained for 40 days before ascending to heaven spending time with the disciples, and telling them to stay in Jerusalem "until" they received the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-11), and as this scene was recorded by Luke to explain what was happening on earth, King David had already given us the scene in heaven. See (Psalm 110:1) for a description of His arrival in heaven. Because God has always existed in eternity He knows the past, present, and future events as happening "now" because of "perfect foreknowledge". Once we understand this supernatural ability of God, it helps to explain how certain passages of scripture start to make sense. That is why we need a "spiritual mind" as Paul explains in (1 Cor 2:9-16), and when we are born again spiritually and Father adopts us into His family and gives us the gift of His Holy Spirit as a seal of this transaction, He abides with us permanently from that moment on. We are then a citizen of heaven having received "eternal life" and will be assured of spending eternity in the New Jerusalem that John saw coming down from heaven (Rev 21:1-7)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                            29/07/13                                                                                                   

 

 

 

A Bondservant of Jesus Christ

A  BONDSERVANT OF JESUS CHRIST 

The Apostle Paul often used this expression in his description of himself, for example read the opening sentences of his letter to the church at Rome. Slaves were common to the Roman culture of that day, but their slavery was forced. A bondservant was also a slave to his master, but someone who could have been set free from his forced slavery, but chose to remain as a slave to his master by his own free choice. This is the context in which Paul uses the term. I encourage you to read the first 7 verses carefully and see how well Paul defends the roots of the gospel from the OT by declaring the lineage of Jesus, presents the power of this gospel to change lives, and then challenges his readers to become involved in spreading this gospel of "The Good News" of Jesus Christ! (Rom 1:1-7) 

This is the key to living a victorious spiritual life of following Jesus, we must be bound securely to Him "by love's strong cords", to borrow the word from an old hymn. This means much more than just praying a so-called "sinner's prayer", and claiming to be a Christian. I have met many such people in my day, who think they are followers of Jesus, but don't have a clue as to what is involved on their part! A true follower of Jesus must be able to declare like Paul did in (Gal 2:20), which can only come after obeying his instructions given in (Rom 6:1-11). I believe many people are trying to live a "Christian" life in their own strength, which is impossible. We must die to our own desires and what we believe are our own "rights", and realize that if we are to become "bondservants" to Jesus, we no longer have any of our own rights. As a slave to righteousness, the only right we have is the right to obey the commands of God which are clearly laid out in His Word! That's where a relationship with the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary, as Jesus promised His disciples in the Gospel of John, in chapters 14, 15, and 16. These same promises given to these first followers of Jesus are still available to us today who want to be true followers of Jesus. But the conditions laid out by Paul and the other original apostles are also still valid for today, and must be followed by hearing, and obeying the still small voice of the Spirit!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                               25/04/12                                                                                   

A BLUEPRINT FOR LIFE

A BLUEPRINT FOR  

The daily devotional word for today in ODB was written by Joe Stowell and his closing line was "The Bible is the Christian's blueprint for life", from which I got the idea for this article. As followers of Jesus we all believe the Bible is God's Word from cover to cover, and contains everything He wants us to know in order to live a life that is pleasing to Him. He personally chose the authors of the 66 books that the Bible contains, and His Holy Spirit supplied them with the proper words to use. So in the true sense He, the Holy Spirit, is the real Author of the "Book". (2 Tim 3:16-17). So we can safely depend on the Holy Scriptures to use as a "blueprint" to direct our life. I have found the OT books set the outline, or the basis for our system of "spiritual values" written by men like Moses, King David, or one of the prophets like Isaiah or Jeremiah, but NT writers like Paul condense these truths in his letters written to the various churches he had established in the first century. Some of these letters like Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians plus others, make up a good part of the NT, and along with the words of Jesus as recorded in the four gospel accounts, attract most of my 

So I will quote a few passages from some of Paul's letters in the balance of this article. Let us start with (1 Cor 3:10-11) where he speaks about building our lives on the only safe "foundation", which is our Lord Jesus Christ. Then from (Phil 2:3-4) we read some good advice from Paul about valuing others above ourselves by humbly serving them. Then to finish off our blueprint for life we can read from Paul's classic letter to the church at Rome. In (Rom 12:9-21) from my NKJV study Bible, the heading of the section is called "Behave like a Christian". You can take lots of pointers from these verses that will help you to complete your blueprint for living. Such as "be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love", "bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse", "If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live at peace with all men", and "do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good". Of course we realize that this is only possible as we yield to, and be filled with, the Holy Spirit! (Eph 5:18), If we were to attempt these actions in our own strength we would surely fail. But thank God we know from reading many scriptures that once we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, and Father "adopts" us into His Family, The Spirit is given to us as our faithful Guide and Teacher!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                     09/05/12                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

REBUILDING THE WALL

 We have a very interesting story in the OT book of Nehemiah chapters 3 and 4 about the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. As we know king Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem and taken certain captives to his capital city of Babylon, leaving the walls in ruins. Later when Cyrus became king, one of the first things he did was allow the exiles to return to Israel to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed. Nehemiah was not part of the first group who had responded to the offer of King Cyrus, and had started to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. But when he heard from a relative, who had come back from visiting Jerusalem, and told how bad conditions were there, he wept for days. He was the cupbearer to the present king, who saw how sad he was, and asked what was wrong. When told about the problem, he gave Nehemiah permission to go to Jerusalem and check things out for himself. Nehemiah was then able to encourage the people to start to rebuild the walls, so they would be protected from their enemies, while they rebuilt the temple.

 In many ways we in Canada in this 21st century are in a similar position as the people were, in the days of Nehemiah! Many of the spiritual walls that used to protect us have been eroded by secular humanism, materialism, multi-cultureism, and other works of our enemy Satan. How and where do we start to rebuild? It seems that since our problems all have a spiritual root, we should be looking to the church for answers, but sad to say, the church is suffering with the same problems. Our chief enemies are identified in (1 John 2:16) as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life". These enemies lure us away from God and His Word and leave a gap in our protective spiritual walls. In the ODB daily devotional for Jan 31, 2009 the author stated "Let's be alert to what entices us today. A lapse opens the door to sin, which in turn may develop into a habit that overwhelms us. Don't permit a breach in the wall". A careful study of chapters 3 and 4 of Nehemiah could be a proper starting point! Notice the various families rebuilt the section of wall nearest to their home, and there seemed to be perfect unity between them. Then because their enemies opposed them, they had to work with a weapon of defense in one hand, and their working tool in the other. This speaks of our spiritual armor described in (Eph 6:10-18), and the gifts of the Spirit in (1 Cor 12:4-11)!

 As the above quote from ODB states, let's not permit a breach in the wall! This little poem was part of the same devotional

."It may not be some heinous deed

that chills our hearts and chokes the seed;

It's often just a trifling toy

That grabs our eye and steals our joy.---Gustafson

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                           revised 08/07/13

 

 

TWO BEGINNINGS

TWO BEGINNINGS

A few years ago I put together an article called "In the Beginning", since then I have reason to believe that there could be two beginnings, so to speak, mentioned in scripture. The first is in (Gen 1:1) which happened sometime in the prehistoric past, know only to God. (Deut 29:29). The second time it is mentioned is in (John 1:1-5), and I believe this could be considered as the beginning of time as we have come to know it as described from (Gen 1:2) through to (Rev 22:21). It would seem that this period of time started with the reconstruction of planet earth, to make it suitable to sustain life, after it became "without form and void" (NKJV), approximately 6000 years ago as we humans reckon time. I believe our Creator God is perfect, and couldn't have created our planet as it is described in verse two. This would leave a period of undetermined length between verses (Gen 1:1 and 2). I realize there has been much speculation about this apparent gap between the original beginning, and what I'm suggesting might be considered a second 

The facts pertaining to fossils, and the evidence of so-called prehistoric creatures, and the evidence of science that our universe is much older than 6000 years, has always bothered me since becoming a follower of Jesus. I consider myself to be a seeker after truth, since coming to accept Jesus, who is the Truth! (John 14:6). I have recently read a series of articles by a respected Christian leader, in which he attempted to prove that everything mentioned in the Bible has happened in the 6000 year period. Then shortly after reading these articles, and not understanding why he thought he needed to prove the universe could not be older, I read another article by a Christian brother who holds a completely different view. I tend to agree with the latter view, and see no reason why we cannot leave room in our scriptural view for more proven scientific discoveries. I certainly don't believe in the "theory of evolution", or in the belief that there could be life on some other plant, which I consider is simply man's attempt to discredit the Bible. But since the discovery of the Hubble telescope, much more is being revealed about the size and age of God's creation. In (Ps 115:16) NLT we read "The heavens belong to the Lord, but He has given the earth to all humanity." I take from that statement that the earth as we know it was given as the only perfect environment in the universe to sustain human life! Why should we be spending money looking for some other place?

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                           21/04/12

 

Seven Principles 0f Biblical Prophecy

SEVEN PRINCIPLES of BIBLICAL PROPHECY (part 1) 

This article is based on Derek Prince's book called "Prophetic Guide to the End Times", published in 2008. This is the title of chapter three that starts on page 32. We will look briefly at each of these principles, which I think are very well balanced, and based solidly on scripture.

1/ Some Prophecies Will Remain Secret--- This one is based on (Deut 29:29) "The secret things belong to the Lord our God,  but those things that are revealed belong  to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law". God has secrets that are none of our business, and we should not try to find out about them. For example the exact time of the second coming of Christ Jesus! We have to resist the temptation to try and find out these secrets, and anyone who pretends to know is a false prophet!

2/ Prophecy Is Given for A Reason---The purpose of prophecy is meant to give us things to do. Derek tells of one day in Kenya when they lived there in 1958, he had to go to another town to have his car serviced. He had a long list of things he wanted done to the car, and also a list of things he wanted to do in town. As he left the service station he says the Lord spoke to him about him needing "servicing", as well as the car. So instead of going shopping, he spent the day quietly on the beach fellowshipping with the Lord. As he opened his NT it fell open to (Matt 24:14), after spending some time meditating on this scripture that day, this book was a result many years later.

3/ Prophecy Is Given For A Specific Time And Situation---God does not always save us "from" things, or "out" of things, but "through" things. It is important to realize that, and not have unrealistic expectations.

4/ Prophecy Is Given For Guidance---If God has declared that a thing will not happen, it is a waste of time to pray that it will happen, or try to make it happen!

5/ The Spirit Of Prophecy Focuses On Jesus---(Rev 19:10) states "For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." Scripture here is talking about the spirit of prophecy and not the words of prophecy. Any prophecy that glorifies man, and not Jesus, is not real prophecy!

6/ Prophecy Means What It Says---Every prophecy concerning the first coming of Jesus was fulfilled literally. Although some prophecies may be allegorical, most are not, and must be understood to mean what they say. For example the church is not Israel, and Israel is not the church!

7/ God Has Total Sovereignty---He is sovereign and totally just and true. He has never said anything that is not true, and has never made a mistake!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                      revised 17/11/12

A COMMITTED FOLLOWER

A COMMITTED FOLLOWER

A few weeks ago I put together an article called "Fickle Followers" who started out to follow Jesus but had never counted the cost, and fell away when they found out what is expected of them. This article will point out what Jesus expects of a true follower of His. Bob Mumford does a good job of explaining this in his book "Mysterious Seed". On page 169 he lists 6 things that Jesus asks of His followers, 1/ to deny ones' self, 2/ to take up one's own cross, 3/ to lose one's own life, 4/ to be last and least, 5/ to drink the cup that Jesus drank, 6/ and be baptized with His baptism. (Matt 16:24-25; 20:16). There is certainly a lot more to being a committed follower of Jesus than most churches in the West prepare their members to expect. It would seem they have presented a "soft gospel" as part of their "seeker sensitive" presentation that never mentions repentance, separation from the world the flesh and the devil, or any suffering for Jesus. This is a far cry from the True Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus or the apostles like Paul or Peter preached. It is more like the "false gospel" that Paul mentions in his second letter to the church in Corinth, (2 Cor 11:1-4). And this letter was sent only a couple years after his first letter in which he explained the true gospel in (1 Cor 15:1-6), so you see clearly how fast a "false gospel" can spread through a church, in this case it was only a period of a few years.

It would appear to me that "many", not just a few, false so-called apostles and teachers have appeared in certain church circles in the past decade or two, and they have been received by some people without being first tested by scripture to see if they are authentic. Check out (1 Thess 5:12-22), and also (1 Tim 4:1-2) for some good advice from Paul. I have been very surprised at how little discernment is shown by believers, who have going faithfully to evangelistic churches for many years, when it comes to being deceived so easily by a smooth talking so-called "Evangelist" from out of town, sharing some "new revelation" that he has just received, and is eager to share it with the "Body".  

First off, there is no such thing in my mind as a "new revelation"! There can only be a further "illumination" on the original revelation given to us by our Creator God that He had recorded in His Book, that we call our Bible. So if we are called to become a follower of Jesus, let us be sure we are a "committed follower" and not a fickle one!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                     17/06/13

FICKLE FOLLOWERS

FICKLE FOLLOWERS.

We often use the term "followers of Jesus" rather the usual term "Christians", because that term means different things to different people. Jesus called His original 12 disciples to "Come, follow me and I will show you how to fish for men". NLT. I read a daily devotional today from ODB by this title where the author used the illustration of sports "fans" who follow their favorite team with a great degree of enthusiasm as  long as they are on a winning streak. But let them lose a few games in a row, and see how fast they can ditch their favorite team for another. The same thing happened to Jesus on several occasions, for example in (John 12:12-13) the adoring crowd was ready to crown Him as their King, but a few days later this crowd was most likely part of the crowd that were crying out "Crucify Him!". The reason for their complete change is seen in (verses 23-26) of this same chapter, when Jesus spelled out the cost of being a faithful follower of Him.

Human nature has not changed in 2000 years since these words were recorded, and people are quick to become enthusiastic followers of Jesus one week and seemingly lose their enthusiasm the next week or month or two. I would have to say these people are definitely not "committed followers" of Jesus, and could be referred to as "Fickle Followers" in my mind. Unfortunately there seems to be more and more people like this in the "church" today than ever before in my memory. I expect the reason for this is because there is very little preaching about repentance, and separation from the world today. And what we can refer to as a "different gospel" that the Apostle Paul refers to in (2 Cor 11:1-4) is certainly being introduced by false teachers in the past number of years in many church circles. And remember this second letter of Paul to this church was written just a year or two after the first, in which he explained in (chapter 15:1-6) the gospel, or "good news" that he had preached to them. That shows us how fast the work of a false teacher can corrupt a church congregation. So it's no wonder we are given so many warnings in many places in the NT scriptures to "be aware" that in the last days we can expect to see not just a few, but "many false prophets and teachers" show up in our churches. They are undoubtedly "planted" in our midst by the enemy of out souls. But thank God He has given His Church, the "Body of Christ", the person of the Holy Spirit to provide "discernment" to point out the "false" from the "true", which is only found in Jesus, who declared  in (John 14:6) "I am the truth" !!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                  31/05/13

The Problem With Pride

THE PROBLEM WITH PRIDE 

I think we are safe to say that "pride" is probably the greatest sin of the human race. And as near as I know, it began in the heart of one of the highest created beings in heaven. His name was Lucifer and you can read the details in (Is 14:12-21), his pride led to rebellion against his Creator resulting in his being cast out of heaven. He chose to come down to our Planet Earth and has been an enemy of God ever since, and of course all of God's children. One example of a man who started out as a "good man" is recorded in the OT book of Second Chronicles chapter 26, his name was Uzziah who became king of Judah when he was only 16 years old. He was one of the better kings of Judah and pleased the Lord by his actions in the beginning of his reign and God blessed him. However, we read "But when he become powerful, he also became proud, which led to his downfall" (2 Chron 26:16). We read in verse 21 "So King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died".

In the NT we have some good advice from the Apostle Peter in his first letter (1 Peter 5:5-9) where he says in part "God opposes the proud but favors the humble, so humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time He will lift you up in honor.---Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith". NLT I'm sure we are all aware of people who have been successful in business or some other occupation that others have considered them very special "celebrities" and they start to believe their own press reports. It seems this inevitably leads them to become "proud" of their accomplishments. Someone has rightly said "It is hard to stay humble when you become famous", and I expect that is true unless you are a "committed" follower of Jesus, and realize that without Him and the help of His Holy Spirit we can accomplish nothing in our own strength. Our flesh nature is capable of many works of sin, but God has given every person who exercises faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior His Holy Spirit the moment they are "born again". At that point in time Father adopts them into His family and gives them the "gift" of the Holy Spirit as a seal of the transaction. The Holy Spirit wars against the flesh nature (Gal 5:16-26), and is always there in our spirits to defeat the flesh nature. So we have no excuse for yielding to our lower nature and committing sin as a committed follower of Jesus!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                              30/05/13

The Baptism in The Holy Spirit

THE BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT

This expression from scripture is listed in several places, and often with different little prepositions like in, of, or with etc. This has often caused a certain amount of confusion, not in the mind of the Holy Spirit who inspired the various authors of scripture, but in the minds of the hearers. I expect this confusion comes from not closely checking the prepositions used. And also checking out who is the person doing the baptizing, and the medium into which the candidate is being immersed. Let us consider this topic from three different passages of scripture, which I believe refer to three different baptisms.

Baptism # 1--- (1 Cor 12:13) "Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit". I believe this is Paul's description of our salvation experience, the same exactly as John explained to Nicodemus in (John 3:1-8) where he used the expression "you must be born again". No one can become a child of God without coming through Jesus (John 14:6) and being "born again" of the Spirit. This is the only way any person can begin their walk in the Spirit, and it begins when the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the Body of Christ.

Baptism # 2---(Acts 2:38-39) Peter replied, "Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, and to your children, and even to the Gentiles—all who have been called by the Lord our God". This baptism requires "repentance" from our sins, and acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior. At that point in time our Father adopts us into His family and gives us the gift of His Holy Spirit to seal the transaction.

Baptism # 3--- (Acts 1:4-5, 7-8, 2:1-4) This is the historical record of the fulfillment of the promise given in baptism # 2, with the actual coming of the Holy Spirit to the 120 disciples waiting in the Upper Room. This briefly lists the three baptisms, now we will consider more closely each one to see who is the Baptizer in each case, and what the "medium" is into which the candidate is immersed.

In summary then, the first baptism is our "salvation" experience when we are placed into the "Body of Christ", which is another name for the "Biblical Church" that Jesus has been in the process of building for some 2000 years, and the Baptizer is clearly the Holy Spirit. Next comes our "believer's baptism", as soon after our salvation experience as possible. Here the Baptizer is any spiritual leader, who places the candidate into the body of water. The Greek word for baptism indicates a complete "immersion". And the final baptism is our "baptism in the Holy Spirit", first mentioned by John the Baptist in (Matt 3:11) and fulfilled in Acts chapters 1 and 2. And clearly The Baptizer is Jesus, and the medium is the Holy Spirit. And all of these are for everyone who knows Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, no matter what church they attend it is not a denominational thing. Let us be clear about that, and eliminate any confusion!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                                    22/05/13

IN CHRIST or IN THE LORD

 IN CHRIST or IN THE LORD?

The term "in Christ" is used 68 times in the NT and it is an "affirmational" truth according to Bob Mumford. While "in the Lord" is used 42 times in the NT, and is what he calls "aspirational" which requires some effort on our part, or in other words it is "behavioral" in nature. "In Christ" is a "gift" from God and is completely "by grace through faith", and not by any works of ours (Eph 2:8-10), so be well aware of this fact! While "in the Lord" can be understood from (Matt 7:21-23), where we see many people who call Jesus "Lord! Lord!" but Jesus will reply to them "I never knew you, get away from me you who break God's heart". (NLT) So I think these two scripture passages show clearly the difference between the separate meanings of these phrases. I have read the scriptures for many years, and have heard many sermons preached, but have never understood the difference between these two expressions until I saw Bob teaching this truth on You Tube yesterday. This only made me more aware of the fact that we can often think we understand what certain scripture passages mean, but miss the true meaning by a mile, so to speak. So we all need to read scripture more carefully, and listen to certain people who are proven "teachers" who have been "called" by God to that position in the "Body of Christ" like Bob Mumford has been.

 

One thing I have learned in my some 50 years of being involved in various denominational churches is how easily I can think I know the true meaning of a certain Bible truth, but have the wrong basic concept, based on incomplete teaching. I have no trouble believing that the complete Bible is God's Word from cover to cover, but I have often been led astray by believing certain church "doctrines" that I was taught as being based on Bible truth, only to find out they were based on some man's understanding of some scripture passage. This could very well have been only a theory based on his interpretation of a certain scripture passage taken out of context. This is often what happened with certain doctrines that perhaps sounded good to certain church leaders, and before long they were accepted by whole denominations. I have found this to be true in several cases, which has caused me to use extra caution about any so-called "new teaching". Several NT authors have warned us to beware of "many" false teachers that will show up in our "churches" in these later days. So I take it from that fact that we all need to be careful and know who we are listening to and following. It certainly pays to be extremely cautious!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                  27/04/03

FROM SINNER to SAINT

FROM SINNER TO SAINT

 

This is an interesting journey from being born as a "sinner" from our mother's womb, to becoming a "saint" by being "born again" by the Spirit of God. One of my favorite scripture passages that explain this process is found in the letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the church he had founded in the city of Ephesus. Read (Eph 2:1-10) for the details, which in the NLT version of the Bible has the heading "made alive in Christ". Paul begins in verse one "Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins". He continues through verses two and three to explain who is the cause of us being sinners, "the devil—the commander of the powers of the unseen world. He is the spirit that is at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God's anger, just like everyone else".

 

Then in verse four Paul starts out with "But God is so rich in mercy, and He loves us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God's grace that we have been saved!) For He raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus". Paul continues in verse eight with "God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago". I consider this passage of scripture to be one of the best in the Bible to explain the message of the Gospel of the Kingdom in only 10 verses.

 

Thank God for Paul who was known as the "Apostle to the Gentiles", and for the "mysteries" of God that were revealed to him (Eph 3:1-13), and recorded for our benefit. My observations of the average church attendee would indicate that they don't know the truth of the plain simple gospel message, probably because they have listened to "another gospel" that eliminates that fact that we are all sinners (Rom 3:9-21) and have believed in a "false gospel" like the church in Corinth (2 Cor 11:1-4) and in many churches today. A so-called gospel without repentance and the truth of what Jesus did for us on the cross, He is our one and only Savior from sin!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                               08/05/13

DOES GOD HAVE GRANDCHILDREN

DOES GOD HAVE GRANDCHILDREN

This term is used to identify children of children. In other words, when a couple get married and have children, and their children marry and have children of their own, their offspring are referred to as grandchildren. However in a spiritual sense we cannot use this term to describe anyone, because everyone must come to a relationship with God on their own! When a person receives conviction from the Holy Spirit that they are a sinner separated from God, and repents of their sin and accepts Jesus as their Savior, the Father then adopts them into His family. Then, and only then, are they a child of God! I believe our church traditions might leave room for some people to believe that it is possible to become God's grandchild. Certain churches believe in christening a baby and refer to that as their baptism. They seem to believe that this makes the child a member of the family of God. I believe that "baptism" is the wrong term to use for this christening, and it should be considered a "dedication" of both the child and the parents. The word baptism in scripture usually refers to a believer in Jesus, who has made a decision in their heart to accept what He accomplished on the cross, and desires to make a public declaration of this decision. We often refer to it as "believer's baptism", and it always follows a person's salvation experience! If parents who are followers of Jesus have their baby christened, and are told that they are now a child in God's family, I can see where this idea could have started. But I say no, God definitely has no grandchildren!

 

This is only one of many false beliefs that are circulating in certain church circles. Common sense should tell us that a baby cannot repent of their sins, and realize that the death of Christ on the cross paid the debt for those sins. And the scriptures are clear that baptism in water always follows a profession of faith in Christ. (Acts 2:38) Many of these church traditions that are not based on scripture could be avoided if people were encouraged to search the scriptures for themselves. Unfortunately, many people depend completely on what they are told by their pastor or priest, and never check things out for themselves, like the believers in Berea. (Acts 17:11). If more people did this, I'm sure we would have less confusion in our churches! I am constantly amazed by finding out how many "false doctrines" have infiltrated our "churches" over the years, and how far we have been led away from the Biblical pattern that Jesus had in mind when He declared "I will build My Church" as recorded in (Matt 16:18)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                Revised 02/05/13

A SAFE DWELLING PLACE

A SAFE DWELLING PLACE. 

I read a devotional message today from ODB based on Psalm 4 by David McCasland called "Overcoming Bad News". I read this Psalm of King David with new interest when I came to the last verse in my NLT version "In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe". Although David suffered a lot of opposition, both before becoming King of Israel, and afterward, he continually seemed to be surrounded by enemies. But many of his Psalms declare his victorious attitude because his faith was in his God. If we can learn anything from reading the Psalms, it should be to see how David always praised the Lord for being his shelter and protector from his enemies. We too, as followers of Jesus today are also surrounded by our enemies, but whereas David's enemies were real live flesh and blood armed warriors, ours today are invisible "demons", that according to Derek Prince are "bodiless spirits", and they are joined by "principalities and powers in the heavenly places" that Paul mentions in (Eph 3:10), that make up Satan's invisible army against us. So in some ways our enemies are as real as David's were, but ours are invisible.

But although our enemies may be invisible, we still have the same God, who is also invisible but has been made visible as "Agape Incarnate" who came to earth to put a face on God, so the speak as Immanuel, which means "God with us". We know Him as Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. And He is available to anyone who will come to Him in the Biblical way. After He went to the cross to take care of our sin problem by dying to satisfy the debt we all owed because of our sin, (Rom 6:23), He then arose on the third day after and ascended back to heaven to be seated beside His Father (Ps 110:1). Then they, the (Father and Son) sent the Holy Spirit to take the place of Jesus on Plant Earth, until the Father decides it is time for Him to return to earth to receive His Church out of the hands of the Antichrist during the Great Tribulation. We must repent of our sinful lifestyle and be "born again", Then we all begin our spiritual life as a new born baby in Christ, (Heb 5:11-14) but God expects us to mature in our spiritual life. This should be our lifelong passion to live a life that will please our heavenly Father. Unfortunately most of us were never told that this should be the goal of our new life in the Spirit, in my case it only became aware to me when I started to follow Bob Mumford's teaching about the Agape Road a few years ago. Now I realize that this should be the desire of our every action!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                              30/04/13