Timely Words

 TIMELY WORDS

 

I was impressed by the devotional by this name in Our Daily Bread (ODB) on 13/10/14. We have probably all heard the old adage "Timing is everything", and I certainly believe it is true when it comes to knowing whether to speak or remain silent in certain situations. In (Prov 25:11-12) in the NLT version we read "Timely advice is lovely, like golden apples in a silver basket. To one who listens, valid criticism is like a gold earring or other jewelry". Some times it is wiser to remain silent than it is to speak what you had in mind to say to someone. In (Eccles 3:1-8) it tells us there is "a time for everything", and in verse 7 we read "A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak". (NLT) Knowing the right time to speak is beneficial for both the speaker as well as the hearer.

 

There is some good advice for us in (James 1:19-20) on this topic, "Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: you must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires". (NLT) This is good advice, and requires that we be under the control of the Holy Spirit at all times. Every born again child of God has been given the Holy Spirit as a free gift from the Father when He "adopts" us into His Family. This happens the moment we as lost sinners, place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior! Father knew we wouldn't be able to live a life that would please Him without the help of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit will always help us to use the right word at the right time, or perhaps keep silent if that is the best thing to do.

 

We should always have the other person's best interest at heart at all times. Read carefully (Col 3:1-17), which in the NLT version is headed up with "Living the New Life". Here Paul gives some very practical advice for us to follow as committed followers of Jesus. I especially like verses 12-15 "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 all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And be thankful". That pretty well sums up what God expects of us as His children!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                        17/10/14                                                                                   

Conversion in Three Stages

CONVERSION IN THREE STAGES    

 

When we read carefully through the first few chapters of Acts, we see clearly that there is more to conversion to Christ than what some people have been led to believe. Someone has stated this truth "A committed Christian undergoes three conversions; first to Christ, then to the church, and then back to the world."

 

In Acts chapter 2 we read of 3000 people being converted to Christ, and then confirming this by being baptized immediately in water. Then they demonstrated their conversion to the church by devoting themselves to the teaching of the Apostles, and fellowshipping with other believers. Then in (Acts 8:4) we read that "they went everywhere preaching the word". This was their conversion back to the world. There is no place for "Lone Ranger Christians", who may have been converted to Christ, but never got involved with other believers for fellowship for various reasons. My experience is that they either slip back into their old ways, or else fall into deception or fanaticism. We all need fellow believers to help us in our walk with the Lord. (Heb 10:24-25) give us a strong exhortation about assembling ourselves together. There are many types of church structures available to us today, from basic groups that meet in homes, to large or small local churches that meet in church buildings. We have no excuse not to meet for fellowship.

 

Although fellowshipping with fellow believers is critical to a healthy Christian life, there is a danger of remaining inside our Christian circles and forget about our responsibility to share our new found faith with the world. Often in the past believers were warned not to fellowship with the world for fear of being led back into ungodly habits. This has resulted in the church not having a proper influence in society. We have nothing to fear if we are filled with, and being led by, the Holy Spirit. In Acts we see how the Spirit forced the believers to scatter throughout the Roman Empire of the day, "gossiping the gospel". He achieved this by allowing persecution to come upon them. Maybe God will have to once again allow persecution to come our way in order to get us to move out as we should! So the three stages to true conversion are 1/ to Christ 2/ to the church, or a body of believers, and 3/ to the world who are waiting to hear the gospel. If we expect to see the return of the Lord in our generation, we must faithfully get the good news of the gospel out into the world. (Matt 24:14).

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                                           Revised 12/02/16

A Thousand Years As a Day

A THOUSAND YEARS AS A DAY

 

We find this expression in (Ps 90:4) "For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past. And like a watch in the night". Then in (2 Peter 3:8) we read "But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day". We can only assume that Peter was probably referring to Psalm 90 verse 4 when he made this statement. A few years ago one day I was trying to understand the difference between time and eternity. I took a new piece of white paper and drew a circle in the middle of it, and called that circle our "Time and Space World" and the rest of the sheet of paper I called Eternity. As I understand scripture our "Creator God", who has always existed as Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or in other words a "Triune" being we refer to as "The Trinity". From His position in eternity whenever He views our world He sees things that took place thousands of years ago, as well as those things that only happened today. For that matter because of His "Foreknowledge", He knows what will happen in the future! This little diagram helped me to understand certain scriptural passages, like (Rev 20:1-10) where John tells of a vision he saw in which the Devil was bound for 1000 years, and afterward released for a little season. As soon as he is released he goes out to deceive the nations to cause a mighty army to come together to attack God's people and the holy city of Jerusalem. But God sent "fire from heaven" and consumed them all, after which the Devil who deceived them, plus the Beast and the False Prophet were thrown into the "fiery lake of burning sulfur" (hell) for ever and ever. This event is often confused with the thousand year reign of the Lord called the Millennium which happens after the end of the 7 year period that is known as Daniel's seventieth week". This period in (Rev 20:1-10) leads up to the "Battle of Armageddon" which comes near the end of the 7 year period prophesied by Daniel in (Dan 9:24-27).

 

That is why Revelation cannot be read like Acts, where every chapter fits together one after the other, and this is why we need the help of the Holy Spirit to make sense of this wonderful book that God uses to close out His Divine Book we call the Bible. But is the "summary" so to speak, of everything out Creator wanted us to know. So when we read the Bible we should always ask the Holy Spirit to tell what He told the authors, and why He chose the words He told them to use. (2 Tim 3:16)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                    27/08/14                                                                                                          

Revelation, Inspiration, and Illumnation

REVELATION, INSPIRATION, and ILLUMINATION.

 

We have often heard any one of these words used to discuss portions of the Bible, which is the written Word of God. But a closer look at the actual meaning of these three words will show you that they cannot be used interchangeably because they all have a different meaning. I recently read in a book by Chuck Swindoll entitled "The Church Awakening" a proper definition of these three words. So I would like to pass on the information to those who might read this article. We will take each word separately, and list his different meaning of each word which is often used to describe scripture. 1/ Revelation---This word should be used only to describe the Bible, which is the one and only "revelation" our Creator ever gave to mankind to follow in order to obey Him, and walk in His ways. I have heard some people tell about some "new revelation" they have received from God, but as I understand the truth there is no such thing as a new revelation from God. He revealed everything He wants us to know in the Bible, the Written Word of God. 2/ Inspiration--- This word is used in (2 Tim 3:16-17) Where we read about how God used certain chosen people to write the scriptures for Him by the Holy Spirit inspiring them. "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work". The third word is 3/ Illumination---Since Revelation and Inspiration have both been completed by our Creator, the only one of these three words to consider is "Illumination". This can only come from the Holy Spirit that was given to us by the Father the moment we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior and Father "adopts" us into His family, and gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit as a seal to that transaction. Since the Holy Spirit we receive is the same Spirit that inspired the authors of scripture; all we need to do is to ask Him to show us what any portion of scripture really means. This is how we receive the correct understanding of any passage of scripture. My experience since I started asking the Holy Spirit for Illumination on certain passages of Scripture, has been that my understanding of what I had previously been taught, had changed quite drastically from what I used to believe!!

 

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                    05/02/16                                                                                                                                                                           

Creator

CREATOR

 

I have put together several articles on the topic of "Creation", but never one on the "Creator". Common sense should tell us that in order to have a creation we must have a Creator. For those of us who believe the Bible to be the Written Word of Almighty God, who assigned Moses to record the beginning of time as we know it in the first book of the Bible that is called Genesis. Which happens to be the word for "Beginning" in the Hebrew language, that God had Moses use to record the first five books of the Bible.

We understand God to be a triune being, a "Three in One" being consisting of Father, Son, and Spirit that we often refer to as the "Holy Trinity". These three always existed in eternity that is outside our "time and space world" that we call our universe. And they always existed in "Perfect Unity" with each other. Since they have always been perfect, naturally the universe they created would be perfect. In previous articles we have dealt with how this perfect creation, including human beings, became very much "imperfect" by the entrance of sin and death into our perfect world, causing it to become our "fallen world".

 

Since our Creator exists outside creation in what we refer to as "Eternity", He is not directly affected by our "Fallen World", although I'm sure He knows exactly what is happening at all times in our world. As a finite being living in a "finite" world there is no way we can understand the "infinite". In Exodus chapters 33 and 34 God gives a self description of His very character to Moses, so it could be recorded in scripture. Bob Mumford calls these 7 characteristics of God His "7 fold DNA", consisting of 1/ Compassion,

 2/ Gracious, 3/ Slow to anger, 4/ Mercy, 5/ Truth, 6/ Faithful, 7/ Forgiving. So it would appear to me that this would be our best definition of our Creator, who is all these 7 things shown forth in His marvelous act of Creation of our "Ever Expanding Creation". What better way to describe Him than with His own "self definition"? There are many different words used in scripture, but when He appeared to Moses in (Exod 34:4-5) we read "Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and He called out His own name Yahweh. The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, Yahweh! The Lord!" And then started listing the 7 characteristics to Moses that apparently He wants to be known for. What better name could we possibly give to our Perfect, Marvelous, and Ever Expanding Creator but "Yahwey"!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                       20/01/15