Called By Name

CALLED BY NAME

 

How wonderful it is to be called by your personal name in a crowd of people I recently read of a school principle who determined to learn the names of the 600 students in her school. The year before she learned the names of 700 students in a different school she had been principal of that year. Just try to imagine what it would mean to a student to be recognized and addressed by their own name in a crowd of 600 students! In (Luke 19:1-10) Jesus was entering Jericho and a well know tax collector by the name of Zacchaeus, who was a short man, climbed up into a tree to be able to see Jesus as He passed by. When Jesus reached the spot where Zacchaeus was, He called him by name and said "Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today". After Zacchaeus had pledged to return 4 times as much as he had taken falsely from anyone for taxes. Then Jesus responded "Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost".

 

Jesus knows us all by name, and calls us to follow Him like He did to His 12    disciples by the Sea of Galilee. Not only does He know us by name, but He knows the plan our Creator had in mind for us before we were born! The Apostle Paul addresses this issue in (Phil 3:10-16), he says he knows he has not yet arrived, but "I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus is calling me. Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, God will make it clear to you. But we must hold on to the progress we have already made". NLT

 

As committed followers of Jesus today, we are members of the Church that Jesus has been in the process of building, as He said He would do as recorded in (Matt 16:18). This true Church is sometimes referred as the "Body of Christ" on earth today. And our main job is to represent the Kingdom of God as "Ambassadors" (2 Col 5:20-21), when you are caused to think you are not important because no one knows your name, just remember Jesus knows your name, and we can know Him as Lord and Savior. That's the most important thing to know for sure!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                          06/12/14

A Wedding Garment

A WEDDING GARMENT

 

This term is mentioned in (Matt 22:11-12), and was part of a parable that Jesus told about a certain king who had prepared celebrations for the marriage of his son. If we read from verse 1-14 for the whole parable, we see that it was told partly for the benefit of the Pharisees, who represented the religious crowd of the day. They were meant to be the man without the proper "wedding garment" in the story, and the last 2 verses explain his end result of being in hell. Bob Mumford gives a good illustration in his teaching series called the Agape Road. He uses this term "wedding garment" to explain the truth brought out by Paul in his second letter to the church in Corinth. In the fifth chapter (2 Cor 5:17-21) he tells about how God brought us lost sinners back to Himself, by allowing His Son Jesus, who was "sinless", to become sin for us and die on the cross to redeem us by paying the price for our sins, for the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), and only a perfectly "sinless" man could pay the price of this sin, and satisfy the demands of a Holy God. Jesus was the only man who qualified to be our one and only Savior!!

 

Bob uses a pure white piece of cloth to represent God's righteousness, which he refers to as the "wedding garment". He lays it over his left hand that is made into a fist, and calls that God "imputing" His righteousness to us as a "gift", and he takes his finger and forces this cloth down into the space between the fingers made into the fist, and calls that Jesus "imparting" this righteousness to us. In other words it is definitely a "gift" that we do not earn by good works, given to us at salvation when He "adopts" us into His Forever Family, and seals this transaction by leaving His Holy Spirit, as a "down payment", so to speak, until we collect our final purchase at our resurrection! (Eph 1:3-14). When we read scriptures like these ones written by Paul, the "Apostle to the Gentiles", to whom God revealed the "mystery" of the Church that Jesus said He would build (Matt 16:18), we know that we can depend on this truth. This is an easy way to pass on this truth to others, who may not yet know Jesus as Lord and Savior, and are depending on their religious activities to gain acceptance with God. This is part of the lie that the devil, who Jesus said is the father of lies, has spread in many churches!! We need to be alert to this lie that many sincere "Christians" have been taught as if it was true.

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                  06/03/12  

A Blueprint for Life

A BLUEPRINT FOR LIFE

 

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 condensed 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 attention.

 

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

Blueprint For The End Times

BLUEPRINT for THE END TIMES

 

Given by Jesus in (Matt 24:4-44), in answering 2 questions put to Him by His disciples in verse 3. 1/ Tell us, when will these things be? 2/ and what will be the sign (singular) of your coming, and of the end of the age? Notice that from verse 4-13 Jesus lists some signs (plural) that will all be a forerunner to His coming, and indeed we are seeing some of them now, but in verse 14 He clearly mentions the "sign" (singular), that will immediately be followed by "and then the end will come". Many false theories have come forth about the timing of events involved in the end time scenario, but we can believe the outline given here by Jesus! If anyone should know how things are going to play out, it is Jesus. If you check out the time words in this passage, like "then", or "after these things", you will see that the chronology follows that given to Daniel by God in what we have come to know as Daniel's "seventieth week" (Dan 9:24-27). And remember that these are not the words of any mere man, but the words of none other than the Son of God Himself, so we know they are accurate!

 

It is amazing how many theories have been introduced into church doctrines by well meaning men who have tried to predict when Jesus will come back to receive His Bride/Church. Jesus said clearly that only the Father knows when the Church has cleansed herself sufficiently to be ready to be received by Jesus as His Bride. Some people mistakenly think the church is ready for an "any moment" rapture, but when you check scriptures like (Eph 5:24-27) you can easily see that what is considered the "church" today, is no where ready to meet the Lord and be taken to heaven! The average church body is such a mixture of "religious" activity and the works of the "flesh", that they are no different than a "social club". We read statistics today that say the record of divorces and remarriages within the church are no different than that of couples outside the church. And the number of men involved in adultery or viewing Porn is no different either. And this definitely should not be if the church is a Biblical Church. From my perspective as a member of several different churches for many years, I would have to say that I have never yet experienced what I would call a true "Biblical Church"!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer