CALVARY'S CROSS (part 1)

CALVARY'S CROSS (part 1)

 

The cross, on which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, freely gave up His life in exchange for our lives that believe in and have accepted Him as Lord and Savior, is probably the most common symbol of Christianity. This cross was located on a hill just outside a gate into the city of Jerusalem, a place that could be seen by people entering or leaving the city. This of course was part of God's plan from before the creation of our "universe", when the Triune God Father, Son, and Spirit, that we refer to as the Trinity made a statement recorded in (Gen 1:26) "Then God said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness". He had to start by creating our time and space universe "out of nothing", so to speak, because in the beginning there was only God and Eternity, as I understand scripture. So God had to create a universe with a planet that could sustain human life. We read that in (Gen 1:1) "In the beginning God created the heavens (plural) and the earth"

(Singular) in spite of what the scientific world tries to tell us. Because there is a creation, common sense tells us there had to be a Creator. Plain and simple! Right?

 

I have noticed that some people have necklaces or other pieces of jewelry fashioned as crosses to remind them of this cross, and I guess that is okay as long as they don't worship that piece of jewelry instead of Jesus who died on the original cross on Calvary. That can become "idol worship" which is a sin. Actually any "thing" that takes the place of Jesus in our lives can become an idol, like family members, a car or a home or even a pet etc. God must be first in our lives once we come to know him through Jesus, and Father adopts us into His family. This we refer to as being "born again" and is the start of a new spiritual life Christ, (2 Cor 5:17-21). "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new". This is all because of accepting the truth of the transaction that was settled at Calvary when "For He made Him  who knew no sin to be made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him". This we can consider on the part of Jesus to be the "Great Exchange", when He voluntarily gave up His life of complete holiness without any sin, for us sinners, and cried out "It is finished". That means that "nothing can be added" to His action there, by way of "good works" of any kind to obtain salvation. It is what we can consider "A done deal", and all we have to do is "believe it"!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                               08/03/13

WHICH WAY WILL YOU GO

WHERE DOES OUR GUILT GO?

 That is a question that often comes to mind when I think seriously about my relationship with God. We all need forgiveness for our many sins, resulting from our rebellious sinful nature inherited from Adam. One of the results of carrying this sin is the "guilt" we continually feel. This comes from our guilty conscience which is our God given gauge that is meant to cause us to repent and turn back to our Creator. But when we finally do this, and receive Jesus as our personal Savior from our sins, and are "born again" into the family of God, where do these sins go? They go somewhere accompanied by the guilt they have caused our soul! The scriptures were given to us by God to answers such questions. In the book of Psalms we read in (Ps 103:12) "He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west". What a profound statement! We know that if we should start at any point on planet earth to travel west, we could continue to travel west forever and never reach a place called east. And the same thing could be said for traveling east from the same spot. Then in (Micah 7:18-20) God gives a promise to His chosen people Israel, that He will pardon their guilt, and "trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean". This is another tremendous promise, and although we may not be part of the Nation of Israel, if we are born into God's family, then we are part of His "elect", some times referred to as His "forever family".

The above mentioned scriptures from the OT give us part of the answer to our question, but probably the best answer comes from the NT letter to the church at Colosse (Col 2:13-15) where  we read in verse 14 "He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross." On the cross when Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us, and died in our place, the sin debt against you and I was "paid in full"!! (2 Cor 5:21) Our sins, and the guilt associated with them were "absorbed", so to speak, into the very person of Christ! This is the core truth of the Gospel (good news) of the Kingdom of God, and is a truth that is worth spending time trying to wrap your mind around. It is amazing how much we just take for granted because of the "cheap grace" that has been taught be certain churches, in my opinion. For example some so-called "seeker friendly" churches never tell people that they must repent of their sins and believe in, and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior in order to be "born again" in order to become a child of God. Only then does Father God adopt us into His Forever Family, and we can be sure of going to heaven when we die. Be assured that according to God's Word there is no other way!!
Sincerely submitted.
Dave Jamer                                                                                revised 06/02/13

 

ADDICTIONS

ADDICTIONS

 

Our Creator has built into every person the desire and the need for love and acceptance. People need to be able to give and receive love freely! But not everyone is able to do that for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are based on their environment, or family situation. Sometimes it can even be something that has been inherited, or passed down from past generations, like rejection or fear for example. And we must realize that we have an enemy who is always trying to keep us in bondage, and he has lots of invisible demon helpers to do his work for him. God has created us so that when we love Him, love ourselves, and love others, (Matt 22:37-39) our body produces the proper hormones like (serotonin) that make us feel good. A shortage of this hormone in our system causes us to look for a substitute, which can be any one of many things like food, alcohol, tobacco, or various drugs etc. People who have deep problems but live in denial are especially prone to addictions. It is difficult to walk away from addictions while still feeling unloved. A person must choose between bondage and freedom, God won't do it for us no matter how much we pray. (Deut 30:19). The Bible says choose this day whether we want blessings or curses, life or death!

 

Our Creator God created each one of us with this ability to make choices they can be good choices or bad choices. These choices are made by our "will", which along with "intellect" and "emotions" make up our "soul". Like all three parts of our soul, our will can be influenced by many different factors. We must keep this in mind when we try to understand addictions, whether for ourselves or others. The power over addictions or any other problem is always available through God. But it is only available on God's terms. On certain occasions He can move in our lives by supernatural methods that we call "miracles", but usually He operates according to His normal divine order. This requires a person to be in relationship with Him as a member of His Forever Family, and this is only possible by believing in, and receiving His Son Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. (John 14:6). This requires exercising "faith" which is a gift from Him, as explained by Paul as recorded in (Eph 2:1-10). When we do this and ask Him to forgive us of our sin, He will forgive us and cleanse us of all our unrighteous deeds, and adopt us into His Forever Family. At that point in time He gives us His Holy Spirit to dwell within our spirit. We are then qualified to ask Him for healing or deliverance from any bondage or addiction!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                            30/04/12

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 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 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

We Harvest What We Sow

WE HARVEST WHAT WE PLANT

 

The scripture has a lot to say about sowing and reaping a harvest. In his letter to the churches in Galatia, Paul makes some powerful statements in (Gal 6:7-10). He starts off by declaring "you always harvest what you plant", in other words there is more than one kind of seed, but the harvest will always be of the same type as the seed sown. Remember there is always a time factor of several months in the natural, between sowing the seed and reaping the harvest. The same principle applies to the spiritual realm, which is what we want to consider. Some folks seem to grow old gracefully, while others become grouchy and ill-tempered. This doesn't happen suddenly, but gradually over a period of time. If we were able to go back in time to see what sort of things these people sowed into their lives and relationships with others, we would probably see the reason for the difference!

 

C S Lewis is credited with saying "Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before". If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, then we need to be very careful what type of choices we make. We can choose to submit our wills to line up with God's, or we can choose to follow our own desires, or those of certain friends. The result will not always be seen immediately, but will show up in your life eventually. So why not heed the advice of Paul "Don't be misled----you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful flesh nature will harvest decay and death from their sinful nature, but those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up." The question we have to ask ourselves then is, which way am I sowing? Am I sowing to the Spirit or to the flesh? It seems clear from this scripture passage, as well as others, that the seeds we sow today will determine the kind of fruit we'll reap tomorrow.  We read in

 (Gal 5: 16-21) where Paul describes what he calls the "works of the flesh", as sins that will prevent those who do such things from  their "inheritance" that is being reserved in heaven for us according to (1Peter 1:3-9). With this in mind we should warn people of the eternal danger of being involved in any of these "works of the flesh" mentioned here. Instead of the works of the flesh let it be the fruit of the Spirit listed by Paul in (Gal 5:22-23)!!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                revised 30/01/13     

 

 

The Good Life

THE GOOD LIFE

 

Today is the start of the New Year 2013, and I had not received a scripture portion for the New Year "until" I read the devotional from the ODB for today. It was written by David Roper based on a portion of Psalm 73, and he quoted a verse from "Blessed Assurance" by Fanny Crosby, and finished with this closing word "The wonder of it all---just to think that Jesus loves me", which of course is also part of another old hymn. So as a result of this prompting I read the entire Psalm 73 and have chosen a certain verse for this year 2013. I have named this article "The Good Life" based on this scripture. This Psalm was written by Asaph who was troubled by the wicked men who seemed be much better off than the righteous "until" he went into the sanctuary to worship God. When he did this he declared "Then I understood their end". Then he could write verse 38 "It is good for me to draw close to God", and I think I will take that verse to be my motto for 2013. The fact is that God is never far away from us, unless we are running away from Him for some reason, and even then His Holy Spirit abides with us "forever", so trying to run away from Him is impossible! So why not draw near to Him on purpose every day instead?

 

This seems like a logical question to ask yourself, but your "flesh" will give you a lot of reasons why you can't do that. We all have a "flesh nature" even after we are "born again" by receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior, and being adopted by Father into His Forever Family. A lot of followers of Jesus don't seem to understand this fact. The original sin we inherited from our original parents Adam and Eve died with Jesus on the cross and we are free from that sin. But this Flesh nature that fights against the Spirit who indwells us will be with us until we die, as far as I know. See (Rom 8:1-2), and also

(Gal 5:16:23) to learn how to have victory over this sinful flesh. The answer would seem to be to simply "walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh". The "Fruit of the Spirit" is contrasted against the "works of the flesh" in this passage from Galatians 5, so we need to read this carefully and fully understand this provision our faithful Father has made for us! So as I understand scripture we have absolutely no excuse for continuing to be involved in continuously committing certain sinful activities that have hindered us in our walk with the Lord. So I suggest that we all adopt this motto for 2013, and "Draw Near To God"!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                              01/01/13

New Year 2013

NEW YEAR'S DAY 2013

 

Today is Jan 1, 2013 at 6.00 AM in Saint John NB, and the thermometer is reading -17C, and we have received 2 major snow storms since Christmas with at least 24 inches of snow on the ground, more than at anytime last year. We celebrated last night with a family gathering at Jerry and Carol's home with everyone there except David and Rhonda who were with Ben and Jo in Joliet Quebec celebrating with Jo's French Canadian family, and Shiloh was in Saint Louise MO with 20,500-30,000 students at the Urbana ISCF missions gathering. So I expect the sun to put in an appearance at about 8.30 AM and we will have a cool crisp New Year's Day.

 

The day of thinking we had to stay awake to welcome the new year in have long gone, and we are content to let the younger crowd do that for us, knowing that at the right time it will happen all around the world. We recorded in our article "A Review of 2012" how God had given us a particular scripture verse for 2012, but so far that hasn't happened for 2013. But we will keep listening, and perhaps He will yet do that. We still have 365 days in this New Year to sense His still small voice advising us of just what we should do.--- Since starting this article I took a break for breakfast and read "Our Daily Bread" for today and got my answer already for a motto for 2013. It will be "Draw near to God", and I explain more about it in my first article in 2013 called "The Good Life". It certainly does not take God long to answer, and this wasn't really a prayer; and these little books of daily devotionals are prepared a year in advance, so this is just a further example of the "foreknowledge" of our God. Why would we not want to draw near to Him? It would appear as though most people might have some little "secret sins" that they don't want others to know about, and they assume that God does not know about them either. Which is ridicules because He sees everything that we all do, so it is impossible to hide things from Him. He even knows what we keep in what Baxter Kruger calls the "garbage can" with a lid on it, that he claims we all have that we stuff all the hurts and emotional wounds we have ever received into, and we keep the lid on tight. I never heard it identified as that but I do know from experience when dealing with certain people in the past, that when they allow the Holy Spirit to really bring to the surface things they have kept secret, they can be healed instantly of things that have kept them in bondage for years. They have probably taken the lid off their "garbage can"!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                              01/01/13