The Fellowship of the Unashamed

THE FELLOWSHIP of the UNASHAMED

 

I recently read a book by that name, published by the SKY family in PEI. I obtained it from their website <theskys.org>, and was so impressed by it, that I would encourage everyone to buy a copy for some friend, and read it for yourself before you give it away! That's how much I think of it, and believe everyone can benefit from it. It is not an ordinary type of book but is more an outline for a Bible study, 213 pages divided into 27 chapters, or a little less than 8 pages per chapter. It is more or less based on the 10 commandments of God that were expanded to 613 rules or regulations by the religious Jewish leaders at the time of Jesus. Religion has a way of doing that, to make it difficult for the average person to follow. Jesus came to earth to destroy "religion", and replace it with a "relationship" with our heavenly Father. This relationship is not difficult to establish, or maintain. It only requires a little faith, and obedience to what God has declared in His Word! Any child, who reaches the age of understanding simple truth that is explained to them, can start this relationship with Father God, through accepting His Son Jesus and what He did for us on the cross! It is not complicated, like some religious leaders have made it out to be.

 

One important truth I learned, after being part of the "church" for nearly 50 years, was the difference between the "moral law" (the 10 commandments), which Jesus came to fulfill, and the 613 "ceremonial laws" that He came to destroy! No one ever explained that to me through all these many years in church meetings. That is only one of many things that I received new illumination on. We are never too old to learn new things, providing we are open, and realize that we don't know everything! Sometimes a knowledge of "religion", and a feeling of wanting to "look good", and "be right", can prevent us from receiving more of God's truth. By the way these are 2 of the "7 giants" that Bob Mumford describes in his book called the "Agape Road".

That is another book that I have learned a lot from, and am still trying to apply these truths to my own life. Both of these books are good tools to have on hand, both to gain from yourself and to share with others. I find that books that are solidly based on scripture, can often help you understand scripture better, and help you grow in your spiritual walk!!

 

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                             Revised 17/09/13                                                                                                                                                                              

The Rest of The Lord

THE REST OF THE LORD

 

In the book of Hebrews, chapter 4, we find a discussion about this subject and in verse 9 we read in the NLT version "So there is a special rest still waiting for the children of God". Then in the devotional booklet called ODB today the topic was "Tree of Rest", which caught my attention. Apparently the author lived near a farmer's field with one lone tree out in the center of the field, which had once been a pasture for his cattle. It seems that was a common practice when they cut down the trees to clear the land, they would often leave one large tree as a "shade tree" that would be a place of rest for the animals from the sun on a hot summer day. I can personally relate to that having been brought up on a farm, I can well remember seeing a group of cattle resting in the shade of an old tree of some kind.

 

The OT speaks of a remnant of Israelites whom God spared when the nation was sent into exile. This remnant preserved God's law and later rebuilt the temple (Ezra 9:9). The Apostle Paul referred to himself as part of the remnant of God (Rom 11:1-14). NLT He spared them to become God's messengers to the Gentiles (non-Jews). Praise God for His faithfulness to His original "chosen people", who will one day come to saving faith in Jesus Christ as their Messiah! At this present time their minds are veiled from the truth until the fullness of the Gentiles has come into the Body of Christ, and then as we read in (Rom 11:25-36) NLT that at the proper time God will redeem the remnant of Israel. This has always been part of His ultimate plan since before He created our time and space world.

 

How important it is that as followers of Jesus, we become familiar with the often difficult plan of our Great Creator, that He had recorded for us in the Bible so that it can be understood by true seekers after truth. Since we know that when "doubting Thomas" said he didn't know the way that Jesus said He was going, He replied "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me". (John 14:6) NLT Part of our responsibility as a follower of Jesus is to be a "Tree of Rest" to others who are also followers of Jesus.  How can we do that you might ask? I believe that God would expect us to speak "encouraging words" to those who might be discouraged with life for any one of many possible reasons. Often all that is needed is a listening ear so they can feel that you are really interested in them as a person, who is a real brother or sister to them in the Lord!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                 02/05/14                                                                                 

A New Paradigm

A NEW PARADIGM

 

I have been hearing much lately about the need for the church to have a "new paradigm". As I understand the term, it simply means a new way of seeing and understanding our role as the "Body of Christ" here and now on planet earth! We have operated for years under an old paradigm, and now must leave the old behind, in favor of the new. Something similar to the "New Covenant", which replaced the "Old Covenant". Our Bibles are clearly divided into these two parts that we call the Old Testament and the New Testament, with John the Baptist being the dividing line between them. (Matt 11:11) One thing that has helped to shape our old paradigm was the introduction by Dr Scofield of what he called the seven "dispensations" of history, instead of two! His teaching is known as "Dispensationalism", and has greatly affected the church in the last century. A more important thing that has shaped the old paradigm has been the church "structure" introduced by Constantine back in the fourth century. We see God's plan for church structure in the NT writings, especially the book of Acts, and Paul's letters. And a big part of the new paradigm for the church will simply be getting back to the original model set up by Jesus! There have been many restoration movements in the history of the church that have brought changes to doctrine, but not to this old structure of how we "do church"!

 

One big problem as I see it, is our understanding of heaven being our "goal". Everybody wants to get to heaven as soon as possible, to escape the wickedness in the world we are called to live in. That has never been God's intention for His children, in spite of what we have been told. Bob Mumford stated recently in a teaching given at Elim Bible Institute, "Heaven is not the goal!", the goal is found in (Rom 8:18-25), and in (Eph 4:11-13), and would seem to be that we are to become the "mature children", who can properly demonstrate to the world what God's Kingdom is all about! The world has never really seen that in the church, which has always been focused on getting to heaven and avoiding hell. The world around us needs to see Jesus in all His Fullness and Beauty! That's why God left us here on planet earth after He redeemed us, to be "shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people" (Phil 2:15)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                        20/03/12                                                                          

The Careful Walk

THE CAREFUL WALK

 

This was the title of the devotional in ODB today, June 2, 2014 by Dave Branon. He based it on (Eph 5:15-21) which in the NLT version starts with the heading "Living by the Spirit's power". This passage from verse 15-21 gives us some wonderful advice from the Apostle Paul about how we should live our lives. Verse 15 starts with "So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise". And 16 carries on with "Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days". I don't think anybody would disagree with that statement that we are living in evil days in this 21^st century. We see the results of it every day on the evening news broadcasts. But Paul doesn't leave us there, but goes on in verse 17 to say "Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do". This is probably where many people are today in their walk with the Lord!

 

Paul goes on in verse 18 to state one of the most important verses in all of scripture "Don't be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead be filled with the Holy Spirit". The tense of the verb he uses for being filled in Greek is one that implies a "continuous action", in other words be continuously filled with the Spirit at all times. We hear a lot today about the need to receive the "Baptism with the Holy Spirit", once you are born again. And we know from (Acts 2:4) that the initial sign of being filled with the Spirit is to speak with tongues as He gives the ability. These tongues can be either "of men or of angels" (1 Cor 13:1), or in other words on the day of the original outpouring of the Spirit they were definitely "known tongues" of the 14 different nations listed in verses 7-11 of Acts chapter 2. Then in (1 Cor 14:2) we understand Paul explaining speaking in a "heavenly" tongue of angels, to communicate directly to our Father. So apparently there are 2 different types of tongues, one for communicating with people of a different nation, and the other a "prayer language" for use in communicating directly with God. Not everyone I have met in Pentecostal or Charismatic circles seem to understand this, and certain confusion has been the result. The fruit of this being constantly filled is given in verses 19-21. Notice that speaking in tongues is not mentioned, but things like "Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God". NKJV We certainly need the Holy Spirit infilling to do these last few things mentioned, especially "submission to others"!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                               03/06/14                                                                                                                                        

God's Lost Treasures

A CALL TO COMFORT OTHERS

 

When we read (2 Cor 1:3-11) we see the Apostle Paul offering some good advice on how to express comfort and encouragement to anyone going through a time of loss. When we know someone who has recently endured the loss of a loved one through death, or some other tragedy, this is a good passage to turn to. Bible scholar W. E. Vine, who wrote "Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words", says the Greek word that is translated as "comfort" in this passage means "A calling to one's side". Paul uses this word several times in this passage, for example in verse 7 we read "We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us". So in other words when we take time to share in another person's suffering, we can also share in the comfort we both will receive from God, as Paul expresses it so well in verse 4. "He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us".

 

I recently read a line someone had written, "God comforts us so that we can comfort others". And this is certainly a true statement that we find repeated often in scripture, because our God is defined by the Apostle John in his first letter (1 John 4:8) as [Agape] the Greek word for "love". Actually there are two Greek words that are both translated into English as love. They are [Agape] and [Eros] and have a completely different meaning, [Agape] is the word used for God, but [Eros] is used for sensual or erotic love, the word that the world uses to express love. Sometimes the word used to express the true meaning of Eros is taken from it and is "erotic". It is much used today in our sinful society, and shows the weakness of English as a language compared to either Hebrew or Greek.

 

Our God wants to comfort us in any trouble we might find ourselves in at times, because He loves us with His unending unconditional Agape love. And this is the kind of love and concern for others that He gives us once we become part of His Eternal family when we place our faith and trust in His Son Jesus Christ. When anyone who does this is "born again" as Jesus told Nicodemus he must be in (John 3:1-8). At that moment Father God adopts them into His family, and they become citizens of heaven, and a member of the "the Holy city, the New Jerusalem" that John saw coming down from heaven to earth as recorded in (Rev 21:1-4), our eternal home!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                              26/05/14

GOD'S LOST TREASURE

 

I was inspired by the devotional in ODB today by Joe Stowell, May 29, 2014. When Jesus gathered His group of 12 disciples at the start of His ministry He simply called them "come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people". (Matt 4:19). Apparently He considered all people to be lost and needed to be found, in other words they represented "His Lost Treasures". We are all of infinite value to God because of His unconditional love for all of His creation, and therefore He declares in (2 Peter 3:9) that "He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance". The well known scripture (John 3:16) tells us the same thing, so we can be sure we are all precious treasures to Him. In fact the Apostle Paul refers to us as "God's Masterpiece" in (Eph 2:10), where he gives a good summary of the gospel in the first 10 verses of this chapter.

 

Men and women are all lost in the grip of sin that we all inherited from our first parents Adam and Eve. But thanks be to God who allowed His only begotten Son Jesus to die on that cruel Roman cross as our "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29). He became our one and only "Redeemer", who could satisfy our account registered in heaven, when we acknowledged our sin debt and repented of it and received Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Once we become a new creature in Christ (2 Cor 5:17), then we can help others find our mutual King Jesus, so they too can become one of Father's children, and a committed follower of Jesus. That is why you and I are left here on this earth after we are "born again" by God's Spirit. So that we can testify to others what a change Jesus can make in our lives.

 

Our common enemy Satan with his huge number of earth bound demons on earth, plus the "fallen angels" who followed Lucifer in his pride and rebellion that caused him to be caste out of heaven, and now are the "rulers and authorities" in "heavenly places" (Eph 3:10) NLT. These combined forces of demons and fallen angels, make up Satan's kingdom of darkness that is constantly at war with those of us who are part of God's Kingdom of light. This is what we refer to as "spiritual warfare", but what we must realize is that the "Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8), and Paul confirmed this in (Col 2:13-15). So really all that the devil is left with is his character as "the father of lies" (John 8:44), his only weapon against God's children is lies and deception!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                               29/05/14                                                                                     

D-DAY

D-DAY

 

Today June 6, 2014 is the 70^th anniversary of an important day in the WW2 when the soldiers of the Allied Forces invaded Normandy France, which proved to be the "start of the end" of the greatest World War to date. In which the Allied Forces of England, Canada and the US combined to defeat the army of Nazi Germany under Adolph Hitler. Some of you would be too young to remember this war, but I had 2 brothers and several uncles involved in various phases of the war, but not this particular battle. The term D-Day has come to represent certain important days in our lives, for example when Joshua became the leader of the Israelites after Moses died and was challenging the people about what gods they would worship when they entered the land that Almighty God had promised to give them, in (Josh 24:15) he said "But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord". And I expect that everyone reading this article have had their personal D-Day's in their lifetime.

 

For most of us the day of our birth into this world from our mother's womb would qualify as a D-Day. A day we all celebrate every year! Then there might be days of crisis of one sort or another, perhaps when a loved one dies, or some other day that stands out in your mind. For me personally this day would be Dec 8, 1999, the day I had my first stroke that drastically changed my lifestyle. I'm sure we can all remember such days in our lives that could be called a D-Day for us personally. But I believe that by far the greatest singular D-Day for anyone would have to be the day they choose to follow Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior! This is the one decision that determines where we will spend eternity when our life ends on Planet Earth. What could possibly be a more important day than that? And to realize that our Creator leaves that decision up to us personally is almost more than I can wrap my mind around. But He did create us all with a "free will" with which to make choices, when He could have created as "robots".

 

With that fact in mind, I need to ask you all a serious question, have you made this all important decision to place your faith and trust in what Jesus did for all of us humans on the Cross of Calvary. That is clearly the most important decision you will ever make, that decides whether you will spend eternity with Jesus and His Father with the Holy Spirit in the New Jerusalem that He has prepared for His children, see (Rev 21:1-8)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                          07/06/14                                                                                         

Too Late

TOO LATE

 

This was the title of the ODB devotional for today, April 30, 2014 written by Dave Branon. He had spent some time as a university professor and every year he would warn his freshman students of the need to get all of their class assignments in on time. But invariably there would be some students who were always late getting them in. He would have to tell them "I'm sorry. It's too late, you have failed the class". And of course they would be out the cost of that class, and would have to repeat it just because they were "too late". According to (Matt 7:21-23) some people will stand before Jesus Christ who are not "true disciples" and will hear Him say "Not everyone who calls out to me Lord! Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, only those who actually do the will of my father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, Lord! Lord!  We prophesied in your name and performed many miracles in your name. But I will reply I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God's laws". NLT

 

In Hebrews chapter four we read about the "rest of God" that awaits us in this life, and we never know for sure how long this physical life we enjoy here on earth will last. So it would seem to be a wise move to look into receiving God's gift of "Eternal Life" that will never ever end, before it is "too late". It is one thing to be a freshman in college and be late for some written assignments, and have to repeat a class; but it is definitely entirely a different matter to be late for God's time to accept His gift of eternal life before it is forever "too late". It would seem that not everyone is concerned about this matter, either because they don't know what God tells us in His Word the Bible, or if they do know they either don't believe He is serious, or else they are just plain foolish. I'm not sure because only God knows people's hearts, but we do know that (Heb 9: 27-28) tells us that "And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ died once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for Him". NLT God is perfectly honest and holy and always keeps the word of His New Covenant that He made with His "elect" people, who were never able to keep the Old Covenant that He made with the descendants of Abraham. The Old covenant was a "God to Man" covenant but the New Covenant is a "God to God" covenant which is

"Everlasting" and will never be broken, Hallelujah!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                      30/04/14