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

PSEUDO-SPIRITUALITY

PSEUDO-SPIRITUALITY

I woke up one day last week with this word in my mind, I wasn't even sure how to spell it, but looked it up on Google and found it was a fancy word for "false" or we might say a "counterfeit". So when it is added to any word as a prefix it simply means it is a "fake imitation" of that thing. Because we are all created in the image and likeness of our Creator, we all are born with a built in desire to worship someone or some thing. Since our spiritual enemy, Satan the "Great Deceiver" takes advantage of this desire and gives us a mixed variety of false spiritual experiences to choose from. That is why the "church" has been plagued with so many so-called "New Age" religious experiences to lead us astray from worshipping our Creator God through Jesus Christ His Son. Jesus and many NT writers all warned us over and over to expect "many" false prophets and teachers to appear in the "churches" in the last days before Jesus comes back to earth for His second coming in "clouds of glory". I believe we are now in the beginning of these "Last Days" that has been predicted. But no one except Father God knows the time when this event will take place, but there have been many false attempts to tell us the date. This seems to be a popular lie to try to deceive people.

 

That is why it is critically important to have a good understanding of OT prophecies, as well as a knowledge of NT prophecies that pertain to the second coming of Jesus. It seems that this topic has been the most often one to be "counterfeited". I suppose that is because everyone wants to be sure they go to heaven to be with Jesus, and the sooner the better. For sure no one wants to suffer under the reign of the coming Antichrist, so that is why the "Pre-Tribulation Rapture" theory has been so popular. Because they have taught that the church will be caught up to be with Jesus before this Antichrist shows up on the scene. But a simple reading of (Rev 13:1-10) will prove this theory to be false. So many of this type of "pseudo-spiritual" teaching can by avoided by a careful and prayerful comparison to scripture. The reason for counterfeit $100.00 bills is because there are "real ones", the same thing goes for counterfeit expensive watches or any other valuable item. So it should be no surprise to us that our enemy, Satan the "Great Deceiver" would use so many different "counterfeit" spiritual experiences to trap believers in Jesus. So again I would encourage you to check out all Scripture passages that mention "false" (pseudo) prophets or teachers.There are quite a few, so be like the Bereans in (Acts 17:11)!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                         30/12/12

THE ONE MEDIATOR

THE ONE MEDIATOR

 

From Paul's first letter to his young disciple Timothy we read in (1 Tim 2:5) "For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus". The most common use of this word in our society today would be in the case of a dispute between a labor union and an employer, and the government might appoint a "mediator" to try and bring the two sides to an "agreement". In the scripture mentioned here the two sides are "man", who because of Adam and Eve disobeying the only restriction their Creator had placed on them in the Garden of Eden, this act of rebellion brought "sin" and "death" into creation, (Rom 5:12). This original act of sin brought a division between God and man that only Jesus Christ the "sinless God/Man" could take care of by His death on the Cross of Calvary. We read that everyone on earth are "sinners" (Rom 3:9-23), and the penalty for sin is death

(Rom 6:23) so it required the death of a sinless man to pay this debt and redeem mankind. This is the very heart of the message of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God., which is really the key message of the complete Bible, especially the NT portion, which includes the New Covenant.

 

The marvelous "secret plan" that was kept hidden from mankind until the apostle Paul came on the scene, was that through Jesus Christ He would make "One New Man" from the Jews and the Gentiles (non Jews). See (Eph 1:3-10, 2:11-22, 3:1-10) to understand that this secret plan was really the creation of the "Biblical Church" that Jesus said He would build, as recorded in (Matt 16:18). This True Church includes people from every tribe and nation in the world who place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. When they do this they are "born again" by the Spirit of God, as Jesus told Nicodemus he must be in (John 3:1-8). At this moment they are "adopted" by the Father into His Eternal Family. This is why the Name of Jesus is the most important Name of all the persons mentioned in the Bible. And of course the Name that is used more often than any other as a "curse word" by those wicked and ungodly followers of Satan the god of this world. Jesus called him the father of lies, and that there is no truth in him. See (John 8:44) for the discussion He had with a group of religious leaders. He is often referred to in scripture as the "Great Deceiver", and he still functions in that role in the present 21^st century. That's why Jesus and the apostles like Paul, John, and Peter warns us to beware of deception!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                         22/12/12

 

the incarnation

THE INCARNATION

 

At this time of year when we celebrate the coming to earth of Jesus Christ, in a time we call "Christmas", our minds are drawn to the miracle of what we call "the incarnation". In the writings of the apostle Paul, we find several passages that pertain to this event. (Phil 2:5-11) is one of my favorite scriptures pertaining to the first coming of Jesus to our planet, and (Gal 4:4-7) is another. But first we should look at (Luke 1:26-38), where we read of the coming to Mary of the arch-angel Gabriel, with the news that she had been favored by God for the task of being the human instrument through whom the Savior of the world would take on human form! Most of us learn quite early in life how the human reproduction system works. It requires a female to produce an egg at a certain point in her monthly cycle, which must then be fertilized by a male at the right time in order to achieve conception. In Mary's case, at the correct time in her monthly cycle, she was "overshadowed" by the Holy Spirit, and the child conceived in her womb was truly the Son of God. This was one of the greatest miracles of all time!

 

The way Paul described this miracle event in (Phil 2:5-11) is awesome! The first part of the chapter describes how we should relate to other members in the body of Christ by putting others ahead of ourselves. He uses Jesus as our example of humility. Let me quote verses 5-7 from the Amp version "Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus—let Him be your example in humility—who although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God, God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained; but stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity] so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being." This is what Christmas is all about!!

Is it any wonder that the world system and other world religions, do not want us to celebrate Christmas as the birthday of the Savior? They do not believe in Jesus, and don't want to be reminded of His coming in the "fullness of time", born of a virgin, so that He could fulfill all the scriptures from the Old Testament prophets, who told about His supernatural birth. Let's do all we can do to keep this true message of Christ in Christmas this year, and every year until He comes again for His second appearance!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer

THE SEVEN FOLD DNA of GOD

THE SEVEN FOLD DNA of GOD

 

Our scientific world after many years of research, agree that every human on our planet has a separate and unique DNA. In other words we are all different and unique, and were created this way by our Creator God. According to (Ex 34:5-7) God Himself declared to His friend Moses His self revealed character, which we can call His DNA, so Moses could record it as part of God's Word the Bible. It consists of seven parts 1/ Compassion

2/ Grace 3/ Slow to anger 4/ Mercy 5/ Truth 6/ Faithful 7/ Forgiving, this is the way God wants us to see Him. Unfortunately because of our concept of a father based on our own earthly fathers, it has been very difficult for most people to accept God as our Father. God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus and the Father are declared as being One and the same in several scripture passages. For example (Heb 1:1-3) and in (Col 2:9) where we read "For in Him [Jesus] dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily".

Because we know more about Jesus from the scriptures, and can see in the four gospel accounts his actions toward people, it just seems easier to receive Him as a loving Lord and Savior than the Father who is Spirit and invisible. And the Father is easy to malign because He doesn't defend Himself. As a result He is often blamed for things that are simply called "Acts of God", especially by insurance companies who don't want to pay for damages for certain claims.

 

So definitely the Father has received a "bad rap" by society as a whole because they are ignorant of what the Bible says about Him. And this is partly because those of us to claim to be followers of Jesus have not done a very good job of representing Him to the "fallen world" around us. We really have no excuse because the scriptures make it clear what we should do to show people what a life of following Jesus should look like. There are various reasons we can offer for not being a better witness for Jesus but none of them are valid. We read in (Acts 1:8) that when the Holy Spirit comes upon us He will give us the power to "be" witnesses to Jesus starting in our home town and working out from there to the whole world. We have been told we need to "do" witnessing in various ways, but this verse tells us that out very life should BE a witness if we are walking in the Spirit as Paul tells us in (Gal 5:13-21). Here Paul explains clearly the problem often is that we are walking in the "flesh" and not the "Spirit". And God always leaves the choice up to us, he never forces us to make choices!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                    02/09/12

REJECTION

REJECTION

 

The problem of addictions and rejection are closely related, and both have the common root of "lack of love", or to be more specific, the inability of being able to give or receive love freely. This is definitely a spiritual problem that is caused by unclean demon spirits, sometimes received while the person is still in their mother's womb. We are all created with the need to receive and return love freely, and when we are not able to do that, we suffer from the feeling of not being accepted! We are told in the Bible in (Gen 1:26-27) that we are created in the "Image and likeness of God". And we know God is a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Fear is closely connected to rejection, because when we feel we have no value, the enemy makes us believe this lie, and we fear we are rejected. Those who have studied rejection say 60-70 present of all rejection is imagined, and because they are carrying a spirit of rejection, they naturally feel rejected and withdraw, like a turtle into our shell! This is the most common defense that people who suffer from rejection depend on.

 

We need to receive the truth that Paul expresses in (Phil 1:6) "And I am certain that God, who began a good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished when Christ Jesus returns". (NLT). Another common defense against feeling rejected is to explode with anger or rage, and look to our addictions, or to some other person for comfort. Love and acceptance is the antidote for rejection, and knowing who you are "in Christ" (2 Cor 5:17). Jesus had to deal with "rejection" more than anyone, so once we are in Him our rejection has already been dealt with!! PTL! That is why it is essential to be "born again" by the Spirit, as Jesus told a very religious man named Nicodemus in (John 3:1-8). This is how we became a follower of Jesus and are "adopted" into God's Forever Eternal family as Paul explains to us in (Eph 1:1-14), one of the most important passages in the NT scriptures. I can relate to people suffering from rejection, because I believe I picked up a spirit of rejection in my mother's womb. And I lived with it most of my life, until I learned about "deliverance". So I have always had compassion for people who suffer from rejection, and know that there is hope for them "in Jesus" (2 Cor 5:17). So I encourage anyone who has trouble giving or receiving love to consider this problem as something they can be delivered from. Yes there is "Hope" in Jesus!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                   21/11/12