Bible @ MindSay



 

   
My personal reflection for this week

I was thinking the other day on the scripture.. "I can do all things thru Christ who strengthens me"...

( Phillipians 4:13)

 

The verb "strengthen" is Greek sterizo, "to cause to be inwardly firm or committed, 'confirm, establish, strengthen.' ] I love this word. It is such a positive, weighty, substantial word -- "Strengthen."

 

How many times have I prayed/encouraged others/said it as a mantra? Countless times. But I began to think yesterday what does it mean thru Christ who strengthens me? How does He strengthen me?

 

First and foremost, it is GOD who strengthens us.

       "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little    while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." (1 Peter 5:10)

 

      "But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one." (2 Thessalonians 3:3)

 

So, while I have been hurt, wounded, floundering and knocked down a peg or two these last few years, it has not been to see my face shoved in the mud, indeed not! It has been to show me God's faithfulness and the process of refining, of making me a stronger person. So how do I position myself to be available to be strengthened?

 

The first thing that came to my mind was:

 

By reading the word of God.

            Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17). So as I read and listen to the word, my faith is increased therefore giving me strength on multiple levels.

 

By prayer.

            Communicating with Jesus thru prayer will build my relationship with Him. As you spend more time with someone, you get to know them better. In other words, your relationship is stronger. You develop strength.

 

With Worship.

            Taking the time to let my Creator know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am ever so grateful and how much I love and adore Him can be achieved in many ways. Through music, through writing, through loud and boisterous praise to name a few.   "They that wait upon the Lord shall renw their strength..." -Isaiah 40:31

 

 All of us need such strengthening.  Life is ceaseless stress. I know God's word to be true when He says "the power at work within us that is able to do far more abundantly than we ask or think” -Ephesians 3:20

 

Many times He does not give us the particular avenue to His blessing which we have asked for, but if we are willing, He gives us a different avenue which brings far more blessing than we ever thought to ask for.

 

Those are my thoughts on Christ strengthening me and as I meditate on this word, I hope that by my sharing it, it has given you something to consider as well.

 

Love and Laughter,

Dawn

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
   
 

Recommended reading: Bad Girls of the Bible
I've recently discovered this series of 3 books (so far) by Liz Curtis Higgs, an accomplished Christian speaker and writer (she's written more than a dozen books now, both fiction and nonfiction) and highly recommend them. The first one is Bad Girls of the Bible and What We Can Learn from Them; the next one is Really Bad Girls of the Bible, and the third one is Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible.  Higgs delves deeply into the stories of these Biblical women and makes them come alive in a way nobody else ever has (for me, anyway).  It's amazing how much information is there when you look at it as she has, and how much we can learn from what isn't said as much as what is.  Some of the women studied in these books are Rachel, Rebekah, Rahab, Hagar, Sarah, Michal, Sapphira, Eve, the Samaritan woman at the well, and the sinful woman who poured perfume on Jesus' feet. Some of these women are familiar and you may never have heard of others, such as Michal (a daughter of King Saul, married to King David).  Some are never named though they are well known for their actions, such as Potiphar's wife.  Of course, characters like Delilah and Jezebel are found in Really Bad Girls of the Bible

Higgs injects her own humor into these stories which helps the stories come alive - such as pointing out that the Bible describes the physical characteristics of few people in its pages, but King David and Joseph were two of them - and Higgs writes, "oooh, baby!" after quoting the descriptions.  She also points out that Eve had it made, because she had never been a child and therefore had no chicken pox scars, and I realized that Eve had also never been a teenager and therefore had no acne scars, and had never been pregnant (when she was in the Garden of Eden) and had no stretch marks either! She was drop-dead gorgeous, no doubt about it.

I recommend these books without reservation, and the audio books as well.  The audio book for the first book is abridged but very enjoyable nonetheless, and there is no audiobook for the second one, and I just finished listening to the unabridged audiobook for the third one and loved it. The author reads her own books and she's a hoot. 

In the process of reading/listening to these books, I learned so much about these women, about their times, and especially about God.  Higgs makes them and their stories come alive across the centuries, and it's clear that human nature was the same then as it is now!  Higgs especially shows that the God that took care of them is the same Almighty God in whom we can trust for all our needs today.
 
 
 

   
GAY MAN SUES BIBLE PUBLISHER OVER HOMOSEXUAL VERSES

What do you think, does he have a case? Should people be able to sue a particular religion's sacred book because they don't agree with it's content? Do you think his 'civil rights' were violated?

Personally, I find this rather sad, and pathetic for anyone to do such a thing. If you are not willing to change your ways according to what a particular spiritual path dictates, there are many many spiritual paths that you can ascribe to that does.Why try to change a particular religions 'rules of conduct' if you disagree with them? One does not have to belong to any religious path in this country so why the fuss? No one especially in this country is forcing you to belong and follow their particular religions beliefs. I believe the judge should throw this case in the garbage where it belongs.

ANN

 

Gay Man Files $70M Suit Against Bible Publishers Over 'Homosexual' Verses

A homosexual man has filed a $70 million lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, alleging that their version of the Bible that refers to homosexuality as a sin violates his constitutional rights and has caused him emotional distress.

Bradley LaShawn Fowler, an ex-con turned author, filed the federal suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, the same day a judge refused to appoint him a lawyer for his suit against Thomas Nelson, The Grand Rapids Press reported.

"The Court has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims," the judge wrote.

Fowler, who is representing himself in both cases, claims that Zondervan manipulated Scripture by using the term "homosexuals" in 1 Corinthians 6:9 of their 1982 and 1987 revised edition Bibles. He also contends that the reference to homosexuality were deleted by the publisher in later versions without informing the public.

He alleges that since the older Kings James Version containing the term "homosexuals" is used by his family pastor, he has been outcast by his family.

The 39-year-old is suing the Grand Rapids publisher for compensation of 20 years of "emotional duress and mental instability," he told WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids.

In a hand-written suit, Fowler lists all sorts of charges against Zondervan including malicious negligence, strict liability, malice, libel, and violating his civil rights. He filed a suit in June against Tennessee-based publisher Thomas Nelson on similar grounds. He's seeking $60 million from Zondervan and $10 million from Thomas Nelson Publishing.

Zondervan issued a statement to The Christian Post that said they do not discuss ongoing litigation. The company's spokesperson Tara Powers, however, pointed out that they only publish Bibles, not translate them.

"Since Zondervan does not translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations we publish, we are not in a position to comment on the merits of how a word should or should not be translated," said Powers.

"We rely on the scholarly judgment of the highly respected and credible translation committees behind each translation and never alter the text of the translations we are licensed to publish. We only publish credible translations produced by credible biblical scholars," she noted.

According to Fowler, Zondervan has 20 days to respond to the claims listed.

 
 
   
 

PROPHECY PIT

HERE IS PART OF AN ARTICLE I THOUGHT MIGHT HAVE SOME RELEVANCE TO TODAY'S EXPLOSION OF PROPHETS AND DOOM DAY PRODICTORS.

 

The Prophecy Pit

 

By Kenneth Westby

 

Speaking of “the end” and his Second Coming, Jesus said, “No one knows about that day or hour…,” yet his warning has not dampened thousands of prophecy buffs who claim they do know. For over two thousand years there has not been a single generation void of predictors calling for “the end” and weaving elaborate scenarios full of numbers, scriptures, historical dates and current events to support their claims. Their accumulated predictions, however, resemble a junkyard full of old rusting crashed and mashed cars. How could so many sincere believers get it so wrong? Is there something about the nature of biblical prophecy they didn’t understand? Prophetic preachers fill the airwaves and their books crowd the shelves of Christian bookstores, yet they persist in following the same failed approach toward understanding biblical prophecy. ....................

 

The Nature of Biblical Prophecy

 A frequently overlooked fact of biblical prophecy is its conditional nature. Prophecy is not a video tape of future events, a blueprint that is fixed in all details, an inflexible pronouncement of what will happen regardless of changing circumstances. Virtually all prophecies are conditional whether stipulated so or assumed. The prophet Isaiah was sent by Yahweh to the sick bed of King Hezekiah to tell him: “Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover” (2Kings 20:1-11); apparently a straight-forward prophecy from Yahweh of the king’s imminent death. Hezekiah wept after hearing that prophecy repenting bitterly and appealing to God for mercy. As Isaiah was walking out of the palace God stopped him saying, “Go back and tell Hezekiah…I have heard your prayer and have seen your tears; I will heal you!” God then promised him fifteen additional years of life. Some years later Jeremiah encouraged the fatalistic Israelites by reminding them of this great reversal. “Did [Hezekiah] not fear the Lord and entreat the favor of the Lord, and did not the Lord change his mind about the disaster that he had pronounced?” (Jer 26:19). Human action changed God’s mind and hence changed the outcome of the pronouncement. Hezekiah did not die on his sick bed. The prophecy was conditional even though it was not so stated when given to Hezekiah. Jonah was sent on a mission by Yahweh to warn the nation of Nineveh that in forty days it would be destroyed. Then, surprise, surprise, the Ninevites believed the warning and repented from the king on down. This was not what Jonah expected and apparently it disappointed him. But he knew in his heart that “you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (Jonah 4:2). God prophesied one outcome, but he changed because the people responded. God’s threats were conditional. Prophecy is not set in stone. The blessings and cursings that God prophesied are always of an “if” nature; obey me and these blessing will be yours; disobey and these curses will follow. He could promise the Israelites that they would take the land of Canaan, rout its pagan inhabitants causing them to flee in fear before them. Well, that wasn’t the case with the fortified city of Ai where it was the Israelites who fled before the men of Ai. Why? Read the story in Joshua 7 where sin interrupted what God intended to be a victory march through Canaan. The two theological principles that under girded the Kingdom of Judah’s life for four centuries rested on two prophetic promises: Yahweh had sworn a commitment to David regarding the permanency of his dynasty—one of his sons would always reign in Jerusalem; the other is that Yahweh had chosen Zion as a permanent abode (see Psalm 132). Both of these promises were aborted when the Babylonians walked through the front gate of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar killed King Zedekiah’s two sons, terminating the prospect of his family ever reigning in Jerusalem. He then blinded Zedekiah taking him to Babylon with along with the thousands of Jewish captives marching into exile. Nebuchadnezzar burned and demolished Jerusalem leaving it a ghost town. Psalm 137 and Lamentations picture the heart-sick and rejected exiles weeping by the “rivers of Babylon” (Tigris and Euphrates) knowing that God had abandoned them. Both of these two great prophetic promises stood on either side of a massive ”if”: “if your sons keep my covenant” (Psalm 132:12). Human action will influence what God chooses to do. Judah’s slip into idolatry caused Yahweh to march at the head of the armies of Babylon and bring disaster upon the southern kingdom. Jeremiah warned Judah to submit to the Babylonians or the suffering would be intensified. God had abandoned the people, almost as radically as had been threatened. But that is not all the story. Exile worked to bring about their repentance and God responded: “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back [from exile]. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you” (Isaiah 54:7-8). God can forgive sins with or without a temple, with or without Jerusalem. What a forgiving and merciful God! He is sovereign and free to act as he wills in the affairs of man, his mercy, love, justice, and righteous always trumping all other considerations. Prophecies can have several possible outcomes depending on what people do. Prophecy, when carefully examined, is much more general than people might expect and this has led some to fill in the blanks with private interpretations and details, and to speak where God has not spoken. The truth is that biblical prophecies are not usually stated with a great degree of specificity in order to allow God the flexibility he demands in their fulfillment. God is abundantly able to work out his plan in the face of the Adversary’s continual resistance, man’s vacillation and rebellion, and constant presence of time and chance. The pressures upon Yahweh are complex and too complicated for us to fully comprehend. The pressures upon the human family are likewise complex and complicated. We can only see through a glass darkly. Our faith must be in God, not in whether we have prophecy and chronology thoroughly doped out. The chances of knowing details of the prophetic future are nil, except in the most basic sense. Most prophecies involved Israel and the divided kingdoms and have been fulfilled in history. They were time sensitive and while originally understood as prophetic oracles they can now be properly called history. There may be, in a few cases, some interpretive reason to appeal to the duality of a yet future fulfillment of a bygone prophecy. But to regard all prophecies as dual, as some have done, is to make vital sections of scripture into a parlor game, an exercise of reading tea leaves. Of the 27% of the Bible that contains prophetic material about 80% of that has already been fulfilled and is history. Some prophecies, such as those given to Abraham in the form of promises, are still being fulfilled. The prophetical warnings from the Garden of Eden are being realized daily. The prophesied reign of God on earth awaits and each day draws us closer to the Great Fulfillment. All prophecy, fulfilled or yet future, contain lessons that translate well to how we should live before the God of Heaven. Prophecy is profitable if properly, respectfully, and intelligently handled. Beware of the prophecy pit into which many have fallen.

 
 
 

   
Obama: He ventured forth to bring light to the world

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the

Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

-Gerard Baker

 
Genius piece written by a Brit. The sad thing is, many of you truly believe he is a messiah. All I can say is, if he is all we have to save us, God help us all.
 
 
   
 

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