Of Life And Death

————————Of DEATH—————————

Lately, I’ve heard the charming of the charmer, of how a serpent charms its prey like an unwanted food. Death does beckon to all, especially to those who take pleasures in overreacting and overwhelming themselves with labours of no reward.

I’ve lost great friends and my elders has passed on into glory without a goodbye a day before their end. They all died through mysterious ways unknown to my little mind.

At least, a father ought to tell his children when the time of his passing arrives as I was taught, but death recognizes not “goodbye” neither is the language of “come back” part of its vocabulary.

All its expression is the venomous poisonous of a serpent unleashing on its prey. It knows neither small nor great, neither poor nor rich. It poisons everything it comes in contact with, with sadness, agony and it leaves the rest with unforgettable memories that keep haunting them.

It creates fear in the heart of men and send them into a prison house where torment and sorrow are dish out as daily food.

If all men could make a wish for just one thing, it would have been to imprison death itself. To chain it and afflict it with the pain which it dishes out on mankind. Mankind would have lived forever, if death could just be overcome by one means or the other.

As it has done to us, we would have gladly re-pay it without pain or pity. We would have hung it outside our doors and make fun of it, then search all his family members one after the others to punish them with an everlasting punishment.

We would have banished away sickness and sorrow, affliction and oppression, pain and agony from our city center and from the four walls of this our little tiny pale-blue-stone called The earth. We would then have known what life truly means.

But, its powerful than us and there’s nothing within our capacity that can be done to stop its ruler-ship over us.

Sigh!

—————————Of LIFE————————–

On the other hand, we all love Life.

Life is the best and most loving neighbour one can ever have. Just as every child would love to keep his/her tiny little toys away from the stranger, so also we love to keep life as if we have control over it.

We cherish those moments that life offers us as we would love to think.

But, we don’t like dying. We hate it.

Despite we loving life, we mostly ignore and misuse life. We love it but we don’t really care about it. We toss it here and there by our ways of life and what we do.

We ought to cherish life not just the moments, and love the Giver of it.

Isn’t it ironic that we want to love life without loving the Giver of Life? No wonder we are messing life up because we have no blue-print on how to handle life.

Life comes with a manual, we can’t get to buy this in any book-store. it must be gotten from the One in whom Life issues out from.

For those that has come to the Giver of life, my questions to you:

How have you been responding to this life?

How have you been obeying the instruction that’s attached to life?

“Who out there has a desire (love) for life? Can’t wait each day to come upon beauty? Guard your tongue from profanity, and no more lying through your teeth. Turn your back on sin; do something good. Embrace peace—don’t let it get away!”

Christ didn’t just offer us life so that we can do our own things, speak our own words and fulfill our lusts.

NO!!

Life was given to us so that we can keep our tongue from profanity:

“Let not corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man

But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth

So that lying won’t be in our mouth:

“Lie not one to another… “

Since you put away lying, Speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another

So that we can turn away from sin and every appearance of it:
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

So that we can do good:

Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it

As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. 

But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased

So that we can embrace peace:

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

Above all, life is given to us in order to show to the world, the Love of our Father and by this, draw men to him.

…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to give answers to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…

“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

This life we have as believers ought to propel us to walk in the nature and character of that Life. It ought to change our paradigm from the earthly things to that which is heavenly and eternal.

If in any case this life isn’t doing these in us, let us not lie to ourselves, we may not yet have or believe this life at all. We may just have the appearance of godliness, but the power is nowhere to be found in us. We may just be like a fig without fruits.

And this means, we are yet to have life and appreciate the Giver of it.



For those that are yet to embrace life:

“In him was life; and the life was the light of men”

“Whosoever believes in him will not perish (as in death), but have eternal life”

He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

This Life is not in a thing, a program or some activities or some hyper spiritual gymnastics. It’s not a Sunday worship thing, neither is it associated with a set, a cult or a place of worship, rather This Life is a Person. We are called to this Life, we are called to live forever and enjoy the blessedness of God.

This is another opportunity that Christ is offering you and I, to come and have life.

Do you love life? Come to this fountain and embrace the water of life.

Do you want to be rid of death? Come to the One who is Resurrection and Life. The one who conquered death for us.

Do you want to overcome and be victorious? Embrace the One who is Victor, Christ.

This Life is in a PERSON; and that Person is Christ.

We cannot get this Life from anything or anyone else.

Most assuredly, I tell you, he who believes in me has eternal life.

Grace and Peace.

***Scriptures: Psalms 34:12-14, Ephesians. 4: 12, 29; Col 3:8-9, Hebrew 12:14, 13:16, James 3:18, 1 Peter 3:11, 15, 1 John 5:12, John 1:4, 3:15, Matthew 5:14-16, Galatians 6:10, Titus 2:11, col. 4:6.*****

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Psalm 23 (Part 3)

Why will God leads us into the paths (dimensions) of his righteousness? Because of "Hashem (His name)". Not because of our doing, but simply because He has become our shepherd. The interesting thing is, after a while the sheep can walk in the path that the shepherd has led them through without help because they now have the Shepherd's mind. The sheep becomes mature in discerning what's good and what's evil, what's godly and what's not.

To Abraham, the Lord said "I know Abraham, he will command his household to do all that I've commanded him". We should remember that Abraham didn't start that way. Abraham had to learn obedient. Jesus learned obedient by the things he suffered, the ultimate word he uttered was "Not my will but Your will". One "will" must prevail and it’s going to be the Shepherd's will or else, he isn't the shepherd to begin with.

Learning obedience brings us to verse 4: "Yea, though I walk through the Gey Tzalmavet, I will fear no rah; for You art with me; Your shevet and Your staff they comfort me."..

Let me explain this word "Gey Tzalmavet". Often when we read this word in the King James Version and it means shadow of death. Other translations also have it like that, but what about if we flip the word "Tzalmavet" into reasonable vowel, it will turn to "tzalmut" meaning "Self-image" or "Identity" from the root word "Tzelem" which means God's image.

Let's step backward a bit here for understanding. Shadow of death is not "Death" literary, like many of us believe it to be. It has nothing first and foremost to do with "Death" but it has to do with "Your/our identity". If I were to re-read that verse 4, it would be "though I walk through things that want to proof my identity wrong, I will not be afraid because my identity is secured in my shepherd".

Daily we are bombarded with stuffs that wants to choke our identity in Christ, some even ask us to prove our identity. For example, Satan asked Jesus to prove his identity by turning stone into bread. The emphasis isn't on the bread but on His identity as the Son of God. Many a times, situations and circumstances want us to prove our identity, we can either choose to say "lo ira ra"(I'm not afraid) or we can start by proving ourselves to the situation, the end result of that is Fear.

Sheep has no strength to defend themselves, sheep solely depend on the shepherd to defend them. Time and time again we may try to defend ourselves, we may try prove that we are right while every other person is wrong. The end result of that will be, if we are actually sheep, fear and shame. When we make Christ our Lord, what we are saying as sheep is:

"I don't have my right again, I don't need to prove anything to anyone, I don't have any strength because I have given up, I'm not going to avenge myself of things done to me and so on... I'm just going to be sheep."

David could have dealt with Saul, but he couldn't because he's no longer the master/captain of his ship. At other time someone was cursing him and he replied "allow him, maybe the Lord has asked him to curse me...(See 2 Samuel 16:5)" David of old (remember Abigail and Nabal?) would have avenged himself but God has de-roped him.
He couldn't defend himself again, rather "Hashem" was now His shepherd. Despite his mistakes, the Lord became his shepherd.

Lastly, the rod is for correction while the staff is for comfort and encouragement. "And David encourage himself in the Lord". At other place, "God brought correction to David through Nathan the prophet". There's always a rod for correction for every sheep and staff for comforting the heart of the sheep. Both work together to produce the desired result that the shepherd is looking for in the sheep...

In conclusion, I don't want to re-explain verse 5 and 6.

I just want to mention the latter part of the last verse of that Psalms that reads "I shall dwell in the house of the Lord".

In this dispensation of Grace. We are not to dwell forever in a house built with bricks and blocks as house of the Lord. "We are the House of the Lord". We are the lively stones that's building up a house for the Lord and we've also be made priests and kings to our God. For we are a kingdom of priests not of the Leviticus order, rather of the endless life that's founded in Christ Jesus.

We must daily remind ourselves because it is possible to associate the brick and blocks with God's house. It's very easy to turn a place or a thing to "house of God". God dwell not in in the building built by men, he dwells alone in the house he builds by Himself. "Whose house are we" says Paul. I remember when the Lord started opening my eyes to that truth, he led me to be reciting the last verse as "I am the house of the Lord forever"

Grace and Peace.

Read Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here

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Psalm 23 (Part 2)

What does green pasture means..?

Green pasture is a place of feeding, learning and unlearning. It is a place of learning what to eat and what not to eat.

Often time, Green refers to Life in scriptural context and interpretations. In the day of Noah the bird that was sent out from the Ark came back with olive leaf (green-leave) meaning there is life once again. So, pasture can mean many thing but here it means life. We are to feed on Christ because he is the green pasture...

The word "mei menuchot" could also mean REST. Though it is rendered as "still waters" or "restful water" or "comforting water". Let us pieces this word.

In Ephesians it is said that "Christ will wash his bride by washing of the water by word"; in the book of John we have "out of his belly shall flow the living (restful) water". In John 4 "Christ is the living (restful) water".
The emphasis on "restful water" is in regards to the restoration of our soul. "You shall find rest for your soul" comes to play here.

We can as well interpret water to means "God's word" as we have it in Ephesians. Or we can take it as "Christ" Himself (For Christ is the Word of God according to book of revelation). Washing is pruning, we are the branches, and the husbandman keeps pruning or washing us by/with His word in other to grant rest to our soul.

Soul and Spirit aren't the same.

Soul is the seat of sensation, where feelings, emotions, will, desires and reasoning dominate. Because the soul is in connection with material world, hence it is written "we are not move by sight but by faith"

Faith is not of the soul but of the spirit. The purpose of Restful water is not for our Spirit rather is for our Soul; feeling that's not stable on God, emotion that's running wild like lion, desire that's soaring like eagles, self-will that's like an Ox. All these are what makes us to get into troubles many time. But, Christ becoming our shepherd, making us to feed on Him and leading us onto Himself as water of life leads to the restoration of our Soul. Our part to play is in allowing Him to be Lord not just the Saviour.

Verse 3."He restores my nefesh; He guides me in the paths of tzedek l'ma'an Shmo. (“He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake." NKJV).

1 Peter 2:25 says "We were as sheep going astray but are now returned to shepherd and bishop of our souls".

Note:" The shepherding work takes place in the soul not in the spirit.

Until we make Jesus our Shepherd not in words but by living that life, we are going to lack and our souls will not find rest. The path of righteousness will not be cleared to us."

To restore and to create are two different things. The former speaks of "putting things back to where they belonged" while the latter speaks of "to make a new thing". God’s aim is to restore man to the place where his soul would be in subjection to his spirit.

Hebrews 4 says "the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing asunder (dividing or separating) soul and spirit...” The restoration is of the Souls. The spirit is already in this state at "Salvation", but the soul needs to journey in submission to the spirit- ultimately, to the Father of the spirit, God. The road to this is always repentance.

"Tzedek l'ma'an Shmo" means the same thing as "paths of righteousness For His name’s sake or for the sake of His name". The good thing here is that as a man or woman begins to experience Christ as Lord, he/she begins to learn righteousness (What is right and Just). He or she begins to turn away from his/her own way to God’s way. The quieter one's soul becomes, the more it will allow the spirit to soar.

Hence, "He (Christ) must increase but, I must decrease". The decreasing is of the soul while the increasing is of the spirit. And until a man get into verses 1-3 of this Psalm 23, the fear of shadow of death becomes a fearful thing.

Like Paul says, "I know whom I have believed". In our journey with God, we must come to a place where we can boldly declare "I know whom" not "I know what" I have believed. The former is of experience while the latter is of books/mental understanding.

Read Part 1 Here

.......to be continue...

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