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 1)

We all love to recite "surely goodness and mercy shall follow me...” 

It is a good thing to recite or lay claim on. But, where we suppose to lay emphasis on is not verses 4-6, those one are the resultant effects of verses 1-3.

Our study begins in Verse 1...”Hashem is my Ro'eh (Shepherd); I shall not lack".

I'm using a Hebrews version of that chapter and I'm going to explain the deeper meaning that such words carry.

Context!!!

David wrote Psalm 23 in unknown time. Some believe it was written while he was a shepherd boy attending to his father's sheep, while others believe the Psalm 23 was written during his time of fleeing away from Saul and the troubles of life. But the important thing here is; David was a shepherd boy before he became the king of Israel. His experience as a shepherd helped in writing this great Psalm 23.

The word "Hashem" means "the name" not "Lord" as we have it in English language. It is the custom of the Jews not to call out the original name of God, instead they use a "casual name" in place of God's name. God as we have it today does not mean God as a name. It’s a choice word used in replacement of His name. The "thou shall not call the name of the "Hashem" in vain" applies to all the manuscripts. There's a lot to dig in on this
.
The High Priests were the one worthy to call that "the name" once in every year during the atonement in the Holies of holy.

Let me take this a bit further, the name Yehoshua or Yeshua means "Hashem saves".

We see now how that becomes confusing to us because if Hashem literary means "the name" and Yeshua means "Hashem saves", then what we have is "the name saves". So, in translation the actual name of God is hidden, because the Lord doesn't refers to a name it just talk about the "office".
I'm an accountant, isn't a name but the office I possess or work in.
Having explain that. Let's go into the second thing we see in verse 1. "Shepherd"

When David was talking about shepherd. It is very important to understand what David was saying here. A shepherd is the one that "Lord-it-over-the-sheep". The shepherd have full control of the sheep, he decides what is what for the sheep, he rebukes, corrects, showers love, heals and sometimes leave the sheep to wander in the field for a purpose.

A shepherd isn't a shepherd if one of those is lacking, and you cannot be a sheep to someone who cannot lord-it-over-you. We saw that in the life of David. He didn't just know the God of Israel, he allowed the "office of Him being the Lord" to made manifest in his life.

Making Jesus the Saviour is pretty easy, the hardest part is making Him Lord or allowing Him to function in our lives as "the Lord" and until He is that, we will lack (the king James version rendered that as "want" but "lack" is more appropriate, we'll get to that in few minutes).

It is not that He is not Lord. Christ is indeed Lord, controlling the affairs of this world and beyond, but we can choose Him to be that in our lives or we can ask him to excuse himself from that office.

So, Psalm 23:1 can be rendered as "My shepherd is the one who lord-it-over me and by this, he makes sure I don't lack as a sheep".

The implication of this is: Whatever controls, rules or governs our lives is automatically our shepherd. If entertainment, sex, food, money or anything takes that place of ruling or controlling our lives, it does not matter if we say we are Christians, Christ is not our shepherd.
We need to get into this verse 1 and be sure that Christ is indeed our shepherd else the opposite of the remaining verses will be our portion.

In verse 2 we have "He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the "mei menuchot".

With the understanding of verse 1. I think it should be cleared to us that, a good shepherd will lead his sheep into a greener pasture. The sheep obligation is not to seek the green pasture, their job is to allow the shepherd to be the LORD. It is the job of a good shepherd to go before his sheep like Jesus said “the shepherd leads the sheep out"(see John 10:3). He goes before them not behind them.

So, the sheep are secure not in themselves but in the Shepherd because he is their "LORD". Using the example of David and his men of war when their wives, children, and their cities were plundered. David as a man of war didn't say "go to, let's pursue them" rather, he inquired from his Shepherd "should I go, would we overtake them, would we recover all?”
In the book of Jeremiah, it is said "in that day I will give the children of Israel a shepherd, David my servant". David in allowing God to shepherd him, he became also a shepherd like his Father. Sons are to become like their Father.

What does green pasture mean..?

to be continue..

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NEED FOR CIRCUMCISION. VOL. 1, PART 2

NEED FOR CIRCUMCISION

VOL. 1, PART 2 (Updated Version)

We’ve been dealing with issue of circumcision for a while now. If you have not read previous post, you may do so here on the Facebook page or from my blog site here

Joshua chapter 5

This book of Joshua chapter 5 portraits the circumcision of the new generation of army, this circumcision has to do with the heart. In the Old Testament it was referred to as circumcision of the foreskin. What God was proven in that time which is of great relevance to us as a people is, the fact that we have forsaken Egypt does not mean we are totally through with it and need not to be circumcised.

The first stage is our leaving Egypt while the second stage deals with wilderness experiences leading to our circumcisions. Without that, we cannot become an armed person for the Lord neither can we enter into the Promised Land and eat the fruits of the land.

 There is always “the” Promised Land and a Promised Land for the people of God, The former is an eternal Land while the latter is a temporary one leading to the eternal one. They both go hand in hand. One cannot lay claim on the eternal when one has not fully grasp to some levels the temporary one.

The tool or the way to embrace the two is through circumcisions. God’s promise to Joshua was “as many that would go through this circumcision, I will roll away from them the reproach of Egypt”. The condition by which God will do that is through circumcision.

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