The Bodyguard

Once when pondering things of God, I thought about how often with enemies I made in day to day life bad things happened to them when they became a serious danger to me. It dawned on me that it was as if an angel was guarding me. A verse in a Psalm came to mind that might explain this but I could not think where it came from and wished it were confirmed to me that this was indeed what explained my experiences. "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them in times of trouble". Moments later a kind of voice of words spoken directly into my mind said simply "Daniel 3". So because it was so clear and striking I went to the lounge to see my Bible to look up Book of Daniel chapter 3. This Bible was one I was not at all familiar with having been given it as a gift. There was no mention in Daniel 3 until right near the end where the word "Angel" has a margin reference next to it. I looked up the reference and what did it say? I guessed already. A reference to the Psalm where it said "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them". So I knew this was an actual Spirit who gave me the simple words "Daniel 3" and so wisely proved to me that He was not a figment of my imagination.

Liability

When involved in a traffic accident that might have been your fault the usual advice given in my experience is to admit nothing regarding liability for having perhaps caused it because that might incur liability to pay recompense and affect your own insurance claims. They say "tell the truth and shame the devil" but in this case it is likely the devil will stand proud. So how did God set about destroying the devil's works since so much of life is like the accident scenario? He sent Christ Jesus His own Son from eternity into the world to tell the truth then pay the price of real sin so we need not be hindered forsaking sin and confessing it and telling the truth and learning to live a better way, His honest loving way.

Only Hope

There is only one hope for each of us and that is the hope that came along two thousand years ago in the Holy Land. Even still today we are all too bad to fix ourselves without the help that appeared back then. We are born and find ourselves badly broken and as we grow up we find we are in a broken world but Christ is presented to us, sometimes very poorly with misinformation right left and centre but we realise this Christ is the only sensible hope option there is that isn't broken except that His body was broken so we can be fixed so we rush (when the time in our lives comes that we can) to grasp this lovingly held out hope.

Honesty Towards God

God is only ever honest and invites us so to be and this is part of becoming a child of His. How is it honest if we let people force us to say things that we think are erroneous and unlikely to be true? Even in church this happens (and mosque and synagogue). To continue in God's way forward we cannot go their way too. How is it ever honest to be the person forcing another to say what they believe is unlikely to be true? Causing another to sin is something Jesus Christ warned very sternly about indeed. I always suspected as a child growing up in various churches that it wasn't as real as in the first century where people to whom the new testament scriptures were written lived out what we read happened. Nowadays churches are attended but in that time church was a life lived for real. I hope others get hungry for reality today and want firsthand knowledge of God and His Son and Spirit instead of all this speculative guessing at what Bible verses might mean.

Many Keep Saying Jesus is God

People are not wrong to point out the divine nature of the Word of God who is the divine Son of Man who became fully human and was born and named Jesus and recognised as Christ sent by God. It gets a bit ambiguous for people to start saying He is God because there is a danger they are replacing the Father with Jesus in their thinking and maybe do not know what they mean by it and whether they are denying the Father. Once God appeared to me in a dream and this was after I asked earmestly to see God like that but also to see Jesus too in some way (not with my eyes - He could blind me like He did Saul of Tarsus) - and the Holy Spirit too so I would preach with real knowledge of the heart and not just the head. God said in the dream "I am God" and told me things to happen that proved it was God. Weeks later Jesus worked a miracle out in a nearby street that showed Himself to me. Then the Holy Spirit gave me interpretation of tongues in church. It means I now know it is the Father who says He is God but Jesus appears as Son of God and the Holy Spirit proclaims and reveals Jesus is Son of God and by God answering my prayer this way He too showed me Jesus is His Son. Jesus never sought to usurp the place of the Father who is God but God gave Jesus the authority of Lord and Christ which is the highest honour given among men and Jesus has obediently become fully man to take our humanity to the height of the Father's throne where the Father will let Him sit till every tongue confesses Him. He has exalted priesthood to the highest place combining it with royal kingship in ultimate submission to God the Father.
"For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." -- Apostle Paul writing to one of his churches.
Scripture nowhere calls Jesus 'God the Son' and this is because mainly scripture focuses on the fact all things were made THROUGH Jesus but BY God so Jesus is called Lord but the Father is called God - this is a real Jesus and real God we are describing so we should get it right and scripture writers believed this.

What is Tough about Who Jesus Is

What is tough is that we are told Lord Jesus Christ is the new coming king over all world leaders. The gut reaction is to recoil because we did not elect Him and are rightly scared of Him. When He left it was after the world killed Him - but He rose. What He is today is the top boss drenched in the blood of judging the enemies of God including people close to us. This Lamb of God slain now has robes drenched in the blood of pressing the winepress of the wrath of God. He will rule. He is ready for it. Nothing will stand successfully against Him when He comes and that includes nuclear weapons and political and technological wizardry such as we have not even yet seen today. He will rule as God's own Son on God's own throne and the world has been His enemy and has to be put down under His feet. Then the throne will be given by Him back to God and God will be all in all. This will happen and has already started to happen. Some see Him exalted now.

Facts

Fact - the archeology of the Chalcolithic Age supports the introductions of technologies described in ths Book of Enoch as having happened at that time - predynastic egyptian eye painting started, writing started, new metal alloy production started, weapon production of maces and the like started, magic divination started, astrology started, sorcery started, terror started. All there is archaeology. All there in the Book of Enoch. All these truths about the Son of Man and God are there in this Book of Enoch and Jesus identified Himself as the Son of Man and the Dead Sea Scrolls include this Book of Enoch showing the Son of Man term was known from that book (quoted by brother of Jesus in a scriptural epistle - Jude). 

Where is the proof?

When someone says they are married to so and so there is never a scientific proof of it but it is true for them nonetheless and they live by that truth. A marriage ring and certificate are not scientific proof. God said of the Son of Man that God Himself regards Him as Son. Jesus is that Son of Man made flesh. God said so at Jesus's baptism and the Spirit of God says so by the things He reveals within believers. God does not need to prove it scientifically but would do so if He wished but He hides it from the 'wise' and reveals it to the child. Ancients knew such revelations and though science was regarded highly they regarded these revelations highly too. Modern wisdom is so much of it folly in God's eyes.

Mysterious Spirit

It is not so much the Spirit in a believer so much as the believer in the Spirit like being in a place. The woman of Samaria at the well was concerned she did not worship in Jerusalem but Jesus prophesied the place to worship would soon be 'in the Spirit'. John was in this sense 'in the Spirit' on Patmos when Jesus' angel came to him. Jerusalem on earth is a heavy rock and weighs on the soul and likewise the Spirit of God is a heavy rock and when He weighs on your soul you are in the Spirit. Judah of old was tethered to Jerusalem for site of worship whereas Israel and later Samaria broke the tether. Jesus foretold a new tether in worship tethering the worshipper not to a site but to the Spirit of God for worship. Spirit and truth. This must be why the disciples had to remain tethered to Jerusalem until the new tether for worship came - the Holy Spirit from above. At Pentecost. See how blind Israel tribes became compared to Judah who stayed in Jerusalem's vicinity and worshipped at the Temple. So the Spirit keeps believers who worship attached to Him in their spirit from becoming blind and wandering from truth. In practice this tethering works by gifts of the Holy Spirit whose leadings and resulting revelations of truth and into truth along with other manifestations of the Holy Spirit such as a still small voice like Elijah and Peter heard all is to be kept for reference and guidance and a prompting for the inner man and spirit which brings back that sense of being attached to the holy and to truth and to Spirit in worship and meditation. This is how I discerned then wrote this. And of course the Spirit attaches us when our spirit is connected to Him (to the seven Spirits) to the throne of God in the exalted heavenly Zion. Mixing metaphores it seems to me our own spirit is like a lightning conductor conducting the Holy Spirit to us once God gives us a visit from Him when we are believers of His message. (I could sense myself under influence of influence of and tether to that weighty rock of the Spirit when those things came to me. It is real.) Here is my own testimony that might help some to believe and understand. I wanted spiritual gifts all my life and eventually God heard my prayers and a local leader back in athe mid nineties took me to a church where he said I would receive what I so earnestly sought. At the meeting a leader gave a message at the mic in tongues. So beautiful the words and not babble but real angelic sentences in a definite language but out of this world. (Years later I learned a technical term for it is xenoglossia.) I had a feeling of pressure on me which was the Holy Spirit and as each sentence was spoken it inspired pictures and  English words in my mind which were a glorious prophesy about the glory of the power of the Lord Jesus' name and authority and how trees bud and produce leaves by it. I'd never heard such things. Then the speaker stopped and started speaking n English and his words were the very words I heard. I reckon this was interpretation of tongues. It is a gift. It is not itself tongues but was great and certainly the Holy Spirit. Since then I heard Him speak to me too and prove to me it was Him. I never spoke in tonges but it sure is the Holy Spirit God gave me. Here is how He proved He is real. Years later I was arguing on LinkedIn and had a lie down to think what I had been saying and contemplate things about God. I thought about how so many times the enemies I made at work and in day to day life got judged by God and bad things happened when they became a serious danger to me. It dawned on me that this was peculiar and as if surely an angel was guarding me. It popped into my mind that there was a verse in a Psalm (in the Bible scriptures) that might explain this but I could not think where it came from and wished it were confirmed to me that this was indeed what explained my experiences. "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them in times of trouble". Moments later a kind of voice of words spoken directly into my mind said simply "Daniel 3". So because it was so clear and striking I went to the lounge to see my Bible to look up Book of Daniel chapter 3. This Bible was one I was not at all familiar with having been given it as a gift. There was no mention in Daniel 3 until right near the end where the word "Angel" has a margin reference next to it. I looked up the reference and what did it say? I guessed already. A reference to the Psalm where it said "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them". So I knew this was an actual Spirit who gave me the simple words "Daniel 3" and so wisely proved to me that He was not a figment of my imagination. Now after years meditating on and pondering in my heart what the Spirit says over time to me I realise first hand that the Father (God) is wanting me and each disciple to have it from Him Himself that He regards Jesus Christ the Son of Man as His own Son who is righteous enough and faithful and true enough for the Father to say it with certainty and own Him for sure as His Son and wants it to be that we too become what He cam call His children through what Christ has done and does and will do and by our obedience in puttting away what is in our behaviour that is akin to God's enemy Satan the enemy of what is right.

Who Jesus Is

It is confusing to people who know little about Jesus and about God the Father if we simply state that Jesus is God without saying other things too such as that what is usually meant by God is the one Jesus calls The Father who Jesus also calls His God. The fullness of deity that is in Jesus does not mean He is not human and does not make Him a deity like the deities of the ancient Greeks but it is deity which stems from who Jesus has always been since time began - the Son of Man who is to God God's only begotten Son - and the fullness of the way in which God the Father fills Lord Jesus and gives Him all authority in the Universe. Also He has the Spirit without limit. There is no lack of deity in Jesus both from the fact He is the Son from of old from everlasting and from the relationship He has with God The Father whose fullness fills Him forever. Yet we need to avoid those who know none of this with certainty getting confused over our words because we are not denying The Father is truly the one even Jesus calls God. Jesus is not Son of Himself, which is what it sounds like to the ignorant to say on one hand He is Son of God and on the other He is God. I prefer to not say He is God as a logical doctrinal statement because of this possible misunderstanding it creates. It is wonderful though what we have in Jesus who has completely become human born in history to die and rise again and ever live in human body filled with the fulness of deity. We can truly know the very Son of Man who has been from everlasting Son of God and ever will be. The One who truly knows God His Father and makes God known to us. The Christ by whom God saves the people of God from sin and teaches what is right and acceptable to God.
[Acts 17:18 shows Luke did not consider Paul to be proclaiming Jesus as a deity like the deities of polytheists because Luke reported it as a misumderstanding that some thought Paul was preaching Jesus as a god foreign to the Greeks; clearly Luke reported this negatively as a misunderstanding of Paul's preaching.] If a spirit within you is assuring you that Jesus is fully human having become flesh like all humans though before that He was in heaven with God and was with God from the beginning then you listen to that spirit. We each have to find truth that Jesus Himself gives rather than any mere human philosopher. Then live that out. The truth I get from Him is that whatever He did on earth we too can do with faith like a mustard seed. He is so human the people who knew Him growing up did not know Him as anything special - even His close family. It is written in John 9:35-37 that Jesus asked a man if he believed in the Son of Man and said "He is the one speaking to you". I believe the only way Jesus might have expected the man could have already believed in the Son of Man would have been from the Book of Enoch manuscripts in circulation at the time (quoted by Jude in his epistle) and these tell of the Son of Man being the Son of God but tell of Him being with God, so not Himself actually God.

The Man Still

I do learn from what I preach. Now I know for sure that the Apostle Paul believed that Christ is still a resurrected man with fullness of deity living within His still existing and ever existing body - from Paul's letter to the Colosians. This is why Christ is the Teacher to heed above all others.

The Final Judgment

The final judgment by God will be final against many things normal to lives of normal people worldwide now and future and past. All sorts of things in society are morally wrong enough to warrant this lake of fire judgment. Salvation from it requires we find things to do in life that will not incur this judgment and requires we have actions we do in life that warrant being recorded in the Book of Life rather than the other books that will all be opened at that judgment. We need a source of motivation and direction that leads towards such actions. Christ was sent to provide this and to provide a sacrifice for things we did before we knew about His way of life. He taught and the Spirit teaches things that can motivate us and direct us aright in such veracity and genuine morality that is acceptable to God who will be Judge. The Good Samaritan is an example of such a teaching. The promises of Christ can motivate us to act according to such directives.

How I know

Here is how I know. My eyewitness testimony. I was arguing on LinkedIn and had a lie down to think what I had been saying and contemplate things about God. I thought about how so many times the enemies I made at work and in day to day life got judged by God and bad things happened when they became a serious danger to me. It dawned on me that this was peculiar and as if surely an angel was guarding me. It popped into my mind that there was a verse in a Psalm (in the Bible scriptures) that might explain this but I could not think where it came from and wished it were confirmed to me that this was indeed what explained my experiences. "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them in times of trouble". Moments later a kind of voice of words spoken directly into my mind said simply "Daniel 3". So because it was so clear and striking I went to the lounge to see my Bible to look up Book of Daniel chapter 3. This Bible was one I was not at all familiar with having been given it as a gift. There was no mention in Daniel 3 until right near the end where the word "Angel" has a margin reference next to it. I looked up the reference and what did it say? I guessed already. A reference to the Psalm where it said "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them". So I knew this was an actual Spirit who gave me the simple words "Daniel 3" and so wisely proved to me that He was not a figment of my imagination.

Secrets of the Kingdom of God

I tell you a secret: In the kingdom of God we learn by miracles and other kinds of works of the Holy Spirit which are not necessarily always meant to be put into words - truth comes by more than just words, as does faith - then we are bound to live by such truth and copy the love that made it known to us.  We find God points us to scripture too but it is a combination of this and words of grace and power that leads us.

Good News

Some good news. God loves a good wedding. "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb" says God. And He is not going to let His Beloved Son miss out on one. It is not too far in the future to look forward to it now. The wait is going to be worth it but don't miss it. It is only for the ones who are not going to be part of the bad news:   "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Wake up and make sure you don't miss this wedding!

Be Baptised

A baptised believer dies to sin and, risen out of commitment to sin, is able to offer themselves to belong to God and be led by the Spirit of God.
Baptism as an induction was not unique to Jesus. It is what you are inducted into and who that matters. Baptism into the teachings and 'name' ('name' being reputation and honour but also teachings, laws, commands, traditions and customs; see Wikipedia article on 'nomos') of Jesus is only unique insofaras Jesus is unique. Jesus had and has real authority in His name, as the miracles show. Other rabbis in the time Jesus was publicly teaching gave teachings the same as His, like that about praying in secret not for men to see but towards God. Jesus did live a real life in real times with real context and presented what He knew intimately of God 'The Father' to people who already had teachers who weren't all that bad and knew their stuff too. Even 'Messiah' is not reserved by God for Jesus alone but was also used to describe Cyrus as a Prince appointed by God to save His People. What is unique about Jesus is "Before Abraham was, I AM". And He will be forever as God's firstborn over all creation who before He came was with God at the very start of ALL creation. Who will be with God forever. From of old even from everlasting. Whose Kingdom and Throne will endure forever. Who will ever get to sit on God's throne with God the Father. Who was therefore unique in being sacrificed by the Father for sins of the world.

Christ died for us

Christ died for us. Imitate good. Do not imitate evil.

Mesîh ji bo me mir

Mesîh ji bo me mir. ¸Cev baş. Tu çavê xwe nede xerab. 

The days of visitation have come

"The days of visitation have come.
    The days of reckoning have come.
Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool,
    and the man who is inspired to be insane,
    because of the abundance of your sins,
    and because your hostility is great.
 A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God.
    A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths,
    and hostility in the house of his God." -- Prophecy given through Hosea

"Israel has sinned", says the LORD. "The eagle" [mass surveillance] " overhead is the sign."

"Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb" says God.

To Believers

We must imitate what is good; not what is evil in churches and church and synagogue and mosque history. I hate it that there are teachers that teach we are all children of God and can hope for the best if we just carry on living like we always did with no need to change or need to think there is any judgment to be feared in the future because Jesus taught differently - you find what Jesus taught in Gospel of John chapter 8 that if we lie we are children of the father of lies who is Satan and those who sin are slaves to sin and need to be set free if they are to become children of God with real hope - you have to actually stop lying and let the truth set you free from sinning and believe there is Jesus alive today to set you free or else you will die in your sins. I hope churches will teach this instead of the usual lies and their hearers will be saved from their delusions. But some will carry on. Some will perish who have deserted the truth and the means to truth - Jesus Christ's teachings and name. There will be a lake of fire.

The Promise

A person descended from Abraham can look back in history for comfort to a promise by God. The promise was to descendants of Abraham so it seems to many of his descendants that this is enough. The news is that it is not enough but spiritual descent from Abraham is needed which is what Jesus came to bring - both to blood descendants and, wondrously, to blood non-descendants. I don't know which I am but I know it won't matter as long as He makes me a spiritual descendant as I follow Him and the Holy Spirit sent by God in Jesus' name.

Christ died for the sins you stop doing

The Crux

You can seek to put an end to your sin since Christ has provided His body and blood as sacrifice for you.

Come out and be Separate

"Come out and be separate" The Lord over all, Jesus Christ with God the Father, surely sees the kings and rulers subject to Him when He foretells how rulers will fawn with what seems so clearly to be Rome in Revelation. The city that rules over the kingdoms of the world, in a present tense written in Roman times yet still it has all that fashion luxury and sells luxury goods everywhere. Let us come away before it receives its end. Revelation 18 starts:
"After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’ Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her."

Balance

So many different understandings of the gospel message are preached today and even lived out yet few seem to grasp this as Jesus preached it in John 8 but the balance is between being by nature children of flesh and ways of Satan but being transformed by Christ and the spirit in Christ's teachings into children of God. We do need Christ to do this in us and keep us in it. That is why we hold to Christ's words and let the Spirit sent in His name lead us.
Jesus knows condemning people for their sins will not stop them sinning nor will lying to them and pretending the result of sin will not be severe. He told them stop and leads us to the truth that frees us to stop; He and the Spirit of God leads us when we believe and hold to the teachings God gave Him to pass on.