Christmas 2013

Wishing you a blessed Christmas

One line.

He is teaching us to see in the dark and to hear in the silence.

When I'm old and gray ...

Psalm 71

¹ In you, Lord, I have taken refuge;

    let me never be put to shame.

² In your righteousness, rescue me and deliver me;

    turn your ear to me and save me.

³ Be my rock of refuge,

    to which I can always go;

give the command to save me,

    for you are my rock and my fortress.

⁴ Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked,

    from the grasp of those who are evil and cruel.

⁵ For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord,
    my confidence since my youth.
⁶ From birth I have relied on you;
    you brought me forth from my mother’s womb.
    I will ever praise you.
⁷ I have become a sign to many;
    you are my strong refuge.
⁸ My mouth is filled with your praise,
    declaring your splendor all day long.

⁹ Do not cast me away when I am old;
    do not forsake me when my strength is gone.
¹⁰ For my enemies speak against me;
    those who wait to kill me conspire together.
¹¹ They say, “God has forsaken him;
    pursue him and seize him,
    for no one will rescue him.”
¹² Do not be far from me, my God;
    come quickly, God, to help me.
¹³ May my accusers perish in shame;
    may those who want to harm me
    be covered with scorn and disgrace.

¹⁴ As for me, I will always have hope;
    I will praise you more and more.

¹⁵ My mouth will tell of your righteous deeds,
    of your saving acts all day long—
    though I know not how to relate them all.
¹⁶ I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, Sovereign Lord;
    I will proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone.
¹⁷ Since my youth, God, you have taught me,
    and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
¹⁸ Even when I am old and gray,
    do not forsake me, my God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
    your mighty acts to all who are to come.

¹⁹ Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens,
    you who have done great things.
    Who is like you, God?
²⁰ Though you have made me see troubles,
    many and bitter,
    you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
    you will again bring me up.
²¹ You will increase my honor
    and comfort me once more.

²² I will praise you with the harp
    for your faithfulness, my God;
I will sing praise to you with the lyre,
    Holy One of Israel.
²³ My lips will shout for joy
    when I sing praise to you—
    I whom you have delivered.
²⁴ My tongue will tell of your righteous acts
    all day long,
for those who wanted to harm me
    have been put to shame and confusion.

Labels … and a tired God climbs over a wall. John 4

Dear Reader,

There are people in the Bible who have got labels that doesn’t exist in the stories of their lives, but those labels have become the prevailing view of them.

Mary from Magdalene and the Samaritan woman are two of those “labeled people” They have been valued, price-tagged and judged by people who have made long drawn conclusions from a few lines about their lives

Mary Magdalene was healed from seven demons by Jesus. That is what we know. We also know that when most people had abandoned Jesus she stayed with him when he hung on the cross. Her endurance was rewarded by the Savior, when he trusted her with the most amazing message of all time: “Go tell the disciples that I'm alive!”

The Samaritan woman endured under her ethnicity as well as being a woman. Five times she had had hopes for love and security and five times she had experienced separation that must have given her lifelong scars.  She had been crushed five times but had survived, and now she lived in a household where she was not the wife but somebody’s idle pleasure. She had accepted to be in a place that wasn’t her place to be.

Much has been said about that she had five husbands but not much about that it was the man who could file for divorce; not the woman. The men left and she was stuck with a scattered life. Could she have lost her husband’s through death? Had she run away because of abuse and violence?

We don’t know this because it doesn’t say; so why bother to bring up the subject? Simply because the life of another human being can never be known in full by judging the surface or by making assumptions in order to put a “stamp” on that person.

There was an old “wall” of differences between Jews and Samaritans and both regarded the other as heretics. It had gone on for centuries and neither side tried to tear down the wall, but they rather chose to live with contempt for each other. So when the woman met this mysterious man; who obviously was a Jew, he didn’t fit into the everyday life of her village; he didn’t fit into her life at all. But it was a very casual situation and a small matter of a cup of water that opened up the conversation between the two and also opened up to a new life with new hope.

All pieces of the woman’s life puzzle fell into place and it was not just the religious question marks that was straightened out but also her personal life was liberated. Jesus brought clarity by pointing out her weak position and that it was time to do something about it.  When the woman left the water jar and headed back to the village, silence had been exchanged into gladness; secrecy to openness; and it made a life changing impact on those who heard her witness about the man at the well.   

The new inner joy was manifested on the outside and it was so radiant that the entire village walked over to the well to see who this extraordinary man was.

Jesus had decided to go against tradition and had walked a road that was avoided if possible. He went against tradition by talking to a woman and reaching out to her in respect. He opened up a new way to reach the heart of God by pointing out that time and place did not matter if God would answer or not answer prayer; but a prayer born out of a humble heart could reach the throne room from any place and would indeed do so from all over the world.

A tired Jesus climbed over a wall because his Father had told him to. It was the day the Messiah had come to answer all their questions and liberate more than just one from a “label”. 

If Jesus didn't talk ill of  the Samaritan woman when he met her face to face 2000 years ago, then we don't  have the right to do so in our time, but take to heart that whatever heavy burden that might hold us down  is never too heavy for Jesus to lift up and out of our lives.
Sincerely yours,
Ida

The Golden Chapter. Make a choice for life and not death!

One of the first verses in the Bible I learned by heart was John 3:16. All there is to know about how man is saved and how God has decided to do it, is summarized in that verse.

John 3:16-18 (New International Version (NIV)

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

 

Question: What is the name of God’s one and only Son?

Answer: Jesus.

 

Does it say here that anything else goes as a “saving tool” for me?

Can anyone/anything besides Jesus be the Savior?

Who’s idea was this?

Why?

 

Yesterday I was reading Max Lucado’s book “Grace for the moment” and appropriately for this post the title for 30^th of October was “Love is all that you will find”

(“Alla dagar nära in Swedish; the title translated from Swedish)

 

This is Mr. Lucado’s view of God’s love. (from Swedish)

“Water has to be wet.  Fire needs to be warm. You cannot take the wet out of the water if it is going to remain as water. You cannot take the warmth out of the fire if it is going to remain as fire.

In the same way you cannot take away love from God if he is going to remain as God. Because he was and is love. Look deep into him. Explore every corner. Search through every angle. Love is everywhere. Go to the beginning of every decision he has made and you will find love. Go to the end of every story he has told and you will find love.

Love.

No bitterness. Nothing evil. No cruelty. Just love. Spotless love. Glowing love.  Immense and pure love. He is Love.”

 

So the answer the previous questions is that God decided how to save mankind and he chose to do it through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and he did it out of Love. But then there is the following verses. After you have read those verses ask yourself: Is God still a loving God?

 

¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

 

First of all; we cannot compare God’s love with human love because human love has been contaminated by the way of the world, a world that is opposed to God.

Through the fall of man; through uproar and disobedience of man the relationship between man and God was ruined. Death entered into the creation and death is a reality for all of us. One day is our last and then comes eternity. In the presence of God or forever separated from him.

But after the fall of man God directed man into a new plan where the sacrifices and shedding of blood would atone for sins. Man could approach God again but still on arm’s length. It was never enough. It had to be repeated over and over again because the ultimate Sin that stood between man and God was still there; man’s distrust and selfishness as in wanting to be independent of God and making himself a god to be worshipped instead of God.

 

So when God found that the time was right, the place was right he put his decision in action; he sent himself; transformed  into a child; his only begotten Son, Jesus, to make the last and ultimate sacrifice to save mankind once and for all. His plan was ingenious because man would not have a chance to boost about it and call it his own.

So when verse 18 says that a person who doesn’t believe in Jesus as his savior is already condemned it merely says that the decision to accept or deny is up to you and me. God has already made his choice: to save you!

It isn’t about ignorance, it is about finding the knowledge about who Jesus is and making a decision about how to relate to him. Not to Buddha, Mohammed, Krishna, or any other self-appointed god but to say yes or no to Jesus. If I say Yes to Jesus I am what the Bible call “born again”. The spirit in me has come alive and I am now in Jesus one with God my creator. I no longer stand afar from him but can as his child cast myself into his arms and he will certainly open up his arms to me. That is worth a big “Yippee!”

I said yes to salvation through Jesus Christ when I was 10 years old. So if my physical birth took place in 1950 my spiritual birth was 1960 or maybe years before that because it seems to me that I have always since my first day of Sunday school said yes to Jesus.

 It is a most patient question: how to relate to Jesus, because as long as we live and breathe we have the opportunity to decide; but once this life is ended there is no more choice to be done.

Acts 4:12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:11-13 (in Context) Acts 4 (Whole Chapter)

John 5

²² Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, ²³ that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

 

This weekend we celebrate All Saints Day in Sweden and remember those who have departed from this world. The God-less and atheistic Sweden likes to convert this weekend into the American celebration of Halloween and is doing its best to promote it. Death is celebrated but not the resurrected Jesus who won his victory over death and is now alive; sitting on the Father’s right side praying for you and me.

Why do people like to celebrate darkness and death instead of the Light? Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Man is mostly afraid of death so why lift it up as if it was a god.

^{Verse 19} This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

^{verse 35} The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

Now how does this fit with the Loving God?

God’s wrath?

Verse 16 says that God loves the world and wants to save it. From what?

From the death that mankind brought upon itself by turning away from God. From the separation from God that The Sin brought upon mankind because sin and God never match together. The Sin has to be judged and a penalty has to be paid because the Righteousness of God demands it. There is no darkness in God. There is no evil in God. And as impossible it is for you to touch a high-voltage line and stay alive that is how impossible is it for you to enter into the presence of God without the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You are spiritual dead without Jesus because the Holy Spirit is only given to the one who has accepted Jesus as their personal savior and the Holy Spirit’s only task is to exalt the name of Jesus, confront man with Sin and persuade man to finally give up his/her own pitiful construction of self-righteousness and accept the perfect way to God: JESUS. You may think you are alive in your spirit and has a communication with a spiritual world but without God they are spirits from the evil one!

On Halloween people like to put on costumes of skeletons’ tell horror stories on TV and act as if death is a friend; but it isn’t. Sculls, skeletons, spiritual rituals; all man’s deception to think there is a way to outsmart death. Not even the thought that there is no eternal life can change the fact that mankind is always seeking a way to avoid death; always looking for meaning of life and searching for answers by asking fortune tellers who can’t even predict their own future. Man is destined to be in relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and is utterly lost without that relationship; both in this world and the next.

Now close your eyes and say after me in this prayer:

I now give up my own fighting and give my life to you Lord God.

I confess my sins before you Lord and I surrender to your decision to give your only Son, Jesus Christ; his death and resurrection, as an atonement for my sins. I confess him as my Savior. I pray that you will give me the Holy Spirit as the Helper you promised in my new life as your child and that you will one day greet me in your heaven when my days here are over.
In the name of Jesus
Amen.

As a child of God you need a spiritual home. It is hard to be alone as a child of God so you need your sisters and brothers in the Lord. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into the church where you can feel at home and be useful for him as you mature as a Christian. You start as a baby but you will end like an adult when you put your life into the hands of God.

Dear Reader, take care and finally make this wise decision to follow Jesus.

PS.

I have no idea how the green arrows got into this post. I have tried to delete them but ended up with no post at all so I guess they stay. But I'm not the one who have put them there! That also uncover my poor knowledge of computing but as long as you can read the text  I'm content. DS