13th Post - The Good Shepherd John 10:17-18

We have been looking at this passage John 10: 1 - 18; we have looked at good and bad shepherds, good and bad sheep, and what it means to follow His voice. I believe these last two verses are the most important. Jesus says "I will lay down my life and take it up again for my sheep." In the first part of this passage Jesus said if you are my sheep you will hear my voice and follow Me. What did Jesus mean when He said "I will lay down my life and take it up again." This is why this passage is in John and not the three synoptic Gospels. John (the Gospel) was written late in John's life, he had time to reflect on the words and sayings of Jesus John is showing us that when Jesus Said these words Jesus knew He was God and was looking ahead toward His suffering and death. Only God would know what is to happen before it does. This is what makes Bible prophecy different from all other forms of prophecy, the Bible prophecy is 100% accurate. Jesus is Lord over time and space. If the shepherd you are following is on the same page as the Bible, this should be the same message you are receiving. If it is not, something is wrong, you need to find out where the problem is. No one took Jesus' life from Him. This puts a damper on which group is responsible for the death of Jesus. If you believe the Jews are responsible, then clearly you do not sin. God points out sin to us in His Word the Bible. The Bible clearly states that "God so Loved the World that He Gave His One and Only Son (John 3:16). The Romans are not responsible either. I will explain this further when we study the death of Jesus. If this is a new teaching for you, you will see the ground work for this teaching in Genesis chapter 3. How did God know Adam and Eve would sin before they actually did? Read the account of the fall in Genesis carefully, God did not have to think up a plan, He already knew what He was going to do. If there is no sin, why did Jesus have to die? If Jesus is not God, what did His death accomplish? To be one of Jesus' sheep you have to believe all of these things, if you don't, or are not sure. I would be happy to talk with you about this further. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and it is this fact that gives Jesus the right to say "No one comes to the Father except through Me."(John 14:6)

12th Post - The Good Shepherd Con't What type of Sheep are You?

We have found that there are two types of shepherds, there are also two types of sheep. The true sheep only listens to His Master and follows Him. Then there are faux sheep, these sheep follow only occasionally and think they are following the truth. These sheep follow a wide path, which includes many teachings that run contrary to what Jesus and the Bible teaches. They don't read the Bible, but can tell you everything it says except chapter and verse when asked to prove where the Bible says that. The faux sheep, are easy prey for false shepherds and believe that these shepherds are the right ones because they tell these sheep what they want to hear. You want to know the truth, read what Jesus and the Bible teaches, everything else is a waste of time. The closer you look at what Jesus said, the narrower the path becomes. How is this possible? Jesus said we would have life and have it more abundantly. This does not make any sense. Jesus chose the word sheep to describe us, it is a very good description. If sheep were left to themselves they would die; they don't know what is good to eat, they don't know where it is safe to drink, and they have no fear. Since they are fearless, they will go into places and under conditions that are not safe. The shepherd has to anticipate all of his sheep's needs and to provide for them, all the sheep has to do is trust his shepherd. We have a very hard time with this trust issue. I believe that this is the strongest and hardest obstacle, that keeps us from becomming Christians (Christ Like), a true follower of Jesus Christ. We will be looking at this trust issue from many different angles , as we explore the words and teachings of Jesus. Trust and Obey, this is the main message of the Bible and the words of Jesus. You have to first trust that the teaching is true before you can obey it. This only comes through walking with the True Shepherd, and reading the Bible. I see I have run out of space again, we have almost finished this teaching of the Good Shepherd. Stay tuned...

11th Post - The Good Shepherd Con't.

Jesus has been likening us to sheep, we have more trouble seeing the likeness than the people Jesus first spoke these words to. Then Jesus talks about hirelings and false shepherds, and more than one flock. To be the Good Shepherd you are prepared to die to protect your sheep, the hireling will not go to this extent to protect the sheep. To him this is just a job and not worth losing your life over. False shepherds are interested in leading sheep astray; you can identify them by their actions. If the shepherds are true, their message would be the same as the Good Shepherd, they would speak with one voice. This is why you need to keep your nose in the Book (Bible), the Bible will show you what is false. Jesus says that the sheep know My voice and listen to Me. There are many groups claiming to be the other flock mentioned in this passage. This is very easy to discern which group this is. Those of you that read my prophecy blog, know that this other flock has been pointed out already. During the Millennium period, there will be two Olive trees supplying the lampstand with oil. One Olive tree is the believing Jews, and the other one is the one Paul described in (Romans 11:11-24), the believing Gentiles. This is what John 3:16 talks about. What makes these two flocks into one large flock is following the words of God.
This is all the words not just some of them. Jesus makes it plain enough, to be part of His flock you need to know His voice and follow Him. You have to make the decision, no one can make it for you. Not quite finished with this topic yet, wait for next post...

10th Post - The Good Shepherd Con't

Jesus says that if you follow Him you will have life and have it more abundantly. What does Jesus mean here? The Bible teaches the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). If you follow the teachings of Jesus you will have life free from sin. Does Jesus say if you follow Me you will become rich? What does the Bible say? Jesus praised the widow giving her two mites in the Temple and Jesus was friends with Lazarus from Bethany. Both of these examples show people living the abundant life, one was rich and the other very poor. Being rich, means you may have an abundance of things, but are you really happy and living or are you merely existing? Those of us who are not rich, might look on the rich with envy; we need to follow the teachings of Paul and be content with what ever our situation is at the present (Philippians 4:11 - 13). Clearly Paul understood the teaching of Jesus concerning living life more abundantly. This requires an understanding of God, known only after much time spent walking with God. This is a goal we are to set up for ourselves. James 1:2 is another one of these passages that require an understanding of God. The James passage says to count all trials as joy. I don't know about you, but I still have trouble with thanking God when difficulties come into my life. When you walk with God, your road does not become easier, but the way you react to it changes making the road easier to bear. It is our ability to deal with adversity that makes people stop and watch us. When you walk with God your outlook changes, and you can handle more before you lose it. This is what is meant by long suffering. When we walk with Jesus, we start to shed the attributes of this life and start to put on His attributes, this is a life long commitment. When we die we are the most like Christ we will ever be until Jesus completes us when He comes back. I have run out of space again, to be continued...

9th Post 1/25/10 - The Good Shepherd.

We have been looking at what Jesus said about himself, and in the process of discovering this we have to look at what God said in the Old Testament. Case in point, last week we looked at Communion and found Jesus used the word covenant. We looked at this word from the Old Testament perspective. The Good Shepherd teaching comes from the Gospel of John 10: 1 - 18,
this is a hard teaching of Jesus. In this passage He (Jesus) likens Himself to a door, and says whoever does not enter by the door, or through Him is a thief and a robber. This seems to us to be very narrow minded. Those of you that read this and come from different religions, did your god come to earth and pay for your salvation? The answer is no. Only Jesus Christ did this and bought us with His Own Blood. This gives Him the right to claim this truth. This is what gives Jesus the right to have His Name above all others God gave us free choice and it is this choice that causes us to make the wrong choice time and time again. If you don't know God, you don't recognize when you sin. Reading the Bible shows you the difference between right and wrong. It is understanding the difference between right and wrong, that tends to make some people stop reading their Bible. When you start to live for God, you will still stumble with wrong choices. To make the wrong choices less often requires time alone reading your Bible, this is what is meant by the term spending time with God. The more time you spend, the less wrong choices you will make. This is what Jesus was talking about when He said My sheep hear My Voice and Follow Me. If you don't spend time reading your Bible and talking to God, you will not recognize His voice from the false teachers. I am running out of space and have only touched the beginning of this passage. To be continued.

8th Post - Amazing Love - Comment

When I was posting Jesus Said... about Spiritual Food & Drink; it came to me how amazing God's love for us really is. No other God cares where you end up. The Most High God cared so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die and rise for our sins. God knew when He gave us free choice that we would waste our choice by choosing the wrong things. He sent His Son to die for us, and we still have the choice to believe or not. Each of us has to make this choice, no one can make the choice for us. Even when we make the wrong choice, God still tries to reach us and bring us back to Him. This is what the story of the ninety-nine sheep is all about. God lets us drift from Him, He hopes that we will wise up; sometimes we get so far away, we can't find our way back to Him. If you feel you have drifted so far away, that you can not ever come back. God knows exactly where you are and is waiting for you to ask Him back into your life. Don't believe it? Try it, prove me and God wrong!

The previous statement was pretty hard and direct, but you know in your heart that I am right.
Redemption is what God is about.

Lets look at the other side of this for a moment. If you find yourself in hell, you will not be able to blame God for where you ended up. To end up in hell, you would have had to have decided to walk away from God's ways and serve the other guy (devil). This is not a one or two time thing.
This is not backsliding, this is willful rebellion to God. If you are afraid you committed this, you have not, because worrying about if you did or not proves that you still care about God. What I am talking about is being dead to God. This is what the word apostasy means.

7th Post - Spiritual Food & Drink Con't.

Earlier I mentioned a new covenant. A covenant is a very strong contract. In ancient times if you went to a new town and you did not know anyone, this is before banks, and you needed to sell something you would go to the market place and look for the oldest most scarred person you could find. You would do this because you knew that only an old person with many scars was the most trustworthy person in the town. If he was not trustworthy no one would do business with them, the fact he is scarred a lot tells you he has handled many covenants in the past. This is how the covenant or contract worked, you would enter into an agreement, animals would be cut in half and spread out on the ground; you and the other party of the contract would hold hands and repeat the terms of the covenant as you walked around and between the carcasses. The carcasses symbolized what would happen to anyone who broke this contract. Refer to Genesis chapter 15, this covenant was between Abram and God, after this Abram was known as Abraham. This is all part of the covenant. First you walk between the animals then you each cut yourselves and mingle the blood, then you take a letter from each person and add it to your name. If you go back to the Genesis 15 account, Abram is asleep and wakes up to see a smoking pot and a torch moving through the carcasses by themselves. God was telling Abram that God alone would be responsible for keeping His word. Notice also Abram was now known as Abraham. Abraham has to be circumcised, this is the shedding of blood needed to make the contract binding. Wait, only Abraham sheds blood what about God? Good question, this contract points to the cross and Jesus said "It is finished". I will say more on this when we study Jesus words from the cross. I see I have run out of room again. Stay tuned for more next week.

6th Post -Spiritual Food & Drink - Con't.

Communion is a symbol of how we should live our lives. When we read the Bible, it has a tendency to convict us. This is why our Bible has a place of prominence in our bookcases, on the top shelf. People see it when they come over, but it is not convenient enough for us to read everyday. We keep it there because it only tells me how bad I am. This could happen; if it does, why? God said He will meet you anywhere, even at the gates of hell. When God meets you, He wants you to be the best you can be. He can only start to change where you are, by making you aware of where you are. You don't know sin is sin until the Holy Spirit makes you aware of it. This is why you can talk to people who are living contrary to God, and they won't listen. Only God can cause us to change. Instead of trying to talk them to death, try asking the Holy Spirit to change their heart. You do this through prayer, you are asking God and He will work on it. This is only part of the problem, they have the choice to listen to God or not. God gave us free choice, and it is this free choice that makes us do all of the things we do. You who have had children, which one of the parents taught the child to disobey or talk back. This the child does naturally, no one had to teach them. We treat our Spiritual Father with the same kind of reverence. I see I have run out again, stay tuned...

5th Post Spiritual Food and Drink Communion Continued

In the 2 Kings and Lamentations accounts show the times that the Jews had to resort to cannibalism due to sieges of their Capitals by their enemies. The 2 Kings account was against the North Kingdom at Samaria; this group became known as the Samaritans; the Jews would look down on them as being not as pure Jewish as they. The Lamentations account is at Jerusalem during the siege by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. The bottom line was that God told them they would decline to this level when they turned away from God. This can happen to anyone who turns that far away from God. This is why the Jews were repulsed by Jesus' Words in the John 6 account. When Jesus instituted the Last Supper Feast He said that it would be a new covenant in His Blood. I will say more on the covenant later. How many of us go to Communion and listen to the Bible accounts said by the Priests or Pastors, but do not really hear what the words say. "Take Eat, this is My Body, which is given for you", and "Take and drink, this Cup is for the remission of sins". Jesus is saying get My Body and Blood into you for forgiveness of sins. This is done by reading the Bible and taking Communion. Jesus asked us to be like Him. How is this possible? By reading the Bible (God's Word), we can learn how to live.
Before we can reach others, we have to have His Words in us, this is the meaning behind the parable of the plank and the moat (Matthew 7:3). I see I am running out of space for this post stay tuned...

4th Post Sunday night January 17th 2010. Jesus Identity

We were discussing Jesus, my kingdom is not of this world John 18:36-37, this is from the conversation with Pilate. The next part had to do with Spiritual Food and drink. Matthew 26:26-28; Mark14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20. These come from Jesus' Last Supper from the upper room. These comments were made by Jesus to His disciples the night of His betrayal. This was after 3 and 1/2 years of the disciples walking with Jesus. Jesus sets up a new covenant with the disciples using bread and wine to symbolize His Body and Blood. I mentioned that this was not the first time that Jesus had used this symbolism, the first time was in John chapter six and verse 53 (John 6:53). In John, Jesus addressed the whole crowd, here is another classic situation where Jesus was talking on one level and the people were hearing on another level. This still happens today, we have a term for it called not being on the same page. Jesus was talking about Spiritual things and they were understanding physical things. In the physical, "Eat My Body and Drink My Blood" would mean cannibalism. The Jews know that this practice is against the teaching of God; this would be repulsive to them. The fact that they thought Jesus said this shows that at this time the multitude did not believe that Jesus was God or sent by God. God does not Lie, or Contradict Himself. The passages in the Old Testament they would be thinking about are Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 7: 26-27; 17: 10 - 14; Deuteronomy 12: 23-24. The Jews broke these laws in 2 Kings 6:29 and Lamentations 4:9 - 10. I am running out of post space so I will pick this up on the next post, stay tuned.

3rd Post What Jesus Said About His Identity.

We had our first meeting tonight and had several good discussions concerning what Jesus said about His identity. We seemed to have the same problem that the Jews had at the time of Jesus.
Trying to understand that Jesus had two natures. Jesus was 100% God and 100% man. The people could see that Jesus was a man, but could not understand that Jesus was at the same time God. When Jesus told the people He was God, they did not believe Him. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses asked God what he should call Him. God replied "I AM, that I AM." When we read these words we think of God as singular. Now Jesus is saying that He and the Father are One. How can one plus one equal one? This is the mystery of God. Our God is Triune which means three persons one God. If you go back to the Hebrew Scriptures the account of Adam being made in Genesis, you will see that the pronoun "we" is used and "our" for image. This happened before God appeared to Moses at the burning bush. The account of Genesis was written by Moses himself. Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Old Testament (during the 40 years Moses was in the desert). In the desert, Moses had a very different relationship with God than he had at the time of the burning bush.
Moses wrote those books as he was moved by the Holy Spirit, (the other person of the Trinity).
If this is confusing, don't worry about it, God is infinite (boundless) and we have minds that are finite (limited). I can give you two very bad occurences of how the Trinity might be explained in nature. The first is water, it can take the form or snow, ice and water (liquid). All are water but three different forms. The next example would be a tree, you have the leaves, trunk, and the roots. All are different but all part of the tree and the tree would not be a tree without any one of those parts. The Trinity is more involved than the examples I provided here, but I hope you get the idea.
What caused this discussion, was when the Pharisees asked Jesus about his authority to address the crowds. Jesus asked them about Psalm 110:1 (Luke 20:41-44), and asked if "David calls him Lord, then how can He be his Son?" A good question, the Pharisees knew that Jesus quoted Psalm 11o and that this was a Messianic Psalm, they knew exactly what Jesus was telling them. They could not say anything to negate Jesus claim, so they said nothing. This is just one example of more examples to come that we will explore in this section of what Jesus had to say about His Identity. The next example comes from (John 8:56,58) The Pharisees were tracing their roots back to Abraham. Jesus said "Your Father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." The people looked at the age of Jesus (not even 50 years old), and wondered how Jesus could have seen Abraham's day that came way before Moses? They could not believe this is possible. True for a mere man this would be impossible, but with God all things are possible.

We are in a better situation then they were. We can read and study what the Bible said concerning Jesus and then study it again. We have all the Bible said regarding Jesus, including all the miracles He performed.
We have at our fingertips all the prophecy written concerning Him. With all of this information it should be a no brainer for us to believe what the Bible says concerning Jesus. This is easier said than done.

2nd Post: What we will study in first class meeting.

Since we will be looking at Jesus, from His own words from the Bible. We will be skipping around all of the Gospels. This means we will not be reading the Gospels chapter by chapter and verse by verse. We will be studying what Jesus Said about a topic and use all of the Gospels and parts of Acts that supply the answers. This allows us to look at a more complete view of what Jesus said on a particular topic. If you have studied the Gospels before, you know that each account of what Jesus said has more or less information as you go from one to the other. This is because each Gospel had a different audience in mind. Matthew was written to the Jews to show that Jesus was their long awaited Messiah. Matthew starts off his Gospel with Jesus genealogy. Mark wrote his Gospel to the Romans; Mark does not mention anything about Jesus' bloodline. The Romans would not be interested in Jesus being the Hebrews Messiah. Luke was a Greek, and wrote his Gospel to the Greeks. Luke includes both genealogies and is the most complete historical text. Greeks were interested in all of the facts. It is for this reason, that most historical accounts of Jesus are taken from Luke. John is totality different from the other three, John wrote his Gospel toward the end of his life. In John's account you will meet Jesus Christ face to face as the Son of God. John 1:1 starts out explaining Jesus is the Logos. John did this because at the time of his writing, gnostic beliefs had sprung up and they said they had the secret or hidden knowledge of Logos or God. As John declared there is no secret or hidden knowledge of God, it only comes from the Bible. The Bible is the only true source of God's word!
If you want to know more about God, you have to study the Bible. There is no short cut to gain this knowledge. It is through studying His Word that you gain a stronger relationship with God.
God wants a personal relationship with you and this can not happen if you don't spend time with Him. This is what is meant by walking with God.

New Bible Study Starting 1/10/10

This study will look at Jesus through His words. The purpose of this study is to get a better understanding of who Jesus is and to prove that He is the Christ, the Son of God. We will look at what Jesus said about His Father, and His purpose here. I hope that you will have a better understanding of Jesus, and the reason for His coming.

We have completed a Bible study about prophecy. Even though our study has been completed, I will continue to update that blog as things come to mind from this study that apply to the prophecy blog better.

You should look at these blogs as a continuing story instead of two different studies. I believe this has been lost. Scholars seem more interested in looking at the study they are doing and less with how it fits to what the rest of the Bible says about it. I look at the Bible as being the Word of God, and it can not contradict itself or lie.

When Jesus appeared to His Two disciples on the Road to Emmaus He opened the Old Testament to them and showed the passages that concerned Him. If Jesus considered the Old Testament true enough to quote, than so will I.

I look forward to this study, and hope it will increase your knowledge and love for Jesus Christ.