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Archive for the ‘Bible Characters’ Category

Concession vs. Intent

Posted in Christ, Divorce, Peace, Pharisees, tagged , on March 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »

 

He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. – Matthew 19:8

Jesus turned specific questions into life principles. That’s one reason the Bible is so applicable today, the issues may change but the principles don’t.

The religious leaders of Jesus day came to trip him up with the hot topic of what circumstances allowed divorce but Jesus pointed to the broader principle of God’s intent.

My kids pull this on me all the time – what will dad allow me to get away with? In contrast, my wife is interested in what I want, I love that about her!

Peace with God is like that. It only occurs when we act upon what God wants, not what he will allow.

We can start today, now, regardless of our past.

Prayer: Lord, help me to follow what you really desire for my life, not just what you will allow me to get away with. Amen.

Sound Bite: “God’s intent is better than his concession”

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Letting Opportunity Go

Posted in Felix, Manipulation, Maturity, Opportunity, Paul, tagged on March 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

[Felix] hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him: wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him.  –  Acts 24:26

A curious story – Paul was unjustly thrown in prison and brought before governor Felix, who saw no fault in him but wanted a bribe for his release.

Felix couldn’t say so, of course, but everyone knew it – that’s the way things got done.

But Paul was content to stay in that awful environment, meet with Felix and the other prisoners as often as they asked, then finally be passed on to do the same for someone else.

Why?  It doesn’t say, but I think Paul trusted that Jesus hadn’t abandoned him but was with him in that prison.  And when God is with you what difference does it make where you are. I think Paul resolved, as an act of faith, to not live for himself, even in putrid surroundings, and to not manipulate the system to get what he wanted.

Lesson: We sometimes find ourselves in unhealthy and unpleasant circumstances, not because we are outside God’s will but because we are in it, and letting some opportunities go is the right thing to do.

Sound Bite: When God is with you what difference does it make where you are!
– fritz

Related Post: Not a Prisoner of the one who Owns the Chains (May 8, 2010)

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One “Not Good” In All Creation

Posted in Adam, Church, Community, In Christ, tagged , , on March 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. – Genesis 2:18

God gave the “Good” pronouncement on everything he created except one – Adam’s aloneness.

Adam was good but his being alone wasn’t, so God made man into a community1 – first with a partner, then through that partner a family.

Some like being alone – no one to be hassled or disappointed with, no one to get in the way or make you wait, no one to limit your freedom or to say, “No!”; but that’s not God’s way.

God has always been a community (in his case – Father, Son, Spirit) and community is his intent for us.  He makes a place, in the Community of faith, for everyone who will accept Christ, if we will but coöperate and choose his way over our own.

God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. – Psalm 68:6

– fritz

1 – Genesis 1:27

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