Casting Pearls- Wanna promise?

Do you know who you can trust to make the rough places smooth and keep all the promises He makes, Who always tells the truth? There are over a thousand promises in the Bible and all of them are true. Any of God’s promises are in his word and God never lies. If God promises something, you can take it to the bank, it is guaranteed.  God made a promise that Abram would have a son by Sarai his wife, and even though they had both gotten to old to have children, God gave them a son (Isaac), though by the time they had Isaac Abram had another son by Sarai’s handmaiden Hagar because of Sarai’s disbelief of God being able to overcome their physical shortcomings. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sara because of their unbelief. 

This is some of the promises God makes in the Bible. For those who wish to know God answers their prayers; Isaiah 58:9 ‘Then shalt thou call and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am.’ Or in Jeremiah 33:3 ‘Call unto Me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.’

Matthew 7:7-8 says ‘ Ask and it shall be given to you; seek , and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. So anything we ask, believing we will receive it, it will be ours. God wants us to have the confidence that He will always be with us, whatever we may have to face, we should have the confidence that God knows our situation, in fact he knew we were going to be in it, and will listen to our prayers and move on them in His time. 

Many of us think we should have God move to resolve our problems on our timeline. God only moves quickly on things that are out of His will for us. If the situation is within God’s will or God’s plan can still be made to work with our decision to do something, then God will move on it after we learn from it.

Speaking of confidence, we are promised to have confidence in our Savior Jesus, in 1John 5:14-15 the Bible states; ‘This is the confidence that we have in Him, that,if we ask anything according to His will. He heareth us: and if we know that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.’ Also in the vein of confidence is the verse in Ezekiel 28:26 that states; ‘And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plat vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the Lord their God.’ Also in 1 John 3:21-22 it says; ‘Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.’

These are only a few of the many promises in God’s Word. God has never lied or broken a promise, so I encourage you and everyone to read the Bible every day so you can too read and claim the promises in His Word.

Casting Pearls- Denial...

We start in Mark 14:66-72 where Peter, who has followed Jesus to the courtyard of Caiaphus the chief priest and was behind their faux arrest and trial of Jesus. Peter, who has followed with Jesus as He was led to the courtyard, stood outside the door to the courtyard. Peter was seen by the servant girl that stood by the gate and she said in “are you not one of His disciples?”. Peter quickly denied it, then went over to stand with the officers of the guard and the servants at a fire of coals they had made. 

Then we go to where Peter is again accused of being with Jesus by the servants and officers standing around the fire with him. Peter denies this as well. Shortly afterwards a servant who is related to the guard that Peter’s sword had cut off the mans ear, accuses Peter of being a friend of Jesus, again Peter denies Jesus though this time with cursing and swearing. Soon after that a cock crows and reminds Peter of the prophesy Jesus had made, and he saw Jesus being led away from the courtyard and when Jesus looked at him, Peter ran away in tears for what he had done.

Now, There are four different words in the Greek language that are translated as love, the one we most commonly think of is Agape love, which is a deep love for someone that loves them even though they don’t deserve to be loved by us. The person may even be mean to us, but we still love them. This type of love is the type most commonly associated with Jesus or God. 

The second type is eros, or physical love between people, this kind is never mentioned in the New Testament.  The third type of love is phillia which is a mental love or an affection due to friendship or family status. This type is found in the New Testament. The fourth kind is storg, which is better translated as affection, however it is a natural affection like someone would have for the family dog or pet of some kind. 

After all that Peter had seen and been told by the others, and  having denied and betrayed Jesus that way, and having lost to death the only one who could have been the messiah. Peter was very dejected. He was really upset at how his Lord had been betrayed by Judas and the Priests, and put to death, as well as how he had denied Jesus just to save himself. Jesus rose again from the grave on that sunday, the first day of the week, and after that, the disciples and the followers of Jesus, met together to honor the first day of the week, Sunday, and they fellow-shipped. That is where the sunday worship service came from. 

Having seen Jesus a few times and being told by Him that a helper would come in His place, Peter was thinking Jesus would not be back for some time. Getting bored with waiting, he and the other disciples decided to go fishing. After being out fishing all night, which was the best time to catch something, the disciples had decided to give up and come in. when they approached the shore, they saw a man cooking a fish and some bread on a fire. Just as Jesus had done when Peter had first been called, the man called out for the disciples to try casting the net on the right side of the ship. The net was so full of fish they couldn’t pull it up. Peter then asked John if he thought it might be the Messiah Jesus. Hearing from John that he also thought it was Jesus, Peter didn’t wait for the boat to get to shore, and jumped in and swam to the shore.

Jesus was waiting for them with a fish and some bread he offered them, then they cooked some of the fish they had caught and Jesus ate with them. This was the third time Jesus had shown Himself to them, and he ate some fish and bread with them. Once they had dined, Jesus asked Peter, “do you Love(agape)me? 

Peter said back”Yes Lord you know I Love(phillas) you”. once again Jesus asked Peter, “Do you Love(agape)me?”, and once again Peter answered Yes Lord, you know I Love(phillas) you” and a third time Jesus asked, Do you Love(Phillas)me? and Peter answered again “Lord you know that I Love(Phillas)you. After each question, Jesus said to Peter, “Go feed my sheep” 

For the three times Peter had denied Jesus, Jesus had restored him to good standing by telling him three times to go feed Jesus’ sheep, and asking him three times if he loved Him. Then the Lord Jesus told Peter the way in which he would die in service to the Lord. Peter knew from what Jesus told him that he would suffer for Christ and he gladly went ahead and worshiped Jesus openly. 

Casting Pearls - Religion or Relationship?

                          Today the people overwhelmingly claim to be Christian. Approximately 87% of Americans claim to be Christian, yet how many claim a religion and not a relationship with Christ? Most of these people are claiming they are part of the Christian religion, not that they have a personal relationship with Jesus. They believe in the lie the world tells that they only have to believe Jesus was the messiah and they will be saved. To be Saved is much more complicated than that. 

                          Satan believes that Jesus was the Messiah and is more than willing to say so, we are called to go further than that. Jesus wants us to have a relationship with Him. If you know a boy or girl that you are interested in you will strive to spend as much time with them as possible. Even missing out on things you would normally do so you can spend time with them. Well, to spend time with Jesus all you have to do is read His Word. The Bible says in John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word(Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". So from this verse alone we know that Jesus is thew Word of the Bible and to spend time with Jesus and hear what He has to say to you, all you need do is read His Words in the Bible.

                          Most people today don't want to give up their supposedly valuable time to spend a few minutes with Jesus each day. If these people want the blessings that God promises in His Word, They will want to have s personal relationship with Jesus. Many people say, "Not yet" or "I'll get around to it, we have a lot of time" . These people are fooling themselves, there is not much time to get right with the Lord, the signs we were told by Jesus, Matthew, Mark, John, Paul, Peter, James, and all the New Testament writers, given the words to write by God Himself, are all coming true around us and the time of Jesus' return is near. With all the hints we have that Jesus is coming back soon, there is nothing that tells us the exact date of His return. 

                          God does not tell us the exact date, because if we were to know, we would just wait until the day of His return to straighten up our lives. To have a relationship with Jesus, we are commanded by God to clean up and straighten up our lives now so we will be ready at His return. We should desire to tell more people about Jesus, and convince them to be saved, so even more will make it to Heaven at Jesus' return. 

                         We are given a choice, Love this world, our life here, the things we have, and people we have relationships with, or, Love Jesus, and receive the things of this world, the People we have relationships with, and all the good things of this life. You see, you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain by giving your life and your heart to Jesus, and everything to gain.

Casting Pearls - Father or Daddy?

                       The most often used phrase when praying or talking with or about God is 'Our Father' this is showing respect for our Father God. However, there is another vein of thought about this. The New Testament was mostly written in Greek, but there is a smattering of other languages in it. There is a little of Hebrew, and a small about of Arabic. The most important thing that was written in Arabic was a small word 'ABBA' that was used by Jesus in the Garden of Gethesemene, when He was praying that His Father would remove the cup of wrath and death that He had to drink. Jesus used the word again in Luke 11:2 when He was teaching the disciples how to pray. The main reason for the use of this word was Jesus wanting to show the disciples His personal relationship with God His Father.
                       Jesus used this word for God and Paul used it again in Galatians 4:3-7,  particularly verse 6, in which he was stating our relationship as believers in Jesus, is the same as Jesus Himself since we are now adopted by the Father God as sons and daughters. ABBA is more descriptive than any other word in Greek for our relationship with God because Greek has only the word Yashua which means Father the Arabic word ABBA as Jesus and Paul used it means Daddy. We are adopted into the family of God as joint heirs with Jesus in the world to come. As adopted children of The Lord, we should feel comfortable in thinking of God as our Daddy.
                     I still have problems personally with calling The Lord my Daddy, but from what paul tells us in verse 6, God wants us too. The thing is that we need to be as comfortable with God's Love for us, as God is with Jesus' love for Him. We have Jesus as the Holy Spirit living inside our hearts, and if we are giving Jesus and the Holy Spirit control over us and our reactions, we will be showing the world around us God's Love. If we ever want to live in the peace that God wants to give us, we will learn to let the Holy Spirit have control.
                    The original Greek or the Hebrew that the New Testament was written in had no word that gave the same meaning of Daddy, and as adopted children of God we should be comfortable in thinking of God as our Dad. As a father myself, I am under the realization that my son sees me as a representation of God in his life, and I want to be as much like God as possible for my son to grow up seeing God as a Good Loving, and at the same time strict and willing to punish if you go to far, person just like me. In fact my son was the main reason that I turned my life around and began making the effort to be a better person for him to see God our Father, in me.