Casting Pearls- Are we crucifying Christ again?

The people of Israel had been murmuring and complaining to Moses all along, they had ignored the miracles God had already done for them, they chose to focus on the problems of the here and now rather than think of all God had done for them up to this point. All of us are guilty of the same thing, we think only of where we are right now, not where we have been. We ignore the things God has done before in our lives and focus on where we are. 

As the old quote goes, to have a testimony, you must first go through a test. People are proud to tell others what they have gone through, they just don’t think of witnessing to others when they are going through the test. God allows us to go through troubles and tests so we will learn and so we will have a reason to be able to witness to others. The question is often asked, why does god allow these terrible things? This is often the reason why. 

In Exodus 17:1-7 The people of Israel had been in the desert for only days, when they began to run out of water for themselves and their livestock. they complained to Moses that he and God had only brought them out of Egypt and into the desert to let them die of thirst.  Moses prayed to God and he received an answer to go and take with him the Elders of Israel and go to the rock at Horeb. When you get there, ‘strike the rock’ and water will come out for you and the Children of Israel. Moses did as the Lord had told him and water did come from the rock to quench the thirst of all Israel. 

The rock is a shadow, or type, of Christ to show the Israelites and the Gentiles later, that Christ must be struck and from him living waters will flow. Christ was struck once for all men, past and present, who believe on Him. It says in 1 Corinthians 10:4, ‘and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ.’ 

For many years they wandered around that desert never allowed to enter the promised land that God had promised to them. Why did they just wander? God kept them in the desert wandering making a 11 day long trip into one that lasted 40 Years, so that God could attempt to teach them to rely on Him for the needs they had. Some years after their wandering had begun, Israel had again run out of water, Mirriam, the sister of Moses had just died, and buried in the desert there. Moses was tired and upset at the loss of his sister, yet even then the burden of leading Israel continued. The people rose up in opposition to Moses and his brother Aaron who God had appointed the High Priest of the people. They were out of water again and instead of calling out to God or asking Aaron to ask God for water, they chose to rise up against Moses. 

The people of Israel said the same things again, and murmured against God and Moses. They complained that Moses and God had brought them into the desert to leave them without water and let them die. Moses then asked God for them to provide water for them. God told Moses to bringing his rod with him , gather the congregation together along with his brother Aaron in front of the rock at that place and ‘speak to it’ and water will flow out for all the people to drink. 

Being tired and aggravated with the peoples murmuring against him God and even his brother Aaron, Moses was a bit angry when he gathered the people together there. On top of all that, he had recently experienced great loss in his sister Miriam dying. Moses said to the people, when he gathered them together, in Numbers 20: 6-13, that they were ‘rebels’ and did they want God to provide them water, well here it is, and struck the rock twice with his rod and water came out. 

The Lord then spoke to Moses and said he was  to speak to the rock, not strike it, Because of his disobedience he would lead the people to the Promised Land but would not be allowed to enter it himself. The Lord wanted Moses to let Him show His power to the Children of Israel, by just speaking to the rock and not by striking it as Moses did.

The Rock here is also a shadow of Christ. It also flows the living water for the Children of Israel, the difference here is that God wanted to show it did not need to be struck as before. Christ was struck down once for ALL sin, both what happened before, and what is yet to happen. We don’t need more forgiveness, we already have it. The Rock represents Christ's body and as the Bible says it was broken once for all men. By striking it again, he was striking the body of Christ again, and we do the same thing as WE are the body of Christ in this world. 

Whenever Christians are persecuted, whenever Christians are slandered, whenever Christians are even chastised by the supposed  preachers of the Gospel without good reason, when we beat ourselves up for a sin that has already been confessed to God, the world is crucifying Christ again. The devil takes joy in making Christ suffer again, but because God knows all things and has already forgiven all things, there is nothing Satan can do that Christ has not already paid the price for. 
                 This is not an excuse to be able to go out and sin, Christians should feel the urging of the Holy Spirit not to do anything that is a sin and if we find ourselves in a situation that is questionable, we should ask the Lord for guidance.  He will reveal to us which way we should go. Trust in the Lord, and place all your plans before Him. 

Casting Pearls- In the Beginning

This is my belief as to the beginning of things and how this world was made. It is not in any way supposed to replace the Bible as the word of God, or make anything in it to be of no affect. It is purely a idea of mine as to how the beginning of the Earth happened. It does follow along with the creation story of Genesis in the Bible and is influenced by the leading of the Holy Spirit Though in no way do I claim to be writing words inspired by God. This is merely a story that gives the reader the imaginings of the author as to how we all came to be.

There was a time, before time began, when the world was not yet formed. Heaven was the center of the universe, because the universe did not yet exist. All was good and God was in control of everything. In the middle of all this a war began, a struggle between what was known and what was unknown, between good and evil. 

God was a very good ruler and was very good to the angels He created. He gave them great abilities and powers in the kingdom He controlled, and He made them have almost anything they could imagine. Their imaginations didn’t have all that much to imagine because their lack of knowledge of things outside of the Heaven God had created for them to live in. All they really knew was the Heaven that was their home and each other. God had created three angels that He put all other angel under the control of, these were Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer, they were in control of one third of the angels each. 

When God had something for the angels to do, one of the three were given the order and in turn passed the order on to the angels under them to complete it. This was the order in which things were done prior to the great uprising. The head of the three angels God had put in control of the other angels was Lucifer, he was known as the Angel of Light, since he was almost as powerful as God Himself. Lucifer was just under the God of Light who is the Light of Eternity Himself. Lucifer rose up against God and proclaimed himself to be as powerful as God. Lucifer was so impressed with his own beauty and power, that he thought himself equal with his creator God. 

When Lucifer rose up in rebellion against the God of all Creation, he ordered the third of the angels he controlled to help him to take over heaven. When they  joined up with Lucifer in rebellion against God, they wrote their own future. When God and His other angels along with Michael and Gabriel, defeated the uprising, the Lord our God cast Lucifer and his third of the angels he controlled out of Heaven. The worst punishment God could think of at the time was to put them in a place that was the antithesis to what they were. Since Lucifer was the Angel of Light, God put him and his angels in a place that was dark and void of anything. 

  God had to create a place that was dark and void of anything to place The angels and Lucifer in. For a time it stayed that way, then one day God decided to do something good with the evil place He had created. He decided to make it a wonderful place that would be good and have creations in it that ,as the angels, had free will to worship and make God their Lord. God then began the creation of Earth.

God came upon the face of the Dark and void place He had created and said, “ Let there be Light” , and there was light in the darkness. The brilliant light of God’s own presence made the light out of the darkness that prevailed until then. Where light is, no darkness can be. But God divided the darkness from His light to keep Lucifer in his place of void and darkness. God saw that the thing he had created was now in light and the light was good. That was the First Day of God’s creation.

Then God said let the void and darkness have a form within it, and God then made a separation of the form from the darkness surrounding it. That was the Second Day of God’s creation of the place in which we are. 

God called the area around the Form He had created, the Heavens. Then on the next day God divided the area of the form He had created into waters and dry land, and the dry land God called Earth, and the waters God called the seas, and God saw all that He had done so far and it was all good on the face of the evil that was the place Lucifer had been cast from Heaven. 

God then made grass and trees and all kinds of plants to grow on the land He had created all sorts of plants and made them where they could have seeds and reproduce, and God saw all He had created, and said it was good on the face of the darkness God had made to cast Lucifer and his followers into. This was the Third Day of God’s creation.

  The next thing God did was make lights in the heavens around the form of Earth and made them give light on the Earth for pat of the time and light at night too, as He created two great lights, one brighter than the other, one to shine during the day and one to shine at night. All around the Earth in the void, God created other lights to shine. These man later called stars, as they were like unto the bright light that shined on the Earth. God saw all He had made and it was good.This was the Forth Day.

God then began to create the creatures in the sea, the Plankton, amoebas and the whales and all the creatures in between in size. God also made all sorts of birds in the air above the water and God saw that all these animals were good and made them where they could procreate. and God had them procreate and fill the Earth with their kind. Then God made all the animals and all other things that move upon the Land and made them to procreate and fill the land with their kind as well. God saw all the things He had created and that it was good. This was the Fifth Day. 

God then said to Himself, “ Let US make Man in OUR own image”. When God referred to Himself as US and OUR He was referring to the Triune nature of God as three in one. There is also much controversy over what God meant by IN OUR OWN IMAGE, it was not to say that we in any way look like God. We have his image in our being a triune being as well, we are made up of BODY,SOUL, and SPIRIT. While God is made up of THE FATHER GOD, THE SON, and THE HOLY SPIRIT. So, God created man in His own image and then he created woman to go along with man. God told them to replenish the Earth and control it. God gave man control over all that He had created here in the void. We were given dominion over the Earth and all that were in it. God saw all that He had made and it was all VERY GOOD.  That made up the Sixth Day of creation

                There is no evidence as to how long the time was between the creation of Man on the Sixth Day of creation and the fall of man due to sin. The only time we can track is from the fall of man until now. As i said in another blog, it is stated in 2 Peter and in Psalms that a day to God is as a Thousand years and we are approximately 6 to almost 7 thousand years since the fall of man in eden. We can be sure if things follow the seventh day of rest that God prescribes, that we are coming up on a time that God and we can rest from the attacks of satan. This would go along with the thousand year reign of Christ on earth before we see the new heaven and new earth. We as christians will be with Jesus as He reigns.

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.