Category Archives: 2023

2023, Acts, Christian Living, Gospel of John, Gospel of Matthew, Holy Soap Box, Questions, Repentance, Salvation

Wrong, Following

4 Comments

Hello Friends, What a lovely Tuesday it is here in Lower Alabama and I hope it stays lovely to the end of the day and this post.
With that said, I offer this caveat: if this post goes as I suspect it will it shall not be a favored one for persons easily offended.
Blunt and to the point is on its way to this page I think.

Every day, day after day and night after night the people of this world shout with clenched fits thrust upward that GOD is wrong, and they are right.

How do the peoples of Earth do this?
Sin.

Every act of adultery says GOD, You are wrong!
Every act of fornication says GOD, You are wrong!
Every act of homosexuality says GOD, You are wrong!
Every act of gender confusion (as it is termed) says GOD, You are wrong!

Every lie, every theft, every covetous thought, every murder, every rape, every malicious word, every calloused action, every unholy thought we entertain, and every ungodly act we perform says GOD, You are wrong!

GOD, You are wrong!

How could we?!

How could HE?!!
How could He not immediately drop us all into Everlasting Torment?
Do you ever wonder that or are you still of the mind that your sins are not that bad?

That was me for many years.
So I can’t fault you for it,  but I can tell you it is wrong and deadly.

What’s the answer?
Repentance and FOLLOW JESUS.

And that my Friends brings me to another convicting string of thoughts.

The Disciples of The Gospel, found in Scripture, FOLLOWED JESUS. Even when they were not physically in His Presence, they followed Him because they did what He instructed them to do. Read the Gospels and you will see what I mean.

What Would JESUS Do? Do you remember that saying? It was written on bracelets, plastered on billboards, and voiced from pulpits. Even today we are told to “love like JESUS”.
But are we given practical steps to do that?
And how could “man” give us practical steps to love like JESUS anyway?
What does man know about loving like JESUS?

The Disciples FOLLOWED JESUS.
Are we getting that? They FOLLOWED.
What does follow mean?

Let’s look at this:  1.a. To come or go after; proceed behind: b. To go after in pursuit c. To keep under surveillance
2. a. To move along the course of; take b. To move in the direction of; be guided by

What do you take away from this?
I see the Disciples literally following JESUS around all over Judea, wherever He went they went.
featured-upper-room-jesus-riding-donkeyAnd when He gave them instructions to go and do they went and did.  i.e. get the colt. Prepare the upper room.

And we might say, Well, we don’t have JESUS physically here with us, we can’t follow Him around.

Is that true?
Do we have HOLY SPIRIT living within us?
Can we not follow HIM? Can we not be guided by Him?
John 14:26 and Acts 1:8

It’s a NEW picture playing on the screen of my mind too.
But I like it!
I am eager to see how He helps me consistently FOLLOW JESUS.
I figure it will take some time to get this revelation seated and consistently operating but I want it!

That’s it. That’s what I came to say.

Oh wait, I need to tie these two points together, don’t I?
In SIN we say, GOD, You are wrong. This means one thing: we are NOT following JESUS.

Terribly offensive, isn’t it?
BUT GOD has made a way —

Until next time ~~~ Shalom, Kathie

2023, For Fun, Pictures

Full House

Leave a comment

I wish I had something wonderful, fun, and encouraging to put on this screen tonight at 10:40 p.m. 
I should be in bed but at the moment, I’m not sleepy.  But just wait till in the morning! :) 
 
It was a lovely day here. Our house was full of LOVES, JT, and my other Sweet Boys – one all grown up and the others 5 and 2. 

We learned about woolly mammoths, we listened to songs like, I have Decided to follow  JESUS, and  If you’re happy and you know it, and we ate toast smeared with butter and we had homemade french fries.  Oh, and we printed pictures and colored them. We had fun! img_9865

And we had outdoor adventures too!  It doesn’t take a lot to make these little boys happy – just two old adults falling all over themselves to be all there for them. 

So, was this a wonderful, fun, and encouraging post to read? :)
Good night, my Friends.  Until next time ~~~ Shalom,  Kathie

2023, Christian Living, Philippians

Advantage

2 Comments

Philippians 3:8-9

8 Not only that, but I consider everything a disadvantage in comparison with the supreme value of knowing the Messiah Yeshua as my Lord. It was because of him that I gave up everything and regard it all as garbage, in order to gain the Messiah 9 and be found in union with him, not having any righteousness of my own based on legalism, but having that righteousness which comes through the Messiah’s faithfulness, the righteousness from God based on trust.  source 

Not only that what? 

To answer that we will need to back up to verse 1 of Chapter 3 and there we will find Paul voicing the advantages he once held in high esteem. Advantages that others had no grounds to claim as their own. But he did. Here’s a list of those rights to claim:

Circumcised on the 8th day following his birth from the womb
By that birth born into the commonwealth of Israel
From the tribe of Benjamin
Hebrew being his native language, he and both his parents
In reference to the Torah, the Law, he was a Pharisee
As to zeal as a Jew, he persecuted the people of The Way – The Jesus Believing Community
As to the Mosaic Law, he was blameless. Men could not lay a charge against him that would stick. 

But not only that, he said, not only my Jewish heritage, my Jewish upbringing, my Jewish zeal, but everything else I had acquired in life – perhaps he meant money, land, family, friends, you name it. All he had he considered in comparison to knowing JESUS, it was garbage.  Refuse.
Do you know that any self-respecting Jew stayed away from the garbage heap, the dump?
Shall we say the dung heap? You get the idea — exceedingly repulsive to the Jewish people. 

And yet here is Paul saying that Knowing JESUS. Knowing he was forgiven. Knowing the guilt and weight of his sin was lifted from him. Knowing his debt was paid. All this AND knowing he was accepted and beloved and that he could walk in union, in fellowship with JESUS was worth it all to him. He was not willing to hold onto anything of his past or present that would break or soil his fellowship with Yeshua, His LORD.  It was as refuse, dung to him. 

How many people today do you know like that? 

You know what I think I hear here? That was Paul. That was back in the Bible days, we can’t be expected to be like that today; not in this 21st Century. GOD does not expect us to be like Paul or Peter or James or John or JESUS Himself. He knows the times in which we live. 
Do you hear it? 
You know it’s a lie, right? 
Yeah. me too. 

By the way, this does not even scratch the surface of the glory and preciousness of this chapter. I hope you will read it all for yourself. Philippians 3.

Until next time ~~~ Shalom, Kathie