Category Archives: Holy Soap Box

Christian Living, Holy Soap Box, Political awareness

Chasing Rabbits

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While preparing for tomorrow’s Sunday School class, I chased a rabbit. Here’s the rabbit:

Society is permeated with a ‘don’t judge me’ attitude; we hear those words again and again.  I recently heard Bill O’Reilly using the ‘judge not’ Scripture.  Bill readily quoted verse 1 of Matthew 7 as many do but what does verse 5 in context say?

Matthew 7 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.  (source)

Does it not make sense to read the text before chapter 7 to understand Chapter 7? This section of scripture is the Sermon on the Mount; many people had gathered around Jesus and He was teaching them. It starts in chapter 5. We are well familiar with it, aren’t we? Chapter 6 is specifically addressing the heart of man, why we do what we do. Jesus taught them to do their good deeds for the right reason, not to make themselves look good; obviously some were doing that. From that He went directly to talking about prayer and how to pray; giving them the disciples’ prayer, often called the Lord’s Prayer; and from there He began talking about fasting and their motives for fasting; He talked about materialism and those things that we value so highly; He talked about how we view matters; about who or what we serve and that we cannot serve Him and money; and then He finished up the chapter instructing them about worry; something He told us to NOT do and immediately from worry He went to Judge Not.

The thing that comes to my mind is MOTIVES. So could Jesus be saying to us that we cannot judge the motives of people; we cannot judge their hearts, for sure we can hardly judge our own hearts, right? So – GOD is the judge of hearts; we are the inspectors of deeds, not motives. And we only get to inspect their deeds IF our own motives are pure in doing so and if we have allowed Him to clean our own hearts and lives. THEN we are in a position to lead others to getting their hearts and lives clean of those wrong deeds He has already JUDGED.

In summary, Matthew 7:1 is NOT teaching we are to be closed mouthed, live and let live, saying nothing about sin flaunted in our society.  Verse 5 is clear, there are splinters in the eyes of brothers/sisters that they need help with, but until we have CLEAN eyes ourselves, we are in no position to help them.

Judge not does NOT teach that sins in society must not be named; it does mean that I do not know what motivated you to commit those sins; therefore I will not condemn you for getting to the place you are in them, but neither will I refuse to offer you a way to escape the Judgment that GOD has already decreed for those sins.

And based upon the WORD of GOD and the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, that’s the way it is and I’m on the record with it. :)

Blessings my Friends on this 4th day of 2014.

Kathie

Christian Living, Holy Soap Box, Political awareness, Repentance, Something Jewish

Forego the Distance

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Matthew 24:12 and many people’s love will grow cold because of increased distance from Torah.

via Matthew 24:12 KJV;CJB – And because iniquity shall abound, the – Bible Gateway.

This verse is holding my attention today. For a deeper understanding we have to become acquainted with the broad meaning of Torah. Yes, it is the first five books of the Old Testament but Torah is more.

Look I am borrowing from Hebrew4Christians.com which tells us this:

The word Torah (תּוֹרָה) comes from the root word yarah meaning \”to shoot an arrow\” or \”to hit the mark.\” Properly used, the word means \”teaching\” or \”instruction.\” Teaching is associated with the Holy Spirit, just as God taught Moses what to do and say (Exod. 4:15). And it is clear that Yeshua our Messiah assumed the title of Rabbi and performed much of his ministry as a Teacher (John 1:38).  via The Written Torah – Torah Shebikhtav.

When you read the word Torah in the CBJ or Law in Gentile translations of Scripture think teaching or instruction; think the WHOLE COUNSEL of GOD – all that HE has said to us in the Scripture.

Now return to Matthew 24:12.

Love grows cold when we distance ourselves from the Teachings of GOD. When we distance ourselves from abiding in obedience to the WORD of GOD, all manner of unloving behavior begins to go on in our day-to-day walking about.  Not only do I see counsel here for me to heed. I see that the World at large and in particular America has distanced Herself from Torah – it shows in Her behavior.

I can’t change America but I can allow the Torah (the Whole Counsel of ABBA) to transform me. And so can you; and enough of us behaving in real, godly love will put America back on solid footing!

Now that’s something to ponder on Day 3 of 2014.

Kathie

Celebrations, Christmas, Holy Soap Box, Uncategorized

Father, Forgive Them . . .

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I’ve been watching movies today while I iron shirts and blouses. As I sat up the board and poured water into my iron, I caught the last few minutes of a Christmas movie – I don’t recall the name. It was a familiar theme: a court room, a youngster on the witness stand, a kindly judge, a heartless lawyer and a benevolent lawyer proving to the courtroom and to us the viewing audience that Santa Claus is the heart of Christmas. He is the hero of the season; he is someone for children to believe in; someone to remind us and inspire us all to remember that Christmas is about love, forgiveness and family.  And I thought how clever! Wonder whose idea it was to take a fictitious character give him supernatural powers to know what gift every boy and girl on planet earth wants, to know which child has been good and which child has not but then what does it matter because all children get gifts from Santa on Christmas; but that’s not all Santa delivers these gifts to every house in the world in one night with the help of 8 reindeer who can fly! Wow! How fantastic is that?!

How much better would it have been just to have told the truth to the children? That the REAL GOD sent His only Son into the world as a human baby who grew from infant to man. He really and truly has supernatural powers. He healed the sick, caused the lame to walk, gave sight to the blind, even raised the dead; did the right thing even when humans did the wrong thing to Him. He laughed, He cried, He learned to walk and talk, read and write, played with friends, loved His Mother, His foster-father, His brothers and sisters, and that barely even begins to tell how He  demonstrated to the world that He loves us, that He desires for us to be His family, that He Himself came to enable us to love, forgive others, do good for one another and be a family.  And then added to all that He died our substitutionary eternal death and after three days arose from the dead, never to die again and made the way for us to live eternally and today He is STILL healing and still bringing the dead to life – that beats Santa Claus hands down, if you ask me!

But GOD just wasn’t good enough, was He? He just was not quite Christmas-y enough was He? He just didn’t give us the warm fuzzies, did He? He just wasn’t reason enough for the children to dash off to bed with so much excitement they could hardly sleep waiting to see what wonderful gifts they would be getting in the morning, was He?

Can you imagine the bewilderment of the angels who gave the GOOD NEWS to the Shepherds as they hear us tell our little white lies to the children? Can you imagine their faces as they watch the madness of the Season: Black Friday shoppers storming the door of a Wal-Mart leaving one man dead this year as they trampled him under the door; businesses vying  for every Christmas buying dollar yet refusing to acknowledge that JESUS even came? What else? What other ‘Christmas’ goings on are you privy to that have nothing to do with JESUS? How do the angels feel about that? How does JESUS feel about that?  Perhaps He is saying, ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’

This I know: I am forever grateful that He has said, ‘Father, forgive her.’ I too have had some Christmas celebrations that gave little remembrance and not much resemblance to JESUS.  I pray to learn better.

Holy Christmas my friends,

Kathie