Reflection on Ephesians 2:1-10

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Photo by Svetlana Pochatun on Unsplash

Passage: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2.1-10

Scripture

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Observation

We were once dead in our sins, obeying the devil. We have all been in that dark place.

But God gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead, and He seated us in heavenly realms with Him. It is by God’s grace that we are saved. It is a gift from Him. We couldn’t do this by ourselves.

Now we are God’s masterpiece, created to do the good deeds He has planned for us.

Application

I am God’s masterpiece, the pinnacle of His creative activity. We are constantly under assault by the judgements and accusations of other people and ourselves.

God’s judgement is that I am a work of art- His masterpiece.

Sins- both those committed by me and those committed against me- are like balls of dirt and mud thrown over this artwork.

When I was born again, God started the restoration process, carefully scraping off the dity, repairing broken threads, cleaning the paintwork.

Now, instead of being in captivity to sin, I am being set free to do the good deeds that I was created for. We are not saved by good deeds; we are saved for good deeds.

Every one of us is created unique to shine out God’s glory in a unique way. We are not copies or forgeries; we are unique original creations.

Prayer

Thank you Lord that you tell me I am a new creation, a masterpiece in your creative handiwork. Please continue to release me from sin so that I can glorify you in all things. Amen.

Reflection on Numbers 21:1-9

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Passage: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+21.1-9

Scripture

So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died.

Observation

The Canaanite king of Arad hears that the Israelites are coming, so he attacks them and takes some prisoner. The Israelites vow to the Lord to destroy their towns if the Lord gives them victory.

Then the people start to become impatient at being in the wilderness for so long. They complain that there is nothing to eat except for the disgusting manna. The Lord sends some poisonous snakes, and many people are bitten and die. They repent of their grumbling and ask Moses to pray for them. The Lord tells him to make a bronze snake and lift it up on a pole so that those who look upon it will be healed of their snake bite.

Application

Grizzling, complaining, griping, grumbling, negativity. Whatever we call it, this attitude of pulling down God’s gracious provision is common.

Erwin Mcmanus, pastor of a large church in Los Angeles, points out that atheists are quick to blame God for all the bad things in the world, but they never give Him credit for the good things.

The Israelites were in the wilderness because they refused to believe that God could take them into the Promised Land. Now they are complaining about being there and having to eat that “horrible manna.”

Their negativity and grumbling against God led Him to lift His protection for a day or so. Quickly the Israelites changed their tune as they saw the destruction that comes when we blame God rather than praising Him.

Christians need to be people of praise. We have so much to be thankful for- salvation, a relationship with God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and much more.

Blaming God leads to destruction, but thankfulness brings an abundant life.

Prayer

Thank you Lord for this reminder to maintain the attitude of gratitude. Help me to rejoice in you every day. Amen.

Mass Shooters- Guess The Common Factor

It turns out it’s not Trump or gun laws that is the issue. From Crisis Magazine Crisis Magazine:

Fatherless Shooters … as Liberals Push for Fatherless Families

A fascinating fact has emerged in the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida mass shooting: 26 of the 27 deadliest mass shooters in American history all happened to share one thing in common. What might that be? Your favorite liberal might pipe up with anything and everything from casting a vote for Donald Trump to NRA membership to a seat in the local megachurch. Nope.

All but one of the 27 was raised without his biological father.

The list of 27 was compiled by CNN. Suzanne Venker, a marriage-family expert, went through the family backgrounds of the 27 shooters, where she found only one “raised by his biological father since childhood.”

“Indeed, there is a direct correlation between boys who grow up with absent fathers and boys who drop out of school, who drink, who do drugs, who become delinquent and who wind up in prison,” observes Venker, adding: “And who kill their classmates.”

Again, 26 of 27. That’s 96.3 percent. That is one mighty and scary correlation.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that boys raised in fatherless families are likely to become mass shooters. (Do I really need to say that?) But it’s yet further affirmation of what we already know: boys need dads. Just as daughters need dads. Children need fathers. They also need mothers.

No surprise. We all know this. Liberals once knew it, until they started pushing for fatherless families.

Wait … repeat that, please. Liberals have started pushing for fatherless families?

Oh, yes. Of course. Liberals are now fanatically pushing for fatherless families. Actually, they’re also fanatically pushing for motherless families. Think about it: Liberals are on fire for same-sex “marriage” and same-sex parenting, and what is same-sex “marriage” and same-sex parenting than—by very definition—a form of “marriage” and parenting that’s either fatherless or motherless?

Take a depressing gander at any silly liberal website (the Huffington Post on any given day will do, especially the “Queer Voices” section) and you’ll encounter piles of drivel from pompous progressives prattling about how the best parental relationship they’ve invented is two lesbians as moms. They’re asserting this in their newspapers and “studies.” They’re claiming it with a sense of authority inspired by little more than their New York Times and a grande skim latte at Starbucks. This fatuousness flies in the face of what all human beings know in their hearts, and what even liberals conceded until the dawning of Obergefell, namely: the optimal situation for a child is a mom and dad.

Normal people uncorrupted by poisonous ideology inherently understand this. Common sense and rudimentary observation tell us. Studies have long affirmed that kids who grow up with a mother and father are less likely to be poor, to end up in prison, to get addicted to drugs, and are generally healthier and stronger and more successful. The most common denominator among men in prisons is not income or class distinction, not a high school or college diploma, not ethnic or racial background, but whether they grew up with a father.

Well, now we can add yet another dubious correlation, a downright frightening one: The most common denominator among males who commit mass shootings is the presence of a biological father in the home. Wow.

But again, we’ve all known this, including liberals.

In a speech for Father’s Day 2008, Senator Barack Obama was emphatic: “We need fathers.” He explained: “We know the statistics—that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.” Obama added: “Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives … family is the most important. And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation.” If “we are honest with ourselves,” said Obama, “we’ll admit that … too many fathers” are missing—they are “missing from too many lives and too many homes.”

Yes, if we’re honest with ourselves we’ll admit this. But that’s the problem. The modern secular-progressive project cannot be honest with itself. In seeking to fundamentally transform human nature, it must deny human nature. In seeking to fundamentally transform reality, it must deny reality. These denials, for the liberal/progressive, are applied to marriage, family, sexuality, and on and on. It’s fundamental to the fundamental transformation. And ironically, our President of Fundamental Transformation, one Barack Hussein Obama, spearheaded the insanity, illuminating the new White House in rainbow colors and aggressively looking to renovate everything from school bathrooms to the definition of gender and marriage and family.

In that process, the progressive project must reject the notion that the best model for a child is a home with a mom and dad.

And that’s a recent shift. Go back further from Barack Obama. Go back to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Go back to Bill Clinton in the 1990s, when he and other Democrats championed the National Fatherhood Initiative. For a while, this was a rare, precious consensus among liberals and conservatives. There are few things that liberals and conservatives have agreed upon, but this was one. Kids need dads.

That law of reality remains unchanged, of course. Call it the natural law. But what has changed is the putrid politics, courtesy of the rotten madness of liberal-progressive ideology. In their militant advancement and forced acceptance of “gay marriage,” liberals are jettisoning this national consensus on fathers, explicitly demanding a category of parenting that excludes fathers. As for those who disagree with this new paradigm, they are reflexively derided as cruel, thoughtless, backward bigots, with no possible legitimate reason for their unenlightened position. Suggest a mere pause before this grand push forward! by the left and you’re smeared as nothing but a vile hater.

And again, what today’s liberals are advocating is actually far worse than fatherless families, as they are agitating for motherless ones as well. Thanks to the nature-redefining left, there will be a new generation of children deliberately raised without dads and moms and with the sanction and celebration and coercion of the state and culture and the leftist forces of “tolerance” and “diversity.”

And for what? What has prompted this mass shift? It’s so that liberals can accommodate their ideological marriage to same-sex “marriage.” Such is the depths of the secular-progressive descent from common sense to the pit of political depravity. Reject natural law and biblical law, and this is where it ultimately goes. The social-moral consequences of this fundamental transformation will careen in directions we cannot yet begin to fathom.

The Seal Of The Prophet Isaiah

Melanie Phillips writes:

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IS THIS THE SEAL OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH?

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The Hebrew University archeologist Dr Eilat Mazar has made what may be one of the most extraordinary finds ever made. In her excavations of the remains of the first Temple in Jerusalem, she has uncovered a bulla, or seal impression, which may have belonged to the prophet Isaiah.

Her team discovered the bulla during renewed excavations at the Ophel, located at the foot of the southern wall of Temple Mount. In an article published last week in Biblical Archaeology Review, entitled “Is This the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature?”, she describes the impression as inscribed with letters and what appears to be a grazing doe, “a motif of blessing and protection found in Judah, particularly in Jerusalem”.

The legible letters in first Temple Hebrew spell out “Yesha’yah” and, on the line below, the partial word “nvy’. Yesha’yah(u) is Hebrew for Isaiah; with an additional letter aleph, “nvy” would correspond to the Hebrew word for prophet.

In the absence of other letters, however, the question is whether the seal belonged to the prophet Isaiah or a different Isaiah altogether. Fascinating details of the relevant factors for consideration are laid out in this article in The Trumpet, the news magazine of the Philadelphia Church of God whose Herbert W Armstrong college in Oklahoma sends volunteers to help with the Temple excavations.

Mazar says: “Without an aleph at the end, the word nvy is most likely just a personal name. Although it does not appear in the Bible, it does appear on seals and a seal impression on a jar handle, all from unprovenanced, private collections. The name of Isaiah, however, is clear.”

The bulla was found only 10 feet away from where in 2009 Mazar’s team unearthed 34 bullae one of which, they discovered in 2015, bore the inscription “Belonging to Hezekiah, [son of] Ahaz, King of Judah.” Mazar, who has also uncovered King David’s palace, Solomon’s royal complex, Nehemiah’s wall and a golden medallion featuring a menorah from the seventh century CE, has described the Hezekiah bulla as the most important individual discovery of her career. From references in the Bible, it seems the prophet Isaiah was a close spiritual adviser to King Hezekiah.

Some other scholars have questioned whether the Isaiah named on the bulla was the Isaiah.

Dr Mazar herself is being scrupulously cautious, merely presenting the evidence and her own opinion of what it is most likely to signify. She asks, however, how likely it is that this bulla could belong to an Isaiah other than the Isaiah.  The “chances of it belonging to any other but the known Prophet Isaiah”, Mazar told The Trumpet, “are extremely slim”.

The editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review, Dr. Robert Cargill, has praised Mazar for being cautious about the identity of the Isaiah whose name is on the bulla. “But if you’re asking me, I think she’s got it. You’re looking at the first archaeological reference of the prophet Isaiah outside of the Bible. It’s amazing.”