Bible study starter: week seven

 

Mark 8:35 ³⁵ For whoever wants to save their life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

I get a little scared when I read this verse because it reminds me of all that Jesus had to go through to save us from our sins and what the disciples went through after his resurrection to spread the Gospel to the world. We know from history that nearly all the disciples died a horrible, violent death by torture, crucifixion or beheading, except John. I believe John was the only one that was spared in order to record the Revelation of Christ and lived a long, but far from normal life into old age.

Jesus was speaking to the disciples, letting them know that the enemies of God still hate God and will not care too much for them either. Today, the disciples are speaking to us. Letting us know that believing in Christ and sharing the Gospel is not going to be easy.  In fact, it may be the hardest thing we ever do and yes, even today right here at home we can still lose our jobs, our closest relationships and even your lives--professing our belief in Christ and speaking the Bible as the true Word of God.

On the bright side, this is what it means to be Christian. It means renewing our minds, putting God first in all we do, exercising self-control in our actions and speech so that we do not intentionally sin against ourselves or others.  It means giving up worldly desires that we may have once held near to our hearts. What or who do we love so much that we are willing to give our lives for it? Jesus said, “You.”

To hold something that close-means we will protect it with all we have.  We are ready to sacrifice, let go of or possibly even die for what we believe in. We are not afraid, because just as Jesus was raised up by God, we are also raised with Jesus in Heaven.  Death cannot hold us in this life or the next; not physically or spiritually.  Just as we might give our lives or all we have to save our loved ones; Jesus gives his life to save ours!  By doing this, in God’s great mercy, Jesus saved his own life and ours from eternal separation from God.  And now, by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we have saved our own lives and will save others by giving them the same opportunity to accept Jesus as their personal Savior!

We must not be afraid to drop our nets and follow Him. He will lead us to everlasting life. Our world purposely makes this so incredibly difficult because it literally changes everything.  This is also what is meant by it’s easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than a rich man into heaven. We have got to be willing to die daily until there is no more us and only Christ that others see and when they do and they will, we will be able to share the Good News of Christ with them and this gives the Holy Spirit and open door to work in their lives and quite possibly change them like we have been changed. And most importantly, this opens doors for Jesus to save them like we have been saved.

DeMaster 10/18/16

Bible Study starter: week six

 

10/11/16

Genesis 28:15 - I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

 

Sometimes in order to understand how to go forward, we have to go back. In Genesis 28, God is talking to Jacob regarding His plan for the world. Jacob does not quite grasp the fullness and the vast size of this picture, but Jacob was obedient and followed God’s call. Long story short, we go on to read that from Jacob, his two wives and two handmaidens, came twelve sons that would go on to be known to the modern world as the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Who is Israel? Israel is Jacob. He was given this name because of his wrestle with God. In Hebrew, it means, “to contend with God.”

 

Stop and reflect on your past and your life today. You will see that we have all been Israel at some point or another in our lives. We wrestle or contend with God. Only to find, just like Jacob, we lose every time. It just doesn’t work. But what does work? Well, look at what God tells Jacob in Genesis 28:15. God is saying, stop fighting me, I’m not your enemy, I’m not the one you’re mad at, we share a common goal, to get out from under oppression, to do better, be better, live better, love more and pass on greatness to those who follow in our path. God is literally saying, hey! I’m on your side! Let me help you! I’ve got this and I know the path you are on the way of your life and where I want you to be. God is telling us that as long as we stick with Him and follow His plan, He will bring us back from the battlefield; back home to bigger, better, brighter days. But we must choose to follow Him and believe in Him. This is Mission: Possible-not Impossible! It is your mission if you choose to accept it.

 

The Bible never contradicts itself. The Bible is the Word of God and Jesus is the Word. This is on purpose for a purpose. Before the world and man were made, God already had a plan on how to restore mankind from sin. Christ was already in the Divine Design before you and I were brought into creation. It’s like having AAA and a spare tire already in the trunk before you get a flat. God knows you will break down along the way and through Jesus and the Spirit, gives you a spare so you can stay on the road and get home.

 

This verse should speak to every Christian. You were bought and paid for with a price. You belong to God. You matter. You are part of His Plan for all people to know Jesus so they can be reconnected and remembered to Him. If people ask what’s the point? What’s all this God stuff about? You tell them, that’s what it’s about! Bring the Gospel to them so they too, will know and make their own choice.

 

This is the cornerstone of Christian faith. Jesus was born, died and rose again to remove sin from us so we can be made one with our Father in Heaven. Everything that happens in your life; good, bad, pleasant or ugly, makes up your testimony. What do you do with it? Share it! You will be surprised how God takes your story and makes it His. That’s why it’s called ‘history’ because it’s His Story! You and everyone you reach in His name become part of His great manifesto.

 

You are Israel: a nation among nations. God kept his promise to Jacob, to Jesus and will keep His promise to you. In your life will have troubles. Do not let that stop you from sharing the Gospel with anyone who seeks Him. The Spirit will grow the seed you plant. And when it is all said and done, you will hear the calm sooth of your Master’s voice saying, “well done good and faithful servant.”

 

The time from Christ’s Resurrection to The Second Coming is referred to in theology as the Grace Period; because we are saved by grace and sustained by the Holy Spirit. And in God’s promise to you, the Holy Spirit will not leave you until you are adjoined with Christ in Heaven in His Father’s Kingdom.

DeMaster 10/11/16

Bible Study starter: week five

 

Hebrews 11:6King James Version (KJV)

⁶ But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

I am not the first or the last person to claim to believe in God but not trust Him in all I do in daily action and decisions of all kinds, big and small. I will admit that, like most humans, I think I can do it all by myself or that I have to do it all by myself, as if life is some kind of boot camp for Heaven and I have to prove I can get  in and be a soldier for Jesus’ army. But this verse reminds me that I am wrong in my thinking. There are no tests. Exams. Boot camp. Soldier’s story. God did not say in order to please Him, be perfect without Him. He said just the opposite. You are perfect because if Me. You are made righteous through the sacrifice of Jesus and the acceptance of the Holy Spirit in your life. But none of this means anything to you—if you do not believe. You don’t trust Me. Ouch. That hurts. Spiritual skeptic. 

That’s me for a large part of my life. I do not care for humans like God does. I do not wish to save humans who have chosen to fall away from God. I feel like earth and heaven would be a better place without them. I chose to do away with them in the flood, but I was out-voted. If this is you, if you can relate to loving God, but struggle with loving his creations, then you know what I am talking about. This verse cuts past this bitterness and says, regardless of humans in their sinful nature, believe in Him. Regardless how much people let your down, believe in Him. Despite the agony, grief and pain humans cause each other for no reason at all except they can, forgive them and follow Christ. Believe not in the world but in the way of Jesus. Follow Jesus. Not man. Man is stupid, but knows he is stupid which almost makes him smart. But one cannot apply God’s love-if one has no heart. To apply this message daily, to help keep the callus from building up on your heart, to help you from letting faith leak away, I recommend an exercise. 

It’s like prayer, but open ended. It goes like this. Start off by changing the words of the verse to a personal statement from you to God. Like this: “heavenly Father, without faith it is impossible for me to please you. I must believe that when I come to you, that you will reward me if I diligently seek you.” Now it’s personal. You have spoken it aloud. Now stay in this all day. How? Well, it sounds totally weird but try this: start your day with prayer. Open ended. Good morning, Lord…do not close the prayer until go get ready to go sleep that night. All day, stay in constant conversation with Him in everything you do at work, school, errands, interaction with others and time by yourself, all of it. Just keep talking to him all day like a really long 15-20 hour prayer. Remember, 24 hours to you is 1 minute to God. You will have technically only spent a minute with Him. 

But this exercise will strengthen your reserve, reduce your bitterness and hopefully build or restore your faith. You will notice that – or maybe not – surprisingly, He is answering you. The Holy Spirit is actually with you and interpreting your prayer before it gets to Jesus and before it is passed up to God. You are literally talking to God all day. By doing this, you are also watching what you say and do to keep your sinful nature in check. After all, you are human, too and people don’t care for you neither. So put your faith in Him. Not yourself. Not man. Man is dust. He will come and go. So will you. Whatever man did today is but a microscopic spec to what God is going to do tomorrow. To have faith is to believe. To seek Him is to care enough to apply that less than 1 ounce of faith you have to get you through until the Lord calls you home.

DeMaster 10/2/16

Bible study starter: week four

 

Week 4 Verse Song of Solomon 8:7

Third World’s, “Try Jah Love” is based on this verse as well as many others such as John 7:37, Isiah 55:1 and Matthew 4:4. Love from God is water for the heart and mind and the Word from God is food for the body and soul. There is no way for mankind to survive without it. Songs of Solomon 8:7 is literally part of a love song from God to you. And it is beautiful. In order to appreciate its meaning, we must look at the verse before it.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7King James Version (KJV)

⁶ Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. ⁷ Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

This is just a small, but honey-sweet taste of God’s love for us. God is Love and He is speaking directly to our hearts, telling us to spiritually and mentally sign His name across our heart, He wants us to be in an intimate, personal relationship with Him. This also guards us from the enemy and protects us from the harm of sin. The meaning of life is choice. God’s desire for us is to choose Him as He has chosen us. He made the ultimate sacrifice for through Jesus and the Holy Spirit reminds us this is a deep-rooted unbreakable bond. He is with us, always.

It is like a marriage vow between Jesus and His Church. The seal upon the arm is an outward symbol or message to all who sees; you are engaged in a love affair with God. Like a tattoo of your wife or husband’s name on your shoulder or a tribal tattoo around the arm or like a soldier’s arm band…these are just some real world examples of the spiritual “seal upon your arm” of your outward expression of your loving relationship with God. He is saying, wear our love like that arm band or that tattoo and let all the world see it and learn of it and just maybe, they can find that love for themselves with Him from your testimony of His Good News.

Song of Solomon 8:7 has a two really strong messages that jump right out. ‘Many waters’  means physical liquids like drinking water, bath water, swimming water, etc. None of these waters can quench the thirst for love we desire from God. You can flood the whole earth with all the oceans and seas and it would still not be enough to satisfy our need for the love of God. Jesus reiterates this in Matthew 22: 37 “…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. And verse 39 says, “…love your neighbor as yourself.” Love. Above all other Commandments, is the key. You could give all up you have in your house and even the house itself in exchange for love and it still will not be enough. It will only leave you naked and homeless. It is a such a warm and reassuring blessing to know that no matter what we go through, no matter what state the world around us is in, God’s love for us is always there and through His Love for us, we are able to overcome all things. Put God first in all you do and watch how amazing things can happen in your life. After all, we love because He first loved us. (John 4:19)   

DeMaster 9/26/16

Bible Study starter: week three

 

week 3 verse Romans 8:6
For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

So often, while in worship service, a light clicks in me and ding! I get it! Another lesson about God and His character and why He is how He is with us. I came to realize that one of the reasons God cannot be around us in sin is because of death. Oddly, it is not because of the sin so much as it is the death!

Here me out. God is alive. God is life! God is pure infinite energy and cannot be around anything that is dead. Literally, everything in and around God is alive! It is evident in His works. The universe, the earth, all its elements and everything on it and in it--it alive!

Go back a little to Romans 6:23. the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. God cannot be around dead things. So in order for you to be around God you have to be alive which means you have to be without sin! It's all connected. Everything He does is on purpose for a purpose. When we sin, we separate ourselves from God. If we separate from God, we will die.

Light bulb! Enter center stage, Jesus the Christ. God, in his infinite wisdom and love, already made a way that even dead things came come back to life, through the washing away of sins. Now is this a really awesome, layered, multidimensional play on words as such is the Bible?! Of course. Every verse, every word, every letter in the Gospel is multidimensional, multilayered. Now without turning this into a theosophical dissertation, ( too late) , it is in its own definition, the prophecy and fulfillment of Jesus as well as a direct reflection on our lives today! Do not focus on the world, it will come and go and will pass away. Focus on God, keep your eyes on Jesus and follow Him. He is the way to everlasting life.

Much simpler put, to live a life for the world, that will pass away, is to live for death. To live in sin, without regard, without repentance, without repair, is to live in death. Mentally, you are already dead if all you live for is the superficial, surface desires of the flesh. Your body wants what it wants, but did you notice that everything your body wants, eventually dies? It literally functions off of ingesting dead things. If you follow the body in the way it goes, you will follow it into the grave. And surely, just as your body withers and dies, so will you.

But the soul, the soul is the one part of you that belongs to God. It is, just like its Creator, immortal. It is finite, but immortal. (Another lesson for another day). You need to feed your soul with the Bread of Life so it can get the most crucial nutrients: hope-joy and peace. This is what it means to be spiritually minded. You are guided by the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus to I Am. This leads to life more abundant-life more fulfilled and more importantly, life with the a deepened relationship with The Elohim.

You are like a table lamp. You must be "plugged in" to the source of energy you need to illuminate your space. So focus your mind on the Living Word and stay plugged in. This is permanent. The world is temporary. If you get unplugged from the Source, surely your light; will go out.

 DeMaster 9/18/16

Bible study starter: week two

 

Micah 7:8New King James Version (NKJV)

Israel’s Confession and Comfort

 

⁸ Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; When I fall, I will arise; When I sit in darkness, The Lord will be a light to me

 

Some might say this verse does not apply to us today. This passage only applied locally to Odom and Babylon getting happy...watching Jerusalem suffer. It was like saying, look at us and how well we prosper without your God. Oh, saddened nation of Israel, under such oppression, but of course...would be exalted by God and would (rise). In other words, they were down...but not out. They would bounce back! Stronger than before. This is a temporary setback in their promised blessing to one day be again the reigning nation and reflection of not only God's power, but of God's glory.

 

Now, look at, "I sit in darkness." This is not necessarily meaning one person sitting around with no lamp or camp fire and it's dark outside. No, this is more of a figure of speech to say, yes, we, the nation of Israel, God's children, are in trouble! We're going through some things! Life is hard! Those who are not believers or followers of the God of Israel would say they have lost their way and can't see! How to get out.  But the  next part brings it home. Glory is given to God, where it should be, look, it says, "the Lord shall be a light to me." Okay. See? Well, you do if your "light" is on. The people of God believe that God and God alone will bring them out of their troubles and this time of being lowly will soon pass and they will be put into a greater position of peace, prosperity and overall, their conditions, physically and spiritually will improve.  They lean not on their own understanding, but on the Word of God.

 

Let's go back to the beginning of it and put it into modern terms. Our world, our country, our local cities and neighborhoods are infested with sin, hate, destruction, greed, pride, lust, idolatry, demonic attack, satanic, anti-Christian rhetoric, so much so, that as a modern Christian, we might feel like the enemy has won! If we want the illusion of happiness, we should live like the world does, hate like the world hates and treat each other like the scornful neighbor or lying politician, robber or murderer, because who are we to think we are better than them? Where do we get off thinking that we are not subject to their ways?! Simple. Because WE. ARE. Christians! And by definition we are "in" this world, but we are not "of" this world and this life is temporary! Whatever we're going through, we do not succumb to solving our problems the way the world does. We believe in The Highest Power, in Jesus and our Father in Heaven, we know beyond any doubt that this soon will pass! And we will one day wake up in a better place in our lives. Better health, better finances, better work opportunities, better relationships, whatever it is that's clouding you in darkness, the Word is a light at your feet! This is a speed bump on the road to a brighter, greater blessing from God.  Do not grow weary in prayer, because God said you will rise again and God always keeps His Word. The fall of your enemies, the fall of the world around you and all its wicked ways will be forever brought down, but you! You will be like New Jerusalem and you will rise! Rise again stronger than before and not just in the life to come, but in this life, today.

DeMaster 9/13/2016

Bible Study starter: week one

 

John 12:26King James Version (KJV)

²⁶ If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

My interpretation is Jesus is saying, do as I do, watch how I do it and you do the same. Just like God took me home at the end of the day, He's going to take you home at the end of the day as well. He's going to keep His promise. Let me show you how." Just like the saying, "WWJD" what would Jesus do? Well, Jesus is telling me do what I say like I'm telling you to do it, and you'll be fine. Trust me, God's got you. Well, how do I get there? Jesus is like, I'm telling you how to get there, just follow me. I've got you.

 

Jesus follows the will of his Father, so we should be doing the same; keeping his commandments and turning away from sinful choices that we have control over in our lives. How can we serve you? Honor you? You can serve and honor me by doing what I've asked you to do and in return, I'll keep my word. I'm the only way to God so follow my lead and I'll take you there. Jesus was taken up into Heaven to be at the right hand of the Father and so shall we also, go with Jesus to serve God in Heaven.  Jesus made a physical sacrifice under a spiritual law to honor His Father and see that His Father's will is done. Just as Jesus did, we should also make sacrifices to be honored in the eyes of the Father.

 

Now, how do we do that?  Turn from your old ways of worldly acts of sin and turn your heart and mind to the Word of God and let the Holy Spirit guide you in your thoughts, your actions and your steps in all that you do. This may feel like a sacrifice to you; like giving up your favorite types or forms of entertainment or past times or vices that you believe bring you pleasure or happiness. I'm not saying be miserable, serve God, go to Heaven. No! That's ridiculous. I'm saying that letting go of some of the hurtful, harmful things in your life that are killing your mind and your body may be just what your soul needs to be happy and healthy. When you are in line with His Will, you will be made to walk straight. You will be strong in spirit. And just like with Jesus, God will keep His Word. Jesus was taken up and given the Heavens and the Earth, Lord of Lords, King of Kings and just as He, God will keep His Word with You also. Walk in the way that you should go, as God has asked, and through Jesus, you will not spend eternity separated from Him; you will be with Him in Heaven to enjoy the fruits of your physical and spiritual labors.

 

So, when do I start? Now. If you are not a believer and follower of Christ, confess you are a sinner and in need of His gift of love and everlasting life and start building that eternal relationship today through the Holy Spirit. If you are already a Christian, then this verse is a reminder that we should always be about our Father's business, just as Jesus is, and just like Jesus, when the work is done, God will keep His promise and bring us home. We may grow weary and feel defeated at times, but this verse reminds us, it is worth it. Don't stop. Keep going. God will get us through it and bring us home in the end.

 

 DeMaster 9/6/2016