Tag: Church

Can These Bones Live?

 1Some time later, I felt the LORD’s power take control of me, and his Spirit carried me to a valley full of bones. 2The LORD showed me all around, and everywhere I looked I saw bones that were dried out. 3He said, “Ezekiel, son of man, can these bones come back to life?”

   I replied, “LORD God, only you can answer that.”

    4He then told me to say:

   Dry bones, listen to what the LORD is saying to you, 5“I, the LORD God, will put breath in you, and once again you will live. 6I will wrap you with muscles and skin and breathe life into you. Then you will know that I am the LORD.”

    7I did what the LORD said, but before I finished speaking, I heard a rattling noise. The bones were coming together! 8I saw muscles and skin cover the bones, but they had no life in them.

    9The LORD said:

   Ezekiel, now say to the wind, [a] “The LORD God commands you to blow from every direction and to breathe life into these dead bodies, so they can live again.” 10As soon as I said this, the wind blew among the bodies, and they came back to life! They all stood up, and there were enough to make a large army.

    11The LORD said:

   Ezekiel, the people of Israel are like dead bones. They complain that they are dried up and that they have no hope for the future. 12So tell them, “I, the LORD God, promise to open your graves and set you free. I will bring you back to Israel, 13and when that happens, you will realize that I am the LORD. 14My Spirit will give you breath, and you will live again. I will bring you home, and you will know that I have kept my promise. I, the LORD, have spoken.”

Ezekiel 37

 

Ezekiel is transported to a place where things like this happen and are not considered overly exotic or strange.  He is not freaked out with this, or the transformation of bones to people.  (Although I’m sure his blood-pressure went high for a bit.)  Ezekiel looks over this valley of human bones that are beyond the point of decay.  In a moment of time there is a reanimation, bones get connected with other bones, and scattered remains become complete corpses.

Ezekiel is obviously astonished.  He extrapolates off of what he sees, and it is indeed a complete army, and it is ready to step out to do God’s Will.  It is critical to see that there is no apparent effort, no real perspiring by God to energize these bones.  God wills it, and its done.  No fuss, no muss.  It just— happens.

As we consider our own transformation  (and it really is that) we can be confident that it presents no great issue to our Lord to bring you life.  We view His promises from our personal perspective.  But that is all wrong.  Often we nullify many good things because of our issues of personal doubt.

Resurrection life is offered to us, if we will just reach out and take it.  It’s not rocket science, ‘presto-chango.’  But it is sufficient to put the resurrection into these hard, dry hearts.  The track record of the Kingdom of God has a phenomenal growth pattern.  (You could grow hair on billiard ball if God enabled it!)

“Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God. 11 God raised Jesus from the dead, and if God’s Spirit is living in you, he will also give life to your bodies that die. God is the One who raised Christ from the dead, and he will give life through[a] his Spirit that lives in you.”  

Romans 8:10-11, NCV

Confidence in His ability is desperately needed in the Church right now.  Life in a resurrection sense has to be returned back into our fellowships.  People are waiting, in skeletal piles, for God to do something amazing again.  So many wait, and we are the Ezekiels.  We do not have the power to resurrect anyone.  But we do have the power to pray.  And we know Jesus’ has the power to raise the dead.

A Gospel That Just May Confuse Us

 

My people have been lost sheep.
      Their shepherds have led them astray
      and turned them loose in the mountains.
   They have lost their way
      and can’t remember how to get back to the sheepfold.                                                  

                                                                                      Jer. 50:6

 

Christians who wander away, or led away away, is a frequent issue with the Lord.  It’s hard to watch someone you love go in a way that brings them pain and destruction.  It hurts doubly when they get turned in the wrong direction.  Jeremiah suggests that there is a personal disobedience as well as a pastoral influence from a shepherd.

Influence from confused shepherds runs rampant through the flock of the Church.  Voices speak and men posture themselves to lure the sheep.  Programs are always percolating and brought out at an opportune time to develop and maintain a momentum and to give the sense of direction and purpose.  This sounds confusing but its not.

The prophet sees and perceives.  There is grief and pain in his words.  He witnesses of a coming judgement.  In our time, the necessity of being ‘pastored‘ has been a less of an issue because of the Holy Spirit’s contact with the believer.  We have the Spirit and His presence.  Now we can turn towards a superintending understanding of the functioning of the Holy Spirit.  But the Holy Spirit doesn’t need our pathetic attempts at pointing out our crudeness and foolishness at the situation.

Jesus Christ loves us, and comes at us through the self-generated issues that could move us to a less then a desirable condition.  But our “pastor” is Jesus, He pastors us through our confusion and sin.  His heart is looking to us.  We are to come to Him, not through a man, but through the presence of God, that envelopes us and adjusts our understanding.

We cannot pretend anymore that our issues of redemption and healing can be understood through anyone else but through the direction of our Lord except Jesus. We do not think that our intervention of a pastor, or healer will bring us any closer.  We connect through Jesus.  He has made himself the only connection of God and myself.

We dare not trust ourselves when it comes at us through so much.  He heals and strengthens through His active and present awareness of us.  We must turn from ‘deceptive noise’ and grab ahold of the promises of an authoritative voice. He rules over us with authority, and a loving voice of guidance.  He comes to us in a very real and definite way.  For He is “one on one” to us in a real recognition to us in our personal connection to the Father.

This needs to become our way that we connect.  We rest in His plan.  Nothing else will placate.  Jesus advances Himself to becoming our Lord and Saviour. We turn to Him to save us, and no one else.

Faith and Culture: Man Sues Bible ~ Mental Anguish

Man Sues Bible for Causing Him Mental Anguish

Sue God for causing me mental anguish

Can you sue the Almighty’s publishers?

 

If you can’t sue the Lord for libel, what are your options? A Michigan man is about to find out. Bradley LaShawn Fowler, 39, has filed lawsuits in a Michigan federal court against Zondervan Publishing and Thomas Nelson Publishing, claiming some editions of the Bibles those companies put out call homosexuality sinful, which has led him to suffer discrimination, emotional pain and mental instability.

“Defendant willfully caused me to endure acts of hate, discrimination, and loss of sleep, appetite, by structuring their New King James Bible to reflect God’s distaste of homosexuals,” Fowler wrote in his complaint against Thomas Nelson filed this week.

“By designing this product to promote hate and violence toward homosexuality, because such product is promoted as being the ‘authentic word of God,’ it is a design defect,” says Fowler’s lawsuit.

Fowler is seeking million from Zondervan, alleging their Bibles refer to homosexuality as a sin have made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of “demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.” He is seeking million from Thomas Nelson.

The suit against Zondervan claims 1982 and 1987 editions of the publisher’s Bible declare homosexuality to be wrong in 1 Corinthians 6:9:”Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders.”

Fowler claims the term was edited out of the 1989 and 1994 editions, but consumers were not informed.

“This misrepresentation is a willful and deliberate tort. Fraudulently imposing a written defamation or libel in order to prevent me from marrying someone of the same sex in this state,” his lawsuit states. “This obvious coerced method of mind control and social dictatorship violates the religious [sacred] laws which prevent anyone from adding to the Biblical scriptures or from taking any words away from the text.”

Fowler levels similar allegations against Thomas Nelson regarding the company’s earlier versions of the New King James Bible.

The intent of the publisher was to promulgate a point of view to cause “me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence … including murder,” the lawsuit states.

Fowler said the editions of the Bibles he cites have destroyed his relationship with his family who refuses to support him because the Bible says homosexuality is a sin.

What do you think? Should the publishers of Bibles be held accountable for the pain inflicted by what many readers consider to be God’s word?

Source: http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2008/07/can-you-sue-the.html

A Funny Cartoon (Which Makes Some Sense)

Very funny, but when I first saw it, I felt convicted.  I remembered the many times that I was a jerk about my faith, and very annoying to many.  I don’t want to get self-critical (that is spiritual quicksand) but I’m blessed to know all my sins have been forgiven, and my “good works” are not held against me.