11/6/14

11/6/14

Heb 6:3  And this we will do if God permits.

You may have not noticed this verse yesterday, or it may have hit you like the bucket of ice cold Gatter-Aid poured on the coach of the winning football team When you scream and say, “what in the world!” it will take us a few days to go over this;

God governs the progress of our growth, or sanctification, or maturity. He has the final say in whether we overcome our garbage bag of sinfulness and make progress toward maturity. “And this we will do if God permits. “

11/5/14

11/5/14

Heb 6:1-3 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.

Note that the plea to leave the elementary doctrine's is not directed to, “them” but to “us” Paul includes himself, and so do I. Let us move on to maturity. by having our powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. And we do this by renewing our minds (daily) Rom 12:2  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

11/4/14

11/4/14

Heb 5:12-14  For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

The opposite of dull is sharp; Heb 4:12  For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. To have “dullness of hearing” does not mean that we have something wrong with our ears, but there is something wrong with our heart. The word is not a driving passion in our life, we hear it like we hear the warnings at the airports, we hear but not really. Sometimes it goes on without us even knowing that it was there.  The sound does not produce anything in us. May we become sharp in our hearing, so that we will have powers of discernment by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

11/3/14

11/3/14

Heb 5:9  And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,

Heb 5:10  being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Then in verse 11 you can almost hear him sigh when he says “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.“     The disease   “Dullness of Hearing”    So the most pressing question ,again is, “do we have this disease? And, if so, how can we get well?

11/2/14

11/2/14

Heb 2:1  Pay close attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

3:1   Consider Jesus

3:8  Do not harden your hearts

3:12  Take care, lest you have an evil, unbelieving heart

4:1    Fear lest  you should fail to enter God's rest

4:11  Be diligent to enter God's rest lest you fall by disobedience.

4:14  Hold fast to your confession

With all of these urgent admonitions , we get the feeling that something is wrong, in another place in Hebrews Paul comes out and names the problem, he calls it;  “Dullness of Hearing”

11/1/14

11/1/14

What does the Church provide for you?

Joh 4:24  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

A church is a place to gather weekly for worship, but it’s up to us whether we will experience the presence of God. (John 4:24)

Our Preferences for music is a frequent source of discontent for unhappy members. A big misconceptions we have now a days is to mistake music for worship. Music is not worship. Organs, pianos, keyboards, drums, choirs, guitars, orchestras, lights, smoke, speakers, hymnals, screens, projectors, and sound boards are not instruments of worship. They are accessories for music. Worship is not singing. Worship is surrendering. If you attend a large group gathering of Christians committed to honoring Jesus and walk away without having worshiped,  it is your fault, not theirs. Don’t blame the music, blame the mirror.