He wept . . . Part 4 (Conclusion)

Over the past several weeks we have looked at the three recorded instances where Jesus wept. By no stretch of the imagination do i believe, nor do i believe the Bible teaches, that Jesus only wept these three times. Just that these are the recordings given us as to peer into the heart of His [Jesus] humanity. The three recordings again, first, He wept over Lazarus recorded in John 11. Second, He wept over Jerusalem as we read in Luke 19. Finally, He wept over the world as the writer of Hebrews points out in Hebrews 4.

This idea of Christ’s humanity often gets lost i think in our retelling of these passages. Paul writes to the Romans in Chapter 12 vss 9-21 an eloquent and yet passionate plea to the church in Rome. His words echo through history into the future and here we are now listening in. May we take heed to its merits and begin to sync with the words of the page.

⁹Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. ¹⁰Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹²Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. ¹³Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. ¹⁷Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. ¹⁸If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.¹⁹Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” ²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Let me draw our attention to verse 15; “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” If i may remind us again of the humanity of Jesus and how in a world fallen, broken, lost, and confused, He sought to bring hope, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. In so much as He lived among us as an example, being tempted in every way we are tempted. Yet, Jesus overcame the world through His humanity that we might live through Him and for Him. The idea that Jesus rejoiced and wept reveals the heart of a God that both rejoices and weeps with us and for us. Therefore we ought to rejoice and weep with others as the time allows.

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that there is a time to weep. Jesus reveals 3 instances that should bring a tear to our eyes. Although the Lazarus account may seem a bit murky, i believe it shows we ought to weep, not simply at the passing on of others but for the suffering of others and for the fallen for we know how great a reward awaits those who call on the name of the Lord. For our cities and our towns and our country as so many reject Christ. They deny the one Messiah, King of kings and Lord of lords. Finally, for the world, for the many who are perishing. May our heartbreak and weep for the lost.

Next week we will look more into this passage and a few others as we begin a series, “Christian.”

You are loved,

He Wept . . . part one

“And when He (Jesus) drew near and saw the city, He wept over it . . .” Jerusalem was a sight to see. Its magnificent temple, the buildings, and homes dotting the countryside, all surrounded by a great wall. The capital city of Israel since the time of King David. It was so beautiful, so compelling as a city, it beckoned on the weary Jewish traveler, ‘come home.’ Surely Jesus was not lost in the moment by its stately stature, no His tears were deeper than, for that i am certain.

Imagine coming to your own, as the prophecy had taught for hundreds of years. Finally, the long-awaited Messiah had arrived only to be rejected by a pious yet foolish people. Now on the eve of the most torturous event, on an undeserving man, the weight of it all begins to sink in. Here Jesus looks out upon the great city of Jerusalem a tear forms as He begins to weep “saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.'” (Luke 19:41-44)

We too even now often reject Jesus. Even in the church. We cuff Him and set time for Him. We structure our services “allowing” certain time for Him but in the end, we have our expectations, and our purpose, and our time frame. Oh sure we celebrate His arrival with shouts of praise but we limit His ability with our expectations. Oh that we would understand, “the things that make for peace!” or as the Message translations put it, “If you had only recognized this day, and everything that was good for you!” Jesus, clearly, makes a statement as to the heart condition of the Israelites of His day. Pious, yet foolish, caught up in “knowledge” but never coming to the understanding of the truth. As Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:7.

i fear that Jesus would look upon the USA, and many other countries, as He did Jerusalem, with a tear in His eye. May we begin to awake to His presence. To allow Him all the room in our lives, our homes, our families, our Churches, our friendships, and yes even our cities and towns, to move and be and do all that He desires, as we Worship Him.

You are loved,

Love, my conclusion (the conclusion)

Love is absolutely the most difficult thing to give, the most rewarding thing to receive, and by far the most gratifying feelings in the world involve giving love and being loved. Yet, love is not an emotion, which the world would have you believe. Love is a choice, and when one is being loved, they feel a wide range of emotions, from joy to safety. When asked why someone makes you feel loved it is usually defined like this, “so and so makes me happy!” or “I always feel so safe in their arms!” It’s why some mistake their emotion in a moment for love and then, later on, will say, “I just don’t love them anymore” or “I never really loved them in the first place.” Lust is a big imposter for love. The sense of attraction that is shared by two people that leads to intimacy, or since everyone knows what i am talking about here anyway let me just say it, sex.

Many emotions try to masquerade as love, even jealousy. But, every emotion although a direct result of love, is not love in and of itself but rather, love is love and that is a choice. We choose to love or not love. Shakespeare said, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” i would say, “to love or not to love, that is the question.” The world tells us we are to hate certain things, certain people, even the idea of hating hate. And if love were an emotion, it would be easy to justify, “i don’t love this therefore, i must hate it.” Oh for us to love, i mean genuinely love. But i can’t love that which i do not like, can i?

“God is love.” “For God so loved the world…” We have come full circle now, back to where we started. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” This is a choice. He chose to do what He did, out of love, He chose love. He instructs us to love our neighbors, enemies, wives/husbands, love never fails. When we choose to love someone it requires us to fight through, negative emotions, sometimes. It isn’t always easy to choose love. Hate, definitely is the easier choice, given our fallen human nature. However, we are called to love, it is a challenge, a rallying cry, a mission, and a purpose. We are to love God with all our heart soul mind and strength, as well as, love our neighbor as ourselves.

Today in a world so full of daggers, hate, and dysfunction, i choose love!

1 John 4:13-21 The Message

^13-16This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.

To Love, to Be Loved

^17-18God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

¹⁹We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First, we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

^20-21If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.

You are loved,

Love, my conclusion (Part 1)

Instead of going on about the difference between the different forms of love used in Scripture, Agapa, Eros, Philia, and the less common but still relevant Storge. Which perhaps is a future post, i rather here just cut to the chase a bit. Let’s not get lost in rabbit trails of debate or even friendly conversation, which simply is the mascarade of confusion, doubt, and deflection. We fight being loved, so we don’t get hurt. We fight loving others because we don’t want to be disappointed, and we fight others loving others because we are jealous, cynical, and doubtful of genuine love. We wrap ourselves up in fairytale love stories and fantasies that actually warp any form of love and give false expectations of any sort of reality.

It almost sounds as if i have a cynical heart towards love. Perhaps i do. Perhaps that is why it intrigues me so. Even to the point of haunting my dreams, and peaking it’s head out through the pages of these words. You may remember a song by Tina Turner, called,
“What’s love got to do with it?” Here is the chorus to that song . . .

What’s love got to do, got to do with it
What’s love but a second-hand emotion
What’s love got to do, got to do with it
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken

You want to talk cynical? There it is written in 1984 and i bet the sentiment goes centuries beyond that too. For my point, each verse talks about something different, the first verse about lust, the second verse, confusion, the third, protection. This is just one iconic song, there are countless others, i just happen to like the tune, and i can hear it playing in my head. So, with such a worldly view of love abounding around us, choking out our very hearts, what are we to do?

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that HE loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. By this, we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit.” 1 John 4:7-12

If we claim to have love but we do not back it up with action then we are only fooling ourselves, no one else. We become the very thing everyone claims we as Christians are, hypocrites. Let us consider these verses from 1 John 3:11,12

“For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.”

Jealousy is a killer of love. Jealousy hides inside your heart, your mind, your anger, your fear, and it waits for an opportunity to reveal his hideousness in humanity by way of our fallen nature, surprisingly enough. It is why we ought to pursue the love of God with every fiber of our being! No rock left unturned, no shadow left cast, no door left unopened in our pursuit of love. For we are only capable of true, honest, sincere love when we are abiding in God and He in us for “His love is perfected in us” through abiding. i am not done. To be continued . . .

You are LOVED,

God is Love.

i have been on a journey for some time now to discover how one might love others in a scriptural way. Given our human nature. Wesley taught that entire sanctification was that of understanding “pure love” or being filled with the “pure love of God.” To be entirely sanctified is as Wesley stated, “the second work of grace” or “Christian Perfection” not to be confused with flawlessness but an infilling of the Holy Spirit that leads the Christian onward in life . . . to love others. Loving others isn’t easy, by any stretch of the imagination. Especially nowadays. Just look at a twitter thread or comments on a Facebook post, “Christian” or “secular” and you will see that we are a long way from love.

Which brings me to my current thinking spot in Scripture, 1 John 4:7-13. i am going to write it below. Read it. Pray on it. Next week i will give my thoughts on it as i sit and read and pray this week.

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. ¹³By this, we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his Spirit.

Meditate on this . . .

You are loved,

Today is my birthday.

It’s 1979, i am turning 6 years old. Dinner is, by my choice, my mom’s lasagna. i will eat two pieces. The cake is simple, two-layer, round, chocolate with chocolate frosting. My gift that year, i can’t believe i remember, cap-guns with a holster and five hot-wheels cars. No friends, just family, my sister who is six years older, my brother who is four years older, and my parents who are just older. We are living in Sylmar, California which is in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. It’s July, it’s hot, it’s lighter later, it’s later, dusk has set in. Sirens fill the air, they stop short, they are close by, close enough that we see the flashing red lights.

Cameron and David are brothers. They live down the alley, i don’t remember what side of the street if they were on our side or the other block, we always just went down the alley to get there. They are both six years old. They are not twins, separated by 11 months this is the short part of the year they share a number. i remember playing in their chicken coop, they didn’t have chickens, just a coop. i don’t know if they never had chickens, maybe it came with the house, i only know they didn’t have any chickens while i knew them and so we made it into a fort of sorts. Cameron was the leader of our little club, he made all the rules. Our motto, “We aren’t chicken!” Sadly none too bright either.

Cameron earlier that day would hear of a game called chicken. He didn’t tell what the game was. He said it would be fun. It was to be a club game. i would miss the first time playing because of my birthday celebration. i wish i had known, i would like to think i would have told him to not do it . . . but i did not know.

We walked to the end of the block to see what the fuss was. When we arrived there were two small sheets draped over two small bodies. One car in the middle of the road the driver sitting in the passenger seat with their legs outside the car. My mom, working as a nurse at the time was talking to the fire department. She returned, D.O.A. that’s all i heard before she told my sister to take me home, she did. We didn’t find out until later who it was and what they were doing.

Today is my birthday. It is 2018. As i look back on my years i have story after story, memory after memory of moments where an event or a decision give rise to thoughts in which i wonder, “what if i did this or that?” “what if” i could what if this story too. “What if i was there with them?” Or “what if i had thought to invite them to my birthday?” i could allow these thoughts to consume me or i can put them behind me, learn from them and press on making the most of every moment, every day, every year.

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these…” Matthew 6:25-34

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:31-32

^“4that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. ⁵Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. ⁶Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Colossians 4:4-6

i like to reflect on my birthday’s. Have i made the most of my year? Have done all that i can? Am i content with it? What changes do i need to make? How can i love more? Do more? Live better?

Today is my birthday.

You are loved,

Jude (a final thought)

Let us consider for a moment, who was Jude? We know that from verse one he is the brother of James. We know of a few Jude’s in scripture, but only one who is a brother to James and that James was the half-brother of Jesus. Making Jude (a form of Judas) also a half-brother of Jesus. i didn’t mention this in the introduction because i didn’t want to influence your reading too much. i wanted you to go in and take each word without that influence because i think we have a tendency to over think things. Besides, i suppose there is some question as to whether or not it is true, i am of the camp that sees it as true.

Jude never mentions he is a brother of Jesus. Nor does James, rather, they identify themselves as bondservants. They had no special entrance into the Kingdom, they entered the same way you and i did/do, by faith in Jesus the Messiah. In fact, we can read that at one point Jesus’ family was not impressed by His declaration and thought maybe He had gone mad. They even tried to influence Him in Mark 3:31-32 we read, “And His mother and His brothers came, and standing outside they sent to Him and called Him. And a crowd was sitting around Him, ‘Your mother and Your brothers are outside, seeking you‘” Now it is unclear what their intentions were but many believe, as do i, that they were there attempting to “calm” Him down from His rhetoric because He was really beginning to stir the pot and bring shame in a sense to His family, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And are not His brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas (Jude)?” Matthew 13:55

Jesus’, response to them brings light to the nature of the Church. (Mark 3:33-35) “And He answered them, ‘Who are My mother and My brothers?’ And looking about at those who sat around Him, He said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers! Whoever does the will of God, He is My brother and sister and mother.‘” Blood maybe thinker than water, but obedience to God’s will is paramount! Want to be included in the family of God? Be obedient to the will of your Heavenly Father. Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” (John 14:15 ESV) Later in that same chapter (v23-24) Jesus says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words. And the word that you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent me.”

Jude came to faith after Jesus was resurrected, as did James. It is another, proof, if you will, of the power of the resurrection and the truth of it! God, shows no partiality and recognizes those who obey His word as, family. Which brings us back to the stern warning in the book of Jude. That judgment is real, and there will be some that scoff, even within the “Church” and they will bring division. It is a great introduction to the book of Revelation, which starts out with its own warnings to the Churches. Therefore the true believer is to, “build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.” Jude 20-23 (All Bible references are from the ESV).

You are loved,

Jude (Part 4)

This is the fifth installment in this series and there will be at least one more after. We find ourselves now in the 17th verse and we will explore to the 23rd. It is a call to remain faithful. It is written to the Church, believers, you and i . . . if you by some chance find yourself here and you are not a believer, this still can apply to you as you ask God to reveal himself to you through the pages of His Love story written to us we call the Bible.

As we have been dealing with judgment we now turn the corner a bit and Jude begins this next section with the word, “But.” “But you, my dear friends, must remember . . .” Take note here, Jude is trying to point something out for us, remember this, “what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ predicted, They told you that in the last times (end of days) there would be scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires. These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you. They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them.” We live in a time that even in the Church people scoff at the Word of God, “certainly,” they will say, “it doesn’t mean that! God is Love. So let us just simply love everyone.” i think we can love someone and still tell them the truth. Consider for a moment what the writer of Proverbs says in 12:1 “To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction.” Later in the same chapter, they write, “An honest witness tells the truth; a false witness tells lies. Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing. Truthful words stand the test of time, but lies are soon exposed.” (17-19) A bit further on in verse 26 we read, “The godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray.” Chapter 12 concludes with verse 28, “The way of the godly leads to life; that path does not lead to death.“

i could very easily continue but you get the idea. Jude then writes, 20-21 “But you,” again, take note, “dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.” Why the emphasis in remaining in? i think Jude is stressing the need to remain faithful, connected, and looking out for each other. Why this conclusion? Well, he continues, 22-23 “And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.”

So here we ready the delicate nature of loving someone who is steeped in sin. We do not, we cannot condone one’s behavior of sin. The sin is vile and destructive. The person, however, is loved! “For God SO LOVED the world . . .” “While WE were YET SINNERS Christ died for us . . .” Our mission is reconciliation, agents of change in a culture that has wandered far from the Creator, but sent by the Creator to draw as many back as possible, “snatching them from the flames of judgment . . .”

Let us remain faithful, honest, and loving.

You are loved,

Jude (Part 3)

We now find ourselves in a unique place in Scripture, the 14 verse of Jude 1. Here he references a Prophet named Enoch. We read of him in the old testament book of Genesis, the beginning. In Chapter 5 we read that Enoch was the seventh from Adam. He had children. He lived 365 years and “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” Enoch never died but was taken into heaven, there is only one other we know of who was taken to heaven before death, Elijah. In Jude, he quotes Enoch saying, “Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.“

Interestingly, there is a book of Enoch, it is not in the Canon of Scripture, never was, the Jews did not include it in their collection either. It wasn’t written by Enoch, best we know, although he was taken so, well you never know i guess. However, Jude thought so well of it that he quotes Enoch 1:9 in Jude 1:14-15. The writer of Hebrews also thought to include Enoch in his writing in Hebrews 11:5 all-be-it not as inclusive as Jude. Yet, here we are faced with the idea of Enoch and what or why did Jude include him in his warning? If you were to read Enoch in Chapter 1:2 you will see that the book is written for a generation yet to come, “…but not for this generation, but for a distant generation that will come.” So Jude taking this prophecy somewhat seriously to have included it in his writing to the Church.

The fear of the Lord is a real thing and in it, we must conclude that fear and respect, humility and self-control are absolutely required characteristics of the Church, and of the individual Christian. For here is the description of the other, “These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.” Jude 1:16

This is a difficult passage. Not because of its teaching, but because of its implications to the whole. Judgment, wrath, and doomsday are real ideas, thought so highly of by one of the Fathers of the Church that he writes a very poignant letter of warning. Should we not then take heed of it? Let us sit here, pray, listen, and wait for the Lord to reveal to us His truth.

You are loved,

Jude (Part 2)

Once again we will be looking into Jude. This is, as the title states, part 2, there is also an introduction. If you have not yet read those i would suggest going back and reading those before continuing here.

Jude is writing about those who have crept into the church unnoticed. The warning is for us to be alert. So that we do not fall prey to them. To continue to search the Scriptures daily so that we remain knowledgeable and able to spot the imposter. These folks have come in the side door, they slipped in the back. Yet, their resume and their teachings are not the same. In as much as they have subtly shifted meaning, context, and even grace, ultimately denying the very person of Jesus, while claiming His name.

Verse 8 reads, ⁸Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile ^[i]angelic majesties. These men, by dreaming, let me say this, that dreaming isn’t bad, it is good, and we should have lofty dreams. However, these men were not dreaming lofty God-sized dreams, they were dreaming as men. It was for power, prestige, influence that these men dreamed. We know this because they defiled the flesh, this is the same as “strange flesh” that of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is a perverted sense of grace and self-assumed authority in matters best left to God’s Word and not man’s opinion. You see they reject all authority to include Church authority and all the way down the line to government authority. They have taken it upon themselves to pronounce judgment rather than hang onto the authority of Scripture. Thumbing their noses at Jesus Himself as they curse the very Word.

These men are like hidden reefs that would shipwreck your faith. Pual writes to Timothy in 1:18-20 says, “This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.” These men are hollow, waterless clouds, pushed my any which wind that blows, in other words, their moral compass is broken and they are persuaded by the mood of the people rather than the Word of God. Trees without fruit. We are told that we will know them by their fruit, Jude isn’t saying anything new and yet we need to be reminded.

⁸Yet in the same way, these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile ^[i]angelic majesties. ⁹But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” ¹⁰But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are ^[j]destroyed. ¹¹Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay ^[k]they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. ¹²These are the men who are ^[l]hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, ^[m]doubly dead, uprooted;¹³wild waves of the sea, casting up their own ^[n]shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the ^[o]black darkness has been reserved forever. (Jude 1:8-13)

Take a deep breath. Ask yourself this, are you seeking the approval of man or of God? Let us together walk the road less traveled and seek the will of God, dream God-sized dreams and live out our lives flowing from the grace that we have been shown. Not by running from God’s Word, or watering it down, but by living it out — that we might save some.

You are loved,

The Way of the Rabbi

a lifestyle not a religion

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Jude (Part 4)

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1 John 4:13-21 The Message

To Love, to Be Loved

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