Jew – The Jesus Chick

Posted in Bible Journaling, Christian, Evangelism, Faith, Life Inspiration, salvation, Word of God

It Ain’t Easy Waiting on Jesus

Written by talk2shari Published June 30, 2023June 30, 2023 Discussion Leave a Comment

Have you ever just looked to the sky and ask God “Why not now Lord? I’m ready, and I don’t want to see this world get any more wicked. This is plenty bad enough. Please, come and get your children!” Well, no doubt those in the days of scripture were very much looking to the same Heaven and saying the same thing. It was they who James was speaking to when He penned the Words God spoke. We know this because in the first verse of the first chapter James tells us who he is speaking to:

James 1:1 KJVS
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

It is Israel. The Nation of God’s chosen people. The very people that had turned their back on God to the point that He gave the Gentiles the blessing of Salvation through His Son’s life being given on the cross. When the Jewish leaders continued to deny that Jesus was the Christ, God said ENOUGH! And God began a new work through the Gentiles and through the Apostle Paul. But He continued to work on Israel, although no longer through the traditions of man. It was now by God’s marvelous grace that Jew and Gentile alike could come to the saving grace of Jesus Christ with the promise that He’d return for His Children and then finish what He started with Israel. And now we’re here, waiting for God to come and get us.

In frustration. With patience wearing thin and the temptation to take matters into your own hands most every day. Or perhaps that’s just me.

BE PATIENT

James 5:7-20 KJVS
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

Be patient… James said. Jesus is waiting too, but He has patience because He wants both the fruits of yesterday and the fruits of tomorrows while there is still tomorrows to be had. I usually think of that right after I’ve asked Jesus to come and get me. What if He did? How many souls do I know that would be damned to Hell because they’re not saved? Far, far too many.

BE PATIENT

Again James says it, but this time he’s speaking of the Prophets of old.

[8] Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. [9] Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. [10] Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. [11] Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

Prophets who endured the unimaginable for us, and yet James said they counted them happy in what they endured because they knew that God would one day be glorified in their suffering. Job knew it when he told his wife that she spoke like a foolish woman, even though she too had endured the unimaginable of losing every child and belonging she had. She told Job to curse God and die! But Job did not because he knew there was a plan, even if he didn’t understand it. We have to realize that when we look at this world we have to believe THERE IS A PLAN! BE PATIENT.

And BE BUSY…

[12] But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation. [13] Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. [14] Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: [15] And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. [16] Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. [17] Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. [18] And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. [19] Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; [20] Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

There is plenty of things in those verses that causes one to wonder aloud, “Why did God not heal when I asked? Why did God not stop the storm when I asked?” Why… there are thousands of them. We read this scripture and doubt creeps in and we think God doesn’t hear, or we’re not living as we should, or any of the other one million reasons that the world tells you that scripture isn’t true. That it doesn’t happen as God said it would. But what we didn’t think about was who God was talking to, and at what dispensation in time was He speaking? This letter is to the Jews. It is written for our edification and encouragement but it is not written for out doctrine to live by. That’s why people get discouraged in the waiting. They’re waiting for the wrong bus. When James wrote this letter it was during the time when God was doing all kind of miracles in the lives of the Jewish people through the Apostles. But when the Gentile church came on the scene, you didn’t see those miracles happen after Paul. Not like it was then. There’s miracles… but not as it was in days of scripture.

So do we just sit and wait? Do we not pray? Do we not believe God can heal? Of course we believe!!! But God is not raising the dead because a preacher asked. He’s not healing every one the way we want Him to heal them, He may heal them in Heaven. But we ask! And we believe that God can and quite often He does and when He does we can rejoice. But when He doesn’t we can still rejoice in knowing that God has a plan and we’re apart of it.

That is why we have to stay busy. There is so much work for the church to do right now and the vast majority of them are waiting on the wrong bus. They’re waiting for God to come and get them and He will… but not until He’s done with the plan.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. About the need to study the word and try to figure out what God’s doing or why He’s not doing something. And I’ve come to this conclusion. Patience is not my virtue. I’m better off staying busy. Get out of line for the bus and get back to work! Amen? Amen!

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I Was Once God’s Weird Science Experiment

Written by talk2shari Published November 19, 2013November 23, 2013 Discussion Leave a Comment

The story goes of a young woman who has another broken relationship in her life finalized and she’d concluded in her heart that she’d had enough. There was no way she’d have anything to do with God again. But, not long after this she finds herself standing in the Jewish Holocaust exhibit and before her the pile of Holocaust victims bones. That settled it, no loving God would allow that to happen! If she’d ever doubted it before she knew it now. But then she heard a still small voice whisper in her soul, “Don’t leave Me… This is what happens when I’m rejected, darkness reigns and lives are destroyed, please… don’t leave Me.”

The story hit me like a ton of bricks as I was driving down the road yesterday listening to a podcast. I’ve asked that question myself. “Why?” Especially over broken relationships or harsh conversations when a dull knife stabbed into my soul and twisted would surely have been less painful. But looking back on those experiences they were nothing in comparison to the Jewish Holocaust. Not even worthy of being in the same sentence.

It is said that Ezekiel 37:1-14 the story of the dry bones, is a prophecy of the Holocaust and the rebuilding of the Nation of Israel. Whether it is or not, I’m not a Theologian, so I’ll leave it to their debate, but regardless the similarities are there.

Verses 1-5 ~ The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:

Those bones that God brought back to life, rewrapped them in muscle and breathed life into their bodies may look like something out of a science fiction movie but it’s very much how God works in our lives. Only God can take broken lives that are shattered beyond recognition and restore them. It wasn’t happenstance that God revealed Himself to the woman in the story at the Holocaust exhibit; it wasn’t happenstance that he revealed Himself to me at Victory Baptist Church in 1996. God manipulated the circumstance in my life that caused my dead, dry bones (that did not know Jesus) to walk into a valley of restored bones in a church that was alive.

Perhaps that’s too “churchy” of a conversation for us to have this morning. Maybe God manipulated your bones into this cyber place this morning because He wanted to conduct a little science experiment on you. Have you all but given up on God, life, love, or family? God’s telling you right now, “Don’t leave me. Without Me there is no light to be found, only darkness.

That morning that God manipulated me (and that’s a whole other story!) into Victory Baptist Church, I didn’t realize that there was no life in me, until the Spirit of God began to stir in my soul. I didn’t know what that was either, I just knew I felt “something.” And as I heard the Word of God preached it was like there was an inner strength welling up inside of me. I found three things in that valley that caused me to never want to leave it again.

Strength (the struggles were not over, but I had the power to fight)

Connection (my bones knit with the bones of other believers and I had stable support)

Breath (I found air to breathe that had not been there for years. The pressure of the world on my chest more often than not felt like a literal weight shutting down my ability to breathe and move. I just existed)

That’s what God does. He takes a weird concoction like me and makes sense out of it.

Listen… are you in that valley this morning? Hear the Savior calling… Don’t leave me.

I can promise because I’ve experienced it, He’ll never leave you!

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Grafted & Grateful!

Written by talk2shari Published August 18, 2013 Discussion Leave a Comment

Romans 11:19-21 ~ Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.

I have very few Jewish friends, and although there are no synagogues close by (only 0.1% of our entire state of West Virginia is Jewish) it does not lessen my burden for the Nation of Israel and my responsibility to pray for them. I do not understand much about the Jewish culture, but that’s okay; I don’t have to understand all there is to know about the modern day Jews to understand there was an olden day plan that’s still in effect. It makes my heart quiver when I see the government leaders of the United States turn their backs on Israel; I may not know a lot, but I know how God feels about His elect and those who fail to help them. I know from a mother’s perspective how I would feel if my children rejected me, it would more painful than I could possibly imagine and I know that God’s hurt is much deeper than that. So, when I think about God grafting the gentiles into the nation of Israel, I don’t take it lightly. He also knew how we’d treat Him, by the way.

It was God’s choosing to cut Israel off for a season because of their rejection of His Son, and it was His choice to allow a rag tag bunch of gentiles to come into His table and sup with Him as one of His own. Israel was, still is and forever will be God’s chosen people. What has changed is that they are no longer “exclusively” His people. Gentile believers are “grafted in” to His Chosen People Israel through the gift of the Holy Spirit upon our acceptance of His Son. It’s an honor, and one that is yet to be fully comprehended on how great it is. But when we gather in glory we’ll get it. Today I’m just grafted and grateful and I know that I don’t want to break my Lord’s heart.

Being a grafted part of the tree makes me want to have my roots by the water’s edge. Psalm 1:1-3 says “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also will not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

A Threefold Promise from being grounded in the Word of God.

Fruit – Strength – Prosperity. They do not come to the slothful or those inattentive of the things of God.

We’re not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Be careful where you get advice. Matthew Henry said that “God knows His people by name, but we must know them by their character.” We’re called to witness to the lost not to walk with them until we look more like them than Christ.

We’re not to sit in the seat of the scornful – those who make light of faith and talk against Heaven. There are some jokes that I’m pretty sure God doesn’t laugh at; such as those that make light of sinful acts or of the holiness of God.

We are to meditate in the Word of God. Not just read it and move on, but mull it around for a spell! Take a verse and consider how it applies to your life, search and see if your life matches up with the Word of God, or are there some areas that can use some work. I know what the answer is in my life.

It’s a privilege to have the Word of God, it is through the Holy Spirit that we have understanding of it. We have the Holy Spirit because God loved us enough to adopt us into His family and graft us into His family tree. Don’t take it for granted…