Tag: unity of believers

Categories
Preparing the Bride of Jesus Christ

Passover, Easter or Resurrection Day?

Which is it?

My dear husband who was a Bible teacher, pondered communion and said, “Jesus said ‘as oft and you do this, do this in remembrance of me’. What did he mean by this? I think he meant Passover, which is once a year.”

From the last Passover meal Jesus held with the disciples, Christianity has extracted Communion. Church denominations, church congregations, have pondered this very question throughout the ages. Most practicing Catholics participate weekly, I think. My church — monthly. Scarcely any Gentile congregation participates only once a year, as far as I know, though Jewish people remember the Passover yearly. What of Messianic festivities? We don’t have an answer with all in agreement. But it is that season now, so …

I will attend a low key Good Friday service in my local parish church. I will attend a Passover Meal in my personal congregation. I will go to church on Easter Day (though I prefer to call it Resurrection Day as the connotations of Easter aren’t very Bible-based — carrying pagan roots… and bunnies!). I am no more holy because of my actions or choices, nor is anyone who attends a particular service. This is because it isn’t what we do that ultimately matters, but what is in our hearts.

I will sit and watch a movie with my son about the last days of Jesus before his arrest and crucifixion. We will watch it because I need to invest in my son’s spiritual future, and the season suggests to me, it is a good time to watch this particular film.

I am doing what I feel led to do. Is this out of habit, or preference, fear, or love? It is all done out of love.

From Matthew 6:25 and onwards, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? …”

Jesus asks us not to be worried… not about anything.

Instead, He says, “be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

From Paul, “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17)

Does this not pertain to our recognition of days, titles of days, and activities on those days today?

We can’t ‘get it right’

When we surrender to GOD, and we walk in the Spirit, we will be perfected. As long as we continue to try to get it all right, we are walking in religion and in the flesh, and attempting to be perfected in our own strength.

As we seek to adore and cherish GOD: Father, Son and Spirit, we will find that our flesh is stripped away and we simply come to Him with our hearts, by His Spirit.

The LORD looks at the heart. We look to Him for our leadership and our spiritual protection. Let us aim to follow and not aim to get things right. Then, I think we will have true communion with Him.

Categories
Politics and Society today

Pray before you Post, Be Meek before you Speak

by Rev Dr Hugh Alexander Jackman

Pray before you Post, Be meek before you speak.

On behalf of Spirit and Life Ministries, I would like to make a brief statement which I hope will bring a sense of calm and balance to those members of the  body of Christ who may hear it from me. I know this may make me less popular with some of you, I wish it were not so, but this is unimportant to me, since I do not seek popularity or fame. 

I believe the devil is seeking to divide the body of Christ over the issue of Coronavirus vaccinations. Almost every day, rather than becoming offended, I am sending private messages to friends and loved ones who have taken a stance or publicly shared something on this issue, which would be offensive to other believers in Christ. 

We have to face a stark reality – Some Christians have taken the vaccine whilst others have not. 

Whilst I support my brothers or sisters in whichever decision they choose to make, I am increasingly concerned about those who insist on taking the moral or spiritual high ground because of their particular stance. 

If you are unvaccinated, you do so by faith, choosing to trust God and not medicine. Perhaps you are to be commended in this, but no more so than the believer who after prayer, and also by Faith, chooses to be vaccinated without fear of any any earthly consequences. 

To me, spiritually speaking, both positions are worthy of some applause. However, I find nothing in the Bible to suggest that one stance makes you more blessed than the other. No matter how you may feel about the situation my appeal to you today is to

Pray before you post. Be meek before you speak.

If we continue to allow the devil to divide us, our Gospel will find itself lost in a world of controversy and confusion.

So again my appeal is, Pray before you post. Be meek before you speak.

Do not insult your brothers and sisters in Christ bringing them into offence with you by implying that they are unspiritual or immature simply because their stance is different to yours. They and you are equally washed in the blood of Jesus. There is no partiality with God.

I believe as the body of Christ, in many cases, we are the only light that this world will see. If they don’t see God in us, particularly in our unity, perhaps they will not see him anywhere.

Christians, please do not share videos and messages from unqualified and unbiblical  sources. This is very dangerous because in most cases,  it only leads to further confusion and division. Remember your friends, family and loved ones are looking to you for truth. In this regard, You owe them the Gospel, nothing else. 

Apostle Paul wrote

1 Corinthians 1:10 (NKJV) 10 Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Again, in Ephesians 4:1-6 (KJV) He writes, I  beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

From Heavens perspective – Your stance regarding this issue is largely unimportant. It has no bearing upon your salvation in this world or in the world to come. It does not gain you any higher position than anyone else so for goodness sake, let it go.

My brothers and sisters we are living in the last of the last days and as such we know that the devil will seek to divide us. Jesus said, a house divided will not be able to stand. So do not let him succeed. Stop trying to take the high ground on your position at the detriment of another, but rather give thanks to God for His grace in our lives. 

Pray and thank God for your life, and for the life of all of your loved ones today. Pray in unity for the governments of the land where you live, wherever you are, to come into alignment with God’s perfect will for this world. 

Again I appeal to you, Pray before you post. Be Meek before you Speak

Thank you for taking the time to listen to and share this message. I would like to end with the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.

From Mark 7:15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”

God Bless you 

In Peace and in love.

Categories
Examining Biblical Scripture

I will build my Church: Church needs to Change – Part 4

“I will build my church”

Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18)

The whole scripture includes reference to Peter, the rock. Peter and the other apostles faithfully did follow Jesus’ call to make disciples. But from the third century onward, the development of the Christian church was taken over. Constantine made Christianity the official religion under Rome. Putting the church into Man’s hands has ensured the building of brick and mortar churches, where the people inside have become reliant upon what a priest or pastor ministers, rather than those followers of Jesus all becoming ministers as he intended, all reaching beyond the walls of the buildings to those who do not know the Gospel.

Elements of Jesus’ Church

I’d like to look one-by-one at the fourteen points I devised in a recent post ( https://laruspress.com/the-look-of-the-new-church-church-needs-to-change-part-3/ ) to discuss what Jesus’ Church is meant to look like and how we might give him room now to build it. Today I shall look at the first quality, that of Unity.

Unity

From 1 Corinthians 1:9-10 “… that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from great death, and does deliver us…” As we trust Him, He works in us — not only person by individual person, but also in us collectively. Oh let us capture the value of being a part of a whole, not only an individual saved by His grace.

Psalm 133:1 “How good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity”. There is no room for argument in that clear statement. But I want to define Unity, to take this a step beyond the obvious. In doing so, I draw attention to Jesus’ words and prayers as testified in the Gospel of John.

John 14: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” Just as we know through the Spirit of GOD, that Jesus is in us who believe, so too is the Father in us.  And since we all have the Spirit of Christ, are we all then through the Spirit, not also with one another? How important is it then, and valuable and critically beneficial for the Gospel, when we who abide in Christ, are also in unity with one another. Just as in the physical world, working in unity is superior to our individual endeavours in our witness and effectiveness, so too in the Spiritual realm, unity must be hugely important to the Father. Remember, this whole journey of salvation is about the glory of GOD; it is not about us. Once we are saved at the cross, we need also to move through the cross who leads us to deep intimacy with Jesus our Saviour, but also with the Father of Creation. GOD made us and put us in the Garden of Eden to be in relationship with Him.

We are not to be like the Hebrews who told Moses, ‘You go talk to God and report back to us’. Rather, we collectively and individually are meant to seek relationship with the Father. How important then to be in unity: being gracious with one another, reflecting GOD’s goodness, love and purity, which extends in and through one another.

Unity then is not copying one another; it is not being the same or thinking the same as each another. It is discovering and abiding together with GOD: It is allowing the Holy Spirit to indwell us and fill us — individually and corporately. This brings glory to GOD. And further, as we become entwined spiritually with Jesus, our intimacy with him as a body of believers exposes the love of the Son and the Father to the world.

This is my prayer: that the body of believers in Yeshua Jesus will grow together in intimacy and love, that our understanding and relationship with the Father will grow and deepen, and that — at last — mankind’s purpose for GOD’s creation of us will be fulfilled.