Think on these things: Staying Connected

“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You. Show me the way I should go, for to You I lift up my soul.” – Psalm 143:8

Two of the greatest inventions of my time have been the laptop computer and e-mail. The laptop means I no longer have to stay in one place to be productive in my business life. E-mail has allowed me to stay connected to people all around the world with the touch of a button.

My greatest frustration is when either of these does not work. Sometimes e-mail cannot be used because I can’t get a connection. Sometimes I cannot use my laptop because I have not properly charged it, and then the charge runs out while I am on an airplane. Both of these situations mean I am unable to tap into the resource that allows me to fulfill my calling in my work to the fullest.

The morning time with God is much like these situations. God pours His Word into my spirit, and I am recharged. This recharging has an important effect on my day. It allows me the greatest opportunity to hear the small voice that directs my steps. If I refuse to “get connected,” I risk following my own ways of fulfilling the duties of my day. It sets forth the opportunity for God to speak into my spirit what He desires for me each day. It allows me to focus on God’s purposes, not mine.

The only way to know someone is to spend time with him or her. The only way to discern the voice of another is to hear that person’s voice. David, the author of this psalm, was a warrior, king, and businessman. He understood this principle of connecting with God in the morning. His morning allowed him to connect with God’s love, renew his trust in Him, and hear His directions for his life. Shouldn’t you and I do the same?

Today God Is First (TGIF) devotional message, Copyright by Os Hillman, Marketplace Leaders.

Think on these things: Are you a threat to the kingdom of darkness?

If satan and his demons had a board meeting and your name came before the board, what would they say? Would they say that you are one of their most feared enemies and they needed to keep many demons harassing and opposing you? Or would they say, “Gentlemen, this person poses no threat to our activities. Leave him alone. He needs no help from us.” There are millions of church-going believers sitting in pews Sunday after Sunday who pose little threat to the kingdom of darkness.

Are you a threat to the kingdom of darkness?

Today God Is First (TGIF) devotional message,

Think on these things: 4 Sins That Are Also Okay If You Ignore Leviticus on Homosexuality – Part 5

Have you ever played the Leviticus game?

This Isn’t a Game

Enough of the Leviticus game for now, because I can already hear a profound question coming—Is homosexuality “equal” with these other sins?

It depends on the sin. We all have hurts, temptations, and natural sources of weakness. God knows us inside and out. He knows all our stories. But His holiness is of chief concern to Him.

Do we dare equate homosexuality with these other sins listen in Leviticus 18? The bottom line is, as the Apostle James wrote, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law” (James 2:8-11).

In other words, the same God who declared incest and adultery sinful also put homosexuality in the same category, knowing full well the struggles that all sorts of humans face. Humans judge themselves other on a curve, but God sees all as equal and totally exposed before Him. The same God who came loving, sacrificing, and serving in the human form of Jesus Christ is the same God who gave those righteous commands in the Old Testament.

The problem with the selective-obedience “Leviticus game” isn’t just that it pits Scripture against itself, but that it unjustly divides the character of God.

What is truly profound is that in James 2, where we learn that all sins are equally violations of God’s character, the point is that any attempt to earn God’s approval through good, moral rule-following is utterly futile.

This is important, because even non-Christian LGBTs are playing a “Leviticus game” of their own, trusting that God will accept them because they obey some “important” commands (by being an overall decent person) while failing at others.

There is a law of liberty, where we are freed from fearful rule-following and liberated to love and please a holy God. But we don’t get to live that way by editing God’s standards; we get that way by repenting of our sins and letting God empower us to live for Him. True freedom—obeying God’s laws willfully instead of spitefully—only come once we’ve changed our minds about our sin and trusted Christ’s sacrifice to pay our punishment.

No one is immune to temptations. But please, friend, get right with God by turning from sin and trusting Christ, no matter who you are.

Reblogged from  4 Sins That Are Also Okay If You Ignore Leviticus on Homosexuality.

Alex Kocman is an associate editor and writer for Christian Life News and Charisma News with a background in biblical studies. You can read his blog or follow him on Twitter via @ajkocman.

Think on these things: 4 Sins That Are Also Okay If You Ignore Leviticus on Homosexuality – Part 4

Have you ever played the Leviticus game?

4. Bestiality

“And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion” (v. 23).

Scripture strictly forbids any form of sexual relation with an animal.

Clearly Leviticus 18 is not just about the nation of Israel. God tells the people, “Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled” (v. 24). In other words, these are all sins for everybody, not just Israelites.

Reblogged from  4 Sins That Are Also Okay If You Ignore Leviticus on Homosexuality.

Alex Kocman is an associate editor and writer for Christian Life News and Charisma News with a background in biblical studies. You can read his blog or follow him on Twitter via @ajkocman.

Think on these things: 4 Sins That Are Also Okay If You Ignore Leviticus on Homosexuality – Part 3

Have you ever played the Leviticus game?

3. Child Sacrifice

“You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 18:21).

Molech worship was an especially heinous religion in the ancient Near East where parents were to lay their infant children upon the burning hot arms of the bull-headed idol in sacrifice to the false god.

A Jewish rabbinical commentary from the 12^th century described the barbaric ritual as follows:

…they heated him [Molech] from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child between his hands, and it was burnt; when it vehemently cried out; but the priests beat a drum, that the father might not hear the voice of his son, and his heart might not be moved.

Like the rest of the commands in this chapter, this didn’t just apply to Israel, but to everyone, including the indigenous Molech-worshipping Canaanites who lives alongside the Israelites in the land (see v. 26). According to the chapter, it was the Canaanites’ own involvement in all these sins listed here that got them expelled from the land and conquered by Israel in the first place.

 

Reblogged from  4 Sins That Are Also Okay If You Ignore Leviticus on Homosexuality.

Alex Kocman is an associate editor and writer for Christian Life News and Charisma News with a background in biblical studies. You can read his blog or follow him on Twitter via @ajkocman.

Bishop Ryan Reddie of Seaview Gardens New Testament COG: Mountains and Valleys

In life we wont always stay on top of the Mountain. We have to traverse the valleys as well. Bishop Ryan Reddie of Seaview Gardens New Testament COG preaches on the topic of ‘A Better Place To Be’. He preaches about the Mountains and Valleys that we experience in life.

 

By: Denise N. Fyffe

 

Copyright © 2017 · All Rights Reserved · Denise N. Fyffe

Bishop Ryan Reddie of Seaview Gardens New Testament COG: Metamorphosis

Bishop Ryan Reddie of Seaview Gardens New Testament COG preaches on the topic of ‘A Better Place To Be’.  He explains the purpose of going through trials and how the outcome is a thing of beauty; Metamorphosis.

 

By: Denise N. Fyffe

 

Copyright © 2017 · All Rights Reserved · Denise N. Fyffe

Think on these things: 4 Sins That Are Also Okay If You Ignore Leviticus on Homosexuality – Part 2

Have you ever played the Leviticus game?

2. Adultery

Verse 20 says, “Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.” It’s rather straightforward.

“Neighbor” here doesn’t just mean your next-door neighbor, but your fellow man. Jesus used the same kind of expression when he quoted the very next chapter, Leviticus 19, saying “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 18).

 

Reblogged from  4 Sins That Are Also Okay If You Ignore Leviticus on Homosexuality.

Alex Kocman is an associate editor and writer for Christian Life News and Charisma News with a background in biblical studies. You can read his blog or follow him on Twitter via @ajkocman.