Monthly Archives: November 2012

Proven Path Ministries

Let Your Light Shine

Well… here we go… the election is over.

Now what?

I tell you the truth I woke up this morning with mixed emotions… in one moment I thought vindictively… in another moment I thought downtroddenly… in another moment I thought expectantly… in other I thought hopefully… but at the end of it all I thought on God’s sovereignty.

I close my eyes and I see the 2012 election map I see that the heart of our nation is red…

 

The heart of our nation still stands on morality and the value of life and the fear of God. The blue is all on the surrounding outside… I look at this picture and I can’t help but see it as a reflection of the majority of the hearts of the American Church.

 So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.

Deuteronomy 10:16

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD

And remove the foreskins of your heart,

Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,

Or else My wrath will go forth like fire

And burn with none to quench it,

Because of the evil of your deeds.

Jeremiah 4:4

 

I wonder how many of us really humbled ourselves and sought forgiveness of our sins and turned our face toward heaven? How many of us are really willing to circumcise our hearts.

As we look at these blue states what do we see…  We see California represented by Hollywood. We see Nevada represented by “Sin City”. We see New York represented by Wall Street and Letterman and Broadway. We see Massachusetts represented by  the promotion of Homosexual Marriage. We see Washington DC represented by the fight to keep abortion legal and profitable. We see Connecticut represented by “Higher Education” that is dead set on abolishing all acknowledgment of God in American education.

So now I wonder as an American Christian… how many of these above do we support through our own life choices?

How many of us need to circumcise our heart?

What would happen if the American Christian stopped going to the movies, cancelled all their HBO, Cinemax  Showtime package, stopped watching Letterman, stopped going to Vegas, pulled all their money out of the stock market and put it in the lives of the people of their community, pulled all their children out of the public school system and placed them in private Christian schools, and stopped using birth control in order to birth and raise up more God fearing children in our nation?

I have to say that like Matt I also am excited… in a weird kind of way.

I wonder what God is up to… because I know He is always up to something.

Today I know that no matter what the future of America might be I will keep teaching the Word and going out and making as many disciples as Christ allows me to make. And if one day this nation tries to shut me up and stop me from preaching the gospel then I will rejoice for the privilege to suffer for His sake because just like Matt said, light shines its brightest in the darkness.

 

They took his advice; and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them

and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus,

and then released them. 

So they went on their way from the presence of the Council,

rejoicing that they had been considered worthy

to suffer shame for His name. 

And every day, in the temple and from house to house,

they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.

Acts 5:40-42

 

Proven Path Ministries

Thankful For A Preparing Pastor

I had truly planned on a November Thankful Blogfest. I was going to post everyday about something I was thankful for… and well, I haven’t even made the thankful fb post or tweet, so ummm nope, the November Thankful Blogfest is not gonna happen. Instead it shall be the November Thankful WhenIgetachancefest.

So today I am thankful for Pastors who prepare.

Sometimes you just don’t realize how blessed you are until you experience something outside of what you have been spoiled with.

I once saw a pastor of a very large church be invited to come and preach as a guest at another very large church… This pastor proudly took his place at the podium and laughingly announced to the congregation how his wife had asked him if he knew what he was going to “preach” on earlier in the week and he said, “No.” Then he laughed even more as he shared how in the car on the way there she asked again, and again he said, “No.”

I was shocked as I listened to the congregation laugh at this… I was appalled. How could a man know that he was going to stand accountable before God for the words that would come out of his mouth and into the ears and souls of the hundreds that sat before him and not be prepared? I knew at that moment that the Word of God would only be “referred to” in this “message” it would not be taught… and I was right.

I have a pet peeve with pastors that tell you to open up your Bibles to a certain passage and then they talk for an hour and never even read the passage of Scripture they asked you to turn to.

So today I am thankful for preparing pastors. I am thankful for men of God who stand behind a pulpit or before a group of gathered souls and have actually considered their eternity and the opportunity sacred and important enough to actually prepare and share the Word of God.

I am not saying this pastor above didn’t share a great story, a good life lesson, but great stories don’t lead one to salvation… the gospel does. Good life lessons don’t lead to repentance, the Scriptures do.

It’s the Word of God that is the double-edged sword that divides the soul and spirit.

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

I am thankful that I sit under a preparing pastor. He doesn’t throw a sermon together five minutes before he steps on the stage… he studies the Word and he teaches the Word. He says “would you open God’s precious and holy Word” and then, when you open it… he reads it and he teaches it. He knows that his own words do not have life… but God’s do.

Names of God Series, Proven Path Ministries

Names of God: Artos

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The last name of Christ we looked at in our names of God study was Aletheia and today we are going to be introduced to our Savior through His name Artos.

Artos is the Greek word for Bread. It means, food composed of flour mixed with water and baked. The Israelites made it in the form of an oblong or round cake, as thick as one’s thumb, and as large as a plate or platter hence it was not to be cut but broken. Loaves were consecrated to the Lord and it also speaks of the bread used at the love-feasts and at the Lord’s Table. It can also mean food of any kind.

We have this name of our Savior revealed to us in John 6. This chapter begins with the miracle of Jesus feeding a multitude with the five barley loaves and two fish of one young boy. Jesus gave them bread to fill their bellies and a miracle to fill their eyes… but what He desired was to fill their souls with eternal life.

Jesus saw that the people where not responding to the miracle of the bread in the spirit… they were all flesh. They wanted more bread and they wanted this Jesus to be King over them now… I mean really a man who could feed the nation with the breaking of a few loaves of bread. So Jesus retreated to the mountains alone. He was not after an earthly political kingdom… His kingdom was not of this world.

The very next day the crowd returned to get more free food from Jesus. Where there is free food the people will come. That has never changed. The crowd discovers that He is not where He was… (God rarely lingers in the past, He is a moving forward kinda God)… and well they chase Him down in Capernaum.

When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” (John 6:26-28)

Oh this, is so funny to me… can you see it…

Have you ever had a child (or even an adult) who was wanting something, a toy, a happy meal, to go somewhere… and they knew the people who could make it happen… like Grandmothers and Papaws… and they walk in the door and they see them and it’s like “Hey, when did you get here?” And you know that tone, you know that this child has just seen the ones who can get them exactly what they want…

Here is the crowd… Hey, Jesus, when did you get here? Ummm hello. They were searching Him out, but they speak to Him as though they had been there all along and Jesus just showed up. And you know what they are thinking is, Dude we’re hungry and we know you can like break bread like crazy! And well we want you to show us how to do cool stuff like that!

Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” So they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’” John 6:29-31

Really? The crowd had just searched Him out and followed Him across the river to another town because they knew about the miracle of the bread and the multitude and then they come and have the audacity to ask Jesus to show them a sign… to prove Himself to them… when my guess is that it really had nothing to do with Jesus proving Himself, they just wanted to try and manipulate Him into some more free bread. Our God just does not fall for the tricks of man…

Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, 

it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven,

but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.

John 6:32

Jesus takes this opportunity to remind these people that Moses was not the one who gave the bread in the wilderness God was… and He is letting them know that He is not just a prophet… He is not just a man doing works for God. He is God.

For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven,

and gives life to the world.

John 6:33

The bread of God is that which comes down out heaven… which means its origin, its home, is not of this earth. That which is of this earth can never give life because this earth is dying, only that which is of God has life and can give life. Only that which is of God can truly satisfy.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;

he who comes to Me will not hunger,
John 6:35

Jesus looks at the crowd and he looks at us and He says I am the Bread of Life. I am the Artos.

You know we live in a day we are surrounded by fakeness. We have fake hair, fake faces, fake clothes, fake boobs, and we have fake food.

You know I can be hungry. And I grab me a handful of the skittles pictured above and it will stop my stomach from growling. I can taste the rainbow and get filled up on the fruity flavors, but how beneficial is this handful of skittles to the health and life of my body? If this was all I ate, what quality of life would I have?

If I take these handful of skittles and plant them in the earth can I come back weeks later and see a new birth of skittles springing forth?

No, I can’t. I can’t because skittles are dead. They are fake food. This food is man-made. It is not God-made. God-made food is made with life. It is made with seed. it is made to produce life after itself. If we eat living food… we receive life.

Not only do we have fake food… but we have fake gods.

Jesus, however, is not a fake. He is the Living God. If we eat of Him we will have life because He is life. He is the Bread of Life.

Now lets look at the process of bread becoming bread…

Bread begins here. It grows up from seeds planted.

And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.

Genesis 3:15

Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.

He does not say, “And to seeds,”

as referring to many, but rather to one,

“And to your seed,” that is, Christ.

Galatians 3:16

Then that wheat is cut down.

Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing

Daniel 9:26

 Then that wheat is beat…

 

 

and threshed and slung…

 

and beat and beat and beat.

The wheat goes through all this in order that from it we might receive life.

 

But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him

Isaiah 53:5

After the wheat is cut down, threshed, and beat it is ground

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium

and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him.  

They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. 

And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head,

and a reed in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him

and mocked Him,

saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 

They spat on Him,

and took the reed and began to beat Him on the head. 

After they had mocked Him,

they took the scarlet robe off Him and put His own garments back on Him,

and led Him away to crucify Him.

Matthew 27:27-31

…and then the broken, beat, threshed, ground wheat is mixed with a liquid and its placed in an oven… shut up in a hot tomb to wait until it’s ready.

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph,

who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. 

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. 

And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 

and laid it in his own new tomb,

which he had hewn out in the rock;

and he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away.

Matthew 27:57-60

Then the bread comes out of the oven and it comes ready to give life to all who will eat of it.

I am the bread of life.

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

This is the bread which comes down out of heaven,

so that one may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down out of heaven;

if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever;

and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
John 6:48-51

 

So when Jesus says that He is the Bread of Life.

He is the Artos.

He gives life because He is Life.