Soaring thru Scripture! Colossians 1:1-14

Paul's letter to the church in Colossae, verses 1 through 14

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To the saints and faithful brothers[a] in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

Thanksgiving and Prayer
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant.[b] He is a faithful minister of Christ on your[c] behalf 8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks[d] to the Father, who has qualified you[e] to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

A Little Background

The city of Colossae, at the time of Paul's letter, was in the twilight of its existence. A once great city on the decline. It's population was being overcome with the new age thinking of the day. In the midst of this, Paul's co-worker in Christ, Epaphas, established the church and it was thriving because the new believers embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they were faithful and loving.

Greeting

As was Paul's way, he begins the letter establishing his credentials, stating, quite correctly, that he was an apostle (an eyewitness of Christ) by the will of Jesus Christ. That fact was established on Paul's journey to Damascus. Refer to The Acts of the Apostles chapter 9.

In verse 2 Paul establishes his audience, "the saints". So, he is writing to the believers (Christians) of the church in Colosae.

He goes on the compliment them on being a faithful and loving church and that they first heard the Gospel through Epaphras, a co-worker of Paul's.

Beautiful Prayer

Verses 9 through 11 give great insight into how Paul prayed for the Colossians. It's a wonderful prayer and would be a great way to pray for any believers, new or established, you know. It would be a great prayer for your children, if you have them. Come to think of it, it would be a great prayer to pray for yourself! We all need to be "filled with the knowledge of His will" and "walk in a manner worthy of the Lord".  And what Christian wouldn't want to "bear fruit", "increase in knowledge of God", as well as be "strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy"? I know I would!

Faithful Promise

Looking at verse 13, we are given a wonderful promise. When we are saved, we area delivered from the darkness of our unsaved, sinful life to the kingdom of our King Jesus Christ! As part of being a new creation, we are made members of God's kingdom! We are welcomed into that kingdom with all the rights, privileges and blessings of those who have gone before us and those who are to follow!

Foundational Truth

Verse 14 states an important foundational truth of Christianity. We are redeemed and forgiven through our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ! Without that truth, I think we can agree, Christianity has no real meaning. Without the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which we remember at Communion time, the is no Christianity, because Jesus would not be who He claimed to be.

Thanks be to our Father in Heaven, that is not the case and Jesus did rise from the dead and exited that tomb just as He said He would, cementing the fact that He truly is THE Messiah come to earth to redeem His people!

I hope you got something out of this. Something useful, uplifting or encouraging. Please feel free to comment or ask questions! I'd love to hear from you. All I ask is to keep it civil. I promise to do the same.

God bless and keep you!

Bob

What is a Christian?

According to a Pew Research survey, as of 2014, 71% of the US population describes themselves as Christian. That number is falling, unfortunately, but I think it's more realistic the lower it goes.

Christians are looked down on in America these days.

We're perceived as judgmental.

We're looked at as hypocrites.

We're told we are mean.

We're called racist and homophobic.

We're narrow minded, if we have a mind at all.

We're stupid and behind the times.

For those who are actual followers of Jesus Christ, those descriptions could not be farther from the truth.

Even casual observers of Jesus Christ's life can only conclude that He was about love and forgiveness; sacrifice and giving. And those who believe He is the Messiah, come down to earth to take the punishment for our sins and then follow His teachings and strive to live their lives accordingly, are authentic Christians. Quite frankly, everyone else just give Christians a bad name.

Authentic Christians ARE NOT:

Westboro Baptist Church. Let me repeat, authentic Christians ARE NOT Westboro Baptist Church. These people are exactly the opposite of authentic Christians.

The KKK who burn crosses and hate

Crusaders forcing people to convert and killing them if they don't

People who apply their own form of morality on society

Authentic Christians are just people who believe we personally are sinners who have broken our relationship with God and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, come to earth to die for those sins. We TRY to live each and every day the way Jesus Christ would want us to live according to His teaching. We don't always succeed. We're human, after all.

We understand that those who aren't yet Christian watch us closely, scrutinizing our lives to see if we are different. And that's OK. It really is because that's the way God wants it. Jesus said we are to go into all the world to be His witnesses. That means we are to live our lives, not separate from, but within society to show we are different. Jesus is the reason we are different.

Please don't judge us when we fail. God doesn't.

When there is disaster anywhere in the world, generally speaking, Christians are the first on the scene with help. Organizations like Samaritan's Purse have disaster relief teams all around the world at the ready to react to earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and other natural disasters. They bring food, shelter and medical attention.

Authentic Christians help people. Pray for people. All people.

We do these things, because of the great grace and mercy shown to us by God, the Father who forgives our sin and guides us through our lives. We do it in response to His great love for us.

Do we always get it right? No way. We fail. We have a bad day. We sin. But, an authentic Christian will not live that way, perpetually failing, sinning. An authentic Christian will recognize their failure, ask for forgiveness, and strive to do better the next time with God's help.

We are praying for America and the world. Yes, we are even praying for the President and the US government.

Why do we do the things we do? Because we want everyone to know the love and forgiveness that comes from believing in Jesus Christ.

Being a Christian doesn't clear your life of troubles. Far from it, But the Christian life and following Christ gives you an advocate with God. Living the Christian life gives you someone who is perpetually with you to help you through life's turbulent times. More importantly, being a Christian means you have a place with God for all eternity.

So, please, when you see someone who identifies themselves as a Christian, by all means, scrutinize their life. Ask them what motivates their life. If they don't identify the two greatest commandments, then maybe, just maybe, they aren't authentic Christians.

I invite any and all comments and questions. Please keep it civil.

John 3:16

For God So Loved the World

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Is there no way to accommodate the conscience of Kim Davis? - American Thinker Blog

American Thinker - Is There No Way to Accommodate the Conscience of Kim Davis?

It goes without saying, as many conservative commentators have argued (see here, here, and here), that liberals who wax sanctimoniously about the “rule of law” in condemning Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis for illegally refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, are being laughably inconsistent. The left cheered San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for illegally granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004. They defend “sanctuary cities” that defy federal immigration law and local officials who refuse to comply with federal drug laws. In short, they are demonstrable hypocrites.

But, beyond agreement on this collateral point, social and religious conservatives are divided on Davis. Many, like Rod Dreher, have declined to climb on her bandwagon, while others, including David French and Maggie Gallagher, have rallied to her support, albeit with some apparent qualms. For example, Gallagher (a friend for whom I have great respect) has acknowledged that, for better or worse, in the wake of Obergefell same-sex couples cannot be denied licenses, but has argued that an accommodation should somehow be made for Davis – analogizing her situation to that of a prison doctor with religious objections to capital punishment who is required to perform a lethal injection.

I would agree, and would argue that such an accommodation would probably be required by both Kentucky’s version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act (which require “reasonable accommodation” of an employee’s religious practices if it does not cause the employer undue hardship). If Davis were an employee in a large County Clerk’s office – so that if a gay couple walked in while she was on marriage license duty - she could easily swap tasks with another employee for a few minutes. In that case the analogy to the government doctor who objects to doing lethal injections would be apt. But she is the Clerk in a small county who is not only refusing to comply with the law but directing her subordinates not to as well. So the better analogy is to a State Corrections Commissioner with religious objections to the death penalty who refuses to allow anyone in his department to carry out executions legally ordered by a court. Or a County Clerk from a liberal Christian denomination who refuses to issue any gun permits based on the sincerely held religious belief that the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision affirming it in District of Columbia v. Heller are superseded by the Biblical injunction that “thou shalt not kill.” Or a Unitarian IRS Commissioner who yanks the tax exemption from the National Organization for Marriage (the pro-traditional marriage group that Gallagher co-founded and headed) based on a religious conviction that it “fosters hate.”

The accommodation Davis is seeking is not a simple job swap but the convening of a special session of the state legislature to require revision of the license certificates used in every county to remove the County Clerk’s name -- with associated costs not only for the extraordinary session but for reprinting of forms, etc. No court would or should ever consider such a requested accommodation to be “reasonable.” (To get into the weeds, Eugene Volokh has suggested that if Davis brought a new lawsuit in state court a Kentucky judge could order this relief under the state RFRA without the convening of a special legislative session. But the statewide revision of forms would still be required, and in any event Volokh acknowledges that the judge in Davis’s current federal suit has no power to do this.)

While Davis’s case thus differs markedly from that of a lower level government employee, it contrasts even more starkly with the cases of the private photographers, bakers, florists, etc. who are being forced to provide personal creative services in violation of their consciences for and often at same-sex weddings. I have written that these cases “are perhaps the most frightening assault on First Amendment rights since the end of Jim Crow.” The idea of the state telling photographers what they have to take pictures of is truly chilling. And forcing these creative professionals to choose between their freedom against forced expression and their livelihood, in which they have a constitutionally protected property interest is, I believe, manifestly unconstitutional. By contrast, high-level officials like Davis have no entitlement to their offices, and the forced expression involved in the ministerial act of issuing a license is minimal.

This gets to my real problem with Davis and with those social and religious conservatives who are supporting her. As Dreher has suggested, they are hurting the cause terribly. The baker/florist/photographer cases are where the battle lines are drawn now, and the public, I think, implicitly understands the difference between these cases and Davis’s. That’s why the left and the media are all too happy to try to conflate the two. To the extent we join them in doing this, we will only contribute to turning public opinion against anyone with moral or religious objections to same-sex marriage.



Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/09/is_there_no_way_to_accommodate_kim_davis_conscience.html#ixzz3lGPEgizT 
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Are Christians Being Distracted?

There seem to be a lot of issues Christians find themselves involved in these days, whether it be abortion, freedom of religion, the upcoming 2016 Presidential election, as well as the homosexual/LGBT/same-sex marriage issue.

We are blogging, Facebooking, tweeting, Instagramming, Snapchatting, kiking,
and chatting about these issues and the general decline of American and world morality and civilization. Just like secular society, our faces are firmly planted in our phones, laptops and tablets commenting, reposting, and arguing about these critical issues, as well as telling everyone what we did on the weekend, what award our child just received and what our current favorite cupcake recipe is.

Let's be honest, this takes A LOT of our time as does doing the mundane tasks of life like cooking dinner, cleaning the house and running the kids here there and everywhere. The "busy-ness" of life, seems to be at all-time high for many of us.

Let me ask you, in all of this, how much time do we spend responding to Jesus' command from Matthew 28 to go into all the world making disciples?

Wait. Bob? I have to spread the Gospel too? I don't have time for that. I'm busy defending the unborn, standing up against the radical homosexual agenda, making sure radical Islam does not take hold in my community, as well as all the other everyday activities that have to be done! I leave spreading the Gospel and evangelizing to my pastor and elders.

But, Jesus said we were to be His witnesses throughout the whole world. He wasn't sending us out to cure the ills of society or make sure the right person gets elected (by the way, God says He puts people into authority).


What are the two greatest commandments according to Jesus? To paraphrase: Love God and Love people.

We shouldn't be refusing to bake cakes for lesbians or tweet photos of aborted baby parts or post disparaging pictures of Hillary Clinton on Facebook.

We are to be spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

I am not saying these other things are not important or that we should be ostriches with our heads in the sand, BUT, we need, as a church, the church of Jesus Christ, to refocus on the task at hand and that is to spread the Good News that Christ died for the world's sins and we all need that forgiveness and grace and mercy!

We do that by loving the lost. We were lost at one time and we should be so ecstatic about be saved from eternal damnation that we should want to tell whoever we can about the saving power of knowing and believing in our risen Lord, Jesus Christ!

Let's refocus. Pray. Things will change. Abortion can be stopped. Radical Islam can be defeated. The homosexual issues we face can and would go away only when the Gospel is spread and people come to saving knowledge and belief in Jesus Christ.

What do you think? I'd love to hear from you.

Marriage - A Conversation

WOW! Such consternation last week with the Supreme Court weighing in on marriage. They got it wrong, but, that is not surprising.

We Christians do not hate homosexuals. Well, real Christians who follow the teaching of Jesus Christ don't hate anyone. We believe that the Bible, written by men to whom God gave the words is the final authority on how to live, not some ancient text that needs to be updated.

In that Book, God says homosexuality is a sin. Not the unpardonable sin. Not the worst sin. A sin that can be wiped away when a person gives their life to Christ and is baptized into the Christian life. We believe this. If anyone has a problem with it, take that up with God.

We also believe what the Bible says when it tells us we are to love people. Love thy neighbor is in the Bible. It's as much the word of God as whatever sin we are talking about. As authentic Christians, then, we are to love those who know Christ and who do not know Christ. And we do. We aren't perfect, but thank God for His great mercy and grace!

Where in the World did Marriage Come From Anyway?

Well, it didn't come from the world. Marriage was established by God. That's not a stretch. It happened with the very first humans, Adam and Eve.

How can I say this? I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. In Genesis it is recorded that God created Adam and then Eve. Genesis 2:24 tells us about marriage and how it should be according to God.

Government did not set up marriage, so it has no right to redefine it.

Also, let's look at the human race and its nature. Can anyone, with a straight face, actually suggest that any human thought having one spouse of the opposite sex for their lifetime was the best idea for marriage? No. I think if we were honest, humans would choose to have multiple simultaneous "partners" of various sexes and be free to change those partners at will whenever they cared to. Marriage was definitely God's idea.

Two Reactions

To my Christian brothers and sisters who scolded those of us who expressed a negative reaction, I have to ask why? Aren't we entitled to say how disappointed we are that America has taken yet another step away from God? This was nothing to celebrate or feel good about. As long as the reaction was not hateful, then I don't see the problem.

To those on the side of same-sex marriage who would squash the Christian's reaction to this ruling, I say, if you have the freedom to support same-sex marriage and speak out about it, we have the right to be against it and speak up about it. This is still America and we all enjoy the rights of the First Amendment. Certainly you are familiar with the concept of "rights" as you so often cite your right for this or that (whether true or not).

Why Marriage at All?

By most objective studies, marriage between one man and one woman is the best situation for children. And, God established marriage, not only as a way to help man (and thus woman) not be lonely, but to populate the earth. The earth could never be populated with two people of the same sex. Just cannot happen. That is why God set it up the way He did.

Happiness is a "Right"?

The right to be happy is not a right at all. No one has the intrinsic, God-given right to be happy. If that were the case, we would have the right to do anything that made us happy and we know that's not the case. What if killing people made you happy, as it does for some? What if, as for some, setting buildings on fire made you happy? What if robbing the elderly made you happy? Far-fetched ideas? No, not at all when you think happiness is a "right".

What Now?

In the end, we all can rest assured God's got this. He is in control of everything, even those things (like this country's morals) that seem out of control. He's also got our back. 

Now, it might seem boring, but we Christians need to just keep praying and leaving this all in God's very capable hands. We need to ask for forgiveness. We must repent of our sins. We must also heed the call of 2 Chronicles 7:14 that God gave the Israelites.

Do not stop speaking out, but do so in love and with respect. Gently bringing the Truth to those who need to hear it.

To those who do not agree with God's take on marriage and homosexuality, I would ask you to extend the same "tolerance" to our position that you so fervently demand of us.

ROMANS 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love for us in this; while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Questions? Comments? Leave them here, but be respectful.

Luke - The Good Doctor

The Gospel of Luke, chapter 1 (New Living Translation)

Verses 1 through 4

1 Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us.2 They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. 3 Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus, 4 so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught.

Though not named in the writings of this book, it is agreed throughout Christian scholarship that the writer is Luke, the physician, who was a companion of the Apostle Paul.

Reading the introduction of this book, we can see Luke is writing to someone named Theophilus, so this might more succinctly be characterized as an epistle or letter, such as those from Paul that make up the bulk of the New Testament.

Apparently, Theophilus had some questions about what he was taught about Jesus, what he's read from people other than the disciples, so we can assume Theophilus is a believer. Luke is writing to encourage and assure him that he's been taught the truth. 

After the writings of those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus' ministry, life, death and resurrection were circulated, others have used those accounts to write their own version or pass on what they've read or heard. 

Luke starts out by assuring Theophilus that he's carefully investigated all the accounts from the very beginning and is now endeavoring to write his own careful account of the events that occurred, the teaching that was brought and the miracles that were performed. And being a doctor, we can believe that Luke's investigation was exhaustive and well thought out. It is by this careful account that Luke hopes to prove to Theophilus that what he's heard and read is the truth about Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

What's Really Behind the Attacks on Religious Freedoms?

What's Really Behind the Attacks on Religious Freedoms?