Locusts & Wild Honey

Jonah now records the great instantaneous work of God in Nineveh.  One sentence is recorded and only spirit filled followers of Christ can believe it. There is no need to add your reasoning to it. It is deniable on purpose.  Believe and receive Christ.  Speak the name, Jesus.

Jonah's hatred for Assyrians forces him to run away from God's presence.  But when God causes him to be swallowed up by a big fish the thing he attempts to do is granted to him and he cries out to be allowed to come home. We all hide from God mostly with social media but then we screem at Him because He is not there for us.  I say to you, Repent.

We start a prophetic message tailor made for the worldwide defeated, and slumbering church.  You are running in the wrong direction and you are in terminal sleep.  Wake up before you get swallowed alive.

Thank you Jesus for a week to reflect on your words of an old man to the next tender warriors of the Kingdom.  Grant us ears to hear and hearts to obey your call.

Amazing as it is, Paul knows he is about to die.  Yet this time there is no anxiety.  It seems we are anxious because we don't really know what is coming next.  What goes through his mind as he sees his own death is the names and words of the people he loves. Hear the heart of God in his gratitude to God for their faithfulness.

In a day when most are living in fear of a disastrous future, Paul tells Timothy to expect that God will win.  I say to you this is more true today than then.  Look unto Jesus and smile, we are by divine nature overcomers.

Paul highlights Three areas of our life in ministry that takes us out of His presence and demands our repentance to return to Him.  Jesus I can't live without you.  Make my time away from you worde and worse so I  acknowledge my need for you as my savior.

Paul shifts his tone at the obvious end of his life.  He has finished his fathering instructions and leaves a legacy of gratitude.  I want to learn right now how to hear God's gratitude for every individual He complements and deliver each word to its intended loved one. God, give me the words to bless someone today.

Paul concludes his teaching on godly behavior by asking the true followers of Christ to be submissive to the government.  Submission is an attitude that reflects God's glory.  We may at times have to disobey them but we only do it in deference to our God not our beliefs.  We do not act out of the principle but rather the humble obedience to our God.    It is the way tht is good for everyone.

We are at war with spiritual darkness.  I believe Satan has captured the hearts of leaders of Churchianity and turned them against the true Ecclesia. These are the ones who hear and fear the living God.  We call Him Jesus.  We know His voice and we will follow no other. Listen and read how we relate and recognize one another.

As we begin Titus, ask God to judge you worthy of the offer of salvation from the Evil Churchianity of our national church.  We need Jesus to come and judge the quick and the dead in the American pews.  Start the divide as you study Paul's call for repentance in this first chapter of Titus.

Paul stirs it up a  bit when he addresses two sacred cows in American Churchianity.  Slavery and wealth has done so much damage in the church since the time of Paul.  Yet he goes counterculture on both.  Don't resist slavery and avoid riches. Listen and read why.

Paul finds it necessary to give examples of how to discern the culture and protocols of regular church life. When I first read it I thought "well duh".  But pastor Jarrod reminded me that it was and now is a different world and these things are no longer self-evident.  Read what the spirit tells  Paul to tell Timothy what the true church looks like.

Pual reminds Timothy that the current state of affairs was prophesied before it happened.  Paul is not making some escatalogial decree about the world's end; he is putting Timothy's current crisis in context.  The summary is a trustworthy statement, "we serve a living God".  Everybody everywhere is better off if we act as if this is true.  I renounce the self life and the practical atheism it teaches.  I live as if Jesus is with me right here right now.  Say Amen.

In the third chapter of 1 Timothy Paul writes out a full description of what Luke called filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 6.  As the time comes to transfer the body of Christ to a new generation, we find it necessary to use new terminology with needed explanations because our original terms have been hijacked by fake believers.  Much like the rainbow symbolizing homosexuality instead of God's unfailing covenant to spare man from another worldwide flood.  Listen to the heart of Jesus as we study what it means for the next generation of leaders.

Paul now gives specific instructions to the next generation in order to stop the apostasy of the early church.  It is now a generation away from the first hand experience of Christ and Christianity is being threatened by becoming a religion.  We are at or passed this threat today.  It is never too late to turn back to Christ as a church culture.  Let's read and listen to instructions on how.

Paul writes to his son in the faith to stop the apostasy he has inherited from the previous generation.  This is more true today than ever before.  The only reason darkness reigns in the church is because you have not turned the light on.  Show the love of Christ to those that need it and admit you need a Savior. 

It's time we change the way we do Bible study as well as discipleship.  We need to copy Christ's curriculum  as recorded in Matthew and Mark, including His interpretive principles.  Jesus come and judge your church so that the world might be saved.

Jesus told me last week to stop people from talking at each other about Jesus Christ.  Then I read this chapter and the majority is in the black letters.  In other words about what happened to Christ before and during his death.  But God highlighted two short bursts of Word.  Short but life changing words that can save a man's mortal soul.  Let take a look

Mark hurries to the last days of tremendous treachery done to Jesus.  Jesus is in His last week alive.  Only the unnamed  woman with her perfume honors him in the way bGod intended.  All else fails Him.  Lord use me anyway you want but deliver me from evil when I can't help myself.

Mark gives a whole chapter of Jesus quotes to prepare us for His final revelation.  He is coming, I don't know when.  But in the meantime I know He will not abandon me, nor leave me defeated.  Look forward in hope not fear or despair.  He is the King of kings and wants the world to know this.  He wants to demonstrate it through us. Yes Lord!

Mark portrays Jesus as the antagonist as he seduces the Religious police to kill him.   This is the will of the Father.  Someone forgot to give God the politically correct policy memo.  The difference between light and darkness is not the manipulation or intentional leading people, both do it.  Light only stimulates love and good works.  What Jesus is doing is good.  Follow His lead.

What a different look for Jesus in chapter 11.  Jesus gets so hungry He curses a fig tree out of season.  He's definitely making a point.  Stop looking around to see what possibly can be done in your current situation.  Look up, repent of your bitterness and believe Me.  With Me we can do anything.

In this chapter Jesus confronts self reliance in every aspect of society.  From the self righteous rich guy to the self aggrandized disciple, Jesus demonstrates through word and deed that the lowly in this world are the most valued in God's kingdom.  He even uss a blind man to make His point, you need me and we need my Father in heaven.

Mark announces that some in the crowd will not die until they see the Son of Man in all His glory.  And then it happens on the mount of transfiguration.  Imagine that the final form of the Kingdom of God comes to earth for just a moment, then it is gone.  Mark then demonstrates in words and actions what the current kingdom is really like.  Come and see.

Mark shifts his focus with the hinge miracle of the healing of the blind man.  The man was healed in two phases and so the Chst is revealed in two phases as well.  After Jesus proves that his own disciples just don't get it he explains clearly his suffering and death, and resurrection to come.  He ends with the invitation to let go and lives with less so he can be more in this life.

Mark records the lame attack of the small minded petty religious police.  They dominate our religious culture today.  Both secular and sacred legalists demand us to comply with their rules.  Jesus says No !  you are hypocrites and we won't surrender our need to obey God and bow to your demands or criticisms.  Say hello to the kingdom of our God.

Mark purposely skips over wonder information to effectively deliver the point.  Unbelief is unbelievably powerful.  Jesus, Himself is said to be amazed at it.  But the good news is Jesus wins.  The word gets out.  Never tell his story in the midst of the battle.  It ain't over til the fat lady sings.

Jesus demonstrates to us what it looks like when He is offering the gospel to men.  We keep ramping up the volume in order to get people to walk some aisle and say some words, but Jesus wants us to repent and dispense common miraculous grace.  If we are not seeing these  signs following our preaching then we are following the wrong Jesus.

Mark continues on the messages that Jesus used to invite people to the Kingdom of God.  He disrupts our imagined self deification with a parable that says he will speak to us knowing we will not understand.  He proclaims boldly that he does not want some to come to repentance.  Imagine that, he knows that evil people will use his words against him and fulfill the will of the Father in heaven.  Now he is saying "Follow me."

Mark transitions from His defense of Jesus' authority or right to claim that He is God, to the privilege we have to be a part of His family.  We are identified as the ones who hear Him speaking in our time and world and want to do what He says. The demons heard Him and the Father in Him, but they can not do what He wants .  They can even quote Father God but it is still a lie.  Many quote Jesus fewer know Him. Beware!

Jesus asked me to share the message of Mark by way of the red letters.   When read in sequence Jesus is saying I am the promised Son of Man . He is the only who could stand in front of the Ancient of Days, Daniel 9, and live to share to us His glory.  Then Jesus proves it with signs and wonders, while offending the self righteous religious ones around Him.

Zechariah is connecting the people of God to what their ancestors did in sin.  Seventy years of punishment must be acknowledged before the promise of restoration can be accomplished.  God has told the prophets of today’s church that His favor will fall on the next generation.  They do not instill confidence in the previous generations.  We say what is the world coming to. But God says repent so I can do what I promised.

Haggai the prophet deals with the Compromised behavior in chapter one.  He now deals with re-establishing uncompromised leaders who proclaim and live according to the true gospel.  This is the gospel of Jesus not the false gospel about Jesus.  Jesus said the gospel is "I have come and I have brought my Kingdom with me.  Say yes to Him and share it.

Haggai the prophet deals with the Compromised behavior in chapter one.