Bible Prophecy and Inspiration

He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.
Augustine

Ah yes.  Jesus the Word of God helped create us all with the Father.

John 1:1-3 – ¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning.  ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Genesis 1:26 – ²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Whose blood is sufficient to cover your sins?  That’s right, God’s blood.

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Galatians 2:20 – ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

 A man cannot successfully serve Jesus if he is chasing after his own desires. 

Luke 9:62 – ⁶² Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Part of the fall is us chasing after our own selfish and evil desires.  Trying to be the God of our own lives.  Isn’t that the bill of goods that Satan was feeding to Eve.  You can be like God?  That didn’t bode well for her, Adam, or all of us decedents.

We need to die to our own selfish lives and serve the One who created and already died for us.

If the devil were wise enough and would stand by in silence and let the Gospel be preached, he would suffer less harm. For when there is no battle for the Gospel it rusts and it finds no cause and no occasion to show its vigor and power. Therefore, nothing better can befall the Gospel than that the world should fight it with force and cunning.
Martin Luther

It’s the boiling frog effect. 

You see it happen in politics a lot.  People fall asleep and don’t care and then the other side starts doing their thing.  Next election or two they get all riled up and out to vote they go.

When the Gospel got strong in the fifties people were happy and blessed.  World War II was over and they were coming out of the depression.  Things were getting good.  Then complacency stepped in as soon as the sixties started.  The devil knew that the foothold of wealth was starting and if done slow enough, people would allow their faith to slip.  Pretty soon they don’t want to rock the boat on the no God in school issue.  After that abortion comes along and gets sold in the court, because it’s better to be killed in the womb rather than possibly end up in an orphanage.

We’re getting to the point now in this country that anyone who even recognizes any God should be commended. 

That’s not what the Word of God says, and true faith isn’t determined by a vote of democracy.  God created us, the universe, everything.  That includes right and wrong.  He decides that, not popular vote.

If people seek the truth, they will find the Truth.

John 14:6 –   ⁶ Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.
A W Tozer

How important is the Word of God?  Three times when the devil tempted Jesus, He said, “It is written.” 

Also to pick and choose what one wants in the bible is worth nothing.  It’s like picking a couple of things in your job description and not doing the others.  The Word of God is our manual to get back to being the type of person that we are supposed to be before the fall happened.

It’s easy to pick a couple of things that come naturally to us.  Even people who don’t know the Lord can do that.

Use the Word of God as a living manuscript that helps guide you towards a closer relationship with the Lord.

Education is useless without the Bible.
Noah Webster

The writer of Webster’s Dictionary was never at a loss for words.

His quote reminds me of this verse.

Mark 8:36 – ³⁶ What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

Our country is full of people seeking education and not God.  The result today is a bankrupt America.  America is Bankrupt in just about every way.  Our nation’s problem is not economic, it’s spiritual.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
Abraham Lincoln

Interesting that even a hundred and fifty years ago one our greatest presidents was saying this about our country.  We’re definitely even beyond that now.  The true biblical form of Christianity is so far gone in this country that it is under fire every day.

It’s not the first time it has happened.  God’s hand blesses a nation and the people slowly turn away.  They become spoiled in their success thinking nothing bad can happen to them.

Any nation that leaves God behind and becomes proud, gets left behind. 

We’re coming up to the Lord’s return for the rapture.  Be ready!  Focus on the Lord and allow Him to work through your life.

Galatians 2:20 – ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Selfishness has never been admired.
C. S. Lewis

I will say the closest selfishness has been admired is in this generation.  Books on becoming rich, controlling one’s own destiny, and doing what it takes to make it were never more popular in the world as they were in the Eighties and Nineties.

However, the statement is completely true.  All you have to do is hang around a loving, caring, nurturing person who cares about you, versus someone who is only concerned about themselves to bring you back to reality. 

It took me awhile to really appreciate the individual that gives up his earthly life to serve God and love others, versus living in comfort.  Now it is the only way I view it.  Heroes are not people who make tons doing exactly what they seek to do for themselves.  We learned that with Christ on the cross. 

No marriage would fail if both people made a choice to give one hundred percent back to their spouse.  Instead people focus on what’s best for them or their own selfish needs or desires.

God wants us to be anything but selfish, especially in our relationship with Him.  Give Him lots of time in your day and watch your Spirit and understanding grow.