Who Do You Listen To?

Good morning to all on this glorious fall morning. Georgia is going into one of the most beautiful seasons it has. The fall is one of the reasons people live in the south. The mornings are temperate, you can go outside and enjoy the air. The trees are turning their wonderful palette of colors and the air smells fresh. The afternoons are still hot but the mornings and evenings make up for it. God is a good God and I wanted to wake up praising Him today for all the wonderful blessings He continues to bestow on me and my family. He is teaching me day by day to trust His guidance, His timing and His leadership. He truly love me and you! Please pray for our country and our world that the love and grace of God be bestowed to calm the waters.

 

I am continuing my journey in Jeremiah, chapter 35 verses 1- 19, "This is the Word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord during the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: Go to the Rekabite family and invite them to come to one of the side rooms of the house of the Lord and give them wine to drink. So I went to get Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons—the whole family of the Rekabites. I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the room of the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah the man of God. It was next to the room of the officials, which was over that of Maaseiah son of Shallum the doorkeeper. Then I set bowls full of wine and some cups before the Rekabites and said to them, “Drink some wine. But they replied, “We do not drink wine, because our forefather Jehonadab son of Rekab gave us this command: ‘Neither you nor your descendants must ever drink wine. Also you must never build houses, sow seed or plant vineyards; you must never have any of these things, but must always live in tents. Then you will live a long time in the land where you are nomads.’ We have obeyed everything our forefather Jehonadab son of Rekab commanded us. Neither we nor our wives nor our sons and daughters have ever drunk wine or built houses to live in or had vineyards, fields or crops. We have lived in tents and have fully obeyed everything our forefather Jehonadab commanded us. But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded this land, we said, ‘Come, we must go to Jerusalem to escape the Babylonian and Aramean armies.’ So we have remained in Jerusalem.” Then the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying: This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go and tell the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘Will you not learn a lesson and obey My words?’ declares the Lord. Jehonadab son of Rekab ordered his descendants not to drink wine and this command has been kept. To this day they do not drink wine, because they obey their forefather’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not obeyed Me.  Again and again I sent all my servants the prophets to you. They said, “Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and reform your actions; do not follow other gods to serve them. Then you will live in the land I have given to you and your ancestors.” But you have not paid attention or listened to me. The descendants of Jehonadab son of Rekab have carried out the command their forefather gave them, but these people have not obeyed me. Therefore this is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Listen! I am going to bring on Judah and on everyone living in Jerusalem every disaster I pronounced against them. I spoke to them, but they did not listen; I called to them, but they did not answer. Then Jeremiah said to the family of the Rekabites, “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘You have obeyed the command of your forefather Jehonadab and have followed all his instructions and have done everything he ordered.’ Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Jehonadab son of Rekab will never fail to have a descendant to serve me." Amen and may the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of His Word.

 

This is a very POWERFUL passage. These descendants of  Jehonadab were told by their forefather never to drink wine or own property. They were to be nomads, living in tents so that 'they could live a long time where they were' -- live a long time doing what?  That is the key. The world follows "rules" passed down from generation to generation on the promise of what? Is the world happy? Is the  world a safe place to be? Does the world provide a safe haven to raise your children? What does the world provide? That has been the question since Adam sinned. Adam was in paradise. He had everything he needed and was able to walk with God every day. He was then deceived into thinking that there was something better when he had it all through his walk with God. We are still giving up a glorious life on the promise that if we take our own futures in our own hands, we will be better off. This is what Satan does--the great Deceiver will have you and the world believe that we can create our own heaven. Not so. As Christians you should know this and should be spreading the Good News of the Gospel. There are Christian friends of mine who feel like I am going through a mid-life crisis by blogging about my Spiritual Journey. I may be going through a mid-life revelation but not a cirsis other than a crisis of Conscience. My walk on this side of heaven is half over--I want to be obedient and use my life as God intended--to be a witness. Today I am more convinced than ever as Christians we are failing God because we don't want to offend our friends and family with "this religious"stuff. Well my family and friends will have to be offended. Just like the descendants of Jehonadab I am going to be obedient. Not to a forefather but to God Himself. He has commanded us to love Him with all of our Hearts, Mind and Soul and then to Love one another Just as God Himself loved us enough to sacrifice His Son Jesus for us. We are the WITNESS-- we are not to be silent--we are to let our Light so shine that other men and women will come to Christ. No rationalization--just obedience. What are you known for? As a great healer? A great scholar? A great wealth maker? A great preacher? A great moral person? A great Christian?????

 

Where are you today with your walk with God? Are you boldly proclaiming the Good News or are you rationalizing? Waine and I were in a Sunday School class not so long along. The preacher was talking about cults and teaching about the basic elements of cults. He happened to use Mormonism as his example of a cult -- something that looked like Christianity but on the base of it was religion of self. I asked who he was going to vote for in November. Someone who has professed his love of Christ or someone who professes his love of self. His answer was a sheepish --"you sometimes have to pick the lessor of 2 evils". I thinks this sums up the lesson of chapter 35 of Jeremiah. Satan will always make you believe that you have to pick the lessor of two evils when actually you need only obey God.

 

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.

 

Stephanie

A promise is a promise!

Good morning to all on this beautiful Sunday morning. Waine and I are safely back from Jamaica and are enjoying a relaxing weekend at home. We have news to celebrate. Little Kenzo Maciel joined our family on September 14. Mother Michele and father Marco are fine and the baby is great! He is a perfect combination of Marco and Michele. He joins Kofi, Kai and Hailie as the great grandchild of Emorrie and Hisako. He was well worth the wait. We are all very happy! Congratulations to my sister Velma. I am sure she is going to spend a lot of time spoiling Kenzo!! We couldn't be happier for her.

 

I am continuing my journey in Jeremiah 34 verses 1 - 22, "While Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms and peoples in the empire he ruled were fighting against Jerusalem and all its surrounding towns, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Go to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down. You will not escape from his grasp but will surely be captured and given into his hands. You will see the king of Babylon with your own eyes, and he will speak with you face to face. And you will go to Babylon. Yet hear the Lord’s promise to you, Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what the Lord says concerning you: You will not die by the sword;  you will die peacefully. As people made a funeral fire in honor of your predecessors, the kings who ruled before you, so they will make a fire in your honor and lament, “Alas, master!” I myself make this promise, declares the Lord. Then Jeremiah the prophet told all this to Zedekiah king of Judah, in Jerusalem, while the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and the other cities of Judah that were still holding out—Lachish and Azekah. These were the only fortified cities left in Judah. The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves. Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage. So all the officials and people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their male and female slaves and no longer hold them in bondage. They agreed, and set them free. But afterward they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again. Then the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I said, ‘Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you six years, you must let them go free. Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me. Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to your own people. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name.  But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again. Therefore this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the Lord—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth. Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf,  I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals. I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them, to the army of the king of Babylon, which has withdrawn from you. I am going to give the order, declares the Lord, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, take it and burn it down. And I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.” Amen and may God add a blessing to the reading and hearing of His Word.

 

God keeps His promises! In the entire book of Jeremiah is about WARNINGS. God continues to warns this disobedient tribe of Judah to turn from their idol worship and turn back to Him. In every walk of their life God admonishes them to turn away from their sin and turn back to Him. The Jews of Judah continue to promise and then break their promise to God. Such is the nature of sin and working in the flesh. There are folk that think that if they "strive" to live a good life; be moral and upright; not purposefully harming anyone; obeying the laws of the land--that this is good enough. What these moral people fail to understand is that we live not just in a physical world where morality is important, we live in a spiritual world where repentance and obedience to Gos'a Word is important. God is concerned about what you are going to do in eternity--will you spend eternity with Him or without Him which is why He sent His Son Jesus to ensure that we didn't have to rely on our good intentions. These Jews of Judah had good intentions and were weak. I am sure when they freed their indentured slaves all was well for a while until they had to scrub their own floors, cook their own meals and mind their own children. Instead of relying on the Grace of God to see them through they took matters back into their own hands to solve their own problems. Their disobedience sealed their fate. As Christians, we are living in the Grace and Mercy of God through Christ. God's Promise is fulfilled through Christ and unlike Zedekiah we are protected against the calamity that Satan creates because of the Promise of Christ. God's Promises are as real today as they were with Zedekiah. If we are going to live we must submit ourselves to God through Christ.  We are to free ourselves from the bondage of sin and accept the Promise that comes through confessing that Christ is Lord. This is the message of the Ages. This is the message we are commanded to spread, not when it is convenient but our profession of faith is what we are commanded to do at all times. This dying, confused, sin-sick world needs to hear the Good News. The only protection we have is our obedience to God. He is coming again--that is a Promise. When He comes for His Church will you be ready? Will the people you work with daily be ready? Will your family be ready? Who do you know that will be left behind? The choice, just like with Zedekiah, is yours to either spread the Good News or not. Why not keep your Promise to God.

 

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace. Amen.

 

Stephanie

 



God Keeps His Promises!

Good morning to all on this glorious Sunday morning. Waine and I are in Jamaica for a little R&R and it has been very restful. I think I am sleeping 12 hours a day and I surely needed this rest. We miss our practice though and we are both anxious to get back to it. ZOe Peds is like our child; Waine and I both nurture it and see that its taken care of. God continues to bless us through it and it has become a blessing to the community. I thank God for His ZOE and fir ZOe each day.

 

I am continuing my journey in Jeremiah chapter 33 verses 1-26 " While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the Word of the Lord came to him a second time:This is what the Lord says, He who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it—the Lord is His name: Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. ⁴ For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the houses in this city and the royal palaces of Judah that have been torn down to be used against the siege ramps and the sword in the fight with the Babylonians: ‘They will be filled with the dead bodies of the people I will slay in my anger and wrath. I will hide my face from this city because of all its wickedness. Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before. I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me. Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it; and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it. This is what the Lord says: ‘You say about this place, “It is a desolate waste, without people or animals.” Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither people nor animals, there will be heard once more the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord, saying, "Give thanks to the Lord Almighty, for the Lord is good; His love endures forever.” For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,’ says the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In this place, desolate and without people or animals—in all its towns there will again be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks.  In the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah, flocks will again pass under the hand of the one who counts them,’ says the Lord. The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah. In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Savior. For this is what the Lord says: ‘David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of Israel, nor will the Levitical priests ever fail to have a man to stand before me continually to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings and to present sacrifices. The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: This is what the Lord says: ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time, then my covenant with David my servant—and my covenant with the Levites who are priests ministering before me—can be broken and David will no longer have a descendant to reign on his throne. I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars in the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore. The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: “Have you not noticed that these people are saying, ‘The Lord has rejected the two kingdoms He chose’? So they despise my people and no longer regard them as a nation. This is what the Lord says: ‘If I have not made my covenant with day and night and established the laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them." Amen and may the Lord add a blessing to the reading and hearing of His Word.

 

God keeps His PROMISES!!! That is the take home message for me. In fact the Lord is telling Jeremiah, when you can separate the  functions of the Sun and the Moon then you can say that the Lord does not keep His promises. What a wonderful LOVE God has for His people. Even the disobedient Jews would be restored, not because they deserved it, but and only but, because God made a promise and would keep it. The Jews were suffering the consequences of their disobedience but would be restored because of the promise God made to Abraham. In fact in these verses God is foretelling the coming of Christ who would fulfill the Promise of restoration once and for all!

 

As Christians we are RESTORED into an everlasting relationship with God both here on earth and in Heaven. We have been restored into that loving relationship that Adam had before the fall. We can walk in God's Garden with God every  moment of every day because we are RESTORED. When you allow worry and consternation to rule your life, you are allowing Satan to blind you to your restoration. There is no worry and strife with God, only peace in the Garden of His love, compassion and mercy. Hallelujah. He is such a loving God! His overwhelming QUALITY is LOVE--never forget that. If you have worries in your life then go back to the BASICS of God's love for you so that you can be restored. Give thanks because God's love is forever. Nothing bad can happen to you; no misfortune can over take you even if when you bring calamity on to yourself; you are a child of God. Start acting like one and claim your inheritance and be LOVE just as God is LOVE. Get rid of what ever is separating you from the love of God. If you need to forgive somebody do so today. If you need to ask for forgiveness do so today. If you have other gods on the throne of your life get rid of them today. Get rid of anything that is separating you from basking in the sunshine of God's love!

 

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.

Stephanie