Shake the Dust Off

“And as for those who do not welcome you,
when you leave that town,
shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.”
~Luke 9:5

This is probably the hardest of things for us to do…to rid ourselves of what has no purpose, no direction, no positivity, no vested return. We can often think of material things that we really don’t need, but want, and how many of us (me,me,me) have a storage area or three closets filled with non-closet stuff? I also have an attic and basement that I have started clearing. Good things going to the AmVets resale center, one of my favorite donation places and a great place to pick up used odds and ends. The stack of clothes that don’t fit any longer (too large or never getting that slim again) or that don’t fit in to our lives any longer (that green/tan leisure suit)…but…what I am really intending for us (me) to shed…

There are people that bring negativity with every thought, whisper and action. My problem? I have a constant thing I’ve been told is called “Broken wing syndrome”. I’m not sure if that is a real technical term but so many of us have it and it hurts us in our time and place. It stops us from growing and it stops them from growing, as well. When someone speaks of their bad luck life, I lend the ear, but I have also learned to remove myself from the well-intentioned advice and the follow-up feeling badly for them and continuing to prompt them to a better place, even if after months and years that isn’t going to happen. The hardest part when removing yourself is the turn to nasty that happens all too often, making us feel as though we have done something terribly wrong to them. It leaves a stain we feel guilty about, returning again and again. This is not to say that all people who have a hard life turn on us. Some of the finest people I know have been hurt badly time and again but they keep on striving and humping the load and they, too, shed their inhibiting load but they have a sweetness that has come from their life that they share which allows us to grow without going through what they had.

“Sing to the LORD a new song
of praise in the assembly of the faithful”
Psalms 149:1B

Sing to the Lord a new song. It is okay to change and to find your new place among others, others with which you have not been associated before while remaining in the garden of the good people we have come to know and to love.

I had this beautiful corner garden in my yard, it was full of all kinds of Asiatic lilies. Each year this little garden seemed to transcend to a greater beauty than I had remembered from the year before. It stopped people passing by to take a look and to comment during their short lived bloom. In the last house I had several Rose of Sharon which lined the fence, but here I had none. I wanted one so I planted it right in the corner of that little wedge with my lilies and it took and it grew and within a few short years it started to bloom and became its own beauty with its own love and comments from people passing by. I also noticed, though, that my beautiful Lily patch had sprouted less and had far shorter stems and they no longer bloomed. I had thought perhaps the soil was overused and it no longer had the correct nutrients for the lilies to grow. It appears now that what I had done (with love) is I had placed something which had grown rapidly because of the warmth of sun in that spot but it had taken all of the sun, shading the entire rest of the garden inhibiting my Lilies to such an extent that they could no longer produce their beautiful blooms. The plants that I had replaced the lilies with under that tree thrive in the shade. People are much the same; some need light, some need the limelight, some need shade. Plant yourself with others, like-minded, unless they are wrongly planted, whether it be something hides their sunshine and warmth or the soil is not fertile. Find your sunshine or your shade. Shake off the dust from that other garden and grow in the fertile soil.

“For the LORD takes delight in his people,
and honors the poor with victory”
Psalms 149:4

I wish you peace!
God Bless you!
~b
Shine Today™

Reflections of Old and New

There is a way to read the Bible,in which everything of the New Testament are prescribed from the Old Testament. When Jesus came to the earth He was sent to relieve man and not to chastise nor find contempt for us. Some things have lasted from the Old Testament that go on today, even in the medical field. We need to read and reread some things to gain the satisfaction of knowing these things and, quite often, another persons deeper perspective like a matured preacher (not me), can bring to us what are new meanings or fuller meaning of the texts from so long ago.

From Numbers 21:4b-9:
With their patience worn out by the journey,
the people complained against God and Moses,
“Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,
where there is no food or water?
We are disgusted with this wretched food!”

In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,
which bit the people so that many of them died.
Then the people came to Moses and said,
“We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.
Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us.”
So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,
“Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,
and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live.”
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,
and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
The Lord had taken against the complaining and caused the people to suffer. The suffering made those bitten die and those who lived were turned back to God and to Moses and understood that they had truly been relieved of a horrible life in Egypt even though they had not garnered great tidings yet. A people stubborn for their wants and not sated by having their needs met. Sounds a lot like today, sadly. So,Moses is told to “Make a saraph and mount it on a pole“ which he did and then “who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived”.

God had opened a door for those who repented and returned to Him. Those in the medical profession still wear that same saraph on a pole,although the caduceus is more likened to Hermes staff with two serpents wrapped around a staff, I find it interesting that Moses staff brought healing where Hermes staff was to bring a sign of peace.

In a move back to the New Testament, Jesus Himself and in His own words compares the healing of people from Moses staff to what will happen to Him, and did happen. Jesus was also raised on a pole and brought healing to those who “look” to Him, bringing them “eternal life” not just an healing on the earths face.
From John 3:13-15:
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
“No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

While in our Bible study groups, we should try to find how Jesus life and words are a reflection of how things were forecasted to happen from the Old Testament, yet make no mistake, we are no longer tied to Mosaic law, the laws of Moses to the Jewish people but to the laws and words of the Christ Jesus. Jesus greatly simplified the law when He had given us an additional commandment beyond the first”Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^{[a] 38} This is the first and greatest commandment.~Matthew 22:37,38

³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^{[b] 40} All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”~Matthew 22:39,40

“ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

I also find it interesting that the word “hang” is placed within this context.

To love your neighbor as yourself, to me, relieves all of the writings,but not the actions, of the continued nine other commandments,as it would not be possible to go against any of the nine others if following Jesus command.
Read the Bible. Contemplate its meanings and dig in to respected others who have made it their lifes work to digest the Word of God and to simplify it for us so that we may tune our lives,as an instrument,to act and reflect the words with our lives. In this,we bring an example to follow instead of preaching where we may be found guilty of not practicing but only preaching.

May the good Lord Bless you!

I wish you peace!

~b

Shine Today™

The Making of Apostles 2000 Years and Going

Brothers and sisters:
As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him,
rooted in him and built upon him
and established in the faith as you were taught,
abounding in thanksgiving.
See to it that no one captivate you with an empty, seductive philosophy
according to the tradition of men,
according to the elemental powers of the world
and not according to Christ.

For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily,
and you share in this fullness in him,
who is the head of every principality and power.
In him you were also circumcised
with a circumcision not administered by hand,
by stripping off the carnal body, with the circumcision of Christ.
You were buried with him in baptism,
in which you were also raised with him
through faith in the power of God,
who raised him from the dead.
And even when you were dead in transgressions
and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
he brought you to life along with him,
having forgiven us all our transgressions;
obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims,
which was opposed to us,
he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross;
despoiling the principalities and the powers,
he made a public spectacle of them,
leading them away in triumph by it.
~Colossians 2:6-15

This is a letter from Saint Paul to the Colossians. It describes everything that is for a Christian and it comes from the pen of a man who had chased the early Christians from their homes, very often made them endure horrific pain and death at his hands and the hands of those he had recruited. Paul had chosen himself as the lead in these trials and had no mercy upon anyone bearing Christ Jesus as their Savior. He himself approached the authorities that were present and had asked for a free hand in reigning in what he had seen as apostacy to the Jewish Hebrew faith. He knew if he hadn’t taken charge that it would destroy everything he believed in…until Jesus stopped him in his treacherous route of Christians, while he was chasing down more people in the next town where he was headed. Jesus had struck Paul down and blinded him. Paul had asked aloud who it was that held such power to stop him in his tracks and to blind him without so much as one physical touch.
From the book of Acts…(Acts9:4,5)
He dropped to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”
He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The voice said, “I’m Jesus, whom you are persecuting”.
Saul understood that it was a higher power that had afflicted him or he could not, would not have afforded this address, “Who are you, Lord”.
Jesus had hand picked His Disciples and made them Apostles of His church, His teachings and love. Not one of them came to Him asking to be integral with His crew. From John 15:16,
“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name He may give you”.

Interesting enough,Jesus had chosen, hand-picked His crew to bring to the Earth His glory to include the one whom would choose against himself and Jesus. The Apostles sat and chose another who had followed since the beginning, one who would take the place at table with the eleven, making them twelve again, although Jesus Himself chose another man to come in to the fold. Saul, who Jesus would rename as He did Peter, to Paul. Paul would live out the rest of his life proclaiming the word of Jesus. Imagine being in Peters shoes…errrrr sandals…just for a minute here. He was surely a go-getter and could talk people in to becoming what he spoke for. He had no problem, as Saul, getting people to band together to pull people from their homes and to kill them, also having the attention of the scribes and all of those considered the upper echelon…and then for the rest of his life, pursuing souls for Jesus Christ, being beaten, whipped and jailed several times for just that. Jesus literally left the flock He had assembled and found the one “lost” and carried him to the fold of His twelve.

“I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance”
Luke 15:7
I can’t even imagine the sound of the Angels as Saul took on the righteous journey of Paul for Jesus had chosen him and he, Paul, answered the call. He knew he would die for it and he knew there were going to be beatings and imprisonment and chasings across the continent and waters. That same person, while imprisoned wrote the letter at the beginning of this blog posting. Take one moment and reread that passage. Let it sink in and become what we are instead of just something our eyes have read. Let’s be a Paul.

Sweet Jesus, You have surely called our names to bring the Good News to our fellow women and men. We who can become distracted by a sliver, still have Your enduring love that is like no other. When people misuse the ability of “Free will” and we don’t often realize it isn’t for the choices of food, sex or the ways in which we live. It is only for the one question,”Do I choose You?”!! Pray for us, Saints and Angels on high. Most Holy Jesus, guide us.

God Bless you!
I wish you peace!
~b