“What the World Needs Now Is Love” is a 1965 classic composed by Burt Bacharach with lyrics by Hal David.

The is  a gentle prayer reflecting that while the earth has an abundance of physical resources like mountains and rivers, universal love is in short supply for everyone. For as long as I can remember, the church has always taught one biblical truth in a consistent fashion…God does not base this unconditional love on human goodness or merit, it is good that we remember His love for humanity, unconditional love was granted while we were still in active rebellion against God. A couple of the key versus we might do well to remember would be from Romans 5:8 “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”… and also one verse that is universally remembered John 3:16. “for God, so love the world that he gave his only son…”  We are reminded in Romans 8:38–39, it is made clear that there’s nothing that will be able to separate us from the love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Repentance, the Greek word for repentance means a change of mind, heart, and direction so it’s turning away from the sins that are turning us away from God. It is not considered as a way to earn God’s initial love, but the required procedure to receive his pardon and salvation. It is not at all a stretch to go from love to kindness. Kindness is a result of love, a loving patience, and it’s used to draw people to repent rather than to just give them a license to continue in a sin without consequence. It is written that God’s kindness is intended to lead us to repentance. This is the part that is so hard for many of us to understand and for many of our churches today to put into practice. It is pretty much universally recognized in the theological world. God’s love is freely given it is not earned, yet we need to emphasize that receiving the full benefit of his covenant mercy involves acknowledging our own sins and turning to him for forgiveness.

I would be one of the first to admit that at times I become confused about this business of forgiveness and unconditional   state of being. We have to allow ourselves to be reminded of the fact that Christ did die for us even while we were sinners. I think I’ll go with the thought, that this unconditional love is exactly that, it’s unconditional. It’s a gift you can’t earn. So what is it really?  I’ve read recently one author referred to it as a divine rescue. If I try to put it in a layman’s point of view it works a little better for me, takes on a little better response. We are reminded it is by grace that we have been saved, and that’s scripture… so this is my view. God looks down upon his people and he loves us and he’s not willing to lose any of us at all. His unconditional love is exactly that and in that response he gives us this divine rescue. I call it repentance. I do a lot of reading in research for these blogs. It really has nothing to do with my brilliance as much as it does with the hard work and effort and love of others for The Word. Got Questions sums it up rather well in my opinion. The question is asked. Does God love everyone? Well, the answer is yes his love is unconditional. Does God love Christians in a different way than he loves non-Christians.? Answer here as given by these folks, is yes. So why is that? It’s because believers have exercised faith in God’s Son, that is why they’re saved. This unconditional love that God has for everyone is brought about by our faith in him and his son in receiving Jesus Christ as our savior. In that sense, it becomes a conditional covenant and it is granted to those who receive Jesus as their savior.

As we close today’s blog I’ll leave you with this thought that a Pastor once had always closed or even sometimes open the service with these very significant words…God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it. God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Life is Good

jk

The prophet Isaiah shares his Woes, and his judgments on Judah for their wicked behavior. There is within Judah bad fruit which challenges it’s righteousness. The people are finding themselves foolishly calling Evil good as is written in our opening verse of Isaiah 5:20. The people of Judah turned from the Lord and they revel in the sin that was going on around them, they just did not see their sin as weakness, rather they decided to simply say through their actions that evil is good. Skewered… everything’s topsy-turvy turned upside down and what we’re looking at here is the topsy-turvy world of morality. There are many people today who speak of evil being good and tend to look upon good as evil while they push for behaviors that the Bible specifically call sinful. It has reached the point where it’s ridiculous… we really can’t say it enough… the point being people have gotten to where they confuse, sweetness and bitterness, light, darkness, and moving eventually to good and evil. There is one thing that we can be certain of when the light, Jesus Christ, came into this world the unbelievers worked hard at trying to keep people from believing so they could not see the light of the gospel that openly displayed the glory of Jesus Christ. When we are separated from God through sin, we live in a jumbled up world. Our value systems are upside down, and we do confuse things that ordinarily we would have not had a tolerant attitude towards. What we’ve done in some aspects we have labeled biblical morality as being intolerant and oppressive. This business of referring to evil as good and good as evil is a sure sign of spiritual weakness. Just as the people of that day and that time have been blinded and cannot see the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, Paul warns us that this battle, the intensity of it, will increase. Follow carefully this passage from second Timothy 3:1–5…

People become lovers of themselves, lovers of money, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God– having a form of godliness, denying its power. And we are warned have nothing to do with such people.

There is an answer for the dilemma that we’re facing today, you can find it in the Bible. 

Psalm 119: 104–105….I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path. 

When we stray from the Good Way, we cannot ever hope to actually determine what is right or wrong. The only true answers concerning good and evil are through understanding God and his divine intentions for us. So it would be The Pew’s intent to stay on the Good Way, Keep The Faith and Return To Prayer…

Life is Good,

jk

The Pew plans to take some opportunities in the future to look at some biblical cities that have become familiar to those of us who read the Bible. So we start off today with the city of Capernaum, noting that Jesus’s ministry was mainly in the region of Galilee, particularly around the northern and north western shores of the sea of Galilee. Some of the key details geographically reveal that roughly 80% to 90% of Jesus public ministry took place in Galilee, away from the political and religious centers of Jerusalem. Capernaum , a small fishing village on the north western shore of the sea of Galilee served as if we could say, I suppose a primary operational base and “hometown during his ministry.” it is known that Jesus frequently traveled and performed teachings or miracles in nearby towns, such as Nazareth, which we know was his childhood home, Cana, and Bathsidia and Chorazin. We did not want to overlook the fact that while a vast majority of the happenings were in Galilee, His ministry also extended into Judea, which included Jerusalem, where he was crucified, and Samaria, where he had a documented encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Having written all of that, let’s now take a look at Capernaum in the Bible and what is significance was.

We find right off that Capernaum is featured in the New Testament, but we see no mention of it in the old. It was a city located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is significant in scripture because it was chosen by Jesus as his home city after he was driven from Nazareth by religious officials. Another thing that put Capernuam on our watchlist is that it was the home of Peter and Andrew, and it was here that Jesus called them to follow Him. Jesus also found Matthew who was a tax collector in Capernaum and called him to follow Him. There are so many things that make Capernuam stand out in the ministry of our Lord Jesus, and Jesus often referred to it, and he did a lot of his miracles there. He taught in the synagogue, although the people there just refused to believe, and he included it in a critical assessment of several cities. Jesus spoke of Capernuam and a couple of other cities. But of this city he said there were miracles performed in you and if they had been performed elsewhere in Tyree or Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes, which was a custom of that time. But it would be, this is Jesus speaking, more bearable for Tyre and sadly for you Capernuam, you will not be lifted to the heavens you will go down to Hades. As we have written, Jesus did many of his miracles there it was in Capernaum that Jesus healed the Centurion son, the nobleman son, Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, and the cripple in Capernaum. Jesus cast out  unclean spirit raised Jairs’s daughter to life, and healed the woman with the bleeding issue. It is hard to believe, perhaps on our part that a city, such as Capernaum that had been exposed to the gospel where people enjoy going to church and consider themselves Christians by association and have a familiarity with Jesus and his word that gives them a false sense of assurance that they are right with God, but it is these very people that Jesus will soon say to them “away from me, you evil doers! I’ve never knew you” it is the city where the people heard and saw what Jesus did and said, but they refused to believe. Why would they do that? Some say that believing would cost them too much. Some say that they would worry that it would disrupt their comfortable religious life. It would challenge them to repent of sin and pride, love the unlovely and give up all to follow our Lord. The truth is that Capernaum had a greater opportunity than most other places to hear and to believe in Christ, but to do so those living there would find themselves held to a higher standard of judgment. We are reminded that we also will be judged, according to the light we’ve been given. If God did not spare Capernuam due to their lack of faith, he will not spare those today who have heard the message seen the evidence and rejected his son. There is a statement made in the New Testament at the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry that I’ve always remembered although it’s hard for me to get the right book and verse, it goes as such… “come and see”. The people of Capernaum did come and they did see, but they did not believe.

So I close today with this reminder one more time…

“we will be judged according to the light we’ve been given. If God did not spare Capernuam due to their lack of faith, he will not spare those today who have heard the message, seen the evidence and rejected his son.”

Life is Good 

Jk

This information that I shared with you today is taken from an article from my favorite website gotquestions.org 

One of my favorite parts of Bible Study, is just that, Bible Study. For years, I was what I would refer to as a surface reader, I was familiar with the books of the Bible where to find them and I had read things from them, but I never really paused to go beyond the word.  I hope today’s blog will be able to take us past the surface reading, and take us beyond the word so to speak that we might understand the very, very rich history of our Christian heritage. God used Elijah during an important time in Israel’s history. He chose Elijah to oppose a wicked king and bring revival to the land. Elijah’s ministry brought an end to the Baal worship in Israel. There is no doubt that Elijah’s life was filled with turmoil and it’s been written of him that at times he was bold and decisive but then again he could be fearful and tentative. He moves from victory and defeat followed by recovery. He never allowed depression to pull him down. He never lost faith in the power of God, we also note here the fact that the name of Elijah, a prophet of God means “my God is the Lord.” Elijah was understandably focused on the situation of life in this world he was living in and we do the same and it’s easy for us to take our eyes off the Lord and become discouraged. God does display his presence in power and judgment, wind, fire, earthquakes, but he also relates to us intimately and personally, which is a quiet whisper. God encourages us to examine our own thoughts and behaviors. He has given us free will, and he instruct us how to proceed and assures us that we are not alone. Elijah had many human frailties and even in times of failures and disappointments God used him mightily to strengthen the kingdom. God can use us even in our disheveled shape to bring us powerfully forward that we might defend the faith and the kingdom.

I also want today in this blog to introduce you, some of you already know and know it well, but to those who have never known or have never really heard it I would like to introduce you to the worship song Days of Elijah. It is unapologetically Christian. It was written by Robin Mark in 1995 and it’s an anthem of Hope and endurance that connects biblical prophecy to the modern church. In the mid 1990s when Robin Mark wrote this hymn they were a great number of global crisis that were capturing the attention of people everywhere. He was also inspired after hearing a sermon on the value of dry bones from the book of Ezekiel. The song Days of Elijah reminds us that God is in control during difficult or dark times, it inspires Christians to stand firm with integrity, justice, just as biblical figures did. What are the things about Elijah that stood out… that he stood boldly for God against cultural pressures and false profits during a time of moral decline… sound familiar. Some points taken from the song. The days of Moses and righteousness, that alludes to Moses and the restoration of God’s law holiness and right living. It acknowledges that there will be trials, famine and darkness and a time of war. World suffering, tribulation and hardships are all present while emphasizing that believers are a voice in a desert preparing the way for God. The Chorus of the song anticipates the second coming of Jesus Christ(“riding on the clouds”), a trumpet call, the year of jubilee, which was a biblical time of debt release, freedom, and restoration, and the salvation coming from Zion. As we move on through the chorus there is a reference to Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones coming to life which symbolize spiritual renewal, resurrection, hope, and the restoration of God’s people. There is a reference to King David rebuilding the temple of praise, representing continuous worship, and devotion to God. Days of the harvest as a spiritual harvest, or Christians acting as laborers in the Vineyard to spread the gospel message…Or better put more plainly declaring the word of the Lord. It is at this point that the writer of the song gives us a bridge the connects and brings it all together. A direct declaration of there is only one God and supreme allegiance to God above all powers or idols the song states it as there is “No God like Jehovah.”

So we’ll wrap up this week’s blog with this reminder. The song that Robin Mark wrote is poetic, it’s inspirational. It’s a call for Christians to stand firm with moral integrity during the cultural and global trials that we’re facing right now. Thanks for joining us in The Pew this week. I hope you will be able to take the time to Google the song “The Days of Elijah.” I highly encourage you to do so… you will be inspired.

Life is Good

jk

Thanks for joining us in the Pew today. The focus of our blog today is a little bit different. There’s a lot of old sayings that have been passed down over the years, one that you don’t hear a whole lot today in our time is the common idiom “got his just deserts”. If you look closely, you’ll see that the word used here is  spelled with only one S. Deserts, when spelled in this manner, having only one S does not refer to some after dinner sweets…when spelled in this manner, it’s meaning having received punishment or a bad consequence for something that we’ve done that was wrong. The word “deserts” comes from an old noun meaning “what is deserved” which is related to the verb deserve. So I’ll write it one more time. It doesn’t refer to a sweet dessert of some kind.

A comedian whose name I don’t remember once said that the world’s not really messed up it’s just the people in it. I guess that’s a lot more accurate than what we’d like to admit, all of us at one time or another have feelings of resentment against others either because it’s something they’ve done to us or something they’ve done. So this old idiom we’re looking at today was the way that the old folks used to control their anger and still have a means of passing some kind of judgment. But the Bible or the biblical view is simply receiving what you truly deserve and the Bible balance is strict, divine justice with ultimate grace and mercy. Scripture teaches us that actions have moral consequences and there are some things that we as humans do   that that deserve a penalty. In Romans 6:23 the simple way to put it is that the “wages of sin is death.” The spiritual separation and judgment are the natural and fair outcome of turning away from God. I think we run across the universal accountability from passages like Obadiah 1:15 and Galatians 6:7 “whatever one sows that will he also reap.” this universal accountability, reminds us that God will hold nations and individuals accountable for what they do and they will face retribution or consequences matching their treatment of others. We must also keep in mind, however, that the Bible repeatedly emphasizes that God does not always give people the full punishment they deserve. And that’s illustrated in psalm 103:10 which states “he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us, according to our iniquities.” the hard fast truth that there is and always will be redemption through Christ. We will not be left to suffer “our just desert.” It is important that we understand that sin separates us from God and that Christ voluntarily bore that intensity of suffering on the cross, offering grace, forgiveness and eternal life as a gift rather than a earned wage.

I think I’ll turn the keyboard off at this point and simply hope that for each of you find that mercy, grace and justice through your relationship with God and you will receive your…..Just DESSERT. A sweet reward for a job well done.

Life is Good

jk