“None is righteous, no, not one;

11  no one understands;no one seeks for God. 12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless no one does good, not even one.”13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”“The venom of asps is under their lips.”14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”15  “Their feet are swift to shed blood;16  in their paths are ruin and misery,17  and the way of peace they have not known.”18  “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”  (Romans 3:10-18 – E S V) 

 In Exodus 20:13 we read… “You shall not murder.” No true believer of the faith should ever disagree or marginalize that commandment. Consider this…but that may well depend on your definition of the word murder. Many christians and even those who don’t believe apply this “thou shall not” to war. The interpretation of the Hebrew word literally means “the intentional, premeditated killing of another person with malice; murder.” Justice is in reality an act of God. There are man made laws and judgement but those which are of God, the creator of all things are inevitable and are final. War is never a good thing but sometimes the evil is of man’s own doing, his quest for his desires and paths to them destroys the innocent and that which God has created. Our world today is filled with sinful people who because of their lack of the basic acts of compassion, forgiveness, respect, patience and love for others makes war inevitable.

Please make note that I am sharing with you things I have read from an article in Got Questions? It is a bible app that is well received and offers scriptures to reinforce their writings. I will share that link at the end of this blog and encourage you to visit it. We might ask ourselves is there or could there ever be a just war? Here we open a can of worms so to speak… Mortals definition of a just war might depend on the possibility that it was the only way to stop the suffering of innocent people or…Is it possible that God ordained his wrath and vengeance on those evil perpetrators responsible for these atrocities to their fellow men? I will take some liberties here and not list the supporting scriptures to this opinion, they are listed in recommended URL below. It is the opinion gathered from reading the aforementioned article. War is always the result of sin.  (Romans 3:10-18),  

We have sort of scratched around the edge of this war thing but be assured of this…It is an error to say that God never supports a war. There are many scriptures to support this view…OT and NT.

This blog was a last minute thought. There is never a good war, maybe a just war is about as close as we can get to it being tolerable. We can never excuse the suffering, misery, destruction and the frustration of the collective inability of mortals to have compassion and love for each other. What can we as the people of God do? We can pray for an end to this war, or more purposely, to all wars.

Philippians 4:6–7 — The New International Version (NIV)

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

This you can take to the bank…Vengeance is Mine says the Lord… In God’s Time, In God’s Way, he will chose the manner of his judgement. There will be a Divine judgement. 

Jesus Ain’t N0 Pacifist…Pray for Peace

The link below will take you to the source of my information. It is an excellent article, please read it.

Life is Good

jk

https://www.gotquestions.org/war-Bible.html

In this chapter we read of King Hezekiah’s sickness and recovery in verses 1-8. As we read on verses 9-22 are about his thanksgiving. Good study of the scriptures requires we consider the subject at hand in its full context. A closer look can be found in 2 Kings 20: 1-11. The thing to be learned from this scripture today and it applies to all situations involving prayer… whether we live or die, we shall be his, we do not pray in vain. No prayer is ever not answered but not always in our way or time. Hezekiah’s illness is of a very serious nature. It is written that the prophet Isaiah went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.” His reaction is what can be expected with this one exception that speaks to the character and strength of this man’s faith.  He immediately turned his face to the wall and began to pray. “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” The King then wept bitterly. Illness can overtake a person in the blink of an eye, its seriousness will determine reaction and the response… How we react to different events in our lives is determined by the content of the life we are living. The story takes a quick turn and even before Isaiah was past the middle court the Lord instructed him to return to the king….

“Go back and tell Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you….On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life. 

Writings indicate that the King was a good man, a Godly man but it’s worth noting that the scripture shows a moment of doubt ever so slight… Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the temple of the Lord on the third day from now?” … “It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,” said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.” Then the prophet Isaiah called on the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.

There is such beautiful depth in the power of prayer and the lesson here among the scriptures. The King grieves that he will no longer see the Lord. Hezekiah’s desire has always been to serve God and have  communion with him. Consider that when a good man’s time here on earth is over all his cares and frustrations are ended and he rests from the labour of life itself. As we continue in these scriptures I see a beautiful vision. God has appointed our time here but the depth and seriousness of an illness can cause us to calculate the time we have left, when it is far more important to secure our own salvation and trust in our faith in God and his promise of eternal life through repentance and the pardon of our sins. God has promised Hezekiah 15 more years and he in return has promised to abound in praising and serving God. God’s promises are not to do away, but to quicken and encourage life and health which are given that we may glorify God and do good.

There will be a link below to a web site containing 7 Seven Reasons For Payer. I will post them here, go to the web site for a more detailed account.

1) Prayer can set (or change) the tone of your day

2) Prayer helps you make better decisions

3) Daily prayer keeps God in the forefront of your mind, not forgotten until Sunday

4) More frequent communication builds a stronger relationship

5) The discipline of daily prayer is submitting your heart to God

6) Answered prayers are prayers prayed

7) Opening your heart to God daily allows God to transform your heart

Remember the link below and make a daily habit of having a conversation with God.

Life is Good

jk

https://www.prayerandpossibilities.com/importance-daily-prayer/

I have been a member of the Methodist Church for over 40 years and I have seen a lot of changes in the church…so what is next? 

The Methodist Church has always been involved to my knowledge in social activism from its very inception. For decades now the church has fought the pressures from within and outside groups to change the teaching, or to be more exact, the doctrinal teachings of the church and church law. Both of these efforts always conflict with biblical standards and centuries of Christian beliefs and standards. Like right on cue I came across an article in the publication, The Next Methodism, written by Timothy Tennent, basically answering the question “What’s next”. Before I get to far into this there are many denominations experiencing this rush for change driven by the demands of our present times and fueled by societal, cultural, and agenda driven groups. I am somewhat uncomfortable with the following statement in the opening remarks of the article.

“there is an understandable excitement about the launch of the next Methodism out of the ashes of the current tragedy known as the United Methodist Church”

Not only is this statement, in my opinion as a Layman in the church but also a person who is very familiar with this traveling caravan of disruption and one thought idealism, offensive and not accurate but to be fair in this world of uncivil discourse, I will rephrase that to read… It is not accurate, at least from the pew I am sitting in. For decades same-sex issues have dominated District and General conferences as well Annual and to be clear they were not the only issues that were dealt with at these meetings but they were the most emotional, disruptive and hurtful to the body of the church. What is the issue that has brought us to this stage? If you replied same-sex, you might be wrong. The reason I say this is that I am guilty of not understanding or seeing the big picture myself. While I don’t agree with some of the things written in his article…. I do appreciate Mr. Tennent pointing me to the bigger picture.  

For decades many books have been written and read, position papers published, conversations and positions taken about just this issue alone.The disturbing thing about the issue now is that we, the church, are leaning toward the consideration that the most likely way to settle it, as being a spilt… in common terms… a divorce, a nasty one that would necessitate an equitable distribution of assets. Can you imagine that! There are those among the church who believe that we, God’s people, should divide what belongs to God among ourselves to satisfy an unreasonable horde of administrators and well educated theologians and unreasonable people of the faith! I must insert what I believe to be true… The majority of these people are sincere well meaning disciples of the church.There is much more here than many of we the laity know about and I include myself in that number. This from Asbury University… “John Wesley’s primary focus was upon the doctrine of salvation and the relationship between grace, faith, and holiness of heart and life. First, Wesley taught the classical doctrine of original sin and the absolute inability of human beings to save themselves through virtuous works. …” 

Wesleyan-Holiness Theology – Asbury University

https://www.asbury.edu › about › spiritual-vitality › faith

“The Wesleyan Methodist Church in America was created in early 1843 as a result of a schism from the Methodist Episcopal Church over slavery, holiness, and the arbitrary use of episcopal power by the parent church.”

 The word, episcopal power is of interest to me in this sentence. Many folks in the Pew are concerned that their voices are not being heard by leadership of the Methodist Church. A definition of which is:-of a bishop or bishops, • (of a Church) governed by or having bishops.

Consider this if you will please, from the United Methodist Resources:

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2012

The Ancient Creedal Faith

The United Methodist Church professes no faith other than the ancient Christian faith, “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3), rooted in Sacred Scripture, interpreted and taught by the Early Church Fathers and the Ancient Ecumenical Councils.  This same grace-centered and Christ-centered faith was reasserted by the Reformers and was affirmed by the Anglican Church in which the Methodist movement first arose.   

 A creed by definition is a summary or statement of what one believes. It originates from the Latin credo meaning “I believe”. Some things have changed and one item seems to be that there is less use of the Methodist Creeds as in the past and yes people are talking about that. To what degree is this and what do these creeds say about us? There will be link at the end of the blog that will provide more information. I have struggled with this blog because one man’s cause is another man’s aggravation and the last thing the church needs is more of that. So let’s take a little break learning with history from classroom.synonym.com . There have been many divisions in the Methodist Church over the years since 1784 through 1840’s, and into the civil war which caused more division because of the bishops refusal to take an official stand on slavery. I like the fact that folks at “classroom” use the word division, seems a bit more civil than split. Then, in the 1880s, there were other divisions, some due to a  concern that John Wesley’s teachings on holiness were not being emphasized enough within the whole body of the church. I am open to being corrected but in an effort to wrap this up allow me to share just a few more points with you. Timothy Tennent, in his written discourse points to some thoughts and acts that basically sum up where we are at due to previous actions. A flagship reasoning for the split in United Methodism over the ordination of men and women who are in same-sex marriages and The removal of wording in the Book of Discipline.I always believed for years it was because of these Nine little words. 

The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. (303.3 Methodist Book of Discipline)

It has among the outside pressure groups been a standard rallying battle cry, picked up by other social justice warriors. They have so far been successful with the disruption and negative thoughts directed toward the United Methodist Church but have not been able to gain their goal. Sometimes an issue is so disruptive that it chokes itself… So they change the narrative to one that takes a little more finesse and requires some knowledge of the issues. The article includes three acts that are found in Billy Abraham’s chapter of the Next Methodism and is entitled “Doctrine or Death”. Now I will re-print those here for a hopefully clearer picture of where we find ourselves today as written by Mr. Abraham. Remember that what you are about to read is verbatim from his writings.

Act One was the confusion that the replacement of the ecumenical creeds with Wesley’s 44 canonical sermons and his Notes to the New Testament led to the false idea that Wesley was not committed to the grand ecumenical tradition.  

Acts Two was the rise of social activism and human experience which further distanced Methodism from historic doctrinal confessions. 

In Act Three the United Methodist church further distanced itself from the grand ecumenical tradition, replacing it with a form of pluralism which allowed endless innovations of both faith and practice.  Mr. Abraham comments made note of the fact that In Act Two we lost our Wesleyan heritage. He also notes that  In Act Three we lost our very identity as a distinctive Christian movement.  The failure of many of our official UM seminaries and episcopal leaders to guard our Christian identity led to our current untenable situation where we no longer have any viable basis for unity in mission, doctrine or experience.  

I am going to step back in the Pew to close this out. I do not favor a split, division or any other means of settling these obvious differences that may occur other than the use of that good old Methodist 3 legged stool, Reason Tradition and Experience. Mr. Tennent and Mr. Abraham, both used that stool to arrive at their positions and though I would consider myself not entirely in their Pew, I respect and admire their work and thoughts. I realize it might be a bit pretentious on my part…. I close with this thought…. Nothing of any value is ever conceived or blessed in an atmosphere of distrust, rancor or absence of God’s blessing and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Unity in the body of the believers and Our God will survive this issue. The Church shall not be split and stand.

Life is Good 

jk   

https://christianityfaq.com/methodists-apostles-creed/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe that many of you will know this song, if not you will know the writer… Kris Kristofferson, if not maybe the songs actual name… Why Me or Why me Lord. How often in our daily life when things get tough, have we asked that very question? Today’s world is full of “why me’s.” From growing up in the fifties, casting my first vote in a national election in 1964, our world has evolved into one that lacks civility, respect and the moral standards have deteriorated under the increasing pressure of the changing of social and cultural norms…. I might note here the term you often hear is the new norm. A nice polite way of giving the impression of general approval of such practices. 

This song by Kris Kristofferson always has been a favorite of mind because it is a statement of faith found….of hope…and expectation of restoration and not eternal damnation. Mr Kristofferson gets his message across without being preachy. I have included a small section of the lyrics here. You can Google the whole song if you wish. 

Lord help me Jesus, I’ve wasted it so

Help me Jesus I know what I am

Now that I know that I’ve need you so

Help me Jesus, my soul’s in your hand.

Tell me Lord, if you think there’s a way

I can try to repay

All I’ve taken from you

Maybe Lord, I can show someone else

What I’ve been through myself

On my way back to you.

Songwriters: Kris Kristofferson

Why Me lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

I believe many times we are better served by the axiom “less said the better”.

While you  won’t find this song in the Bible you will find a biblical response to the question….Why me Lord….Consider the Book of Psalms… Psalm 16 to be exact.

Psalm 16

A miktam  of David.

1 

Keep me safe, my God,
for in you I take refuge.

2 

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing.”

3 

I say of the holy people who are in the land,
“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”

4 

Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
or take up their names on my lips.

5 

Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.

6 

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.

7 

I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.

8 

I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

9 

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,

10 

because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
nor will you let your faithful[b] one see decay.

11 

You make known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  Miktam or Michtam (Hebrew: מִכְתָּם) is a word of unknown meaning found in the headings of Psalms 16 and 56–60 in the Hebrew Bible.^[1] These six Psalms, and many others, are associated with King David, but this tradition is more likely to be sentimental than historical.^[2] They may have formed one of several smaller collections of psalms which preceded the present psalter and on which it was based.^[2]

This psalm alludes to David , who would become King of Judah, who in his travels had spent time among idolaters, was forced to leave his country because of Saul’s persecution and cries out to God for help.We learn in the first 7 verses his dislike of idol worshipers and his desire to be united again to God’s people and his strong confidence in God, who has been so kind to him in his time of distress. Now this may be a stretch for some but I see a person who has seen a few bad days and seeks a way back home… That way being a path to God… Many of us need to find the way home… Amen…Go With God

Life is Good

jk