Meet, Meet, Meet...

Hebrews 10:23-25 - "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."


Matthew 24:9-13 - "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.  And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.  And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.  And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved."

Paul wrote to Timothy that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.  There will be times of hardship and stress, tremendous pressure, darkness, and evil.  People will love pleasure and themselves, not God.  We are seeing it, all around us, aren't we?  Turn on the tv and the darkness and evil comes right into our living rooms.  It is not going to get any easier to be a Christian.  Jesus lays it out for us how bad it is going to be in the Matthew passage and in the book of Revelation.

Scripture tells us that believers are secure by the power of God, but that doesn't mean we can do anything we want to.  There is human responsibility to security...it's called holding fast...and that is what the writer of Hebrews said we should be doing.  God is telling us what we will need to do to remain steadfast.  We need to meet, meet, meet!  The only place we can remain steadfast until the Lord returns is with His people.  We need to meet and stir each other up to love.  Being a lone Christian is just not going to work as the days continue to grow darker.  The Lord said that many are going to fall away when Satan's wrath is unleashed during the great tribulation.  Pretty sobering, isn't it?  Those who don't remain and continue to love and hold fast will prove their faith was not genuine.  The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.  It is there.  We need to meet and call each other to action, to walk in that poured into us love.  We are called to love and do good deeds, but we are also called to help each other love.  We need to help each other be loving people, to put the Lord and others before ourselves.  The greatest thing I can think of to stir you up in this is Jesus love for you.

Remember His great love for you.

Meet with His people.

Love.

Help others love.

Be loved.

The Great Contrast - Introduction

My mind has been on these two passages as of late:


Hebrews 10:23-25 - "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."


Matthew 24:9-13 - "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.  And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.  And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.  And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.  But the one who endures to the end will be saved."


I will be blogging about these passages for the next several posts.  While both passages initially had Hebrew audiences, they have application for everyone in the church as well.  Both have eschatological references, that is, they have references to the Lord's return, which I have highlighted in orange font.  Both also mention love, which I have highlighted in red font.  The Greek word, agape, is used - the love of the will where we choose to put others before ourselves.  These passages also talk about the perseverance of the saints.  The Hebrews passage calls for holding fast the confession of hope and the Matthew passage speaks about those who will endure to the end.  We also see there will be those who will no longer be loyal and persevere, but will betray and fall away, whose love was once warm but will diminish into coldness.  
Jesus used love and grow in the same sentence.  Stay tuned, I'll talk about that some more...


I hope you were able to be in church yesterday...and are you watching?  We are seeing the Day of His return drawing closer, as the unrest continues to increase in the world.

Garden Project Update

Getting close to being done...

DONE!

A nice pile of firewood, don't you think?!  The stack Tim is standing next to will be going to the mill.  Great job, Josh, Kent, and Barry...thanks!  (If you need any excavating work done in the Gig Harbor area, Reid Excavating does great work!)

Garden Project

Thought it would be fun to show you what has been going on at our place.  We are having some trees logged off and a garden terrace put in on the back of our property.  Daniel has been having a lot of fun watching all the big equipment work.  Can't wait for all the fresh produce to be set on the table later this summer!

1 John 3:1 - Part Two

I've been thinking about the prayer from my last post.  In it I asked the Lord to grow my love for Him, and I asked it on behalf of you, my readers too.  Can our love actually grow, is what I am wondering?  Did I choose the right wording?  The Bible talks about different kinds of love.  There is the love of self-sacrifice, of putting others before ourselves.  This is the love Jesus had for us in going to the cross.  This is the love genuine believers will have for the Lord and others.  There is also the love of affection.  I do have this for the Lord.  I have an emotional love for Him, because of what He has done for me, what He is doing for me, and because I know He is returning for me.  This is the type of love that I think grows, as our knowledge of the Lord grows.  The sacrificial love however, is either there or it isn't.  It is there when we choose to be obedient to His commands.  It is not there when we choose to please ourselves.  Love, you before me...  Being obedient is putting Christ ahead of ourselves.

Lord, may we grow in our affection towards You, as we grow in grace and knowledge of You, and may our obedience to You become more and more consistent, matching up more and more with our perfect position in which You have so graciously and lovingly placed us.

I love you, Lord.  Thank you for loving me.

1 John 3:1

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

Think about this.  At one time we were God's enemies.

Enemies...don't...deserve...saving...

Yet, He loved us so much that we went from being His enemy to His child, so that we could comprehend the depth of His love for us.

Enemy of God, now children of God.

Lord, You loved us when we were Your enemies...when we wanted nothing to do with You, when we could care less about You.  We now love You because You first loved us...give us understanding of how You so vastly and deeply loved us.  Your love is pure and flawless and never diminishes for us.  That cannot be said about our love for You.  Grow our love for You as You love us!

Will the Church See Antichrist?

Here's what Paul said...

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day (the day Jesus returns in judgment and we are gathered together to Him) will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God - 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 (ESV).


Paul also said not to let anyone deceive you concerning that day...


Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day (the day Jesus returns in judgment and we are gathered together to Him) will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God - 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 (ESV).


What else does Paul tell us the church will see?


Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day (the day Jesus comes and we are gathered together to him) will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God - 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 (ESV).

What Paul wrote does not take away the Blessed Hope.  What it does take away is the assumption and teaching that Christ could return at any moment.   We have been given clear markers of what we will see before Jesus returns and gathers us to Himself.

I urge you to be a student of the Word.  Take this passage and compare it with what Christ taught us in Matthew 24 and Mark 13...they line up perfectly...

Jesus:  "And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake" - Mark 13:37.