Shelly

Isaiah 11:2-5 And the Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD, And He will delight in the fear of the LORD, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear; But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, And faithfulness the belt about His waist. Heb 9:24-26 For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;nor was it that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood not his own... But now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Heb 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Heb 10:9,10 then He said, "BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO THY WILL." ...By this WILL we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Jesus was worthy because He came to do God's will, and through the power of the Spirit was able to present Himself unblemished before the Lord. He was the only High Priest to present a Perfect Sacrifice as a sin offering. Only through his offering can we have life everlasting.

Summary of Lesson from Revelation 3 Criticism of the Churches 1. Abandoning earlier love. 2. Polluting the teachings of the church with worldly teachings 3. Tollerating immorality. 4. Failing to complete the church's mission. 5. Pride - failing to give the glory to God. Praise for the Churches: 1. Rich in faith. 2. Holding fast, not denying the Lord. 3. Love, faith, perseverence. 4. Greater deeds than at first. 5. Not soiling (white) garments. 6. Keeping His word of perseverence. Application for 21st Century Churches? These lists could be used for self-evaluation of the spiritual health of a church. The church can grade itself on each point and in so doing determine where repentance is needed and what to persevere in.

We can combat it by becoming aware of our failures and recognizing our need to repent. By keeping our ears tuned to His voice and reestablishing fellowship with Him.

Christianity is awash with heathen practices going back for centuries. Accomodating culture may make it easier to assimilate into it but it does not serve the purpose of God. The calendar is full of holidays celebrating political figures, historical events, and greeting cards. Thrown in amongst all of these are the commemorations of the birth and death of our Lord. Everybody celebrates these, even nonbelievers, because it is a day or more off from work or school, an excuse for a family get-together, fattening food and presents. The destructive result of this is the trivialization of our Lord. He is not a living powerful, loving and righteous God, He is just one of many images to bow down to. We as Christians must stand up and be proud of our God not of our sin-filled country, we are all willing to wave flags to show our refusal to cave in to terrorists, but how many of us are willing to take a stand against ****, corruption, or perversion in our own churches and homes?

The loosening of sexual standards is just one of many ways of taking a step away from God. "Then when **** has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings death." JAMES 1:15 I recently found that I was sorely tempted and my convictions slowly eroded away, until I reached a point where I couldn't deny the wrong any more. We cannot lead others down the narrow path if we aren't walking it ourselves. "...prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves." JAMES 1:22

A local congregation can lose its "first love" for Jesus by becoming complacent, judgemental or closed. By not staying in the Word, by failing to remember the mission of the church - to spread the Word. The signs of a genuine love for Jesus is joy in worship, a refusal to water down the Word, no matter how unwelcome the message. Not hiding your beliefs out of fear of ridicule. The lack of love shows up when a church falls into legalism or, on the other end of the spectrum, becomes more interested in #'s than in spreading the Word. A congregation can regain this love by remembering the love of Christ, a sacrificial love, and emulating it. By returning to the Word where it is all revealed.

"...the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches..." I looked up the greek definition of angel in this passage and the definition read: ...a messenger; esp. an "angel"; by implication a pastor: -angel, messenger. I was thrilled to see the pastor reference because I had a strong feeling that it was Christ holding His saints in the palm of his hands, and who are the saints but the messengers of His churches - the pastors. What a thought, what an image to have while suffering persecution, "Christ has me in the palm of His hand." Not only that but He is with the churches as well, He walks among us, we should feel His presence and we do. Again, I now have an image to go with that feeling. I love it!

I read this and remember that John once called himself the disciple Jesus loved, now he is fainting at the sight of him. He and we are being reminded that not only is Jesus the man he walked with and loved on earth, not only is He the man who died to redeem us, but He is GOD. He is worthy of our awe and praise and even fear. He loves us with an awesome love that we can't even comprehend but his anger is aweful as well and we don't want to be on the receiving end of it. We must continue to grow in faithfulness to Him (the Word of God) and not just treat Him as "a friend in need."

I believe there is tribulation (distress, oppression, affliction) in all countries but that the devil has great imagination and oppresses according to the available means. Hence what we may consider to be lesser is perhaps just as effective. Revelation reassures us that #1 God is not punishing us or even abandoning us, God tribulation is reserved for those who turn from him and those who afflict us; #2 Our tribulations are suffered are caused by the devil because we are having an affect, we are doing Gods will and testifying to His word; #3 that our suffering will have an end that God will not allow it to go on indefinitely, that our tribulations are making us clean that we may stand before our Lord cleansed in the blood of the Lamb. I can't imagine needing any more motivation than that.

1:8 The Father is the Alpha and Omega, this is confirmed in Isaiah 41:4, 43:10, 48:12. Jesus is also the the 1st and the last (alpha and omega) as stated in Rev.1:17. This is confirmed by Isaiah as well in 44:6 "Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his redeemer , the Lord of hosts: I am the first and I am the last and there is no God besides Me." The significance of this? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being. (John 1:1-3)

Well, I find motivation in knowing that being a witness, giving testimony is being like Christ the True and Faithful witness. I've striven as a Christian to be more like Christ so learning this definition of Him makes me want to become a better witness. The testimony of the martyrs are important to overcoming Satan. Stephen was honored by God with the title of My witness, My faithful one for his testimony as he was murdered. I for one desire to be worthy of such praise. But I know I am not. Why? I have always been easily intimidated. I panic and can't think when someone reacts badly to what I'm saying. I only have courage to speak to people who are already essentially in agreement with me. Would I deny God, NO! But neither have I risked much on his behalf. A marriage, my Catholic family treating me like I'd lost my mind. But mostly that was risked for my own joy not the furthering of God's kingdom. Maybe that's the answer right there, is it selfishness that keeps us from witnessing more than fear? I know that I have courage in Christ, He has asked me to do thinks that I never would have dreamed of doing without Him. Is it my responsibility to testify more? I want to find out.