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Birdwell Lane Church of Christ Big Spring, TX |
Weekly Thoughts - July 2006
| <---- June 2006 | -- | August 2006 ----> |
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02 - "BUILDING A DYNAMIC FORCE FOR GOD" 16 - "WE HAD A MEAN MOM" 23 - "PROPITIATION I" 30 - "PROPITIATION II" |
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"BUILDING A DYNAMIC FORCE FOR GOD"
While many are knocking the church-we must build it! The place to begin is at the local level... The local church is the best thing to which a person can give his life. We must join partnership with Christ in building the congregation of God. The local church is the gathered people of God (1 Cor. 1:2). By their own volition saints are to voluntarily associate themselves together for mutual worship, fellowship, proclamation, teaching and ministry of benevolence. All Christianity gravitates to the local church. We can never love the church universal until we love it LOCALLY (Acts 14:23; Phil. 1:1; 1 Peter 5:1-3). The local church is to be a dynamic force for God in a sin-ridden world. Within a new climate of love, fellowship and unity, renewed people are to bless God, others and their own lives. The local base is a LIGHT HOUSE to illuminate the path of the lost (Isa. 2:4); it is a HOSPITAL for broken and sinful men (Lk. 19:100; it is a REHABILITATION CENTER for those made invalid by iniquity (Acts 20:32); it is an INTENSIVE CARE UNIT for those fighting for their life (Rom. 15:1-22); it is a FRATERNITY HOUSE for those seeking an incendiary fellowship (Acts 4:32); and it is an ARMORY where troops train for active duty. The church: our life; our love; our all. No wonder Jesus threw His protective wings over her: "The gates of hell shall not prevail against her." While many from within and without criticize her, some despise her and others abandoned her - I stand by her. I owe her my life and my love. While it would be a place of distinction to serve as the head of a school, editor of a paper, president of a bank or board, school teacher or any thing else - I would rather be a local preacher. It's the greatest place to serve in the world! If I had a thousand lives to live, I would want to be a preacher - in a local church-in every one of them. I would rather be a speaker in the house of God, than a speaker in the house of Representatives; I'd rather be a foot-soldier of the cross than Commander-in- Chief of all our U.S. Forces. I am standing by the church because I want to stand with Jesus. See ya Sunday, Ralph |
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"WE HAD A MEAN MOM" We had the meanest mother in the world. While the other kids on our block enjoyed candy, cake and coffee for breakfast, we had to eat cereal. They were treated to soda pop and burgers for lunch. We were stuck with sandwiches and milk. Our mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times - like criminals on parole. She had to know where we were going when we left the house and who we were with every time we left the house. We had orders when to be home and no excuses were acceptable. She also broke the child labor law. She made us work. We were forced to wash dishes, make beds, vacuum floors, wash baseboards, cook, and do all the rotten jobs like take out the trash and keep up the yard. Our mother must have stayed up nights thinking up things for us kids to do. We never had a minute to just relax or fool around. Mom was like a judge when it came to facts. We had to tell everyone exactly perfect - the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She could have been on the Supreme Court. By the time we were teenagers our friends knew we had a very mean Mom. When guys came to get my sister and me mom embarrassed them to death by making them come to the door. Other girls could run to the car when they heard a horn toot but mom wouldn't stand for any horn blowing in front of our house. I forgot to mention that Mom's nuttiness nearly made old maids and bachelors out of us. Our girl friends were allowed to date at 12-13 but we couldn't go out until we were 25. As you can guess, our mother was a complete failure. None of us kids were ever in any serious trouble for rioting. We never spent a night in jail for civil disobedience. You can't imagine the shame we felt when other kids told about freaking out and getting busted in under age drinking parties. We had to sit there like squares without a blamed thing to tell. My brother never failed a class, graduated with honors, held one of the most important jobs in the US, never was in favor of war but contributed to our nations success in all. We couldn't see burning our draft cards or going to Canada and giving up citizenship forever. We felt it was too much like copping out. I've given a lot of thought to how I was going to raise my kids and how I did it. Although our mother was awfully mean I'll admit we all turned out pretty well. None of us ever went the pill or the drug route. We all seem to be in good shape, physically and emotionally. And each of us had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do with our lives. Most of our friends whose mothers were easy going or too busy to pay attention to them are having a lot of trouble. I've decided if my kids think half as much of me as I did mom I'll be very proud. Guess mean can't be all bad! See ya Sunday, Ralph |
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"PROPITIATION I" Man's sinful practices brought condemnation and separation from God. God's holy nature demanded that man's sin had to be covered (forgiven) before man could have fellowship with God. By giving up his sinless life sacrificially, Christ annulled the power of sin to separate one from God. The act of Christ paying for humanity's sin is "propitiation". Even though forms of the Greek word for "propitiation" only appear about a half dozen times in the New Testament, the meaning of those words is the very heart of Christianity. Note below the verses which use the word "propitiation" or some form of the word. These will be presented here in the order in which they appear in the Bible with an explanation of these verses found in a later article.
See ya Sunday, Ralph |
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"PROPITIATION II" THE BIBLICAL DEFINITION In Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words under the word "propitiation", he says, "the verb "hilaskomai" was used amongst the Greeks with the significance 'to make the gods propitious, to appease, propitiate' inasmuch as their good will was not conceived as their natural attitude, but something to be earned first. This use of the word is foreign to the Greek Bible with respect to God whether in the Septuagint or in the New Testament. It is never used of any act whereby man brings God into a favorable attitude or gracious disposition". First, the one and only God possesses a disposition that is different from the angry disposition of the so-called gods of the heathen. The truth that God has a loving disposition can be seen in many passages or examples in scripture. One such example is when God declared His nature to Moses when He passed by him and said, Exodus 34:6-7 6 And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation." NKJV God's nature is not one of anger and wrath but rather one of love and holiness. It is because of His holiness that man's sin brings separation from Him. God's holiness and man's sinfulness are like the same "poles" of a magnet which resist each other. That sin which is resistant to God's nature had to be covered before God could accept man back into fellowship. That was accomplished by God's propitious (to have a favorable inclination toward others) nature. Second, God does not have to be asked to be propitious. He is the one who initiated such action by sending Jesus. Paul expressed that when he wrote, Romans 5:8 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. NKJV From the very beginning of man's sinful act, He hinted at a time when man's debt would be paid (Genesis 3:15). He continued to expand and enlarge on that idea throughout Old Testament history. He revealed more and more of His plan until Christ came in the flesh to bring it to pass. Third, the Bible never speaks of God's being reconciled to man. It is always man who is being reconciled to God. God didn't need to make any apology or amends for any mistakes. Man needed to do both. But, God did make it possible for man to make amends for his sins by sending Christ who would be "the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world" (I John 2:2). See ya Sunday, Ralph |
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