Wednesday, June 12, 2013

VIOLENCE....

EXCERPT FROM DEVOTIONAL ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM
So what does the Bible say about violence?
One does not get far in the biblical narrative to find the first heinous act of violence. In the second generation of humanity one brother spills the blood of another. Cain murders Abel, for a reason that comes right from the heart—jealousy. The pattern is set. Something simple like jealousy left unchecked, left to grow and deepen and intensify, leads to acting out in violence. God had warned Cain: “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” This is really an amazing statement. Jealously leads to anger, and that sin is predatory, crouching at the door, looking to possess Cain. Violence, in other words, is often the tipping point after resentment turns to rage. What can be done about violence? God told Cain he had better “master” the pathology of his soul. He did not, and blood was spilled.
God’s responds to Cain: “your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.” And so does the blood of many today.
Lesson number one: violence is the result of a pathology of the soul. Violence does not begin with standing armies, generational ethnic hatred, longstanding social inequities. Violence is as close to us as our own hearts.

DEVOTIONAL----LIVING IN TWO KINGDOMS

Living in Two Kingdoms

How can believers live in an earthly kingdom, and live in the kingdom of God at the same time. What does it mean to be a Christian citizen? If you believe that you live within and under the kingdom of Christ, but you also hold citizenship in the country in which you live, how do these two work together?
What do you do when those kingdoms seem to clash?
In Romans 13, the apostle Paul lays out a bold set of principles:
“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing.”
The clash of kingdoms sometimes turns to war between earthly nations. But there is also a wide and deep teaching in Scripture about the kingdom of God and how it relates to the kingdoms of this world, the nations. Sometimes these kingdoms clash; sometimes they don’t.
One truth at the center of Jesus’ teaching, at the very core of his message, was that the kingdom of God had come. Jesus himself said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God because that is why I was sent” (Luke 4:43). The Old Testament, particularly the prophetic books, clearly teaches that a future day will come when the kingdom of God will usher in a new age. The Old Testament divided cosmic history into two parts, “this age, and the age to come.” In this age, God’s people are to do their best to live through the periods of peace and the periods of conflict and war that are the everyday realities of this world. But there will come a time when God will impose upon the world his power and his ruling, and usher in the age to come.
In Jesus’ day people still looked forward to the age to come. And we still look forward to the day of the Lord when history will draw to a close and God will remake everything. But Jesus made a dramatic adaptation of this view of reality. Though the age to come is still to come Jesus taught that the kingdom of God had already come.

If you are a believer in Jesus here and now, whether your home country is the U.S. or Syria or Israel-Argentina, Ireland, or Iran, the most important reality of your life is that you live within and under the kingdom of Christ. And belonging to the kingdom of God means a number of life-changing realities. (More next time.)

Random GOD Things

“Universe” means “the whole thing.”
To create, in the most fundamental sense, means to bring into existence.
But it is both the emerging scientific consensus today and the clear assertion of Scripture: “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
Something out of nothing.

Is it a stretch for us to believe that there is a being who can create something out of nothing? Of course it is. In fact, it is more than a stretch, because our minds can’t conceive of God’s greatness. But this power of God is exactly what gives us hope.
Because the creation came out of nothing (ex nihilo), then everything that exists comes from God’s creative act, though the corruptions and sicknesses that have crept in since then are not his creation. This is very important. God did not and cannot create evil. God is not in favor of corruption. He doesn’t like animosity or war or cancer. That is the way things have become, but it is not the way things were created.
My life can glorify God. Creation’s loud speech, that wordless praise, is the song my life is meant to sing. I know how far from the glory of God I fall short. I know how entangled and entrapped my life can become. I know how off-key is the song of my life. But somehow it is possible for my life to offer one more speech directed to the great and the good. To join in the chorus with the stars. Nothing that exists was made evil. If God is great and God is good, then it is impossible for him to create sin or wickedness. He did not and does not create the malevolent or the immoral. Somehow things got spoiled. Things that were whole got cracked and fell to pieces. God began the creation with “let there be light,” and the darkness was filled, but in the history of the world the light keeps getting turned off, and the shadows take over--but only for a while.

“Holiness” means distinctiveness or separateness. Over a thousand times in the Old Testament someone or something is called “holy.” Usually it is God, who is utterly distinct—not in the sense of being removed, uninvolved, or indifferent—but in the sense of being pure. Other times the word is used of teaching devices in the Old Testament to drive home the point that amid the commonness of this world’s pollution, some things can be different. A holy priesthood, holy rites, even holy (consecrated) temple, altar, and temple furnishings.
To seek purification is to seek differentness. Things can be better than they are. Human beings can be better than they typically are. We can do better than the vulgar (a word whose root means “common”). Your experience in life can be higher and better than living like a breathing/eating/working machine with soft parts.


 -------- Mel Lawrenz, PHD, BibleGateway.com