Hold on to Difficult Scripture

Two Difficult Scriptures       

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Herein you will read of two "difficult" scriptures of Jesus' teachings or examples we should follow; and one scripture from St. Paul that can be called "difficult".   In coming to take the Resurrection of Jesus as a true vindication of all Jesus did, say, and teach through his example, we have to come to terms with what we read in the scriptures and do not totally understand.  In not understanding scriptures we read, we must then seek to understand!  Then in coming to understand, we gain wisdom.

Our lack of understanding is often in the lack of meaning of the English words translated from the original ancient Greek or as in the OT- Hebrew.  To seek meaning, find commentaries, books, explore explanations found on the internet, but seek the meaning, and you will find inspiration to better know the scriptures.  Through the study of several commentaries, when we come to understand the original meaning of the translated Greek word and thus, we better know what the English translation is truly saying.  
It truly can be a heavenly moment or just a good old "Ah-haaaa!"
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In Paul's epistle, verse 18 of 1st Thessalonians we find the verses translated well, but still on first reading we most likely fail in seeing the true meaning of what he says.  It requires thought to get the real meaning of "in all circumstances".  If you do not see the real meaning of these words, be patient, think.  This is one of those times that after you read what the words really say you will want to kick yourself for not realizing its real meaning before peaking at the answer.

1st Thessolonians 5:17-18
17  pray continually;
18  give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Giving thanks in all circumstances is truly, on the surface difficult. But in the writing below, it is explained what God wants us to really do.  Have you figured it out yet?   No commentary needed for this one.  Just some goood thinking skills.

Click here:  Give thanks in all Circumstances, Really?

yes! really!

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Matthew 26:39  Going a little farther, he fill with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will."
Read Matthew 26:39 in context View in parallel Compare Translations

Matthew 26:42

42 He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

Read Matthew 26:42 in context View in parallel Compare Translations

Matthew 26:44 

44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

Read Matthew 26:44 in context View in parallel Compare Translations

Far too often we want to solve our problems and then persist in our misery thinking less of ourselves if we give up trying. But, sometimes we need to determine we just need to persevere in giving up to God, Praying, "Not my will, but yours be done."

This was prayed by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus gives us the example verified by His resurrection to follow not only what he did, but how he lived and how he prayed. When He prayed this, He knew he was facing the most important moment in the history of man, His death by crucifixion.
In following Jesus' command, "Seek the Kingdom..." we can do no less in our times of trials. In my lowest moment in Vietnam, in this petition of my prayer, Vietnam became the most important moment of my history.

Let your trials become a testimony by breathing in the Holy Spirit.

Click Here:    Knowing the Holy Spirit Within You

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Matthew 5:5  

  Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

<< Matthew 5:4Matthew 5:5Matthew 5:6 >>

Read Matthew 5:5 in context  Read Matthew 5  View in parallel  Compare Translations

Until just a few years ago, I did not like this scripture and I considered it to say we were to be as a door mat;  Plus, it just did not seem to go with how Jesus lived his life. Oh, he was meek and mild mannered most of the time, but a few times, at the end of his ministry, he was like a hungry cat ready to shred. Just read Matthew 23, where he went after the "Pharisees and teachers of the law" like a father taking an errant child to the woodshed.

But when I read the Biblical meaning behind the words, they became something truly to live up to. We have to remember that it was in Jesus' Resurrection that all He said, all He did, and everything about Him was truly and absolutely vindicated.

In this writing, the meaning of this scripture is discussed so that you can realize it is for your life to be truly humble.... even in your boldness to further His Kingdom.

Click Here:  Meekness or Boldness,
                     How do we be Bold While being Humble

Thanks Be to God

© lonnie coggins

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© Lonnie Coggins

ldcoggins@gmail.com

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Please email me if you find any broken links in this message.

lonnie 

Publication  0104

Intro-
Some scriptures are just difficult to understand and run counter to commen sense.  But, common sense is sometimes the way of the world and does not fit with God's way.  For some scripture that is hard to understand we just need to hold on to it, pray about it, study, pray about it, and eventually it does make sense.  It gives you a new o\Outlook, a new Vision, a new Insight on Common Sense- God's way.  Click the link for the discussion on two difficult scriptures and share on FB as you are lead to do so.

http://lonnieadailythought.blogspot.com/2013/02/hold-on-to-difficult-scripture.html

Wasting Our Time

Wasting Our Time
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From a friend on Face book, 
Kim Toler Norris recently wrote:

"Wasting one's time is one of the biggest wrongs that can be committed against one's self.  Time is our most valuable resource because it is something that once past, can never be acquired again. In order to make the best use of our time it is crucial that we use it doing the things within our heart that we love, with the people we love, and with those who love us in return. And, sometimes we can't rely on others for love and may even have doubt among ourselves, but at the end of the day we can always rely on God and His unconditional love for us."

My humble addition:

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with our time use and management, and thus falling into sin, is we do not pray for God's guidance in everything we do.  How many decisions do we make in a day where we affect many people and other people's circumstances that we never pray for guidance in those decisions?  How quickly we get mad about something then fuss at others who made us mad, often people we love. In our anger we lash out at people and waste time and hurt ourselves more than the other. This is sinful time management. Rather, we should immediately stop, take a deep breath, think, and pray.

Jesus did this. Consider all those years He saw the temple leaders, the scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law in their greed violating God’s scriptures. But, Jesus lived the meekness He preached in the Beatitudes on the Sermon of the Mount.  However, in the Greek definition of that meekness, He waited to the right time, the most perfect moment to expose His tempered angryness with the people He knew wanted to kill him (Greek meaning- Meekness/Boldness).  He sat the Perfect Example of a leader, His patience was/is immeasurable.

In Matthew 23, we have Jesus' seven woes to the leaders of the day. "Woe are you...". It shows some anger but in this case in the Greek, the emphasis here of 'woe' is and means ‘to pity’. Perhaps, we should allow our anger to be transformed to pity for those who wrong us, just as in Jesus' example. 

Just as Jesus waited for years to speak out with His pity for those leaders who refused to seek to understand, so too, by His example we should do the same.  Just as God shows mercy, patience and forbearance in our sin against Him, so to we must do the same in our relationships with others. 

Just as God has “unconditional love for us”, “at the end of the day” we must do the same for our friends, family, loved ones, and yes, our enemies…. Just as Jesus did, all the way on and through the cross.

Thanks be to God

  for giving us Jesus and

    the Holy Spirit

      to show us and guide us on

        how to live our lives.

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You can print the message including this sharing message only for your friends and for non-profit.  You will have to copy and paste the message to a word processing document.   After you copy and paste add the following at the end of the message:

© Lonnie Coggins
ldcoggins@gmail.com

If you desire to use any of these messages in a For-Profit manner you must contact me (email) for permission.  Typically, I will most likely give permission.

Please email me if you find any broken links in this message.

lonnie

Meekness, Boldness, Jesus in the Temple

Meekness or Boldness    
How Do You Want to Live....
         maybe Both?

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Matthew 5:5 NKJ     

 Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.

Humility is Not Being a Doormat

Growing up in church I was taught many important lessons on God’s Way for my life.  I remember my second grade Sunday school teacher well.  One day she gave us a picture of Jesus to color with the title “Be Meek and Mild like Jesus”.  We colored the paper as she talked about how meek and mild Jesus was.  Oh, she sounded good, but, even at that age, she made me uncomfortable with her picture of Jesus as a meek and mild doormat for someone to walk over.  Even at eight years old, I just could not buy what she had to say.  My thought, “Why do I want to be like that?”  Her words just did not have the ring of truth, but I was unsure why.  That day, you see, had a long lasting impression on me.

Over the ensuing years, I thought of her lesson but seeing a different Jesus as I was taught and studied God’s word.  But for some time, the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:5 was a bother to me.  But, believing Jesus never said anything He did not mean, I just had to seek understanding; I still believe that.  So, how do we reconcile our 'modern' concept of meekness to understand this passage.  

Being Passive is not Meekness

I have come to understand, my teacher taught passiveness where God wants us to be active.  She taught being a doormat where God wants us to stand up for what is right.  She taught just gentleness when God wants us to gently behave but overtly act with boldness in His name.  She bordered on teaching spinelessness when God really wants us to have backbone toward needful people, injustice, and evil in our lives.  The problem came in that she did not understand the word ‘meek’ and what it meant.

The Bible meaning of Meakness
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."  It is important for us to know that active Humility and Meekness does not mean for us to be a doormat and devoid of action.  True unselfish humble action for God’s Kingdom through the Holy Spirit is accomplished by continually seeking God’s desires in our earthly time.  But, we must not only “seek” we need to be active in His name.  

In the original Greek, this "meek" Jesus speaks of, means or can have any or all of these characteristics:  
(1) A person who is under self-control,
(2) one who is obedient,
(3) humble without pride, and/or
(4) one who is angry only at the right time,
                            (Barkley, Matthew, vol 1, p96).

Influential leaders of history often have one of two behaviors:  Either the humility of  Lincoln or Billy Graham or the pride and arrogance of Hitler and Stalin.  From this view, we see possessing humility is important to leading us to do greatness for God.  Billy Graham was the Clark Kent of mildness, but a Superman in speaking and doing God’s will.  Humility is not a weakness for we, as Jesus, are at our greatest when we are most humble, but just as Jesus taught us through His actions, there is a season for gentleness and a time for boldness.

Jesus was gentle, meek, kind, and showed great mercy in His healing of the blind, feeding of the thousands, curing the sick, and raising the dead.  But, there was a strong side to Jesus, and He demonstrated this often.  Jesus was bold in His behaviors when he saw things were wrong and not working for the lives of people.  His behaviors and words do tell us he was gentle, but other behaviors also shows us boldness in doing the Righteous behavior.

In Meekness Choose Your Battles

Matthew 21
12  Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
13  He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a den of robbers."

Jesus chose His time for His battles and did not “major in minor” issues.  He was patient, but He would strike out against evil... at the right time.  In His gentleness he would have compassion, heal, supply needs, and feed thousands of people.  Yet, I cannot imagine the horror of Peter when on the road to Jerusalem, Jesus chastises Peter for not being “mindful of the things of God”.  Jesus certainly was most strong in overturning the tables in the Temple during His last week.  Finally, you can feel the anger in Jesus’ voice when he strikes out, "woe are you..." Scribes and Pharisees” (great video) in Matthew 23.  This is certainly not 'modern' mild or meekness, but it is what Jesus meant, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

In Living with us, Jesus did not come just to lead us to salvation, he came to teach us how to live, to live a life pleasing to God.  God wants us to be gentle, kind, and, yes, meek.  But, He also wants us to stand up to the wrongs (evil) we find in our everyday lives.  His clearing the Temple of money changers was being Bold against injustice, at just the right time.  His desires for us is to be both humbly active and to be Bold in His name, seeking His Wisdom, being Pure in heart and doing His Will.

Walking the Talk

Jesus earthly life Sets the Example of how to live.  In Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount defines Christian living.  He preached the walk of Christian living.  But, most importantly, He walked the talk.  Unlike so many "modern" preachers He lived what he preached, but He was no doormat.

There is no sin in True Christian Boldness for Christ.  Do the Right Thing for Christ and let God take care of the consequences.

Thanks be to God.

(c) Lonnie Coggins

  
Please Join 'A Daily Thought Group' on Facebook.  

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You can print the message including this sharing message only for your friends and for non-profit.  You will have to copy and paste the message to a word processing document.   After you copy and paste add the following at the end of the message:

© Lonnie Coggins
ldcoggins@gmail.com

If you desire to use any of these messages in a For-Profit manner you must contact me (email) for permission.  Typically, I will most likely give permission.

Please email me if you find any broken links in this message.

lonnie

Publication  0014

intro

IN OUR BEHAVIORS FOR JESUS, TIMING IS EVERYTHING.  JESUS HAD GREAT TIMING,  a great ability, and perfect patience in choosing the right words and the truly Righteous behavior at just the right time.  In His meek patience He teaches us much about the active time for boldness.  Click the link for more.    Please share the message on your Fb page as you like, and if you like, click the FB 'Follow' button to have notifications of these publications.  For other messages like this, visit my FB page, or on FB visit-"A Daily Thought Group".

http://lonnieadailythought.blogspot.com/2010/11/meekness-or-boldness.html