Family Sunday Dinner- Abide In My Love

It’s 3 o’clock in Central Florida and I realized a few minutes ago and said, “If next week is Easter then that means this is Palm Sunday.” Happy Palm Sunday Everyone

I’ve started reading a book called The Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault. She is an Episcopalian priest. If you’re familiar with Richard Rohr, they kind of run in the same group of people, promoting each other’s books, things like that.

At the beginning of the book she talks about trying to put aside all the things you think you know about Jesus, all the stories like the Good Samaritan and Prodigal Son, and try to look at Him with a fresh perspective. Without any preconceived ideas. Forget the, what I call, the feel sermon stuff and look at what Jesus was really trying to get across to the people. And as long as we’re looking at Jesus’s teachings in relation to the Old Testament, let’s look at the phrase “Abide In My Love.”

All passages taken from The Hebrew Bible

While Jesus wasn’t quoting an exact phrase in the Old Testament, the focus of God’s instructions in the Old Testament was to abide or dwell in God’s presence. Meaning the temple or tabernacle. In John 15:9&10 Jesus says 9)Even as the Father hath loved Me I have also loved you; abide in My love 10)If ye keep My commandments ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments. I abide in His love.

When I read that I thought a person could read into it that if we don’t keep Jesus’s commandments, He won’t love us. But in reality He will always love us, it is us who will distance ourselves from Him by not keeping His commandments. He is the vine and we are the branches of that vine. To not keep His commandments we will be pruning our branch from the vine that is the love of Jesus.

The Hebrew word Yashab means to sit, remain or dwell. In Psalm 91:1&2 it says 1) He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2) I will say of YHVH He is my refuge and my fortress; my God in whom I trust.

Jesus is now taking the Old Testament promise of God dwelling with His people and telling us that His love is the dwelling place. In Matthew 22: 36-40 When asked of Jesus which is the greatest commandment, Jesus said Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second and like unto it is this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets. I’ve heard it often said that if you keep these 2 you can’t break the other ones.

I was reminded that when we do something for another person, it makes us feel good inside. Maybe that is that connection to the vine. Maybe that is the connection growing even stronger. Our branch growing bigger and harder to be cut off. Like us studying the words of Jesus and having a regular prayer time is us growing stronger on the vine, like how a plant is easy to cut down when it’s small and weak but grows stronger with sunshine and water and is harder to cut down.

Until next time Keep your connection to the vine growing stronger and

Keep Searching,

Paul 

Truth Be Told

I admit I’ve heard of Matthew West but never really listened to him. In the car today we heard the song Truth Be Told. As he sang all I could do was nod my head in agreement. Some denominations pride themselves on being fishers of men. They invite people to church, and that’s great, but what happens when those people show up and their baggage is discovered?

Lyrics copied and pasted from AZLyrics. This song is from 2020

There's a sign on the door, says, "Come as you are" but I doubt it.

'Cause if we lived like that was true, every Sunday mornin' pew would be crowded.

But didn't You say church should look more like a hospital?

A safe place for the sick, the sinner and the scarred, and the prodigals, like me?

But truth be told, the truth is rarely told

Oh, am I the only one who says..."I'm fine, yeah, I'm fine, oh, I'm fine, hey, I'm fine

"But I'm not, I'm broken

Jewels From Jesus- More on Repentance

 Hi everyone. Welcome to another Thursday's Child

I've been listening to an Introduction To The Hebrew Bible course on the website The Bible Project. It's explaining the Old Testament and how it was put together. At one point it talks about God's covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Joshua. That got me thinking about God's covenant with us through Jesus. Here's what I've found on our covenant. When Jesus came down from the mountain after being in the wilderness for 40 days, he came back and began His ministry teaching repentance. 

As a lot of you know I have an issue with the sinner's prayer being the only thing some churches teach their members as a way to go to heaven, when Jesus taught differently.

So, here's my understanding on our covenant with God.

From the Hebrew Bible

Joel 2:12-13 12) Yet even now saith YHVH turn ye unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, 13) and rend your heart and not your garments, and turn to YHVH your God. For He is gracious and merciful, and slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

This wasn’t Jesus speaking this time but Peter, speaking the teachings of Jesus, is scolding people in the temple who are amazed that he and John healed a man lame since birth, for turning Jesus over to be crucified, tells them....

Acts 3:19 19) repent ye therefore, and turn again, so that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may become seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.

The Hebrew noun for repent is Teshuvah meaning return or turning back. The verb is shuv, also meaning to return or turning back.

God made a covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Joshua. Each time the Israelites were on there own they abandoned their part of the covenant, yet God always kept His covenant with them. 

Jesus taught us to repent, that is our covenant with God. Turning away from our sinful ways. Yes, we slip up and can momentarily abandon our covenant, but having remorse for that sin is what brings us back to repentance and renewing our covenant.

I may start adding a link on here to my substack page also called Nite Reflections. Come find me there. Keep Searching,

Paul

Moses Birth To Exodus

 Hi Everyone,

As we finish up the Book Of Jubilees it was interesting to see that God told Moses to go to Pharoah but it doesn’t say it was in a burning bush. Moses’s conversation with the Pharaoh was different. The Book of Jubilees listed the plagues but didn’t give the conversation of each individual plague. Then, with the Passover and the death of the first born, It says “and all their idols the Lord took vengeance and burned them with fire.” The rest was the same as the Hebrew/ Protestant Bible including the Laws regarding the Passover and Sabbath. 

To finish the book I thought it would be fun to end with the events of Moses in AI pictures. 4 from Google Nana Banana 2 from my ArtSpaceAI program. Google wouldn’t create the violent picture of Moses killing the Egyptian. It was also interesting that it wouldn’t create Moses as a baby in the basket but when I took the word “baby” out of my prompt, it put the baby in the basket. I’m also aware that The Red Sea was a lot further that the city they fled from, but it is AI.

I have thoughts about what the next blog will be but it seems like when I say it, it tends to change, so maybe we'll all be surprised. Until then,

Keep searching,

Paul