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Is it possible to live in this present world the way God created us to live? Did God forgive our sin when we were born again just so we could “go to heaven when we die”? Did Jesus come to earth to live as God’s Son, or as the Son of Man? He most definitely was God’s Son—and yet He was unmistakably a man. He had to eat, rest, and sleep 
just like all other men. He laughed and wept just as all humans have since the dawn of creation. He had to manage money and relate to relatives. Yet the peace and confidence with which He did it all was amazing. It was as if He wasn’t weighted down as others were. He talked about His Father and His Spirit in such a familiar way that They seemed close, not far off in an unreachable heaven. His followers would later come to recognize this uniqueness as the very fulfillment of what God intended man to be all along. In short, they would come to know they had seen God’s presence living in a human body (2 Corinthians 5:19).
But as Jesus brought God near to man He revealed differences in our thinking and God’s thinking. Though He taught a great deal about money, it never seemed to occupy the center of His thoughts the way it does most human beings. At times Continue reading
At this time each year we celebrate Memorial Day: A time when we visit the graves of departed loved ones. Where did this tradition begin? Why was this day established as a national holiday?
philosophy!) In Texas, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said the Lone Star State was prepared to forfeit billions in federal aid rather than let the Obama administration dictate restroom policy for its 5.2 million students (Breaking News at Newsmax.com 2016/05/13).
The unveiling of this centerpiece of “His Story” begins in an obscure village in Palestine called Nazareth. An unknown young maiden is startled one day by a visit from an angel who identifies himself as being no less than Gabriel himself. He tells Mary (for that was her name) that she will have a child and that this child will be called “the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32). It was further revealed to her perplexed fiancé, Joseph, that, “She shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Mary is shocked! She? Bear the long-awaited “Anointed One”? She was to give birth to the One Who would pay man’s debt to God? She was to bring into this world the One Who would fix what we had messed up in the Garden of Eden? This seemed incredible! Yet, the credibility of this mighty angel standing before her is hardly debatable.
election. This is where we will choose state and local government servants which will shape our state for generations to come. This is Kentucky’s most important election this year! Yet, probably less than 25% of Kentucky’s born-again believers will vote! Up until 1900, the Christian population of America controlled the outcome of elections. No candidate could be elected who did not acknowledge God’s place in our history. Actually, they had to go even further than that. In their speeches and writings, they had to acknowledge that Jesus Christ was God’s Son, and that the Bible was the best book to live by in this world. Had a candidate for political office in the 1800’s stated that he believed abortion was a woman’s choice, or homosexuality was just a different way of family life, he would have ended his political career then and there. What changed?
By miracles, He brings Abraham’s children to the desert mountain known as Sinai. In an awesome display of thunder, lightning, and the quaking of this huge mountain, God shows these “children of Israel” that He is the God who created them and is worthy of their utmost respect. To begin this mind-altering process in man, God calls Moses up on the mountain, and, with His torch-like Hand, begins to engrave letters into the rock. Moses watches in awe as ten commands are burned into the side of Sinai. God then with His finger cuts the outline of two tablets separating them from the rest of the rock bed. Moses, watching the smoking tablets, begins to read them: “You shall have no other gods before Me…” (Exodus 20: 3). Ten such commands reveal how God thinks about Himself, about man, and how He expects us to treat Him and those He has created. God tells Moses to take them to the people at the foot of the mountain. He wants men to know how He thinks, and, because He wants them not to forget it, He’s written it down.
So what now?
Besides the Tree of Life, there was another Tree in that Paradise: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This tree represented the opposite way of life. This way of living would be motivated by what happened outside of man. Instead of being inspired by the moving of the Life of God deep within him, if he chose to eat of this tree man would be rejecting God’s offer to come inside him and be his life. He would be choosing a way in which he would make his own decisions, instead of allowing the flowing will of God to come through him.
This was the reason for the two trees. As the Scripture declares,
The clause “It is finished”, in the Greek language in which Jesus spoke it, means to reach a goal. It also means to pay a debt in full, so that the books balance. Jesus had reached His goal of paying our debt. But to understand the “debt” Jesus was paying, we must revisit the scene in the Garden of Eden: When God begins to work with a pile of dust. He carefully shapes it into the form of a man. Once this human body is finished to perfection, God “blows” His own breath into the nostrils of this pile of clay. All of a sudden, the form moves! Light comes to its eyes! It gets up and stands erect like God. I can see Father God turning to the rest of His creation and saying,
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