Personal notes and other things…
Filed in NHL | Comments (2)Morning Journal,
I’ve received a couple of good-humored complaints of late. One is that I’m not blogging as often as I have been in the past.? Another is that I need to keep folks up to par on CJ. (General Claudius Josephus is my sidekick; a thoroughly spoiled great dane who must greet everyone that appears at our door.)
CJ is doing better than ever. We continue to make our morning rounds and occasionally find our resting place on the hill behind Christian Challenge.
The one complaint? from CJ,? has been very obvious. He has not cared? much for the dog food? we normally feed him. It has been an excellent brand. And? the vet said it is best not to change his food. Anyway, CJ got to where he would sniff his food and then nose some it out of the bowl.
I knew that CJ deserved better. I decided to find a different food. Guess what? We hit pay dirt. Of late I’ve been feeding him a special blend of Ol’Roy. The general is? now in doggy heaven.
The mean dogs have disappeared.? The dogs that had been giving CJ a bad time were also? troubling other neighbors.? Seems someone other than myself? made a? report to the local law. The dogs were dangerous. My concern had been for children and for people who walk their dogs in the neighborhood. Anyway, it has been an answer to prayer.
CJ is once again full master of his turf. Each morning he makes sure that all our squirrels, rabbits, doves, foxes, amadillos, deer, coons, that any other critter to be found on the Christian Challenge property are doing well. The squirrels pretty much ignore him.
My book writing has been on the shelf for awhile. For some reason I just can’t get myself in gear. However, I continue to do? a great deal of personal studies. Also do a lot of? on-line ministry. It is always a joy to help folk on the journey of life.
Final chemo next week. Betty and I will take small gifts to my doctor and the nurses.? The Cabrini Cancer Center is filled with precious staff people. There is even a nun who comes out each morning to pray with various groups. She always lifts up Jesus. (Cabrini is a Catholic hospital.)
Along with the final chemo I’ll have one more PET scan and a bone marrow extration to be made part of my medical record. After that I’ll have a couple weeks of recovery. Then its ‘Katie, bar the door.’ (As mom use to say.) What I say is, ‘Fishees, I’m coming to pay you a visit!? ? 
Ready for a Bible devotion?
The Father said to the Son.
On the day of Pentecost, Peter quotes from David’s writings which reads, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” (cf. Acts 2:34,35; Psalm 110:1)
Some people continue to? struggle over the Sonship of Jesus Christ. Yet this doctrine is the cornerstone of the Christian faith.
When Jesus asked the disciples who they thought that He was, Peter responded, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The Lord then said that this is the revelation upon which He? would build His church.
Understanding that Jesus is the Son of God is not a matter of trinitarian or oneness theology. Certainly it is a wonderful mystery. But it is a mystery to be acknowledged by all who believe in Jesus.
What we hear in David’s writing is,? “I will make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” This is the Father speaking to the Son.
But who then are the enemies of Jesus?? His enemies are those who deny His divine Sonship, who deny the finished work of the cross, and who disallow for Jesus having full authority over all of creation.
Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matt28:18
Jesus said, “Not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” (Jn5:22,23)
Jesus said to the unbelieving Jews, “Do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me.” (JUn 10:36,37)
There is a vast religion today that has Biblically made itself? an enemy of Jesus. Inside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which is Islam’s third most holy place, you find written, ‘God has no son.’
But in all this let’s not miss the point. Certainly Satan fights against the message of the cross. The reason is because God finished His business at the cross. And the business that God finished is the business of love.
Listen once again to what the Bible says is the business of the cross: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name [heavenly authority] of the only begotten Son of God.” (Jn3:16-18)
The message of the cross is love. I realize that I’ve often repeated this, but it is so crucial to understanding God’s work of redemption that it needs to be repeated often.
Humans? continue to look at? love and death as mysteries? of the earthly experience. Even the Bible places them together.
In the Song of Soloman we read, “Put me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, jealousy is as severe as Sheol … Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers over flow it; if a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, it would be utterly despised.” (cf. Song8:8,7)
Listen carefully — The story of the cross is the story of love and death meeting together. Love was declared the victor. Why is this? It is because one of the awesome definititions of God Himself is simply, “God is love.”
The apostle John said, “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
John further writes, “By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may confidence in the day of judgment; because as [Jesus] is, so also are we in this world.”
And again, “There is no fear [of judgment] in love; because perfect love [work of the cross] casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears [punishment] is not perfected in love. [Does not understand God's perfected love of the cross.]
What else can I say? The message of the cross is the only message I know. And I’m just a? country preacher who has discovered life and in this discovery I have also discovered the faithfulness of the Lord.?
This is why I say, much love coming your way.
Buddy
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