Worthiness and Worship

Revelation 4

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” Revelation 4:11.

After we read the letters to the churches in chapters 2-3, we come to some amazing sights. Verse 1 says that John saw a doorway open in Heaven! It isn’t that some angel forgot to close it, but John was meant to experience the glory and wonders of Heaven even before he was able to see the coming devastation of Earth. (more…)

Pay Attention And Stay Focused

Revelation 2:29
We are now in “The Book of Revelation”. One may ask the question: exactly what is “The book of Revelation” and what is it all about? The very best answer as always is the on given by God’s word. Revelation 1:1-3 gives us the answer so let’s check it out (The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who later hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.)

As we can clearly see it was written to further reveal Jesus Christ and to show what must shortly take place. Notice it is also the only book of scripture where there is a blessing promised for those who hear and keep (meaning obey) what is written specifically in this book. (more…)

A Special Blessing

Revelation 1

Have you ever been reading or studying something but you are not really able to understand what you are reading? You read it over and over and no matter how many times you read it, it still does not make sense? It’s in those moments that we wish we had a cliffnotes version of whatever it is we are studying. Revelation can be a difficult book to understand but in the very first chapter Jesus gives us an outline of the entire book which will be helpful as we study Revelation together.

Revelation 1:19 “Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.” (more…)

Contend for the Faith

The book of Jude is one of importance. I am intrigued by Jude and his example of priority in the church, because he could have very well skipped over the problem of those in the church teaching a false doctrine, but he made it his prerogative to call them out.

Jude says in verse 3 of his book, “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”

This is a call to arms, if you will, how we need to set aside something we may want to say about Jesus and our faith, and actually step out and call out those who are hurting the church. Do we yell at them and beat them up for it? No, rather, we loving embrace the opportunity to share the true message of Jesus Christ and the gospel that is set before us. How easy could it be for us to belittle people of who they are? Sure there are moments we must stand firm and be very stern with people who creep into the church with a deliberate mentality of causing problems in the church.

These people in Jude’s time who crept into the church unnoticed were deliberately perverting the gospel of grace. They came in to cause division and discord among everyone, but Jude said, “No! Enough is enough!” We should take that example of Jude and stand for the faith of Jesus Christ. It’s our duty as believers of Jesus Christ to stand as one who is unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must not cower and hide in our little “Christian Corner”, we must rather, stand ready to defend the name of Christ!

Jude calls the believer to call out the demonic action taking place, the false teachers, but then he also calls the Christian to endure. So we are to do 2 things.

1. Defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ
2. Endure and persevere through hardship

How does one accomplish these two things? By knowing the Word of God, to know how to defend one must ought to know how to offend. And then by persevering through hard times and affliction, we must be in direct communion with God. That is the only way those two things will be accomplished.

Jude encourages in verses 20-21, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”

So now, let us take this encouragement and implement it into our own life, standing for Jesus, against anything anti-Jesus, and serving Him, waiting patiently for His return.

Amen!

An Example Before Us

3 John

Do you know someone or a family that is very kind? I don’t mean just nice, I am talking, they give and take care of you. The type of person that when you go over to their house they always make sure that you have something to eat and to drink. Well, Gaius was this man for the church.

We come to another book written by the disciple John. This is one of the shortest books of the Bible. John wrote this to Gaius, who was someone very personal to John. We see that Gaius had a man in the church who was actually hindering the work of the Gospel, he was receiving the teachers that John sent and was not hospitable. (more…)

A Book by Its Cover

2 John

Have you ever heard the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover?” I will be honest, with artwork today, there are some really cool and creative covers for books. I can walk down the aisle of the bookstore at church and if a books cover standouts, I will pick it up and read it. Sometimes the book is really good with a great cover and sometimes it is just plain borring. (more…)