“For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is GIVEN (John 3:16); and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6
And Micah 5:2
says, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come
forth for Me One to be ruler over Israel—One whose
origins are of old, from the days of eternity.”
The Half-Converted Cowboy
(A.W. Tozer)
Psalm 29:2,
"Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name;
worship the LORD in the splendor of His holiness."
There is grief in my
spirit when I go into the average church, for we have become a generation
rapidly losing all sense of divine sacredness and reverence in our worship. God
has been abridged, reduced, modified, edited, changed and amended--until He is no
longer the high and lifted up God whom Isaiah saw! We've reduced the God of
Abraham and Jacob, to a "stuffed God" that can be appealed to by
anybody at any time. The religious clown on the radio can break into his fun
and say, "Now we will have a minute of prayer." In the religious concert,
the half-converted cowboy dressed like an idiot will say after he's twanged out
some catchy numbers, "Now I'll do a holy number for you."
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word...
We could spend, at least, the rest of the day on this very
short first part of this verse.
“Word” here, Logos, is from the Greek, and in a
few words means: thought (or reason), and (expressed) word. Think
of it as that which is not seen (being thought or mind), and that which
is manifest (as in, spoken or revealed)... God Who is Spirit manifest
in Jesus in the flesh. (which we read later in verse 14, the Word was made
flesh.) It is what “incarnate” means; “made flesh, or embody with
flesh.” The word incarnate is not, to my knowledge, found in scripture.
Paul’s first letter to
the Corinthians is a critical letter for us today in that we, the corporate
church like the Corinthians, are carnal and worldly. Whereas we should be growing
up into Christ (maturing), most have remained “babes” to the extent that
we can’t even “walk” right yet as we should. After years of church attendance,
Bible reading, conferences, and retreats... we still need the “milk” because we
can’t handle the “meat.” Without the “meat” we do not grow strong. Living on
just the “milk” we remain part of a vast nursery. (https://ourdivineportion.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-vast-nursery.html)
Why Is it?
~Arthur Pink, 1886-1952
Psalm 36:1, "An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes!"
Why is it, that today the
masses are so utterly unconcerned about spiritual and eternal things, and that
they are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God? Why is it that defiance of
God is becoming more open, more blatant, more daring? The answer is, because "There is no fear of God before their eyes!"
Romans 3:18
The WHOLE Bible is about GOD! Many, many Christians, down through time, have become “Jesus” worshippers to the exclusion of God the Father, especially during and after the “hippie” era. I lived through it. Some would say, “Yes, but they generated interest in Jesus.” Yes they did... some good, but a lot bad. Bad because it was from a wrong perspective and motive. The “Jesus” movement took away from God. But that’s another sermon.
