ECCE

      We are in the middle of holy days, which are Hanukkah and Christmas. Many people, especially young people, as they get older and go through the educational system, even Christian educational institutions, are losing their faith. I sought the Lord as to why this should be. This resulting message is vital to the sheep but also to the shepherds. Our education is often by rote and memorization, not delving into the deeper areas of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in the Lord. Our churches have often become centers of entertainment, rather than places where the true and deeper things of the Lord are taught and experienced. This brings us to the question that must be asked: "Do you know Jesus ?"       As opposed to being educating and entertaining, what does it mean for the church to be equipping the saints? Paul wrote that equipping the believers was one of the main focuses of the ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers....

      There are many examples of lives transformed by the Gospel. Those transformed lives went on to affect many other lives. Paul wrote: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ( ktisis - thing created, creation, the act of founding, converted ): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Cor. 5:17). Through Christ, God has reconciled us to Himself, and in addition, has given to us the ministry of reconciliation and the word of reconciliation that reconciles others to God through Christ in the same manner. Paul calls us "ambassadors for Christ", beseeching others, "be ye reconciled to God." (v. 18-20). This reconciliation and new creature are the result of the Father's work through His Son, Jesus: "For he (God) hath made him (Jesus) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (v. 21). We, as ambassadors of reconciliation, have the responsibility to tell ...

                   This week we have heard in the news of the murders of Jewish people in Australia who were celebrating Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, and murders at Brown University here in America. Jesus called us to be the light of the world. We are supposed to dispel the darkness. Are we shining that light into the darkness as we have been called and commanded to do?      Before a large crowd, Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount, which included the Beatitudes.  Speaking to this crowd, He also taught this: "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Mt. 5:14-16). Are we afraid or ashamed to lift our light before men? Have we hidden ou...

          Advent means "the appearing, the coming."  Throughout scripture, both the first appearing and the second appearing of the Messiah/Christ Jesus are described. As we have been discussing comparing spiritual with spiritual these last few weeks, we will also compare scriptures that confirm both advents of Christ from the Old and New Testaments. Scripture says that the LORD does nothing without first telling His servants, the prophets, and that includes the two advents of Jesus.      Matthew Ch. 2 tells the first advent of the baby born in Bethlehem to Mary, and the divergent attitudes towards that miraculous event. The wise men from the east came to King Herod in Jerusalem, asking: "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have followed his star from the east, and are come to worship him.' When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." (Mt. 2:1-3). Why was the birth of the Messiah tro...

      We are continuing in the Book of Ephesians as we learn to compare these verses with confirming scriptures. Ephesians 5:21-25 begins by comparing the relationship of marriage between a man and a woman with Jesus Christ and the Church of believers with the husband as a sacrificial head of the marriage, willing to give up his life for his wife, as Jesus was willing to do for the Church, and the wife as being submitted ( hypotasso - be subject to, to yield to one's admonition or advice, as a military term to arrange divisions under the command of a leader, an attitude of cooperating in carrying a burden) to her husband, as the Church is submitted to Christ: "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head ( kephale - the head, Christ as husband of the Church, the corner stone) of the church: and he is the saviour of the body...Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it."      The headship of Christ over the Church, as a h...