Bible Studies, News and Research from a Heavenly Perspective

Do you ever stop and think to do what the Bible says… stop and exam­ine your­self? We look in the mir­ror every­day to see what we look like in the nat­ural before rush­ing off to work and play, but how about our spir­i­tual man? He is neglected, unkempt, abused? Do we act like Christ to those who are with out hope in this world? Can other peo­ple see Christ in you? Do peo­ple stop to ask you, or are at least com­pelled to inform you that they per­ceive that some­thing is dif­fer­ent about you… on the inside?   These are ques­tions that I believe we need to ask our­selves, what Paul meant when he wrote to the Corinthi­ans telling them to stop  and “exam­ine them­selves.”  How much of Christ do oth­ers see in me?   How much do I really reflect the image of the one whom I say that I love?   Are sin­ners (and the demons that are often in them) uncom­fort­able in my pres­ence because of the Christ that lives in the inside of me, or do I just try to blend in with the crowd?

It is a sci­en­tific fact that the longer to peo­ple know each other in an inti­mate set­ting, the more they begin to look take on each other’s char­ac­ter­is­tics phys­i­cally. That is why newly weds may look noth­ing alike yet after 30, 40 say 50 years of mar­riage you swear they could pass for sib­lings. It is the same thing with Christ. Per­haps if you are not where you want to be in your faith it is because you do not spend enough time alone with him. Do you still have fre­quent out­bursts of anger that you can­not con­trol? Are you mean to your spouse with your words or your actions. Do you neglect those that God had put under you care? Are you a good stu­dent or do you do just enough to get by? These are the things that we are respon­si­ble for will be held account­able for — the things that we have the abil­ity and power to con­trol — good and bad.

Remem­ber that in Deuteron­omy God gave his peo­ple this exhor­ta­tion: Today, I have set before you life and death, bless­ing and curs­ing. Choose life that you may live. Paul declares to for­get about your sin­ful past life and to press for­ward with those whom have set the image of Christ before their eyes, who fol­low his very move. We are to become one with the one that we say that we admire… is this not the gospel? We no longer have time to play games in Amer­ica — judg­ment is indeed right at the door — and as always must begin with God's own peo­ple. How will you answer God for the life that he gave you? How have you dis­played Christ to the world.

It is only log­i­cal to take this in a new direc­tion based on the last ques­tion above. How can you dis­play Christ to the world if indeed you do not know what he looks like. We know in the gospel of John that He says Jesus is the Word. Do you know the Word, study it, antic­i­pate the Holy Sprit speak­ing to you every time you read a par­tic­u­lar pas­sage? Or has this Chris­t­ian expe­ri­ence become so bor­ing to you that you now read the Bible strictly to sat­isfy your own intel­lec­tual curios­ity and pro­pel your own ego? Do you use the scrip­tures to lift up the poor and the needy to a level of accep­tance in the beloved, or do you damn them by pre­sent­ing a gospel that you do not live and indeed know noth­ing about? I am speak­ing about those sects of our faith who, by their own human efforts attempt to con­vert sin­ners by throw­ing scrip­tures at them and by telling them “just say this two or three sen­tence prayer and you will go to heaven! No, that is bull­shit. The holy spirit doesn’t need you to force the gospel down people‘s throats. They are hun­gry enough as it is. All they are look­ing for is for some­one who truly knows and walks with Christ to set a real pub­lic exam­ple before them so that they can fol­low. We are called to make dis­ci­ples… not to preach to the air. Find a group of peo­ple that you can iden­tify with and reach out your hand… the bless­ings of God are yours!

Sorry if this is a bit jerky, I woke up with this on my heart and felt that some­one needed to read this this morning.

I am in the mid­dle of a term paper but will write more if time permits.

Take care and rest in the love of Christ which is the true bread that came down to us from heaven.

Fare well, my beloved.

John Mark

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