Dream A little Dream

Is the LORD pleased with me? Do I please Him in what I do? Do the people I am associated with please Him? Look at 2 Samuel 12:22, and there is my answer. God wants me. He want me for His sake because He wants to make me part of His people. Not for what i can do, or have done, or will do. Not whether I cna preach, teach, or play an instrument or sing. But because of me. And He loves me.Knowing that should make me want to worship Him His way (2 Samuel 15:31) and make me more likely to come to Him,c alling upon Him so that others may come to believe Him as well. (I King 19:16,19) I should know that because He loves me, He will do all He can at His most perfect time so that I am protected and kept sheltered. (1Chronicles 5:20). Know that is pleases God to call me one of His, I am grateful that He is so powerfula and that He has chosen me, and I acknowledge His power and supremacy, because in Him nothing else will prevail. (2 Chronicles 4:11) I also attain humilit, because I know that God hears me and knows my affliction. And He cares. (2 Chronicles 33:12,13) And it strengthens me against those who would afflict and chide and punish and beat me in an attempt to keep me from doing the will of God. (Nehemiah 4:4,5,9; Nehemiah 6:9,14) In Nehemiah's time there were those who would undermine the work of the Isrealites in rebuilding their temple. There were those who denied and chastised the builders, even charging at the with swords to keep them from building the building to God. And Nehemiah encouraged His own not to give but to remember the task ahead of them and complete the task (The race as Paul would call it in Philippians). And Nehemiah called upon God for protection, reminding Himof His covenant and His mercy. (Nehemiah 9:32)

Dream a little Dream (part 3)

And how do I come to understand exactly what Zion means? I can read all the abstracts, all the commentaries, go to all the seminars and classes offered by various churches and still be unclear as to what Zion is. I believe that is the way God wants it. Not that He deliberately wants to muddy the waters, but that He wants us to realize that for all the uses I have for knowledge, that unless I use it according to His way and for the testimony of Him, knowledge is worthless. Knowledge is only to be used as a combative tool to protect us against untruths of satan, not to build our character. Living our lives in the Spirit does that. So that in Jesus' terms knowledge = truth and truth = understanding God's greatness = life and finally life + Spirit = character. This is what I see over and over, and most explicitly in Paul's letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 8:1) when he says, "Knowledge puffs up but love builds up". It is not what I know that is of major concern to God, although He doews what me to come to know Him, becasue He knows that knowledge comes by reading what He says in His Word. The more I read, the more I know. And the more I realize the less I know. And if I use God's knowledge right, I am humbled in its granduer. The main item God wants of me is love, and the resultant obedience. He wants me to have Moses' attitude in Exodus 24:7, "He took the book of the covenant and read in the audience of the peole: and they said, "All that he LORD hath said will we do and be obedient." God wants me to be obedient in all things both big and small.

Dream a little dream (part 2)

Is Zion where the LORD lives, as the Psalmist in Psalms 132:15 says? Does He chose to be in a place that I know nothing about, can't even conceive or perceive of, and is it something that I am in danger of losing if I am not careful? (Psalms 137:1) Does my sin lead me further and further from His habitation? And my repentance brings me closer to Him, because I come to realize how solemn a time it is to be with Him. (Joel 2:1,15). Zion is the spiritual representation of His physical temple in Jerusalem, according to the scripture. (Psalms 65:29; Psalms 48:9; Psalms29:9) It is where God sits on His throne as in Isaiah 6:1 and it is where He delegates to those who He has chosen to demonstrate His power. (Mal 3:1) It is a place we all join n order to derive our power, the source of which is God. And it is where I must realize that I need to acknowledge Him daily, give Him praise daily (Luke 24:53) and acknowledge Him as my Father (Psalms 9:11, Psalms 48:11, Psalms 74:2) and realize that I am in His holy city, when I join with my brethren (Matt 23:16). Where the notion came from that Israel would be rebuilt and Jesus would sit there I don't have a clue. Israel as it is now is not accepting of Jesus as the Messiah, although He truly is. And Israel as it is not is not the seat of His body. It is a place of great turmoil and warring between descendants of David and descendants of Ismail. If we take everything in scripture as being literal, then Jezebel will come back to life as will Babylon so that the Book of Revelation can be taken as written. No, because the bible is a book filled with parables allegories and actual events the reader m st be well aware of which is which. And therefore when the author speaks of the New Israel or the New Jerusalem, he is speaking of the Church, the congregation of God's family in Zion, heaven.

Do You have a Dream

Where is Zion? Is it actually a place that I can visit? Is it some place I can go to know where Jesus spent His boyhood? In the bible there are many listings for Zion, but unlike any other place no real definitive location is given. And so, depending who you talk to, Zion has very different meanings. To a Jew, Zion represents the Promised Land and their hope of returning to their beloved Palestine. To a Christian, Zion represents heaven: the land of milk and honey, where there will be no more tears and where our heavenly Father has a mansion made up with rooms for each of us. If we take Zion to mean heaven, or even the Promised Land, it seems there should be better terminology to describe such a place as Zion, which, according to some, translates in Hebrew as "parched place". Then again this makes sense considering that God's thoughts are not our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8) and that His sole purpose for picking His people was not because they were the best or the brightest but because they were. These people, not unlike my brethren and myself were just ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill people. And God created in them an extraordinary existence, an ability to do powerful things, if they let God do the doing. Not unlike my brethren and I. So Zion, while meaning a dry land also means that deep down this land was made of you and me because God will do extraordinary things in us and through us, that all may know He is God. He makes gold out of the desert sand, flowers out of the dung heap, and a saved soul out of something with no hope at all.