Faithful Writers

Recognition. Reward. At least a little celebration. But it didn’t come. Instead, I watched people walk away from the church, come back, and get welcomed like heroes. I clapped on the outside. But inside, I was thinking: Really? That’s it? Just throw them a party and move on?

The loving Jesus you follow, and cling to certain teachings of, said this about the Old Testament: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Matthew 5:17

When the Disciples couldn’t cast out the demon, Mark 9:14–32, Jesus demonstrated that the way life is lived between prayer sessions is much more important than the eloquence of the prayers spoken — after all, He knows what you’re about to say before you do.

There was a combination of cultures already being biased, superstitions, a serious lack of critical thinking, misreading of Scripture, and a

Jesus loves the assembly line workers and the remote salespeople who only check in occasionally via Zoom. But he delights in the worker who knocks in person. Imagine his smile when you put a couple of donuts on his desk.

Wow! Why did I think the response would be a prequel to “The Terminator”? I looked for a drone circling overhead. But the sky was clear. And none of my bank accounts were frozen. No sixes appeared on my right hand or forehead.

The underlying theme of Genesis is about the overcoming of all odds to achieve ultimate victory through faith in God. Think about it. God chooses one childless and elderly couple way beyond their ability to bear children. And God says to the husband Abraham that not only is he going to have a child but He is going to make him into a great nation, bless him abundantly and grant his descendants the Land of Canaan.

Suddenly, we weren’t in buildings anymore.We weren’t being led by a stage team with fog machines and countdown timers. We weren’t sipping free coffee between services or navigating church apps to register for “authentic community.” And many of us didn’t miss it.

We can see throughout the book of Genesis that God’s interventions are at their most intense during the early stages of mankind’s history and gradually take a backseat as His creation matures.

That’s the tricky part, right? Because the Spirit doesn’t always show up the way we expect. We want a booming voice, a divine sign, maybe something with flashing lights and a deep Morgan Freeman-esque narration. But more often than not, the Spirit’s help looks like:

Here is something a lot of people don’t know. Jesus Himself quoted from the Septuagint. This translation was done in the third century B.C. by Jewish scribes who were experts in Hebrew and Greek.

So have you ever heard this argument? “How could God have created the universe in just six days?” “The Hebrews claim that by counting the generations we find the earth to be approximately six thousand years old.”

This idea that you can pick and choose what characteristics of God you want to believe and focus on is disastrous for your faith. You can’t select, elevate, and revere one above the others and expect a rich and abundant relationship with Him. 

There is a logical symmetry behind His actions clearly reflected in His creation. He is a God who draws up boundaries that are NOT to be broken. Let’s take a look at the creation story in Genesis Chapter One.

It doesn’t need a glow-up, a rebrand, or wrapped in skinny jeans or delivered by someone with a TikTok following and a smoke machine. What it needs is a person bold enough to live it out with honesty and imagination.

Since we are talking about the one true God of Israel, why is the plural form of God being used, instead of the singular form, which is EL? The answer is that the IM ending in Hebrew also has another usage. Adding IM to the end of a word can also indicate greatness.

I consider it quite rude and controlling to do so. Plus. Scripture also makes this a mute argument.

My answer: If you knew the original Hebrew, you wouldn’t have that problem. In verses 3 and 4, the Hebrew word for “light” is OWR.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: a lot of what we were told about Jesus isn’t from Jesus. It’s our denominational image.

Today I would like to explore its opposite, the word CHOSEK. The dictionary defines this word as darkness or obscurity and as with owr also has strong spiritual significance but in a very negative sense.

God achieves His purposes through division and separation. This is a fundamental God principle and can be seen in the very first Chapter of Genesis. “God saw that the light was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.”-GENESIS 1:4

Your first reaction to a prayer request and your action says a lot about you and your relationship with God. 

The important point that I want you to get from all of this is to keep in mind that there is an underlying spiritual reality and message behind not only physical objects in Scripture but also, many of the events depicted in Scripture that are not evident when first read but become clearer through prayer and as God gives us a deeper understanding.

The problem with this explanation is that it still does not explain how the market days happened to cluster around every “seventh” day, instead of every fifteenth day or nineteenth day or something else.