A Place Prepared

Isaiah 43:16 (NRSVue) - Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,

In Isaiah 43, the prophet speaks of God’s restoration and protection.

He hearkens back to the day when Moses led the people out of bondage.

When pursued by Pharoah’s chariots, God parted the sea for his people,

He provided a means of escape so they could reach the Promised Land.

In John 14, Jesus also speaks of a way out.

He speaks of the means of escape from the cares of this world to the Father.

And just as God parted the sea, God provided us with a way to our own promised land.

God provided us with Jesus as the means of coming home to Him.

John 14:3-4 (NRSVue) - And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.

This was not an impulsive decision on God’s part.

This was God’s plan from the very beginning.

Like the people who were delivered from the bondage of slavery, God used Jesus to free us from the bondage of sin.

God used Jesus to free us from fear.

Our salvation is assured,

Our way has been prepared.

The fear of death no longer has any power over us.

Thanks to Jesus, we will close our eyes in this world and open them in the next.

We will then see firsthand the Father welcoming us into His presence forever.

When that happens, fear and darkness will become a forgotten memory.

Blessings,

Jim Pokorny

The Other Brother Jim

Look for me at otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com on Friday, April 12, 2024.

I will be back here on Friday, April 19, 2024

God with Us

Genesis 12:1 (NET) - “Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you.

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God told Abraham to leave the familiar and step into the unknown.

God did not even say exactly where this was.

Rather, God said that He would “show” him.

Abraham was no longer a young man when God gave him these instructions.

How did Abraham respond?

Genesis 12:4-5 (NET) - So Abram left, just as the Lord had told him to do, and Lot went with him. (Now Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.) And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they left for the land of Canaan. They entered the land of Canaan.

Abraham obeyed God.

God called Abraham and Abraham responded.

This would not be the only time that Abraham would answer God’s call.

There would come a time when God would ask much more of Abraham.

Genesis 22:2 (NET) - God said, “Take your son—your only son, whom you love, Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will indicate to you.”

Abraham dearly loved his only son.

How did Abraham respond?

Genesis 22:3 (NET) - Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out for the place God had spoken to him about.

This time, just like the time before, Abraham obeyed God.

God called Abraham and again Abraham responded.

Abraham was prepared to do everything God asked of him.

He was even prepared to sacrifice his only son Isaac.

In the end, God spared Isaac.

Genesis 22: 11-12 (NET) - But the Lord’s angel called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am!” he answered. “Do not harm the boy!” the angel said. “Do not do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me.”

God provided a ram for the sacrifice.

The name Abraham gave to the place means “The LORD provides”.

Romans 4:3 (NET) - For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

God was with Abraham.

I think it is more than fair to say that God was with Isaac as well.

That is the way it is.

God calls and we are to respond.

What will our response be?

If we obey God’s call then God will be with us.

The prophet Isaiah understood this.

Isaiah 7:14 (NET) - For this reason the sovereign master himself will give you a confirming sign. Look, this young woman is about to conceive and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him Immanuel.

This prophecy was fulfilled.

Matthew 1:23 (NET) - Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.”

When my ancestors first came to the region where I now live, most of them did not even speak the local language.

They had no idea what awaited them in this new land.

But they did know one thing.

They knew that God was with them.

When they built their first church in the area 150 years ago, their pastor painted “God with Us” behind the pulpit as a reminder.

He panted these words in the language they knew.

God was with Abraham and Isaac.

God was with those who preceded me.

God is with me.

God is with us!

Blessings,

Jim Pokorny

The Other Brother Jim

Look for me at http://otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com/ on Friday, August 11, 2017.

I’ll be back here on Friday, August 18, 2017

Blood over Bloodlines

Nations whose rulers are kings or queens place great emphasis on bloodlines.

The monarch who sits on the throne does so because members of his family ruled before him.

Typically, their oldest son or daughter will reign after them.

The book of Matthew talks about the earthly bloodline of Jesus.

In the very first chapter we are told exactly how the ancestry of Jesus can be traced from Abraham through David to Joseph the husband of His mother Mary.

Matthew then describes how Jesus came to be born.

Matthew 1:18 (NET) – Now the birth of Jesus happened this way. While His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

It is good to note that one can trace the earthly ancestry of Jesus from Joseph all the way back to Abraham.

It is far more important to remember the relationship that Jesus has with God.

God called Jesus “My Son”.

He did this when Jesus was baptized.

Matthew 3:17 (NET) – And a voice from heaven said, “This is My one dear Son; in Him I take great delight.

Jesus called God “My Father”.

Matthew 11:27 (NET) – All things have been handed over to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal Him.

When it comes to earthly monarchs, humans place great emphasis on bloodlines.

When it comes to faith what we must value is the blood of Jesus.

Mark 14:24 (NET) – He said to them, “This is My blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many.”

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he explains that God sent His Son to be born of a woman to redeem us.

Once redeemed, we are no longer under the law but adopted as children.

Galatians 4:6-7 (NET) – And because you are sons, God sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, who calls, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if you are a son, then you are also an heir through God.

Since that is the case, the value of adoption far exceeds any bloodline one may have.

This is true even of monarchs.

Blessings,

Jim Pokorny

The Other Brother Jim

http://otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com

Teach Us to Pray

In the very near future I will be leading two adult classes on the subject of prayer.

On one hand I am very much looking forward to leading these classes, but at the same time I admit that I am keeping my enthusiasm in check.

In my opinion there is a tendency among some authors and televised pastors to encourage people to "pray big".

The idea being that since nothing is impossible for God we should not sell Him short and pray for things well beyond our needs or wants.

But prayer is far more than simply asking God for things we want or would like to have.

Prayer is one of the most effective ways in which we develop and strengthen our relationship with God.

To be completely honest, God knows what we need even before we are aware of it.

Matthew 6:8 (NET) - Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

I think we would do well to heed the examples Jesus gave us when it comes to payer.

On one hand, He told us how not to pray.

Luke 18:11 (NET) - The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself like this: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: extortioners, unrighteous people, adulterers - or even like this tax collector.

A short time later, He told us a better way.

Luke 18:13 (NET) - The tax collector, however, stood far off and would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, be merciful to me, sinner that I am!

His disciples had the right idea when they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.

And Jesus did just that.

The prayer that He taught them we now call the Lord's Prayer.

We can pray as some suggest and "pray big".

Or, we can pray the way Jesus taught us to pray.

If you decide to "pray big" anyway, be careful.

You just might get exactly what you prayed for.


Blessings,
Jim Pokorny
The Other Brother Jim
http://otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com

Saving to Serve

The Thanksgiving holiday in the USA is behind us (except for its crass commercialization, unfortunately). One thing I found myself being thankful for this year was being able to share with others the bounty God has showered upon me. I haven't always taken that opportunity as I should have. When my wife and I were younger and had several children living at home, our income was less and day-to-day expenses greater, and we were carrying too much debt. So, I I felt anxious about every dollar and was too reluctant to part with even a few to help the needy and other good causes. I shouldn't have been that way; my faith in God's providence was lacking.

In any event, I'm blessed to still be here today, with my health and a good job, and my children are all on their own. We CAN and now DO more to help those less fortunate, though of course there's so much more we could and should be doing--personally, and not just by sending dollars someplace. With the Lord's help we've learned over the years to be reasonably frugal and to live within our means, so we now have an excess beyond minimum sustenance that can be used to do things like support children and families in Asia, supply our local homeless relief mission, and fund missionary efforts, as well as to help our children and a few friends through rough economic stretches. We've also managed to stockpile supplies of non-perishable food and water to help ourselves and our neighbors through an emergency.

It's so important not to get distracted by the dazzling images of opulence that modern society dangles before people's eyes, to entice us into a life of careless spending and debt that only makes a few others rich and ourselves helpless and dependent on assistance for our very survival. Not only does that open us to a corrupting level of control by those upon whom we're dependent, it prevents us from obtaining the blessings, to ourselves and others, that flow from helping the less fortunate. How can we properly care for our families and help the poor, as God expects us to do (1 John 3:17–19), if all our means have been frittered away on unnecessaries? Remember this admonition: "[L]et him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." (Ephesians 4:28)

Get into the habit of pausing before you buy anything, or subscribe to any service, that isn't indisputably essential to daily existence. Do I really NEED that big-screen TV or that new mobile device? Can our family have a nice vacation somewhere besides Disney World? Carefully consider--and pray--whether other, more important things might be done with the money you'd be spending, including saving it away for harder times, or to assist someone else. If you condition yourself to put your family and others in mind first, and the future before the present, you'll develop habits of prudent living that will enable you, your loved ones, and your neighbors, with God's help, to weather any storm and remain strong in God's service.

Tom Fleming
Songs of Praises

Visit His World

It's mid-September here in western New York, USA--a time when the warm, sunshiny glories of summer gradually give way to the cool breezes and waning, golden light of autumn. In this season we're especially sensitive to the divine Creation that surrounds us, and are blessed with many ways to immerse ourselves in it--trails through the woods and meadows, beaches along lakes great and small, marshes and rolling hills to explore.

It's important for the believer to remember daily, as the great old hymn says, "This Is My Father's World."  The worries, frustration, and artificiality of the man-made, day-to-day realm tend distract us from the well-spring of all life, our loving Heavenly Father. In order to keep our connection with Him strong, we need to keep in touch with the world as He made it, and makes it anew every day. Scripture abounds with joyous testimony of how the heavens and earth, and everything in them, reflect God's power and providence. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." (Psalms 19:1) And again: "Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God: who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains." (Psalms 147:7,8) And especially: "The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them." (Psalms 89:11)  Indeed, Psalm 104 is one long hymn of wonder and thanksgiving to God for all that he means to His Creation.

Make generous room in your life for experiencing that Creation as directly as you can. If possible, take regular walks in woods or fields, or in natural parks if you're city-bound. Explore the shorelines of lakes or streams. Listen intently to the breeze whispering through the trees or grass, and reflect on the abundant plant and animal life around you. Don't be afraid to spend some time outside in a gentle rain or a light snowfall!  When skies are clearer, admire the rising or setting sun and the clouds ablaze with shimmering light and color. At night, look upon a starry sky and contemplate the immense distances and ages into which you can see, and wonder at the majesty and eternity of the Father who who wrought them. While doing these things, talk to Him in prayer--silently or aloud--and thank Him for all the beauty and bounty He has heaped upon His children! Don't confine these experiences to when times are good, but seek them also--perhaps, especially--when you're troubled. And don't always do these things alone; two or more souls discovering and sharing the glorious handiwork of God together can spread an unquenchable spirit of joy and faith through a multitude of lives!

We are immersed in God's love--all we need to is reach out and touch it!

Tom Fleming
Songs of Praises