"…for they are worthy."

More Scripture to back up the view that we all can get salvation but our rewards in Heaven are based on our service to God. 

Here we have Jesus talking to John.  He is dictating the message to each of the seven churches in Asia.  Here is His message to Sardis.

Revelation 3:1-5(NKJV)

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 

Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 

Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. 

You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. 

He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

Here is my take on this.  You have the church in Sardis which is a saved church.  They have accepted Jesus.  But they have backsliders among them.  No surprise.  Even Paul battled this and warned us that "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak". 

Notice that Jesus makes the distinction between the backsliders and those who stay true to the faith.  Jesus indicates that He holds those who fight the good fight in higher esteem than those who backslide. 

Now just to be clear, my point here is to once again dispel this myth that we will all be treated equally in Heaven.  That just isn't true based on what I read in Scripture.  Jesus tells us in the Gospel that there will be places of honor in Heaven.  That means that people will not all be treated the same does it not? 

So how do we make sure we "get good seats"?  :)

Keep your heart focused on Jesus and do everything in your power to follow God's will in your life.  Jesus tells us repeatedly in the Gospels that to Him it is a heart issue so keep your heart focused on Jesus.

Now how do you know what God's will is in your life?  I would say the first step is to accept Jesus because once you accept Jesus you get the Holy Spirit to guide you.  Have you accepted Jesus yet?  Why not do it right now.  Just have a conversation with Jesus.  Let Him know where you are at in life and how He can help.

 "Dear Jesus…."

Does Jesus hate?

There are many who say Jesus is all love and doesn't hate anything.  Let's see if we can find any Scripture on the subject. 

Here we go.  The letters are in read indicating it is Jesus speaking.  In fact it is Jesus telling John what to put in Revelation.  Look at the last line.

Revelation 2:1-6(NKJV)

“To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, ‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: 

“I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; 

and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. 

Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 

Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. 

But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Now don't misunderstand.  I'm not suggesting that we use this verse to justify running around hating.  I am merely pointing out that once again people like to ignore Scripture that doesn't back up their view of Jesus. 

Seeing this Scripture about Jesus hating also verifies another part of Scripture.  That would be Ecclesiastes.   Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for everything under the sun.  A time for war and a time for peace for example.  So logic would dictate that for Ecclesiastes to be true then Jesus would have to both hate and love.  If Jesus was all love and no hate it would make God a liar in Ecclesiastes.  And as you know, one of my beliefs is to always look for verification of a view or principal in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  In this case I believe we have it.  Make sense? 

I knew we were heirs, but kings and priests too???

Once again here is why I love studying god's Word.  The Holy Spirit is always bringing something to my attention that I have read many times before but had never noticed.  This is especially true in Revelation because it is so cryptic.  Here is one from today.  

Revelation 1:5-6(NKJV)

and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 

and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

I think we are all familiar with the references in the New Testament that we are heirs with Christ.  I had never noticed this Scripture before.  It says that Jesus has made us "kings and priests to His God and Father".  That's pretty cool!

A great word picture to remind us that as Christians we don't need to walk around felling defeated.  We are kings (queens) and priests of God's! 

Why do I keep pounding away at certain themes?

I'm sure some of you wonder why I keep pounding away at certain themes.  I guess there are a couple of reasons.  The first is that I am told to do so by Scripture.

Jude 1:3-4(NKJV)

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 

For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

What does contend earnestly for the faith mean?  To me it means continually correcting misconceptions about what the Bible instructs us regarding Jesus and the Christian faith.  Scripture tells us the truth will set you free but I find too many times today Christians are more concerned with not hurting feelings than they are with telling the truth. 

While it may "feel like the Christian thing to do", I don't believe it is.  

The 2nd reason is that I am compelled to do so by the spiritual gifts God has given me.  My 3rd and 4th strongest spiritual gifts are teaching and perceiving.  This comes from an analysis I did through our church a couple of years ago.  It is called the GiftQuest Report.  If you have interest you can get more info here.  http://giftquestinc.com/wordpress/

Here is the description of my third and fourth gifts from the report.  I think after reading it you will see why I say I feel "compelled".  It's not like I have a choice.  It's ingrained in me.  It's like God gave me a perfect role to fill based on the gifts He gave me.  Imagine that!!!  :)

"Your third gift is teaching.  You possess a significant motivation to  study matters out-to-do research.  It is natural for you to evaluate, to probe,  to look up facts, background information, details, or whatever is necessary to research the matter thoroughly. You want to establish what is correct,  accurate-to arrive at the truth. You are willing to study, to look up  information, to read directions, to do word studies, to gather books and related  research materials, to be meticulous-tedious in your approach, to investigate  thoroughly until convinced-sure that your conclusions, observations, and/or  facts are accurate. As you mature in your walk in Christ, the scriptures and  their accurate interpretation will be of supreme importance to you. You are  prone to think and say things like: "Who said that"; "Where is it found?"; "How  do you know that?"; "On what basis to you say that?"; "I need to look that up myself!" You prefer logical, systematic study and presentation of information.  You may or may not enjoy or participate in teaching others. You tend to be an  unresponsive listener, remaining silent and uncommitted until prepared to speak. 

Your fourth spiritual motivation is that of prophecy, or more descriptively known as the gift of perception.  You have an inner prompting and ability to perceive what is right versus wrong, good versus evil, or true versus false.  You are somewhat gifted to perceive, proclaim, promote, and pray about the will of God.  You process a desire to correct what you see as wrong.  You fairly quickly come to and express your perceptions, thoughts, and ideas verbally.  You tend to desire to bring others to a point of accountability and conviction.  You tend to be wholehearted in your involvements.  You are willing to suffer for what you perceive as right.  You have an intense desire that justice be done.  You are willing to terminate existing relationships to be loyal to the truth." 

God is…Light

For the most part light seems to be used as a metaphor for enlightenment.  Light and good are paired and darkness and evil are paired.  It's hard to find our way in life in the dark.  God illuminates our way with His enlightenment.  Make sense?  I have provided a few example Scriptures below. 

Nehemiah 9:12(NKJV)

    Moreover You led them by day with a cloudy pillar,     And by night with a pillar of fire,     To give them light on the road     Which they should travel.

-God has always provided light to guide our path.  Jesus is that light!

Isaiah 5:20(NKJV)

    Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;      Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;     Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

-To me this is a perfect description of Liberal Christians but I'm pretty sure most Liberal Christians would say this is a perfect description of Conservative Christians.  No wonder we can't agree on anything.  We can't even agree on what is light and what is dark, what is good and what is evil!  :)

Romans 13:12(NKJV)

The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 

-I found this Scripture interesting because is refers to light as armor.  It always amazes me how many people believe that God/Jesus are pacifists.  There are so many examples in the Bible using military imagery in a positive light.   Seems odd that pacifists would do so.  :)

1 John 1:5(NKJV)

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 

So there you have it.  Next word for the study is "in you".

For those who cherry pick Scripture to support bringing in all of the refugees.

I can do that too!  I've got two parts to comment on here.

2 John 1:7-11(NKJV)

For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. 

Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.

Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. 

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; 

for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.

The first part again points out the need to believe that Jesus came in the flesh.  The big problem here is that we are starting to see some of the big, more Liberal churches actually starting to question and in some case reject that belief. 

Heck at an Episcopal Church Synod about a decade ago they couldn't even get support for a motion from the floor to reaffirm that the Bible is the inspired word of God!

Now to my second point.  It is always funny to me to see people who are normally hostile to religion suddenly try to use Scripture to support one of their own points.  As I have said many times the Bible is a book of balance and needs to be interpreted in its entirety. 

But I can play the cherry picking game like anybody else if I want to so let's take a look at the second highlighted part above.

This passage was written by the Apostle John.  John flat out says that if they don't believe the doctrine of Christ then not only shouldn't we let them in to our house (or country as the case may be), we shouldn't even greet them.  Now there is no doubt that Muslims do not abide in the Doctrine of Christ.  If they did they would be Christians, not Muslims.  :)  Therefore this Scripture is talking about them as well as others.

Now do I really think that this is the ultimate Scripture on the subject?  Nope.  As I said before you have to take the whole Bible in context.  But I do think that this Scripture is strong enough to refute the charge that in all cases it is "unChristian" to exclude the refugees.  We have a Scripture here that tells us that in some cases at least, it is the "Christian" thing to do.

Saying other religions are from Satan isn't very tolerant is it? :)

Well maybe tolerance is a bit over rated.  Let's take a look at how tolerant Jesus says we should be about worshipping other gods. 

Luke 4:8(NKJV)

And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”

Nope, don't see a lot of Kumbaya there.  :)