NOT IN WORD ONLY!
How did Paul describe the full presentation of the Gospel? A short video from a series in 1 Thessalonians.
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THE EYE-GATE…
And…when light is actually darkness! (Luke 11:33ff).
 
What I see—or, more accurately, what I choose to look at is what has the most influence on my mind—and indeed, my heart.
 
Images are usually the most powerful means of impacting and influencing our emotions and the thoughts and actions that ensue. That is why the images in television advertising are usually more powerful than the words.
So, the eyes, yes our physical eyes, are the means by which light or darkness—and the influences each of these brings, enter our mind and soul. What we choose to look at, gains access and can either enlighten and brighten the inner being—or darken and corrupt it.
 
Here’s the thing…we see things because light reflects from objects and impinges the extraordinary mechanisms of the eye.
 
What David SAW from his rooftop, and did not look away from, was because light, reflected off a particular form, travelled via his pupils and retinas to his brain, mind and soul. This particular light which he entertained by continuing to look, actually became darkness. (In a sense it was darkness, masquerading as light).
What Bathsheba was doing—bathing—was probably innocent, unless she was being intentionally provocative, which the text does not indicate.
 
In choosing not to look away, David turned physical light into darkness within—and corruption of motive, which then led to the greater darknesses of adultery and murder, with a host of unhappy consequences.
 
Jesus said, “if your eye is single your whole body will be filled with light”, and the Greek word used is HAPLOUS meaning ‘unfolded’ or not double (its antonym is DIPLOUS meaning ‘double’). Jesus was likening the way a lamp lights a house to the way the eye illuminates the ‘house’ of our body.
 
He therefore said, “take heed that the light that is in you, is not darkness”.
‘…then He vanished, FROM THEIR SIGHT’
((Luke 24:31)
 
For Cleopas and the other un-named Emmaus Road walker, it was, momentarily, as Jesus broke the bread and gave thanks, just like it had been before that excruciating death. Excruciating physically for Jesus and psychologically for those close to him.
 
Here was this happy moment of recognition, of presence, of certainty. And then suddenly, having walked an hour or two with them, having accepted their invitation to stay, having broken the bread and revealed Himself—He was not there!
(So extraordinary was it that the two immediately walked the 10 kilometres back to Jerusalem to tell the others!)
 
What was going on?
Surely he was preparing them for the new way and the new reality: how things would be from now on, proceeding no longer by sight or senses—but by a new way to access and enjoy His presence…Faith.
 
Their expectations had not included finding the very One they missed so deeply, actually walking alongside them, expounding the scriptures, as they journeyed!
 
This is how it would be from now on for all who would walk with Him. After all, He promised to send Another—an invisible Other—yes, Holy Spirit, to be alongside in the very same, yet different way as when He had walked with them. Different because not dependent on physical sight, but on different eyes—eyes that have been touched by Him and now see, even in the dark: yes, eyes of faith!
And as by faith we walk the road with Him, He will, as then, expound the scriptures to us and be made known to us.
 
There is not another way—‘the righteous SHALL live by faith.’
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WOULD YOU BELIEVE…?



That primitive and ignorant people once sacrificed
Their babies to stone and wooden gods?
Today we are much less ignorant and ill-informed.
We now sacrifice them to the ‘god’ within or the gods of expediency & convenience.
‘…WHEN HE HAD PURGED SINS, (HE) SAT DOWN'

(Hebrews 1:3)
 
‘Sat down’—an anthropomorphism that enables us as humans to have a glimpse of what is meant. By using human ideas God helps us understand—we get it!
 
When creation was complete, God is said to have ‘rested’, not in the sense of needing to regain strength but as in pausing, satisfied, in His first creation work. Unfortunately, because of our disobedience and independence, it became necessary for Him to begin again on a new creation.
The first had begun with the heavens and the earth and finished with man: the new begins with man and will be completed with a new heaven and a new earth (wherein righteousness dwells)!
 
When this task of purging sins was complete, the Son sat down. In a sense, as we do, in satisfaction, after completing an assignment.
Completion brings satisfaction. The Son was satisfied, and the Father was satisfied—the sign of that satisfaction being that Son sat at Father’s right hand in co-regency! Hallelujah!
 
What they were satisfied with was the completion of that singular, extraordinary event that makes possible, all of a new creation. The Son had purged sin. The awful thing that marred and corrupted the first, was now summarily dealt with—actually all expunged at Calvary.
 
The question was; would people believe it so? That was the question, because in believing it is so—receiving it as done, and done for them—they would become part of the new.
 
That is why the news is so good. That is why we must tell them. Their sin has already been purged—they just need to hear, believe, and receive it as so, for THEM!
 
That, of course requires that they see that it is THEIR sin that has been dealt with—purged; for many of them only think of others as sinners, but not themselves. And…that is why that work of the Third Person, Holy Spirit, is so needed and must be prayed for. For it is His work to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgement.
 
In asking, indeed pleading for that work in their hearts and lives—as well as in the telling of the news, we too have an extraordinary role. For thereby, we too, join in the co-regency.
 
After all, we too, as Ephesians 2:6 reminds us, have been ‘raised up and seated with Him in heavenly places’!


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THE WATCHER DISCUSSES LIGHT AND DARKNESS…
 
HUMAN: “Jesus said ‘I am the light of the world’ did he not? But today we have so much knowledge and understanding—and what I would describe as enlightenment, so can that still be true?”

WATCHER: “More true than ever.”

HUMAN: “Oh…explain please.”

WATCHER: “Well, have you considered the context in which he said those words? There was a display of darkness occurring at that very moment as he was speaking his light to people, early one morning near the temple.”

HUMAN: “And what was the occurrence you speak of?”

WATCHER: “Pharisees and scribes brought in a woman caught in adultery. They were ready to stone her but what they failed to see was that the motives of their dark hearts was as bad as, or perhaps worse than, her sin.”

HUMAN: “And their motive was?”

WATCHER: “Twofold, no threefold …to test Jesus and to find a means to accuse him. And—they tried to use the woman as a pawn for a game of ‘gotcha’ with Jesus. So there are at least three counts of darkness in their hearts against them.”

HUMAN: “These were men who were pretending they were the light of the world?”

WATCHER: “Aha…you’re getting it! And then he wrote their darkness on the ground and exposed it to them—and to the others—so that they stole wordlessly away.”

HUMAN: “It’s like true Light revealed pretend light as actual darkness. Yes, of course…darkness is just absence of light isn’t it? They had no light within!”

WATCHER: “Wonderful! Exactly so—and is why he then said to the gathered people, ‘I am the Light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of life!”

HUMAN: “And today?”

WATCHER: “Human hearts are the same—and, the more they shut out the true Light, the more desperately they try to manufacture their own light from the darkness within. Soon dark motives reveal themselves in virtue-signalling, hypocrisy, desire for attention and publicity, along with denigration of—or cancelling of others—most especially those who seek to walk by the true Light of the world.
It’s also the reason Jesus said in another place, “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

HUMAN: “Sigh…”

(John Chapter 8)
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Genghis Khan or Joan of Arc?
Simple questions...
If a man believes he is Genghis Khan or a woman thinks she is Joan of Arc...or for that matter, if a woman believes she is Genghis Khan etc., they are usually referred for treatment and therapy before more damage is done.

Everyone would agree that it would do no good for doctors or helpers to provide the man who believes he’s Genghis Khan with a horse and a sword and an army of followers.

On the other hand if a man with all the necessary anatomical components believes he is a woman today, why is it considered wrong or damaging to help them come to terms with that delusion/deception. And secondly, to make it worse, why do others deliberately join them in their delusion to aid and abet it!

Are two or three or a hundred deceived people somehow better than one?
All of us are deceived or deluded about one thing or another, but REAL transformation from any deception begins within and works out from there—and it’s on offer from the only One who has power to transform us in this way. And—to whom we are really meant to come and transition into, and not some warped counterfeit.

It is Jesus Christ. He said and says, wonderful words (and backs them up with wonderful actions), like “COME TO ME all who are labouring and under oppression, and I will give you ease.”