Showing posts with label Honor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Honor. Show all posts

Friday, April 30, 2010

Jailbreak

Jailbreaking is a process that allows iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users to run any code on their devices, as opposed to only that code authorized by Apple. Once jailbroken, iPhone users are able to download many applications previously unavailable through the App Store via unofficial installers such as Cydia, as well as illegally pirated apps. A jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch is still able to use and update apps downloaded and purchased from Apple's official App Store. So ever since I own an Iphone three months ago, this "term" keeps knocking at my mind… 

So let look at the real jailbreak….

For without the righteousness of God, nobody can live right, not even one, nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God. We all taken the wrong turn and wandered down blind alleys. No one is living right; you can't find a single one. Our throats are gaping graves, our tongues slick as mudslides. Every word we speak is tinged with poison. We open our mouths and pollute the air. We race for the honour of “sinner-of-the-year”, litter the land with heartbreak and ruin. We don't know the first thing about living with others. We never give God the time of day. This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it's clear enough, isn't it, that we're sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin.

Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another Person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, He got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one Man said yes to God and put many in the right.

Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one Man, Jesus Christ, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness, that the one Man Jesus Christ provides?

Our firm decision is to work from this focused centre: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in His life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.

Because of this decision we do not evaluate people by what they have or how they look. The Jewish people looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong. We certainly don't look at Him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, a new creation. The old life is gone; a new life began! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and Him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with Himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what He is doing. We are Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ Himself now: Become friends with God; He's already a friend with you.

So go and tell people about this jailbreak instead…

A compilation from the Message Bible

Friday, February 05, 2010

Glory and Honor


What is this man that our heavenly Father is mindful of him, And the son of man that He visit him? For He had made this man a little lower than the angels, and He had crowned him with glory and honour. But ever since this man, Adam sinned; all man after him had fallen short of the glory of God. The glory that enveloped man had been forfeited. Ever since man first acquire on the art of tailoring,   man to date, still fashion and shop for their clothing.

Praise be to God, our Heavenly Father, for Jesus’ finished work at the cross. For Jesus had received from God the Father honour and glory at the holy mountain when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory saying: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 

To man, Father crowned man with glory and honour; but to Jesus, His Begotten Son, He crowned Him with honour and glory and by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. 

Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for the spiritual blessings that Christ, our elder Brother, has brought us from heaven! Long before the foundation of the world, our Heavenly Father had us in mind and had settled on us as the focus of His love, to be made whole and holy by His love. Long, long time ago He too had decided to adopt us into His everlasting family through Jesus Christ, and indeed, He had pleasure in planning all this! He also wanted us to enter into the celebration of His lavish gift-giving by the hand of His Beloved Son.

In an earlier incident when Jesus had been baptized, He came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him.  Wow... the heavens did not just open but specifically open to Jesus! What is this man that our heavenly Father is mindful of him? We regain this glory and honour not because of what good works that we have done but because our Heavenly Father had  made us accepted in the Beloved. The Beloved that the heavens open to! As we begin to humble ourselves to see this gracious truth and identify ourselves with Jesus for all that He had done for us, heavens also begin to open for us, glory begin to shine on us and honour begin to added to us…, its all because we are in the Beloved. 

This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.