Peace in Israel?

Peace in Israel?

As usual when anyone speaks up for Israel like Binyamin Netanyahu did, they are misquoted intentionally because people do not want to believe the truth about Israel. When Binyamin was here recently and spoke to Obama, he said the state of Israel would not return to the borders after 1967. Their state would only be 9 miles wide and they could not defend themselves. Of course the media only quoted what Obama said and he misquoted Netanyahu's quote also and slated it to appear that they had reached some time of an agreement. The newspapers declared that now Netanyahu is the one hindering the Middle East peace process. The only people hindering the Middle East talk are the Palestinians: they want the annihilation of the Jews, they do not really want peace.

History has shown that the Palestinians have only one agenda: to annihilate the Jewish Nation. They have broken one treaty after another, shoot rockets into Israel and the press claims that the Jews are harassing the Palestinians when actually the Jews are doing their best not to broker the peace and not cause any damage to civilians. Whereas the Palestinians do not care about civilians and target places where people gather.

The Palestinians say that Israel is keeping its refugees in camps since 1948, when the Arabs attacked the new state of Israel. They were told to leave Israel until the Jews were exterminated. Which didn't happen, of course, as God protects Israel. Jordan kept them in the camps for political reasons as an excuse to blame Israel when really Jordan should have accepted them as most of them were Jordanians originally.

As long as the Palestinians refuse to recognize the right of Israel to exist, there will be no solution. Only when the Prince of Peace, Jesus, returns to earth will the problem be solved. In the Bible it says that God gave the land of Israel to the Jews from Egypt to the Euphrates River, Genesis 15:18. Those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed, Genesis 12:3. God is not mocked, Galatians 6:7, as He will judge the nations for dividing up Israel at the last great battle at the end of this age, Joel 3:7

Our President appears sometimes to be with the Jews but most of the time, as he really is a Muslin and they hate the Jews, he is against the Jews. Our country has been heading toward this position for some time and I am afraid it will get worse. As it says, when you curse the Jews, you will be cursed. Our country is not doing so good right now with all the weather disasters, money problems, crime, teen-age problems: We are already being judged.

Bravo to Binyamin Netanyahu for standing up for his people, the Jews. And we should do the same: stand alongside the people in Israel to support them and let them know that we are for them. Only then will we be blessed and our country turn around and be the great nation that we were once before.

The Merry Heart

shall we turn on the furnace of no or is it global warming?

SHALL WE TURN ON THE FURNACE OR NO
OR IS IT GLOBAL WARMING?

It is that time of the year when again we struggle about weather we should turn on the furnace or not. The nights are getting colder but it is still rather warm during the day so that with the curtains open the sun warms up the house sufficiently enough. But when it dips down into the 30s, the house starts getting a little too cool in the mornings, in the upper 60s. But the forecast still calls for warmer weather ahead. So we opt to not to turn on the furnace yet. Our furnace is not one that you can turn on and off as needed as it is a hot-water gas furnace. The water has to be heated up in the pipes that circulates throughout the house and gives off warmth to each room and it takes a while for the water to get heated up. So when we turn on the furnace we have to basically leave it on. Same way in the fall, when we turn it off, it should stay on. Although this last fall I did turn it on again after we had turned it off as I was getting cold. The forecast calls for warmer days again starting in two days so we are enduring the little too cool mornings. But that is better than too warm in the evenings. We can always put on jackets or turn on the little heater to be toasty warm.

It seems like colder weather is coming earlier than usual, it’s that global warming proving again to us that it doesn’t exist! Have you noticed since Al Gore started telling about global warming that things started happening that disproves his theory. We have had colder weather in places that don’t usually get that kind of weather. For example I don’t remember having colder weather this early in the fall, we usually get that around Halloween when the children are out trick or treating. We have even had snow at that time. I feel so sorry for them even though I don’t condone that practice any more. To help things along usually day light savings time starts or is already in force.

Al Gore said back in the 80s that we would be dead by 2000 because it would be too hot, the coast lands would be gone, hurricanes would be devastating, etc. Al Gore promotes carbon dioxide as the cause of global warming. He would like the government to control carbon emissions from industry. He also has a company that sells carbon credits. He flies around the country in his private jet. Ha, Ha, he’s good at saving energy! Just like the executives of the car companies that went to Washington in their private jets also to apply for a federal handout! Next time they went by other modes of transportation, Who do they think they are fooling?

A funny world that we live in! But none of these problems and others will ever be solved until Jesus Christ comes back and sets up his Kingdom on earth. He is the only one that can solve all our problems and have peace at the same time!

A Good Day to You from the Merry Heart.

walking in good works

WALKING IN GOOD WORKS

In Ephesians 2:10 it says; For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. I like The Open Bible version which makes it even planner: For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Does good works mean taking a meal to a sick person, helping a person change a flat tire, visiting the sick, etc,? These are all good and well. But after hearing Pastor Carl speak on this subject last night my past life took on a whole new perspective, even much better than what I had been led to think by satan. To me my life had not amounted to much, again led to think that by satan.

When our son was born about 40 years ago, God had given me a revelation that my hubby would be completely healed and come back to the church. He did come back to the church 15 years later and we are still waiting on him to be healed. I have always stood on that prophecy as it was such a riveting event; I felt such a warmth from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet and I felt such love and well-being. Of course I couldn’t tell my hubby until he started back to church about this prophecy as he wouldn’t believe me, as it was he didn’t believe me then even! But gradually he started to believe as I did and we started to stand on that revelation whenever he had a health problem but it wasn’t God’s timing for him to be healed yet.

Last night at our round table discussion we had to tell about what one person in our lives that influenced us for good. My hubby told about how watching me in my christian growth lead to his coming back to the church. That and Pastor’s talk on how God created us for good works started me to thinking; “Hey, I have been walking in good works since God gave me that revelation and didn’t know it.” Satan had been telling me lies that I was no good, my life didn’t amount to anything, etc. But to the one person, my husband, it did make a difference. Don’t think that I have been a saint, far from it, but enough of a saint that it made a difference to my hubby!

My good works so far had been to be a light to my hubby. I am so happy and grateful to God that my life has amounted to something big so far! And we are looking forward to what God has for us down the line.

A Good Day to You from the Merry Heart.

replacement theology and the rapture

REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY AND THE RAPTURE

What does the replacement theology and the rapture have in common? It fairly debunks the replacement theology, I think. The Jews were the focus of God’s plans in the Old Testament, the Age of Law. God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses and they were to live by them. But that was impossible for them to do as we all know. The law only incites you to sin more, it is only to point out to you what sin is in your life.

Since the Jews did reject Jesus when he was crucified, God did replace them with the Gentiles temporarily. That started the Age of Grace which we are living under now which commenced on the Day of Pentecost. Jesus had told his disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father and to be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now, Acts 1:4&5, KJV. They were all assembled together, all the disciples and others, 120 in all, in an upper room, on the day of Pentecost. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven like a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house. There appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance, Acts 1:15 and Acts 2:1-4. Everyone in the whole town, even people from other towns and nations, heard about this amazing phenomenon and talked about it. So they were there on the Day of Pentecost when Peter preached his first sermon filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking with other tongues so everyone could understand in his own tongue! See Acts 2:5-40. Verse 41 says 3000 were saved and baptized that day. These people fellowshipped together and shared as needed. In verse 47 it says “Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the CHURCH daily such as should be saved.”

The church is never mentioned in the Old Testament. The first mention of it is in Matthew 16:17 and 18 after Peter acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, “Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Peter, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it’”. Peter in both the Aramaic and the Greek means rock. Even his death on the cross would not prevent Jesus from building his church as that one event began the church. In Colossians 1:24 Paul speaks of the church, Christ’s body; “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you (the Colossians), and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his BODY, which is the CHURCH.”

Everyone is included in the church, Jews also. But God had a special plan for doing it this way, Isaiah 55:8&9; “ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”.

But God has not abandoned his chosen people, the Jews. In Genesis 13:15 the Lord made an everlasting covenant with Abraham; “All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.” Paul speaks a lot about God not abandoning his people in Romans 11. Verse 2 says, “God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew” . Then Paul gives an example of the prophet Elijah when he made intercession to God for Israel as he thought all the other prophets were killed and he was alone. God told him that he still had a remnant. So also at this time according to God’s election there is a remnant and the rest are blinded; given a spirit of slumber, eyes that don’t see and ears that don’t hear. God is sovereign by his election or plan and not man’s works. The Jews have stumbled over Christ by seeking to gain righteousness on the basis of works. Jesus made an end of the law by keeping it perfectly during his sinless life, Matthew 5:17, and then gave his life in payment for the penalty of sin and the broken Law, Ephesians 2:14-16; “ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one (Jews and Gentiles) and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”

Paul tells in Romans 11:25 why the Jews were given this spiritual blindness; “ I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in”. Then the rapture will take place; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. In 2 Thessalonians 2:7 Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit as the one who holds back the power of lawlessness until he is taken out of the way. Since the Holy Spirit indwells all Christians (the CHURCH); they are removed at the rapture. Many people think of Revelation 4 where John is taken up into heaven as being the rapture, I do not. Verse 1 says:...... “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” John is talking about what must take place later. In the first 3 chapters of Revelation John talks about churches and their problems that were alive at that time which are representative of our problems now.. The church is never mentioned again. Then God is dealing with unrepentant people and the Jewish nation.

However, the Holy Spirit is still working here during the Tribulation, how else would unrepentant people come to the Lord. The nation of Israel will repent at the end of the Tribulation with great mourning, see Zechariah 12:10-14. Chapter 13:1 reveals that the nation will also be cleansed of their sins and impurity. Romans 11:26 says that all Israel will be saved.

God has not abandoned his people, the Jews. They were just set aside til the full number of Gentiles came to the Lord, then they will be saved. We Gentiles should be grateful for this very unusual plan of God to include we Gentiles in his Kingdom. But we must not become conceited and think that we have replaced Israel as the rejection of Israel was to make God’s salvation available to us. Then hopefully the Jews would be jealous and want it too, see Romans 11:11-24.
A Good Day to You from the Merry Heart

has god rejected his people the isralites?

Has God Rejected His People the Israelites?

Some people believe in Replacement Theology that the church has replaced the Jews as his chosen people. I don’t know what they base their theology on but I base my belief on the Holy Bible.. I am using the NIV version of the Bible as it is much easier to read and understand.

Romans 11:1 clearly says that God has not rejected His people, the Jews. Verse 2 also clearly says that “God did not reject his people whom he foreknew.” He foreknew them as God called Abraham out of his country, Ur of the Chaldeans which is southwest of Babylon, to go to a country that He would show him, Genesis 12:1. In Romans 4:1, Abraham is called “our forefather”, confirming that the Jews are his chosen people, as the whole Bible is about the Jews.

The “mystery” may be what confuses people as to why God did abandon the Jews for a season for his purpose in Romans 11. To my way of thinking God should have abandoned them as they are described as a stiff-necked people in many places in the Old Testament, and they have generally gone their own way of doing their own thing. You and I do the same thing, go our own way but they saw the miracles of them being delivered from the bondage of slavery in Egypt and the Red Sea parting on their journey to the promised land, etc. They were told not to mingle with the people of the surrounding nations when they entered Israel. What did they do? They mingled with them, inquired of their religion and took wives of them. They wanted a king which God allowed them to have. They were ok if the king was a good king. But if the king was a bad king, did not follow God’s laws, they did the same. The Book of Judges tells about these sad days when they came even worse each time a bad king came on the scene.

Back to Romans 11, verse 11 is the crux of his purpose: “Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.” Verse 12 says: “But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!” In order for the Jews to have greater riches, then they must surely have not been abandoned. Verse 29 says “For God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.” God called the Jews, people descended from Abraham to be his people. We Gentiles, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted into God’s family, so we do not have anything to boast about that we are God’s special people. Branches, the Jews, were broken off because of unbelief so we Gentiles could be grafted in. In verses 25 and 26 the “mystery” is further explained: “ . . . I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you nay not be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”

This is the scripture that no commentator mentions when talking about the last days known as “in that day” in the Bible. I think it is so important as it tells what the Jewish Nation will do right after Armageddon. It is from Zechariah 12:9-13:1; On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves; the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives, the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of the house of Shimel and their wives, and all the rest of the clans and their wives. On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.”

The Lord will pour out on the nation of Israel grace {unmerited favor}, and supplication (a humble request, prayer, petition, etc.). And they will weep bitterly as they realize they put Him to death. But the Lord will provide a cleansing for their sin and impurity.

Hallelujah! God did not abandon His people, the Jews. In His Sovereign Plan He planned for the Jews’s transgression to bring about the salvation of we the Gentiles.

Good Day to you From the Merry Heart.

peace that passes all understanding

PEACE THAT PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING


Recently my hubby and I became aware of a situation in our family that really disturbed us. Usually my hubby will say it will turn out ok or he is not really concerned about it. But this time he was concerned so I knew it was really important and needed to be addressed. So we prayed about it and I felt like the Lord said it would turn out ok. That made me feel better but I still did not have peace about the situation. So that evening when I was up for my nightly quiet time with the Lord, I looked up some scriptures that address that situation and typed them up. Then I sat and read them and prayed to God. Since there is no way that I can change the situation, I had to turn it over to God completely and allow Him to work it out. Why should I think that I can change the situation? I am only human and do not know the best way to remedy it. God wants to change lives and get the glory for it.

Finding scriptures and praying gives me peace that I have never known before. Usually I stew about it and get myself in a dither and can’t think straight and have not energy. If I think about this situation, I would get myself in that place again but since I turned it over completely to God, I have peace. I only think about how God it working it out for good and not for bad like satan would like. I know people who proclaim victory at the beginning of a bad situation and I never could understand how they could do that. Now I know. They turned the problem over completely to God and allow Him to work on it. Then you have peace that passes all understanding, Philippians 4:7; And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your heart and minds, through Christ Jesus.

A good day to you from The Merry Heart

my earth-shaking renewal

MY EARTH -- SHAKING RENEWAL!


“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”, Romans 12-2. That is a very very important verse to me as God has really been renewing my mind this last year or two. But this “renewing” is the most important to me and shall always be classified as the most important as it involves someone who was and is still important to me; my twin sister. Of course we were very close growing up but we did argue a lot like most siblings. But our upbringing was not the best so we each developed bad habits of wrong thinking. She was the favorite one so I developed an inferiority complex and she thought she was something. She controlled me even after I was married. Even as a grade school girl, I began to have “stinky thinking”. Since she was getting all the attention I would not give her my attention by laughing at her cute antics, etc. That did me more harm than it did her which is always the case. This continued even into adulthood. We communicated a lot over the phone as we usually lived quite a ways apart. I know her so well that I can tell by the tone of her voice what she is thinking. She put me down a lot so when I got the chance I would jab back at her intentionally. But it was always me that would scream or hang up on her.

Things began to turn around in our relationship when I began to change toward her as is always the case. We cannot change another person, we can only change ourselves with God’s help. Things definitely began to change when I took the Cleansing Streams Seminar at our church and learned how to deal with forgiveness. It is not a feeling but an act of your will to forgive as sometimes you do not feel like forgiving. I began by releasing all those hurt feelings to God and letting Him heal me and asking forgiveness for the many times that I have offended her and she me. Then I began to notice that when talking to her over the phone that I was not so offended by what she said or when she put me down. She does have a problem sometimes with understanding things, or rather I would think, she is trying to get my goat. But I didn’t want to understand her problem, I wanted to take advantage of it and get back at her! This had been going on for years. But with God transforming me these last few months I have been able to talk to her without getting offended. I also sensed that she is changing also. Then the other night when I was giving her some technical information for something she wants to get, I was not the impatient person that I usually am with her. I could be patient and understanding with her! I did not jab her for not understanding something or taking so long to understand like I used to do. The Lord has really transformed me by the renewing of my mind!

A good day to you from the Merry Heart