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Monday, February 20, 2012

The Devotional – A Look at the Book #652

by Jesse Abel


Meditate on this!
There is but one command to align the church of God with the glory of God. I believe we are still seekihg to get that command in the cross hairs of our faith. John 13:31-35

A diving officer on a submarine must have first hand confidence on several levels before he submerges the ship. He must know the weight in tonnage; the Ship’s Diving Officer who is normally the Supply Officer will provide this information for the diving officer who submerges the sub after leaving port. This is just one small vital statistic along with other essentials; like air and hydraulic pressure systems, electrical and nuclear power systems. The list of vital information does not stop; communication and administration, all departments must be ready. There are many hatches, valves and other openings throughout the ship that need to be shut, for example; torpedo tubes. All watch stations will report to the diving officer when they are ready to dive, then the Chief of the Watch will report to the Diving Officer that all departments are ready to dive and that he has a straight board, meaning that all hatches, valves and openings are shut. All of this takes time; the ship will not be submerged until all is ready. There are at least two more factors before the Diving Officer can dive the submarine. He must also know from his Quartermaster of the Watch that the ship has enter a depth of water sufficient for diving, and he must have the Captain’s permission. You may say wow! That is a lot of responsibility to place on one man’s shoulder and your remark would be right and wrong! The crew of the United States Submarine is a qualified assembly of men who submerge the ship. The Diving Officer has faith in his qualified crew who report their readiness to dive. When the Trumpet Sounds and the dead in Christ raise first, then we who are alive will be caught up to meet Him and them in the air, this will be because the Bride of Jesus Christ is ready to meet their LORD. The Holy Spirit will agree with the season of time and God the Father will give the okay; the time and season is right, John 13:31-35; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Revelation 4:1-4.

James
James 2:1-13 – James uses the rich and the poor to evaluate faith. The assembly of today’s church is no different, but there is a greater depth too this partiality than many of us care to think about. Many of us brothers and sisters in Christ show partiality in other ways; because of personality traits or cultural differences we isolate people. We look for stumbling blocks to place in our way so that we do not have to mingle. The church family suffers under conditions like this as found in 1 Corinthians 3:1-4.

There is nothing new under the sun of the New Testament church, we stumble in the same things that all churches have stumbled over during the last two thousand years and we wonder why we are still waiting for the LORD’s return. Our remarks and ways of dealing with people, whom God has saved, make our churches lack in faith and power. While we do not cripple the power of God to save, we willingly cripple the ones He does save and maybe this is where we get into trouble. LORD! You saved who? Now she is in my church and in my face at least once a week; well okay… I just will ignore her! 

Our partialities are evil in that we willing separate and form little pockets of friends that seem to be okay to fellowship with. While this is partially seems okay it leads to evil. In using the rich and the poor as an example; but not using the monetary element. A rich faction of saints in the word may not be rich in faith, thus the poorer person who is striving to fit in may be rewarded since they may be richer in faith. Faith demonstrates value to God when we love our neighbor as our self. Mercy triumphs over judgment, thus we have liberty to live within the boundary of the New Commandment. John 13:31-35. Partiality is a murderer and an adulterer in the life of the weaker saint who is affected by it.

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