You'll see this on Crez tomorrow, but Veloyce and I believe that the sorrows we foresaw coming to the US prior to Trump's inauguration ceremony was both the fires in the Los Angeles and the awful cold front predicted to cover most of the US starting this weekend. I'm praying that the Lord will be merciful to our community in particular, wherever you folks are. We have good reason to seek special favor from the Lord because we keep His Covenant.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

The final chapter of 1 Peter contains admonition on practical matters but no doctrine. This second letter from Peter is to the same audience a couple of years later, near the end of Nero's reign. Things have gotten worse for the Hebrew Christians in the Roman provinces along the Black Sea coasts of Asia Minor.

By now, the Judaizers had shifted their campaign. The old Talmudic law was passe, so a new crop of charismatic proto-Gnostics was making the rounds. Their doctrine sounded new, but it was simply an excuse for even greater moral depravity. This was the birth of, "Since the flesh is irreparably fallen, let it do what it wants. It won't affect your salvation. Just keep your head on straight." These men lived and promoted dissolute lives. This teaching served to completely dismantle the whole concept of living in this world by the power of the Spirit over the flesh.

He offers what we could call a chain of logic beginning with his greeting, proclaiming himself a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ (personally appointed while Jesus was still alive). But his audience had the same faith that propelled Peter's ministry, made available to them because the righteous obedience of Jesus paid the price. Peter prays they continue finding more grace and peace with God by what they were learning about the Son. This is a subtle reference to learning the painful lesson of holiness in the face of persecution.

Peter has confidence this prayer is not pointless because he is quite certain that Christ won for us a generous supply of everything His followers need to walk in this world with a strong testimony of righteousness. We are called into Christ's inner circle of disciples, privileged to receive the inside knowledge reserved for those who were nominated to experience a revelation of His glory and greatness. That selection further inducts us into a household of great wealth promised to those who participate in His divine nature. This means we have escaped the prison of the fleshly lusts.

But it's not enough to simply get the concept. Your commitment should empower a diligent training of your will to seek the greatness of our Lord's name, which opens the door to the real gnosis those liars keep talking about. True gnosis yields self-discipline, which in turn brings cheerful endurance in persecution, which in turn promotes a morally clean life, brotherly affection and sacrificial love.

That we should improve in these ways makes us very fruitful in drawing closer to Christ. Notice the drift here: Christ is the personal manifestation of our Creator, and anything that resembles a deeper acquaintance with Him results in a disciplined holy conduct in the flesh. This is a very plain counter to Gnosticism.

If you can't grasp this necessity of holiness, what's the point of personal spiritual redemption? What happened to being cleansed of the sins of the flesh? We should be diligent to prove by our holy walk that we are the Elect of Christ. If you seek holiness by His power, the whole point is not to stumble back into the sins of the flesh. You don't defeat the flesh by surrendering to it.

Peter's demise is very close, but as long as he yet lives, it is his duty to remind every believer of these things. Peter also planned on leaving a body of written material that would keep preaching his message after he was gone. He never forgot the warning Jesus gave him about how He would die, and it was obvious that was coming quite soon. Yes, Peter was a firsthand eyewitness to everything he claimed about Jesus. None of his teaching was dreamed up by human speculation. Unlike the Gnostics, Peter knew what he was talking about, and it wasn't that hard to understand.

He never forgot that day God's voice thundered from Heaven affirming that Jesus was His Son and His delight. It was up on that mountainside where Jesus was transformed into His eternal form. The gift of prophecy the Lord gave to Peter turned out to be utterly reliable. If nothing else, his readers could trust his message like a lighthouse in a fog, until the Day of the Lord itself dawns, and they see Him face to face. Meanwhile, the voice of prophecy never comes from a prophet's own imagination but is the voice of God.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

Peter ends the previous chapter with Christ in Heaven at the right hand of God. But before He ascended, He lived in the flesh, tolerating the weakness. He knew from the start that the suffering would end on the Cross. Peter encourages his readers to commit themselves to the same sense of purpose, knowing that their lives would probably end in some nasty fashion. It requires dismissing the fleshly existence, taking up a full otherworldly sense of purpose and calling. This allows you to nail your fleshly nature to the Cross and live for the glory of Christ (AKA, "the will of God").

Prior to their coming to faith in the Messiah, these Hebrew believers as Jews served the flesh. In moral terms, there was no useful distinction between Jew and Gentile, since it was just a different flavor of serving the fleshly lusts. Now, having turned away from such a worldly life, the world around them is instinctively offended by the inherent message of holiness that condemns their sin. That judgment against them will eventually be manifest when they stand before God.

Most English translations are clumsy with verse 6. The point is that by this time in history, some of the earliest followers of Christ had died. Having received the gospel message while they were still alive, they agreed with the wrath of God against fallen flesh and judged their own flesh as worthy of death. Because they were in a position to reject the fleshly nature, they chose to walk in the Holy Spirit, by Whom their own spirits were given eternal life.

Peter offers a Hebrew expression in Greek about "the end is near" in the sense that, once you have declared your allegiance to God and sided with Him in judging fallen flesh, you are never more than a step away from Eternity. Being aware of this should make you joyful, for sure, but not in the sense of mindless revelry. Rather, you'll never lose the sense of doom on the flesh, and you'll be constantly praying for guidance and power.

With such a mindset, you realize you can't afford to waste a single moment focusing on your fleshly self. Instead, you'll make the most of the remaining days in loving each other as Christ loved. This is the best way to put our human weaknesses in context and forgive. Indeed, be rather indulgent with each other, as fellow believers are our only real treasure on earth. Each one is a jewel of God's provision, granted for the blessings of His Covenant people. Everything we do should serve the divine calling of Christ's Law. This is how we glorify the Lord we serve.

Don't be surprised when your fleshly self is abused to see if you really are committed to Christ. Your flesh is not the real you; rejoice that the Enemy can tell you belong to Christ and feels it worth his time to provoke persecution through his human lackeys. What a privilege it is to be treated as our Savior!

During times of tribulation, the Lord comes to sift first His own people. This is what we pray when we call on Him to judge sin: "Lord, start with me!" But then He turns to deal with those who rejected Him; what will it be like for them? If we come through these times of trial stripped bare of our human failings, what will it be like for those who have nothing else but human failings? This knowledge should drive you into the arms of the Lord whenever life gets difficult.

Hi my dear family.  How blessed we are to have another year to live in our faith in pursuit of the promises Our Lord gave us.

I need prayer.  One of my crowned teeth has developed a cavity. It is part of a bridge to another crowned tooth. Unfortunately, after we discovered it, a few days later, I started feeling pain in that area which is indicative of an infection no doubt. I am now on amoxicillin.

 In the interim I have pulled out my back again and I have no idea what I did, but I am now limited in what I can do.  I am currently unable to get In or out of a car, or sit for very long but thankfully each morning I have felt a little better.  This started New year's eve day.
I have not given myself one of my toradol injections because I just didn't really want to. I have some pain medication, so I have been taking it , which is rare, so you know that I am hurting if I am.

Hopefully my back will heal up quickly, so I can go ahead and arrange for my teeth to be taken care of. I am considering just having the tooth that has the cavity removed as well as the bridge, and leaving the good crowned tooth alone. The other option is to re-create the entire bridge by recrowning both teeth, and building the bridge IF the cavity isn't bad.  The difference in cost between those two options is BIG, even with part of it covered by my insurance.  

I pray this will all resolve quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Thanks!

PS  I do NOT like getting dental work done other than cleanings.  It makes me every anxious.   

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

Riffing off of what we talked about in the call today, I got this video recommended in my Youtube feed.

The biggest problem in general are the finer mouth movements. The graphics and their movements themselves outside of that can be mistaken for live action if done right, but mouth movements are really hard to nail down. However, the renderings at around 2:30 - 3:30 don't come off as computer generated to me. And this is really without that heavy use of AI, as far as I can tell.

The cinematic scene starting at 4:10 also comes very close to real-world footage. Maybe seeing it in passing, with the right context, you could fool a lot of people.

So, things are getting pretty close.

What happens when God's Elect walk in their privileges?

Peter says that when women don't follow the worldly ways of feminism, but walk according to biblical submission to their covering, they have a real impact on everyone. The world could see these Christian women living by eternal truth and would be forced to admire their faithfulness. Then he goes on to add that believers should not flaunt any material wealth but their spiritual wealth. Adorn yourself with moral truth.

By symbolism, this makes women heirs of Sarah's blessings that she obtained with her husband and lord, Abraham, as representatives of Heaven. By the same token, men should not be suckered by the masculine arrogance of Judaism, which later seeped into the Gnostic heresy. In Gnosticism, you must be male to go to to Heaven. Men, pamper your wife; she is your greatest treasure on this earth. Abusing her is abusing yourself and hinders your prayers. It defiles you so you cannot stand before the Lord. The Law of Christ is to love His people as He loves them.

This sort of orientation on life extends to the rest of your faith family. Demonstrate what the sacrificial love of Christ looks like in how you deal with them. Peter quotes from Psalm 34 about how this allows us to lay claim to the blessings of the Covenant. If this makes God smile, who can object to such sacrificial love? If it causes outsiders to persecute you, then you have moved into the highest privilege of all, carrying the Cross of Christ. People are going to ask you about this; be ready to answer in some way they are likely to understand. We can afford to be humble and generous in our response to the people of this world. Let your kindness show that those who slander you as troublesome are lying. Let God use you as He pleases to testify of His reputation.

Peter offers a sort of catechism statement about how Christ did not hesitate to face suffering and death despite His innocence, so that He could pay the penalty for our sinful natures. Meanwhile, His Spirit was still alive and went down into the Abyss to announce to the rebellious spirits how He was rolling back their agenda by empowering His people to walk in holiness. They had their chance to repent during the long years it took for Noah to build the Ark. While they had succeeded in spoiling the majority of the human race, that was not going to happen with the Elect.

The Flood that destroyed humanity also served to rescue Noah from the pervasive evil of his world. That was the symbolism of baptism -- what killed the flesh would empower the Spirit. The ritual of baptism was a pledge of loyalty to Christ as Lord. His resurrection paves the way for His followers to join Him later in Eternity, and there was nothing the rebel alliance among the elohim, nor their lackeys the Nephilim, could do about it.

Forgot to post in the announcements section about our usual prayer time, a few days ago on Wednesday. I blame it on the holiday distraction, partially, but mostly on my ability to be distracted easily.