Cross-posted from my blog. These were big fellas. The biggest and most striking one was a stormcloud but I wasn't able to get a good, clear shot of it.

Thought it was time to share some more of the many photos I take daily.  

Here are some of my winged friends.  The first is a young male downy woodpecker eating on some suet next to my deck

      

This second one is a male goldfinch munching on some seeds of my echinacea flowers in my front "bell bed".  I have a post with an old farm bell on top - hence the name.

   

Under "Mama" Pine, I have some potted flowers and a nice concrete birdbath where many birds come to bathe and drink.  Here are a bunch of young house finches.

   

And then there are the many miscellaneous  ones:  A couple of weeks ago, I transplanted my aloes and lo and behold, yesterday I found this little lovely in the pot.  No doubt spores had traveled in the bag of potting soil and burst forth in the sunlight coming through the window!


   

Looking out my front door the other morning, I just had to capture that gorgeous sky....

   

It's mostly a big joke, if you ask me. If you don't laugh, you'll cry. Nothing good comes from human politics.

Part of the reason for a very cynical view of American politics is that there is a very obvious massive facade trying to prevent us from discussing the real issues. I spotted this article by Wayne Lusvardi saying that this next election has very little to do with the candidates, but is more about the oligarchies behind either candidate. More to the point, it's Big Tech oligarchies. He suggests that this coming election is Zuckerberg versus Musk, with other Big Tech names lining up on either side. They are associated with Democrats and Republicans, respectively. What I do agree with is that the rise of more advanced technology is little more than a new tool of oppression.

The Covenant of Moses was not the root of divine revelation. It was a distinctly temporary arrangement, solely for the Nation of Israel during a specific period of time until things were ripe for the ultimate revelation in Christ. Thus, every provision of the Covenant of Moses was merely a contextual implementation of something eternal. The Order of Melchizedek was much older and closer to that eternal provision than the priesthood of Aaron and his descendants.

I find it hard to explain this chapter any better than I already have in a previous commentary...

Our writer closes the door back into the Law a little tighter by showing that there is but one High Priest whom God will accept. That one does not stand in Herod’s Temple. Further, he warns that the spiritual reality of things has eluded them completely, because they have refused to grow beyond their poor Hellenized Judaism.

While there may be some debate about the absolute accuracy of it, the various rabbinical colleges all had a copy of the roll of High Priests, going all the way back to Aaron. Each man’s name, lineage and some words about his service, were included in this roll. Some of them were quite famous, offering exemplary service during their term of office. Some were equally infamous for their failures.

The office of High Priest is conceptually fuzzy in our minds. In standard Hebrew fashion, the logic is symbolic, not concrete, not merely a matter of metaphor or allegory. Spiritual truth is hardly explained, only exemplified within a context. The calling of the High Priest was at the behest of God. He set forth the original calling of Aaron and commanded how this office would be carried on by future generations. Obviously no single man in this fallen world could live forever, so the office had to pass from one man to the next. There must always be a man in the office for as long as the Covenant of the Law stood.

Because these were humans, chosen from among the Nation of Israel, they could empathize with the human failings that bound Israelis in their sins. He could serve in his representative office before God Almighty because he was called to it by God, but did so with a human heart no less fallen than those whose offerings and burdens he presented. He had to offer covering sacrifices for his own sins before attempting to offer them for others. Were he not called into the divine Presence by God, He would be stricken dead immediately. Often enough, the sins of the nation caused this anyway. At this, it was not literally God’s presence, but merely an earthly representation of such a presence. It was an earthly model of God’s throne room in Heaven. Yet, for the sake of sufficient sin, the High Priest could well expire on the Day of Atonement when he carried the blood sacrifice into that little room with the wooden box coated with gold leaf and mythical sculptures. He was just a man representing other men to a God no man could see.

Again, this whole thing was by God’s command. All the desire in the world could not make a man High Priest. It was an ironclad birthright issue. By Hebrew logic, this took away any pride a man might have, for what did he do to merit such an office? It was not possible to wear the vestments by merit, but by grace alone, by God’s command. So it was with Christ. He came to Israel by God’s command. Further, He came not merely as one of the Jews, but as the Son of God who commanded. Our writer quotes again the coronation song, Psalm 2, which bears a Messianic truth. If the Davidic king could be called a son of God, how much more so the Messiah Himself, the one who was both anchor and end of the House of David?

Many of the mystical connotations of David’s reign are tied up in the Messiah. The writer also quotes Psalm 110. We are reminded that David was permitted to touch the Ark of the Covenant. While under the covenant for which that Ark existed, it was forbidden. He was permitted because he somehow had seized upon the faith and covenant that came much earlier and still stood. The Covenant of Abraham, which included Melchizedek, both as men of faith who had fully committed their lives to Jehovah, was of a much higher order than the Law. We note that the Law was merely an outward expression of what holiness would be under strictly circumscribed limits: that people, that land and that time. It was not the ultimate revelation of holiness, but was actually a poor reflection of it. While very much binding on Israel as a nation, it could never save souls. That was a matter of faith, of commitment as a gift of grace. When David embraced that level of faith, the Law was fulfilled. Moreover, he could approach the Ark directly, the symbolic Throne of Jehovah, as if he were a High Priest of some other order. That was the prior order of Melchizedek, the order of Abrahamic faith.

Thus, in that Psalm, David reveals an oracle of God, which named him as a High Priest of that other, older order. This is why the Psalms declared God’s command that the whole world should bow before His King on earth. Not as King of Israel, though the image was dressed in that robe, but as King of Faith, the faith Israel was meant to have, but rejected. Still, that faith was at work and it wrought the Messiah. These were prophecies of the Coming One who would be God’s own Son and High Priest of Faith. This was Christ Jesus.

While on the earth as a man, this Jesus was a vastly superior High Priest, for His offering never failed. When He stood before the Throne of God, He was there as Son. His appeals for mercy were surely granted, for God was granting them to Himself. Waxing yet more lyrical, the writer offers an old play on words in Greek. It was a common game to combine two similar sounding words in Greek or Latin as a phrase that encouraged some virtue, or made some pithy statement. Here he uses emathan and epathen – “learning is suffering.” Jesus didn’t learn how to obey; obedience to God was His very nature. Rather, He learned as a man that obedience was suffering, a very Hebrew concept. To gain was to grow, to be changed, to cut off things of the past and leave behind the comfort of the womb. In short, the trauma of birth itself was hidden in learning by experience. What a man hears, he knows. What he sees, he understands. What he experiences, he is.

Summing all this up with His life, pulling together all the unfinished threads of human history and God’s promises, God redeemed all mankind. With Jesus as High Priest in Heaven, any other man claiming that role is a blasphemer. The standing High Priest so-called in Herod’s Temple at that moment was a fake. For this Hebrew audience in Rome, our writer warns there is no place to go if they leave Jesus.

On the cusp of further explaining the image of Melchizedek, the author stops. He pulls his readers up short in their headlong rush back to the comforts of a familiar Judaism. He’s wary of explaining because his readers are weary of hearing. After this many years of walking in Christ and reclaiming their true Hebrew identity, they still remained mere Jews of that latter day corrupt Judaism. They had not traveled back into the land of parabolic truth, of symbolic logic, of things that cannot be taught, but only caught by the spirit enlightened in the Spirit of God. They were sucklings, tender and fat of souls. No wonder persecution was so hard on them. What infant is ready to face hardship? These readers were unable to sift the truth from the mystical viewpoint of the old Hebrew mind. They were still hardly grasping concrete toys of mere human logic with clumsy little hands. They knew the nursing of simple ideas, but the meat of truth was not something they recognized as food.

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.

Israel as a nation did not enter into God's rest (in Hebrew related to the word "Sabbath"). Never mind the Talmudic perversion, the Law of Moses itself could not grant that divine rest; it could only point out that such peace existed. Under Moses, peace with God was a matter of feudal submission to Him. Now that same submission and peace are found in Christ. This is what Moses and David both foresaw.

The writer pleads with them not to come up short of that peace. The nation in the wilderness did not listen to the good news of peace, did not yield to God's sovereignty. It's all connected to the Sabbath of Creation, but the nation of Israel rejected it. A whole generation died in the wilderness without seeing it. But that rest didn't simply cease to exist; the door was still open. While Joshua brought them into the Land, they still didn't find that rest, still would not fully obey. This is why David, several centuries later, was still calling prophetically for the nation to submit to God, quoting that passage where God swore that generation would die in the wilderness.

Don't go back out into the wilderness, says the writer. Again, that Sabbath rest was not in the Law, but was indicated by it. When you enter the Christ's rest, you are no longer under that Law, but under Him. You are joining God who rested after His works of Creation. Returning to the Law means you didn't find the Sabbath rest of faith. The constraints of the Law were for those who had no faith.

The Word of God -- Christ, the Living Word -- is sharper than a sword. Like a butcher knife it can cut cleanly between bone and flesh. Just so, the Word can discern the commitments of your heart; He knows your most intimate secrets, the ones you keep from yourself. No High Priest in Jerusalem can minister to you like Jesus. Our Savior came down from Heaven, yet walked in our flesh, fully knowing everything we face.

Cling to the message of Christ and come boldly into the Father's Presence. Everything we need to face the troubles of this life He will supply.

My friend, Carla, has been living in this area for the last 15 years or so.  She and my daughter worked together and became friends when my daughter lived in the mountains.  When she moved back here, Carla soon followed.  Since 2017, I have been "taking care" of Carla.  She has been in the hospital a dozen times or so since then, the ER way more often and has ten different doctors she sees on at least a semi-annual basis unless something comes up in between.  On tax day this year, April 15, she fell while walking from her car to my daughter's front door.  No one could get her up, so an ambulance was called.  EMS helped her up and into the house.  When she was walking back to her car later on, she fell again.  This time, I was called.  When I got there, we called the ambulance again and off to the ER she and I went.  Six weeks later, she was back home after being in rehab for over a month.  Since then, Carla has been very forgetful, stopping mid-sentence, trying desperately to remember what she was going to say, having difficulty maintaining her balance with her walker and becoming frightened about what is going on.  Her speech therapist who also works in memory assessment and her psychiatrist both say she is in cognitive decline and possibly in the early stages of alcohol induced dementia.  At least, she quit drinking and is on Antabuse.  We have been back and forth to doctors and she had PT, OT and ST (speech therapy) ordered the first of this month.  They are each coming once a week....

This morning I called to check on her.  She said "I'm on the floor".  She told me she had fallen.  She has no strength to lift herself up.  Thankfully, my granddaughter was able to go over there and call 911.  If she calls 911 herself and she can't unlock the door, firemen are called to break down the door.  They did that a few months ago and it cost Carla over $400 to have it replaced.  We are looking into a Knox box (look it up).

So, please dear family, pray for all of us.  I am going to do my best to help her.  In the meantime, after many recommendations from her doctors and many conversations, she has agreed to allow us to find a family care home (a residential home designed to provide personal care services to individuals requiring assistance. The provider must live in the home and offers personal services for up to 5 residents).  She does not want to live in a nursing home.  I have NO idea what a home like that charges for live-in residents.  We already know someone who lives in one not too far from here, but there are no available rooms there.  So, the Lord is going to have to provide a place that she can afford.  She is NOT eligible for Medicaid -her income is $53 a month over the maximum allowed to qualify.

I will admit this has been difficult and at times I get overwhelmed.  BUT, the Lord is faithful to provide me with what I need to deal.  And with prayers lifting up by you all, I can do this!!  (:^)

Thank you!

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.

I'll share here my previous commentary on this chapter.

The Exodus was the very foundation, the defining event of Israel. If the Exodus was a myth, so was Israel as a nation. While they pointed with some smugness to their specialness before the Lord some fourteen centuries later, they paid only lip service to the duty of expressing contrition for the nation flinging challenge after challenge into God’s face. The story of the Exodus is the sad tale of whining and bickering slaves who preferred their slavery to the freedom and identity as God’s Own People. The entire Exodus generation remained unfit for the Promised Land, conditioned as they were to bondage.

Our writer calls this to mind, charging that his readers are the same sort of people. When Christ came to fulfill the promises of Exodus, how very many of God’s Own People rejected Him! The Roman Jews were among those called into the Kingdom of Heaven, a far higher calling than the Kingdom of Israel. Christ, God Himself, called them. If Moses can be held up as the model of faithfulness, who was but a servant in the household of God, how much more Christ the Son? Christ formed a household as His inheritance; Christ built it.

And it was Christ who faithfully discharged all the duties of His Sonship. If He owned it all, He was the very definition of faithfulness. The first household was just an earthly temple. When its purpose was fulfilled in His death on the Cross, it was torn down. From the rubble were found a few stones still of use to God. He chose from among the Jews, but also from the rest of humanity, stones suitable for His house. He built up His household by His teaching and power, the means of trying the stones. These Roman Jews were a part of those passing the test. How then could they return to a house that no longer stands, except in the fallen imagination of mere men? Hold fast the confession of your faith in Christ! It is the only thing that is real.

The writer quotes Psalm 95:7-11. There David recalls testing of the Lord by Israel at Meribah (Rebellion) and Massah (Trial) in Exodus 17:2-7. This was rather early in the journey up from slavery, during the first shock of introduction to desert nomad living. Had they but called out to God in faith, the whole scene would have been remembered as a triumph. Instead, they gave Moses much grief and God took it personally. For the next forty years, Jehovah faithfully stood by them, led them and took care of their every need. Every step of the way, they whined and attacked God’s chosen servant. For the Roman Jews, Jesus was the new Servant, the actual Son of God. This Roman persecution was just the spiritual nomad boot camp. Bitterly wishing they had not come on this spiritual journey was to wish for slavery, granting Satan the victory. It was treason to side with the enemy.

As the Lord swore in His just wrath that the Exodus generation would die in the wilderness, so the Roman Jewish Christians risked losing all hope of finding the true Promised Land of Heaven. Those without Heaven in their souls cannot enter Heaven when they die. Allowing doubts to rise about whether serving Christ was worth it was silly. The word “today” is but the moment of testing and is quickly past. Today we should all face testing with joy and confidence. Were these readers among those who would die in the spiritual wilderness today? Or were they among those who clung to the revelation of Christ and would pass into the Promised Land to see God’s face?

No one can do it for you. God will carry you through, but you must accept His power to commit yourself to His plans. They won’t be like your plans, no more than the Exodus brought Israel to a place like Egypt. Their souls were at home in the swampy river bottom of slavery, not out in the rocky heights of freedom in Christ. All you have to do is hang onto Him.

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.