This is a storm that missed us; it's passing from southwest to northeast and can be seen east of us.

Angels proper have always been spirit beings who served God as warriors and messengers. When they spoke, it was with divine authority, as if it were the voice of God Himself. Without fail, violating His Word brought His wrath, including the words brought by angels. So, we dare not let slip away from us the Word brought by His own Son, the Word in flesh. Was it not marked by signs and wonders, same as every word within the Old Covenant? The gospel shared by the apostles is that Living Word; it's His message, marked by the same miracles, plus gifts of the Holy Spirit.

When God created the fallen realm, it wasn't subjected to angels for management. Instead, we have David's anguished account in Psalm 8 talking about what a wretched situation is our fallen existence. We trashed God's Word in the Garden; why would God care about us? For the time being, we are below the power of angels. Yet He had planned to elevate us over them and grant us authority over this world. This is a case of "already-but-not-yet" -- we were nominated to keep His Garden for Him, but right now we are barely able to survive on par with the animals in the Garden.

So, the writer of Hebrews notes that the nomination was to put us over everything in this world, with no exceptions. Yet, it sure doesn't look like it right now. Well, Jesus also came down to be with us as a human with less power than angels. But after His resurrection, He now sits crowned on His Father's right hand. He has experienced what we all face as mortals. His suffering blazed a trail for us to follow. We have the same origin as He if we follow Him.

This grants us the privileges as Christ's brothers and sisters, as prophesied in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 8. By adopting us as Children of God, we escape the power of death Satan uses to keep us under his authority. Jesus didn't die for angels, but the children of Abraham. Yes, elsewhere Paul clarified that this refers to the heirs of Abraham's faith, not his mere DNA. But this letter was written for Hebrew Christians who did have his DNA and his faith.

This meant that Christ could take up the role as High Priest of the New Covenant and made atonement in His own blood. He experienced human temptation and knows how to help us bear up under the strain.

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.

   
Into the woods

I am a wife of 15 years this August to John Providence (  ). And mom of a smart, strong, sweet, boy, 11 years old.  I am a nurse, but had to leave nursing last year when my back injury from end of 2019 flared up and didn't allow me to keep working 12 hour shifts in a hospital. I am currently working as a Paraprofessional in the highschool in our town.  It gave me the same schedule as our son, which has helped a lot with our family scheduling.   I am so thankful to get to know this community of believers more.

This treatise was written by an Alexandrian rabbi thoroughly acquainted with Second Temple literature, and perhaps that of the Qumran Community. We are assuming he wrote to Hebrew Christians in Rome who were suffering under persecution and tempted to slip back into Judaism to escape the pressure. Judaism remained legal, but for a time, Christian faith was not. This letter is a definitive statement that the Covenant of Moses died on the Cross, and that going back there is deserting God.

God revealed Himself in highly varied ways and fragments in ancient times, and then more definitively in the prophets and literature of Israel, but the final revelation was Jesus Christ. It was a Hebrew doctrine that referred to God's will as a Person, and that was Jesus, the agent of Creation. He was as much God as any human can possibly know, and He trumps every other revelation -- past, present or future. Now that He has offered the final sacrifice for sins for all time, He sits on the throne as God's Heir and ruler of all things. He outranks the Divine Council and certainly all the angels.

Quoting liberally from the Old Testament (Septuagint version), the writer refers back to God's declarations that He adopted both David and Solomon as His sons. He elevated these two men above the rest of humanity. When their descendant and heir comes along as the Messiah, this latter Son of God was far more than just an honored man, for God commanded the angels to worship this One. So, while the angels are very powerful servants of His throne, this Son is the Heir of Heaven.

The author continues quoting various Psalms that identify Jesus the Messiah with descriptions and titles that can only mean this is God, and yet an extension of God. The Hebrew doctrine of Two Powers in Heaven is quite obviously where this points -- God and His Word. Thus, this Son was there at Creation and preexists all other beings. These are things God never said of anyone else, much less angels nor even the Divine Council.

Jesus Christ is the long-awaited promise that God would finally send a definitive representation of Himself to His people. He came, He taught, He paid the final price for our redemption. He is the New Covenant in Himself. The Old Covenant is closed; there's nothing to go back to.

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.

Hi, family!  For those of us on the east coast - or traveling towards the east coast (Jay) - Debby is definitely going to affect us.  Although you would think one could tell what she is going to do, you can't.  Once she is back over water, depending on how long she sits there, she may get fiercer.  One thing seems certain is that, reminiscent of Hurricane Florence, she is moving WAY slow which means LOTS of rain.  In my specific area (Raleigh, NC - ish), we could get up to 10 inches.  My friends at the coast stand to get up to 15" or more.  Parts of Georgia and SC may end up with close to a yard, yes 30+ inches of rain.......

So, prayers for all of us from all of you as I will be praying.  Together may our sweet, prayerful, harmonic melody lift to Our Father and resonate through Heaven for His kind mercies.

Thank you, my sweet family!

I may have mentioned it to you all before at some point, the kids and I are leaving tomorrow for MA, for a week. Prayers for traveling mercies will be appreciated. Linda mentioned hurricane/tropical storm Debbie to me just now. It's not a threat to where we are in PA or the northeast, but it could be. 

Thank you!

The world is hopelessly lost. There is nothing we can do to redeem the human condition at large, even on a small scale. What we can do is show God's mercy and compassion for humans in their fallen situation. We don't seek to change the world; we seek to draw God's Elect to disconnect from it.

Persuading Cretans to become harmless would a miracle in itself. But the Lord's work in our lives is to redeem us and transform us into His kind of people. That means we cooperate with human government authorities as much as possible, and avoid provoking anyone else, for that matter. The same mercy has changed all of us; everyone started out as a moral degenerate in one way or another. All of us were born as self-centered predators.

Our salvation in Christ was not the result of our efforts, because we could do nothing other than evil. Rather, He chose to redeem us for His own personal motives. He sent His Spirit to clean us up and make us presentable to His Father. By His own initiative we have become heirs of His divine realm. Notice how Paul points out that works do not get us there, but they follow us out into the world afterward. They are His works.

We know where we are going. This sense of assurance is what drives us. We invest time and effort just dreaming up ways to glorify His name by how we act in a fallen world. We do things that bless others; this is what marks us as His children. It is not based on complicated rules of inheritance, silly legalism, or anything else promoted by mere men to curry God's favor. If someone gets wrapped up in promoting Judaizer nonsense, warn him once or twice, then ostracize him as an outsider. They are in it only for themselves, still a swindling Cretan.

The letter ends with some administrative details, but Paul notes in passing that helping missionaries along the way was of critical importance in demonstrating what really matters to God's people.