Topical Study – Thy Kingdom Come
Expositional teaching by Pastor Mac covering the first two verses of what’s often referred to as the Lord’s Prayer.
Or watch on Youtube
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There aren’t too many Christmas holidays left for us to celebrate on this weary earth…
These verses below from Exodus 34 came back to my mind today, and I realized that the order in which God revealed His glory to Moses also points to how our God chose to deal with humanity.
First He came to save.
Soon He’ll come again, but this time as the Judge.
Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.
And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed,
“The Lord,
the Lord God,
merciful and
gracious,
longsuffering, and
abounding in goodness and truth,
keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
by no means clearing the guilty…
Exodus 34:5-7a
First
He sent His Son Jesus to show His love, grace, mercy for all who would just choose to trust in Jesus for salvation. Jesus became one of us, so we can find in Him the Way, the Truth and the Life.
We’re still in this first stage, with another Christmas just days away, to celebrate His first coming among us.
Lastly
After announcing to Moses the loving, graceful and merciful side of His glory, God also announced His justice and judgement to come: “by no means clearing the guilty”
I pray for the lost to run to Jesus while there’s still time.
I also pray for the Lord to come and make everything right again.
I wish all of you a Blessed Christmas!
May the Lord bless you,
comfort you,
bring you joy, healing, peace and so many other blessings that He knows you need.
May He guide your steps in these last days…
Our blessed hope, our Jesus is coming soon!
”They shall see His face,
and His name shall be on their foreheads.
There shall be no night there:
They need no lamp nor light of the sun,
for the Lord God gives them light.
And they shall reign forever and ever.“
Revelation 22:4-5
It’s always darkest before the dawn… but our King is coming!
God bless!
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I thought this might be a good topic to share this under. Pastor Barry Stagner shared these in his weekly Line Up. He was talking about God’s beautiful handiwork.
These pics were taken in Sweden. They are NOT the Aurora Borealis but are very rare clouds (I missed the name of them.) formed when everything is just the right circumstances.
Imagine what heaven will be like or the New Jerusalem with all those colours. Wow!
Here’s the link to he video if you want to hear the explanation of the clouds. It begins around the 52 mins mark.
Hamas Rejects Israeli Offer for 7-day Truce in Gaza (youtube.com)
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A blessed Christmas everyone!
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Spectacular pictures. He set a rainbow of colors in the sky! Stunning!!!
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So looking forward to Heaven
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hi y’all, well you know I am no astute prophecy scholar but it is appearing that something very big is occurring right before our eyes. . Saudi Arabia is wanting that land bridge between SA and Israel, not only for an alternate route around the Red Sea, for trading but for a route to the pilgrimages in Medina && Mecca and to Jerusalem to the Al qsa Mosque. Bill Salus says they also want to expand this land bridge to Africa eventually. But for this to happen a 2 state solution is imperitive.Egypt is doing the negotiating right now. WeWe need topay attention to this and the ‘king’ who are in these negotiations
Perhaps thistime, the new Roman Empire will have all roads leading t this time, o Jerusalem (instead of Rome)
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Father, we thank you that we shall finish the race strong in the Lord and not on our own but by the Spirit of the LORD you have given us.
Amen and Amen
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There is an event coming that will be the highest point in our lives: when we have a personal, face to face meeting with Jesus!
for fair use and educational purposes
THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST
by Johnny Tatum
"Do you ever notice that the more intense a feeling, the longer it will last?
Also, the more happy a situation, the longer that joy will last.
The Bible says that is what will happen to every one of us who is born again. [And, just to make clear, being born again means having trusted in Jesus Christ’s work on the cross for our salvation, and He’s our Saviour]. For those of us who are born again there is an event coming for us that will be so full of joy: do you know how long the joy will last? For all eternity. Imagine! One event so packed with joy that we will never get over it! (now, I’m not referring to the Rapture, although it’s connected to this event, and although the Rapture
leads to this event). The event I’m talking about is
THE PERSONAL VISIT EACH ONE OF US WILL HAVE WITH JESUS.
And that event is called The Blessing Seat Of Christ. Now what’s interesting is that that is in the Bible, but you have probably never heard that! It’s very unfortunate: you probably heard ‘the Judgment Seat of Christ;’ very unfortunate that that phrase has even gone out. How many sermons have we heard on that? How many exhortations? How many times been told to live your life knowing that you’re going to face the Judgment Seat of Christ. It’s very, very unfortunate. And what’s amazing is, after all we’ve heard about that, the astonishing thing is the phrase ‘the Judgment Seat of Christ’ does not appear one time in the Bible! You would think if that’s how we’re supposed to live our lives, that it would appear at least once, wouldn’t we? It’s very unfortunate because that false conception distorts an event that’s going to be nothing but joy for us! Don’t you look to that event sort of with mixed feelings? You ever feel like you are going to have to give some kind of account of what you did? And maybe you’ll get rewards, and maybe you’ll lose rewards. And there will be different degrees of crowns. Some people will have crowns piled up; some people will be like me and have a dirty Autozone cap! (by the way that whole concept never bothered me, I thought as long as I am there, I don’t care what kind of hat I got!). I was never a hat person anyway.
And what about this concept where we all stand before this seat of Christ and everything we did is piled up and then Jesus puts some lighter fluid on it, strikes a match and says, “Well well well, let’s see how you did*!”* And depending on what you got left would be how many rewards we get. Isn’t that pretty much what we have been led to believe? Of that whole concept, actually none of it is in the Bible. And it makes a difference how we live: what we’re anticipating. So I want to look at this meeting we’re going to have with Jesus because it’s going to be nothing but joy! There will be great benefit in our lives now if we have a correct view of this Blessing Seat.
First, the timing: when we will meet with Jesus at the Blessing Seat.
The next event in prophecy is The Rapture. 1 Cor 15:51. …it is important to see at what point we are changed at the Rapture. And at that point we are not just an improved version of what we are, we’ll be a new type of being. And I believe God has planted in nature pictures so we’ll understand: the wormy little caterpillar turns into the lovely butterfly. This is similar to what will happen to us! This is important: when we appear at the Blessing Seat of Jesus, we have already been changed. We are already a butterfly. We don’t appear before Jesus as a caterpillar that needs work! We have already been changed. When are we changed? The minute we hear the sound (at the Rapture). 1 Thes 4:16 Jesus isn’t
sending some peon: He’s coming for us Himself! With the voice of the archangel: this has to be Gabriel; Michael is busy slapping Satan around at this time!
We are changed immediately-as soon as we hear our name! No further work is needed on us. As soon as we go up to meet the Lord, in some way Jesus has a personal visit with each one of us. I don’t know how He’ll do it, except at that point we’re out of space/time. We won’t have to wait in line.
And that meeting we will have with Him will be so exciting the joy will last forever!
Again, if we live our lives looking forward to that event-and understanding it-then the joy of that event will be pulled back into our lives now! It’s very unfortunate: I think most Christians are missing out on that joy, because we have a distorted view of what is going to happen there. I think we look forward to that event with a little mixed dread, a little apprehension, maybe a little fear. So instead of living now in the joy of that moment, we live in fear because we think we’re going to have to give an account."
Next, we will see why we get that impression-why we have the apprehension.
https://www.radicalgrace.com/bematos.htm
In the 'Series: The Blessing Place of Christ/‘there is no Judgment Seat of Christ’
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Amen, I have many talks trying to show others why it’s a blessing and that we should be very eager not concerned.
Hebrews 8:12
For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more."
Psalm 103:12
As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
Those are just 2 plain and simple promises on what has already happened to sin to consider.
If it were not so you would not be at the blessing seat.
Shalom
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We need to realize that the time of great joy is coming soon! It occurs just after the Rapture when each one of us born again believers of Christ will have an intimate, face to face meeting with Jesus!!
Here is part two of The Blessing Seat of Christ
for fair use and educational purposes only
THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST
by Johnny Tatum
So instead of living now in the joy of that moment, we live in fear because we think we’re going to have to give an account. And the way we get that impression is there is a very few passages in the Bible, 1) they are taken out of context; 2)poor translations, and, 3) as I will show today, there are parts in the New Testament that have been added. Remember, whenever you see in the Bible words in italics it means the words have been added. It was not in the text. Now they say they added the words for clarity but to me, they distorted things. You should never add words to the Bible!
Here’s where we get that picture: 2 Cor 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” This is one of the worst, most irresponsible translations in the whole Bible! You see, the phrase ‘judgment seat’ is not in the text. The greek word is βηματος (bematos). Bematos is not judgment seat.
Now, what is bematos? There is not one specific word in English that translates it. However, the original listeners of this passage, whenever they would have heard ‘bematos’ would have had an instant picture, without misunderstanding. At this time the word bematos referred to two different situations: 1) was at games (eg the Olympics). At the end of the games a platform was set up. A dais was set up. The participants were brought up to receive a laurel wreath, to this dais. What was this dais called? The bematos. Now, nobody would ever go to the bematos and lose anything! It would be preposterous! There was no fear. Everyone who went up would get something. It would be like going to the Oscars, “Oh…I hope they don’t call me up there! They might do something bad to me up there.” No! They just give out rewards.
Now the second time the word bematos was used in that culture was much more common, and it was in a military setting. At the conclusion of a battle, there would be a ceremony for the winning side. A
dais would be set up. Every one of the soldiers would go up to that platform and receive an award. Three things to note here: 1) every soldier got an award; 2) every soldier got the same award; and 3) nobody certainly lost anything! Where did all this happen? On the bematos.
So when Paul said, “Everyone will appear before the bematos” everyone who heard instantly understood that it would be an awards ceremony. There was no hint that there would be any loss of anything or any concept of judgment at the bematos: it was an awards ceremony. So when they heard this, they were excited. “ I’m going to appear before Jesus at an awards ceremony!”
Here is an example from ancient literature.
There was a playright named Antiphon who lived about 450 B.C. (about the time of Nehemiah). He wrote a play called Philocrates. This play was based on a true story.
Philocrates was a general in the Greek army. Under him was a soldier named Anacreon. Anacreon would defect to the enemy side. He became a traitor. Anacreon was eventually captured and brought before Philocrates. At his capture, he was given a letter from Philocrates, which said:
“ Dear Anacreon, Come back to Athens and see me, signed Philocrates.”
Obviously Anacreon was astonished and filled with fear.
Here is how Anacreon describes his face to face meeting with Philocrates:
“The crowning point was when I met Philocrates in the Council’s chamber. Imagine! Philocrates himself, joining me at the bematos. He visited with me; his hand was on my shoulder; then Philocrates himself placed a wreath of honour on my head and told me I was his co-ruler.”
Again, where did that happen? On the bematos. That’s why I call it the blessing seat.
This is very reminiscent of what Jesus did for us, isn’t it?
Rom 5:8 “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
We didn’t become a butterfly, then He died for us; we didn’t become better then He died for us.
We were like Anacreon- we were on the enemy side. We were God’s enemy.
The astonishing thing is that we will appear before Jesus at the bematos, and what will happen is what we just saw here with Anacreon and Philocrates.
He’ll put His arm around us, He’ll hug us, and just give us awards!
He won’t mention any of the times we failed Him; He won’t mention any of the times we sinned. He won’t mention the times we let Him down. There will be no mention of that- He’ll just hug us! And give us rewards.
And there will be no concept of loss.”
Now where do we get that concept of losing rewards? Again, it’s from one passage : 2 Cor 5:10 “For we must all appear before the blessing set of Christ so that each one may be recompensed rewarded for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done,whether good or bad without value(worthless, of no account).”
As you can see by the corrections I’ve made, that’s not what it says. Now, here’s the reason translators sometimes change things, and put words in (italics): they will see a passage that doesn’t make any sense. They think, “Well, obviously it didn’t say that.” So they change it. And this is a classic example; because what is said doesn’t seem to make any sense. 1) recompense, in the NASB, is translated
negatively. In American English, recompense can be positive or negative. Wheras in Greek it’s actually the word rewarded. This concept can only be positive. There is no concept here of bad for bad, good for good. What he is saying is that at the bematos each of us will be positively rewarded. It gets more difficult because he says we will be rewarded for two types of things: 1) for the good things we have done, and 2) we will be positively rewarded for the bad things we’ve done. Do you see why the translators changed it? They thought ‘he couldn’t be saying that!’
Let’s look at these ‘bad things’ for which we’ll be rewarded.
Are they our sins?
The answer is: No.
Scripture tells us that our sins will never be brought up again.
Psa 103:12 “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
Hebrews 10:17 Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.
Jeremiah 31:34 I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.
He will not bring up our sins again. I don’t know how else He could have said it.
Now, let’s not be religious here for a minute, okay? I’m gonna ask you an honest question:
If at the bematos, if Jesus even mentioned any of our sins, then these verses wouldn’t be true. Wouldn’t we say it’s a…lie? In fact, let’s be brutally honest, this is God Himself speaking: He says I won’t remember your sins anymore. If He brought them up then: He’s a liar, isn’t He? This is how we know that when He refers to rewarded for bad, He’s not talking about our sins. And, as I said, the word ‘bad’ actually means ‘of no value.’
Now, how are we going to be rewarded positively for the things of no worth or value?
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Years ago, when the internet was new, I was a member of a Greek language mailing list. They were all secular humanists. All Greek scholars, translators; but not believers by any stretch. I enjoyed the group because they had no theological bias of any kind. Now I was struggling with this verse, so I sent it out for them to look at (of course, they had no idea where this verse came from). I asked, ‘how would you translate this?’
Here’s some of the responses:
“Every one of us will receive rewards for the works we did in our body whether good or of no value.- Yes, sounds like a good deal!"
“Each one of us will be rewarded for our work, whether they are worth anything or not.- I want to work for this company!"
“All of us will get bonuses for things done in our bodies, whether worthy or worthless.”
Here’s the clincher: “Each of us will be rewarded for the deeds done in the body, whether good or of no value.” Then he adds: ‘ Apparently, the good and the no value is from the perspective of the recipient.’ See, he nailed it.
We will be rewarded for the good things we did-no question!
However, we will also be rewarded for things we did which from our perspective were of no value!
Maybe they meant nothing to us, or we weren’t aware of it. We’ll be rewarded for those obvious good things, but you’ll also be rewarded for those things you probably don’t even remember.
For example: a Christian woman lived in an apartment; came home after work one day, opened the window to let some fresh air in, and turned on the local Christian radio station. She went off to get ready for dinner. What she didn’t know was there was a man outside listening to the radio she was playing. He later went to that Church and got saved. Now that lady will appear before Jesus at the bematos, and Jesus will say, “You know what else you did? You opened your apartment window, turned on the radio, and therefore you are responsible for many people getting saved.” She’ll say ‘I didn’t do it.” He’ll say, “Holy Spirit prompted you to turn that radio on.” That’s something she will be rewarded for- something from her perspective that had no value.
This is a picture of what will happen to us: Jesus will put His arm around us. He’ll tell us things we did, and we will remember some of them; but like that lady there will be things-maybe most of them-we won’t even remember. They’ll be of no value to us;but we’ll get a big hug from Jesus who will say, “Those were special to Me, because you were responding to Holy Spirit without even being aware of it.”
See, if we look forward to this event with joy, the joy at that event will come back into our lives.
Again, this was from Greek scholar and Bible teacher Johnny M. Tatum.
It is a transcript of his audio teaching titled " There is No “Judgment Seat of Christ”! in the Audio Bible Study Section titled " “Bematos” – The Blessing Place of Christ
In my 35 plus years of Bible knowledge and study, I have yet to come by a preacher with the depth of understanding of God’s grace for us in Jesus Christ. He always does it unmixed, and with doses of humor, which is why he is my favorite Bible teacher (besides Holy Spirit and Jesus).
Grace and peace to you, reader!
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Wow thanks Robbie. Fascinating. I am going to go through the book of 2 Corinthians again with this in mind. Interesting things about 2 Cor is how thickly emmersed it is in how Paul was literally trying to help that church have the clairty that Paul was the real deal and sending them really God’s word. 2 Cor has been largely known as Paul’s defense of his ministry to that church. It seems to be the blood stream and gutsy drive of this letter.
Why that might make it particularly of interest in what you so wonderfully brought to the forum here brother, is that Paul’s ministry was thought by a bulk of the Corinth church to be “unnaproved” and not as street legal as the pop-music sideshow hussler versions of “the way” seemed to be very attractive (darling you look marvelous like) to the Corinthians: 2 Cor 13:7. The famous passage about “see if you are in the faith” is actually “if you are in the faith it is because we are real ministers of God to introduce that to you.” Or “if you are believers it is because we are, right?” We can see an earlier form of this in the soap opera trainwreck of 1 Cor. @: 1 Cor 1:4.
In that sense it would seem that the concept “bad, according the recpients perspective” might well belong deeply to the very literary style and content/context that sourrounds 2 Cor 5. There is an edgyness going on in this book that sometimes is more so looked at as kind of like flower patterns in wallpaper. But it is actually somewhat more like a gentle loving barroom bottle smashing, chair crackin, saloon doors-aswinging “more than food,” fight.
I’ll check out your pastor/teacher recommendation. Thanks. That was a great idea getting input from secular greek scholars. Robbie when that one said to you, “from the recipients perspective…” is that just like a subjective way he was thinking…or why would he mention that perhaps not knowing where it came from? Why was there a notion for him to say that? Was there something in the Greek that had him see…“from the recpients perspective?”
I would love to know though brother too, what about 1 Cor 3:15 in this context? Any thoughts on that in light of the above context? Blessings.
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Now that’s a needed clarification of that famous passage. I very much appreciate it.
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I love it! 
“Hey! Did you hear there was a barroom bottle smashing last night?”
“No way! What happened?”
“Well, it was gentle and loving…”
Teren said: “Robbie when that one said to you, “from the recipients perspective…” is that just like a subjective way he was thinking…or why would he mention that perhaps not knowing where it came from?”
First of all, let me clarify that this three-part post was a transcript from Mr.Tatum’s audio teaching.
So Johnny’s dialogue was with a secular Greek scholar who had no idea that the line came from Scripture. Which makes it purely objective (ie, he was not motivated to interpret by any personal beliefs or emotions). Apparently the Greek at that time was so rich and perspicuitous (or, real clear) that Johnny got four slightly differing translations from one passage; but they were all so very similar.
Teren said, : Paul’s ministry was thought by a bulk of the Corinth church to be “unnaproved(sic)”
Yeah, and not only Corinth; some students think Paul was a bragger; but he was always under fire by enemies of the faith poisoning the minds of the believers & potential believers, that he constantly had to give a defense for his qualifications.
Teren said, "Was there something in the Greek that had him see…“from the recpients perspective?”
Yes, the one scholar pointed it out from his translation of the Greek.
I will take a look at that Scripture in 1 Cor.3:15. That is a great question, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
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Thanks Anca. I would encourage you to read 2 Corinthians through like several times in a row over the course of perhaps several days or a few weeks. With like a focus on why does it say XYZ or zyx? Like what happened before and look for bracketing or parenthetical concepting.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ITS A NEW YEAR…
That books vibe (2 Corinthians) radically skates best off the glare from room temperatured super super unleaded petroleum hydrocarbonitely refined oil slick[ly] tainted lenses. When applied this way it is advisable not to do this in a dark room before going out at at night…as the neonic hieroglyphicak illuminattica can impair night vision (temporarily) while driving. Although inside your heart and soul…a prehistoric like volcanic panoramic glistening blizzard of “you with hot chocolate kicking it by the fireplace easing slightly backward cuz the heat is just a notch above cozy glow hug like,” streameth downeth the side of your face and off past your neck down your back like freshly streaming lava flow." Best on Wednesday nights.
We all study the word differently. So yeah I could sound like the bride and groom car zipping along just married, with all those clankin cans scrapping pavement and banging against the concrete road like pogo sticks (wow…remember those?)…as the beeping horn echoes through and past the upcoming freeway overpass. But hopefully I sound less obnoxious. And more like…
…the way I like to do the word is take a book and do a mini-marathan (chewing on those mini-marshmellows hopefully rather from what’s in the mug at the scene above by the fireplace ((not the one tied to the car bumper))).
Like reading through slowly/or quickly (depending on the mood) several times in a row over several consecutive days. Its the principle of how sometimes we need to read something twice to get the gist? Well yeah…do it 5 times though cuz its the word. But over days and DayZ soaking it in.
Like right now I am marinating in James. And I let it poor and rinse me over like 4 times a day back to back. So I read it through in like an hour that way. As an example. With 2 Cor maybe do half today and half tomorrow and if adventurous all the next day and then divide it into 3rds each day or 4ths each day after (staying in its limelight) etc. So yeah I would recoomend talking at least 3 to 5 of those a week…and call me at the end of the week (you know like a corny doctor says…take two aspirin and call me in the morning). 
But generally the idea (without makeup, lights and an Amphitheatre) is like to approach the word like a eye scale scrapper. But I i have found it is most effective in lifting the blurred or double vision of our minds eyes over the course of several days when used as a radiator (like its the sun and we be tanning in Jamaica with deep dark coco-oil where its impossible to burn…like). Sorry slipped out of writing gear again…
…its just that i really really loved that Johnny Cash song…and the words 
trying to compete…lol…while twiddling my thumbs…well…it was fun tryin
Anyway hope that was kind of a fun way to maybe think about different approaches to the word…unless…you are already doing that…dun dun DUNNNN 
lol
In that case…
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