Love

Love is an amazing thing. The Bible says that love is the most important thing. Jesus taught love for one another. Over all of the centuries and millenniums of human existence, it all comes down to love. Jesus said that to love your neighbor as yourself is to fulfill all of the the Ten Commandments.
Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 Yahushua (Jesus) said to him, “‘You shall love Yahweh your Elohim (God) with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 “This is the first and great commandment. 39 “And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” In Matthew 7:12, Jesus says,
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

So with this verse, Jesus was saying that love is everything. He sums up all thirty nine books of the Tanakh or Old Testament by saying that you should treat everyone how you would like to be treated. All those centuries and books, and all of those authors and leaders and prophets, all were saying that you should treat everyone as you would like to be treated, and all of this would be out of love. If you love everyone and treat them with love, then that is how you would like to be treated. So in the end, Jesus himself basically says that it is all about love. We are supposed to love ourselves and love everyone else.

Psalm 3 In Metre

1     O Lord, how are my foes increas'd?
       against me many rise.
2     Many say of my soul, For him
       in God no succour lies.

3     Yet thou my shield and glory art,
       th' uplifter of mine head.
4     I cry'd, and, from his holy hill,
       the Lord me answer made.

5     I laid me down and slept; I wak'd;
       for God sustained me.
6     I will not fear though thousands ten
       set round against me be.

7     Arise, O Lord; save me, my God;
       for thou my foes hast stroke
   All on the cheek-bone, and the teeth
       of wicked men hast broke.

8     Salvation doth appertain
       unto the Lord alone:
   Thy blessing, Lord, for evermore
       thy people is upon.

For more Psalms in Metre, Click here.

Book Series

Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides is the fourth book in line from the Left Behind series.

Soul Harvest takes the reader from Iraq to America, from six miles in the air to underground shelters, from desert sands to the bottom of the Tigris River, from hope to devastation and back again all in a search for truth and life.

Rayford Steele and Buck Williams fear they are alone. Each has survived the wrath of the Lamb, a global earthquake in the twenty-first month of the Tribulation. Neither know the other is alive, and each is frantically searching for his wife. Their mentor, Tsion Ben-Judah, is trapped beneath the rubble of their church. And no one knows what has happened to their old friend Hattie Durham.

As the world hurtles toward the Trumpet Judgements and the great soul harvest prophesied in Scripture, Rayford and Buck begin searching for their loved ones from different corners of the world.

Can Tsion be rescued? Will Chloe be found alive? Amanda? Hattie? And what of the dark charges that rise against Amanda? Rayford is determined to clear her name whether she is dead or alive.

Now, with the fulfillment of more judgment prophecies, hardly any skeptics remain. Even the enemies of God now know whom they are fighting, and the world is forced to take sides.

Follow what's left of the Tribulation Force as each member struggles to survive and fight Antichrist until the glorious appearing of Christ.

I particularly enjoyed this book because you begin to see more of the suffering of the apocalyptic world. I highly recommend this series of books to anyone and everyone. If you have any interest at all in what the Book of Revelation means, then you will enjoy this series.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post.

Baptism

The act of being baptized is a very interesting thing. In the New Testament, baptism is a symbol for cleansing oneself from the sins of their life and being born into the new life they have in Christ Jesus. Throughout the New Testament, the apostles of Jesus usually baptized a person or a group of people soon after they had accepted Jesus as the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament.
Now when I speak of Baptism, I am referring to water baptism, and when I speak of water baptism, I mean full immersion of a person who is consciously and willingly participating in it. For instance, in Catholicism, children are usually baptized while still infants, and it is merely just dripping water on their heads. But when I speak of baptism, I am speaking of Biblical cleansing of ones soul.
The tradition of baptism began during the times of the temple when to go in to sacrifice to God, you had to immerse your entire body in a bath of water that had not been collected mechanically. So that meant that it was usually rain water or from a spring of some sort. There were many of these baths near the temple. Anyways, baptism came from this idea that you had to purify yourself to come before God. However, when Jesus came along, it became a cleansing from sin so that a person could enter God's presence and stay there. We know that this does not literally cleanse you from your sins, but symbolically we are cleansed. And the reason that we do this is because by doing so, we are being obedient to God and following what Jesus wanted us to do to show that we have accepted him and are now washing away our old self and becoming who we are in Christ.
So baptism is really about obedience and showing God that we want to live for Him.

Thoughts on the Sabbath

The Sabbath is something that I have been researching for quite a while now. I've been studying it because I have read a lot articles and books about how the Sabbath should still be kept even now. I have found strong support for keeping the Sabbath and I have learned that Jesus always kept the Sabbath. Of course Jesus said it was okay to do work if you have to, such as pulling your animal out of a hole that it fell into. I feel that I should be keeping the Sabbath because it was ordained by God and it is actually in the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. In fact, it is the only one of the Commandments that describes God.

8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to YHWH your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore YHWH blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
-Exodus 20:8-11

So even God himself rested on the seventh day after his creation, and he made it an eternal pact between God and man. That Commandment of keeping the Sabbath day Holy is probably the only one that isn't really followed by many Christians today. I have kept some Sabbaths, but in our American society, it can be difficult considering that you often have things to do on Friday nights or Saturdays.
Jesus, and his apostles after him also kept the Sabbath, and you can find support for keeping the Sabbath here.
I have also learned that Constantine made the day of the sun the holy day soon after converting Rome to Christianity. After a few generations, no one really noticed that it was on a different day. And there is in fact no support for Sunday being the Holy day except for the Roman making the holy day. It would appear that Sunday is just another corruption by the Catholic church. Well there's not much else that I can say about this, so if you have any thoughts or questions, or if you need or want more information, just post them in the comments.

Praise and Worship

23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. 25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone's chains came loose.

- Acts 16:23-26

Praise and worship can be a very wonderful thing. Ever since the beginning, man has worshiped God and has given him praise. The Bible says that we should praise him with every type of instrument, and that everything that has breath should praise God. Worship brings us closer to God because it allows us to open up our hearts to God and it can bring you peace and happiness in a time of sorrow.
For more on Praise and Worship, Click here.

Psalms 150 In Metre

1    Praise ye the Lord. God's praise within
        his sanctuary raise;
   And to him in the firmament
        of his pow'r give ye praise.

2    Because of all his mighty acts,
        with praise him magnify:
   O praise him, as he doth excel
        in glorious majesty.

3    Praise him with trumpet's sound; his praise
        with psaltery advance:
4    With timbrel, harp, string'd instruments,
        and organs, in the dance.

5    Praise him on cymbals loud; him praise
        on cymbals sounding high.
6    Let each thing breathing praise the Lord.
          Praise to the Lord give ye.

For more Psalms in Metre click here.