In the Year King Uzziah Died

The Prophet Isaiah registers a beautiful experience he had with God after King Uzziah died. King Uzziah was a very successful king in the early years of his career as king. The secret laid on the fact that he sought the Lord. It was his desire to seek God (2 Chron. 26: 5). God blessed him and he became very successful in all he did. He was a distinguished and successful politician. He went against the Philistines and broke down the walls of Gath, of Jabneh, and of Ashdod, and built cities near Ashdod and elsewhere among the Philistines, and God helped him against the Philistines and the Arabs who dwelt in Gur-ball and the Meunim. That Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah, and his fame spread abroad even to the border of Egypt, for he became very strong (II Chron. 26: 6-8).

But King Uzziah’s successes turned him into a prideful king. The Bible says, but when [King Uzziah] was strong, he became proud to his destruction; he trespassed against the Lord his God, for he went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense (vs. 16). Burning incense by other than the sons of Aaron was a terrible breach of the Levitical Law. He well knew about it, but for whatever reason, he was driven to commit this evil against the word of the Lord. His pride arouse when the priest Azariah confronted him. He was enraged; and while he was enraged with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord. King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper, he dwelt in a separate house, for he was excluded from the Lord’s house (II chron. 16:18-21).

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

The Rapture

Trumpet sounds, earth tremor

Heaven opens in glorious splendor

Jesus breaks through the clouds

No time left in the hour

Arise, redemption has arrived.

I hear my name

Through the trumpet sound

In a speed of light

My body is translated

In a flight to the sky.

Angels and archangels

Lift their voices!

At Jesus’ command

Go fetch My bride

The earth dims before my eyes.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Just One Look

Simon, Peter, I mean

Under Jesus’ scrutiny

Was found denying Him-

The very essence of Truth

“I do not know the Man.”

A spokesman in his time

Failed his best friend

Not once, not twice, but thrice

In one simple line,

I do not know the Man!

A witness of His power

Miracles, resurrections

Lazarus, one of three

Peter was there to see

The blind seeing

The lame walking

Leprous healed

Thousands being fed

At the words of Jesus

Peace, be still

The sea obeyed

Transfigured before his eyes

The Son of God Himself revealed

But without a doubt,

These, Peter forgot.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

They Are Not of the World

(John 17: 16; Ephesians 2:6; Hebrews 11: 16, 13:14)

If you belonged to the world, the world would treat you with affection and would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you (John 15:19).

Called and chosen out of the world, the believer has an eternal heavenly passport. The moment that a person becomes a child of God by the new birth, or being born again, he/she receives the right to become a child of God. It is not a birth from flesh, but of the Spirit. YAHSHUA told Nicodemus, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (Jn. 1,3). This passport is signed, and sealed by and with the Holy Spirit. As a foreigner carries his passport as the proof of his citizenship somewhere else, the believer also carries his heavenly passport as the proof of his heavenly identity in this world. This Seal guarantees the believer his entrance into his heavenly country, as Paul confirms: The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance, an anticipation of its full redemption and our acquiring [complete] possession of it – to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:14). One sign of a true believer is the antagonist attitude the world displays against him/her. YAHSHUA said, Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things against you falsely on My account. Be glad and supremely joyful, for your reward in heaven is great, for in this same way people persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matt. 5:11-12). In their persecution, the believers are sustained by the promise that the glory which will be revealed to them, will be greater than the sufferings he has endured in this world. In reference to the heroes and heroines of the faith, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, These people all died controlled and sustained by their faith, but not having received the tangible fulfillment of [God’s] promises, only having seen it and greeted it from a great distance by faith, and all the while acknowledging and confessing that they were strangers and temporary residents and exiles upon the earth…they were yearning for and aspiring to a better and more desirable country, that is, a heavenly [one]. For that reason, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them (Heb. 11:13,16).

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

The Approved Servant of YAHWEH

(I Thessalonians 2:4; II Timothy 2:2-8, 15)

Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to Yahweh approved a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing the Word of Truth (II Timothy 2:15).

Study and be eager, these two words are words of command and guidance to the servants of Yahweh. Eager implies great enthusiasm and zeal; knowledge with zeal is like fuel in a car; Knowledge acquired from the Word of Yahweh positions the servant of Yahweh in readiness to serve Him; it opens the eyes of understanding and insight into it. Knowledge of the Word of Yahweh positions the servant of Yahweh to be in agreement with His Holy Spirit and takes him to another level of spiritual perception and understanding; knowledge of the Word of Yahweh opens the ears to hear the voice of His Spirit; knowledge with eagerness and excitement makes us perform the work entrusted to us. But when we exercise zeal without knowledge, we find ourselves to be ignorant of the root cause and taking a stand for the wrong thing.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

YAHSHUA, the Head of His Church

The head (brain) is the control center of the body. From controlling the breathing, the heart beating, and helping us to think and learn, to the control of all our actions and functions, it controls the muscles, facilitating the movements of the body. Together with the spinal cord it sends messages to the body through a network of nerves, called the nervous system, where information is evaluated and decisions made. An amazing organ the brain is! Behind it, there is yet the Creator, even more amazing than what He has created. YAHSHUA is the Word that spoke creation into existence, and it happened. He, for the sake of love for men, His most important creation, died to bring them back into relationship with Him once more, as it was in the days of the Garden of Eden.

When YAHSHUA went through His ordeal unto death, and death on the cross, receiving there the sentence of the curse in our instead, He then established His church at the same time, of whom He is the head, the Cornerstone, the Rock in Whom His church is built. As the head, He has all the right to control all that pertains to His body- the church. The intellect or mind, with its great ability of intelligence, is the battle field between good and evil. It is part of the soul, which is comprised of emotion, and the will also. YAHSHUA, being the head of the body, constitutes the spiritual function of the brain. His Holy Spirit communicates to the church -the body of Christ, sending messages through the study of God’s word and through prayer. But YAHSHUA is not only the invisible head of His church; He is also the visible. For every true believer reflects Whom He is, His attributes through our behavior. Every normal created being has only one head; In its normal way in which it was created, the body functions in harmony with every member of the body. Controlled by the head-brain, each member of the body responds accordingly to what the brain commands it to do. In the spiritual sense that YAHSHUA is the head of His church, the members of the body of Christ should follow the same principle in his everyday life. Otherwise, YAHSHUA’S body will be a dysfunctional body, and chaos will disturb the harmony of its unity. A thing He prayed for before His death in the John 17:20-21:  Neither for these alone do I pray, but also for all those who will ever come to believe in Me through their word and teaching, that they all may be one, as You Father, are in Me an I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You sent Me. Paul said, Be eager and strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness of the Spirit in the binding power of peace. [There is] one body and one Spirit- just as there is also one hope to the calling you received- there is one God and Father of [us] all, Who is above all pervading all and in all (Eph. 4: 3-4).

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

We Are Wonderfully and Fearfully Created

                                                          (Psalms 139)

I give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book they were all written the days that were ordained for me when as yet there was not one of them (Psalm 139:14-16).

After God created beasts, domestic animals, and everything that creeps upon the earth according to their kind, He said, Let Us (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts, and over all of the earth and over everything that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them (Gen. 1:25-27).  God’s creation of man is unique from any other creation because man is created in His image. To no other creation did God say, “Let Us make in our image!” The idea of evolution is completely lost when faced with the light of this truth. The animals were created “according to their kind”. Mankind did not come from fish to evolve into man. God gave man His DNA; He breathed in him the breath of eternity. The spirit of man never dies even after his physical death. When God created all in six days, He said, It is good!  I believe this to be the reason why men yearn to be fulfilled spiritually. There is a hunger for God in the spirit of men found in no other God’s creation. Made in the image of God, men seek to worship Him. If only they worshipped the only true God! This world would have been a perfect world.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Things That Matter Most

(Colossians 3)

The walk of life leads us to many directions in its distractions, accomplishing a lot, sometimes, but again, not a lot of great significance. At the end of the day, we ask ourselves, What did I accomplish today? Priorities get misplaced in the order of which we favor most. The things that demand more from us are those which we dearly care about. But what do we make of Paul’s words to the Colossians? If then you have been raised with Christ…How can we have been raised with our Messiah, if we are still in this body of decay? That’s a question we must consider in our spiritual walk. For many of us Christians, there is the thought that our salvation was free and that there is nothing else we have to do. I do pity the idea, for first of all, salvation was not free for our Lord, Who paid it with His life; and it is not free for us, who must deny ourselves, carry our cross and follow Him. We are not exempt from our duty before God to do our part, if we are to be saved.

Read the words from Paul: And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also; heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory (Rom. 8: 17). To be raised with Christ, it is to have died for oneself; raised with Him is He controlling our inner being; it is losing all that has to do with one’s desires; it is, “not I, but Christ lives in me.” The mind, the control center of the body, Paul says to keep focusing on what matters most- on the things above, where YAHSHUA is seated at the right hand of God (Col. 1:1). Dead to the world, we are of no concern to it, neither should it be to us. We, believers in YAHSHUA, are seeds which went through the process of death in order to be alive. The seed that does not die, will never become a tree. In YAHSHUA’S death, he planted in us the seed of life eternal; however, it does not finish there. In dying unto self, the believer gains sanctification, which is a process to attain glorification. Without it one cannot see God. When we go through the new birth, the Holy Spirit seals us with Himself. I call this a ring that unites us with YAHSHUA, confirming our engagement with Him. And that is the most important thing we must pay attention to while in this world. Although, the human heart tends to lean more toward the things of the world than heaven’s. We must make an effort to switch the priority’s direction to heaven. Our citizenship is not of this world; the longing of every Christian should be heaven, because Paul said, Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord YAHSHUA Messiah, Who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself (Phil. 3:20-21)

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

To The One Who Has, More Shall Be Given

(Mark 4: 2- 11; 23-25; Luke 19:12-26)

And He taught them many things in parables, and in His teaching He said to them: Give attention to this! Behold, a sower went to sow (Mark 4:2,3). From the time that the Israel’s authorities hardened their hearts to the teachings of Yahshua and considered Him do be under the influence of demons, He then used the meanings of parables to teach them. Everyone was left in the dark except His disciples whom were given the interpretation, as He said to them, To you has been entrusted the mystery of the kingdom of God; but for those outside everything becomes a parable (vs. 11). As we see in this parable, the hearts of men –hard as a path, hard as rocks, difficult and stubborn as thorns, failed to receive the Word given them. Only those whose hearts are soft to hear the Word, will be blessed with the understanding of it.  Yahshua said, If any man has ears to hear, let him be listening and let him perceive and comprehend. That means, let him be making a conscious effort to hear, to take advice; to pay close attention to, to grasp mentally and understand.

The truth we hear must be received with a conscious and mental effort to acquire a deeper understanding and insight into it. Yahshua said that the measure in which we give attention to the truth we hear will be the measure of insight and understanding that will come back to us and more, and that’s why he who has, more will be given. In his diligence and faithfulness to the Word of Yahweh in his diligence in studying it and applying it to his heart, the Christian will be diligent in obedience. For him who has will more be given; and from him who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away (Mark 4:23-25).

Pages: Page 1, Page 2