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MARCH 22 "ARE MEN THE ONLY MURDERS?"

  HOMICIDE STATISTICS BY GENDER: A 2000 global study on homicide by the  United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime  found that men accounted for about 98 percent of all homicide perpetrators worldwide  and 79% of the victims.  As much as people want to deny God and diss the bible as merely a book written by men, you can't get away from the truth and accuracy of the bible; it's ability to still speak into our lives 3000 years later and the impressive writing, by a mere man, like Moses to write 5 flawless books (Genesis-Deut).  The laws  written by Moses in these books still apply today, how can that be?  In our reading today, the emphasis, written by this man, writing (supposedly) on his own accord; is MURDER.  "He is a murderer" is repeated at least 5 times. It was to be considered at the time, the most heinous of crimes/sins a person could commit, was to takes somebody else's life, on purpose.  Moses (a mere man apparently...
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MARCH 21 "THE EAST SIDE OF THE JORDAN

       Imagine this conversation, "I have a better place, than what God has in mind, I would prefer this, no really, go ahead, this is good, trust me, I know, but God had ......I know, I know, but this will do, thank-you for offering Lord, but I'm good, really!!”     That's what this group of people is saying to God. And I say, "are you kidding me?"  What is this, what can you call this, I don't even know...is it stupid, arrogant, ignorant, fearful, or all of the above and more?!  Imagine telling God, who knows what's best for us and is trying to offer us  "His" best  and we turn around and say to Him, "no thanks, this will do just fine".  I know I've tried to offer people good things I had for them and had them tell me "no thanks", I was a little insulted, but can you imagine a human being saying that to God himself.  Maybe this group was thinking "at least we won't have to fight for this, we alre...
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MARCH 20 "I DON'T LIKE THAT WORD 'CURSED' "

           WELL, poor Balaam is killed...and once again this confirms the idea in our previous reading, that God will use the wicked, but eventually He will judge them.   Balaam was the wicked one that was hired to curse Israel, but even Balaam turns around and says, " I cannot curse those whom God has not cursed " and we love that scripture, don't we! The problem is, we fail to read on because the people of Israel end up being cursed regardless, so in the end God's people are cursed. So if our aim is " not to be cursed " it is not enough to simply quote one random text from God's word but to understand the full idea of the story of Balaam.  Verse 15 to 16 goes on to tell us that Balaam could not curse them  directly or by his own  will, BUT Balaam thought of a better way to curse God's people, Balaam figured out that he could get them to  curse themselves .  "They were the ones who follo...
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MARCH 19 "THE EVER & CONSTANT REALITY OF GOD IN OUR LIVES"

 I wrote a mini e-book, available on smashwords.com entitled “The Reality of God”. How important it is that we have the ever and present Reality of God in our lives. How important it was back then, but even more, how important it is today. We can discuss all day long the significant aspects to all these offerings, but one thing we can say for sure, without speculation, is that it kept God, His purposes, His reality, at the forefront of the minds of His people. It is so easy to get caught up in the business of life and become distracted and lured away, from this relationship with this invisible God. In obeying these commands to have these frequent offerings, no matter how busy they were, this had to be done and it brought them constantly back to the place God wanted them. Today, we don’t have these laws, we don’t have these constant offerings, sacrifices, rituals, so what keeps God at the forefront of our minds? When Jesus describes the seeds (the Word of God) that the sower sows in...
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MARCH 18 “Sorry, but the past does come up”

  WE want to bury the past, but the past cannot be buried, the past becomes part of our history. Stop bringing up my past! Well, sorry, we are! Because if we don’t remember the past, we repeat it. What will your history be? Well let’s ask, “who are you banding with?”      “ Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among Korah’s followers, who banded together against the LORD "      Why is this coming up now? Because the past, our history always comes back. Men who forget history repeat the same mistakes, this we know! Israel has certain reference points (a history) just as we do. Korah and what happened is part of their history and will be until their death. Mahlah and her sisters are quick to mention that their father was not part of the group that "banded together" against the Lord. A few thoughts here, #1. It was not against the Lord that they banded, I thought it was against Moses? But when God inspires this text to be written, it is...
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MARCH 17 "I'm not rebelling against God, just my Leader"

      Such a short verse here, slipped in the midst of all the numbers and counting, but did you catch that?  Vs. 9 "...were among Korah's followers when they rebelled against the Lord".  Moses must be mistaken here, so I went back and read the story where it actually happened.  It seems as I read the story that Korah approaches Moses, with his gang, to confront Moses. Korah says, "why do you set yourself above the people, we are all holy too!".  So at first appearance, it seems like Korah is not rebelling against the Lord (after all, who would do that?) Korah is merely rebelling against the leadership.       I like (actually I don't) how we separate the two. "I love the Lord and would do anything He tells me, it's just this incompetent leadership I am rebelling against. And not only will I rebel, but I will spend my time convincing others to join me, against him. Rebels in the Church are always pretty convinced that they are rebell...
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MARCH 16 "HOW SPIRITUAL ARE YOU?"

  HOW spiritual are you? Of course nobody likes "super spiritual" people, but that does not mean we should not be spiritual. "Super Spiritual" people are those who try to spiritualize matters that are more practical in nature than anything else, they also try to hide their flaws and judgmentalism behind "spirituality"...., well we know all about them, but let's talk about us. We are proud that nobody would call us "super spiritual" but would anybody call us "spiritual" ??? THE FACT IS some of us are more spiritual, more in tune with God and seem to have more of his Spirit, than others. Paul prayed, "that they may be filled to FULL measure with His Spirit". Full meaning that any Christian can be from a quarter empty to overflowing full (just like a gas tank) with God's Spirit. If only we had a gage like our gas tank, to show us where we are at. Aside from violations & money problems, the balance of divorces stems fr...
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