FATHER promised a specific blessing to those who read and obey!
We are in the last days of the last days. Are you ready? Don’t be lulled into apathy.
We are to Love, to serve, and to build! Hell’s power seduces with self-centered ambition, manipulation, and eventual isolation.
Jesus spoke in Mark chapter 8:
34 Jesus had His disciples and the crowd gather around Him. And He said to them: “If you truly want to follow Me, you should at once completely disown your own life. And you must be willing to share My Cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to My Ways.
35 For if you let your life go for My sake and for the sake of the Gospel, you will continually experience true Life. But if you choose to keep your life for yourself, you will forfeit what you try to keep.
36 For what use is it to gain all the wealth and power of this world, with everything it could offer you, at the cost of your own life?
37 And what could be more valuable to you than your own soul?
38 If you are ashamed of Me and My Words while living among sinful and faithless people, then I, the Son of Man, will also be ashamed of you when I make My appearance with My Holy messengers in the glorious splendor of my Father!”
It is clear that Jesus refers to His second coming! What will He find you doing upon His return? Who will you be serving? What will He see as your priorities?
Joshua spoke by The Holy Spirit in Joshua chapter 24:
15 If it seems wrong in your eyes to serve YAHWEH, then make your decision today which gods you will worship—the gods which your ancestors worshiped in Mesopotamia or the gods which the Amorites worship in the land where you are now living—but I and my family, we will give our lives to worship and serve YAHWEH!”
Consider what happened in the first coming of Jesus. Who recognized Him when He was presented at The Temple?
Luke recorded by The Holy Spirit in Luke chapter 2:
22 Now when the days of Mary’s purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Jesus to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord
23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb (the first born) shall be called Holy to the LORD”),
24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”
25 As they came to the temple to fulfill this requirement, an elderly man was there waiting—a resident of Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. He was a very good man, a Lover of God who kept himself pure, and the Spirit of Holiness rested upon him. Simeon believed in the imminent appearing of the One called “The Refreshing of Israel.”
Simeon had three characteristics: he was righteous, devout, and he was eagerly waiting for the imminent appearing of THE LORD. The word devout means that one takes The Word of GOD seriously.
26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
27 So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law,
28 he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said:
29 “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, According to Your word;
30 For my eyes have seen Your salvation
31 Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples,
32 A Light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.”
33 And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him.
How many others recognized the Lord’s Christ? No one else except Anna.
36 A prophetess named Anna was also in the temple court that day. She was from the tribe of Asher and the daughter of Phanuel. Anna was an aged widow who had been married only seven years before her husband passed away. After he died she chose to worship God in the temple continually. For the past eighty-four years she had been serving God with night-and-day prayer and fasting.
38 While Simeon was prophesying over Mary and Joseph and the Baby, Anna walked up to them and burst forth with a great chorus of praise to God for the Child. From that day forward she told everyone in Jerusalem who was waiting for their redemption that the anticipated Messiah had come!
She waited 84 years to prophesy over Jesus. She immediately recognized Jesus! How many of today’s believers have the same characteristics as Simeon and Anna? There were multitudes who had no idea of Who was among them until Anna had shared the event in public.
The Holy Spirit moved upon two witnesses in Jesus’ first coming. How many witnesses will be counted in His second coming?