One God, One Lord

“Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” — Genesis 3:20

I stopped to buy some candy.
The lad who sold it had such charm.
I talked with him, he seemed so glad.
If I were late, it’d do no harm.
And as I left, he said to me,
I thank you, you’ve been so kind.
It’s nice to talk with folks like you.
You see,” he said, “I’m blind.”
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine.
I have two eyes; the world is mine.

Later while walking down the street,
I saw a child I knew.
He stood and watched the others play,
but he did not know what to do.
I stopped a moment and then I said,
“Why don’t you join them dear?”
He looked ahead without a word.
I forgot, he couldn’t hear.
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine.
I have two ears; the world is mine.

With feet to take me where I’d go..
With eyes to see the sunset’s glow.
With ears to hear what I’d know.
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine.
I’ve been blessed indeed, the world is mine.

If this poem makes you feel thankful, just forward it
to your friends. After all, it’s just a simple
reminder that we have so much to be thankful for!

Give the gift of love. It never comes back empty !

You may not know me, but I know everything about you
…Psalm 139:1

I know when you sit down and when you rise up
…Psalm 139:2

I am familiar with all your ways
…Psalm 139:3

Even the very hairs on your head are numbered
…Matthew 10:29-31

For you were made in my image
…Genesis 1:27

In me you live and move and have your being
…Acts 17:28

For you are my offspring
…Acts 17:28

I knew you even before you were conceived
…Jeremiah 1:4-5

I chose you when I planned creation
…Ephesians 1:11-12

You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book
…Psalm 139:15-16

I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live
…Acts 17:26

You are fearfully and wonderfully made
…Psalm 139:14

I knit you together in your mother’s womb
…Psalm 139:13

And brought you forth on the day you were born
…Psalm 71:6

I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me
…John 8:41-44

I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love
…1 John 4:16

And it is my desire to lavish my love on you
…1 John 3:1

Simply because you are my child and I am your Father
…1 John 3:1

I offer you more than your earthly father ever could
…Matthew 7:11

For I am the perfect father
…Matthew 5:48

Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand
…James 1:17

For I am your provider and I meet all your needs
…Matthew 6:31-33

My plan for your future has always been filled with hope
…Jeremiah 29:11

Because I love you with an everlasting love
…Jeremiah 31:3

My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore
…Psalms 139:17-18

And I rejoice over you with singing
…Zephaniah 3:17

I will never stop doing good to you
…Jeremiah 32:40

For you are my treasured possession
…Exodus 19:5

I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul
…Jeremiah 32:41

And I want to show you great and marvelous things
…Jeremiah 33:3

If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me
…Deuteronomy 4:29

Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart
…Psalm 37:4

For it is I who gave you those desires
…Philippians 2:13

I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine
…Ephesians 3:20

For I am your greatest encourager
…2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles
…2 Corinthians 1:3-4

When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you
…Psalm 34:18

As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart
…Isaiah 40:11

One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes
…Revelation 21:3-4

And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth
…Revelation 21:3-4

I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus
…John 17:23

For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed
…John 17:26

He is the exact representation of my being
…Hebrews 1:3

He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you
…Romans 8:31

And to tell you that I am not counting your sins
…2 Corinthians 5:18-19

Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled
…2 Corinthians 5:18-19

His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you
…1 John 4:10

I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love
…Romans 8:31-32

If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me
…1 John 2:23

And nothing will ever separate you from my love again
…Romans 8:38-39

Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen
…Luke 15:7

I have always been Father, and will always be Father
…Ephesians 3:14-15

My question is…Will you be my child?
…John 1:12-13

I am waiting for you
…Luke 15:11-32
Love,Your Dad. Almighty God

1.The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not be in want.

2.He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

3.he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name´s sake.

4.Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5.You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my with oil;
my cup overflows.

6.Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:
John 20:26-31 (NIV)

26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may[a] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 (NIV)

The Resurrection of Christ

1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
1 Corinthians 15:53-58 (NIV)

53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”[a]
55″Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”[b] 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

What about you? Do you believe that Jesus Christ died for you and for me? Do you believe he is risen?

We assert that the answers lie in the Bible. If so, the question is: “What does the Bible say?”

Please click here : Who is Jesus Christ?

We believe that Jesus Christ is a completely unique (one of a kind) human being.

Why?

He is the only man ever born by way of God putting a seed in the womb of a virgin (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:35). God put a perfect seed in the womb of Mary so that Jesus would be born without the sin nature that every other human being inherited from the First Adam. Therefore, Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God (John 3:16) and the Son of Man (John 5:27).

He is the only man who is called “the Last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45). As the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus was the genetic equivalent to the first “Son of God,” Adam (Luke 3:38). As the only man born without inherent sin, Jesus was thus the only man equipped to be the Savior and Redeemer of mankind. Romans 5:12-21 is the classic comparison of these two Adams and the respective impact each had on mankind.

He is the only man who had perfect faith in God, and who, by his free will choices to trust God, lived a sinless life, always doing the will of his Father (John 8:29). Jesus was not a robot, programmed to obey God. If so, he could not have been genuinely tempted to sin, just like all men he came to save (Heb. 4:15). The absence of a sin nature was not the reason why Jesus did not sin. We know that because the First Adam also had no sin nature, and he sinned royally.
He is the only man who died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins (Heb. 10:12-14; 1 John 4:10). By his virgin birth, Jesus was the “genetically” perfect sacrifice for the sin of mankind. By his lifelong obedience to God, all the way to his dying breath on the Cross, he became the “behaviorally” perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind (Heb. 2:17). Thus, he was the complete propitiation for fallen men to be redeemed. [For further study read How can a man atone for the sins of mankind?]

He is the only man God ever raised from the dead in order to confirm that he was who he had said he was—the Son of God (Acts 17:31; Rom. 1:4). The resurrection of Jesus Christ was God keeping His promise to His Son, and also His affirmation to all men that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

He is the only man whom God highly exalted as “Lord” and “Head of the Church,” and to whom God has given all authority in heaven and on earth (Dan. 7:13-14; Phil. 2:9; Acts 2:36; Eph. 1:22; Matt. 28:18). As Pharaoh exalted Joseph to his right hand and gave him all authority in Egypt (Gen. 41:37-46), so God has given Jesus functional equality with Himself. Jesus Christ is now God’s “right hand man” (Eph. 1:20), carrying out the work that will eventually restore this fallen world.

He is the only man who is now the Mediator between God and mankind (1 Tim. 2:5). It is Jesus Christ to whom God has given the power to “save to the uttermost” all who call upon his name, because he ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25).

He is the only man who will gather together all Christians to meet him “in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17) and give each one a new body like his own (Phil. 3:21). As the promised “seed” of the woman (Gen. 3:15), Jesus Christ will produce fruit after his kind, a race of people living forever.

He is the only man who will one day return to the earth, destroy all evil men (and eventually destroy Satan and his evil spirit cohorts), and rule the earth as King for 1000 years (Rev. 19:11-20:7). At his first coming to the earth to Israel, Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb of God, but he will come again as the Lion of Judah to save his people, Israel, and destroy all God’s enemies.

He is the only man who will raise from the dead every human being who has ever lived (John 5:21, 25). As God has given Jesus “life in himself,” so he will raise up all people.

He is the only man who will judge all men and women of all time (John 5:22, 27). Jesus will righteously judge all people, granting everlasting life to those who deserve it, and annihilating all the wicked (Acts 17:31; John 5:28, 29).

He is the only man who will restore on a new earth the Paradise that the First Adam lost (1 Cor. 15:24-28). As “the Last Adam,” Jesus was God’s Contingency Plan to salvage His original plan that Adam’s disobedience thwarted, that is, a perfect race of people living forever on a perfect earth. Amen. [For further study read Where Did the Idea Originate that Believers Would Live Forever in Heaven?]

He is the only man who is our Savior, our Redeemer, our Mediator, our Lord, our constant Companion, our Best Friend, our Big Brother, the Light of our lives, our Peace, our Joy, and our Mentor in the art of faith.

This passage describes Herod’s plan to have Peter put to death “after Easter.” The Greek word for “Easter” is pascha, which refers to the Jewish Passover festival celebrated from the 14th to the 21st of Nisan (Ex. 12:18). In the case of the KJV, it seems that “the Acts of the Apostles had fallen into the hands of a translator who acted on the principle of choosing, not the most correct, but the most familiar equivalents.” [1] In this case, the fact that Easter was familiar to 17th century readers explains how the word got into the KJV, but it does not help us understand that the Passover and Easter are two different things, and that what Acts refers to is the Passover, not “Easter.” Modern versions of the Bible all translate pascha as “Passover.”

What we know today as the Easter festival developed after the New Testament period. The New Testament does not mention a Christian festival in which the death and resurrection of Christ were celebrated, but what we do see is that some of the earliest Christians continued to hold the Passover feast. As late as Paul’s trip to Jerusalem in which he was arrested and jailed, which was in the late 50’s AD, or 30 years after the birth of the Christian Church, many Christians in Jerusalem were proud of the fact that they kept the law.

Acts 21:20 (NIV)
When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law.

It was common for these “zealous” Christians to maintain their adherence to the Law by observing the Passover feast, which became a feast of commemoration. It was no longer a time of waiting for future atonement with God, but of remembering that He had provided the payment for the sins of His people through Christ. This was a very sensitive topic for early Christians, because not all Jews who converted to Christianity were comfortable with the idea that Christ had fulfilled the law and they no longer were required to keep it. The Church Epistles later given by the Lord to Paul made clear that participating in the Jewish feasts was no longer necessary (Col. 2:16-17). Paul had ruffled a few feathers by teaching things like “circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything” (Gal. 6:15). The charge that Paul was teaching converts to “turn away from Moses” put the whole city of Jerusalem in an uproar and resulted in his arrest (Acts 21:21).

While many Jews who became Christians retained the custom of keeping the Passover feast, it was less likely that the Gentile converts would be attracted to keeping a festival that was not actually required by God. As Christianity began to spread through the ancient world, Gentile Christians began to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ in a less Jewish way. Unfortunately, as was often the case with Jewish-Gentile disputes, many of the forces guiding Christianity were radically opposite of those desiring to maintain the Jewish roots of Christianity. Eventually, the celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ was infused with elements that have little to do with the Jewish feasts or the actual events of Christ’s death.

Date Controversies

For centuries, the date for the celebration of the resurrection of Christ was hotly disputed. The earliest Jewish Christians, primarily those in Israel, Syria, and the East, naturally wanted to celebrate on the 14th of Nisan, the date of the Passover. “Churches in Asia Minor (following the Johannine tradition that the death of Jesus occurred at the time of the slaying of the Passover lambs) celebrated the Christian Pascha on 14/15 Nisan, regardless of the day of the week on which this date might fall.” [2] This practice presented an interesting situation for the Church. Those Christians who maintained the Jewish date looked to the Jews to determine it. “In Judaism, the calendar is lunar. Each month, Nisan included, includes the phases of the moon, and the Passover falls on the 14th day of the month, that is, the full moon.
Easter Eggs
The word “Easter” was essentially adopted by the Church from paganism.

The determination of this date was a secret process jealously guarded in the Jewish Temple and later, synagogues, and it was according to this calculation that Christ observed the feast.” [3] In order to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ on the actual Passover date for a given year, the Church would have to rely on the Jews, something they were not willing to do. Not only would the Church have to acquire the date from the Jews, but the fact that the 14th of Nisan could be on any day of the week did not appeal to them either.

“The Hebrew Passover falls on any day of the week, and this did not suit the Christians. They wanted a Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday, proceeding to Good Friday and ending on Easter Sunday, commemorating the resurrection.” [4] Those Christians who fought to celebrate Easter on the 14th of Nisan were known as “Quarto-decimanians,” most of whom lived in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. “The Western Christians observed Easter on a Sunday, the Eastern in many cases were Quartodecimanians and preferred the 14th day of the lunar month. It was a foretaste of the schism that was to split the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Roman Catholic.” [5] The date for celebrating the resurrection was thus included amidst the great Christological controversies at the Council of Nicaea in 325. When Jesus Became God, by Richard Rubenstein, describes the atmosphere of the Nicene council.

“One underlying question was this: To what extent were the values and customs of the ancient world still valid guides to thinking and action in a Christian empire? Some Christians, among them were Arius and Eusebius of Nicodemia, had a stronger sense of historical continuity than others…By contrast, the strongest anti-Arians experienced their present as a sharp break with the past. It was they who demanded, in effect, that Christianity be ‘updated’ by blurring or even obliterating the long-accepted distinction between the Father and the Son.” [6]

In the same spirit of breaking with the past, the council unanimously decided that the Resurrection celebration would not be on the Jewish date, but would fall on the Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox. Interestingly, the Sunday celebration actually still allowed for the possibility that the Church would celebrate on the same day as the Jews. Once again, the East and the West handled the situation differently. The West established a rule that if the date matched the Jewish Passover, the Church would wait another week to celebrate. Conversely, the East continued to celebrate even if the day coincided with Passover.

To this day there is still disagreement concerning the date of the Easter celebration. The Protestant and Roman Catholic dates of Easter coincide, but, due to a different method of calculation, the Eastern Orthodox Church’s observance can be up to five weeks different than the Western churches. Desire for Christian unity has in recent years brought forth the idea of a universal fixed date for all Christian churches.

Pagan Elements

It is no secret that much of the modern Easter celebration has developed from pagan sources. The word “Easter” itself was essentially adopted by the Church from paganism.

The English word Easter and the German Ostern come from a common origin (Eostur, Eastur, Ostara, Ostar), which to the Norsemen meant the season of the rising (growing) sun, the season of new birth. The word was used by our ancestors to designate the Feast of New Life in the spring. The same root is found in the name for the place where the sun rises (East, Ost). The word Easter, then, originally meant the celebration of the spring sun, which had its birth in the East and brought new life upon earth. This symbolism was transferred to the supernatural meaning of our Easter…” [7]

Another common view taught by Bede, the English historian of the early 8 th century, is that the word derives from “Eastre,” a Teutonic goddess of Spring who received offerings in the month of April. While both explanations are plausible, it is clear that the word “Easter” is anything but biblical.

The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion states that the custom of Easter eggs may be based upon ancient fertility cults (Indo-European), the Persian association of eggs and spring, or the fact that some early Christians abstained from eggs during Lent. [8] It is not hard to see how Christians could have adopted the egg as a symbol of the tomb of Christ, or even their new life in him. Further, the rabbit is pre-Christian and represents fertility due to its rapid rate of reproduction. The rabbit has not actually been adopted as a part of the “Christian” celebration of Easter, but it has become a common symbol of the day in many cultures. Much like Christmas, the celebration of Easter has diverged greatly from the original remembrance of our Lord’s death on the 14th of Nisan.

Balance

As modern Christians, we must decide how to engage a world that has lost interest in the true origins of our faith. Should we condemn modern holidays as pagan abominations? Or should we wholeheartedly accept our culture with an attitude of concession? As with so much in our modern world, we are to find a balance that allows us to exercise true spirituality and yet still engage the culture in which we find ourselves.

Imagine telling your loved ones at Christmas, “I’m sorry, I don’t give gifts because I’m a Christian.” Or on Easter, “I don’t celebrate the resurrection of the Lord on Easter because I’m not a pagan.” Clearly, there is some level of absurdity that can be reached by trying to avoid all the non-Christian elements of our culture. For example, in an article published by The Restored Church of God titled “The True Origin of Easter,” the author correctly identifies the pagan elements of the modern Easter celebration, but we believe he goes too far in his zeal to avoid them. Concerning sunrise services, he states, “Observing sunrise services is serious to God! He so hates this vile practice that he will ultimately destroy all who persist in it (Ezek. 9)!” [9] Can this be the same God who inspired the following scripture?

1 Corinthians 8:7 and 8 (NIV)
“…Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

God has revealed that it is not an outward demonstration that He requires, but the inward dedication of the heart. We know that God did not raise Jesus from the dead on Sunday morning (it was actually Saturday between 3pm and sunset), but does God not honor the hearts of people who trouble themselves to get up in the dark on Easter Sunday, get dressed, and go to a gathering place to pray, sing, and affirm the resurrection of the Lord? We believe He does.

The Bible uses an interesting word to refer to our ability to relate to things it does not specifically mention—FREEDOM (1 Cor. 8:9)! Remember, with freedom comes responsibility. It is not a sin to have a Christmas tree, or to hide some eggs out in the back yard for the children to find. Please understand, we are not saying that knowing the truth is not valuable, but we feel you can know the truth and still celebrate many modern customs. For example, a Christian can know that Christ was not born in December and that no early Christians had Christmas trees, and still have a Christmas tree of his own. He can know that Christ was crucified on the Jewish Passover but still show his devotion to the Lord in a Sunrise Service. What we as Christians must do is to teach ourselves and others the true freedom that Christ has given us. Many Christians are very blessed to take the opportunity that Easter provides to honor the Lord and his resurrection, and we think that is just fine with God (and the Lord Jesus).

As we consider what honoring the Lord will look like this season, it may be helpful to remember the words of Paul in Romans.

Romans 14:5 and 6 (NIV)
One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord.

God has given us freedom from all kinds of bondage. Do not let the true meaning of this Easter season be lost to you in a secular sea of eggs and rabbits (and chocolate—which early Christians did not have), but remember that much of the true meaning of the death and resurrection of the Lord is about the freedom we now have to celebrate that from our hearts, and pray and sing to bless and honor him, even if we do it on a day that is not actually “Passover.” May we praise the Lord every day, forever and ever.

Thankful Thursday: What Agring is thankful for this week I am thankful that Jesus Christ died for my sins so that I will be saved. I am saved because I confess with my mouth that Jesus as lord and believe that God raised him from the dead. Romans 10:9 Links to other Thankful Thursdays (If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I’ll post it below; or, you can post in the comments)