Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

We are able to help people make peace with God because of violence.
We are liable to receive violence when this peacemaking is offered.
Peacemaking is a bloody enterprise.

Peace with God requires the expunging of the impossible(sin), 
given to the improbable(fallen, separated, unholy knuckleheads).  
Oh, and its' ambassadors are inadequate(previous knuckleheads).

This is the "family business" that adopted sons and daughters get to be involved in.  We didn't exactly start out as "sons of God", we had to have been previously made peace with.  (That was a bad sentence, I know...) God made peace with us first.  Go and do likewise.  

Be a peacemaker.  Be a liker, a sharer, and a subscriber of this podcast.  bewithme.us

Why might I want to pursue purity and become a mini-Puritan? Just so I can stop at the NO?  Nope! One shoots bullets of purity so that one gets to the YES; that is so that you SEE GOD.

We are majoring on the PRACTICAL today with 3 bullets:

1. 1 Cor 10:13 Am I the only one? Where is God? Is this too much temptation for me? Is this beyond my ability? How can I get out of this?  This passage answers all of those questions.
2. Ps 119:9,11 Should I memorize this passage? Am I a young man, old man, young girl, or old woman? Is this enough of a fire to fight a fire with?
3. the PEOPLE of God.  Can I ask the real question of anybody in my world: "How's your purity doing?" and expect a real answer?  If not, then you are not really in the people of God. You can do better.

We SHOOT THESE BULLETS of purity to get to the good stuff:  SEEING GOD.  May you get started today. Subscribe with CastBox, Pandora, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Apple, or Google Podcasts.  There is a 7 minute daily podcast available, every single day, to shoot a bullet of purity. To see the face of God.

There is a perfect standard of heart holiness that God requires.  He gets to make the rules.  The big question is then how do we get there?

It is so very important.  Our heart is the core, the inner seat, the will, our very soul.  From it springs our thoughts and words and actions.  It is the great battleground of our life.  We are supposed to have this area done perfectly. Likely we have some work to do in this area.  Change that, we DO have some work to do in this area.  I'm so very glad you are here even considering the thought.

Though our heart is deceitful especially in relation to its' own condition, others around me will see my non-100%-ness quite easily.  What would your mother, or your husband, or your children say is your area of purity that you should be working on?

Don't we all want to stand before God forgiven, and covered and with no sin or impurity credited to our account?  Come back tomorrow, and every day for the critical elements.

bewithme.us@gmail.

Kindness is being nice to someone you should be nice to.
Mercy is being nice to someone who specifically doesn’t deserve it.  

Of all the people you “should” be nice to today, There is one person who is at the end of the line.  She is exactly the last person you should be nice to.  She cannot repay you anything.  Worse, let’s say she can, but she WON’T.  She refuses to return the kindness you offer.  Knowing all of this and then extending kindness to this person, now THAT is MERCY.

Mercy is kindness to the undeserving.

It is a core character of God.  It is in His DNA.  He majored in mercy when he went to college.  

Here, we learn that the road to intimacy with God is paved with me extending mercy to the undeserving.  In that activity, we will likely learn something essential about God.  “If you want to know Me, be merciful.  If you want to walk with Me, extend kindness to someone who doesn’t deserve it.”  It is more than just a mental disposition.  It is an action TOWARDS someone.  It must be extended to be understood.

Most disturbingly, we are that last in line person.  God doesn’t owe us a thing.  Yet, when it comes to being kind to someone who doesn’t deserve it,  the good Lord is going to be kind to us.  Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.  Yahoo!

Subscribe on Deezer or wherever you prefer to receive your podcasts or subscribe at bewithme.us

We all want SATISFACTION.  It is not a bad goal.  What is the road to satisfaction paved with?  Today we find out. 

I don't know about you, but I experience hunger and thirst as actual pains. Welcome to my world.  Being a friend of Jesus is to seek satisfaction by seeking a bit of this hunger and thirst pain.  We are to be hungering and thirsting for righteousness.  He wants us to be wanting personal righteousness, personal holiness, personal sanctification after we have come to Him.

Along the way, God will be thrilled.  He will be pleased.  That is all great, but He'll also have some work to do in you that will involve some disapproval and reproof.  That's how we know that He really loves us!

The road to satisfaction is paved with hunger and thirst and pain.  That is EXACTLY what I want!  Bewithme.us [email protected]. Subscribe to podcast.  like on Facebook.  Share everywhere.

How do you win a crying, scared two-year old child?  Wrong answer: with POWER and command, "STOP CRYING!" Right answer: with meekness.  You still are the adult in the room, you have 'infinite' power.  But you make yourself approachable.  You have both the power to help, but the gentleness to make the assistance receivable.  Welcome to the beatitude: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

It is exactly how Jesus describes is core heart DNA:  I am gentle (meek) and lowly of heart.  It is the same concept and even the same word in the greek.

He wants US to be MEEK.  Maybe in our words.  Maybe in our service. Maybe in our driving. Maybe in our attitude. Maybe in our actions. It is the assured posture of abundant strength that is expressed in a winsome way.  May it be said of us, "They had the SUPERPOWER of MEEKNESS."

I am so glad you read today.  It is a 7 minute daily podcast that I'd meekly encourage you to listen to.  Subscribe on your favorite podcast directory.  Or write at [email protected]

"Good Grief" said the wise Charlie Brown.  Let's consider for 7 minutes what can be good about GRIEF, MOURNING and WEEPING.  Jesus agrees with Charlie.  Blessed are those who weep and mourn.

There is plenty in the here and now to grieve over.
First, there is stuff "out there": fallen world, leaders, churches, etc.
But then more up close and personal, there is stuff "in here": health, aging, frailty, decay, and the big category of SIN: lust, anger, tongue, appetites, etc.

the Bible says that going to a FUNERAL is potentially better than going to a WEDDING, IF IF IF IF IF one "takes it to heart."  That is what our precious beatitude is asking of us today.  Let's think about this.  Let's appropriately grieve over what is grievous around us and in us.

But, don't stop there.  The beatitude promises COMFORT and even LAUGHTER.  How?  It seems even crazy, unless one opens the time-frame to the very end.  Literally on the last page of the Bible there is the answer:  There is coming a day when mourning, grief, death, and the tears that go along with it will be no more. Ever. Gone.  Replaced by comfort and giggling.  The day of MOURNING gives way to the day of NO MORE.  I can't wait.  I want you to be there with me! In the meantime, see you here tomorrow by subscription on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or any other podcast distributor.

What is your friend if you are a friend of Jesus?  What benefits and assists the Christian walk? Alternatively, are there things that could drag you down with liability?  Welcome to the BEATITUDES.  It is a bunch of BLESSED ARE...that turns the world upside down.

Blessedness, says my study bible, is the "state of well-being of relationship with God."  It is more profound than just "happy".  

Pure poverty may get us there. It may lead us toward immediacy, urgency, and dependency.  But, you might know some poor people that don't exactly have good spiritual attitudes.  So, Matthew says, "Blessed are the poor IN SPIRIT."  that is, those that have a POSTURE OF POVERTY.  

These are not people that say, "I'm OK, I've got this; Believe in yourself or I did it my way."  They are people that say, "Lord, I am sick, I am weary, I am in need, I got nuthin'." 

Here's the rest of it:  If you know you have nothing, you get EVERYTHING.  If you know you need help, you get a KINGDOM.  This is how a POSTURE OF POVERTY can be my spiritual friend.  Listen 7 minutes and Subscribe at [email protected] 

The names of the 12 Apostles are literally going to be on the gates and on the foundations of the heavenly city of the New Jerusalem.  The place where you are going to live forever, is going to have these guys names carved into the wall.  Apparently, they are pretty important.

They are first called IN so that they can go OUT.  They are called in to BE WITH HIM (does this sound familiar to any listeners of this podcast?) and eventually sent OUT.  They are charged to preach and have authority to cast out demons.  

Jesus turns the world upside down with these guys.  They are His plan A.  There is no plan B.  He scraps the priests and Levites and High Priest for this rabble.  They make it to glory.

These are the last guys to live with Jesus for a number of years.  Do you know who the next person is to have that opportunity again?  It is you.  It is me.  It is all He calls to live with Him forever in that New Jerusalem.  I'll see you there! Write to subscribe bewithme.us@gmail and I'll put you on the list.

600 years before Jesus, Isaiah perfectly reveals Him.  It is enough to single-handedly believe and follow Jesus forever.  Isaiah notes four things we now see more clearly:

• That God takes great pleasure in Himself.  The three Persons of the Trinity think the other Persons of the Trinity are pretty special. Do do otherwise would be blasphemy.
• The people of God are a bunch of losers, unchosen, poor, foreign, unpowerful people.  Knuckleheads.  God looks at us and says, "Yup, those are EXACTLY my people..."
• Jesus has a wonderful personality: not quarrelsome, not loud, not advertising, and gentle UNTIL...
• the moment when He brings JUSTICE TO VICTORY.  If you have ever seen a person carrying a sign that says, "I want JUSTICE", you can be sure they haven't considered it very carefully.  In the end, NOBODY will want just for themselves.   We'd all be doomed...UNLESS we have HOPED in His name.  That is the rescue from pure justice.  Give me some of that!

Today is a kind message to all who may feel like they are "bruised reeds" and "smoldering wicks."  The call is to move from "woe is me" to "go with HE".  Subscribe on Apple Podcasts.  It is the purple button on your new phone.  Androids MOST welcome here too!