Ed Christian's World

Heavenly Ant Lessons…

Ants dwell in colonies of about 60,000 to 90,000 ants. Ants can’t prosper on their own – they need each other. How does a colony of 60,000 ants work together?

When there’s unity. The ants share the same goal – that’s how it works. What then do we learn from ants? Just as ants can’t prosper on their own and they share the same goal, so should we, as God’s people.

Yet we have a lot of differences. We don’t have to agree on when the tribulation or rapture will take place. Yet we do have to be intent on the same purpose – to glorify God, spread His word, to love God, and love each other.

Make love your aim. There’s no other aim – no job, ministry, house, nothing. All those are secondary, and all those divide. When we make love our aim, then there’s peace and unity – in family, marriage, congregation, and the world.

Put away your other aims and goals. Make love your aim and God will bless your colony. For God’s people should be at least as wise… as ants.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35

Be more loving today, more peaceful – whatever is needed, aim to do it.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Becoming A Keeper…

In Hebrew, policemen are called ‘shomreem.’ In ancient times the guards were also called the ‘shomreem.’ Shomreem comes from the word ‘shomair,’ which means to ‘keep.’ It’s a real important word in the Bible.

The Lord is called ‘Shomair Yisrael,’ the Keeper of Israel. Yet the word isn’t just for the Lord. It says in God’s word… ‘You will be blessed if you shomair.

It’s important to keep. Keep the covenant. the command, keep My way, keep My word, keep My Torah… keep. It’s all a matter of keeping. It’s written, we have this treasure in earthen vessels.

It’s not enough to have a treasure. A treasure must be watched, treasured. A treasure must be kept. It’s written that Miryam, Mary, kept all these things in her heart. If you want to live a life that is precious you must do the same. Become one of God’s shomreem. Become a keeper.

Keep His word in your mind, His love in your heart, His wonders in your testimony, His presence in your Spirit. Learn to be a keeper. For what God has given you… is for keeps.

“‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land.” Leviticus 25:18

Memorize Jude 1:24 – and dwell on it today: To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy–

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Lean Your Whole Weight…

John Paton was a pioneer missionary to the New Hebrides in the Pacific Ocean. He sought to translate the New Testament into the language of the South Sea islanders.

But he came up against a problem. He couldn’t find anything in the South Sea vocabulary that would embody the word ‘believe.’ Finally he came up with answer. It came from the Book of Acts.

It was the answer that Paul and Silas gave to the Philippian jailer when he asked, “What must I do to be saved?'” The answer was, “Lean your whole weight upon the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.”

This world is a heavy place. It’s filled with gravity. So the Lord said, ‘Come to me all you who are tired and weighed down. And I’ll give you rest.’ What does it mean to believe?

It means to choose to lean your whole weight on Him. It means to take the weight of your life, the weight of your situation, the weight of your plans, the weight of your sins, your desires, your troubles, worries and anxieties, and lean it on Him. His shoulders are big. And we all need somebody to lean on.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

Whatever weight might be upon your shoulders today, bring it to God. Don’t hesitate. HE can handle it.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Always…

We live in an anti-always culture. It’s based on constant change. The only thing that’s permanent in our culture is that there’s nothing permanent in our culture.

What’s in today is gone tomorrow. Our attention spans are shorter and shorter. Thoughtful discussions are replaced by sound bytes. Family dinners are replaced by fast food.

An anti-always culture, in turn, produces people who always lack the quality of always, the quality of consistency, of endurance, of sacrifice, of faithfulness, of stability, of integrity, and of an inner core of morality, that which can never be moved.

That’s why it’s so crucial that we hold to what never changes. For we have an always faith, an always book, an always truth, an always Redeemer, an always Friend, and an always God.

Buck the trend, fight the system. Take what is disposable, and dispose it. Be done with that which is made to be done with. And base your life, your convictions, your ambitions, your pursuits, your everything on that which is always.

For what is good and real is not disposable. Do this… and you’ll have an always hope, an always love, an always peace, and an always joy.

God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? Numbers 23:19

Today, seek to put less emphasis on that which is temporary – and root your heart and mind on the things which are eternal.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Jesus – Garden Of Death…

It was a few days before Palm Sunday and Grandfather said let’s go sit down and discuss the Garden of Eden. To understand life and Christianity we need to start at the beginning.

According to Jewish mythology, in the Garden of Eden there is a tree of life or the “tree of souls” that blossoms and produces new souls, which fall into the Guf, the Treasury of Souls. The Angel Gabriel reaches into the treasury and takes out the first soul that comes into his hand. Then Laah, the Angel of Conception, watches over the embryo until it is born.

In the Book of Genesis, the tree of life is first described in chapter 2 verse 9 as being “in the midst of the Garden of Eden” with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

When sin entered the world on the day of man’s fall, God took man out of the garden, a garden of life. On the day when sin was put to death, the opposite happened – man brought God down from the cross and into a garden, a garden of death – the garden tomb.

In the Song of Solomon, the bride says of the Bridegroom, “Awake oh north wind and come oh south wind, and blow upon my garden that the spices may flow out.” So man brought God into a garden of death, the garden tomb, and there laid upon him spices, spices which came from a garden.

Also in the Song of Solomon, the bride says, “Let my Beloved come into His garden. The tomb of God is a garden tomb – meaning, it’s merely a tomb, the place of endings – it’s a garden, the place of beginnings and life.

For all life in God now comes out of that tomb. So don’t be afraid of entering Jesus’s tomb, and dying to self. For it’s not just a tomb – it’s a garden tomb, and those who enter it will find true life.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

Enter into the Garden Tomb. Lay down your old life, your old identity, your ego and bury it – Then walk in the newness of life.

Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with timbrel and harp.   Psalm 149:3

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Joy of Willing…

Believers have a strange idea that if you will something, then it can’t be the Spirit. And yet God’s word is filled with the opposite. You can’t read the Bible without reading the word ‘Choose!’

You can’t get saved without the word ‘choose.’ It says ‘Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.’ That takes your will. And that’s the Spirit. Some believers think that following God means just going along with the flow.

Yes and no. There are different flows – the flow of the Spirit and the flow of the world. In order to serve God you have to choose the flow of the Spirit and you have to choose against the flow of the world. And that requires choice, determination, and decision.

So many believers spend their whole lives trying to find the will of God. You want the will of God in your life? Stop asking everyone about it. Choose it. Obey it. Agree on it. Decide it. Will it. And the will of God will be done in your life, on earth, as it is in heaven.

“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:14-15

After reading your Bible today, choose one verse to obey and do what you know the will of the Lord is.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Upward Call…

Believers and airplanes… what do they have in common? Airplanes are unique among all transportation. You can stop a horse, you can stop a car, and all of them will simply stop and stay there.

But if you try to stop a plane in mid-air, the plane will descend and crash. Further a horse can back up, a car can back up, but a plane can’t. So for a plane, there’s no backing up, and there’s no standing still. So it is for a believer. Other people can back up, but you can’t.

Your walk in God has no provision for backing up. That’s why, when you start going backwards you’re so miserable. Maybe your walk isn’t going anywhere and hasn’t been going anywhere for a while.

Don’t let it crash. Turn on your spiritual engines and start moving forward. For Paul wrote, ‘But this I do, forgetting what lies behind, and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

You, my friend, are like an airplane. Press on, press on, press on, and you’ll find yourself flying in the heavenliest.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-15

Think of a way to move a step forward in the Lord today – and go forward (especially in an area where you may have been slipping backward)

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

The Season Of Blossoms…

In Exodus 12, the Lord tells Israel that the present month was now to become the first of Months for them, the beginning of their year. The month was called Nisan. It literally means, “The Beginning”.

But it wasn’t just “The Beginning.” It was the New Beginning that ended the old year and begins the new. It was Nisan also that ended the winter and began the spring. And so it was Nisan that Jesus chose as the month and season in which He would die for the sins of the world and rise from death for its redemption.

The Hebrew word for winter is Sethav. It means the season of darkness and hiding. Nisan brought that to an end. What is the Resurrection? It’s your Nisan, the Nisan appointed to end your winter, your season of hiding, your season of darkness.

It’s your new beginning, your season of springtime. And what’s God saying to you in all this? He’s saying: “Arise my love and come away, for behold the winter is past… the rains are over and gone…. the flowers have appeared in our land … and the time for singing has come.”

My beloved spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. Song of Solomon 2:10-12

Today ask the Lord to bring you to a new Nissan in you walk with Him – new experiences and growth in His presence.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love.always,

Ed

The Tzemach…

Tzemach is a most important word because it’s given in the Hebrew Scriptures as the name of Jesus. In Zechariah 6:12 it says, “Behold the man whose name is Tzemach, for He will branch out from where He is and He will build the temple of the Lord.”

The word Tzemach means the shoot branch, to spring forth again. Jesus rose up from the depths of the earth from the dead to life, the Shooting Forth – the Tzemach.

When this prophecy was translated by the rabbis into Greek, they chose a Greek word to represent Tzemach. The word was Anatolay. It means the rising of the light, the sunrise.

In fact it’s used in the New Testament and is translated as the Day Spring, The Morningstar, The Rising Sun. Are you in the depths? It’s okay. The power of the Tzemach is to rise up from the depths.

So live in the Tzemach, for He has risen, He has blossomed, He has dawned, He has broken the new day. And you too will rise and shine, for your light has come. And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you in the Tzemach – your rising.

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” Revelation 22:16

What area of your life needs the power of the Tzemach, the springing forth? Lift it up to the Lrod and rise in His power.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed

Jesus’s Sabbath…

Jesus died on Friday just before sunset. Why? Because Friday night was the beginning of the Shabbat, the Sabbath, the Day of Rest. And what was Jesus doing on the cross? He was working.

But when the Sabbath came, all work had to cease. So even in His death, Jesus honored the Word of God. He rested in the tomb. So He had to die when He did, because the Shabbat was coming. He had to finish His work.

It’s not so much that He died because the Shabbat was coming – but rather it was that the Shabbat came because He died. Jesus’s peace is more powerful than time and space and never dependent on circumstance.

Stop waiting for the Sabbath. Stop waiting for the circumstance to change. It doesn’t matter what day it is, it doesn’t matter how many problems you have, or what condition your life is in enter Jesus’s peace now, and the Shabbat will come.

Come sun or storm, hell or high water, it doesn’t matter. Bring it to Calvary and dwell in Jesus’s rest, and He will cause the Sabbath to come. For the Son of Man is Lord of Shabbat.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

Enter His peace today, living as if the circumstances surrounding you have already changed – it doesn’t matter what you see or feel, remind yourself you have the victory through His finished work.

Walk daily with God at your side!

Love always,

Ed