Love Truth Blog

It has really been a while since the last time I posted something in this blog. Way too long! But, lately I have been meditating upon Micah 4:1-5 on the establishment of the mountain of the house of the Lord, and I thought it be well to post something on just that. Micah 4:1-5 anticipates a time when all that was wrong with the world as far as the Old Testament prophet saw it would ultimately be set to right by Yahweh. Micah was a prophet from Moresheth, a town southwest of Jerusalem, who ministered during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (Micah 1:1a), rulers of the southern kingdom of Judah. Their reigns spanned from around the mid-eighth to early seventh centuries BC. The prophet ministered in both Jerusalem — the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah — and Samaria — the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel (Micah 1:1b). The prophet saw much corruption in the lands of Samaria and Judah. He lamented: Woe to those who scheme iniquity, Who work out evil on thei...

Read through the four Gospels in the New Testament, and the main take away you get from each is this: Jesus died, He rose again, and He is Lord. This is what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wanted to get across to their readers. The reality of these things make or break authentic Christianity. The denial of these things separates the sheep and the goats, believer and unbeliever, Christian and pagan. You can get into a comparative religion conversation and talk volumes about the way Jesus sided with the poor and taught unparalleled wisdom, but get ready for some controversy if you dare speak of Christ death, resurrection and Lordship. Islam, for example, rejects the very idea that Jesus died upon the cross, and to affirm Jesus is Lord in the sense of being God incarnate is an unthinkable sin. Atheists likewise would never think the historical Jesus was God incarnate who resurrected from the dead. The problem is this: all the evidence weighs in favor of the testimonial of the New Test...

The Roman spear tip went through the side of the torso piercing through the pericardium and into the heat, confirming the condemned was truly dead. No tricks. Nothing staged. Jesus died upon the cross. This is the grand anticlimax to the Four Gospels of the Bible wherein Israel’s long awaited Christ was put to death upon the cross during the rule of Pontius Pilate. The agony of a slow death through crucifixion was just a part of the sufferings Jesus endured. Blood filled sweat as the Son prayed to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. Betrayed by Judas Iscariot. Denied by Peter, Abandoned by the rest of the Twelve, Rejected by the religious leaders along with many others in Jerusalem who wanted nothing to do with the sort of messiah in the likes of Jesus of Nazareth.   Mock, beaten and scourged. Surprisingly, this was part of God’s plan all along. No sooner after Peter declared Jesus to be the Christ that the Lord began to teach the disciples “that t...