Keep Your Eyes on Jesus

Ordinary People

Ken

What does “ordinary people” mean? We want the happiness of people needing people, but we fall prey to enshrining the needs of someone other than God as the bedrock of our happiness. “Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD” (Psalm 144:15 KJV). We live in exceptional times, or as Charles Dickens wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” in A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Our sense of “happiness” and “ordinary people” must be tied to the LORD, for Hollywood’s “Ordinary People” (1980) or Broadway’s “People” (1964) [“needing people”] are only a facsimile of the truly blessed people Jesus described. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). These are the ordinary people, who are the happiest people on earth. Only when our heartfelt sympathy is defined by the LORD, then Charles Dickens’ Sydney Carton’s sacrifice for the happiness of another becomes at all significant. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.” LORD, may our motivation and aspiration be of Thee, and may the world receive the benefit. In Jesus’ name. Amen. 

Scoffers and Shirkers

Ken

Outside the Kingdom of God , scoffers attack the credibility and authenticity of Christianity. Inside the Professed Church, shirkers do whatever possible to keep their hope of Heaven, while doing as little as possible to differentiate themselves from the world. “But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken” (Luke 12:45 KJV). Bible prophecy should warn the world to put their house in order, Jesus is coming. The Church must keep their eyes on Jesus and not look back to the flesh pots of Egypt. “Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full” (Exodus 16:3 KJV). Delaying Christ’s coming means different things to different people.