When will I be normal?

I have not typed about my nephew Justin on this blog. He was in a bad car accident the Sunday before Memorial day, and sustained a serious closed head brain injury.

After 4-5 weeks in Intensive care, and 6 weeks at Frazier rehab he has made it home.

One of the things he expressed that he wanted to do was to start studying the bible. My mother in law, mentioned it to my wife. I prayed about it and offered to help.

Well now Tuesday nights I will meet with Justin for 1 hour. 20-30 Minutes will be spent working with his Nintendo DS with Brain Age, and 20-30 minutes reading the bible and talking about it.

This paragraph from my testimony will frame what we talk about.

God allows and knows I will fail, but he sacrificed His Son for all of us, so that we can get back up looking for Him to help us. He also gives us the power of the Spirit to enable us to succeed in overcoming our sin nature. When we succeed He celebrates with us, and is proud of us. I am now privileged to have a relationship that allows me to walk in the Light of the Word, confident in the salvation of Jesus Christ.

I also asked him, what is the one question that I can pray about for him, and ask God to help him answer. His answer, "When will I be normal?" I know God heard the question, and I pray that as Justin and I through our study start to unravel that question for him.

God I pray that you give me the guidance to help Justin. The wisdom to teach him about you and how much you love him. Help me through my experiences show him how to build a relationship that relies completely on you. Help me be a workman that correctly handles your word of truth.

Ezekiel...

During the break from class, we have been tasked to reading Ezekiel. I must say that it is confusing, especially at 5:15 am....

From what I can gather though, God is pouring his heart out to Ezekiel, trying to convey to the Israelites what He is feeling, and how their destructive living is ruining their chance at a better life and relationship with Him.

God promises his judgment and wrath, and shows again his jealous anger. Then in 18:30 we read this:

30 "Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. 31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

Oh how God wants us to live a righteous life, with Him as our guide.

I have also come to understand this about my faith... Which seems to be a reaccuring theme as I read and blog...

I want my God to be El Qanna... To be so Jealous of my sin that He wants to root it out of every corner of my being and destroy it. I want Him to pursue me in such a way that He will do anything, even take out His vengeance on his own Son, to have a relationship with me. COR 5:21 God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we may be come the righteousness of God. I want to know that God laid down his Son for our forgiveness because He loves me so much he can not stand to have any sin in the way of a relationship with Him.

I like knowing that God will pursue that loving perfect relationship with me, and will do so in a way that points out flaws in my life I never knew I had. Then I want to turn to him and have him help me fix those flaws.

Ezekiel 18:30-32
30 "Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. 31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

God's name to me .... Qana

Ezekiel 5 Then he said to me, "Son of man, look toward the north." So I looked, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar I saw this idol of jealousy.

The idol jealousy here is not the jealousy of man, it is the idol that provokes God to jealousy. That makes him want to rise up and stamp out the evil caused by worshiping idols. There are so many things we set up as idols in our life that causes God to be jealous. Each one separates and takes us further from the relationship we are meant to have with the one true Lord God.

Adonai Elohim, the Lord God, with many characteristics. El-Qana the jealousy of God.
http://www.biblestudytools.net/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=07067&version=nas

Exodus
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me

I want my God to be jealous. I want him to pursue me to the ends of the earth. I want to know that he would lay his life down for me. Sacrifice everything, just to love me, because he detests the sin and idols in my life so much.

Coveting 3 - 5

3 – Coveting=Greed

M. G Blankenship again says…

Coveting kind of boils down to Greed

We even see this concept of coveting in a young child: They are happy with their toy UNTIL they see another kids toy!
When we are not happy with what we have, we begin to desire what we do not have, and look for ways to satisfy the desire our selves.

Colossians 3:5 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ---> GREED BECOMES IDOLATRY:

Our heart was created to be satisfied by God! Coveting allows things to take the place of God in our hearts!
God says "seek ye first the kingdom" =

GREED seeks the "kingdom of things"

4 – We can lead people to covet

We should also be careful to not lead people down the road of coveting by our own actions.

Jesus Speaking of the Pharisees

Mathew 23 5-7

5 "Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.‘

1 Peter 3:3
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.

Instead we should be humble

Psalm 18:27
You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.

Psalm 147:6
The LORD sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.

Matthew 23:12
For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

5 – The opposite of covet is to be content and love.

The opposite of coveting and the fix is contentment, to understand that what God provides to us is what he thinks we can handle and work with. The value of what we posses through God is no greater or less then anything any one else has. In 1 Timothy we learn…

1 Timothy 6:5-10

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

Coveting 1 and 2

1 - Beginning of Sin

Have you ever wondered what it is like in the biggest house on the street? Ever asked what kind of TV do they have? Said to yourself, look at the nice car they Drive… I wonder how much Money they make…I would like to live his or her life. Well this is what Eve did when she looked at the fruit on the tree, She asked her self…”I wonder what God knows? I bet to know what he knows would be amazing….”

Coveting was the beginning of sin in the world

Ge 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

Her imagination and feelings were completely won over be the serpant; and the fall of Eve was soon followed by that of Adam. The history of every temptation, and of every sin, is the same; the outward object of attraction, the inward commotion of mind, the increase and triumph of passionate desire; ending in the degradation, slavery, and ruin of the soul www.biblestudytools.net/Commentaries/JamiesonFaussetBrown/jfb.cgi?book=ge&chapter=3#Ge3_6

If coveting is the beginning of Sin.. Can it lead us to other sin?

2 - Coveting leads to other sin

In what ways can covetness lead us to break the other commandments?

David, the man with the heart of God, his coveting leads to… Here is a man with a heart for the Lord…And the Devil got…

2 Sam 11: 2-3 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her.

(1) Do not commit Adultery….4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. Then [a] she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."

(2) Do not give false witness…6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master's servants and did not go down to his house.

12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David's invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master's servants; he did not go home.

(3) Do not Murder…14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die."

(4) Do not Steal…Nathan to David… 4 "Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."