Tag: bible

Abundant Life

Did You Know There is a Life Handbook?

Karen

I know. Life is rough right now. So many “experts” telling you what to do, where to go, who to see. Get the vaccine, (or more accurately, the experimental injectable) or not get the vaccine – that is the question everyone is asking. Follow the crowd or assert your independence and refuse to conform? Who do we listen to? WHY would we listen to someone who doesn’t really care about us? Who is telling the truth and who is lying?

AND WHEN CAN WE GET BACK TO NORMAL LIFE?

Or, is this our new normal?

Who do we trust? Where do we go for some peace? What is real and what is fake?

I can’t answer these questions for you – all I can say is that the majority of the information you’re being exposed to is a lie and to encourage you to seek alternative news sources and get ALL the information before making decisions that will affect you and your family.

However, I can offer a bit of hope. A resource, if you will, that will honestly help calm your fears and smear a soothing salve on your soul.

The Bible.

HEAR ME OUT!

Before you go rolling your eyes or sticking your nose up in the air thinking, “oh great, another religious wacko” consider this – what’s the harm in looking into God and His wonderful book of life?

Why should you care? This is from an article on the Truth or Tradition website by Renee Dugan:

“There is a plethora of reasons why understanding the Bible is crucial for everyone, from the new believer to the seasoned scholar. There is not a person alive who doesn’t stand to reap some benefit from knowing, understanding, and applying the principles of the Bible. Here are just a few reasons why understanding the Bible is so crucial:

  1. It Empowers Us for Right-Living
    The Bible offers countless wise missives, instructions, and clear warnings on what to embrace and what to avoid in order to live a blessed, successful life. Understanding these things—why they matter to God, why they should matter to us, and how to structure our lives by them—is absolutely crucial to living both an abundant life and one pleasing to God. Without grasping this, at best we’re subject to the tailwinds of the world’s ever-changing notion of morality, which offers no tangible guarantee of joy, salvation, or righteousness. To live right, and live well, we must derive these things at their very definition from the Bible.
  2. It Gives us a Framework to Understand the World
    Without a firm grasp of what the Bible says about the age we live in, the spiritual forces at work, and who and what we are up against, we can very easily become despondent, confused, and angry as struggles come our way. Thankfully, the Bible very clearly lays out the truth about the spiritual battle raging around us, the enemy in charge of this fallen world, and the role believers can and should play in the fight. To understand the battle and stand our ground in it, we must fully grasp the nuances of the world’s state both spiritually and physically as explained in the Bible.
  3. It Demystifies Difficult Realities
    The spiritual battle is not the only aspect of life that’s difficult to understand—nor is it the only one the Bible explains! The problem of evil, sin, and suffering, why bad things happen to good people, why things seem to get worse rather than better around the world, why man is even here, why God’s Son had to die a horrific death, why there were certain cultures God ordered His people to wipe off the map—these are all very deep, very difficult realities to contend with. Even a surface reading of Scripture may not be enough to fully grasp the intricacies and necessities of these subjects. That’s why we can’t just read the Bible—it’s important to understand it. To have a clear, logical outlook on why so many things have come to pass the way they did and continue to, we must dive in deep and do the hard work to grasp the meaning and reasoning laid out in the Bible.
  4. It Elucidates the Past, Present, and Future
    There are countless details of history, the current atmosphere, and the coming future that can’t be truly explained without a scriptural framework. Some things have happened and are happening that had to fall into place in a certain way due to the Messiah’s coming over 2000 years ago; similarly, some things still must come to pass in order for all of God’s purposes to play out. Understanding these purposes—not to mention what’s happened, why it’s happened, and what still must—helps us to not become embroiled in guesswork and conjecture, but to live our lives with a proper perspective of the days and seasons in God’s hands. To fathom the truth of the past, make the most of our time now, and have hope no matter what comes, we must view all of history through the perspective laid out in the Bible.
  5. When we Misunderstand the Bible, It’s Easier to Misunderstand the One Who Authored It
    Circling back around to where we started, let’s touch again on the heartache that comes from an author misunderstood. When we stay high-level with Scripture, doing a cursory reading without making the diligent effort to dig in and truly understand it, we are building a house of cards on a sandy shore. Anything could come along and blow our beliefs down or rip the floor out from under it. We also run the risk of constructing an improper view of God when we don’t make it a point to truly understand His Word, which can lead to all sorts of pain—from legalism to loose-living, from hyper-judgementalism to hyper-tolerance, from loving Him without the proper respect to hating Him outright. Countless extremes spring from simply misunderstanding the heart of God as He laid it out for us in the Bible. To fully understand the Author, we must understand the blueprint He laid for us: the Bible, His very Word.”

With all the craziness that is our world right now, we have a God that loves and cares about us – ABOUT YOU. He only wants the best for you and who offers hope and light during these dark times. A lot of people have been deeply affected by this past year – it’s been rough – and it’s nice to know there is a resource out there that can help lighten our personal burden.

Listening to “experts” and the government is not helpful, nor is it encouraging. But God, now He’s someone you can rely on, who will NEVER let you down and promises everlasting life.

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

I hope you’ll consider checking Him out. What do you have to lose? (Answer: Nothing).

Abundant Life

Christianity 101

Karen

Living in our rental house is not the only change we’ve been making in Roy’s life – we’ve been teaching him Christianity 101.

He’s been going to church with first his mom (Kevin’s grandmother) and then with Kevin’s parents all his life. And I’m not knocking church – it’s great if you’re getting something out of it. And by that I mean, you’re studying God’s word and learning how, and why, God wants you to live a certain way. It’s a great place to fellowship with other Christians and to make life-long friends. God wants us to fellowship with other Christians.

However. If you dread Church, or you’re not getting anything out of the lectures pastors give, then perhaps it’s time to step back and re-evaluate why you’re going or why you’re not receiving God’s wonderful messages.

That’s where we are with Roy. Roy’s churches have continued to use the King’s James version of the bible. And there’s nothing wrong with the King’s James version, it’s just an antiquated language that is not used anymore. It’s hard for people to understand because we don’t use that language anymore. And because people don’t understand the language (or the culture in which the Bible was written), then people just assume that the Bible is not meant for us to understand.

AND THAT’S BULL HOCKEY.

God WANTS us to know how to read the Bible. He wants us to live our lives by rules laid out in the Bible. He gives us examples of how to live our lives and what can happen if we choose NOT to live by his rules. If we don’t live our lives by His rules, then he is unable to protect us against Satan’s tricks. And of course, it’s Satan’s goals to trick people into thinking they are incapable of understanding the Bible because then he will swoop in and create havoc in our lives.

So. Roy has made the decision of NOT going to church for a while and sitting with us when we have Bible study at our house every Sunday evening after dinner. We watch a few videos from the Truth or Tradition YouTube channel and then we all take turns reading out of the New International Version of the Bible. He made the decision to not go to church because he never felt like he understood anything that was taught. Too many churches focus on the hell and damnation of the Bible and though that is part of God’s word, it’s a VERY SMALL part of God’s word. Or worse, pastors will pick and choose verses out of the Bible, taking them completely out of context, and use them to their own advantage. The first time I realized that was happening was the last time I set foot in a church. I have NO INTENTIONS of going back to church – ever.

God is about love and teaching us humility, compassion, forgiveness and HOW TO LOVE OTHERS. How is anyone expected to be inspired or moved into helping others when all they are fed every Sunday is scary crap about Satan and being fried alive in hell?

Think about it.

Anyway. After watching a video, I asked Kevin to bring up one of their older videos (we have it set up where we watch YouTube on our TV and Kevin controls it with his phone – TECHNOLOGY RULES!) where they talk about HOW to read and understand the bible. Kevin brought up this video:

We’ve been watching Truth or Tradition videos for as long as they’ve been making them and somehow, we missed this one. What a COOL summary of the Bible!!

And we started talking about buying Roy a Bible that he can understand – more like a children’s bible. I wouldn’t mind having a children’s bible to read the basic stories myself. I’m not even sure I know all of the basic stories, to be perfectly honest.

I think all of us, deep down, are searching for something in our lives. Whether that’s the meaning of life, how to make our marriages successful, how to raise a God-fearing child (and God-fearing is actually, more accurately translated, into RESPECTING GOD), how to seek forgiveness or how to cultivate patience … learning God’s word, living a Godly life, tends to satisfy that hunger and produce peace.

Don’t believe me? Try it. What have you got to lose?

*Oh, by the way – I just found out they have an iPhone/Android app. Which I downloaded and am looking forward to using on-the-go.

Abundant Life

Audio Teaching: The Christian’s Hope: Part One

Karen

I hope you’ll take time to listen to these audio teachings, if not here, then perhaps you’ll consider downloading them and taking them with you?

anchor

What the Bible really says about Death, Judgment, Rewards, Heaven, and the Future Life on a Restored Earth. God originally planned for mankind to live on earth, and His plan, though postponed by sin, will not be thwarted – it will come to pass in the future when a new earth is created. The Christian’s Hope shows from Scripture that each Christian will be rewarded in the coming world in direct proportion to the quality of how he lives for God in this world.

Click the arrow to listen to the Acknowledgements/Prayer/Introduction.

Click the arrow to listen to Our Valuable Anchor.

Read along here.

A Biblical Look at “Hope”

In order to properly understand the Christian’s hope, it is important to examine the exact meaning of the word “hope.” “Hope” means “a desire for, or an expectation of, good, especially when there is some confidence of fulfillment.” It is used that way both in common English and in the Bible. However, the Bible often uses the word “hope” in another way—to refer to the special expectation of good that God has in store for each Christian in the future. This includes the “Rapture,” receiving a new, glorified body, and living forever in Paradise. Today, the ordinary use of “hope” allows for the possibility that what is hoped for will not come to pass. However, when the Bible uses the word “hope” to refer to things that God has promised, the meaning of “hope” shifts from that which has a reasonable chance of coming to pass to that which will absolutely come to pass. To be a useful anchor, hope must hold fast.

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Abundant Life

Teaching: The Bible says to “love your enemies” (Matt. 5:44). How can the death penalty be love?

Karen

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

People are commanded to love God, one another and their enemies. This is the case today, and it was true in the Old Testament also. Yet it is clear that the death penalty was commanded by God many times in the Old Testament. The first and greatest commandment is to love God, and the Bible is very clear about how we do that: we keep His commandments.

John 14:15, 21, 23 and 24
(15) If you love me, you will obey what I command.
(21) Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.
(23) If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
(24) He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

These verses are clear, and reveal the action model of the love of God, which is the biblical model of genuine love. Christ spoke very plainly and said that if we do what God commands, then we love God, and if we do not do what God commands, we do not love God. One of God’s commandments was that murderers be put to death, and it is not loving God to ignore what He said.

It is true that Christ taught us to love our enemies, but we must understand what he was saying when he said that. First and foremost, he was not contradicting his Father and the commands of the Old Testament. He was stating them in plain language. It was part of the Old Testament Law that people were to be loving, even to their enemies. Although many examples could be given, Exodus contains some very clear verses:

Exodus 23:4 and 5
(4) If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him.
(5) If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it.

Since the teaching about being loving, even to someone that hates you, was a part of the Old Testament Law, we need to carefully examine the words Christ spoke.

Matthew 5:43-45
(43) You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”
(44) But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
(45) that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Christ said, “You have heard it said,‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” It is fair to say that most Christians think that it was God and the Old Testament Scriptures that said, “Hate your enemy,” and that Christ was changing the Old Testament Law. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Old Testament Law taught people to love, as we saw in Exodus (and there are many more examples beside those two verses). It was the religious leaders who perverted the Law of God and taught people to “hate your enemy.” The well-respected New Testament scholar, R. C. H. Lenski writes:

This [“hate your enemy”] is the way in which the scribes and Pharisees taught the people the second table. They mutilated even the words they quoted from Leviticus….This omission in the usual rabbinical teaching was no innocent abbreviation …This was a flagrant perversion of the law which included all the members of the Jewish nation down to the lowest and extended even to the stranger. [8]

It is imperative to notice that you can love your enemy and still obey the Old Testament Law, including executing justice and even going to war. Biblical love is not an emotion or a feeling, but is acting on what God commands. The words of Christ in Matthew make it plain that Christ knew that God loves His enemies, and even blesses them by sending them rain and sun even though they do not “deserve” His love and blessings. Exodus teaches us to be loving to our enemies and those who hate us by helping them out. The same God who teaches us to love our enemies in both the Old and New Testaments also commands the death penalty in both the Old and New Testaments.

It is love to obey God, and by having a swift death penalty we love the people in our society [many of whom are our enemies also] and offer them the best chance for a life free from fear and crime. By having a swift death penalty that is justly meted out, we are giving everyone the best chance to see the high value of life—theirs, and the lives of others. Without a swift and just death penalty, the value of life is cheapened. Most people in the United States, for example, live every day knowing that they may be killed by a drunk driver or by a robber in a convenience store. If they are killed, and if the criminal is actually caught, they know that their life was “worth” a few years in prison, if even that, because that is all that the criminal will have to pay. How can we call that “justice”? How can that teach the value of life? We assert that it cannot and does not, and that is a major reason the United States is overrun with crime today.

We are not loving God or people if we refuse to justly deal with criminals who will harm others. It is not loving people to allow an unsafe society to continue simply because we find it difficult to obey God’s laws. We are not really being loving if we allow murderers to go unpunished. The Bible says if there is no godly punishment of the wicked, then people who would not otherwise sin may be led into temptation, and that is clearly true. Just and quick punishments are a deterrent to evil behavior.

The article above was taken from The Death Penalty: Godly or Ungodly?

Did this article bless you? Please consider donating to the Truth or Tradition ministry.

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page, their YouTube Channel, or follow them on Twitter.

Thanks for reading.

(Comments have been turned off. The information is here to inform and bless you. God granted you the gift of free will – take it or leave it).

More from Write From Karen

Abundant Life

Teaching: Why I Believe the Bible – Part Three

Karen

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

We believe the Scriptures are God’s “heart” revealed to mankind. The reason God wants us to know the truth is so we can live it and share it with others. God wants us to be “imitators” of Him, and His chief characteristic is love. Truth without love is vanity; love without truth is sentimentality. We believe the following are the crucial teachings of Scripture, crucial because misunderstanding them detracts from the quality of one’s life, that is his ability to reverence and obey the one true God and His Son.

We believe that the Scriptures are “God-breathed,” perfect in their original writing, without flaw or contradiction, and provide the only sure and steadfast basis for faith. Understanding Scripture is attainable by applying logic and sound principles of biblical interpretation, in conjunction with the spirit of God in us. Topic: Can you trust the Bible?

We believe that God, the Creator, the Father of Jesus Christ, is “the only true God” (John 17:3), holy and separate from all His creation. He is a personal God who has committed Himself to us in writing. Topic: The Trinity

We believe that Jesus Christ, the “last Adam,” is the only-begotten Son of God. He was born of the virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, suffered and died as a payment for all men’s sin, was raised from the dead and exalted to the position of “Lord” by God His Father. Who is Jesus Christ?

We believe that “the Holy Spirit” is another name for God, while “holy spirit” is God’s gift of His divine nature that a person receives when he is born again, the “spirit of truth” that Jesus promised. He differentiated between these two when He said, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The Giver and the Gift

We believe that all nine “manifestations” of the gift of God (“holy spirit”) are available, desirable and profitable to every believer to operate by faith, in conjunction with God’s energizing. Topic: Manifestations of Holy Spirit

We believe that today, in the “Administration of the Sacred Secret,” salvation is permanent for those who have once confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and believed that God raised Him from the dead. We believe that when one adheres to Romans 10:9, he is “saved,” “born again,” “sealed,” “anointed,” “clothed with power from on high” and “baptized with holy spirit.” This baptism in holy spirit is the “one baptism” of Ephesians 4:5.

Read the rest of the article here.

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(If this video will not play for you, you can find the original file on this page).

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page.

Stay tuned for part four next week. Thank you for visiting and God bless.

Abundant Life

Teaching: Tools for Basic Bible Study – Part Three

Karen

Read part one or part two.

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

From the Bible Study Guide

After getting a basic understanding of the historical flow of the Old Testament, it is important to become familiar with the Mosaic Law in Exodus-Deuteronomy. This will both help you better grasp the historical sections of the Old Testament and reveal much of the heart of God concerning how to treat people, the seriousness of sin, and much more. Do not get in a hurry to learn the prophetic books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc. Each one speaks in a historical context, regarding the times in which they lived and brought messages from God concerning the people’s obedience or disobedience to His laws. Therefore, it is essential to learn the history from Kings and Chronicles as well as the law, in order to best understand the prophets. Once a basic grasp of the history of Israel and the Mosaic Law is gained, then reading the prophets will be much easier.

There is no “easy way” to gain a scope of the Bible. It must be read, and read, and reread. The sad fact is that most Christians ignore the Bible. Many Christian men who think nothing of watching a three-hour football game (or two) on a Sunday have not spent a single three-hour session reading the Bible even once during the year. The commandment of God to love God and love our neighbors is very clear, and each Christian can rest assured that simply reading the Bible with a little extra understanding provided by good teachers and good study helps will go a long way toward living a godly and spiritually powerful life. Each Christian should set aside time to read the Bible regularly, and occasionally set aside larger blocks of time to read for more context and scope. Our priorities as God’s children must include reading His Book.

Vodpod videos no longer available.


(If this video will not play for you, you can find the original file on this page).

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page.

Next week, part four. Thank you for visiting and God bless.

Abundant Life

Teaching: Tools for Basic Bible Study, Part One

Karen

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

From the Bible Study Guide

Where should we begin to read the Bible?

The Bible is a large book, and it may take years of reading it for a person to feel he has a grasp on it. The student of the Bible should be not be defeated by this, but rather make sure that he regularly takes time to read it. A large amount of the Bible is easy to read and understand, and anyone who reads it faithfully will know a lot in a short amount of time.

Furthermore, if the Bible is read in the same way as any other large book, perhaps an hour a day or a few days a week, which is a lot less than the TV most people watch, it should only take a few months at most to get all the way through it. By the time a person has read the Bible several times many things that were confusing at first will be much easier to understand. Most people do not dedicate much time to reading it, however, and many become discouraged by things they do not understand.

Reading a good Study Bible can make reading easier because some of the questions that beginning readers always seem to have are answered right in the notes on the page, and any accompanying maps and illustrations make it much easier to keep up with biblical record.

Some key points from the video:

Loving God with all your mind. God gave us a mind, we’re supposed to understand the Bible. The Bible says that we are supposed to meditate on it and get to know it.

We should take time out of our daily schedules to study the Bible. The Bible requires study just as any subject does.

If people do not learn the keys to the Bible, they are relegated to going to someone and asking them what they think it means.

One Key: natural curiosity or desire to learn. We want to read and develop a natural curiosity about it.

Vodpod videos no longer available.


(If this video will not play for you, you can find the original file on this page).

If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about God’s wonderful message, please visit the Truth or Tradition website. You can also keep track of the ministry through their Facebook page.

Next week, part two. Thank you for visiting and God bless.