Like a new believer ready to burst forth in blooms, just like this Ixora bouquet.
As we continue in our review of our Identity in Christ, this evening we reviewed our Redemption. Our notes were pretty much in alignment as the teacher, Reverend Tom Knupp was clear and concise in his presentation. In this teaching we learned about two elements to redemption — payment and release.
Rev. Knupp taught this through three themes. First was the Past. God authored the payment and release plan before the foundation of the world. The book of Ruth, where the Red Thread is our kinsman redeemer, from the Hebrew word goel. We needed to look at many Orientalisms and figures of speech to really understand the meaning of the actions of Naomi and Ruth in this book of the Bible. One Greek word stood out in this teaching, huiothesia – adoption. Before God adopted us as his children, we were Not my People. Hosea 2:23; Romans 9:25, 26, and 1 Peter 2:9, 10.
Second was the Present and how Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption. He is our kinsman redeemer. He fulfilled the law, was sinless, and by his shed blood all were redeemed.
Ephesians 1:7 in the Amplified Bible
In Him we have redemption (deliverance and salvation) through His blood, the remission (forgiveness) of our offenses (shortcomings and trespasses), in accordance with the riches and generosity of His gracious favor.
Third is the future. The payment has been received, we now await the release from the bondage of corruption with eternal life. Now that we are his adopted children we are heirs together with Christ. We have been bought with a price and our release from sin has been accomplished.
How shall redeemed brothers and sisters in Christ behave? We should, as it says in
1 Corinthians 6:20
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirits which are God’s.
Last Thursday’s fellowship was an Acts 2:46b and Psalms 100:2 Evening.
Acts 2:46b
…and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.
The word meat is from the Greek word trophe, it means nourishment or food. It is a figure of speech – using one word that represents a whole, in this case meat for a meal.
We did! We each brought a dish to pass. Our fellowship has an abundance of accomplished chefs and people who enjoy eating. We enjoyed meat and veggie spaghetti, and stuffed bell peppers for main dishes. We had three side dishes: green salad, sautéed broccoli rabe with garlic, and watermelon rind with red onion, feta with balsamic salad dressing. AND pumpkin pie and Lotus Biscoff cookies for dessert. We heard that left overs were thoroughly enjoyed by those who were not able to attend. No pictures, we didn’t want people drooling on their keyboards. Fellowship around a table, while eating is sweet. We all enjoyed the labor of others, we shared our victories in post hurricane clean-up, and talked about future plans. We prayed for the continued healing and for needs being met for all who were in the path of recent hurricanes Irma, Maria and Nate. God has blessed us with abundance in our lives. We are peaceful, knowing that he will meet all our needs. We SIT and have patience, longsuffering and more… as stated in Galatians 5:22.
We shared God’s Word through songs. Christine led our singing with some of her favorites. She shared some background of the songs. Robin accompanied Do You Know My Jesus with her guitar. She can use more practice (says she, lol). The songs are posted for you. Christine’s Songs
We closed our evening with Psalms 100.
Psalm 100
1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Next Week: Our Identity in Christ: Our Redemption. Join us.
Batt Cave update: Plant material keeps piling up on our curb. No collection day in sight. Rick is reworking his bromeliad placement, and has set up a new area in the front yard.
We added a new dendrobium orchid to our collection. It is in full bloom.
Once again, we gathered in the Batt Cave family room for our Bible Fellowship. Even though it is officially fall, and the days are getting shorter, the Batt Cave is full of sunshine. Irma trimmed our trees and exposed more of our yard to light. Our average temperatures are still in the low 90’s, which means, we have hot days and hot Bible on Thursday evenings.
New Growth on a plumaria tree, three weeks after hurricane Irma.
What came to light, in our sharing of sanctification notes, is that we are set apart by God from non-believers by being and conducting ourselves as saints.
Set apart by God – hagios – G40, as stated in Ephesians 1:4; Romans 12:1
Become holy – hagiosune – G42, from Romans 1:4; and 1 Thes 3:13
Behave as saints – hagiasmos G38, see Romans 6:19; 1 Thes 4:7; 1 Corinthians 1:30
As God’s chosen ones, his saints, we are separated from the world by our believing, the Christ in you, holy spirit. Our job, as a saint, is to bring light to others so that they may make a free will choice to believe. We may not always be loved by those who live in the physical world, in fact they may hate us. We have jobs to do as sons and daughters of God. What sets us apart? We believe and act on the Word of God. We stay thankful. We nurture our spiritual walk.
Join us next week for a meal, song, and time in the Word. Bless you.
On Thursday, Sept 21, we prayed for our fellow Floridians who were still without power and for all the workers who were working 16+ hour days to bring power and order back to us. As always, by God’s grace we have peace in our lives, even when the physical world is not very peaceful.
We brought together our notes and experiences and shared on our Identity in Christ – Justification. Justification – God’s legal decision to acquit man of guilt and sin and declare man accepted of Him. We did nothing to deserve God granting us justification. We can’t pray, work, grovel, pay, or beg for justification. God granted it to us by His grace. This sharing has three sections. First, How we received justification. Titus 3:7 reminds us that God justified us by his grace.
Titus 3:7
That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
The second section focused on How the adversary tries to trick us about our justification. Paul’s First letter to the Corinthians, reminds us of three ways the adversary (the devil) hides behind masks to get us to question our justification.
I Corinthians 4:3
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.
The third section was about How we claim our justification and live justified. We spent the rest of our discussion in Romans 8 seeing how we can claim and live justified. We revisited Rick’s teaching on Romans Eight. We are not victims, like the adversary wants us to believe, we are more than conquerors as it says in Romans 8:37,
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Next week 9-28 , we are looking at our Sanctification, and the week after, 10-5, we are breaking bread together in an evening of food, music and the Word. Why don’t you join us?
We have set up a separate page where all our combined notes from the Identity in Christ weekend are filed. Click here.
Our pre-Irma plan was to have brothers and sisters in Christ over for fellowship. We are working at our Identity in Christ – Justification. We postponed this conversation until the following Thursday, September 21. Check out that Blog post for more.
On the 14, only one of the three households attending had electrical power. Our lights flickered and then came on about 3:00 pm, 4 days and 1 hour after loosing power on Sunday the 10th. Everything started up and ran. Our inside temperatures had risen to 85 degrees and about 71 % humidity. Normal for us inside is 77 degrees and humidity below 55%. I had been lying on the tile floor with a small hand fan blowing a slight breeze to keep me cooler when the power returned. We also were able to have warm showers, which helped after being outside cleaning up brush and debris all day. Before fellowship, and after the return of electricity, I baked a mango and blueberry cobbler.
This Thursday we decided to bar-b-que, as our freezer contents were thawing. Tonight was burgers, dogs and brats, with buns, and condiments, and adult beverages. Yesterday it was lamb, pork, shrimp and brats. Tomorrow it would be meatloaf. We pared them with mangos, veggies and adult beverages. We grilled, swam in the pool and enjoyed fellowship and my first believers meeting in a pool. As always, manifestations were incredible.
After eating outside poolside, we returned to our home across the street. Instead of a teaching we divided into two groups. One, that discussed Genesis, always interesting. The other group tuned up my guitar and my baritone ukelele and sang. A first in this home! We sang two original tunes using the words from Psalm 19: 1-6, and a second using verses 7-11. Ashford had a tune to go with Psalm 136. He would sing the first phrase of the verse (all 26 of them) and we would respond with “…for his mercy endureth for ever.” (Psalm 136:1) We also worked a song Christine had written some time ago on Receive, Retain and Release. Thank you to Ashford for using the Keys of G and C. Thanks to Christine for her sweet harmonizing. I remembered those chords. Music is one of my favorite ways to memorize scripture, sing praises to God, and harmonize with other voices. Good metaphor for Christian living.
We finished up the evening with mango cobbler. It is a variation on my toaster oven Bisquick™ peach cobbler recipe I have used since my sailboat living days. Recipe follows. By the time of this posting, all of the members of our Bible Fellowship have electrical power. We had dunamis all along!
PEACH COBBLER
Modified and Re-Printed from COOKS.COM
8 lg, fresh, ripe peaches (about 4 cups fruit) 1 c. Bisquick 3/4 c. sugar 1 egg 2/3 stick butter
To the dry ingredients I add cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in various amounts.
Slice ripe peaches into 9 x 13 baking dish. Mix Bisquick and sugar together with a fork and drop small egg into the middle of mixture. Mix sugar and Bisquick mixture into egg (with fork) until crumbly. Slice 2/3 stick butter very thin and spread over top. Bake at 350 degrees until brown and crispy. About 20-25 minutes. My oven using a glass baking dish takes 30 minutes. I mix and match fruit to fill the bottom of the pan.
Psalm 19: First Song
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
Psalm 19: Second Song
7 The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.8 The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.13 Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.
It is Saturday morning in Southwest Florida. Not one of our regular Saturdays when we are up with Yoga, market strolling and then a leisurely lunch at one of our favorite spots. We are prepared, preparing for a little extra wind and rain from Miss Irma. She has been lingering in the Caribbean for sometime now, and we believe is now moving our way. Our God is powerful and mighty. See Psalm 91.
Our bible fellowship met this last Thursday and began our digging deeper into our weekend event, Our Identity in Christ. Our identity in Christ begins with our believing God’s Word, His promises and knowing we are a part of the body of Christ. The introduction to the major teachings is what we have to share with you today. We identify with Christ – the redeemer, the glorified and resurrected one. By His works, we are Justified, Righteous, Redeemed, Sanctified, and have the Ministry of Reconciliation.
Our Identity in Christ September 2 & 3, Cocoa, Florida.
WOW! We had the most Word filled weekend event. There were around 250 people from at least 18 states. We saw old and met new brothers and sisters in Christ, from a variety of places including: Hawaii, New York, Colorado, and Montana. Everything about the weekend was well planned, well executed and well received. This included Word filled teachings and original music. There was an incredible evening of music-filled entertainment.
The main teachings were about our rights as sons and daughters of God. They include and are not limited to: Justification, Sanctification, Redemption, Righteousness, and the Ministry of Reconciliation. Each one was taught by a dynamic minister. There were also break out sessions. These were on: Ministering Healing, Traveling Light, and Freedom in Christ.
We listened with intent to each teaching, took copious notes, and marked passages in our bibles for further research. We wrote questions to be explored later. We gave and received hugs from fellow believers, sometimes more than once.
In the coming weeks, our Blog will cover these teachings and break out sessions. Look for this Friday’s Blog on more of what we learned this past weekend. The these verse for this event was Romans 6:4.
Rick shared his teaching called Trusting in God. He reviewed two Hebrew words for trust – batach and chasah. Batach is trust – lean on, to trust, to be confident, and is used with that meaning in Proverbs 3:5. Chasah is also trust – where you take refuge, flee for protection, confide in, trust, an are confident as in Psalm 34:8. He said that when we trust in God we can claim His promises. Rick presented five.
To supply all our needs, (II Corinthians 3:4-5)
Protection so we can live without fear, (Psalm 56:3-4, 11)
Guidance in our personal walk and service, (Psalm 119:105)
Peace in our lives, (Isaiah 26:3)
In our prayer lives, (Psalm 55:17, 22)
In his teaching, he presented more verses to illustrate how we can trust in God and claim His promises. Download it from our website. Visit our page on Preaching, Teaching and Healing for more Word. We had several fellow believers around the table with us last night. Here is a snapshot of us as we preach, teach and heal.
We are headed out to a weekend of Christian Fellowship. More about it next week. Let me close with Psalm 103: 1-5 – Bless the Lord…
Last night, our bible fellowship started with a meal. We had, mahi mahi, conch, roasted vegetables and quinoa salad. Yum. Our appetites satiated, we dove into the Word, filling our spiritual appetites.
Christine taught on the topic, Trusting in the Lord. She had recently read Hebrews in the Message Bible and it gave her more understanding on how to trust and rest in the Lord. She presented a detailed examination of Proverbs 3:5 and 6. She shared about Hezekiah who trusted in the Lord. From the Word, she showed us several example of what we have when we trust in the Lord. Our conversation reminded Rick about his research and found he has 13 teachings on Trust. So, next week he is sharing on the word trust in the Hebrew. There are two main ones, batach and chasah.
What I’m loving in our fellowship at the table, is sitting with our bibles and concordances and digging into the word. A real 2 Timothy 2:15 moment. We like being self-governing, and self- supporting. Come, join us next week.
Welcome to our fellowship. Tonight we had our first virtual attendee. We set up Face Time, put the iPad on a tripod and scooted our sister in Christ right up to the table. Sometimes, we love technology. Once again we gathered around our table for the Word. Rick shared on our ministry of reconciliation. Reconcile is about change.
We spent a lot of time in II Corinthians 5, and Romans 5. Rick explained the three Greek words translated “reconcile” both verb and noun usages. We examined the scriptures where this word is used. He clarified, I Corinthians 3:9 – For we are labourers together
Batt and Robin 