trimercy

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him

Matthew 7:11 NIV

Our God is not a ceremonial God that can be so empty, repetitious, and a form that denies the power of Him and what He has done. He is a celebratory God and He ordained feasts to celebrate His everlasting covenant with creation and those who have chosen Him.

In our day we call them Holidays to commemorate and celebrate victories and historical events in our various nations’ histories. They are there for one generation to acknowledge what God has done and what those who came before us accomplished. 

Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, for us in the U.S., are two of the most important celebrations. In them, the first and fifth commandments in our relational behavior are declared. The first four have to do with our relationship to God and the next six are to one another. The first of these is the command to honor your Father and Mother and it is the first and only commandment with promise. The promise of God’s favor on the children’s lives, “so that their days are prolonged on  the land which the Lord thy God has given you.”

First, we have the destruction of the family institution that was and is created by God. When He created them male and female and gave the marriage covenant to bring forth offspring, their children, it was good — out of His goodness. The first attribute that is testified of God is that HE IS GOOD. Everything He created was amended by His  goodness. It is this promise to children that the evil one hates, and his evil purpose is to target the innocence of children to destroy the family. No greater evidence is the genocide in the birth of Moses and of Jesus. In our lifetime it is the legalizing of abortion.

History shows that in the changing and overthrowing of governments, a ruler’s whole family was annihilated. Honor brings favor and promise to those children who, even when a Father is not honorable, God and His authority and sovereignty remain. He contrasts the difference between earthly fathers and the Heavenly Father. If you fathers, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more your Father, wills to do more than you can think or ask, so much more. He is not saying fatherhood or motherhood is evil, but He is drawing a comparison that, in terms of His goodness, the heavenly Father’s goodness is so far above It can never be measured nor be compared between the two. It will always be seen in this light. As Jesus responded when He was called good,

And He said to him,Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

Matthew 19:17 NIV

The rejection of the fifth commandment is based on earthly fathers’ evil disobedience and not acknowledging the authority and goodness in God the Father. We as fathers need to see our place to be like Him. Otherwise, we rob our children of the promise of God to them. It is a huge stumbling block placed before them as children to overcome in their lifetime.  “Forgive me my Father,” I would say. Fatherly offenses far outweigh and are more prevalent than motherly ones. Unforgiveness, seeded in them as children, is the devil’s scheme to keep them from receiving the Heavenly Father, sending the Son to be their Savior and Lord. Everyone in the family unit is to keep this commandment and celebrate fatherhood, which was the priority of Jesus. When He taught us to pray, He first brought honor to the Father,

“This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Matthew 6:9-10 NIV

I pray that we will as fathers, seek to fulfill the last two prophetic verses in Malachi,

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

Malachi 4:5-6 NIV

The hearts of the father and children are restored so that the children and the land are preserved. Honor and happiness to all fathers on this: an important day set aside for celebration.

Hallelujah! -KC

Your thoughts are not My thoughts and your ways are not My ways, saith the Lord.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.“

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭55‬:‭8‬-‭9‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means Place of a Skull, they gave Him wine mixed with bile to drink; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink it.

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭27‬:‭33‬-‭34‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

In 1974, Betsy and I were blessed to go to Israel for the 2000-year celebration of the Feast of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. We had the privilege of eating a meal with Hogn Vanderboven, the keeper of the garden tomb, nephew of Corrie Ten Boom. I remember going into the tomb and while we were coming out you could see Golgotha, the place of the skull.

Many scholars believe that after David killed Goliath he paraded Goliath’s head throughout Israel and brought it to Jerusalem and placed it there. The name of Goliath of Gath is a name derived from the two words “Gola Gatha.” One can say fairly confidently that David took the head of Goliath (the head of the serpent) and after displaying it on the highest hill in Jerusalem for all to see, buried it in a place called Golgotha. It is still known today as “the place of the skull.” Seeing the rock formation with two hollow eyes — resembling eye sockets in the skull of man.

This so illustrates to us how, in juxtaposition, man’s thoughts and man’s ways are not our Lord’s thoughts and our Lord’s ways. This was the fall of man, who was deceived and disobeyed by thinking there was a better way. The lies of the evil one mixed with Adam and Eve’s choice to believe the Satanic discord caused the mind of man to fall from the fellowship and ability to know God. His soul died, separating himself from God. No longer to be a living soul, bringing death, and the Adamic, inspired by the Satanic, mindset of man. Humanity was lost.

When I looked upon the hill, I saw so clearly the cross as a sword thrust into the place of the skull. Our thoughts are eternally opposed to His thoughts and so are our ways. As Isaiah said, they are so much higher as the heavens are higher than the earth. Only the cross of the Son of God, God’s lamb could take away our sin and redeem us to become the children of God. Jesus redeemed us from the curse.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as one would in referring to many, but rather as in referring to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.

‭‭Galatians‬ ‭3‬:‭13‬-‭14‬, ‭16‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2‬:‭5‬-‭11‬ ‭NKJV

Jesus, lover of my soul. He Is Lord.

1 What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Refrain: O precious is the flow
that makes me white as snow;
no other fount I know;
nothing but the blood of Jesus.

2 For my pardon this I see:
nothing but the blood of Jesus.
For my cleansing this my plea:
nothing but the blood of Jesus. [Refrain]

3 Nothing can for sin atone:
nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Naught of good that I have done:
nothing but the blood of Jesus. [Refrain]

4 This is all my hope and peace:
nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my righteousness:
nothing but the blood of Jesus. [Refrain]

”And they sang a new song [of glorious redemption], saying, “Worthy and deserving are You to take the scroll and to break its seals; for You were slain (sacrificed), and with Your blood You purchased people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom [of royal subjects] and priests to our God; and they will reign on the earth.”“ ‭‭Revelation‬ ‭5‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭AMP‬‬

Worthy Worthy is the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world and cleanses me from all unrighteousness for His Name Sake.

Hallelujah! Good Passover to all!

*Art: Psalm 124 by Kari Langford.