Epiphany on Three Kings’ Day

Featured

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Spiritual

Tags

anarchy, Christianity, Christians, churchgoers, Congress, democratic process, epiphany, incite, law enforcement agencies, looters, mayhem, police, politicians, President Trump, religious leaders, representatives, rioters, senators, vandals, Vice President

For this reason I, Paul, am a prisoner of Messiah Yeshua for the sake of you Gentiles. Surely you have heard about the plan of [YeHoVaH’s] grace given to me for you— that the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote before briefly. When you read this, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Messiah—which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed by the Ruach to His holy emissaries and prophets. This mystery is that the Gentiles are joint heirs and fellow members of the same body and co-sharers of the promise in Messiah Yeshua through the Good News. – Ephesians 3:1-6, TLV

YeHoVaH certainly moves in mysterious ways. Case in point, on Epiphany – a man-made holiday on which many Christians celebrate Yeshua’s physical manifestation to Gentiles (the Magi) – YeHoVaH allowed just a few of America’s many Trump enablers to experience a personal epiphany about how mentally unfit the leader of the free world is.

It took the failed insurrection on January 6, 2021, which Trump incited, before some United States senators, representatives, and the Vice President (Magi, of sorts) had a sudden and striking realization that theirs and Trump’s lies, conspiracy theories, and hateful rhetoric had motivated a pro-Trump mob – thugs, rioters – to breach Capitol security. After the smoke had settled, five Americans were dead. Their blood is on the hands of the following Republican Senators: Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Cynthia Lummis, Rick Scott (Florida), Roger Marshall, and Tommy Tuberville. These disgraceful seven Republican senators, and over a hundred dishonorable Republican representatives, carried through with objecting to the electors AFTER witnessing firsthand the pro-Trump mob’s anarchy.

The second day in America that will live in infamy – January 6, 2021 – also is a day that exposed just how fake many American Christians are, especially the ones who support Trump. Indeed, Muslim nations not only are laughing at our democratic process but also are laughing at the mayhem American Christians created.

There is nothing Yeshua-like in a President who cannot accept defeat and who still is unwilling to officially concede the 2020 election. There is nothing Yeshua-like in a President who spent months stoking the anger of his supporters with lies about the Democrats stealing the 2020 election. There is nothing Yeshua-like in confessed believers storming, rioting, vandalizing, and looting the Capitol Building. There is nothing Yeshua-like in elected Christian congressional officials who not only refuse to ask the President to repent, after making so many false claims, but also reiterate the same false claims, while they, too, refuse to repent.

The epiphany so many Christian Americans – politicians, religious leaders, police, churchgoers, and so forth – should have experienced, either on January 6^th or the day after, is that President Trump is not mentally sound. Without a doubt, YeHoVaH also has shown Americans how rotten our government and our Christianity are – rottenness that is in President Trump and runs throughout the United States Congress, law enforcement agencies, and Christian churches. A word to the wise should be sufficient.

Mini Sermons: Preach, Sister, Preach!

01 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Spiritual

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Barley Bride of Christ, Bride of Christ, churchgoers, devil, Divine Truth, evangelize, Feast of Trumpets, firstfruits, flesh, God's Truth, hard-hitting truth, inconvenient truth, mini sermons, overcomers, preach, Sanctification Process, spiritual maturity, The Rapture, uncomfortable truth, victorious, world

so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple.

You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant. ~ 2 Timothy 4:2-5, MSG

The above four illustrated uncomfortable truths (a.k.a., inconvenient truths, or hard-hitting truths, and so forth) are rarely preached these days. Most churchgoers believe they are Christ’s Wheat—meaning, they believe that the end-time Bride of Christ or Body of Christ is symbolized as the Wheat Harvest. Nothing can be further from Father God’s Divine Truth.

Christ’s Bride is vividly described in the Holy Bible as Overcomers, and ONLY the Overcomers will be the fully sanctified Bride of Christ who is made spotless and free of any blemishes. This Bride of Christ always is symbolized in the Word of God as the Barley Harvest’s firstfruits. Selah . . . . .

The Dragnet

25 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Devotional

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

"church" folk, bad fish, churchgoers, day of reckoning, dragnet, false “church” members, false preachers, False Teachers, good "catch", good fish, Great Commission, hard to swallow truths, moral lesson, parable, pretend believers, separtion, sobering truth, true believers, uncomfortable truth

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. ~ Matthew 13:47-48, ESV

The Dragnet parable definitely is a picture of the Work of Christ and His Disciples, who invite people to enter God’s Kingdom through faith in the Gospel of Christ—the dragnet. The Lord’s main point in this parable is that the Great Commission eventually reaches many people who say they are His, but the hard-hitting truth is that myriads of them do not belong to Him. Put differently, just like the dragnet catches all kinds of fish—regardless of their usefulness—Christ’s Gospel draws all kinds of people, including the multitudes who never repent and/or never follow Christ.

The above spiritual truth and Divine Truth are why in The Dragnet parable Christ warns us about the false teachers, false preachers, and false church members who masquerade as Christians. He also teaches us that—just like the caught fish cannot be sorted until the fishermen pull their net ashore—all of the pretend Christians are not known until the end of the Age of Grace. The Lord communicates these hard to swallow truths through the bad fish in the net symbolism. This parable’s bad fish in the net symbolize the seeds of God’s enemy that are planted in the net to disrupt and discredit God’s Kingdom—much like the tares planted in the field of wheat in Christ’s Wheat and Tares parable. Then too—like in The Wheat and Tares parable—this Dragnet parable refers to the end of the Age separation of righteous Christians and unrighteous pretenders.

Once the separations are completed, both the bad fish and the tares are judged and then thrown into the Lake of Fire. Moreover, like the wheat, the good fish enter the Millennial Kingdom as mortal believers in unglorified bodies—the people who repopulate the Earth.

The Lord’s moral lesson in His Dragnet parable is this: There is a day of reckoning coming—the day when the Lord separates true believers from pretend unbelievers. Christ also teaches us that being caught in the net in no way means that every fish is a good catch. These Divine Truths are why we need to realize that people’s weekly church attendance and weekly participation in church activities are not signs of authentic Christianity. The sobering truth is that there are way more bad fish than we know who attend church services and participate in church activities, while the born again, saved, blood-bought and Holy Spirit-filled believers are fewer.

A word to the wise should be sufficient. Shalom.

Keep it real…Live it out…Watch it work!

~ from my manuscript – Keeping It Real: Daily Renewing the Mind

It’s ALL About Kingdom of God Living

06 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Spiritual

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

accredit honor, blind Kingdom killers, character, church attenders, churchgoers, churchy-ology, countless perfections, display, diverse holiness, glorify God, glory, God's Glory, Holy Spirit, Kingdom of God, Kingdom of God living, magnify, manifest, nature, praise, purpose, refelct, Theology, Theos, worship

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ~ Matthew 6:31-33, ESV

“Church” attenders have become so good at manipulating their learned churchy-ology (so good at playing “church”) and so good at regurgitating their pastors and/or ministers’ theology—a theology that often is minus the Theos (God; the Creator)—that these churchgoers completely have missed or are missing their purpose for living. “Church” attenders were not created just to become believers in Christ Jesus, and they were not created just so they can get into Heaven. They also were not created just to preach the Gospel—to evangelize and disciple the whole world.

First and foremost, God has created human beings for His Glory (see Isaiah 43:7; 1 Peter 4:11). His Glory is the beauty and excellence of His diverse holiness or countless perfections. His Glory also is the revelation and manifestation of His Character or all that He has and all that He is.

Put differently, God has created every human being for one purpose—to glorify Him. The problem is that so many believers are running around—like chickens with their heads cut off—“trying” to figure out what their purpose is for living, when the Word of God makes it clear that humanity was created to display or manifest—to reflect—God’s Character (His Glory), and to do so 24/7 – 365 days of the year.

Once again, we all have been created for one purpose—for God’s Glory; to glorify God. Now glorify means: to magnify, praise and worship God; to accredit honor to God; and to acknowledge Him (His total being, attributes/characteristics, and deeds). Therefore, for us to glorify God, we must desire what He desires for us.

Scriptures tell us that God desires that we accept and confess His Son as our Lord and Savior, that we fully love Him (the Father) with the God-kind of love He has put inside us; that we absolutely love Him with our whole being; that we totally obey Him, and that we are utterly faithful to Him, as demonstrated by our God-kind of faith in Him. We also glorify God when we genuinely praise Him and truly worship Him in Spirit and in Truth (His Word is that Truth), when we publicly acknowledge His Glory and value His Glory above the glory of all created things/beings, and when we openly make His Glory known to others—make God recognizable to others; show others what God is like. Lastly, we glorify God when we bring Him honor (please Him) through everything we say, do and think.

The only way we can fulfill this purpose—the glorifying God purpose—is through the aid of God’s Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not in us just to take up space (to live/dwell in us). He is in us to fill us with everything God’s Grace has made available to us so that we who are in Christ Jesus can glorify God just like our Lord glorified His Father. It is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to take those of us (we believers) who are born again, saved, and filled with Him into the Kingdom of God where He (the Holy Spirit) disciples (teaches/trains) ALL of us on Kingdom of God living—teaches us everything we need to know about the knowledge of God so that our individual “new life/new creation” keeps glorifying God until His Kingdom in all of us is brought to its fullness.

We never were created just so that we can live comfortable lives—have comfortable jobs, comfortable paychecks (or comfortable bank accounts/savings), comfortable homes, comfortable friends, and/or comfortable churches or ministries. If we are born again, saved, and filled with the Holy Spirit, we will know that it no longer is about us living our own lives the way we want, because our lives now belong to Christ Jesus. We no longer can live as we please, because Christ Jesus has committed our lives to Kingdom of God living. In the Kingdom of God, only Christ Jesus is Lord—not our pastors, bishops, elders, and so forth; not our earthly parents; not our godly family members and godly friends, not our positions and titles, not our money, not even we ourselves.

The Kingdom of God’s King of kings and Lord of lords has commanded us to live our lives in the Kingdom of God for the Glory of God. If we have not surrendered or are not surrendering our lives to Christ Jesus’ Lordship and Kingdom of God living, then we have been blinded by the blind Kingdom killers—our learned churchy-ology and accepted theology that is minus the Theos.

Selah (calmly pause and think about that) . . . . A word to the wise should be sufficient.