Acts 13:46 “Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, "It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.”

On television this past several weeks, this one commercial runs. A man shown from the upper chest up is calling someone on his phone. The man is your average white male of thirty-ish years of age, however he has black stripes on his body. In the background, you can see his room, covered in baseball and football paraphernalia. The man on the phone says, “I know what you said last time, but this time I am calling on my new digital phone.” An obviously oriental voice is heard (presumable from the phone) to respond, “Sorry, Roger. Tattoos are permanent. You Tiger now.”

Actions have consequences. All actions, good or bad, have their repercussions. Just because we change something in our life, do something to try and cancel our previous actions, or make another choice, it does not effect the consequence of our prior choice.

We chose to go to college, thus we choose a college, and then we have to go there. If we do not like it, we can transfer to another college. We can choose to study or not to study. If we study, we tend to do better on tests. If we don't study we do worse, and our GPA goes down. If we really need to pass one test, or write a really good paper, we can study and research, or we can cheat. If we cheat and the teacher notices, we get a zero, and it goes on our scholastic record. If we are freshmen at the time, then it goes all the way to graduation with us. Our employers who look at our school records will know that we cheated - that we lied - on a test. Just because we never cheat on another test does not change the fact that we cheated on one.

When we come to the cross, our sins are expunged. We are forgiven our actions and misdeeds. What we frequently do not realize is that the consequences and the aftermath of our deeds still remain. For some of our choices, we do not notice the effects. We date a certain girl, we study (not as hard as we should) and get decent grades. We help an old lady across the street and feel good about it. We get pulled over for speeding and get a ticket or a warning. These have no effect on our future lives. Some of our actions do, however. We have a good or bad reputation with our teachers, teachers who will be references for us. We get drunk one night, and run over someone, and thus we get a prison sentence for accidental death. That prison record goes everywhere with us. Our actions have consequences. Just because Jesus' death on the cross expunged our sin from His record, we are still in jail for accidental death, we still have upset teachers or supervisors, we still have our names in the paper, etc.

Walking the Christ-road requires us to change ourselves. We still have our prior life of Christlessness behind us, the reputation we got there dogging our every step, but now we have Jesus' way to live. We now have to walk by faith and be known as Christians by what we do. We have to make our faith and our works be the same! Faith without works is dead and yet we are saved by faith alone. We can do nothing to earn Christ's love. He has already given it to us. Once we commit ourselves, we have to live so that people will know us without us even opening our mouths.

Let us walk the Christ-road, despite our actions, despite our lies, despite our love, despite our previous reputation. Walk the road with vigor and strength, walk, or even run that the world will see Christ through us. The world can see the change in our life, even when we can not.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you,
Richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another
In psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs,
Singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord
And whatever you do, in word or in work
Do all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Do all in the name of our Lord.

Mark 8:37 “For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

What is a soul? Is it the heart? Is it the brain? Is it that thing that makes a person special? Could it be our connection to the spiritual realm? What is a soul? How can it be measured? Augustine said that the soul was “a special substance, endowed with reason, adapted to rule the body." Yet the Miriam-Webster dictionary states that a soul is “ the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life”. The Oxford dictionary claims that the soul is “the spiritual element of a person, regarded as immortal.” Wictionary defies the soul as “The spirit or essence of a person usually thought to consist of ones's thoughts and personality. Often believed to live on after the person's death.”

If the dictionaries of the world do not know how to define or determine what a soul is, then how are we able to do so? All we know is that the soul is important, but how important is it?

Leviticus 17:11 tells us about sacrifice for the soul, while Deuteronomy 4:9 reminds us to maintain and keep our souls pure, to tell of God's mighty works. Joshua 22:5 gives us an idea of what God wants from us. Job talks about the salvation of the soul, while Ecclesiastes reminds us that the soul can desire sinful things. Hebrews 6:19 speaks of a hope for the soul.

What we do know about a soul is this: It does not belong to us. We have given the loan of our soul, a lease so to speak. Christ came to redeem our souls. He came so that we might have life. Most people think of their soul as their own personal belonging. Yet here we see that this is not true! Jesus asks what a man can give to get his soul back. If a man can forfeit his soul by his actions, he can not get it back. Think of it this way. Our souls are in a spiritual pawnshop. Christ purchased our souls from the stealer of souls, from the deceiver, from the one who purchased this world and everything sinful in it from Adam and Eve. Christ has redeemed our soul and holds it in trust for us.

We do not sell our soul because we do not own our soul. What can a man give (or with what currency can he purchase) to get his soul? We have nothing valuable enough to trade in so we can ransom our soul. Let us remember that the world owned our soul, and then Christ purchased it back. We are bought by Christ, no matter what definition we use for soul, we owe everything to Him. Let us be able to say in accordance with 1 Thessalonians 5:23 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The royal banners forward go; The cross shines forth in mystic glow;
Where he in flesh, our flesh who made, Our sentence bore, our ransom paid:
Where deep for us the spear was dyed, life's torrent rushing from his side,
to wash us in that precious flood,where mingled water flowed, and blood.

John 14:6 “ Jesus said to him, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through me.'”

One sentence, two statements, three claims, and four matters of fact, and twelve astonished disciples. In this one sentence, Christ drew the line for all humanity. This is where He stands, and to what we need to react to.

Jesus stated two things: one statement was that was He was the way, the truth, and the life; the other was He was the only way to get to God the Father. These two statements would alienate him from all of humanity then, and now.

For Christ to claim that He was “The Way” was for Him to say that what He taught and spoke of was how everyone should be, no matter what their station in life. To be “The Way” was for him to claim direct access to God and He was to be our intercessor. It is a claim stating that there is no other method to get to heaven.

“The Truth” meant that He was the ultimate “fact.” The word used here for “truth” was “aletheia” which objectively means “the reality lying at the basis of an appearance; the manifested, veritable essence of a matter” and subjectively means “that candour of mind which is free from affection, pretence, simulation, falsehood, deceit.” Jesus claimed to be the ultimate reality, the constant in our world that never changes no matter what point of view that we choose to use. Thus, it doesnt matter what we believe to be true, or what we think is true. The only thing that matters is that He is True, because everything else is false when compared to Him (unless it comes from Him).

“The Life” refers to the peace that He gives, the patience in all situations, the love that passes understanding that He bestows on us. The Life refers to Him and how He lived, what we should emulate and base our understanding of God and ourselves off of. His Way is Truth. His Truth brings Life. His Life is eternal. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He does not change, and He loves us all. He tells us that we must believe and rely on Him. He is our intercessor to God, our complete reality, and our Goal.

Christ laid it down for us. The only way to meet the Father, the Creator, and our God is through Him. Through His death, we can live a Life of Truth following His Way. The disciples did not understand this yet. Christ spoke of the future to them. He spoke beyond their heads, but they could grasp the very basis of what He taught, they understood it well enough that Peter could tell Christ “You are the very Son of God”

As a friend wrote to me in a letter, “It's one thing to know about God, it's another thing to 'know' Him personally and intimately. Its like a secret hand shake, only those who know God get in the door to heaven.” We know God because we know His Son.

Do we realize that Jesus is our way to know God? Our Truth to deliver us from the bondage and guilt of sins past? Our Life lived abundantly in worship and praise to Him by the virtue of our rebirth by His blood and the blessings He bestows on us daily?

Lord, I love You, I pursue You;
No person, object in this life can e'er match You.
Lord, I love You, I run after You;
You are my life, my aim, my goal and future too.
Lord, who have I in heaven but You;
There's none on earth I desire but You;
I give my heart, Lord, now to You;
Lord make me a drink offering here to satisfy You.

Hosea 9:1 “Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations! For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God. You have loved harlots' earnings on every threshing floor.”

A young man stood in the foyer of a jewelry store, looking at all the various and sundry rings, necklaces, and watches in the shop. The jeweler came out from behind the counter to aid the young man in his search.
“What can I do for you?”
“Nothing right now sir. I am just looking for a gift for someone special”
“What is the celebration?”
“Well, I am up for a pay raise at work”
“Is that all son?”
“Well for now. But I hope to get more later on too”
“Son, why don't you just forget about buying something right now, wait until you have the money in your pocket before you get something.”

Israel was starting to celebrate because they were starting to see relief from their problems, and yet the Lord warns them that they are not going to last long with this relief. While the neighbor, Assyria, is in the height of prosperity, Israel is about to suffer even more. They had left God. Oh sure, they gave lip service to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They still wore their hair the right way, and said The Shema daily. The sacrifices still went up and people still went to the temple.

The problem was that Israel had started acting more like their neighbors. God became a duty, not a desire. They wanted to do things the way Assyria did things, the way the Babylonians did things, and the way their friends did things. They wanted to watch the same TV shows that their neighbors did, drive the same car, wear the same clothes, eat the same things, and discuss the same topics at the water cooler. Israel no longer understood that they were to be a people set apart for God.

God equated this with spiritual harlotry, and His people, who were to be called by His name needed to be purified and brought back to Him. They were unable to avoid the consequence of deistic prostitution. Israel needed to return to God and needed to understand where their help came from.

We frequently do the same thing. We make other things the focus of our lives. We become more involved with studies, with relationships, with work, with TV, with family, and with friends than we are with God. God wants to be in everything we do, not just our first priority or duty, or 2nd or even 3rd. He wants to be everything, 1 through infinity in priority in our lives.

Where are we in our walk with God? Is it a duty? Is it a desire? Do we have other things we do that we don't even think about including God in? Have we desired other things besides God? If so, let us heed the words in Hosea 14:1 “Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, For you have stumbled because of your iniquity.”

I have ceased from my wandering and going astray,
Since Jesus came into my heart!
And my sins, which were many, are all washed away,
Since Jesus came into my heart!

Mark 6:8-9 “And He instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff – no bread, no bag, no money in their belt – ⁹but to wear sandals; and He added, ‘Do not put on two tunics.’”

I have an acquaintance, lets call him Jason. Jason is a wonderful man of God, wholly dedicated to our Lord. From what I know of Jason, he has no job save proclaiming Christ to whomever he can. He is called to stand for God in whatever capacity he can. This means that he preaches on street corners, he chats and discusses and prays on the internet chat sites, he is part of many chat cells and various group sites where he functions as a leader, a confident, a friend, and Christ’s witness. He has brought many to a saving knowledge of Christ, yet he cares not for his own well-being. Last week, he emailed me to remind me to thank God and to encourage me in understanding God’s providence.

Jason had no food and had not eaten in several days. He had no money in the house to pay for food. His brother called, also a Christian and told Jason that God had told him (the brother) to wire Jason some money. Jason’s brother sent $100, enough for Jason to meet all his needs for that week. Jason had made no mention of his predicament, he never spoke about his situation until he emailed me.

He reminded me that God provides for us to meet our needs. God does this in many ways, not just generous gifts from people, but through thoughts, cares, and prayers as well as through providing us with a means to attain what we need in some other way.

I needed a vehicle capable of transporting my worldly goods from Texas to whatever place my not-yet-attained job would send me. I was fully prepared to have to sell my little car and take out a loan to make a down payment on a pickup truck. A couple from another church heard about my need of vehicle and gave me their old van because they were unable to drive much and did not need three vehicles. God provided a vehicle for me.

I needed a place to stay while looking for a job. My parents were on home-assignment, and I could stay with them. When they left to return to the mission field, I was able to reside with my grandparents. God provided a place to stay.

I needed a job, my reserve funds were starting to run perilously low, and it seemed that no matter where I applied I could not get a job. God provided a job for me just this past week.

Christ sent His disciples out with nothing more than the clothes on their back. He sent them out to preach His name. He sent them out with nothing because God would provide for them. Their service to him was enough. If they took anything with them, it would merely distract them from Him. They would worry about the things necessary to life. Here, the disciples are forced to rely on God to provide, and thus they were to be freed from hindrance.

God provides, not always spectacularly like with Jason during this past week. Sometimes, His provision is the most normal thing that could happen in our life such as being able to stay with parents and relatives while searching for a job. Let us trust God to provide what is needed. Sometimes what we want may not be what we need. I thought I needed a truck to move my stuff, yet God gave me a van. I think I needed a van more than I needed a truck. Why? I do not know, but God does. Trust God, rely on God, and let Him prove Himself.

Lord, we adore thy bounteous hand,
And sing the solemn feast
Where sweet celestial dainties stand
For every willing guest.