My God! My God! Why Has Thou Forsaken Me?

Today is the quietest day of the church year....

.....The Bible contains not one but four accounts of Jesus' death. They agree on the essentials: Jesus died on a cross at a place called Golgotha, hung up between two other men with a sign above His head. "King of the Jews," it said. The charge was treason against the Empire. The method of execution was Roman. People were so sure He was not coming down that they divided up His clothes where He could see them. He was offered some sour wine before He died and then He died, just before sundown on the day before the sabbath.

.....Those are the bones of the story, which each gospel writer fills out in a different way. Matthew and Mark's accounts are almost identical, except for a few differences in phrasing. Their Jesus is a broken man, who is so injured in every way that He needs help carrying His cross and whose only word from the cross is a cry of abandonment at the end.

.....In Luke's gospel, Jesus has more to say. Luke adds a word of pardon from the cross—"Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing"—as well as a conversation between Jesus and the two men dying with Him that the other gospel writers do not mention. When Jesus dies, He does not ask where God has gone. Instead, He uses his last few breaths to commend His spirit to God. Luke's Jesus is as gentle and forgiving in death as he was all his life.

.....In John's gospel, however, Jesus is neither broken nor particularly gentle. He is brave, omniscient, and in charge all the way. John does not say anything about Simon of Cyrene carrying Jesus' cross for Him. Jesus is strong enough to do that for himself. Nor does John allow anyone to mock Jesus while He dies. Even on the cross, Jesus is in charge. He arranges for his mother's care, says He is thirsty (in order to fulfill the scriptures), and when He dies there is no question about where God is. God is on the cross, pronouncing that "It is finished."

.....While all four of these accounts report the same event, they are not easily harmonized. They are four alternative readings of that event, so different from one another and yet so faithfully told that the editors of the New Testament decided that none of them could be left out. By including all four, those early shapers of the gospel sent us a message between the lines: namely, that there is more than one way to view what happened on the cross, and all of them are right.

.....Even if they do not agree on everything—not even something as important as Jesus' last words—their very disagreement preserves the mystery of what happened on this day. There is no one definitive word. There is no one answer to the awful questions raised by this day—chief among which is why God allows the innocent to suffer. In the case of Jesus, we are asked to believe that God not only allowed the suffering but willed the tortured, humiliating death of the Beloved.

.....You have heard the same explanations I have heard. Before Jesus, sinful humanity was so deep in debt to God that no human being could pay it all. So God sent Jesus to die for our sins, erasing the debt once and for all. This is the most traditional view of the cross, but it does not answer the question of suffering. What kind of father demands the death of a son in order to pay off a debt to himself?

.....According to another view, it was God who died on the cross, putting an end to divine bookkeeping through the voluntary sacrifice of divine power. But if Jesus was God, then whom was he talking to in the garden and from the cross? He clearly believed that someone else had the power to remove the cup of suffering from Him, or at least to be with Him while He drank it down--but who, in both cases, declined to do so.

.....I don't pretend to understand any or all of it. Sometimes I think that the suffering of Jesus was not God's will at all. It was, instead, the will of those who were arrayed against Him—those whose patriotic values He had offended, whose sense of God He had betrayed. It was the will of ordinary people like you and me, who prefer dead messiahs to living ones, since living ones are so much harder to tame.

.....It seems entirely possible to me that God's will for Jesus was a long and fruitful life, brimming over with the divine justice and love He was born to embody. When the world opposed that justice, however—when the world reviled that love—God's will did not give Jesus a license to stop being Jesus. God's will supported Him to go on doing justice and loving mercy even in the face of deadly opposition. So in that sense, I suppose, it was God's will that Jesus suffer and die—since suffering and death turned out to be the unavoidable consequences of being who He was. It was God's will for Jesus to be fully who He was every day of his life—even if the fullness of that life shortened the length of it.

.....But if that was the case, then where was God at the end? According to at least two gospels. Jesus believed Himself forsaken by heaven as well as earth. Couldn't God have spared one angel there at the end? Couldn't God have whispered one comforting word in Jesus' ear, just to help Him get through the last few awful, parched hours? It happened at His baptism in the river Jordan. It happened on the Mount of the Transfiguration with Peter, James and John. "This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Where was that same voice at the end, when the Beloved was panting His last few breaths? What difference might a word have made?

.....But there was no word, except Jesus' own. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It was a quiet day for Him too—the quietest day of His whole life, when He asked for bread and got a stone. Whatever else it was, it was the death of hope—that God might intervene, might stop the suffering, might at least say a word that would make the suffering bearable. None of that happened. God was, for all practical purposes, gone—and yet Jesus died seeking God. He died talking to the Abba who would not talk back to Him, giving us the stripped down vision of faith that remains at the heart of our tradition.

.....When all of our own hopes have died, we still have this faith that seeks nothing for itself—not wisdom, not spiritual power, not rescue from suffering. "Success" is not in its vocabulary. This faith seeks nothing but God, to whom it is willing to surrender everything—up to and including its own cherished beliefs about who God is and how God should act. This faith is willing to sell all that it owns and bet the farm on one chance for union with God. If God plays hard to get, then this faith will never stop its wooing.

.....Purged of all illusion, weaned from everything that is not God, this relentless faith will devote itself to doing justice and loving mercy no matter what the consequences are, and if the consequences turn out to be a cross, then this faith will hang there for however long is necessary, asking God to be present, asking God to speak, regardless of whether or not God chooses to answer. This kind of faith, embodied by Jesus, is what makes Him the Christ—God's own Being of Light, God's own Anointed One—whose self-annihilating love for us and for all creation is never more vivid than it is on this day.

.....I actually know people who come to church on Good Friday and who don't come back on Easter. Easter is too pretty, they say. Easter is too cleaned-up. It is where they hope to live one day, in the land of milk and honey, but right now Good Friday is a better match for their souls, with its ruthless truth about the stench of death and the high price of love. It isn't that they don't care about what happens on Sunday. They do. They just don't believe that God is saving all the good news until then.

Today, on the quietest day of the year, we have come to sit in the presence of one who was the full embodiment of who God created Him to be every day of His life—who loved God with all His heart, and with all His soul, and with all His strength, and with all His mind—and who loved His friends so much that He stepped into the oncoming traffic of death in order to push them out of the way. He furthermore did it all with no more than the basic human equipment—a beating heart, two good hands, a holy vision, and some companions who could see it too—thereby showing the rest of us humans that such a life is not beyond our reach. Whatever else happens on Sunday, here is enough reason to call this Friday Good. Amen.

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7 Places Jesus Bled!

.....There are 7 places that Jesus bled from according to the Bible. We know that the number 7 represents completion, or Divine Perfection. Let's take a look at them, and God's perfect work today.

1. Luke 22: 42 - He sweat great drops of blood, in the Garden of Gethsemane. Taking on the pressures of Life in the world, and accepting God's will for His Life.

2. Mathew 27: 26 - He bled when He was scourged, whipped, and beaten, for our sickness and disease. See also Isaiah 53: 4-5

3. Mathew 27: 29 - He bled when they placed a crown of thorns upon Him, taking upon Himself our chastisement, and leaving us His peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding.

4. Mathew 27: 30 - He bled from His face being beaten till He was unrecognizable, so that we may have His countenance, and be recognized by God.

5. His hands at the Crucifixion, to reach us and others from the Cross.

6. His feet at the Crucifixion, so that we may walk free.

7. John 19: 34 - His side, blood and water, from a bursting heart, taking our broken heart, and giving us a pure heart.

.....All of this was done to reestablish our relationship and right standing with God, restoring our authority and dominion on this Earth, (Full Restoration), from which we were originally created to have, and lost through the force of sin being unleashed. Jesus Christ was and is God's perfect solution to all our problems. He was the Lamb slain before the Foundation of the World.

Let us give Him Thanks and Praise today.

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WHAT GOD HAS SHOWN ME...About Marriage

Good marriages don't just happen. It is not just because you married the right person and got lucky. Good marriages are built on more than passion. They are built on principle.

In the Scriptures, we find the best guidelines and principles for a healthy marriage. God's words and God's principles are never ever outdated...never! They are just as applicable today as they were to ancient Jews living in Israel.

I want to point us to principles God has given us in a place you might not think was intended for marriage. That place is the Ten Commandments, found in Exodus 20.

Let me give you those Ten Commandments. What I would like you to do is spend time reading these carefully, and then take time to pray over each one. Ask God to begin to open your heart to see how these commands could be looked at as principles for marriage. I had a friend who challenged me to do the same, and I was amazed at what I discovered.

You shall have no other gods before Me.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image...

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain...

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."

The First Commandment of Marriage: Exclusivity

The first of the Ten Commandments is simply this, as found in Exodus 20:3,

"You shall have no other gods before Me."

What is God saying in this commandment? That He wants to have an exclusive relationship with you. He wants to be your one and only. He will not settle for flavor of the month.

And how appropriate in marriage as well. We are to have an exclusive relationship with our spouse.

It's been said that Henry Ford, on his golden wedding anniversary...50 years of marriage...was asked, "What's the secret of your success in marriage?" And he said, "The secret of my successful marriage is the same secret that I have in business: I stick to the same model."

In traditional wedding vows, the man and woman pledge their devotion until death parts them. For life. There is no competition.

My wife has no competition. I am not shopping for a new model. I do not want to trade in the old model. I will not be shopping in the future. One is all I need.

The Second Commandment of Marriage: Don't Love a Substitute

In the second commandment recorded in Exodus 20:4-6, we are given the second principle for a strong marriage,

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."

God commanded that there be no carved images, whether in heaven, in earth, or in the sea. He wanted to make sure everything was covered. And He said not to bow down to them and worship them. God said, "Do not make images of Me and then worship them. Don not love or worship a substitute for Me. Love Me."

Religion has made pictures, statues, and idols and then called them holy. They are all imitations. They are all substitutes. And in marriage we should have no substitutes either.

Pornography is a substitute. When a man watches pornography, he is loving a substitute. He is directing his passion and his sexuality toward those images. That is a substitute, and he is robbing his wife of that intimacy.

Do not allow any substitute, no matter what it might be, to take the place of intimacy with your spouse.

The Third Commandment of Marriage: Speak Well of Your Mate

Exodus 20:7 gives us our third commandment of marriage,

"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."

Many misunderstand the term, in vain. It means empty, meaningless, insincere, not showing due respect.

When we speak flippantly or lightly about someone, we erode our respect for that person. Some people are just far too casual in the way they speak of their spouse, and it erodes your respect for him or her.

In marriage, few things can affect the relationship like words. Words are containers. They can contain love; they can contain hate; they can contain joy; they can contain bitterness.

The book of James says that our tongue is like a rudder on a ship. It will send the ship of your marriage in whatever direction your words go. Some people are on the brink of divorce because they talk divorce. Just listen to the words they say. Are they negative or positive? Critical or encouraging?

Think about what you say. Are you building up your partner? Learn to speak well of your mate. Build them up with your words. Be lavish with your praise. You will be pleased with where those words will take your relationship.

The Fourth Commandment of Marriage: Spend Exclusive Time Together

The fourth commandment, found in Exodus 20:8-11,

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

Sabbath means an intermission. It means to put down your work and rest. Take a break. And holy means separate to the Lord. "If you want a long-term relationship with Me," God says, "We have to have time together. I want special time, exclusive time. I want a whole day."

In the same way, in order to have a healthy, growing marriage, husbands and wives need time together...special time, exclusive time, sometimes extravagant time. And I think we all know that if we do not schedule it, it will not happen.

If your marriage is to thrive, you need to spend exclusive time together. You can't build a relationship and not spend time together. It is just not possible.

The Fifth Commandment of Marriage: Honor Your Spouse by Showing How Grateful You Are

The fifth commandment gives us our next principle for a healthy and vibrant marriage. It is found in Exodus 20:12,

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you."

Among other things, God is saying we must be grateful. Generally, parents spend a lot of time, labor, and money...sometimes to the point of radical sacrifice...to give their kids an edge in life.

And it is a tragedy when a child is ungrateful or unthankful. William Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." It is very difficult to have a relationship with an ungrateful, selfish person.

"Thank you" are important words to your parents, and an incredibly important phrase in marriage. It is difficult to live with someone who takes you and all of your efforts for granted.

You may be thinking, "I don't say it, but I am grateful in my heart. I truly am!" Well, hooray for you. You are blessed because in your heart you know you are grateful. But it does your spouse no good if you do not vocalize it.

If you do not demonstrate your gratitude, I doubt if you are really grateful because Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." If it is not being expressed, chances are it is not truly there.

Maybe you think you don't have a lot to be grateful for. But there must be something you can say "thank you" for. There is something you can praise your mate for. Look for those things, and accentuate the positive.

Take time today to express thanks to your spouse in some way...through an action, through a card, through words. That is how you honor your mate.

The Sixth Commandment of Marriage: Don't Destroy Your Spouse But Learn to be Gentle

The sixth commandment God gave to Israel in Exodus 20:13,
"You shall not murder."

While you might think this commandment is not too applicable, I believe it is vital. It is telling you not to destroy your spouse!

Jesus helps us understand this principle in Matthew 5. He said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."

Jesus went right to the root of murder: anger and hatred. If you are going to have a good, healthy, lasting marriage, you need to learn to be gentle. People who are easily angered...who are violent or have an explosive temper...destroy relationships.

If you are dating someone who blows up easily, you ought to take it as a warning sign. If they get mad at things at the drop of a hat, that anger can be turned on you very easily.

Anger erodes relationships. If you have a hot temper, get it under control, or the devil will control you through it.

Another way anger is expressed is by going stone cold...using silence and angry moodiness to punish your mate. Again, not a healthy thing for a marriage. If you anger quickly and forgive slowly, you are a hard person to live with. Work at being quick to forgive, and make the controlling of your anger a serious matter of prayer. God will help you.

If you do not master your temper, it will master you. And it will not only decay and destroy a marriage relationship, it will harm every other meaningful relationship you have in life.

We're going to skip the Seventh Commandment here -- "Do Not Commit Adultery"

-- to address it in a more in-depth manner

The Eighth Commandment of Marriage: Be a Person of Integrity

Exodus 20:15 gives us the eighth commandment for marriage,
You shall not steal.

You may be wondering how stealing applies to marriage. Simple. Not to steal is to be a person of integrity.

If you are always cheating or cutting corners, it will be hard for your spouse to respect you. Your uprightness should make your marriage partner feel proud. Your spouse and your family ought to testify of your integrity. This is really one of the things at the heart of a good marriage.

If you are married to somebody, and you know they cheat their customers, it is just hard to respect that person. You cannot respect someone who does not have integrity.

This is a big issue that many people fly right by. But it is vital to a healthy and vibrant marriage because it is hard to fully give yourself to someone who does not have integrity.

If you find that your spouse is holding back, if you feel like he or she does not respect you, take a look inside and see if you are compromising with your integrity. Do you cheat on your taxes? Do you tell that "little white lie" to protect yourself or gain an advantage?
Do you represent yourself one way, when in fact in your heart you believe something totally different? Are you like the man Solomon speaks of in Proverbs 23:7?

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. "Eat and drink!" he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

If this is an issue in your life, take it to God today. He will help you become the person of integrity He desires you to be. And when you do, you will find your spouse will come to respect you, and your marriage will be strengthened!

The Ninth Commandment of Marriage: Be Truthful

The ninth commandment for marriage speaks to the heart of any marriage, trust. It is found in Exodus 20:16,

"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

Someone who would lie about their neighbor, for whatever reason, is not going to make a good marriage partner. Honesty and trust are at the heart of a good marriage.

If you take advantage of people for your own gain, speaking untruthfully to get ahead, you are not a person to be trusted. And you ultimately are the loser.

I am reminded of the guy who was in a fender bender, and he faked an injury, pretended like he hurt his arm and his shoulder. As a result, the poor little lady who had run into his car was subjected to a truly horrible situation. She was grilled by attorneys, had to give depositions, and ended up in court.

But this guy continued trying to take her for all she was worth. He didn't care because he knew she had money. He didn't care if she had to give up her house. He was looking at an opportunity to get rich.The attorney for the lady's insurance company put him on the stand and said, "I would like to know, since the accident, since you injured your arm and your shoulder, how far can you now raise your arm?"With great pain etched on his face, he said, "Well...'bout here. That's it. Just to here." Then the attorney asked, "Well, how far could you lift it before the accident?" The guy responded, raising his arm with ease, "I could lift it up to here."
Needless to say, he lost.

Anyone who is not truthful will ultimately lose. And if your spouse will lie to someone else, he or she will lie to you.

The Tenth Commandment of Marriage: Be Content with What You Have

Today we come to the final commandment for marriage. That commandment is based on the tenth commandment given to the nation of Israel in Exodus 20:17,

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."

This command is very direct. Do not covet. Don't be discontent with what you have. Do not make what you don't have the focus of your life. Accentuate what you do have and what God has blessed you and your spouse with.

You do this by celebrating your husband's or wife's strengths and giftings rather than thinking, "Oh, I wish he was this way," or, "I wish she had that."

I can build a house from the ground up; and if anything mechanical breaks down, I can fix it.

While I am a Mr. Fix-It, there are other things that I am not good at. I am so grateful that Lora wanted to pull those things out of me and give wings to the gifts, ( In Christ) she saw that I do have. And I want to do the same thing for her.

You will always get into trouble if you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Just water your own grass. Because on the other side of the fence, it's just Astroturf anyway.

I struggled with drugs while searching for answers. It was not until I was 40 years of age(13 AUGUST, 2008) and thinking about my 3 blessed children and my soulmate that the Lord showed me the powerful reality of a relationship with Christ. Since August 13, 2008, the Lord has opened my eyes to the Answers (FREEDOM IN CHRIST) which I will prophetically fulfill in Christ, spreading the gospel to the nations around the world, blowing the horn, with a clear sounding word.

When God made man, He said it is good. But then He said, "It is not good that he is alone. I am going to make a helper suitable for him." And the Bible says God took one of Adam's ribs, and He formed a woman, Eve, and brought her to the man.

God did not take four or five ribs and say, "Okay, Adam, here is Eve, and here is Lois, and here is Samantha, and here is Rachel." No, it was just one. And to have a healthy marriage relationship, that is it.

My dream is not up in the sky or up in the stars when I look up, it is right here in my heart. (In Christ)

I am committed for life. An exclusive relationship. I am not shopping, not even window-shopping. One God. One wife. That is enough.

I LOVE YOU LORA, YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER- ED

Ambassador for Christ
Pastor Edward Hajj