Sheep Food

  When Adam and Eve broke the one command that God gave them (Gen. 2:17), and ate from that one tree, their ‘eyes were opened’ and both were overtaken with shame and fear, especially when they heard the voice of God calling for them in the garden. So they tried to hide themselves in their nakedness by sewing fig leaves together and then hid among the other trees or shrubbery. (Gen. 3:6-10). When God asked them what they were doing, they replied, saying they were hiding because they were  afraid and naked. That’s when God inquired: “Who told you that you were naked?” (11). Clearly, it wasn’t God who told them that. Do you think it is possible that the same ‘serpent of old, the devil...who deceives the whole world’ (Rev. 12:9)...and who presumably told Adam and Eve they were naked...could also be deceiving countless people today, telling them that they are ‘fully clothed... in God’s righteousness’ ...simply because they verbally acknowledge they ‘believe in Jesus’? Oh...the iro...

  If/when Jesus... is not truly Lord (or King) of our lives, we have a tendency to ‘do what is right in our own eyes’; and this has been a pattern or rut humanity has fallen into for a long time. (Judges 21:25) Have you ever been around a construction project where precise measuring was absolutely necessary, and you hear these random phrases like “I’ll just eyeball it”, or...”That looks close enough for me!”? My favorite was “It’s good enough for government work”, which always gave me pause. Yeah...you’d be surprised how often we do that with our Bibles when it comes to preaching the gospel; why do you think we have so many varied denominations (and their assorted doctrines) out there that can confuse the heck out of believers and non-believers alike? In his letter to the Romans, Paul was expressing his concerns for his fellow brethren (the Jews), and he acknowledges that they did indeed have a ‘zeal for God....but not according to knowledge” (10:2). He flat out declares they wer...