Holy week is here, and Lent ends on Holy Saturday, but I usually observe until Easter Sunday.
paraclatos/parakletos - counselor/comforter are poor translations - NT GREEK - One who comes alongside to help - the imagery is of a parent holding a toddler's hand and helping their child learn to walk. This is what Jesus promised grown men he chose as his disciples when he promised he would not leave them as orphans.
Christians have the seed of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ growing in their heart and life, but they still need to be broken like I do.
God's been breaking the soil that is George Bratcher for a lifetime, so it may be good and produce a harvest.
Each year as I observe Lent I grow deeper. Lent is about mimicking Jesus' trip through the desert where he was tempted to not take up the cross, but I am a servant no greater than his Master, and so for me to take up that cross, I have to be just as broken as he was in the desert, at the end of myself, and wanting the glory that only comes with the Kingdom of God.
Here is my prayer I've been praying for the past 3 years both during lent and even outside of lent:
I pray for the lost (in my family, coworkers, church, the world) that they will be brought to a time of trial, tribulation, and testing and be brought to the end of themselves, but before that happens I pray they know the salt and see the light in God's children, and realize the peace they see within is God, and recognize their need for repentance and find salvation so they can belong to the Eternal House of Yahweh when they die, and not be damned to hell.
I pray for the backslidden (in my family, coworkers, church, the world) that they too might be brought to a time of trial, tribulation, and testing, and remember their first love and find reconciliation and healing, and return to claim their place in the Eternal House of Yahweh, and not die damned to hell, because they were not soil that could not be broken.
Then I pray for the sanctified (in my family, coworkers, church, the world) that God will continue to make them the broken soil in which his seed of grace may grow, so that a lost and dying and damned world of unrepentant sinners, might know the salt and see the light that is in them, and come to repentance, and find salvation and become sanctified and take up their own cross which is their salvation as it is the world's salvation for those willing to take it up.
Ancient farmers threw seed and then plowed it under, opposite of today's farmers.
Humanity is the soil God has thrown the seed of the Holy Spirit on, the Holy Spirit can only grow completely in the good soil that is broken and has greater depth than the shallow soil on the rocks.
Original NOTE/BLOG along with comments can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/10224341698319142/ - I have migrated over here to Google Blogger since Facebook has removed NOTES in a list from Profiles & who knows when they shall outright just delete them.
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Some migrated comments from FB Notes:
Original NOTE/BLOG along with comments can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/10224341698319142/ - I have migrated over here to Google Blogger since Facebook has removed NOTES in a list from Profiles & who knows when they shall outright just delete them.
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Some migrated comments from FB Notes:
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George Walter Bratcher III: Kutless - "Carry Me To The Cross"
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George Walter Bratcher III: Sidewalk Prophets - "Keep Making Me"
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George Walter Bratcher III: Why did Jesus have to come and die? - "There is holy and then there is Holy" - https://haqodeshim.blogspot.com/2020/11/there-is-holy-and-then-there-is-holy.html
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George Walter Bratcher III: Britt Nicole - "All This Time"
Tim Shepherd: wouldn't Lent be considered works instead of grace I understand fasting and I agree with it but as the spirit leads !
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George Walter Bratcher III: Works can never be righteousness, but they can be a sign as to how healthy the relationship with God is. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. I Corinthians 13:4-8 (https://my.bible.com/bible/111/1CO.13.4-8). Everywhere "Love" is in these verses, put your name and see how you measure up. If you bear this kind of fruit in your life, no one can say it is bad, or that your relationship with God is not real.
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George Walter Bratcher III: For me, Lent is works and grace. I am graced to participate for 40 days in seeking the kingdom first, and its righteousness, not my own, and I do this work by grace given me. I didn't start taking LENT seriously until a few years ago, and now by taking it seriously, my relationship with God has deepened and I've seen much prayer answered. We have not because we ask not, right? God is good all the time.
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Tim Shepherd: I do agree it's how you get a stronger walk with god ,or closer to God !
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George Walter Bratcher III: In ancient times food was fasted on Lent, because to prepare the main meal would take 7 hours of your day, and this was 7 hours that could be spent in prayer with God instead.
Being that in the past the demands of my job would not support my health in fasting food, and seeing that preparation of a meal today in the standard Microwave can take 7 minutes or less, it did not make sense to fast food for Lent.
Now that I have type 2 diabetes fasting is impossible, as I have to eat regularly to keep my blood sugar levels balanced.
However, when I began observing Lent 11 years ago, I gave up things that consume hours of my time that are not a necessity. Playing video games online or multiplayer online or in private, watching entertainment on TV or now streaming the PC, Tablet, or Phone, or on DVD.
So basically I have decided to fast entertainment. During Lent each year, I make an announcement to my gaming friends about this decision in a customized status update only the gamers can see, that for Lent, I will not be playing games until after Easter is complete. The exceptions in Lent are on Sundays and St. Patrick's day, but since Sundays are a day of rest for me as well, I usually reserve the gameplay for St. Patrick's day alone.
paraclatos/parakletos - counselor/comforter are poor translations - NT GREEK - One who comes alongside to help - imagery is of a parent holding a toddler's hand and helping their child learn to walk. This is what Jesus promised grown men he chose as his disciples when he promised he would not leave them as orphans.
The real purpose of Lent is to mirror Jesus' trip through the desert where he set his eyes upon the cross. The Devil's three temptations were all always to avoid the cross. The first temptation was socialist in nature, be the socialist Messiah and supply the people with all their basic needs, such as bread, and they will love and worship you, and you won't have to go the way of the cross. The second temptation was to jump from the highest point of the temple. Wow the people with your power and they will bow down and serve you. Be the special effects action adventure Messiah, and people will bow down and worship you and you won't need to go to the cross to die. Third temptation was to bow down to Satan's standards and be the Messiah who would rule over them with an iron fist the way the Romans did, and be the Progressive Messiah with your Fabian tactic of hammering your opponents until they see it is futile to resist your power and divinity, and avoid dying on the cross.
Jesus resisted and gave into none and started his public ministry that had at its end the cross. As I have explained in my NOTE listed above "There is holy and then there is Holy" Jesus came to keep the promise He made to Abraham in Genesis 15 and die under the Covenant he had made with Abraham rather than destroy the House of Israel for its sin as the Covenant could have demanded. The Covenant still demanded death for its breaking, and the one who crossed the line of death, Yahweh El Shaddai himself, came as Yeshua/Jesus - Yahweh is Salvation, and so the House of Yahweh died in Yeshua, and Old Covenant/Testament was ended so Israel was not destroyed, and Yeshua/Jesus set up a New Covenant we observe in the Lord's Supper whereby we too must take up our cross and follow Christ in his suffering to our death as we proclaim the good news of the Kingdom that all sinners who repent and believe on Yeshua can be adopted into the House of Yahweh through the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that when we die, that Heavenly Parent that is the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Yeshua living in us that raised Yeshua from the dead), can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves:
Take our hands and lead us across the River Jordan (death) so that we are not swept away into damnation, but instead cross safely to the New Heaven (new universe) and New Earth in Eternity (where time will end where it began) and where the House of Yahweh and his bride (the Church - the called out ones) shall be of ONE House in which there is no more death because the New Covenant is fulfilled with our deaths and births into Eternal Life.
This is the Gospel we are to teach and preach upon the Earth while we have the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide us in this life while there is light (life) and before it is dark (when we die and light in this life ends).
Lent is an excellent time to pray to Yeshua/Jesus that we might set our eyes on our own cross (end) before us, and not be distracted in this life by weeds (idolatrous concerns and worries about this life that lead us away from the cross) nor by trial and tribulation (when the sun bears down on the soil that is not good because it is shallow and in the rocky soil where the blessing of the seed of the Holy Spirit is quenched, because we seek reward in this life denying our birthright like Esau).
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George Walter Bratcher III: Identifying SATAN & DESTROYING His Kingdom In Prayer - Satan IS So Scared You!! https://youtu.be/MiPNeTTKgzg via @YouTube #Bible #Love #Wisdom #Prayer #Truth
Jesus used a sword when he attacked Satan in the wilderness, the belt is the Bible/Scripture and the Sword is the Word that comes from it!
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Jesus used a sword when he attacked Satan in the wilderness, the belt is the Bible/Scripture and the Sword is the Word that comes from it!
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The holidays were rough this year. I no longer celebrate holy days. No days are holy. I do not celebrate Christ's Mass. I absolutely love seasonal festivities.
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