Complete in Christ Archives - Pastor Marvin McKenzie

Luke 20:6 (KJV) Committed to Christ?

Luke 20:6 (KJV)
But and if we say, Of men; all the people will stone us: for they be persuaded that John was a prophet.

The same people who would later cry out they wanted Jesus crucified here would have, the Pharisees believed, stoned them for speaking lightly of John the Baptist.

It is easier to accept a man is a prophet than to accept He is God
It is easier to support a good man than to stay faithful to Christ as Saviour
It is more natural to defend the character of a leader than to defend the deity of Christ

Whether they would have stoned the Pharisees is impossible to tell. We do know that, though they were intrigued with Jesus, in the end they turned against Him.

Professing believers ought to take this to heart and examine closely their faith. Are we merely loyal to a preacher and intrigued by Christ? Or are we genuinely committed to our relationship with Him?

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Luke 20:6 (KJV) Committed to Christ?

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Luke 5:39 (KJV) Embracing the Old Promises

Luke 5:39 (KJV)
No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.

I read three writers who give two opposing interpretations and applications of this passage.
The one says that older wine is sweeter and mellower so it would be ridiculous to ask someone who knows the difference to drink new wine.
This writer claims that the Pharisees represent the new wine and Christ represents the old.

The other two see the Law as the old wine and claim that is representative of the old sinful nature, which is not going to gravitate to new; unproven and bitter flavor of spiritual life with Christ.
It is, according to this interpretation, unreasonable to ask a man who is settled in his ways to trust Christ hastily.

I lean toward the former. Christ came far before the Pharisees. His disciples had not embraced the new but the old promises of God from the beginning.

We aren’t looking for the new. We are looking for the oldest of all, faith in Christ from the foundation of the world.

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

Luke 5:39 (KJV) Embracing the Old Promises

Luke 4:6 (KJV) The Devil’s Arrogance

Luke 4:6 (KJV)
And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.

See what arrogance the devil and those his followers have! They believe they have great power great glory and great things. How ignorant of him to compare what he has with what God has. How naive of him to offer those to Christ in exchange of the riches of glory that belong to Christ.

What would Christ want with corrupt kingdoms?
What use would he have for tarnished glory?
How could he possibly be tempted with temporal and finite things?

This world is so silly to believe they can draw the true believers away with such pettiness. These are nothing. They have no appeal and hold on those who have gotten hold of heaven.

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

Luke 4:6 (KJV) The Devil’s Arrogance

Mark 9:8 (KJV) Jesus Only

Mark 9:8 (KJV)
And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves.

Peter, James and John were privileged to witness the transfiguration of Christ but, like so many privileges, they were in danger of getting their focus on the wrong things. This wasn’t about elevating Moses and Elias. The point was to see Christ for who He is, the glorified Son of God.

They were in danger of putting men, great as they were, on the same plane as Christ. God brought them to the crux of the faith; God brought them to just Christ and themselves.

In the world of:

politics and politicians
motive and motivators
empires and emperors

it is vital that we who are Christians narrow our focus down to just Christ and ourselves.

To my reader:
I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

Mark 9:8 (KJV) Jesus Only

2 Samuel 3:27-29 (KJV) I Am Guiltless

2 Samuel 3:27-29 (KJV)
And when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gate to speak with him quietly, and smote him there under the fifth rib, that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother.
And afterward when David heard it, he said, I and my kingdom are guiltless before the LORD for ever from the blood of Abner the son of Ner:
Let it rest on the head of Joab, and on all his father’s house; and let there not fail from the house of Joab one that hath an issue, or that is a leper, or that leaneth on a staff, or that falleth on the sword, or that lacketh bread.

I am intrigued by David’s affirmation that he is guiltless before the Lord concerning the death of Abner. We know that he made this statement as much for political reasons as anything else. He wanted his nation to know that he had nothing to do with assassinating Abner and he wanted Saul’s followers to know the very same. I can see some ways to argue this that would give David some culpability.

He must have known that Joab was still bitter against Abner for the death of his brother.
He could have supervised Joab more thoroughly
He could have (but didn’t) punish Joab for killing Abner

Maybe David didn’t handle this situation perfectly but he was still able to say, “I and my kingdom are guiltless before the Lord..”

There is a spiritual parallel that exists for every true child of God. We too can say we are guiltless before the Lord because we are, in fact, guiltless before the Lord. This is not to say that we are perfect, that we never sin and that we couldn’t have handled things better than we have. Truth be told, there are things yet to happen we could handle better than we will. That being said, it is still the fact that we who are saved may confidently, boldly and even publicly proclaim that we are guiltless before the Lord.

The reason is Christ. It is not because of any good thing that we have done but because of the perfect thing that Christ has done.

The incarnation of Christ
The righteous life of Christ
The substitutionary death of Christ
The victorious resurrection of Christ and
The heavenly intercession of Christ

Insures that, because of Christ, we are guiltless before the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (KJV)
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

To my reader:
I wonder, can you boldly, confidently and publicly proclaim that you are guiltless before the Lord? I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

2 Samuel 3:27-29 (KJV) I Am Guiltless

Matthew 12:5 (KJV) Are You Blameless?

Matthew 12:5 (KJV)
Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?

The Bible says, and Jesus endorsed it as true, that the priest doing what was unlawful outside the Temple on the Sabbath, was blameless doing the very same thing inside the Temple.

We who have been born again are priests made so by Christ
We, who have been born again dwell in the Temple which is the body of Christ therefore
We who have been born again are blameless before God.

This is not to say we are excused from righteous living. The Bible does not allow for even the existence of a person being righteous before God who isn’t anxious to live out that righteousness in life. This is a picture instead of the difference between the lost and the saved.

For the lost, even his acts of righteousness condemn him.
For the saved even his lapses into the old nature cannot condemn him

To my reader:
What a blessing to be blameless in the eyes of the Lord! Tell me, have you come to Christ and received from Him that salvation which He promises? I would love to hear from you. Leave comments below.

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

Matthew 12:5 (KJV) Are You Blameless?

A New Priesthood

Hebrews 7:1-3 KJV

For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him;
To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace;
Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.

Melchisedec has been an underlying subject throughout chapters five and six but rises to the surface as the focal subject of this chapter. Though there is considerable debate as to exactly who he was, it is without question that both the Psalmist and Apostle meant him as a figure of Jesus Christ. Speaking of Christ as being a priest after the order of Melchisedec there are at least three things we know about this order:

It is not the after the order of the Old Testament priesthood

Thus, it precedes it and then replaces it. The modern Messianic Jews, as were the Judaizers of early Christianity, very much mistaken in attempting to marry the two.

It is better than the Old Testament priesthood

It is not merely an alternative. It us not intended that those who prefer to worship their Messiah may do so under a form of Judaism and those who understand Him to be Christ may worship Him in church. New Testament church theology is the perfection of the weak Old Testament law theology.

It is an eternal and not temporal priesthood

The Aaronic priesthood was given for a specific time. The Melchisedec priesthood existed previous to it and survives after it. The Aaronic priesthood was to be done away (though unbelieving Israel had yet to put it away) but the Melchisedec priesthood, like Melchisedec himself, has no end of days.

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2007.

Hebrews 7:1-3

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Nothing Better Than Christ

Colossians 2:8-10 KJV

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

There is, it seems, this constant urging in our flesh for something new, better, fresher.

The bondage to sin operates on this urging.

We can never indulge in a sinful practice without the risk of that practice growing into something more sinister than the sin we originally indulged in. Drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual deviation; all tend to increase in intensity over time. They can never level out. They lose their satisfaction unless they increase.

The advertising and sales industry rely on this urging to keep moving products

It seems like it is never enough to have a working item; we want a newer one, a faster one, a shinier one, a bigger one, a more luxurious one, one like the one our neighbor has. Cars, computers, smart phones electronic gadgets all have us craving the next one before the new smell wears off the one we have right now.

The sin nature tempts us to constantly seek something better than Christ

Paul warned the believers at Colosse, and through them, us, to beware of anything or anyone that would spoil our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ by enticing us to seek something better than Christ. The philosophies and traditions of men; the rudiments of the world are nothing compared to Christ, except that they prey on our sinful nature to seek something else. Paul’s message is that Christ is:

The fulness of the Godhead
The completion of the believer and
The head of all principality and power

There is nothing better than Christ. There is only a better walk with and love for Christ.

For this and more than 3000 earlier Daily Visits with God visit Marvin McKenzie’s blogger page. There you will find daily visits going back to 2007.