Jesus apprehended and called me in the 1930's, I have never found or does it exist in Him, the capacity to hate another human being. Without question, "God is Love".  He has revealed His quality of love, completely, in His Son 'Jesus'.  He so loved corruptible Mankind that He gave His only begotten Son to redeem us.

I can not find any hate in Jesus who asked forgiveness for His murderers while the nails are still pinning Him to the Cross.  If our goal is to love mankind any less than this, we are liars, have never known Him, and the truth is not in us.  God is love and He, by nature, must love absolutely.  Although true, this is sometimes hard to handle.  It does not jade or eliminate the necessity for jurisprudence and the verdicts of criminal justice.

This creates the ultimate oxymoron, Jesus, full of grace and tender mercies, had a hate-love with Mankind.  In that He is omnipotent and love absolutely then, His 'hatred' had to be absolute.

It is required to know Him as 'love' necessitates that I know 'what it is' that He loathes.

Don Murphy

Read: Admonition  "what Is it?" part 1

There is a saying, "One man's junk is another man's treasure." Yard sales and flea markets are a good illustration of this. Incidentally, the world has become cluttered with religious flea markets. If there were not a few things of value, there would be no flea markets.

Many times I have seen one person, with gleaming eye, covet an object that the owner wanted to dispose of. It is a matter of evaluation. (Evaluate!  Evaluate!)

Sometimes, thinking he has purchased a treasure, the buyer finds he has paid for valueless merchandise. (Evaluate!  Evaluate!)

Once I heard a news person randomly interviewing people during "a garbage strike." Heaps of uncollected garbage were piled in the streets. People expressed their negative reaction to a chaotic condition. However one man, smiling, said, "I have no problem disposing of my garbage! I gift wrap it, place it in the seat of my car, leave the door unlocked, someone always steals it." (Evaluate!  Evaluate!)

On occasion, a seller thinks he has sold the ordinary and finds he, cheaply, disposed of a priceless treasure. Most of the time the key to distinguishing the treasure from the ordinary is not expertise, but common sense.

Likewise, one person's sacrosanct "holy place" is another person's commons. Man is adept in the art of constructing sanctuaries. No stone is left unturned to geographically locate the Headquarters of the Kingdom of God. The slightest unusual phenomenon is of great assistance in these efforts. (Evaluate!  Evaluate!)

As a child, I remember pranksters in a crowded city on Saturday afternoon. They would excitedly run across a busy street and point, while looking into a lower window. In seconds a large crowd would gather, resulting in a huge traffic-jam. Later, when you heard discussions explaining the artificial event, some said, there was a "murder" others; there was a "fire or robbery."

Once, while on the platform of a large gathering, a photographer took a "flash picture" from the back of the audience; some, saw Jesus in all His Glory, others saw an Angel, all I saw was a man with a flash-bulb camera. I am not belittling visions or genuine spiritual manifestations. However, in a phenomenon seeking world, we walk by faith and not by sight. The most important choices you will make, in this precarious hour, will not be based on what you see or feel. (Evaluate!  Evaluate!) By faith we endure as seeing Him who is invisible.

Crowds of people have journeyed for hundreds of miles to place their hands on certain rocks they were told possessed spiritual powers. If we have never experienced the reality of God's Presence within, we seek out and deify physical objects as holy places. (Evaluate!  Evaluate!)

The Living God is not reduced to bread and wine through the mediatorial prayer of a human being. Perceiving the symbol to be reality is idolatry. (Evaluate!  Evaluate!)

Christ is revealed within us by the Power of the Holy Spirit, through the incorruptible Seed of the living Word of God. Through Redemption we have this Treasure within us: "It is Christ in you The Hope of Glory."

Volumes have been written on how to approach the Holy Place with the right words; or how to move God with an offering of certain size. (Evaluate!  Evaluate!)

What are the instructions of Jesus, The Master??

Matt.6:6 "When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."

Matt. 24:14 Jesus said, "This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations and then the end will come." "Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place." ( Holy from hagos = sacred, pure, blameless, religious, consecrated, most holy one or thing)

Jesus associates the attempt to thwart the witness to the nations with the attempt to usurp the Holy Place. This is the dominate sign of the end of the Age.

Does the Lord give us direction in His Word as to the location of the Holy Place? Is there a Name or Title that defines what is meant by, "The Holy Place?"

Yes, when He taught the manner in which we are to pray. There is only one Holy Place. It is not a city, object or shrine, "The Holy Place" is a Person. When we pray, according to our Lord's instructions, we address that Person by His Title. "Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your Name."

Matt. 23:9 "Do not call anyone on earth your Father, for One is your Father, He is in heaven." (By context He is not referring to our genetic father.)

Holy is His Title, "Father." Holy is the "Name" He reveals Himself in "Jesus (Jehovah)" "He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power." Amen

The Holy Place is defined by His Title Father and Jesus the Name in which He reveals Himself.

The Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, is His Vicar.

The Church which is His Body is His Temple.

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Don Murphy ©September 1999-2024

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