Christ Church

Bible Challenge #17

Becky Pliego on

¡Hola, hola! What a gift you all have been to us, Friends! We are so grateful for each one of you and to the Lord for the work of His Spirit in each one of us. God is so good!

We have a most wonderful week ahead of us. And especially after having read the Pentateuch, and 7 more books of the Old Testament, we now better understand how amazing it is to actually be able to celebrate that the Messiah has come. That The Promised One, the Son of God, became man and dwelt among us. There is no more waiting for us, no more shadows, no more types, no more longing, our Redeemer came as promised to Adam and Eve, to Abraham. Jesus came in the form of a human and died on the cross,  and on the third day He rose again and is now seated at the right hand of God the Father making intercession for us. Let these truths fill your heart and make you sing louder “Joy to the world!”

This week however, will be a very busy week too. We will be busy doing all the good things that we are supposed to do. We will bake and cook, and wrap gifts, and visit with our family, and write notes and make phone calls, and laugh and sing. But we need to make sure that we set apart time so that we don’t end up neglecting the best thing that there is for us to do this week: Meet with God in His Word and in prayer.

Friends, think about this: Christ, the Promised One, the Messiah, the incarnate Word of God came. And now we have been given the Holy Spirit to teach us His Word. Now, through the Holy Spirit, we have been given eyes that see and ears that hear. Now, as we read the Bible, we can understand what a magnificent story this is and how we can be part of it! Isn’t that all together wonderful? Don’t you want to come and eat it and drink from it? Don’t you want to be drawn to it to find satisfaction in it? How can we choose to neglect coming to the fountain of life and joy?

This week, starting on Tuesday, December 26, we will finish reading the gospel of Luke, then read Ephesians on Wednesday, and then start Isaiah along with some psalms on Thursday.

Ephesians is a perfect letter to read this week. It is actually the best Christmas letter you will ever read. In it you will read of the greatest gift no one could have ever imagined (only God, of course!): salvation by grace through faith. You will read how we, Gentiles, can now be part of God’s grand story, of God’s grand redemptive plan, of God’s grand family because of Jesus Christ. And wait until you read this… we have to do nothing to earn this salvation. Nothing. From beginning to end, our salvation is a gift from God.

In Isaiah we will be reminded how even though our salvation is a gift from God, it was a very costly gift. Our Lord had to suffer, bear our sins, become a curse for us and bear on Himself the cup of the wrath of God – that cup that He asked the Father to remove from him. And all that time, through out all of it, God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – was loving us.

Friends, you don’t want to miss these readings. You will be encouraged and your faith will be strengthened as you read these verses, these chapters, these books. Keep your heart and mind open to the work of the Spirit in you and be flexible with all the circumstances around you this week. Remember, our Lord came to serve and not to be served… this week is a great week to imitate Him on that!

May our prayer this week be, “Father, as we read your Word this week, may Christ dwell in our hearts through faith, so that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of Christ.” (Eph. 3:18-19)

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and the Team of Christ Church Ladies Fellowship

Read Full Article

Bible Challenge #16

Becky Pliego on

¡Hola, hola! Welcome to week 15 of our Bible Reading Challenge, Friends! This coming week is the last week we will meet for our Webinar this year (Monday, 18 at 10:00am PST), but we will back on January 8th. I am still hoping, however, to send you an email or two to encourage you and somehow remind you that we are together persevering in this challenge. But… I am not promising anything (insert smiley face here, Friends).

I am so happy for the holidays this year as all my children will be home. We won’t have a white Christmas, but we will for sure have one full of laughter and good conversations around the table. And I am so very grateful for that.

This week we will finish reading the second book of Samuel, Psalms 18 and 54 and then, on Tuesday we will have a very welcome catch-up day. I want to suggest two options for that day:

1. Divide Monday readings in two. The chapters are a bit longer this time, so I’m thinking that you can read the two Psalms on Tuesday.

2. You can read John 1-3 and Matthew 1-3. If you choose this option, you will be reading, in the same week, the three accounts of Jesus’ birth recorded in the Gospels.

After our catch-up day we will start Micah and the gospel of Luke (who also wrote the book of Acts).

Micah was a prophet around the same time as Hosea and Isaiah, and as any other prophet of the Lord, he points to the sins of the people, calls them to repentance and reminds them of God’s lovingkindness and willingness to forgive their sins. When reading Micah, keep your eyes open to see God at work in the midst of judgement: how in His perfect justice He deals with sin, but how in His perfect mercy and compassion, He extends the possibility of reconciliation, of restoration, and of peace. And so we find in this book one of the greatest prophecies about the coming of the Messiah, of Jesus Christ. Now, when you get to chapter 7, be ready to find a passage that will for sure drive you to pray the Scriptures.

Luke was travel companion of Paul and a physician. He also authored the book of Acts, which is like the sequel of his epistle (both are addressed to Theophilus). It is interesting to note how much Mary’s song of praise will make us think of Hannah’s song back in 1 Samuel 2 -and we will talk more about how fascinating this is on our webinar on Monday.

In Luke 19:10 we find the heart of the gospel: “The Son of man came to seek and save the lost.”  and when the time came, “He set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (9:57). Jesus was determined to seek and save the lost, and in many verses you will read how he did that, what strategy He had to find them. Hint: eating and drinking were involved (Luke 7: 34).

This week our readings are wonderful. They are the stories we should be reading in Advent, the stories that make our story make sense. Because of these stories, we put lights all over our homes, and make cookies, and gather with family and friends, and sing with joy. Christ has come, Friends! No more waiting!  And we cannot remain quiet, we cannot be spectators in this huge narrative. We must go tell it on the mountains, over the hills, around our neighborhood, on social media, and everywhere that Jesus Christ is born!

¡Feliz Navidad!

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and the team of Christ Church Ladies Fellowship

Read Full Article

Grace & Peace: Revelation 79

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
Revelation 12:13-17

Remember the theme of this entire book. God is in the process of divorcing the Old Jerusalem and preparing a bride for His Son in the New Jerusalem. This passage should be understood in the context of the build up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

The dragon, identified as Satan earlier, and also described in this same passage as a serpent, is furious with the woman who gave birth to the “man child.” The faithful remnant of Israel had brought forth the Messiah, and when the devil was thrown down to earth, he persecuted the Judean church. They had been prepared for this by the Lord’s solemn warning.

“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains” (Matt. 24:15–16).

When the armies of Rome come, you are to go. And this is precisely what the Judean church did—seeking refuge in Pella in 66 A.D. She is there protected for three and a half years (a time, times, and half a time). A flood of wrath comes, but the earth absorbs it—as unbelieving Jewry absorbed the wrath that missed the Christians.

All of this is Exodus imagery—the believers who escaped from the demolition of Jerusalem were spared in just the same way that the Jews were delivered from Pharaoh. “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself” (Ex. 19:4; cf. Dt.32:11-12). God took them out of Egypt on the wings of an eagle, and He brought these faithful Christians out of Judea on the wings of an eagle also. This also helps to identify the corrupt establishment in Jerusalem with Egypt itself. They had become the enemies of God. We saw this identification of Jerusalem with Egypt in the previous chapter, and here it continues. “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Rev. 11:8).

The dragon continued in its fury. Not able to kill the woman, he turns to make war on the remainder of her offspring (in this case, it is likely we are talking about the Gentile church). These are plainly identified as believers—they keep the commandments of God, and they have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

READ ALL GRACE & PEACE POSTS

Read Full Article

Bible Challenge #15

Becky Pliego on

Dear sisters,

¡Hola, hola! Isn’t it wonderful to know that we are actually “preparing Jesus room” in our hearts every day as we come to His Word? Isn’t it wonderful to know that no matter which devotional book we have chosen to read this Advent season, we are not missing out reading the best Book to read this season? Isn’t it wonderful to know that every time we come to the Word, we come to the living Word of God that never returns void? Isn’t it wonderful that when we open the Word of God, Immanuel is truly with us? This is truly a wonderful season!

This week we will finish the first book of Samuel and start the second. We will also read Psalms 34, 54, 57, 13, 20, 21, 51, 3, 4, 5, and 7. Yes! It is not a mistake! We will be all over the Psalms because I tried -as much as possible- to pair the Psalms that David wrote when he was going through different circumstances. For example, on Friday we will read 2 Samuel 12 and in that chapter we come across the time when Nathan the Prophet rebukes David for the grievous sin he committed with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. And then in Psalm 51, we read the psalm that David wrote to confess his own sin. We continue reading the same day and come to chapter 15, and we find the tragic story of Absalom’s conspiracy against his own father, King David, and so we read Psalm 3 (again), a Psalm David wrote when he was fleeing from his own son.

1st and 2nd Samuel were originally one book, and I encourage you to read the story and use your imagination to follow along. Let the story captivate you. It is a real page-turner, Friends. And as you read, be careful how you read yourself into the story. Dare to see yourself, maybe as a woman who is being enslaved by envy -like Saul was. Maybe you are not seeking the Lord’s direction for all the affairs of your life, like Saul and at one point David didn’t.  Remember that David couldn’t see himself in the story when Nathan confronted him for his sin. David’s sin had blinded him to his own sin.  Pray to God and let the Holy Spirit show you the areas in which His Word needs to cleanse you, and repent and believe. Embrace God’s forgiveness and sing for joy.

We will be reading many Psalms and oh, what a gift they are to us! When we don’t know what or how to pray, the Psalms give us words of praise, words of mourning, words of hope, words of agony…words to pray. So let’s be praying this week. Praying much. Sisters, we have read Leviticus, we have read Hebrews, we can understand this exhortation from Paul even better now, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb. 3:16) So, yes, let’s come before Him in the name of Jesus and pray.

Bonhoeffer wrote in a little book something that I would love to share with you today, “If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible and especially the Psalms, therefore, we must not ask first what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ. We must ask how we can understand the Psalms as God’s Word, and then we shall be able to pray them. It does not depend, therefore, on whether the Psalms express adequately that which we feel at a given moment in our heart. If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray. If we were dependent entirely on ourselves, we would probably pray only the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. But God wants it otherwise. The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.” (Psalms: the Prayer Book of the Bible).

May the Lord bless you as you come to His Word, may your mouth sing His praises, and your heart burst in gladness as you draw near to Him.

I hope to “see” you next Monday in our weekly Webinar at 10:00 AM PST.

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky Pliego and the team of Christ Church Ladies Fellowship

Read Full Article

Grace & Peace: Revelation 78

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time”
Revelation 12:7-12

And there was war in Heaven. In the preceding verses, the woman who was to give birth had to flee from the dragon into the wilderness. I take vv. 7ff as a flashback, showing how that earlier circumstance had come about. The dragon had been in the heavenly places, but had now been thrown down. Having been thrown down, he continued his career of malice, pursuing the woman.

The reason this happened was that Michael the archangel (Jude 9) and his angels fought against the dragon (v. 7). Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and his angels, and as a result, there was no place remaining in Heaven for the dragon (v. 8). In the next verse, the dragon is identified—the old serpent, or the devil, or Satan, the deceiver of the entire world (v. 9). He was cast down to earth, and all of his angels together with him. This plainly identifies the devil of the New Testament with the serpent in the Garden.

Taking all of Scripture together, we learn that this “casting down” happened in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). This is why the next verse declares that “now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ” (v. 10). When the defender of sinners was vindicated on earth in the resurrection, the accuser of sinners was deposed in the heavens.

The meaning of the devil being cast down is that he is no longer able to accuse the brethren before God, as he would do both day and night. The accusing and prosecutorial nature of the devil is seen plainly in the Old Testament (Job 1-2; Zech. 3). And this ended in the cross. “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15).

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” (Heb. 2:14–15).

The resurrection of Jesus was the death of accusation in the heavenly places. The accusations in the presence of God are received no longer. This does not mean that the accusations have vanished, but they have been cast down to earth. And this means—if we are paying attention to the gospel message—we should embrace on earth what has been accomplished in Heaven. That is how we pray, is it not? We want to have God’s will done on earth as it has been done in Heaven.

So the faithful believers on earth have both a shield and a sword. They defend themselves, and they go out as overcomers. The shield is the blood of the Lamb (v. 11), able to withstand every accusation that an exiled devil can throw at them. Elsewhere in Scripture the shield is faith (Eph. 6:16), which means the flaming darts that the devil throws must be fiery doubts—given their heat by means of accusation. The fact that the devil has no more audience in Heaven with this kind of thing does not mean he never gains an audience here. But he can only do so by means of a lie.

The sword of the faithful believers is their word of witness and testimony, coupled with their willingness to die (v. 11). We are to defend ourselves from accusation by means of the blood of Christ, and we are to conquer the world by means of our testimony to the blood of Christ.

The call is given to the heavens, along with those who dwell there—rejoice that the devil is banished. There is a concurrent woe for the inhabitants of the earth and sea (v. 12). The devil has been thrown down, and is furious, and he knows he has a very short time to stamp out the infant church.

READ ALL GRACE & PEACE POSTS

Read Full Article