May 2023 Conchshell Chronicles
The Journal of Seek The Lamb Inc.
Lamb Bleatings
Israel: Land that Jesus was born, lived, walked, worked, died and rose again. He will come back again to this dimension to reign and restore this earth in ways I can only imagine as the Good Book declares. I enjoy learning in the Land that our Hero once physically walked. It is a land flowing with milk and honey…abundant sweet fruits and tasty vegetables like no other place in the world. The flowers are abundant, vibrant and teeming with Life, color, detail and magnificence.
My desire is to walk my life out with this kind of life giving abundance, ease, peace, authority and freedom that My Lord did. I decided to follow Him and dedicate my life to Him about 45 years ago. So thankful to be practicing staying in line with the Creator. Trying to keep the right beat and rhythm with his heart is no easy task for my ever so distracted heart. I am given toward disconnection with the Only True Perfect Source of Power that always has my best interest. Jesus says,
“I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:5-8
A grapevine in our neighborhood in Jerusalem
We saw many vineyards with hefty woody vines beginning to show the bundles of grapes being formed on its branches. A great illustration for my soul. I am a very visual person. In the midst of the many lessons taught daily, I am always asking the Lord to help me process and to breathe life for personal application for me. I need help. Always.
One night, I had a dream which was very vivid. I awoke realizing that it was significant and applicable to what I have been trying to practice when dealing with the needs and hurts of those around me…but first to apply to self. I often have had the tendency to want to apply lessons to others around me who seem “to need it more” haha.
On the Cardo at Beth Shean
No, God always deals with each one of us individually first and then perhaps once we are free He can use us to free others through prayer and supplication.
In this dream, I saw a person lying in front of a wooden type house with a porch. The person was lifeless and many were gathered just to look and stare but no one was doing anything. I broke through the crowd to see this body laying in this big place that was meant for plants but there lay only his body. I was mortified to see the body with a gaping hole , no blood, just an empty huge wound in the middle of his body wide open with nothing in it.
The Golden Calf altar which Jeroboam built at Tel Dan
I reached down and touched the lifeless body and prayed to God to do something. I didn’t even know what exactly to pray. It all was so mysterious and as I bowed my head to talk to God I felt alone and as I prayed I began to see the inner part of this hole begin filling up and then I watched the skin come together and close up the hole. I was astounded and got super excited, but looked around and no one not one person was there. So I got up and began to call out but it was like no one to hear and respond. I realized that I had to go and catch a flight and how Michael would be having a cow by now, but then I thought hey, someone just got healed and resurrected from the dead so what if I miss a flight….so I pounded on the door of the house and I saw a shadowy figure go past the window and as he came to the door to open it I said, “please someone help this guy. He got healed and needs help. I gotta go now!”
And then I started to run through what looked like the desert and kept thinking, “Everyone’s gonna be wondering what took me so long…Then I got up with the visual of this very real healing, the filling up, and skin being renewed like it never happened. I thought good dream and when Michael got up , I told him and he said, “Oh, then pray for me so I get healed from this sickness.” (he caught a cold in real life) So I prayed. He got better.
At Banyas, (Caesarea Philippi), a famous pagan site
I realize that God wants to impart who He is through us; his favored creation. He loves showing up when we finally bow out and bow down. He loves taking away our “DIS ---EASE” , UNREST, NO PEACE. I notice how easily I lose my connection with my VINE and it manifests in my lack of ease, peace and rest. I have been working on practicing His presence and staying connected and in sync by allowing His Word to wash over me constantly…in hearing and reading and learning. Fruit naturally comes and the vibrancy of His presence breaks through as I become aware of this firmly rooted Vine I am connected to .
“Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits---who forgives all your sins, and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
At the Holy Sepluchre Church where Jesus was crucified and where He resurrected.
It's Historical
From atop Mt Arbel, overlooking the area where Jesus did most of his teaching.
One afternoon a few years ago I was loading my bike into the back of my truck in preparation for taking Mik and Luk to their swim practice. In those days I would do a daily ride while they trained at the St Edwards pool. Once I got the bike inside, I turned around to see two young bicyclists pulling into my driveway. They wore white shirts and black ties, and had nametags on that identified them as “Elder Smith” etc. These were young Mormon missionaries who were doing their two-year missionary work and apparently this day they thought I would be someone worth talking to.
“I see you like biking” one of them said.
I looked at their faces, smiled, and looked at my watch. I had the leave in just a few minutes to get my kids to the pool on time, so I cut to the chase.
“I’m in a hurry and must go, but I want you to know that I admire your dedication and zealousness. You guys really put in the effort. But I must tell you that there is simply no archeological evidence that any of those ancient North American civilizations mentioned in the Book of Mormon ever existed. However, there is ample archeological evidence of the cities and places that are recorded in the Bible that makes the story very compelling. Very historical.”
Surprised at my statement, one of them asked “How would you know? Have you been to those sites?”
“Actually I have. Many times. I’ve lived in Israel for months at a time and visited many Biblical sites in Greece and Turkey as well.”
At that point, Mik and Luk came out and climbed into the truck as the missionaries pedaled down the street. I waved at them as we drove by, but all I got was a sneer.
We just returned from our 8th Study Tour in Israel, where we spend many days visiting various Biblical sites, reading Scripture, and trying to understand cultural, geographical, political, and linguistic context in order to better understand the message of the Bible.
Our Study Group was a fun group with long time friends from Honduras, Maui, California, Texas, and Florida.
One of the things that our professor, Dr Randall Smith kept emphasizing on this trip was the historical nature of the Bible, and that in each of the 66 books, almost in every chapter, historical and geographical facts are presented that can be verified in other literature and archeological sources. The Bible is the only religious book that presents events, persons, culture, geographical, and even meteorological data and asks the reader to believe it as it is presented. And there is ample evidence to back it up.
We have worked with our dear friend Dr Randy Smith since 1997.
For example, before 1993, there was no archeological evidence that King David ever existed, As a result, many scholars believed that these stories in the Old Testament were myths, along with most of the other events recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. But an electrifying discovery was made at Tel Dan that year of a stone with the words “House of David” inscribed. The following year a Moabite stone was discovered to have “House of David” carved into the stone. Since then, there have been more inscriptions of David discovered as well as his palace in ancient Jerusalem. The evidence is overwhelming that this historical character existed, just as the Bible describes him.
I could go on with pages and pages of archeological discoveries, and in fact have published many refences in my book “The Vision Behind The Verses” (available on Amazon).
Randy teaching at the Garden of Gethsemane
Tim Keller describes the efforts of Liberal Christian to discredit the Bible in his book “Hope In Times of Fear”:
"In the early part of the nineteenth century there was a movement to remove the supernatural elements from Christianity in order to align it more with modern sensibilities. Friedrich Schleiermacher taught that Christianity was not a matter of faith in historical events but rather an internal feeling of dependence on God. Albrecht Ritschl taught that we could no longer believe in miracles, and so we had to reread the reports of Jesus’s incarnate birth, death, and resurrection not as historical events but as legends and parables and examples of how to live. The basic reasoning of this movement went something like this: “There are many superstitious, miraculous elements in the Christian faith. Modern people can’t believe these things actually happened."
"Liberal Christianity has taught that it doesn’t matter whether these events in the story of Jesus’s life actually happened. All that matters is that Christians be good, ethical people who love others and make the world a better place."
"This is an effort to create a non-historical faith, one that isn’t grounded in what God has actually done in history, but only in what we do and how we live. It claims that the original Jesus was simply a human teacher of justice and love. Only decades later did these miraculous, supernatural elements get introduced into the legends about his life, and only then was he presented as a Son of God who rose from the dead."
"Liberal Christianity—a message of simple ethical love and hope—could never have turned anyone’s life, much less the entire Roman world, upside down. The electrifying original message was this: God’s power has come from outside of history into this world. Jesus died for our sins in our place so that through faith we can know his love and receive a guarantee of eternal life—all by grace, as a gift. He also rose from the dead to bring into history the powers of the age to come, in which we will all be resurrected and every tear will be wiped away (Hebrews 6:5; 2 Peter 3:13; Romans 8:18–25). Because Jesus’s death for sin and resurrection happened in history, everything has changed. Everything." (end quote)
We had a meal with Lorena , Nutie and Tom at one of our favorite restaurants just around the corner of our old apartment on Ravi Akiva street.
I have had many conversations with one of my dear friends, who happens to be Jewish, about Jesus, and eventually he says to me “I worship one God. You worship two or three.”
How can we understand the Trinity? God in three different personalities? It doesn’t make sense to a Jew, but I must ask myself this question: How did Jesus convince so many Jews in the First Century who righteously worshiped the One True God that He was in fact a human version of Yahweh, and that there was another element of God called the Holy Spirit that would become part of their lives?
After all, Jesus made very specific claims that “He and The Father were One”. What do you do with a many who says he is God in the flesh? He is either a lunatic, a liar, or perhaps Lord of this Universe. Those are the only three choices. How did He convince thousands of religious Jews to worship Him?
I think it had something to do with his miraculous powers to heal, stop the wind and seas, cast out demonic spirits, and resurrect dead people- like Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter. His teachings were also very compelling, speaking with such authority, going to the heart of the Law.
But it was his very public and horrible death on a cross and his appearance three days later in a human body, eating meals with them, that convinced his disciples that He is alive (albeit with scars on his hands, feet, and chest) and most definitely our Lord and Savior. Over the next two centuries, most of the Roman world accepted this message. The Jesus movement has been growing ever since from the Mediterranean world throughout Asia, Europe and Africa, finally to North and South America.
If I believe this central message of Christianity because of historical realities, then the rest of the Bible must be true as well. That means that:
- I don’t have to do anything to earn my salvation, but just accept what Jesus has done for me;
- That Jesus The Creator of Heaven and Earth will return to restore Earth to its original pristine condition; The renewal has begun in me and other members of God’s family through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives- we are being changed into His image now.
- I will live my eternal life in a much improved human body interacting with friends, family, and other members of the Kingdom;
- Jesus will reign as King and bring justice to all situations that bother me now;
- I will have a purpose as part of his Kingdom, functioning as he designed me to be;
- I will know the King on a personal basis and I can begin that experience right now because I have a connection through the Holy Spirit to Him;
- Jesus will not allow the Earth to be destroyed. He is in charge of every aspect of this Universe .
This is the Assured Hope that I have because of the historical evidence of Jesus’ life and resurrection. Everything changes.
I now want to invite all into this reality! Michael
Our Seek The Lamb panel of Mark 1:9-11 announcing Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River. This is located at Yardinet, where many go to get baptized in the Jordan. It is amazing that our people group and project is represented here!
Seek The Lamb Giving
Please consider giving a gift this month to help us in our school project in Nicaragua.
Sih school, Rio Coco Honduras,1987
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