Chronicles of a Watchman by Dr. James P. Norman Jr.

TO BE IN CHRIST – SALT (PART FOUR) Salt speaks of the risen life of Jesus Christ, imparted by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to the redeemed sinner. It is the salt for barrenness! As you have been reconciled to God by his death, you are constantly to be saved by his life. It is only the life of the Lord Jesus, his activity, clothed with you and displayed through you that ultimately will find the approval of God. As a forgiven sinner, you are a member of a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ (I Peter 2:5). It is that Lord Jesus Christ alone who makes your sacrifices acceptable to God. Only what he does in you and through you merits his approval and God can and will accept nothing less! Every oblation of the meat offering shall though season with salt; neither shall you suffer the salt of the covenant of the God to be lacking from the meat offering, with all your offerings you shall offer salt. (Lev 2:13) Under no circ...

TO BE IN CHRIST – THE CARNAL CHRISTIAN (PART THREE)   You say, I thought a carnal Christian was a backslider somebody for instance who used to go to church but has run off with somebody else’s wife! Oh no! That is only one kind of carnal Christian, and I would not suggest that you were that kind of carnal Christian.   No, No! I am talking about some Sunday school teachers. I am talking about some Sunday school superintendents. I am talking about some Pastor in his pulpit. I am talking about some missionary on the field. I am talking about many ordinary average earnest Christians. They are wonderful people. You would love to meet them. They talk all the language of salvation and they mean every work. They say they are not hypocrites.   They are overwhelmed inwardly with a sense of defeat, frustration, futility and bareness. When you meet them they will smile sweetly and they will mean the smile they give you. They will grip you by the hand and they will say ...

TO BE IN CHRIST – THE TREE (PART TWO)   He showed them a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. He bore our sins “in” his own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24).   This was the second tree, the place of the second choice.  Adam had repudiated his relationship to God at that first tree, and said “no” to God. He then stepped out of life into death. He stepped out of dependence into independence, so that you and I (at that second tree the place of second choice) can say our “yes” where he said “no”.  We can step back out of death into life!  We will be raised from the dead, out of our self-will and independence, into a childlike dependence which is the obedience of faith.   “I am the Lord that healeth thee”. This is the beginning of our salvation! This is to be reconciled to God by the death of his son.   It is the tree for bitterness, the precious blood of the Lord Jesus that cleanses us from all sin and...

      1.  QUESTION OF EXISTENCE: WHY AM I ALIVE? JEREMIAH: "Why was I born? Was it only to have trouble and sorrow, to end my life in disgrace?"Jeremiah 20:18 (TEV) Love comes from God... for God IS love . God showed how much he loved us by sending His only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him."1 John 4:7-9 (NLT) "Long before God laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, and settled on us as the focus of His love , to be made whole and holy by His love."Ephesians 1:4 (Msg) GOD SAYS:  "I have loved you with an everlasting love!"Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV) 2.  QUESTION OF SIGNIFICANCE: DOES MY LIFE MATTER? DAVID: "I remember how short my life is. Why did you create us? For nothing?"Psalm 89:47 (NCV) JOB: "Why should I work so hard for nothing?"Job 9:29 (GW) SOLOMON: "Laughing and having fun is crazy. What good does it do?"Ecclesiastes 2:2 (CEV) HE CARES...

THE BIBLE, YOUR DAILY NEWSPAPER As a bible teacher, I read the bible like it was a daily newspaper of current events. Mark 13:14 Holy Scripture- Great Inspired Tribulation 14: Jesus picked up the inspired apocalyptic language of Daniel’s prophecy. Apparently Jesus pointed to the Roman destruction of the Jewish temple in A.D 10 and beyond that to the second coming, showing scripture is opened to renewed understanding and fulfillment for different generations. God has new things to reveal from his word. Last things, great tribulation-the phrase abomination that causes desolation comes verbatim from Dan. 9:27; 11:31;12:11. Abomination is a term that describes sacrilege such as the profaning of a holy place. Many believe Daniel’s prophecy had immediate reference to the unclean sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple by the Romans in A.D 10 Romans 1:28-32 28-Intellectual Nature- Turning to Abominations Abomination (depraved) normally descr...

In the Old Testament, every demand God makes on a man is from His point of view and is completely logical. What is the demand that God makes of man? God said be ye holy as I am holy. How holy then is the natural question?  Even as I am holy. Utterly holy, totally holy in the absoluteness of God's righteousness.   In the New Testament, what is the demand the Lord Jesus would impose of us?   Matthew 5:48 says we should be holy, and be perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect. These are demands on a man from God's point of view which is completely reasonable. Christ's logic is the goal not man's logic. Evasive is man shaming, ducking, dodging, that the Word of God, and stretching grace in a carnal direction that God never intended.   God made man to be in likeness and in His image -- not a carnal self-centered, ego driven Bible monster.   When God first made man, how holy do you think he was?   If, He made him in His ow...

God as Christ has become the origin of that image we are to display to the world, in His likeness, one in the same time, we can play the role of the mirror reflecting to others what we received from Him. To understand that, we need to understand the nature of man and the way He made us including how He intended us to function.  In 1 Thessalonians 5:23 man is spirit, soul, and body. The least important is the body; next the soul which is that behavior mechanism that man has in common with all forms of animal life; and then the human spirit, the most important part of man to God. This spirit allows His creator to occupy man that God might have access to him (man) and man might have access to Him as God. As we talk about access to God, many of us unfortunately operate backwards with God. We at times look for another approach or another way to access Him. This other way is a back door, which involve our carnal ideas about access to ...