Ezek. 36:26 “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh…" The Old Covenant commandments were to give us concrete examples of what it looked like to love God and to let that love of God flow to others around us. But Jesus gave us a new commandment, one of love.
1 John 4: 21 “And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."
And if we love Him, we WILL keep His commandments, for we will desire to please our Lord and Savior!
John 14:23-25 “…If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings…"
The difference between the Old Covenant (the Law) and faith is the difference between outward and inward - between going through the motions or doing FROM THE HEART. God wants our hearts – He has always wanted our hearts!
Duet. 30:16 “In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments…."
He reaches out to us in love, and He desires that we respond in love, not out of obligation. God still expects obedience, but not merely outward obedience, but obedience from the heart – because we love Him! Then, what is in our hearts will manifest in our actions toward God and toward others. I greatly fear that what people are learning in most churches today is to go through the outward motions.
Matt. 15:8-9 “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."
The people learn to do and say all the right things, but for the most part we don’t teach and they don’t understand that it has to be done out of a heart of love for God or it is worthless.
Isaiah 66:3 “He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that offereth an oblation as if he offered swine’s blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations."
Isaiah 1:11,13 “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord:…I delight not in the blood of bullocks…Bring no more vain oblations…"
Vain means "empty." I believe that means there's no love for God in it!Much, much of what we do in churches is not pleasing to the Lord. Our churches should be places of loving Him – houses of worship, houses of prayer. Instead, we have houses of behavior modification. In reality we are teaching eternal life is of works, not of faith…we teach people that they MUST go to church, tithe, work in the church, etc, and “we have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith" (Matthew 23:23). We are measuring people by outward appearance and the works they do, not by their faith and love of God. Faith actually means loyal, stedfast LOVE.
Ephes. 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith… 9Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Galatians 5:6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but FAITH which WORKETH by LOVE (emphasis mine).
And we have houses of entertainment and houses of merchandise…this program and that new study and evangelism classes and dinners for special days
…on and on and on…
…so many activities…
…when all He ever wanted was our hearts…
What God requires of us is not complex, it is simple. It's SIMPLE, but not EASY. It's like that "single eye" in Matthew 6:22 - without duplicity….For we must abandon the idols that our hearts hold dear...repent and turn from those things we have loved but that are not pleasing to the One who must reign supreme in our hearts. Whatever, whoever, we love more than Him must give place to our Lord who has loved us with an everlasting love. This is the baulking point for most... "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24).
Man's love for ornaments goes back to the earliest days of human civilization. Starting from the ancient Egyptian rule to the medieval days of Chinese empire, and ranging as far back in the ancient era when the indigenous populace solely occupied America, we have sufficient proof to showcase how men and women wore all forms of ornaments. In fact, some recent findings even suggest that ornamental beads were being produced as far back as 100K years ago.
Incidentally, jewelry was never meant for beautifying one's body in the earlier times, and was intended more for practical uses, such as pinning clothes together or family wealth storage. In the contemporary world however, it's manly used now for decorating bodies. We can find, as a result, two different categories of ornaments getting evolved with time as we trace back its history. Obviously these two different forms were meant for men and women respectively. Men preferred adorning themselves with the sturdier jewelry items, such as heavier gold chains and wider rings that could have expensive stones studded inside them, to display their wealth and power, while women chose wearing sleek nose rings, earrings, bracelets etc, to enhance their feminine outlook.
Many historical societies had set norms for wearing ornaments. This often made it very hard for commoners even to dream of buying, leave aside wearing precious metals. There are no such restrictions in today's world however, as people could buy whatever they wished for and had the capacity to purchase it. It should still sound natural to imagine that only the rich might wear the most precious jewelry items even today, since no law on earth has made it possible to bring down the gap of rich and poor until this date.
Varying trends based on one's religious and political identities, socio-economic realities, and differing cultural ethos could still be traced out in today's jewelry fashions, hence the divisions remain in some or the other ways. Many of today's young generation might find navel piercing a way of bold defiance. Similarly, you might see a completely new class of jewelry lovers who will buy ornaments just for its aesthetic value and not for the rare materials involved.
Many well known ornaments like gold chains, bracelets, earrings etc, could be seen in all time zones if you looked across the world. However, some products like gold chains and rings are equally popular in men and women buyers both. The difference could often be seen in the overall sizes they come with and the rare metals involved in manufacturing those items, which has already been spoken about in this write-up earlier. Some very popular gold chain types could be named as Box, Byzantine, Curb, Figaro, Mesh, Omega etc. Each of these normally has a distinct way of getting manufactured. For example, Curb comes with a series of interlocked, oblong and beveled rings, while Figaro, which has a similar pattern that of Curb, will normally have a ring twice as long as others after a gap of every three links.
The market for jewelry items continues to grow all out, and remains one of the most lucrative ones around the globe. Some very big ornament makers could be seen operating internationally, including those based in the USA. One could buy items from these companies by going to their official websites, and entering the required information, which hardly takes making a few mouse-clicks at any given moment. Several dozen websites from the USA and elsewhere could be seen competing for your orders in this manner, leading out into a cost reduction for you to your surprise.
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