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LivingTruth.com

LivingTruth.com

Written by: Dan Beaty
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 Proclaiming a Message of Good News and Hope to our generation!Copyright © Living Truth 2012 Art Christianity Entertainment & Performing Arts Ministry & Evangelism Spirituality
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  • Free Audiobook: Light Of The World, Chapter Fifteen, The Time Is Fulfilled

    Free Audiobook: Light Of The World, Chapter Fifteen, The Time Is Fulfilled
    Aug 11 2025
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    10 mins
  • Light Of The World, Chapter Fourteen: The Promised Peace

    Light Of The World, Chapter Fourteen: The Promised Peace
    Sep 23 2023
    My generation came after the end of world war 2 and during the end of the US involvement in the Korean Conflict. After Korea there was generally a time of peace and prosperity in America. We had emerged from this period as a major world power. Later when the government began sending our young men to fight in Vietnam, many in our generation did not see our involvement there as justified. By the late 60’s antiwar protests began along with the equal rights movement. As a teenager I was impacted by the hippie movement that spread from California to my area in the Midwest. Peace, Love and Freedom were major themes of that time in the hearts and minds of many of us. Songs were written and played on the radio about “A New World Coming.” The Beatles sang on the first world-wide satellite broadcast, “All You Need Is Love.” The time was ripe to question the value of killing one another with the ever increasing effectiveness of modern technology. This was not the first time in history when people became sick of war, but this movement definitely gained greater momentum than those before it. Sixty years later the dream of a new world full of peace, joy and love has been all but forgotten. Conflict persists among nations, races, cultures, religions, neighborhoods and families. War did not seem to make sense in the 60’s and it still does not make sense today. How can the human race continue to fight in its inherent inclination for self interest but not see that this tendency actually leads to its own self destruction? Can peace loving people do anything to change this situation? Well, in my opinion the first thing we must do is to reject the despair that creeps in as we consider these issues. Our God is a god of hope, not despair. (Romans 15:13) In the preceding chapters we have looked at the amazing and important connections between the Hebrew bible, which Christians call the Old Testament, and our New Testament. The Old Testament tells the story of the children of Abraham, who settled in a land to be called Israel. It also tells of the future of the entire world, and how the nations who did not descend from Abraham in a physical sense will later be connected to this same family. This will come about by the life, the ministry, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a native of that land. You may have heard of the greeting used by Jewish people even today. I was told as a boy that “shalom” meant both “hello” and “goodbye” in Hebrew. It is used in a similar way that we say “hello” and “goodbye” today, but the word in Hebrew is literally “peace.” “Shalom” is a way of pronouncing a blessing of health, happiness, safety, prosperity and peace to a friend in both meeting and parting. It is about much more than just the absence of war. It harkens back to the time before sin entered into the world, before paradise was lost. In the garden, Adam and Eve were at peace with God, with one another and with nature. There was no death, no disease, no war. Outside of the garden, it was only a matter of time until war broke out. Their first born son killed his own brother, and violence continued to increase from that point forward. In the New Testament letter from James, he asks this question: James 4:1-3 4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. NIV The peace that God promises is one that includes health, happiness, safety and prosperity, but it is a peace that first must begin in the heart. The real source of war is in our struggles for things other than God Himself. Only He can satisfy our most basic needs. Our separation from Him and our resistance to Him will always result in discontent. The Beatles were right when they said all you need is love. Sadly, this knowledge did not save them from the conflict that broke them up. Jesus Christ came to repair the breach between God and humanity. He accomplished this by absorbing all of our sins and putting an end to them on the Cross. Those who trust in His sacrifice for us and trust Him with our lives can take part in that promised peace. Being reconciled to God they also gain the capacity to love in a way that is beyond normal, selfish human love. The enemy who started the trouble long ago was defeated by Christ on the Cross. Unfortunately he does not seem to realize this and sometimes we do not realize it as well. He continues to mislead people into doubting God and His love for us. He manages to pit us against one another instead of facing our own inner failures. When we do see our own failures he tries to press us into despair instead of trusting in God to heal us and empower us toward victory....
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    11 mins
  • Light Of The World, Chapter 13: The Forgotten Priority

    Light Of The World, Chapter 13: The Forgotten Priority
    Sep 13 2023
    There are usually a number of reasons for any given book to be written. One of my reasons, I must admit, is that I love sharing the Gospel with others! In fact I am as energized when I write about it as when I first heard it! God has done and continues to do wonderful things through His creation. What a terrific future He has planned for us all! Yet there is another even more important reason for my writing. Earlier on I mentioned the principle of the paradigm shift. There is a great and needed paradigm shift taking place among the people of God today. For many centuries our focus has been mostly on our needs. We need forgiveness from our sins, and Christ has provided that for us in the Cross. Please don’t misunderstand, we should never diminish that in any way! Much of the New Testament was written to demonstrate the wonderful love and grace of God that is revealed in Christ! Yet, the message that Jesus brought concerning the Kingdom of God is often either ignored or misunderstood. I thank God and am greatly encouraged that more believers are thinking about life in the Kingdom of God today. We are in the beginnings of a great paradigm shift in the church of Jesus Christ that will have a powerful impact on the rest of the world! It is time to focus on what God Himself is after! After I first read that Jesus instructed His followers to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, I began to see this theme everywhere in the bible. The apostle John wrote that Jesus was the Word made into flesh, human from, which existed in the beginning and created all things. (John 1:1-14). So we know He was active in Genesis and all the way through to Malachi in the Old Testament. What was He saying then? How do all these writings relate to what we so appreciate in the New Testament? The paradigm shift that I am referring to involves our understanding how the purposes of God as revealed in the Old Testament connect with the many fulfillments noted in the New Testament. Going further, we will see how the Old Testament prophecies can also enlighten our understanding of the New Testament prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled! So far in the Old Testament we have learned that: God created humanity to be a reflection of Him, to multiply, and to rule the earth. But our ancient parents disobeyed, and brought a curse upon themselves and the whole earth. So God began to work through individuals like Enoch, Noah and Abraham in the process of restoring His original blessing. He called out Abraham and chose him to raise a family that will worship Him and eventually bless all the families of the earth. Abraham believed God. He even obeyed God’s command to offer up his only son. When his son was spared we received a picture of God instead providing His only Son as a sacrifice for all mankind. When Abraham’s descendants found themselves in Egypt as slaves, The LORD sent Moses to deliver them. Moses would foreshadow Jesus, who would save the world from the slavery of their own sin. Then came the shepherd David who had a heart after God, He would eventually shepherd all the 12 tribes who descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God promised to raise up from David’s descendants an even greater king over Israel, even Jesus, the Messiah, or Anointed One. Eventually, Prophets like Isaiah and Daniel would begin to describe how just God would bless all the families of the earth through the children of Abraham. Through Christ He would establish the Kingdom of God on the earth. It is my conviction that these events are crucial to our understanding of the new testament. Together these writings can bring about a paradigm shift like the one that took Israel from focusing on themselves and on to the view that God had plans for all people of the earth. Today He is shifting our focus from getting people into our churches so they can later go to heaven. He is calling us to Kingdom citizenship and to bringing others into a life of righteousness, peace and joy right here on this earth. As we look for His future appearing, we are advancing with Him and declaring His Lordship over all today! God gets what He desires and has planned from the beginning. In turn we receive a purpose for our existence and the satisfaction of being part of His plan! Before the coming of the promised Messiah, Israel would be divided into 2 kingdoms. Both would be defeated and ravaged by other nations. The survivors of the southern kingdom would be taken back to Babylon. During this time they would struggle to maintain their identity and would learn to treasure the Word of God that had come down to them from the beginning of their existence as a people. This was the period where the faith of the prophet Daniel was tested and that his relationship with His God was vindicated. He was the only one of the king’s counselors who could tell him what he had dreamed and could give him the meaning of the dream as well. The interpretation of this dream is very important ...
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    16 mins
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