A Manner Worthy of the Gospel

Rejection Serves a Purpose

Philippians 1:12-14 ESV

 

“I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

 

We who follow Jesus Christ each have our own testimonies of how God has worked in our lives and through our lives for the praise of his glory. And we should be sharing our testimonies as an encouragement to other believers in Jesus Christ who might be going through similar trials as what we have been through, because it could help strengthen them in their walks of faith.

 

I know that I would not be where I am today doing what I am doing if it had not been for all the trials and persecutions the Lord took me through in my life, most of which came from the institutional church and church leaders who were following after the ways of man rather than the ways of God, marketing their churches to the world just like any other business.

 

When I was part of the institutional church, my ministry was often limited to whatever that particular congregation and its leaders would let me do, but when the Lord pushed me out of the institutional church, and he called me to this present ministry of writing what he teaches me each day from his word, and to posting these messages on the internet, all of a sudden the ministry God had given me expanded to people all over the world.

 

Now I am sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ daily, and I am sharing the counsel and the encouragement of God’s word where it is able to go out to so many more people than it was when I was in an institutional church ministering to perhaps a handful of people. Thus, what happened to me when much of the institutional church rejected me served to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I pray is an encouragement to you, my readers.

 

With Full Courage

Philippians 1:18-21 ESV

 

“Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

 

Leaving the institutional (state) church to expand out where God was sending me did not mean that I was no longer persecuted or rejected, though. In some ways, the persecution increased, as did the rejection, because now I was sharing the truths of God’s word on the internet daily where not everyone was overjoyed with what I was sharing.

 

For, when we follow Jesus Christ with our lives, and we do what he has called us to do, and we say what he leads us to say, which aligns with his word, we are not going to make everyone happy. If we do, we are not teaching the truths of God’s holy word, but we are teaching a diluted gospel message meant to tickle itching ears and to appease human flesh.

 

On a side note here, the “institutional church” is the church which has partnered with the government and with the world and with big business and it is marketing “the church” to the world as a product to buy into, but it has modified “the church” and its gospel message to make both more attractive and appealing to the world and to the flesh of humans.

 

So, leaving the institutional church is leaving “Babylon” (Rev 18:4-5). It is not forsaking the body of Christ, which is the true church with Jesus Christ only as her head. And the body of Christ is not just in one location. She is in locations all over the world and meeting in homes and in restaurants and on street corners or wherever God leads her to meet with other believers.

 

So, when you step outside traditional Christianity to follow the Lord Jesus with your life and to operate within the body of Christ as our Lord intended for us to operate (to move, to work, to minister), not everyone is going to accept you or what you are doing, just like the Pharisees did not accept Jesus. And so you may continue to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

 

For some people, this may mean their literal deaths, for in many nations throughout the world Christians are being put to death for their faith in Jesus Christ. But we can be treated as though we are dead, too, by those who reject our messages. And there may be times when it gets very discouraging and disheartening, especially if we are not seeing much fruit for our labors.

 

But we must not ever give up. We must not ever back down from sharing the truths of God’s holy word. His word will not return empty. We must pray to the Lord to have full courage to keep on keeping on in sharing the truth which sets people free, whether it means we continue living or if it means our deaths. “For to me to live is Christ but to die is gain.” Amen!

 

Standing Firm in One Spirit

Philippians 1:27-30 ESV

 

“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.”

 

The goal of the believer in Jesus Christ should be to live for Christ, to do his will, to go where he sends us, and to say what he commands us to say. But it is also to live holy lives pleasing to God. Our conduct is to be in a manner worthy of (appropriate, suitable to) the gospel of Jesus Christ, which teaches us to die daily to sin and to self and to walk in obedience to our Lord.

 

We are also to operate as the Lord intended his body to function, not as a business appealing to the felt needs of the people of the world, but as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ teaching repentance, obedience, and submission to Christ as part of believing faith which is given to us by God, and which is divinely persuaded as to God’s will and purpose for our lives.

 

And this will most certainly involve suffering for the sake of the gospel and for righteousness’ sake because Satan will be opposed to us, and those who are listening to him and who are not listening to God will also most likely oppose us, too. But don’t be surprised if a large amount of your opposition comes from others who profess faith in Jesus Christ, for many profess him who do not truly believe in him, but who are still walking by the flesh.

 

Praise You in This Storm  

 

Mark Hall and Bernie Herms

I was sure by now, God You would have reached down
and wiped our tears away,
stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say amen
and it's still raining
as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away.

And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I lift my eyes unto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohYhdqXg6is

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Jesus Taught Them and Us

Blessed are You

Matthew 5:1-5 ESV

“Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’”

To be poor in spirit is to be humble and contrite before the Lord. To mourn is to be sorrowful over our sins with a godly sorrow which leads to repentance. And to be meek does not mean to be weak. Meekness is exercising God’s strength under his control, being compassionate, but at the same time speaking the truth in love. Jesus was a perfect example of meekness.

Hunger and Thirst

Matthew 5:6 ESV

“‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.’”

I think we all know what it means to be hungry and thirsty, although many of us in America have never truly starved. We may not have had much at all, but we never went truly hungry to where we had to go without food. But we know that feeling we get where we crave food and something to drink.

Well, in this case we are to hunger and thirst for righteousness like we would hunger for food and long for something to drink when we are truly hungry and thirsty. And righteousness is what is right (true, proper, best, decent, just, moral, honorable, upright, and acceptable) in God’s sight.

Thus, we should go after, seek, long for, and desire righteousness and holiness. Our hearts should yearn to walk in obedience to our Lord and to do what he says and to live holy lives pleasing to him. And we should no longer passionately desire what is evil, immoral, wicked, and dishonest.

Pure in Heart

Matthew 5:7-9 ESV

“‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.’”

If we are merciful, we are compassionate and kindhearted. We care about other people and what they are going through. We are praying for them, and we are finding ways we can minister God’s love and grace to them. It may be with just a nod, a smile, a kind word spoken or written, or with a gift, or doing something to help. Or it may be just to listen and to empathize.

But mercy never coddles people in their sins. It doesn’t approve of or wink the eye at sin. If people are caught in sin, especially if they have been living in sin deliberately and habitually, mercy doesn’t just sympathize with them. If they are not believers, mercy shares the gospel with them. If they are believers, mercy shares what the Scriptures teach to Christians about sin, and mercy attempts to lead them away from sin to obedient faith in Jesus.

To be pure in heart means to be honest, decent, moral, and upright in character, in thought, in word, in motives, in attitudes and in deeds. And it means to be untainted by the sinful pleasures of this fallen world. It means to desire the Lord and his righteousness and all that is good and proper, and to live godly and holy lives pleasing to God. 

Peacekeepers will never “ruffle feathers” and will willingly do whatever they need to do to avoid any conflict, even if it means compromising truth and their faith in Jesus Christ. A peacemaker, though, doesn’t compromise truth or the gospel or their faith in order to appease others or in order to not “make waves.” 

Jesus was a peacemaker, not a peacekeeper, and he definitely “made waves,” and he upset people because he didn’t compromise with them. For, peacemakers are more concerned with people being at peace with God than they are with whether or not people like them and think that they are nice.

Persecuted for Righteousness

Matthew 5:10-12 ESV

“’Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

’Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’”

When we are humble in spirit, and we are repentant over sin, and so we have turned away from our sinful practices to follow the Lord Jesus in his ways and in his truth, and when we exercise God’s strength under his control and so we are compassionate, yet we speak the truth in love, Satan is going to be against us, and so will many people who don’t love Jesus.

When we hunger and thirst for righteousness, and so our desire is to serve and to please our Lord, and when we show mercy coupled with wisdom and discernment, and according to how God shows mercy, and so we share the gospel with others for their encouragement and for their salvation, Satan is not going to be happy with us, and many humans won’t be, either.

When we are pure in heart in the midst of a wicked and crooked generation, we are not going to be well liked, either, for some (or many) people are not going to want to be around us, for they will think us to be self-righteous or “stuck up” (conceited). And being with us will be uncomfortable for them, for their own motives are not pure and neither are their actions.

Peacekeepers are well liked because they say what people like to hear. They don’t say anything that will cause people to not like them or to be disgruntled with them, but they will say what they think people want to hear, and what will make them favorable to them, for they want to be liked more than they care about other people’s true needs.

Peacemakers, on the other hand, will say what people need to hear, for their goal is to lead people to peace with God and to righteous and holy living and away from living sinful lives pleasing only themselves. 

And so some (or many) people won’t like them because they don’t want to hear the truth. They want their ears tickled with feel good messages which do not confront them in their sin, and which do not move them to repentance and obedience. They want to hear that they can continue living in sin and still be forgiven their sins and have heaven guaranteed them.

So, if you are living a godly life pleasing to the Lord, and you are walking with the Lord in righteousness and holiness, in his power and strength, and if you are sharing the kinds of things with others which Jesus and his New Testament apostles taught, many people are not going to approve of you, even not many who call themselves Christians. And they may indeed revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on account of Jesus and his gospel. 

But when we are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and not for doing evil, we are blessed, and we are to rejoice, for our reward is great in heaven, but also because we know that the word of God is going out to people and people are hearing it, and people are believing in Jesus, and this is why Satan is angry with us, and it is why we are being persecuted, so in that we should rejoice.

Blessed Be Your Name

by Matt Redman

In the land that is plentiful 

Where Your streams of abundance flow

When I'm found in the desert place

Though I walk through the wilderness

When the sun's shining down on me

When the world's 'all as it should be'

On the road marked with suffering 

Though there's pain in the offering 

Blessed be the name of the Lord

You give and take away

You give and take away

My heart will choose to say

Lord, blessed be Your name

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw4H5t3TwHM

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Clean Hands and a Pure Heart

Psalms 24:3-6 ESV

 

“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?

    And who shall stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart,

    who does not lift up his soul to what is false

    and does not swear deceitfully.

He will receive blessing from the Lord

    and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Such is the generation of those who seek him,

    who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah”

 

Who Shall Ascend?

 

Who shall come into God’s holy presence? Only those who have clean hands and pure hearts. So, how do we get these clean hands and pure hearts? First of all by God’s grace through Jesus’ sacrificial death on a cross in putting our sin to death with him and through his bodily resurrection back to life wherein we are able to have new lives in him.

 

Then, God the Father must draw us to faith in Jesus Christ. We must be divinely persuaded as to God’s holy will for our lives. And we must hear God’s voice whereby we embrace God’s preferred will, i.e. what he chooses for us. For, this is faith, which is gifted to us by God, and which is founded in Jesus, and which is perfected by him (Jn 6:44; Eph 2:8-10; Heb 12:1-2).

 

So, when the Scriptures teach that it is by God’s grace that we are saved through faith, and this is not our own doing, but it is the gift of God, it means that our faith is not our own doing. We don’t get to define “faith.” Faith is the gift of God, and it is divine persuasion as to God’s holy will for our lives, and it comes from Jesus and is perfected by him.

 

Therefore, if we have this kind of faith, we are going to submit to God’s will and purpose for our lives. We will die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness. We will no longer be slaves to sin but slaves to God. Sin will no longer be what we practice, but righteousness will be what we practice. It doesn’t mean we will never sin, but that sin is no longer our master. Now Jesus Christ is our only Lord (Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17).

 

If we have this kind of faith, we have been reborn of the Spirit of God to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Now the Holy Spirit lives within us, i.e., God/Jesus Christ is living within us and now we are his temple where he lives. And now we can worship him in spirit and in truth 24 hours a day 7 days a week no matter where we are. And true worship which is acceptable to God is us giving our lives to him as living sacrifices (Rom 12:1-2).

 

Now, we must walk in that truth. The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who walk (in conduct) not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. It is not enough to confess Jesus as Lord, we must submit to him as Lord and we must do his will (Rom 8:1-17; Matt 7:21-23; Jas 1:22; 1 John 2:3-6, 16-17; Eph 6:6; Mk 3:35; 1 Pet 4:2; 1 Thes 4:3-5; Lu 9:23).

 

For, if we continue living in sin, making sin our practice, and we don’t walk in obedience to our Lord, and righteousness is not what we practice, we will not inherit eternal life with God no matter what we confessed or professed with our lips. We will die in our sins because we refused to die with Christ to our sin and so be saved, and so have eternal life with him.

 

[Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; 1 Co 6:9-10; Rom 2:6-8; Gal 6:7-8; 2 Co 5:10]

 

To What is False

 

If we want to be able to enter into God’s holy presence we must not lift up our souls to what is false, i.e., we must not follow after a lie, after a false gospel or after the idols of humans. We must not follow after a false faith created in the minds of other humans which is contrary to the teachings of Jesus and of his New Testament apostles (taken in context).

 

But it appears the vast majority of those professing faith in Jesus Christ, at least here in America, are following after a false gospel which promotes another Jesus and a different gospel other than the one taught by Jesus and by his NT apostles. They are accepting a lie which tells them that they can invite Jesus into their hearts one time and heaven is thus secured for them.

 

And the thing of it is, they are not teaching repentance, submission, and obedience to our Lord as part of believing faith, even though the Bible teaches that. But they are promising people heaven with no requirements for godly living, for honoring Jesus as Lord, nor for surrender of their lives to Jesus to do his will and to walk in obedience to Him.

 

So, they are giving free license to their adherents to continue living in deliberate and habitual sin without conscience, without guilt, and without the fear of punishment. For they are promising them forgiveness of sins without first instructing them that faith in Jesus means dying with Christ to sin daily and living to Christ and to his righteousness forever (Lu 9:23-26).

 

A Blessing From God

 

When we are believing in Jesus Christ with God-given faith in him, and we are forsaking our sins, and we are walking in obedience to him in humble submission to his will for our lives, we have the hope of eternal life with God, and we have the privilege of being in close relationship with him. We can commune with our Lord anywhere at any time of day or night.

 

We are living in him and him in us. He is speaking to our hearts, and we have open communication with him all the time to where we can enter into his presence at any moment. Our desire is for him to do his will, and we are walking in his truth and righteousness. We have close communion with him to where we can hear him in our hearts speaking truth to our hearts.

 

Also, since faith comes from God and it is gifted to us by God, and it is not of ourselves, but it is divine persuasion of God as to his will and purpose for our lives, our ability to live holy lives pleasing to God, and to walk in obedience to him and in his righteousness, also comes from God. We can’t be righteous in ourselves, but we must live righteously in his power.

 

So, yes, the righteousness we have comes from God, but we are righteous who are walking righteously in his power and strength. For faith that comes from God is accompanied by action, by walks of obedience to our Lord, or it isn’t true faith. For, it is us who DO the will of God who are considered righteous in God’s sight, not those making a profession of Christ only.

 

For, Jesus died on that cross that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness. He died that we might no longer live for ourselves but for him who gave his life up for us. And he shed his blood for us on that cross to buy us back for God (to redeem us) so that we would now honor God with our lives (1 Pet 2:24; 2 Co 5:15; 1 Co 6:19-20).

 

So, if we want to have our sins forgiven, and to have the hope of eternal life with God, we must walk (in conduct, in practice) no longer according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Sin should no longer be what we practice, but righteousness should be what we practice (Rom 8:1-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10).

 

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

 

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897

Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

 

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,

This is my constant longing and prayer;

Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,

Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

 

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,

Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;

Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,

Fit me for life and Heaven above.

 

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg

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What Do You Prefer? Light? or Darkness?

John 3:19-21 ESV

 

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

 

The Light

 

Jesus Christ, God the Son, is the Light who came into the world. He came bearing the light of the gospel, of truth and of righteousness. And he was crucified on a cross in order to put our sins to death with him so that we would die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness. For, by his stripes we are healed (1 Pet 2:24; Rom 6:1-23; Eph 4:17-24).

 

By God-given faith in Jesus Christ, which leaves our lives of sin behind us, which submits to Christ as Lord, and which follows him in obedience to his ways, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin in order that we might be delivered from the control of sin over our lives and in order that Jesus might free us from our bondage to sin, so we’d be slaves of his righteousness.

 

Now, by the Spirit, we no longer walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit and in righteousness and holiness. Sin is no longer our master, but Jesus is our only Lord. It doesn’t mean we suddenly became completely sinless, but that we are no longer making sin our practice, but righteousness is what we practice.

 

But this dying with Christ to sin and living to him and to his righteousness in obedience to our Lord is not a one-time experience in our lives. This is something that is to be lived out in our lives every day of the week in the power and strength and wisdom of God’s Spirit who now lives within us.

 

For, the Scriptures teach that if we walk (conduct our lives) according to the flesh that we will die in our sins. And they teach that if we make sin our practice that we will not inherit eternal life. And they teach that if we sow to please the flesh, from the flesh we will reap destruction, but if we sow to please the Spirit, from the Spirit we will reap eternal life.

 

[Rom 8:1-17; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; 1 Co 6:9-10; 2 Co 5:10; Rom 2:6-8; Gal 6:7-8; Lu 9:23-26; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 1:5-9; Rom 6:1-23; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

 

The Darkness

 

The darkness is the opposite of the Light, and it is the absence of light, i.e., it is opposite of and is absent of Jesus Christ and of his gospel, and of dying with Christ to sin and of living to Christ and to his righteousness in the power of God. For, it is all about self and sin and living in sin and carrying on in wickedness and in sexual immorality and lies and cheating, etc.

 

And those who are still of the flesh, and not of the Spirit, hate the light, and they prefer the darkness. And this includes many professers of faith in Jesus Christ, too, who have bought into a cheap grace gospel which is telling them that they can believe in Jesus, have heaven guaranteed them, but that they don’t have to forsake their sins or submit to Christ as Lord and obey him.

 

And many people are following after this false light, this false gospel, which is of the darkness but is being disguised as the light, because they want to continue in their sin while they also want the assurance that they won’t be judged for their sin and that they won’t go to hell when they die. But what they are believing is a lie, and if they continue it, they will go to hell.

 

For the light says we must die with Christ to sin daily, deny self, and follow Jesus in obedience and in surrender to his Lordship. But the darkness says we can ignore what that says and that there is a “better light” out there that we might like better, for it does not make us leave the darkness, but it provides an alternative light for us to find our way around in the darkness.

 

Thus, those who want the best of both worlds are following after this false light, which is really darkness, for they want to continue to practice their evil deeds, only now without guilt or fear of punishment. And many of them are addicted to some type of sexual deviant behavior which includes addiction to pornography but is not limited to just that.

 

So, they don’t want to come into the light, into the truth of righteousness and holiness, for the light will expose their evil deeds for what they are, and the light will tell them the truth about their sin and what will happen to them if they choose to continue living in that sin and if they refuse to repent and to follow Jesus in obedience. And they don’t want to hear that.

 

They like being delusional and believing the lie because the lie makes them feel good and the truth makes them feel bad. And they don’t want to feel bad, so they don’t want to hear the truth. So they will call the truth “meanness.” And they will attack those who are trying to tell them the truth, because they don’t want to hear anything that reminds them of their sins.

 

Whoever Does

 

But whoever does what is true comes into the light. Those who are walking in the truth of the gospel, who are walking no longer according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, they want to hear the truth. They love God’s word, even if it sometimes confronts them about things in their lives that need to be changed, because they want to live holy lives pleasing to God.

 

We love our Lord and so we walk in his truth because we love him and because we are so grateful to him for setting us free from our bondage to sin so that we can now walk in the fulness of his light and truth. We want to know when we are doing wrong so we can make it right. We want to keep changing and growing in the Lord and in his righteousness.

 

We are sensitized to the voice of the Holy Spirit because we want to hear God speaking to our hearts, and we want to follow in his ways and in his truth. Yes, repentance, submission, and obedience to our Lord are part of God-given (divinely persuaded) faith in Jesus Christ, so they are required for salvation and for eternal life with God.

 

But when we love our Lord we want to obey him because we love him. And we want to do the works which he prepared in advance that we should walk in them, as his workmanship. So, we don’t fear the light. We love the light. And because we love the light, we fear for those who have refused to come into the light, that they are headed to hell if they do not repent.

 

Draw Me Close To You  

 

Donnie McClurkin

 

Draw me close to You

Never let me go

I lay it all down again

To hear You say that I'm Your friend

 

You are my desire

And no one else will do

'Cause nothing else can take Your place

To feel the warmth of Your embrace

 

Help me find a way

Bring me back to You

 

You're all I want

You're all I've ever needed

You're all I want

Help me know You are near

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAnwBixzuNo

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With Knowledge and All Discernment

Philippians 1:9-11 ESV

 

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

 

My Prayer

 

I don’t think I have ever looked up the word “prayer” before, but I felt impressed to do that today. In the Greek Interlinear I read that prayer is literally “to interact with the Lord by switching human wishes (ideas) for His wishes as He imparts faith (divine persuasion).” So, “prayer is closely inter-connected with faith in the New Testament.”

 

[Ac 6:5,6; Ac 14:22,23; Eph 6:16-18; Col 1:3,4; 2 Thes 3:1,2; Js 5:13-15]

 

I like that definition. It makes sense. Prayer is not making a wish list for ourselves. It is not like writing a letter to Santa Claus with a list of all the things (toys, gadgets) we want for ourselves. And God is not a genie in the sky there to grant our every request (desire), either. Prayer has to involve seeking out God’s will and his purposes and yielding to his will, too.

 

And this is evidenced by what Paul prayed for. He didn’t pray, “Lord ‘gimme’ this and ‘gimme’ that.” He prayed unselfishly for the needs of others and according to the will of God. And he prayed in faith with the divine persuasion granted to him by the Lord. So, I pray that my prayers would reflect that, too, trading my desires for His with the faith he gives me.

 

Love Abounding

 

The word translated as “love” is “agape” in the Greek, and it centers in moral preference. It means to prefer what God prefers. It is preferring to live through Christ, embracing God’s will, choosing his choices, and obeying them through his power. It means actively doing what the Lord prefers by his power and direction. And what God prefers is morally pure, honest, faithful, trustworthy, upright, holy, godly, righteous, and unselfish.

 

And Paul’s prayer was that our love (agape) may abound, i.e., be over and above the ordinary, exceed the necessary, that it may go beyond the expected measure. And he prayed that our love (agape) may abound more and more, i.e., that it may be ever increasing in measure.

 

Now, he prayed that our love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment. And this knowledge is not head knowledge only nor is it books smart, but it is knowledge gained through experience. And it involves perception, discernment, and intuition, so it is wisdom. So, this involves putting this agape love into practice in our daily lives in increasing measure.

 

And discernment involves discretion, judgment, perception, sizing things up, exercising good sense and good judgment. It is not jumping into situations with no forethought at all. It is taking the time and the effort to prayerfully consider a situation and what is going on, and it involves making wise and morally founded decisions.

 

For example, we can be people who are compassionate and caring who love others, but that love must be coupled with wisdom and discernment. Like for example if you are on social media, you will have many people who will give you “sob stories” of some kind to gain your sympathy hoping you will send them money. But they could be con artists, so you have to pray for wisdom.

 

Or someone might invite you into a situation which on the surface appears innocent and legitimate, but it could end up being a compromising situation. So, when loving other people with agape love we need to not just go with our emotions, but we need to stop, look, and listen. For we could be walking into a trap. Sad to say, but con artists and manipulators also “abound.”

 

Pure and Blameless

 

Exactly! Our love (agape) needs to abound more and more with knowledge (gained through experience) and all discernment (wisdom, discretion). And this is so we may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless, i.e., so that we do not fall prey to deception or to seduction or to a compromising situation because we didn’t exercise good judgment.

 

We need to be those who are able to distinguish between lies and truth, and between sincerity and manipulation. And this is so that we can remain unmixed with the world, uncontaminated by fleshly passions and desires, and so we maintain living morally upright and godly lives. And this is so that we don’t stumble and fall back into sin.

 

For, we can have genuine love and concern for others but if we do not couple it with wisdom and discernment, although we may be well meaning initially, it could lead to disaster if we don’t use good judgment, and if we don’t prayerfully consider what is the right thing to do and pray for wisdom and discernment to take the right steps. And when we pray, the Lord will let us know if we are walking into a trap or into a situation that might put us in a bad way, if we will listen to him. And then we must obey him.

 

We have to think about how Satan works. He is going to try to get at us through situations which may appear innocent on the surface, so he will throw something out there to lure us into a trap, but it will be something that will appear innocent or legitimate, and he knows who of us has soft hearts and who of us are compassionate people, and he will use that to his advantage.

 

So, we have to be aware that not everything is as it appears, and not everyone is who he says he is, either. There are many liars and deceivers out there, con artists, manipulators, and tricksters who will use all kinds of means to get God-fearing Christians to walk into their traps. So, yes, be loving, but couple your love with God-given wisdom and judgment.

 

And this way you will remain on solid ground, and you will remain unmixed with the world and uncompromised and uncontaminated by fleshly passions and desires as you continue to say “NO!” daily to ungodliness and fleshly lusts, and as you continue to live godly, upright, and self-controlled lives for the glory of God while you wait for our Lord’s return.

 

For, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are to die with Christ to sin daily and live to Christ and to his righteousness. And righteousness is what is right in the sight of God, so it is all that is morally pure, honest, obedient, submissive, humble, God-fearing, and unmixed with the world of sin.

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Rom 12:1-8; 1 Co 12:1-31; Eph 4:1-16; 1 Pet 2:9; Matt 5:13-16; Matt 28:18-20]

 

Draw Me Close To You  

 

Donnie McClurkin

 

Draw me close to You

 Never let me go

 I lay it all down again

 To hear You say that I'm Your friend

 

 You are my desire

 And no one else will do

 'Cause nothing else can take Your place

 To feel the warmth of Your embrace

 

 Help me find a way

 Bring me back to You

 Bring me back, oh Jesus

 

  You're all I want

 You're all I've ever needed

 You're all I want

 Help me know You are near

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAnwBixzuNo

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Struggling with All His Energy

Colossians 1:24-26 ESV

 

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.”

 

Suffering for Your Sake

 

When we share the true gospel with other people, it is not for our own sake that we do this. It is in the hopes that people will hear the truth and that they will surrender their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ, that they will forsake their lives of sin, that they will be born anew of the Spirit of God, and that by God’s grace they will now live to Christ and to his righteousness.

 

Also, especially in today’s church culture, at least here in America, when we share the gospel that Jesus and his New Testament apostles taught, the way they taught it, we are going to get rejected and fought against, too. We will have people attacking us, calling us names, accusing us falsely of teaching a false gospel, or else they will just ignore us and have nothing to do with us.

 

It can be a lonely life for people who are sharing the full gospel message, i.e., the whole counsel of God, and who are not joining in with the crowd in diluting the gospel to make it more appealing to human flesh, and who are not joining in with those who refuse to share the truth of the gospel out of fear of offending people and people not liking them.

 

And it isn’t just those who make no profession of faith in Jesus who will come against us. Usually it is mostly those professing faith in Jesus Christ who will come against us because they have accepted the diluted cheap grace gospel and so they are refusing the true gospel of grace. For the diluted gospel makes no demands of them for repentance, for obedience, nor for submission to Christ as Lord.

 

Colossians 1:27-29 ESV

 

"To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”

 

Warning and Teaching

 

Doing what this talks about also does not make one well liked in this day and time, even within the gatherings of the church. For today’s modern church culture is all about staying “in your own lane,” and not getting in anyone’s face about anything, but just letting people live however they want, and just laughing and joking and having a good time with others.

 

Now, there is nothing wrong with laughing, depending on what we are laughing about. God gave us a sense of humor. And we can enjoy natural humor that comes with life’s funny situations as long as it is not at other people’s expense, i.e., as long as it is not mocking others or making fun of them in front of others to hurt them. We should not engage in that.

 

We should take life seriously, and we should take our callings from God seriously, for God has given us a serious task of making disciples of Christ of people of all nations, and of being the light of the world and the salt of the earth in sharing the truth of the gospel and in living the gospel, too. We are called to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.

 

And we who believe in Jesus are all called of God to specific areas of ministry within the body of Christ, to use the spiritual gifts God has assigned to us for the building up of the body of Christ to maturity in our faith. We are all supposed to exhort one another daily so that not one of us is hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. But if we do this, we will not widely be accepted.

 

And this is because today’s church culture frowns upon this. They say we need to not do or say anything which might offend someone else, but that we should just say “nice” things to make everyone feel good about themselves, even if they are living in deliberate and habitual and premeditated sin against the Lord as a matter of practice.

 

But as members of the body of Christ, we are all to work together, and we are to speak the truth in love to one another to help one another to maturity, and to help one another not fall prey to deceiving spirits and to false doctrines and to diluted gospels which tell people they can keep living in their sins and still go to heaven when they die.

 

But it is hard to do this when the majority of those who are professing faith in Jesus are not with us, and when they are not supportive of what we are doing, and especially if they are fighting against us and are attacking us and calling us names because we are doing what the Bible tells us we must do as followers of Jesus Christ. But God is our strength, and he carries us through, and he gives us all that we need to persevere and to keep going.

 

The Hardest Part

 

But the hardest part of it all is not the persecution, rejection, and opposition we face. The hardest part is watching people we love being deceived and believing the lies and walking in the darkness while they think that they are in the light. It is hard watching them just living for themselves, doing whatever they want to do without regard for God’s will for their lives.

 

It is hard watching the church of today in such a huge spiritual decline and so many who profess faith in Jesus not sharing their faith with others but just laughing and joking and having a good time right along with the people of the world to where there is not much of a distinction between the world and the church anymore.

 

Yes, this is the hardest part of all, not what we have to go through, but to watch those we love being led astray and wasting their lives away on frivolity and meaningless stuff and not living to Christ and to his righteousness, and not being the light of the world and the salt of the earth. And so we are now watching our worlds fall apart.

 

So, I pray for revival of the church. I pray for the salvation of human lives. I pray for those who are blinded spiritually to have their eyes opened to the truth, to reject the lies, and to surrender their lives to Jesus Christ while there is still time, for time is ticking away. But it is so hard waiting. So, we have to give them over to the Lord every day and trust God’s timing.

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Rom 12:1-8; 1 Co 12:1-31; Eph 4:1-16; 1 Pet 2:9; Matt 5:13-16; Matt 28:18-20]

 

Praise You in This Storm  

 

Mark Hall and Bernie Herms

I was sure by now, God You would have reached down
and wiped our tears away,
stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say amen
and it's still raining
as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away.

And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I lift my eyes unto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohYhdqXg6is

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Being Conformed to His Likeness

My God, My God

Psalms 22:1-2 ESV

 

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

    Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

    and by night, but I find no rest.”

 

If we are true followers of Jesus Christ, we will not be forsaken by God. For, He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb 13:5). But that doesn’t mean that, at times, we won’t feel as though he has forsaken us. Sometimes it will feel as though he is far off, and we can’t hear him speaking to our hearts through his Spirit.

 

Especially when we are going through difficult times, and our circumstances appear to be getting worse and not better, or else our life situations are still the same and nothing appears to be changing, we may feel as though God has abandoned us and that he is not answering our prayers.

 

You Delivered Them

Psalms 22:3-5 ESV

 

“Yet you are holy,

    enthroned on the praises of Israel.

In you our fathers trusted;

    they trusted, and you delivered them.

To you they cried and were rescued;

    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.”

 

Sometimes when we are not rescued in the way we think God should have rescued us we may appeal to God on the basis of how he has done with others in the past. And depending on where our hearts are, this appeal may bear fruit. For, we have a parable in the New Testament that indicates that persistence in prayer will eventually bear fruit (Luke 18:1-8).

 

I recall how the Lord called me to this ministry in 2004 but that how it was many years where I wrote what he gave me to write and I posted it on the internet faithfully, but I was not getting interaction much with people and I was hungry for genuine Christian (spiritual) fellowship.

 

So, one day I appealed to him on the basis that he had disciples who were his close companions, and how Paul, even in prison, had people who came to see him and who ministered to him. And so I prayed for Christian fellowship and then the Lord provided me with Christian fellowship. All of a sudden I had people responding to me and we were able to share in the fellowship of Christ with one another.

 

Now, this doesn’t mean that the Lord is always going to answer us in a speedy manner. He has his timing for everything. But we should continue to call on him in prayer and make our requests known to him. But then we have to trust him with the timing of it all, and we must never give up hoping and praying for answers and for results, as long as we are praying according to the will of God and not with selfish motives.

 

Despised by the People

Psalms 22:6-8 ESV

 

“But I am a worm and not a man,

    scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me;

    they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;

‘He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;

    let him rescue him, for he delights in him!’”

 

Some of this Psalm is a foretelling of Jesus Christ’s suffering and his death. As you read the whole Psalm, if you are familiar with the story of Jesus’ suffering and his crucifixion, you may pick up on some of the phrases, such as the opening plea, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

 

And Jesus said that if we follow him with our lives that we will be hated and persecuted as he was hated and persecuted. We will be despised and rejected by other humans if we are following the Lord with our lives wholeheartedly, and if we are doing and saying the kinds of things he did and said, and that he said we must also do and say.

 

Especially if we are sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ as Jesus taught it, and as his New Testament apostles taught it, we are going to be mocked, we are going to be accused falsely and called names and we will have our motives brought into question and we will even be accused of teaching what is false.

 

And we will definitely be ostracized and rejected even by family members and fellow believers (or professing believers) in Jesus Christ. They will reject what we are teaching because they want to hear the light and fluffy stuff. They don’t want to hear about surrender to God, and obedience to Christ, and forsaking our sinful practices and living holy lives pleasing to God.

 

So, if our lives are surrendered to Jesus Christ, it is not going to be “smooth sailing” for us. Thus, we should anticipate rejection and people not wanting to be with us or to hear from us. We should expect to be excluded. We should know that our faith will be tested, and we will have to make the choice to serve God or to be accepted by other humans.

 

From the Womb

Psalms 22:1-2 ESV

 

“Yet you are he who took me from the womb;

    you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.

On you was I cast from my birth,

    and from my mother's womb you have been my God.

Be not far from me,

    for trouble is near,

    and there is none to help.”

 

In the book of Jeremiah we read that even before Jeremiah was formed in the womb of his mother that God knew him, and that God consecrated him, and that God appointed him as a prophet to the nations. So, Jeremiah was called to his ministry even before he existed.

 

And we read in Psalms 139 that God/Jesus is the one who formed our inward parts and who knit us together in the wombs of our mothers. And the psalmist wrote that in God’s book were written all the days that were formed (or ordained) for him, even before they came into being.

 

And then we read in Scripture that those whom God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. And we read that we who are the Lord’s were chosen in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

 

So, we get this picture here that God had a plan and a purpose for our lives even before the creation of the world, for even before he created the world he had us in his mind and he knew, and he had planned where we would be born and to what family, and the plans he had for our lives.

 

So, we have to trust in God’s sovereignty over our lives. Yes, we have the free will to choose or to reject Jesus and his salvation, and we are all responsible before God for the choices we make in this life, but yet, at least for those who have believed in Jesus, he had our lives planned out for us, and he had his hand upon our lives, and he had his calling for us even before we were even thought of by our parents.

 

And so what this means is that the things that are going on in our lives are things that God, at the least, allows and that he has a purpose for them in our lives and that he plans to bring good out of them in our lives. It doesn’t mean he approves of them, but suffering is part of the Christian life, for through suffering we learn obedience and perseverance and we grow in our walks of faith if we respond correctly to our suffering.

 

So, we need to trust the Lord in our suffering. Yes, pray for relief, but also pray for God’s will to be done, and pray that we will learn what we need to learn through our times of suffering so that we do mature through them in our walks of faith. For our Lord is conforming us to his likeness.

 

[Jeremiah 1; Psalms 139; Rom 8:29; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Eph 1:3-4]

 

Praise You in This Storm  

 

Mark Hall and Bernie Herms

I was sure by now, God You would have reached down
and wiped our tears away,
stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say amen
and it's still raining
as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away.

And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I lift my eyes unto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohYhdqXg6is

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Not Everyone Who Says

What is Faith?

Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV

 

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

 

What is faith? It is trust, confidence, devotion, commitment, conformity, loyalty, faithfulness, and trustworthiness. It is a gift from God, and it means to be persuaded by God as to the will of God. It involves us hearing God’s voice whereby we embrace God’s preferred will, i.e. what he chooses for us.

 

I believe a lot of confusion comes into play regarding faith because it has been taught very weakly for a long while now. Many teachers of the faith have removed Scriptures from their context, and they have built their doctrines of salvation around a few cherry picked Scriptures taken out of context, and this is where we run into problems. Or they present "faith" as nothing more than a one-time decision to receive Jesus into our hearts.

 

Yet, if we look at what faith means in the Bible we realize that faith means divine persuasion as to the will of God for our lives. For, we can't even come to faith in Jesus Christ unless the Father draws us to Christ, and Jesus is the author and the perfecter of our faith, and the faith to believe in Jesus is not of ourselves, but it is a gift of God (Jn 6:44; Eph 2:8-10; Heb 12:1-2).

 

So, if faith means we are persuaded of God, and if faith originates with Jesus, and it is perfected by Jesus, and if this is God's gift to us and it is not of ourselves, then "faith" is going to submit to God's will and purposes for our lives. It is going to die with Christ to sin and live to God and to his righteousness. It is going to walk with him in obedience. And it is going to surrender to Jesus as Lord, or it is not God-given and divinely persuaded faith, but is of the flesh of mankind, instead.

 

[Heb 5:9; Jn 3:36; Lu 9:23-26; Acts 5:32; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:24; 1 Pet 1:2; Jn 10:27; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; Gal 6:7-8; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Matt 7:21-23; Rom 1:5; Eph 2:10; Jas 1:21-25; Jas 2:14-26; 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Co 5:15; 1 Co 6:19-20]

 

Faith is Present Tense

John 3:16 (BLB)

 

“For God so loved the world that He gave the only begotten Son, so that everyone believing in Him should not perish, but should have eternal life.”

 

Also, where the Bible talks about believing in Jesus, most always the word is "believing," which is present tense. This is not a past belief only. We don't "believe" and now we are saved from our sins and now heaven is secured us no matter how we live from that moment forward.

 

Belief and actions are always coupled together, like in Hebrews 11. Without actions that go along with that faith our faith is dead. So, all who are believing (present tense) in Jesus will not perish but have eternal life. But believing is evidenced as true faith by our actions which follow. James did a good job of describing this in James 2:14-26.

 

And if you read Paul's writings, he is presenting faith as present tense and involving our actions and that if our actions do not reflect that faith then true faith does not exist. The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who WALK not according to the flesh but who WALK according to the Spirit (Romans 8). So, faith is present tense, and it is active, and it involves obedience, repentance, and submission to Christ as Lord.

 

For, we are saved (past), we are being saved (present), and we will be saved (future) when Jesus Christ returns when our salvation will be complete, providing that we walk in obedience to our Lord, and we forsake our sinful practices, and that we continue in Christ until the very end. This is what the Scriptures teach.

 

[Jn 8:31-32; Rom 11:17-24; 1 Co 15:2; Col 1:21-23; 2 Tim 2:10-13; Heb 3:6, 14-15; 1 John 2:24-25; Jn 15:1-12; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 1:18; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; 1 Jn 1:5-9; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; 1 Co 6:9-10; 2 Co 5:10; Eph 4:17-24; Tit 2:11-14]

 

Die to Sin, Live to God

1 Peter 2:24 (BSB)

 

“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. ‘By His stripes you are healed.’”

 

Jesus didn't say we just had to have faith. He said if we are going to come after him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (daily die with him to sin and to self) and follow (obey) him. He said if we hold on to our old lives (of living for sin and for the flesh) we will lose them for eternity but if we lose our lives for his sake (die with him to sin), we will have life in him.

 

And this parallels over to his teaching about how we must drink his blood and eat his flesh if we want to have eternal life with him. For, his flesh represents his body that died on that cross in putting sin to death, and his blood was shed on the cross for us so that we could be delivered from our slavery to sin and so we could now honor him with our lives.

 

So, they symbolize our need to be crucified with Christ in death to sin and to be raised with Christ to newness of life in him, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness and our need to forsake our sinful practices to follow our Lord Jesus in obedience to his ways.

 

So, Jesus most always described faith in terms of our commitment to him, of us leaving mother, father, etc. to follow him, and of us not looking back once we have our hands to the plow, etc. He made it abundantly clear what was required of us to have salvation from sin and eternal life with him. We must die with him to sin daily and live daily to him and to his righteousness in walks of obedience to him.

 

[Lu 9:23-26, 62; Lu 14:25-33; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 10:27; Jn 14:23-24; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 1:5; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Rom 10:16-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Co 6:19-20; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Pet 1:2; Tit 2:11-14]

 

But the One Who Does the Will of God

Matthew 7:21-23 ESV

 

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

 

The Scriptures do not teach “once saved always saved.” They do not teach that we can prayer a prayer to receive Jesus Christ into our hearts and that heaven is now guaranteed us regardless of how we live our lives from that moment forward. Those who teach this are not teaching the gospel in its fullness or in context.

 

The Scriptures teach that we must walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, and that we must no longer walk in sin but that we must now walk in righteousness, and that sin should no longer be what we practice for Jesus Christ delivered us from our slavery to sin so we can now live as servants of the Lord and of his righteousness.

 

They teach that if we obey the Lord we will never see death and that we will have eternal life, but that if we don’t obey the Lord we don’t know Jesus and we will face the wrath of God. And the Lord has always seen obedience as faith and disobedience as unbelief.

 

Also, the Scriptures teach that we will be judged by our works. If we don’t obey the truth, but we obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. If we are slaves to sin, it will end in death, but if we are slaves of obedience, it leads to righteousness which then ends in eternal life. If we sow to please the flesh, it will end in destruction, but if we sow to please the Spirit, it will end in eternal life.

 

So, please know that not everyone who confesses or who professes Jesus Christ as Lord is going to end up in heaven one day. If we don’t die with Christ to sin and live to him and to his righteousness, but we continue to live in sin and to live for ourselves, he is going to tell us plainly that he never knew us and that we are to depart from him.

 

[Rom 8:1-17; Rom 6:1-23; 1 Jn 1:5-9; Gal 5:16-21; Jn 8:51; Jn 14:23-24; Jn 3:36; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:16; 2 Thes 1:7-8; 1 Jn 2:3-6; Lu 9:23-26; Lu 9:62; Lu 14:25-33; Gal 6:7-8; 2 Co 5:10; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Co 6:9-10; Eph 5:3-6; Matt 7:21-23]

 

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

(by Thomas O. Chisholm)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg

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Proclaiming Freedom for the Captives

But in the Power of God

1 Corinthians 2:1-5 ESV

 

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

 

When we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others, we first of all need to make certain that we are sharing the same gospel that Jesus and his New Testament apostles taught. For, there is a gospel being preached and accepted widely today that is a half-truth (lie) gospel created in the minds of human beings to make it more palatable and acceptable to human flesh.

 

I am 71 years old, so I was brought up as a child in the 50’s and the 60’s. When we were taught the gospel back then, we were taught it through literature put out by other humans where they hand-picked Scriptures (out of context) to put them in some kind of a gospel tract which we were then to share with others. It was a formula we were taught to follow.

 

As I got older and I began to read the Bible in context, I began to realize that a lot of things I had been taught back then were wrong, even though I was brought up in a church that taught repentance, obedience, submission to the Lordship of Christ, holy living, and sanctification. Still, their gospel presentation was weak because Scriptures were taught out of context.

 

So, we need to make certain that the gospel we are sharing is the truth according to the Scriptures (in context), and that we have not bought into some half-truth (lie) which is being presented as the true gospel, but which is created by humans, and is not from the Holy Spirit at all. For, Jesus died on that cross that we might die with him to sin and live to his righteousness.

 

If I had to summarize the gospel into one Scripture passage, besides the one I just referred to taken from 1 Pet 2:24, I would use Ephesians 4:17-24:

 

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

 

For, the whole purpose of Jesus dying for our sins on that cross was not just to forgive us our sins so that we could go to heaven when we die. His purpose in giving his life up for us on that cross was to deliver us out of our slavery to sin so that we would no longer live under its control, but so we would now live as slaves of righteousness in the power of God’s Spirit.

 

His purpose in dying for us on that cross was so that we would no longer live for ourselves but for him who gave his life up for us, and so that we would now honor God with our bodies, and so we would no longer give our bodies over to the lusts of the flesh and to sensual desires. For he died to transform us and to conform us to his likeness.

 

Jesus said it well when he said that if any of us are going to come after him, we must deny self and take up our cross daily (daily die with him to sin and to self) and follow (obey) him. And Paul reiterated this when he said that we are to walk (in conduct, in practice) no longer according to the flesh but now according to the Spirit, for if we live according to the flesh, we will die.

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

 

They are Spiritually Discerned

1 Corinthians 2:12-14 ESV

 

“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

 

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

 

The spirit of the world is teaching a diluted gospel which says that all you have to do to be forgiven your sins is to “believe” in Jesus, although they rarely teach what that belief means, or they may quote Rom 10:9 which says, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” But that has to be taken in the context of the whole of Romans and the other NT books.

 

For, Paul is very clear when he says that God is going to render to each one of us according to our works and that for those who do not obey the truth, but who obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. And he is clear when he says that those who walk according to the flesh will die in their sins, and that those who make sin their practice will not inherit eternal life.

 

[Rom 2:6-8; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 8:1-17; 1 Co 6:9-10]

 

So, please take this to heart, and please read the Scriptures in their context, and don’t trust in these formula gospels which cherry-pick Scriptures out of context to present a weakened, diluted, and adulterated gospel. For, Jesus was sent to proclaim freedom for those captivated by sin and to release them from their enslavement to sin so they could now walk in Christ’s righteousness and holiness, living their lives to please God in his power.

 

The Lord’s Anointed  

 

An Original Work / December 16, 2011

Based off Isaiah 61

 

The Spirit of the Sov’reign Lord on me;

Anointed to preach the Good News;

Sent me to bind up the brokenhearted;

Proclaim freedom for the captives.

He sent me to preach release for pris’ners

Who are walking in sin’s darkness;

Proclaim God’s grace to all men who’ll listen;

And tell them about God’s judgments;

Comfort all who mourn;

Give crowns of beauty;

Oil of gladness and thanksgiving.

 

They will be called oaks of God’s righteousness,

A planting of our Savior, God,

For the display of our Lord’s splendor, and

They will rebuild God’s holy church.

God will renew them, and will restore them,

And you’ll be called priests of the Lord.

You will be ministers of our God, and

You will rejoice in salvation.

The Lord loves justice;

He is faithful to

Reward those who are seeking Him.

 

I delight greatly in the Lord;

My soul rejoices in my Savior, God.

He has clothed me with His salvation,

And in a robe of His righteousness.

He has given me priestly garments to wear,

As the bride of Jesus Christ.

As the garden of our Lord and Savior,

He causes us to grow in Him.

He makes righteousness,

Praise, and thanksgiving

Spring up before all the nations.

 

https://vimeo.com/114836524