June 12,2017
A true "SAVED , BELIEVER" is identified with Christ in HIS DEATH. Not only was Christ crucified on Calvary,but a saved believer was crucified as well within Him. What this means is that this is the end of the believers self as a sinner in God's sight. God looks at self righteousness as filthy rags.(this is a very strong analogy, demonstrating the significance of importance to Gods message on this matter. Filthy rags in those times were referred to woman's menstrual bloody dirty rags).The believer after being crucified in Christ is a new creation through what Christ has done on the cross at Calvary. Our old ways have died. We are righteous in the eyes of GOD not by our own deeds or by following traditional religion,but by truly believing what Christ has done for us and sin then has no longer won. It means for the saved believer the end of the persons life . Being crucified with Christ. The end of a believer as a child of ADAM,but a new creation in Christ.. The old child has been crucified and has no longer has claims on the believers life. This "TRUTH" is their(my) standing with GOD as well as it is truth with the believers(my)behavior. The believer does not cease to live as a personality or as an individual. We are the one who is seen by GOD as having died is not the same who lives. It is no longer"I who live"but it manifests as "Christ who lives in me". Our savior Jesus Christ did not die for the believer(me) in order that we may go on living our lives as we choose. Christ died for us believers so that for now on He might be able to live HIS life in US(me)! The life I live now is this Human body,I (you)live by Faith in the Son of GOD, Jesus Christ.We must walk in this Faith and take our authority. For CHRIST is within us now and SIN(AKA the devil)has no residence in our body mind and soul-SIN cannot occupy residence what CHRIST occupies. Sin must flee!
FAITH means total reliance,dependence on CHRIST by fully yielding to HIM,by allowing Christ to live HIS life in the saved believer. That being said,the true believers life is Christ and not a law or religion.(Gods laws,10 commandments are written in our hearts thru HIS SPIRIT which takes residence within us when we are saved. It is a natural law that will convict us if we do not obey it. Our nature thru the sanctification and grace of GOD enables us to naturally thru our spirit being, follow His laws,and not by our striving to do our own works conditionally. It is not a matter of striving,but of trusting that we live in Christ. A true believer naturally will live a HOLY life,they live not out of fear or punishment,but out of LOVE to the Son of GOD,with whom GOD loved so much He gave His life for us.Therefore, Let us have heartfelt sincere, heartfelt prayer thanking God(Jesus Christ) for what He has done for us and ask and yield to Him that His life,His character,His Spirit be manifested in our hearts(lives). Thanking God for His unconditional grace upon us believers who have truly died on the cross with Christ. Let us receive it so that we may be the true example of Christ and become Christ so that our light will shine and penetrate to others. In Christ Jesus name, I pray. Amen.
Monday, June 12, 2017
Friday, March 31, 2017
The Subtlety of Idolatry
James 1
16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
Listening and Doing
19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
This was a very, very good example of how this world can distort our thinking if our eyes are not fixed constantly on Jesus,Gods word and worship. The only way to stay true to the knowledge off GOD and not get swayed with the ways of the world is to worship pray and be in GODs word. God said draw near to me and I will draw near to you. It is then we will conform to true worship and begin to grow and live in the knowledge of the LORD and who He is. James 1 is reiterating what this article is talking about. I wanted to post this on my blog . A great word to think about!
The Subtlety of Idolatry
In that sense, many evangelicals are guilty of idolatry. I am appalled at what some Christians assume God to be. God is appalled, too, when He says in Psalm 50:21, “You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you, and state the case in order before your eyes.” Contemporary Christianity has lowered God to its level, robbing Him of majesty and holiness. That is as idolatrous as worshiping a rock.
Yet that is precisely what many have done. They have made a false god in their own likeness. Their thoughts about Him come from the imaginations of their own minds, and have nothing to do with what He really is like.
A. W. Tozer wrote,
Knowing God
In Hosea 6:6 the Lord says, “I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” That statement elevates the knowledge of God to a position of supreme importance.
Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” No one is wise until he knows God; no one has even the slightest understanding until he has the knowledge of the Holy One. Without the knowledge of God, all worship is unacceptable worship, not any different from the grossest idolatry.
We get into trouble when we try to make God too much like what we know. When we use human symbols to describe God, we must remember that He is the ultimate, infinite pattern and not the copy. No metaphor can fully explain God. For example, we understand God’s love because we know human love. But when God’s love behaves unlike our love we must not assume that God’s love is faulty. That is making human love the absolute pattern and judging God’s love by it.
It is often easier to think of God in negative terms. We live in a world that is so opposite God that we frequently have to grasp what God is like by saying what He is not like, because He is unlike anything we understand. For example, when we say God is holy, we mean He has no sin. We cannot conceive of the essence of absolute holiness—all we have experienced is sin. We cannot comprehend eternality or infinity, but we understand boundaries, so we say that God doesn’t have any limitations.
But can we understand God? The Bible says we can. We can never fully comprehend Him but we can certainly understand true things about Him. That is because God has revealed Himself to us not only in His creation, but more specifically in His Word. It is our duty to understand His self-revelation accurately.
Yet the temptation is always strong to conform God’s character to our pattern of thinking. And that’s fraught with danger when we live and function in a world that is constantly changing.
The very concept of an unchanging God is incompatible with a world shaped and driven by scientific discovery, constantly evolving technology, and self-determined morality. The cultural expectation to “change with the times” is invariably applied to God as well. His justice is expected to shift and slide with the standards of our times—a presumed leniency that accommodates our sinful preferences and propensities.
But those are dangerous assumptions that offer false comfort. They fly in the face of Scripture’s clear testimony about God’s unchanging character and nature—in theological terms, His immutability.
In the days ahead we’ll explore the biblical record concerning God’s immutability. Moreover, we’ll consider the great assurance we can draw from knowing the fixed nature of God’s irreversible promises—the ultimate comfort that comes from worshiping the One true unchanging God.
16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
Listening and Doing
19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
This was a very, very good example of how this world can distort our thinking if our eyes are not fixed constantly on Jesus,Gods word and worship. The only way to stay true to the knowledge off GOD and not get swayed with the ways of the world is to worship pray and be in GODs word. God said draw near to me and I will draw near to you. It is then we will conform to true worship and begin to grow and live in the knowledge of the LORD and who He is. James 1 is reiterating what this article is talking about. I wanted to post this on my blog . A great word to think about!
The Subtlety of Idolatry
10 Comments
When
we think of idolatry we usually think of a primitive pagan in a mud hut
bowing down to a little god on the ground, or we imagine a pagan
temple, very elaborate and ornate with a lot of burning incense. But
idolatry goes beyond the idea of creating a false God. Fundamentally,
idolatry is thinking thoughts about God that are untrue of Him, or
entertaining thoughts about Him that are unworthy of Him.In that sense, many evangelicals are guilty of idolatry. I am appalled at what some Christians assume God to be. God is appalled, too, when He says in Psalm 50:21, “You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you, and state the case in order before your eyes.” Contemporary Christianity has lowered God to its level, robbing Him of majesty and holiness. That is as idolatrous as worshiping a rock.
Yet that is precisely what many have done. They have made a false god in their own likeness. Their thoughts about Him come from the imaginations of their own minds, and have nothing to do with what He really is like.
A. W. Tozer wrote,
The history of mankind will probably show
that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual
history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been
greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base, as the worshiper
entertains high or low thoughts of God.
For this reason the gravest question
before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact
about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do but what he
in his deep heart conceives God to be like. [1]
The most basic truth in worship, then, is the worshiper’s understanding of God.Knowing God
In Hosea 6:6 the Lord says, “I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” That statement elevates the knowledge of God to a position of supreme importance.
Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” No one is wise until he knows God; no one has even the slightest understanding until he has the knowledge of the Holy One. Without the knowledge of God, all worship is unacceptable worship, not any different from the grossest idolatry.
We get into trouble when we try to make God too much like what we know. When we use human symbols to describe God, we must remember that He is the ultimate, infinite pattern and not the copy. No metaphor can fully explain God. For example, we understand God’s love because we know human love. But when God’s love behaves unlike our love we must not assume that God’s love is faulty. That is making human love the absolute pattern and judging God’s love by it.
It is often easier to think of God in negative terms. We live in a world that is so opposite God that we frequently have to grasp what God is like by saying what He is not like, because He is unlike anything we understand. For example, when we say God is holy, we mean He has no sin. We cannot conceive of the essence of absolute holiness—all we have experienced is sin. We cannot comprehend eternality or infinity, but we understand boundaries, so we say that God doesn’t have any limitations.
But can we understand God? The Bible says we can. We can never fully comprehend Him but we can certainly understand true things about Him. That is because God has revealed Himself to us not only in His creation, but more specifically in His Word. It is our duty to understand His self-revelation accurately.
Yet the temptation is always strong to conform God’s character to our pattern of thinking. And that’s fraught with danger when we live and function in a world that is constantly changing.
The very concept of an unchanging God is incompatible with a world shaped and driven by scientific discovery, constantly evolving technology, and self-determined morality. The cultural expectation to “change with the times” is invariably applied to God as well. His justice is expected to shift and slide with the standards of our times—a presumed leniency that accommodates our sinful preferences and propensities.
But those are dangerous assumptions that offer false comfort. They fly in the face of Scripture’s clear testimony about God’s unchanging character and nature—in theological terms, His immutability.
In the days ahead we’ll explore the biblical record concerning God’s immutability. Moreover, we’ll consider the great assurance we can draw from knowing the fixed nature of God’s irreversible promises—the ultimate comfort that comes from worshiping the One true unchanging God.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Is your Salvation Secure?
Wondering if you are truly saved and are being sanctified? What must we realize and recognize to be truly saved? I pondered on this question as a result of a prophet constantly praying over me stating my salvation is secure and my name is written in the lambs book of life. HUH? I thought I had a full understanding of this,afterall I have the gift of the HOLY Spirit,spirit of tongues..I am saved.aren't I?This article is truly a revelation.
Scripture is everywhere clear-the one thing a person must do to be
saved is exercise "true saving faith" in Christ. Faith is the instrument
that God uses to bring individuals into a saving relationship with
Himself. That is not to say that faith is the basis of our salvation;
rather, it is the channel by which God grants salvation. Noted
theologian B.B. Warfield said, "The saving power of faith resides thus
not in itself, but in the Almighty Savior on whom it rests...It is not,
strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but that Christ
saves through faith."
Faith comes to the believer as a gift from God. It is not something that individuals are capable of mustering up on their own. Were faith a work of man's own doing, man would be in a position to take partial credit for his redemption. But such a concept is foreign to the writers of Scripture. Paul anticipated that men would tend to boast of their part in salvation when he wrote that faith (one of many components of salvation) "is the gift of God...that no one should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). As Charles Haddon Spurgeon was fond of saying, salvation is "all of grace."
Faith comes as a result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit-He quickens our hearts to believe. Apart from the new birth, there can be no true faith. Therefore, faith, though it manifests itself in action, comes as a result of God's work in us. God grants us faith and that faith is evidenced by our walking in the good works that "God [has] prepared beforehand" for us to walk in (Ephesians 2:10).
The Bible says that if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved. However, the Bible does not present faith as simply "mental assent to the facts of the gospel." True saving faith involves repentance from one's sin and a complete trust in the work of Christ to save from sin and make one righteous. The Reformers spoke of three aspects of faith: recognition of the truth claims of the gospel, acknowledgment of their truthfulness and exact correspondence to man's spiritual need, and a personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ who, by virtue of His death, provides the only sufficient sacrifice for one's personal sin. Any one of these three aspects of faith, taken by themselves, is insufficient to meet the biblical definition of saving faith. However, the presence of all three components together results in saving faith. In other words, saving faith consists of mental, emotional, and volitional elements. Saving faith involves both the mind and the will.
In addition to calling us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the New Testament uses several figures of speech to describe the nature of saving faith. Perhaps the most vivid of those figurative references is found in Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). In that passage, Jesus likens true faith to hungering and thirsting. The unbeliever, by virtue of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, recognizes his or her dire need of nourishment and refreshment and comes to Jesus begging that He fill the need. That is a beautiful picture of faith. First, there is recognition of Jesus' claim to be the "bread of life" (John 6:35) and the possessor of "living water" (John 4:10). Next, the unbeliever is convinced that Jesus' promise is really true and that it corresponds exactly with his profound hunger and thirst. Finally, the unbeliever acts-he begs Jesus to satisfy his hunger and quench his thirst. True faith hears, believes, and actively responds.
What is the nature of true saving faith?
Faith comes to the believer as a gift from God. It is not something that individuals are capable of mustering up on their own. Were faith a work of man's own doing, man would be in a position to take partial credit for his redemption. But such a concept is foreign to the writers of Scripture. Paul anticipated that men would tend to boast of their part in salvation when he wrote that faith (one of many components of salvation) "is the gift of God...that no one should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). As Charles Haddon Spurgeon was fond of saying, salvation is "all of grace."
Faith comes as a result of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit-He quickens our hearts to believe. Apart from the new birth, there can be no true faith. Therefore, faith, though it manifests itself in action, comes as a result of God's work in us. God grants us faith and that faith is evidenced by our walking in the good works that "God [has] prepared beforehand" for us to walk in (Ephesians 2:10).
The Bible says that if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved. However, the Bible does not present faith as simply "mental assent to the facts of the gospel." True saving faith involves repentance from one's sin and a complete trust in the work of Christ to save from sin and make one righteous. The Reformers spoke of three aspects of faith: recognition of the truth claims of the gospel, acknowledgment of their truthfulness and exact correspondence to man's spiritual need, and a personal commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ who, by virtue of His death, provides the only sufficient sacrifice for one's personal sin. Any one of these three aspects of faith, taken by themselves, is insufficient to meet the biblical definition of saving faith. However, the presence of all three components together results in saving faith. In other words, saving faith consists of mental, emotional, and volitional elements. Saving faith involves both the mind and the will.
In addition to calling us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the New Testament uses several figures of speech to describe the nature of saving faith. Perhaps the most vivid of those figurative references is found in Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). In that passage, Jesus likens true faith to hungering and thirsting. The unbeliever, by virtue of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, recognizes his or her dire need of nourishment and refreshment and comes to Jesus begging that He fill the need. That is a beautiful picture of faith. First, there is recognition of Jesus' claim to be the "bread of life" (John 6:35) and the possessor of "living water" (John 4:10). Next, the unbeliever is convinced that Jesus' promise is really true and that it corresponds exactly with his profound hunger and thirst. Finally, the unbeliever acts-he begs Jesus to satisfy his hunger and quench his thirst. True faith hears, believes, and actively responds.
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