Month: May 2013

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Can We Act on the Word with Improper Knowledge?

The answer to this question is yes we can.  It has to do with how we love, trust, and obey God. Only then can we act on the word of God and live a fulfilling life.  Its about loving God first and loving others as we would want to be loved.  Matthew 22:36-40 says it best and reads as follows: 

 Matthew 22:36-40 (nasb)   36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law ?” 37 And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ 38″This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ 40 “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”   

 Jesus had spoken these words to the Pharisees when one of them had questioned him to test him, to see what he would say, this was after Jesus had silenced the Sadducee’s.  He told us that we are to love God with all of our heart, mind and soul and to love our neighbors as we would love ourselves.  Now by loving God first we can do this very thing.  

 The word Love is mentioned several times through out the old and new testament.  Too many for us to count.  We can learn a lot about God’s character while reading these verses on Love.   That would take a lot of time and that is for another time.  So for now, we have to put our trust and faith in God, obeying his commandments and allowing him to lead our lives.

I recently finished reading a book call  ‘So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore’ by Jake Colsen.   It talks about Jake’s struggle with looking for something that was missing in his life.  How Jake meets a man by the name of John in a crowd of people.  Jake thinks that John is the Prophet John by the way that he talks to the crowd.  He listens to him speaking to these people about God and walking with the Father.  Throughout the book, John comes and shows up at odd times when Jake least expects.  John helps Jake through his walk in the Spirit with God.  We too can do the same, by studying the word and taking what we learn to heart and meditating on it.

Some churches today have gotten away from the what the church is suppose to be like.  The have gotten into the political or the traditional ruts that make them loose site of what they are really suppose to be teaching.  By reading and meditating on the Bible we can allow God to work in our hearts to lead us the way he wants us to go.  Solely trusting him to provide for all of our needs and walking in the faith that we are suppose to have.  God wants to do this for us, we just have to let go and let him do it.  Letting him lead the way for us.  It’s not  a complicated thing.  We make it harder than it really has to be.

As Matthew 5:11 states we will be insulted and persecuted.

Matthew 5:11 (nasb)  11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

But we have to persevere. Allowing God to take the lead and do what we should be doing on a daily basis.  Taking that leap of faith and getting out of our comfort zones to do the will of God.  By doing so we put our faith and trust in him and let him lead us.

I was reading in my daily devotion for today (5/29/13) which to me sums up what I am trying to say here and it is from:

Galatians 2:20 (nasb)   20 “I have been crucified with Christ ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

 

Phil Ware makes a good point on this, that I find very interesting and enlightening.  He says “Christianity is all about dying to ourselves. Some see this as hideous, onerous, and weak. “Why give up your desires, wants, and longings for something someone else mandates?” they wonder. “That sounds like slavery!” they charge. However, they fail to realize that surrendering our wills to Christ is like a bird surrendering to air currents or a fish to the water. When we surrender to the Lord, he gives us the power to be what we were made to be — enabled to be useful in ways that are eternal, empowered to have life not limited by mortal boundaries, and blessed by communion with the Creator as our Father. What is lost in this surrender to Christ living in us? Only our selfishness and our self-damage caused by rebellion.”  

 

My friends we can do this.  We just have to do this on a daily basis and give up ourselves and like Christ tells us to do die daily to ourselves and pick up our cross and follow him.  Walking, talking and believing in the spiritual aspect of it.  Making ourselves more susceptible to being more like Christ.  


Susceptible means being capable of submitting to an action, process, or operation <a theory susceptible to proof>.  I can do this and I know that you can too.  Would you join me on this adventure of discovering what God has in store for us.  I think that it will be an exciting ride!  What about you?  Want to join me?


Let me know your thoughts on this.  It would be interesting to hear. 

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Can A Person Lose Their Salvation?

This is a good question and the answer to that question is no. If you have accepted the Lord as your savior and have been baptized you cannot lose your salvation for any reason.  When you have been filled with the Holy Spirit or turn your back on God it is impossible to lose your salvation.  Being Christians we have eternal life and that is eternal.  It cannot be taken from us.  If it is not ‘life until you sin again, but forever as John 5:24 says.

John 5:24 (nasb)  24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

Salvation is a birth situation.  Birth cannot be undone or reversed.  Once you are born you are born.  Jesus didn’t say that you have to be born again or again.  We don’t get a second chance at being born physically, but we can be born again in the spiritual.  Once you receive Christ as your savior the first time you cannot take it back.  You are and will be a christian for life.

Salvation is a free gift that is freely given.  It cannot be earned nor is it deserved.  Works earns rewards not salvation.  Frankly we deserve to die, but once we have accepted Christ as our personal Lord and Savior we are forgiven.

Romans 6:23 (nasb)   23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Salvation is based on his righteousness not ours.

Philippians 3:9 (nasb)  9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,

2 Corinthians 5:21 (nasb)  21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Both of these verses teaches us that Christ’s righteousness is not our own, how could our unrighteousness ever make His righteousness be insufficient?  When God declares us righteous, then it is settled.  We are kept therefore by the power of God.

1 Peter 1:4-5 (nasb)  4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Jesus is holding us in his hands.  We will never perish as the following two verses tell us.

John 10:28 (nasb)  28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish ; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.

John 3:16 (nasb)  16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

In John 11:25 (nasb)  25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life ; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,   Jesus tells us that the believer will never die and that the believer will never come into condemnation.  If a person could lose their salvation then this would be true.   We have already stepped from death to life.  John 5:24 is not speaking of physical life but of spiritual life.  We have never been dead physically but we have been dead spiritually.

We are the believer will never die.  Jesus said to Martha ‘that whoever live and believes in me will never die.’  Christ was not speaking about the physical death but the spiritual death.  Christ would not cast us out.

Jesus says that in Hebrews 13:5 (nasb)  5 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,”    We will never lose anything, not even Jesus and He will never cast us out.  Like John 6:37  (nasb)  37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.  John 6:39 (nasb)   39 “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.

Christ will lose nothing but raise it up at the last day.  What ever we are, we are something, this answers those who say He will not cast us out, but we could choose to walk away on our own.    We are justified (declared righteous) by faith, when God is doing the justifying then that is all that we need.

Romans 5:1  (nasb)  1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

We are sealed by the Holy Spirit.  When God is the one doing the sealing, no one can break the seal.  The Holy Spirit is given to every believer to be with him and in him forever.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (nasb)  19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own ? 20 For you have been bought with a price : therefore glorify God in your body.

In Him we trusted and heard his word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, in whom we have we are sealed by the promise of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is our earnest guarantee of our inheritance.  An ‘earnest’ is sort of our down payment and is only forfeited if the grantor backs out, which Jesus never did back out of what he did for us at the cross, we are the ones that back out.  So we cannot be saved if we back in and out, in other words we were never saved from the start.

Ephesians 1:13-14  (nasb)  13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation -having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

God never lies and he always keeps his promises.

Titus 1:2 (nasb)  2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,

God has promised us eternal life, and God says and we know that we have eternal life.  God has said it and that settles it.  In John 5:13 says that we can know that we have eternal life.  How could we know this if we are going to hell?  Even if we are faithless for God remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.

2 Timothy 2:13 (nasb)  13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

All of our sins have been forgiven.  If our sins have been forgiven how could any of our sins send us to hell?

Acts 13:38-39 (nasb)  38 “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren , that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.

When Christ died he died for all sins, past, present and future.  This however does not give us the right to go out and sin on purpose.  Nobody not even Satan can lay anything to our charge.  Satan can accuse of doing something, but it is God who sent his Son to take our place.  It is God who declares us righteous, not Satan and if he declares us righteous then how can Satan declare us unrighteous.   Nothing can separate us from God’s love.

Romans 8:33 (nasb)  33 Who will bring a charge against God’s elect ? God is the one who justifies ;  Romans 8:37-39 (nasb)  37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love.  The bible does not teach that salvation can be taken from us.  While there are some verses that tell us that we can lose our salvation, there is none that actually say that God will take away our salvation.  There are verses that teach us that we can ‘fall from grace,’ ‘working out of our own salvation,’ ‘enduring to the end,’ and ‘overcoming,’ which people try to use to teach of losing ones salvation, but this is not the case.

The gifts and callings of God are not irrevocable.   Irrevocable means to incapable of being taken back, recalled or reversed.  No one can argue that salvation is not a gift.

Believers are apart of the body of Christ.  It is inconceivable that God would send any believer to hell.  Salvation is never based on works, so how could one lose it by doing bad works?  It cannot be done.  We didn’t get saved by works so how could we keep ourselves saved by works.  To sum this all up we will never perish.  If this does not secure our eternal security then one must be determined to believe otherwise.

What are you thoughts?  I would be interested in knowing.

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How can we let the Spirit change our way of thinking?

By allowing the spirit to take over our lives.  That sounds easier said than done.  It is not an easy thing to do, because we mean well, but we fall short of doing that.  So how can we let the spirit change us? By renewing our minds, walking in and living in the spirit.  Let us check out some verses and see what they have to say.

Romans 12:2 (niv)  2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Galatians 5:16, 25 (nasb) 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.   25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.  

Romans 8:4 (nasb)  4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

We can do what these verses talk about.  We have to put them to use and do as the bible tells us to do.  Not only by walking in the Spirit, and with the Spirit, but also allowing the Spirit to fill us; renewing out minds to what God wants us to do.  Allowing God to send us out to heal the sick, cast out demons, and cleanse the lepers.  Christ told his disciples to do this and to make other disciples for him.  This is the great commission.

Matthew 28:16-20 (niv)   16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.  18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So why are we not doing this, fear perhaps, or maybe our negative minds are telling us that we cannot do it.  I know that mine use to say this all the time, that I could not do anything right, or could not say the right things.  I had a bad attitude about myself that I would put myself down all the time.  I now understand what I need to do to walk in the Spirit and what I have to do.

So what will you do?  Let me know your thoughts.