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Tag: Bible

Do you really believe that? ONLY Scripture Sola Scriptura
ONLY Scripture – Sola Scriptura

The HOLY BIBLE IS: The written word of God from scripture.

  • What do I do with this? – Grace

    What do I do with this? – Grace

    ‘Grace’ is a continuation from the ‘Law.’

    The Law convicts us of our sinfulness.

    Some leaders of God’s people and teachers of God’s word use the Law to convict ALL of our sinfulness. (And well they should; for who among us is without sin?) Yet those who have no regard for GOD have no regard for the Law of God.

    Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? – John 8:46

    Pharisees asked Jesus questions in many attempts to convict the Son of God of sin. Yet only Jesus Christ lived a life without sin.

    What about the rest of us? Who can God accept as sinless?

    God’s answer to our conviction by the Law is the redeeming grace of the sacrifice of Christ.

    2 Timothy 3:16-17 KJV

    All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

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    Do we use scripture like the Pharisees to convict only? Or unlike most men, do we not only convict ourselves and others of our sin but also show how God has forgiven our sins?

    Are YOU a sinner? (I sin.) Then we need mercy or we cannot live in the love of a Perfect loving God. We are unable to live a Christ-like life. We are sinners forgiven.

    God instructs us in scripture to make us more God-like, a more perfect image of Him. God instructs us through scripture just like a loving father teaching his beloved children. Even the Law of the Father is foundation to the instruction of the obedient child, yet a loving father instructs also in our failings.

    What father does not teach and rebuke his own sons and daughters? What father does not correct and instruct his own children in the righteousness of more abundant life?

    Instruction is the whole training of a child (or adult); not just in school, not just by a teacher, not only by our parents. Correction by our heavenly Father is a redirection back to the Law and the will of our Father who loves us dearly.

    Instruction by God is given in scripture for all who would be children of the Living God.

    We are convicted in the heart: I am a terrible sinner, always turning from the ways my loving Father intends. We need God’s fatherly love even though we reject our Father’s instruction of scripture.

    Can you see the love and compassion of our heavenly Father in sending the loving Son, Christ Jesus, to the Cross to pay the price of your sin and of mine?

    God our Father has shone us not only mercy for our sins, but His grace of abundant love and eternal life.

    What is grace? It is favor and acceptance we do NOT deserve. We are more than accepted by God our Father; we are loved in the fullness of His grace.

    Who would not desire the kindness, the compassion, the gentleness of Jesus?

    Would all mankind not be more god-like if only we would mirror the image of Jesus?

    We sin. We break the Law. We trespass to that place where we do not belong in God’s will. What should we expect? Punishment.

    What if we are caught (by the living God who knows all things)? What if we will come to His judgment at the last day or at the day of our inevitable death? What will GOD have to do to cover our sin we sometimes try so hard to hide from others?

    What if our eternal soul must suffer for our mortal sins of this brief, measured life? What does the Law require?

    GOD did not require grace for you or for me. God required a price to be paid for your sin and for mine. By His own love God paid the Court of Judgment everything just for the love of your soul.

    For the love of our souls Christ died on the Cross that we might have eternal grace and unending love.

    Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. – Hebrews 4:16

    For the sake of Christ’s love, God’s very mercy sacrificed for you, accept the reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness by our heavenly Father; for your soul is sought by His eternal and overflowing love for you and for me.

    Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love. 2 John 1:3

  • Seeing the Invisible Spirit

    Seeing the Invisible Spirit

    How does the LORD use the Bible? How do we use the Bible to show others the Lord Jesus?

    All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

    – 2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV

    Peter’s powerful sermon of Pentecost is perhaps among the best preaching in the Bible after Jesus is raised from the grave. Yet if you or I had been in Peter’s sandals and new position of leadership, what would we have to say?

    Let’s take a look at the context and application of events confronting this ‘preacher’ and ask of our situation, ‘What do I do with this?’

    Acts 2:

    When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

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    Let’s be clear of the place and condition of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the LORD GOD, promised by Christ Jesus, Son of the Living God:  “they were all together in one place.” Peter and the Apostles were worshiping.

    Peter and the Apostles were worshiping in Jerusalem where Christ Jesus had been crucified on the Cross outside the gates for our sins; in Jerusalem where Christ Jesus our Lord had risen from the grave to appear to Peter, the Twelve and many (and in many places for fifty days) Pentecost is a celebration of worship, like the Passover, which brought many of the faithful to the city of Jerusalem to worship the LORD.

    5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together…

    The sound of Almighty God draws worshipers to the place where worshipers dwell. Inexplicable, all-powerful Spirit of the Living God, here-present; NOT in the Temple of God (re-built by Herod), nor before only a High Priest behind a veil which separates the Holiness of the LORD from the sinners of God’s choosing. NO! The Holy Spirit of the Living God fell on the Apostles of Jesus and the Twelve began to preach with the Power of the Living GOD.

    “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?

    Some things only God can do. Perhaps a High Priest might witness the Holy Presence of the LORD.

    Centuries before the great silence of God in defeated Israel and defeated Judah, on occasion the Voice of God would be heard out of the mouth of the LORD’s Prophet. It is one of these great Prophets this uneducated Galilean fisherman taught from and rebuked the unbelieving people who had witnessed the Crucifixion less than two months ago. It is a fisherman speaking in languages of gentiles and of Jews who all amazingly understand the Apostles. It is the Spirit of the LORD instructing Jews and gentiles through faithful worshipers, rather than by educated Pharisees like a Saul of Tarsus, who would later witness the risen Christ.

    What was it the Apostle Peter reiterates in Jerusalem of Judea from the Prophet Joel of 800 years before Christ?

    [Joel (meaning “one to whom Jehovah is God,” that is, worshiper of Jehovah) seems to have belonged to Judah. – Commentary by A. R. Faussett ]

    What had worshipers in Jerusalem forgotten in the short weeks since a dramatic blood moon at the Crucifixion of Jesus and the tearing of the veil of the Temple?

    What have some of us forgotten since the worshipful festival of Easter just a few Sundays ago?

    Joel 1:

    1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: 2 Hear this, O elders, And listen, all inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this happened in your days Or in your fathers’ days?…

    8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth.

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    Was Israel not the Chosen Bride of the Living God?

    Was the Bridegroom not crucified by those rejecting God’s promised grace of Perfect forgiveness?

    The Spirit of the LORD poured forth from Peter and the Apostles. Worshipers of GOD were drawn to the Invisible Word spoken through these servants of Christ Jesus.

    Acts 2:

    17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
    that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
        and your young men shall see visions,
        and your old men shall dream dreams;
    18 even on my male servants and female servants
        in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
    19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
        and signs on the earth below,
        blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
    20 the sun shall be turned to darkness
        and the moon to blood,
        before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
    21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

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    Peter is not reading from a scroll in the Temple. This uneducated fisherman is reminding Jerusalem of not only infrequently heard words of the Prophet Joel, but of the dramatic events of just two months earlier when the sun turned to darkness and the Bridegroom of Righteousness cried out from a cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

    Peter now preaches by the Spirit of what Joel had foretold of these very last days, begun on a Cross just weeks before.

    22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

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    The bold fisherman of Galilee again quotes scripture from the hymnal of the Jews, the words of Psalm 16 :

    25 For David says concerning him,

    “‘I saw the Lord always before me,
        for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
    26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
        my flesh also will dwell in hope.
    27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
        or let your Holy One see corruption.
    28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
        you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’

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    The Spirit then gives Peter not only more scripture to speak to the souls before him, but application to their salvation. Speaking of King David, a man after God’s own heart, Peters says:

    31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

    Speaking of what some in the crowd surely had witnessed in Jerusalem at the previous feast of Pentecost, Peter proclaims:

    32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.

    33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit,

    he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

    God’s chosen worshipers are once again witnessing the invisible and inexplicable signs and wonders in the Apostles, signs and wonders not unlike those many had also witnessed personally in Christ Jesus of Nazareth.

    The Spirit and Peter confront their souls with the evidence of the Messiah, sacrificed and risen. Jesus is not a King like David; Jesus is more than a King of the Jews and of Jerusalem.

    34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,

    “‘The Lord said to my Lord,
    “Sit at my right hand,
    35     until I make your enemies your footstool.”’

    36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

    Peter, by the power of the Spirit and the convicting words of scripture has applied the Word of God to the very moment of salvation for those with ears to hear.

    The Bridegroom of the church speaks by the Spirit to those with ears to hear:

    • Will you hear the conviction of the Savior you crucified in the words of Peter?
    • Will you turn from your sinful ways to take up your cross and follow Christ Jesus?
    • Has Jesus’s love drawn your soul to the wedding feast which will come on the clouds of these last days?
    • Will this Spirit-filled sermon make any difference in your days?
    • Will the Lord Jesus be your Lord?

     

    God IS in Person, Christ Jesus!

    The Spirit of the I AM, the LORD, calls out to you.

    • What must you do?

    Acts 2:37-47

     

  • What do I do with this?

    What do I do with this?

    All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

    – 2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV

    Daily we must remind ourselves that God IS. Daily we must recall that Jesus not only died on the cross for our sins (and oh so many of them), but that Christ rose from death in the body and spirit and Christ Jesus IS. Daily we must seek relationship between our living spirit breathed into us by God with the Holy Spirit sent to us as our counselor by Jesus. The Holy Spirit of the Living God near to our soul, IS.

    All of this seems well and good as we carry our Bibles into a worship service or open the Bible in the privacy of our homes. Yet once we return from worship or Bible study we encounter the woes and trials of everyday life, the challenges of everyday relationships.

    Don’t we ever-so-briefly ask of our Bible verses and stories: “What do I do with this?”

    Bible“All Scripture is God-breathed” or “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” or “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

    We know it. God said it. But what do we do with it?

    Think of our everyday life as a brief journey to a place of which we have only dreamed.

    How do I get there? (I don’t even truly know where I am now?)

    I know God wants me in a different place today than where I failed so miserably in sin yesterday. I am lost and have no GPS. In fact, once I leave church or the security of home (though I know this place is a brief shelter for this breathing, decaying flesh of mine), I not only have not sense of God’s direction, I can not even find weak signal of God’s voice speaking direction into my daily life.

    Genesis 12:

    ur to haran to caanan mapNow the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

    4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

    Just suppose you have retired comfortably in your hometown or near to your family and making an amazing promise, GOD asks you to just pick up and move. Will you go?

    I have little understanding of Abram and his lifestyle millennia ago. Yet what same application do I see to my own life when it seems everything must change from how I have always seen my life?

    Everything must go forward in some new direction. How do I get there? Who will help me along the way? What will I find in this new place? I am blind to any knowledge of the challenges ahead, the place where I will go and what I will do when I get there. (And what does Abram have to do with me in this fast-paced life even two millennia after the Cross of Christ?)

    Again scripture provides an answer and encourages us to apply scripture to our every day life.

    Galatians 3:4-6  Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

    7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

    Sure, I can teach someone scripture or sit under some teaching to the church which I like; but can I apply to the lesson of my life the Voice of the Lord’s Spoken Word?

    If God asks me to leave everything behind for the unseen promise of hope, will I have the faith of Abraham to hear and obey the voice of the LORD?

    How many times has the LORD asked you to do something after you were in the comfortable place?

    Or again, how many times have your own misguided plans brought you to your knees before the LORD asking, ‘Where did I go wrong? What do I do now… Lord? Where do I go with this? Show me the way… please… Lord?’

    And ALL is silent… No answer. And again we cry out to the LORD.

    And the Lord is faithful in His answer. Yet we do not like it. It is not the ‘comfort’ we expected. In fact, it makes us even more uncomfortable and will require even more faith than we believe possible – faith to ‘believe God’ and have it counted as righteousness.

    What next? (Isn’t that always the question from the comfortable place or the house of desperation?) What next, Lord?

    To be continued…