Tag: corinthians

  • Help us by prayer

    Help us by prayer

    2 Corinthians 1:11 You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

     Who do you help by your prayer?

    I, for one, do need your prayers; therefore if you can think of no other to bless by your prayer, please pray for me. (I need the Lord’s help in the editing of my current manuscript. More than that I need nearer and dearer relationships with my wife, our grown children and my church family.)

    Christians are a community linked to God our Father by prayer and to one another by the love of Christ Jesus. Won’t you pray for your brother and your sister in Christ today?

    What is your prayer request?

    Please comment so that we my bless you by our prayers.

  • Is that all there is (of my life)?

    Is that all there is (of my life)?

    And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. – Hebrews 9:27-28 ESV

     

    What is the meaning of MY life?

    The paradox of purpose to a soul given our meaning by God:

    “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
    and before you were born I consecrated you;
    I appointed you … (to your purpose and your meaning), says the LORD.

    In Jeremiah 1:5 the LORD reveals His specific holy consecration and appointment of Jeremiah as “a prophet to the nations.”

    The LORD also knew you (as the LORD knows me). He has appointed you to HIS purpose. In HIM only will you find YOUR meaning.

    Why does the prodigal child ask a friend of the world and not the Father of all creation?

    “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise) – Ephesians 6:2

    Is that all there is wineWhy does the prodigal wife drown her meaninglessness in booze asking: ‘Is that all there is?’ rather than remembering the blood of Christ, whom she once called, “Lord?” Why does she betray her vow to her husband and to her ‘Lord?’

     1 Corinthians 11

     3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

    11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; 12 for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.

    Here is your relationship of a man and his wife; the living and loving relationship of Christ Jesus and His family.

    Yet do you, dearly beloved, remember the significance of this “family relationship?”

    Ephesians 5:31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

    And remembering the three-strand relationship of husband and wife in Christ, we return to the symbolism of of this great mystery in which we share (returning to First Corinthians 11):

    23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said,

    “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

    25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying,

    “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

    26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
    27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

    When in our homes our children have seen and have lived in the instruction of holy scripture, which by our New Covenant in Christ Jesus sets us aside from the world for the glory of God; when in our christian homes our christian children have seen their christian fathers and their christian mothers live first in their meaning and purpose to the LORD; when husband and wife live as one to each other, forsaking ALL others (worldly work friends, worldly neighbors, the worldly influencers of unsaved family); when WE the prodigal children who claim Jesus as Lord do actually desire obedience first to HIS purpose and meaning in our lives: then our children, seeing Christ in us will no longer ask: “Is that all there is?”

    John 12:26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

    John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

    John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

    John 15:26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

    John 18:37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king.
    For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

    • What is God’s purpose for you, beloved husband & father? 
    • What is the Lord’s purpose for you, devoted wife & mother?
    • What is the Father’s purpose for you, blessed child of God, honoring your Christ-like parents?

    Pray in the spirit and let the light of our Lord Jesus Christ shine into the caverns of your broken heart.

    1 Corinthians 2:

    9 But, as it is written,

    “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
    nor the heart of man imagined,
    what God has prepared for those who love him”—

    10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

    11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

    12 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.

    Think about these things.

    Pray also for me.

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  • The House You Build

    The House You Build

    Isaiah 66:1-2

    Thus says the LORD:
    “Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool;
    what is the house that you would build for me,
    and what is the place of my rest?

    All these things my hand has made,
    and so all these things came to be,
    declares the LORD.

    But this is the one to whom I will look:
    he who is humble and contrite in spirit
    and trembles at my word.

    5 Hear the word of the Lord,
    you who tremble at his word:
    “Your brothers who hate you
    and cast you out for my name’s sake
    have said, ‘Let the Lord be glorified,
    that we may see your joy’;
    but it is they who shall be put to shame.

    15 “For behold, the Lord will come in fire,
    and his chariots like the whirlwind,
    to render his anger in fury,
    and his rebuke with flames of fire.
    16 For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment,
    and by his sword, with all flesh;
    and those slain by the Lord shall be many.

    Our Lord is a consuming fire.

    He will burn away into flames of fire the chaff of our sins.

    He will send away into the darkness of Hades the souls who refuse His refining Word.

    What does the Lord require?

    Matthew 13
    English Standard Version (ESV)

    That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables…

    18 “Hear then the parable of the sower: 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart…

    … one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

    … one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

    23 As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

    Is your heart the good soil of your soul? What is the fruit of your receiving the Gospel of Christ Jesus?

    The Parable of the Weeds

    24 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also…

    Satan has been sowing seeds of wickedness among the good seed of the Gospel for two millennia beyond the Cross and Resurrection.

    Is the time of harvest not certainly near?

    isaiah-662_barn and wheat30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

     “… what is the house that you would build for me,
    and what is the place of my rest?

    But this is the one to whom I will look:
    he who is humble and contrite in spirit
    and trembles at my word.

    1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple…

    1 Corinthians 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

    … do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

     Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus

    Luke 9:23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

    25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

     

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