As the Lord prepares for His death, burial, and triumphant resurrection, He enlightens his disciples and us today on the presence of the Comforter we can have in our life. Among the many benefits of possessing the Holy Ghost in our life by trusting Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior, are such things as a teacher, pleasant memories, and peace. I believe the Lord chose to put them in this order in this passage for us to learn an important part of the process of peace that we can only attain from, by, and through Him. We must first and continually choose to acknowledge, be attentive to, and respond to the teacher before we can have peace in our lives. Salvation gives us eternal peace from eternal damnation, but it is only the beginning of the peace He wants us to have in our relationship with Him while continuing our walk with Him in this present world. Peace cannot come by sleeping in class, skipping out on class, and generally trying to avoid the Teacher. For the peace that passes all understanding, focus and respond to the perfect teacher in your life, the mighty Comforter. If you don't have the presence of the Comforter in your life today then make today the day of salvation and trust only in Jesus Christ to save you today and forever. Simply click on the "Can I go to heaven?" tab on this website or one of the other many areas including comments to this post for any assistance needed with salvation. May you have the peace He wants to give you today.
John 14:26-27 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
As the Lord prepares for His death, burial, and triumphant resurrection, He enlightens his disciples and us today on the presence of the Comforter we can have in our life. Among the many benefits of possessing the Holy Ghost in our life by trusting Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior, are such things as a teacher, pleasant memories, and peace. I believe the Lord chose to put them in this order in this passage for us to learn an important part of the process of peace that we can only attain from, by, and through Him. We must first and continually choose to acknowledge, be attentive to, and respond to the teacher before we can have peace in our lives. Salvation gives us eternal peace from eternal damnation, but it is only the beginning of the peace He wants us to have in our relationship with Him while continuing our walk with Him in this present world. Peace cannot come by sleeping in class, skipping out on class, and generally trying to avoid the Teacher. For the peace that passes all understanding, focus and respond to the perfect teacher in your life, the mighty Comforter. If you don't have the presence of the Comforter in your life today then make today the day of salvation and trust only in Jesus Christ to save you today and forever. Simply click on the "Can I go to heaven?" tab on this website or one of the other many areas including comments to this post for any assistance needed with salvation. May you have the peace He wants to give you today.
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I Timothy 6:5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
I Kings 11:3-4 And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. Mankind has always seemed to struggle with this and it seems to be even worse today. We try to constantly correlate prosperity with Godliness. God does often bless his believers with prosperity, but it cannot be used as an accurate gauge for right and wrong. Many today try to judge a church, person, or personal decision's correctness on the amount of prosperity that may be on hand or have the potential to be gained. Oftentimes, this leads to a larger gap in the relationship between them and God which is very seldom noticed until it reaches a point at which we assume (wrongly so by the way) it cannot be corrected. In our verses you will notice that God informs us of two things which let us know that prosperity as we think of it naturally has no direct correlation with how close a persons relationship is with God. In I Timothy, God through the pen of Paul tells us to actually withdraw or separate ourself from those that have his as their way of discerning the right and wrongs of serving God. In I Kings, God informs us that Solomon had allowed his heart to be turned toward (approving of these false gods) other gods. At this time and afterward he was the most prosperous man living on the earth and God had not removed his great wealth during his lifetime, yet he now reached a point in his life where God approved very little of what Solomon was approving in his spiritual walk with God. Keep these things in mind as you make your decisions of how and where to best serve God. There is no better way for you to have the peace of God in your heart than to simply follow the biblical advice of one of our beloved hymns, "Trust and Obey". All throughout our lives we enjoy and benefit from the thought and act of separating from something to something else. But when are asked to separate ourselves from the ideaology of the world to the will of the Lord, we have the tendency to get offended and think we are asked to give up our happiness in this life. When a man meets the right lady and the man chooses to separate his love for a spouse from all other ladies and likewise the lady chooses to separate her love for a spouse from all other men, it begins what should be one of the happiest, healthiest relationships known by earthly man. I said "should be" simply because it is not always the case. It is not always the case, as also with the other examples I will use, most of the time because someone retreats on this separation.
When a friend separates time and energy out of their busy life and chooses to spend it with you, it builds some of our happiest and most meaningful memories in life. When America once separated itself from all other countries and took pride in being know as, "one nation under God", with no concern if this offended any other country, we were able to grow into one of the most powerful, truly christian countries this world has ever known. Now that we seek to please the heathen countries, we are mocked and the only thing the rest of the world wants of America are the things God blessed her with because we once lived for Him. With all we have we are now one of the most unsatisfied, unhappy nations in the world that its people are continually seeking various drugs and medication to try to regain this lost happiness. When the Lord said in Hebrews 10:25a "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is," we think the Lord is asking to much for us to go to all the church services that the church is open and we have the ability to attend. Hence, when the house of God was once opened and filled several times a week, now many churches are going to services only once a week or less because people who claim they love the Lord don't want to spend any time in the assembly of His people. When the Lord said in Proverbs 20:1 "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." we think the Lord is trying to take away our fun. He is simply trying to keep us on a path to greater wisdom and the ability to remember the truly happy times in our life without wondering if we had a "good time" last night in a cloud of uncertain thinking. When the Lord said in II Corinthians 6:16a "And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?", we believe the Lord is trying to hide something from us because we can see an idol but we cannot see Him except through faith. It is a grotesque sin against the Almighty God when someone claims to be a child of his and believes that they must also worship the likeness of Mary, multiple saints, or any other likeness of God's marvelous creation including a likeness of Christ. We don't need the likeness of anything or anyone (an idol) to worship, because He is alive and must be worshiped by faith in Spirit and in Truth. Our worship of Him is determined by our willingness to separate from the ideaology of the world to the will of the Lord. Our true everlasting happiness is determined by our willingness to separate from the ideaology of the world to the will of the Lord. The assurance of our salvation is determined by our willingness to separate from the ideaology of the world to the will of the Lord. And notice in the following closing verses that the approval and acceptance of the Father is determined by our willingness to separate from the ideaology of the world to the will of the Lord. And likewise, the eternal joy that comes from being a part of an eternal brotherhood, the sense of being a part of something greater than this world, comes from our willingness to separate from the ideaology of the world to the will of the Lord. II Corinthians 6:17-18 "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. John 11:25 - 26 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
John 11:40 Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? These are just a few of the verses in God's Holy Word that tell us to believe, and the central theme of the Bible is to believe on his son Jesus Christ who gave his perfect life as a ransom for our sinful lives. With an ever increasing press to do more in life and become more efficient, mankind is spending less time considering the whole principle of some of the basics of life. If mankind did not believe in anything (whether right or wrong) then nothing would get accomplished. We make the most basic decisions of our life by what we believe yet we are somehow getting further away from believing in much that will go into eternity. As I stated before, if the central theme of the Bible is to believe on the Lord for our each and every need upon this earth and into eternity, then we must fully grasp onto the principle of believing. By definition, principle means "a general truth; a law comprehending many subordinate truths". So based on this, what does it mean to believe on Jesus? It is much more than just having a knowledge or head belief of Him. If biblical belief in Jesus is a truth to you, then by definition there are other subordinate beliefs about Jesus that you must believe also, otherwise you do not truly believe in Him. If you believe in Jesus, you must also believe all His Word. You cannot just believe a portion of the Bible, but you must believe all the Bible, both testaments and every verse contained therein. By no means are we capable in this mortal body to live every aspect of our life according to God's standards, but we must believe it. If you believe in Jesus, you must believe in all His relationships. His relationship as part of the triune Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. His relationship to mankind in that upon true belief in Him we become joint heirs with Him, we also become part of the family of God as brothers and sisters in Christ walking separate lives but forming one body of Christ. And very importantly, if you believe in Jesus you must believe Him over all else. If you have never believed on Jesus to save you, do so today. If you are saved and on your way to and eternity in heaven, then believe Him for everything else we still need in this life Amos 7:7-8
Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more: In our text today the Lord uses a plumbline as a visual aid and spiritual reference for the prophet to see. A plumbline was used by brick and stone masons, and many other craftsman back then and is still used for the same purpose today. That purpose is to determine if a vertical wall or object is vertically straight and true as intended, and if not, just how far from straight and true it is. God showed Amos 2 visions of events that were to come upon Israel before he was given the vision of the plumbline. In each of the preceding events, Amos entreats the Lord to forgive His people and change His mind from continuing these judgements against His people and the Lord agrees. When this third vision of plumbline is revealed, Amos does not entreat the Lord and the Lord does not alter his judgement. The Lord states, "I will not again pass by them any more:". Not meaning that the Lord no longer wanted a relationship with His people. It meant Israel (and His people known as the spiritual seed of Abraham - Christians) would be receiving a more visible, and had already been receiving much of it, divine measuring tool to determine their measuring up to God's desires. Upon the receiving of this divine tool, many would choose to ignore their lack of straightness towards God thus resulting in Him not turning away as much judgement due to their exposure and rejection to the much more visible plumbline. Notice that the plumbline is not hidden but is in the "midst of my people". I believe based on the the rest of God's Word that two of the things this plumbline is representative of is Jesus and the Bible and neither can be separated from the other as stated in John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." As any person, city, or nation chooses to ignore or depart from the plumbline (the Bible) and the Lord which has the "plumbline in his hand", so does that person, city, or nation choose to suffer greater judgement up this earth and will most definitely suffer eternal judgement in the lake of fire if as an individual you do not repent and trust Jesus as your personal saviour. Trust Him today if you haven't already. If you are a Christian, don't run from His Word. The most popular item in the news today is awaiting the vote for the new Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. I am not writing today to discuss my dogmatic differences with Catholicism, but to discuss the trend being noted and desired by people of the Catholic faith. It exposes a desire of church attending people that will result in horrible consequences. This desire is that people which attend church of any kind today believe the church should approve of, and accept their sinful ways instead of the person being molded by the beliefs and teachings of the church which they outwardly claim to believe. In the book of Jude this phenomenon of an unrighteous type separation is described as follows:
Verses 17 - 19: "But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit." In the Bible, separation is usually spoken of as a necessary desire of the Christian to please our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is not so in this case. If you read the preceding verses in the book of Jude you will see that these are people within the churches. They have separated themselves in the name of godliness and righteousness but as stated in our quoted verses, "having not the Spirit." Meaning they are not being led of God. They "walk after their own ungodly lusts." Meaning whatever makes the flesh feel good is considered Godly to them. Throughout the New Testament whenever church type services are mentioned, preaching is always the main part. Today many churches do very little preaching and spend most of their time entertaining each other. I met someone this week who attends mid week services at a church. When asked what they do, the reply was that they get together at every service and eat and fellowship. This was not just for that service but every mid week service. In the book of Acts, Paul once preached so long that a young man fell asleep and fell out of the window and died. The Lord performed a miracle and allowed Paul to bring him back to life. (Acts 20) Maybe if churches spent more time preaching and paritioners spent more time listening then more people could be saved from death and hell. In the Bible very little is ever mentioned about the singing, praising and worshipping, or abundance of signs and wonders in any church type services. These things are not of themselves bad, but it was not the focus of the service and when the people left they pondered the Word of God which they heard from the preacher of God and not the abundance of high energy music and praising. People desired to be changed and have more than the flesh could give them and accept what only God could give. This desire was lost when we as God's saved and forgiven children wanted to be patted on the back while participating in our sins instead of admitting our wrong doing and changing it God's way known as repenting. This is the mocking of the last times against God's tried, true, and perfect ways. Notice what God expects of His church in the following verse from Revelation. The beginning of the book of Revelation starts with letters to seven churches. Near the end of these seven letters God mentions his main theme and desire for the churches in chapter 3 verse 19. "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." Don't try to make God and His church try to fit you, but through His grace, repent and let God mold us to fit Him and His church. To those that were at LBC this past Sunday, this may be a repeat, but I did add something extra at the end. Grace is one of the basics of Christianity. Whether we realize it or not, man can not live without it and it is possible and most beneficial to attain more of it according to God's Word. The meaning of the form of the word "grace" that we will be using from the Bible is: the divine influence upon the heart, and it's reflection in the life; including gratitude. My explanation of it is, a gratefulness of heart that allows God to strengthen your heart to make it through anything in life.
1. Must voluntarily humble one's self before the Lord. (read James 4:5-10) Many times a person will humble themselves after they have been chastened by the Lord. This is good and needed, but it is best and God can give more grace if we willingly humble ourselves. This humbling must be done before the Lord, hence acknowledging His greatness and our great need of Him. Sometimes we will have a false humbling of our self before mankind and think it is the same as humbling our self to God. This is not good and it is a trait of the Pharisee's of which most rejected the Lord. 2. Must realize that grace only comes through and due to the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. (read I Peter 1:13-21) Just because God can bless us with more grace, it is never because of what we have done to allow God to give it to us, but all because of what Jesus did for us by dying and shedding His blood on the cross so the we could have access to this grace. It is through this grace offered by Christ to all man that we can be assured of our salvation and our heavenly home for all of eternity. If you have never trusted Christ as saviour, these first 2 points are as far as you need to read. I plead with you earnestly that right now you humble yourself before God and realize His son Jesus paid for your each and every sin when he shed his blood for you and me and willfully accept him as your one and only saviour today. Simply confess with your mouth to God, and believe in your heart that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again the third day to save your soul and you will be saved for all eternity at that very instant. 3. Must separate our desires from the lusts (desires) of the world. (also I Peter 1:13-21) This sounds easy, but you will spend the rest of your life accomplishing this. Even though it is a task that mankind in his sinful nature will struggle with until death, God honors it when we strive to be different from this sinful world and try to live according to His plan laid out in the Bible. 4. Must maintain Biblical family order. (read I Peter 3:7) I don't expect this to be a popular point in today's world, but it is still the truth. God designed the family to be led by the husband in a loving, not domineering fashion; the wife is to submit and follow the husband; and the kids are to be led and raised by the parents and therefore submit and follow the parents. Notice how this verse states that the husband's prayers will be hindered if he is out of order with his wife. Much grace is sought and received through our prayer life. 5. Must spread the grace we have received to others. (read I Peter 4:8-10) Very little that God does for us and gives to us that He does not expect us to use it to help others. There is a world full of sinners on their way to hell waiting for us to share this grace with them. There are also many struggling Christians in need of you sharing your grace with them and you may be that vessel God is using to give them the extra grace they need. 6. Must be considered a cherished task. (also I Peter 4:8-10) This task of spreading God's grace to others should be done as "good stewards". It should be a task and privilege that we are eager and willing to do. How important is it to gain more grace? Peace is something we have in our life when this grace is present and growing. I will leave you with the following verse to think on. Psalm 119:165 "Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them." The term "Christian" is used so loosely today that many have lost sight of what it really is. I will be using scripture references from Acts 9 for the remainder of this post and will simply mention the verse I am referring to. In verse 26 it states, "And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." Just this very statement denotes that the people had noticed that these disciples did more than just follow Christ, they actively pursued others to get them to follow. Some very important keys to what a true Christian is are contained here for us to glean from. In verse 26 we see two of these keys: first, they assembled together with the church (other believers), second, they taught all the people who were assembled together. In verse 20 we see that they, "spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus." This was one of the first groups of people that started to reach out to other people groups other than the (verse 19) "Jews". They practiced what we call today "missions", understanding that Christ died to save all people that would believe. They preached only the Lord Jesus for salvation and did not attempt to get people to trust or turn to anyone else other than the Lord, nor to put any other thing in the place of the Lord. We see this also in the result of what they taught, verse 21, "And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." Also notice in verse 23, "that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord." To sum it all up again about what a real "Christian" is:
1. They regularly assemble together with other believers. 2. They assemble for more than just socializing, they assemble to learn and to help others learn about Christ and His ways for our life. 3. They don't limit Christ's salvation and blessings to any limited group of people. 4. They actively pursue others to believe in Christ. 5. They attempt to persuade the lost (non-believers, unsaved) to turn (repent) and to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing, absolutely nothing else for the salvation of their soul. There is a certain heritage we are privileged to uphold when we are called "Christian". Let us not forget it In today's fast paced world, many of us value our time more than maybe any other generation in the past. That does not mean it is really more valuable, but we think it is. The only thing that makes time have any value is what you do with it. I invite you to read Ezekiel chapter 8 as you consider this post. God through the pen of Ezekiel ends the chapter with some very harsh statements; "they filled the land with violence", "provoke me to anger", "neither will I have pity", "and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them." Seems a lot like where we are as a country. If it would not have been for God's mercy and longsuffering, these statements would have been issued much earlier in Israel's history. What brought God to this point where he had to issue such chastisement to those who were supposed to be His people? I say "supposed" because they were not in their hearts. Much the same way America calls itself a christian nation, yet there are fewer followers from the heart, per capita, than at any other time in her great history. The question you might ask yourself is, if God were my employee, what would his time be worth? Most of us know that it is unimaginable to even think we could put a price on the time of our one and only loving creator. It is hard for many people to give God any time in their life, but there is something worse than that. It is when we act like we give him time, but our heart and mind is somewhere else. In this passage of scripture, it is revealed that the very people who appeared to be giving God time in their life were simply there at the sanctuary of God in body only. Their thoughts and spirit were somewhere totally opposite and direct denial of God. It was so bad that God said in verse 6, "I should go far off from my sanctuary?". God no longer felt comfortable meeting with His people. Notice again how bad they had lied to themselves and believed their own lie in verse 12 as God shows Ezekiel what they are saying, "every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth." God wants us to appear to others that we love Him and want to follow Him. But it is most imperative that we are not simply appearing, but truly trusting and seeking Him from the heart. Our individual decision to follow from the heart could literally change the way God helps with the needs of our great America. If you have never trusted Christ from the heart as Lord and Savior of your life, do it today. There are numerous places on this website that will help you understand how to be saved forever, and I am always available for you to contact me. If you have been saved, perform God's will for your life from the heart and not just for show. We will never be perfect on this earth, but we should continue to strive for perfection until we get through those pearly gates of heaven. The time we give to God, whether personal time or public time at church, must be dedicated to Him. He did all for us and expects so little from us.
Passage of scripture to read - Luke 6:1-13
Jesus had a great multitude of people which contained at least 5,000 men. They had been following Him all day and were becoming weary from not eating. Jesus makes note of this to his disciples, in particular Philip. He puts the need before Philip for him to learn to trust more on Christ than in himself. Philip's response was much like most of ours, it is impossible, it cannot be done. Philip was trying to perform this by what man knew was possible, forgetting that he had access to the creator of the universe standing right before him. Andrew's response was somewhat better, here is something but it is way to small to meet the need. The young boy that gave his 5 loaves and 2 small fishes to Andrew was evidently listening. As the young boy listened to the need mentioned by his Lord, his thought was, I don't have much but I will give it to be used by my Lord. Oh the faith this little boy had, I will give what I have and trust the Lord to use it for His purpose. Pure and simple faith in the Lord that he would do his part to fulfill the Lord's will. The Lord was able, because of the boy's faith and compassion, to not only meet the need of everyone of the people there, but also had much more left over to meet future needs. If we would first trust him to save our soul for eternity, and then trust him with the little things he has blessed us with, there would not be a true need left in this world. Allow the Lord to use what you have so that mighty things could be done! |
Pastor Travis BriceHi, this is Bro. Travis. If you have a question or comment concerning a post, click on the add comment button under the appropriate post. I may not answer right away, but I will do my best to get back to you if you need me to. If you have a prayer request, please use the prayer request section under "Categories". Archives
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