That he might bring us to God
{1:6} Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew
the grace of God in truth:
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The gospel was preached every, everywhere, people like to imagine that there are tons of people that never heard of Christ and salvation, but the world has heard. Lots of people have rejected the gospel and continued on in their own paths which make us believe that they've never heard. But the gospel which came to those in Colosse was being spread throughout the all the world. No, I'm not saying that there aren't those that have been denied hearing, but I fully believe that all have a chance, all in ways we can't imagine. It's arrogant of us to presume that God doesn't have His own ways to get His word to people, that *we* alone can preach the gospel. No, I'm not saying we shouldn't preach the gospel, I'm just saying that we can't claim that it's IMPOSSIBLE for all the world to have a chance to hear the Gospel.
The gospel brings forth fruit, it did to those Colosse and it does to us today. Once we hear the truth of the gospel and know the grace of God in that truth we can't help but bring forth fruit. Our lives can't help but change.
Colossians
{1:7} As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellowservant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ;
{1:8} Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.
{1:9} For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding
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Amazing! Here Paul is telling the Colossian that he hasn't ceased to pray for them, pray that they might be filled with the knowledge of HIS WILL in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
The knowledge of HIS WILL. Christ's will. What is Christ's will? That we come to the Father through Him. In all Christ did he revealed the Father on earth to mankind. It is His will that we come to the Father by His grace, accepting the sacrifice He made, accepting the forgivness He offers.
Imagine being touched by Christ and looking up into His eyes filled with compassion, with love and hearing him say, 'Your sins are forgiven you, go and sin no more.'
Just imagine it for a moment without letting your overwhelming guilt crush away the moment. I mean it, we hear the words 'go and sin no more' and we feel a crushing weight of guilt because we know what sinners we are and that sin not yet committed by us is just lurking around the next corner. We can't LET that guilt crush us and bring us to despair, we can't or we've lost already. If we holdfast to despair and ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit to repent then we truly are lost. Jesus taught us to pray the Lord's prayer and in my study of it the part where He told us to pray- 'Lead us not into temptation' in the Jewish form of that prayer, it is more along the lines of 'Lead us not to despair'. Think about that for a moment. When we are tempted into sin it is a road that leads to despair isn't it? Despair that we'll ever be able to 'go and sin no more'. We truly need to pray to not be taken by temptation in that place of despair. Satan holds up our sins and tells us we're too bad to ever be saved and covers us in a cloak of despair but we don't have to listen to him, our sins are forgiven and when we by our weak sin-filled flesh fall into sin we have an advocate that once told an apostle that he had to forgive others not just once but over and over again. In that example we know that though our flesh is very weak we do have an advocated with the Father, and advocate that will plead our cause before the Father. So when we hear Christ say our sins are forgiven, go and sin no more, we know that He has made it possible for us to be with the Father, His Father, in His Family, at One with God, God with us. The will of Christ is for us to be at one with the Father and all our wisdom and spiritual understanding needs to be centered around that and that alone. Here and now we are to accept the Way, the Truth, the Gospel and our lives there after are to be spent being filled with the knowledge of Christ's will in wisdom and spiritual understanding.
More tomorrow :) May God bless us all with His Will, may we through the forgiveness of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior live in hope of our new life one day with Him and Father in heaven.
Amen
“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:”- 1 Peter 3:18
11/14/09
Rev 22:14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
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Mat 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
When we judge people we tend to judge them pessimistically don't we? Our judging leads more to condemnation than compassion. Why do you suppose that is? Why do people like scandals? Why do people inwardly cheer at the misfortune of others? You don't? They don't? On national television- on a very popular show millions of people watch a man once looked at someone who seemed to be genuinely nice and wish well for the competitors they were up against and this man seemed amused and slightly disbelieving of the nice person. Asking with that amused incrediblity if that person really, really were being sincere the man went on to say that it's just not done that way- people don't just wish for the best for others but rather are more cutthroat wanting their competitors to falter and fail so they win.
It's sad isn't it? That a lot of us are taught from a young age to be competitive about life and most aspects of it. As soon as we realize that those who excel at things- sports, academics, appearance, etc- are commended and rewarded we strive towards those things and if we fail through our own faults or no fault of our own, we feel substandard and this feeling creates a long to succeed and if another falters or fails then all the better because that means that maybe, just maybe we might have a chance to succeed or in the least it means they might get a taste of a loser's life by experiencing some of the pain failing brings.
Judge not that ye be not judged. When we stop judging others- searching for the faults, pointing out failures, when we stop exalting ourselves at the expense of others, when we just cease to look at others with a judgemental attitude we have to realize that we will be judged the same. Do we really want to be judged as we are judging?
Mat 7:5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
When we can claim perfection (which will not happen as long as we are living in this sin-filled world) we can judge others but until then we can't worry about others- judging them. Our plates are filled to the brim with the many beams in our own eyes needing to be cast out.
May God help us to recognize our judgmental moments and help us to turn that judgment on to ourselves realizing that another's failing will never in anyway somehow make us and better and vice versa, another's success does not mean we are failures.
We are all sinners needing the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior and that is the bottom line. No matter what kind of life we lead- successful or not in the world's eyes-- we don't stand before the world to be judge we stand before God and by the grace of Jesus Christ may He stand in our place as we cling to Him and trust in His redemption for us.
Amen.
11/14/10
11/14/11
Psa 111:7 The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments are sure.
Psa 111:8 They stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.
Commandments.
A general commands an army.
A president commands a country.
We command our households.
Very few people, if any, truly live without any rules it's just not feasible.
From the time we are young we are given rules. In fact at the youngest of age we are not allowed to eat our fill or we'd eat until we were sick to our stomach. We are taught not to touch things that might injure us even when we want to because we're just too young to comprehend that we are in any danger. As we grow the understanding of what danger is becomes something we learn and yet stop for a moment and imagine a life where a parent didn't stop their child from doing things but let them do whatever they desire. How long do you really think that child would live? I'm not talking a parent neglecting their child, they'd feed, bath, clothe their child but outside of that they'd let the child do as the child pleased. So tell me how long do you think the child would live before that child did something to hurt themselves?
A parent protects their child sometimes even a neglectful parent will protect the child so that they are kept from harming themselves. Abusive parents even keep their children alive, mostly, and before anyone thinks I'm standing up for abusive parents I'm not, I think they are the lowest of the low and Jesus said this…
Mat 18:2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
Mat 18:3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 18:4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 18:5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
Mat 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
The point I'm trying to make here is that as a rule, most parents protect their children in thousands of ways they themselves aren't even aware of, they do it because it's the right thing to do. Keep a baby warm, keep a child well fed, keep harmful things out of reach, and so on.
We don't call them commands because that sounds too stringent and overbearing, in fact we think it very archaic when we hear the words… 'I command you.' If someone said that to you, 'I command you…' you'd probably laugh at them because it's so preposterous. Yet we are giving commands and getting them all the time. We grow up following the commands of our parents or disobeying those commandments and when we follow them everything usually goes well for us, and when we disobey things go bad for us, we are punished. We understand this concept- we grow up with it, most everyone grows up with it and yet when it comes to our Creator giving us commands we somehow want to look at them as being more restrictive and binding, more geared towards punishing us before we even do something wrong. People have taken those commandments and torn them apart. They've separated the ten commandments of God and saved the ones they agree are generally good all around, and they've tossed aside the ones they find silly and not really applicable to people in the real world.
Our Creator did not leave us unattended. Our Creator did not neglect us. Our Creator is not an abuser. Our Creator gave us every single command we'd ever need to follow in order to live our lives safely. We just have forgotten, or never really knew the truth of the matter. Those commands were given to children from their Heavenly Father- all ten of them.
Psa 111:7 The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments are sure.
Psa 111:8 They stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.
Read them, go on, go to Exodus 20 and read those ten commandments from our LOVING HEAVENLY FATHER. Read them and think about the love God has for us, think about the love Jesus has for us as you read them and take your time, find the LOVE in those commands because they are ALL about love, and love is protecting, caring, kind, giving…you know what love is…God is love.
1Jn 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1Jn 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
By the grace of God…more tomorrow!
In His amazing LOVE!
Amen.