Sleep

1Th 4:14  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

1Th 4:15  For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

1Th 4:16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

1Th 4:17  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

1Th 4:18  Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

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Who sleeps in Jesus?

What does it mean to sleep in Jesus?

We know this isn't the ordinary sleep for just a verse later we are told this--

'That we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.' 

So those who are asleep are not alive.  Again a verse later--

'..and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain…'

The sleeping in Jesus are those who have died in Christ secure in the knowledge they will rise again to immortality when their Savior returns and calls them forth from their graves.

Yes, I keep on with this and I'm going to continue on with this because our Savior preached the gospel of His kingdom for 3 years and gave His apostles, His disciples the command to continue to preach of this gospel of the kingdom. They never stopped. They shared the news endlessly. 

Today in my particular world I know of no one personally who does not know the message of Jesus' salvation, the message of His kingdom.  I don't live in a world where the message has been kept secret. The message is has been spread widely and people have chosen to heed it or ignore it.  I have no way of knowing who in the entire world might read these blogs, but if even one person seeks the truth of our Savior, the whole truth not just the bits that serve their idea of a proper religion, I will have been blessed.

By the grace of God the truth must be told.

The truth is death is a SLEEP.

The truth is heaven is NOT filled with our loved ones.

The truth is Christ will call forth the dead from the graves upon His return.

We need to know this truth, our Savior did not die in vain.  Our Savior came to bring the good news of a future promise of a life with Him. If people already died and went on to heaven after death in the 4000 years prior to Christ's why would our Savior need to have come at all? This was said…

Act 2:29  Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.

Clearly Paul was making a point that David was dead and buried, and not living up in heaven.

There are many facts to the truth, but Satan loves to twist things to suit his purposes.  It suits his purpose to get as many people as he can to believe his lies so they are duped when it comes to Christ's truth.   When Satan impersonates Christ's return it will be to deceive people to get them to believe lies and follow him in his disguise. And these people will be among those who hear the beloved Savior tell them to get away from Him, that He never knew them.  Please Savior do NOT let us be among them! Keep us in YOUR TRUTH in ALL TRUTH even when that truth destroys beloved fables we believed to be true.

All by YOUR grace and LOVE!

Always!

In Jesus' name!

A good conscience

1Ti 1:19  Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck

Faith and a good conscience.  What is a good conscience?

Do you have a clear conscience? We know what that question means. If your conscience is clear that means you have nothing to feel guilty about, right?

If we have FAITH in our Savior's ability to save us through His forgiveness, through His sacrifice, through His righteousness  then we have to realize that through Him we are guiltless.  Through our Savior our conscience can be good.

If we look to ourselves for salvation we are truly wrecking our faith and we cannot have a good conscience if we are looking to ourselves for salvation. 

When we put away our good conscience we are also putting away the truth that we need to live with Christ in us and according to His will. We are NOT stupid! We know right from wrong in many things. When we choose purposefully to do wrong, we are choosing to turn from a good conscience, and covering ourselves in guilt. 

We get enough guilt by not purposely striving to commit sin, our sins of ignorance are more than enough for us.  We are told right from wrong and told not to do wrong. 

Truthfully it is only by our SAVIOR we can have a good conscience but we can make a terrible mess of our faith when we stop even thinking about needing a good conscience. 

Have we gone to Christ and sought forgiveness for ALL our sins, every single sin? We need to! We need to do this DAILY, and several times of day if need be. We cannot depend upon ourselves! We need to know this, this needs to be a reality for us as we live day to day, saying things maybe we shouldn't say, disparaging someone we know better than to do, we simply need to recognize the sins not COVER them up as Satan would have us do. Not make excuses for our sins! We need to lay prostrate before our God and beg His forgiveness because we are creatures prone to sin and prone to wanting to hide from our sins, to talk them away, to explain them away and we cannot do that! Please LORD, help us not leave a single sin unconfessed, unrepented of.

All by YOUR amazing LOVE, YOUR forgiveness!  

Please God

1Th 4:1  Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.

Isn't this what we want? To know how to walk and to please God, so we can abound more and more in Him?

1Th 4:2  For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.

1Th 4:3  For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication

The Will of God--this is how we are made holy in HIM.

Seek NO other God, not a single one.

1Th 4:4  That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;

Possess ourselves in being made holy in honor.

1Th 4:5  Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God

Not letting our lusts rule us, and they will, they will rule us if we do not yield ourselves to God and His will.

1Th 4:6  That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.

Defraud NO ONE in ANY MATTER!

1Th 4:7  For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.

1Th 4:8  He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.

1Th 4:9  But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

1Th 4:10  And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more;

1Th 4:11  And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you

STUDY to be quiet.

Study to be humble, unassuming, study to become what God wills.

We must STUDY this- it won't come to us without studying and yet we imagine it should. We imagine that God should allow us to just go on as we are without us having to study to do His will.  Being God's is a true walk- a true way of life.  And this walk with God must be first in our lives, not second to our will and ways.

All by GOD'S Grace is this even possible, all through the HOLY SPIRIT is this possible, of our own accord we fail miserable all the while Satan would have us everything is just fine. We must be on guard unendingly praying and seeking the Lord and His will.

Please Father, keep us from EVIL, every aspect of evil.

All in YOUR love.

Constant Armor

Eph 6:11  Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Because this armor is unseen, because it is spiritual armor it's easy to ignore it altogether and simply go about day to day life not giving it much thought. 

Truthfully, we should don this armor and never remove it, right?  We are aware of our physicality and must pray to become fully aware of our spirituality.  The spiritual truly being much more vital to us than our physical selves in matters of eternity.  In eternity we will not possess anything we possess today- aside from the part of us that makes us who we are spiritually. We all know that physically we never stay the same, rarely from one day to the next. Changes are constantly taking place in us, constantly, unendingly.  In fact when our Savior returns for us- we will be CHANGED physically CHANGED. Even our sleeping dead will be raised up from their graves and CHANGED physically.

1Co 15:52  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

1Co 15:53  For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

1Co 15:54  So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Death will NOT be swallowed up in victory until our SAVIOR returns and we are changed, none are changed before our SAVIOR returns for us- or why would we be told the dead shall be raised and changed? If our beloved dead are already raised and changed they would have NO need to be raised and changed when our Savior returns, this is logical.

Going back to our spiritual self and the recognition of that self, we cannot afford to neglect that most important part of ourselves.

We are told to put on spiritual armor.  And truly I believe it is armor we are not supposed to take off. We are supposed to don this armor and live in this armor all the time, protected always by the armor.  Yet we cannot don this armor and forget it exists upon us because when we forget it exists upon us the danger that it is no longer with us is very real. We have to realize it just as we realize the clothes upon our bodies, just as we realize the parts of us that are with us always.  There is thought of them, thoughts of ourselves, our physical being.

This spiritual armor must be noted and in noting it just as we note a shirt, or pants, skirts, or shorts, socks, shoes and anything else we may put on ourselves, we must recognize the armor for what it is- the helmet, the breastplate, the shield, the boots, the skirt, the sword-  these are the pieces of armor and we are told what each one represents spiritually.

The helmet is salvation.  The breastplate is righteousness. The skirt is truth. The boots are the gospel of peace.  The shield is faith. The sword is the Spirit of the Word of God.

Thoughts of our salvation must be constant, they were constant with our Savior. Thoughts of Christ's righteousness but be continual thoughts.  The truth must ever be with us in all we do. The peace that is given to us by our Savior must be something we never forget.  Always we have to have faith, always believing never doubting.  And yes, the word of God should be ever with us!  This is our armor, these are our spiritual clothes, our protective coverings.  We dare NOT live without these spiritual items or we live unprotected and open to powerful spiritual assaults able to knock us away from our God. 

Yes, we are going to be spiritually assaulted all the time, but when we are protected we spiritually survive the attacks, we don't succumb to them.

We have to remember spiritual attacks can be something as unassuming as getting us to slip away from established truth substituting truths of our own devising because as soon as we do that we are no longer with Christ being known by Him.

We must think of these things because if we don't we allow ourselves to get caught up on the world and we will never know eternity with Christ.

Spiritual attacks are real and maybe not always or often blatant but rather subtle and on a day to day level meant to wear us down. Tiny attacks over a long period of time can lead to just as much destruction as one successful huge attack. The destruction here being the outcome of our losing eternity.  Satan will use every strategy he possibly can to keep us from eternity in the Love of our God, a God he denied, a God he helped crucify.

If we think Satan will stop shy of torturing us spiritually to keep us away from Christ then we are deluding ourselves. We need to fall at the feet of Jesus constantly surrendering to Him, letting Him be our everything because we truly are empty without Him.

Let us live with Christ's salvation, righteousness, truth, peace, faith, Word of God as a constant in our lives, as constant as our waking up each morning and donning our day clothes, and as constant as getting ready for bed and putting on our pajamas, let us put on the whole armor of God.

All by HIS GRACE and MERCY, all through HIS amazing LOVE, always!

Delight Greatly in God's Commandments

Psa 112:1  Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

Delights greatly in God's commandments.

DELIGHTS,  but not simply delights, DELIGHTS GREATLY. 

What are a few things you delight greatly in?  Stop and consider for a moment some of the things that delight you greatly. You know what it means to be delighted greatly. 

What are some of the things that please you immensely? What are some of the things that you favor a lot?  What kind of things do you exceedingly desire?

Is there a person that pleases you like that? Someone you delight in? Is there a televison show you enjoy tremendously and look forward to watching? Perhaps there's a special meal you absolutely crave and when you get it you delight in that meal- the satisfying taste it gives to you.  Maybe there's a special activity you desire and when you undertake it you feel a sense of happiness. 

The point is, you know what it means to delight greatly in something- you know that special feeling.  Now you have to ask yourself if you feel that sort of special feeling for God's commandments.  Do you?

Are we too caught up in the strictures of the commandments, are we immersed in the gravity of God's commands so that we can't find anything in them to delight in?

Can you delight in having  a God and no other God but that God?

Can you delight in not making any graven images to bow down to?

Can you delight in not speaking of God's name in vain?

Can you delight in the Sabbath of the Lord?

Can you delight in honoring your mother and father?

Can you delight in not murdering anyone?

Can you delight in not committing adultery with anyone?

Can you delight in not stealing anything?

Can you delight in not lying about anyone?

Can you delight in not coveting the things of others?

Can you delight in loving God and loving your fellow man?

We are told this quite plainly- 

Psa 112:1  Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

We are blessed when we fear the LORD and when we delight greatly in his commandments.

We need to delight in the LORD's commandments comprehending that they are given to us out of love.

We have a God who  cares so much about us that He wants us to learn love and we learn love when we seek God who is love. We are told if we love God we keep His commandments.  We comprehend the love in the commandments and delight to keep them because we know we love God and truly desire to God's will as we keep His commandments.

We may be tempted to break the commandments, but temptation is not sin until it is conceived in us, until it is indulged mentally, emotionally, physically. We can delight in knowing that the commandments of God protect us, guiding us to keep as close to God as we possibly can. 

By the grace of God may we learn to delight in His commandments.

All in His love!

Walk Worthy- Forbear

"Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love." Eph  4:1-2.

We have to live our lives in LOWLINESS, in MEEKNESS,  being LONG-SUFFERING, FORBEARING ONE ANOTHER- in LOVE.

Do we?

Just how forbearing are we?  Do we set limits on our forbearance? We say things like- "I've had enough."  We say those words don't we? We end our forbearance when we reach a point often times undetermined from the get go but decided upon during a situation that is not to our liking.   We are blessed beyond comprehension that our Savior didn't say those words concerning us and our behavior. He forbears with us. 

This doesn't mean we won't ever get angry, our Savior became angry at the results of sin.  Our Savior overturn money tables at the Temple, our Savior cried out His despair over the hardness of the Pharisees hearts.  But our Savior did not stop the soldiers taking Him to the cross and say, "I've had enough."  

Love demands forbearance.  People who do not forbear hurt others, they don't love them. A healthy, mentally, emotionally stable mother who abandons her child because the child is to difficult to deal with, is not loving that child.  A marriage partner who abandons their spouse because it's too hard to endure that spouse's bad habits (not talking adultery or abuse here)  is not loving that spouse.  When we stop forbearing we STOP LOVING.

We are called to forbear one another ALL the time, daily, minutely. Over and over our forbearance is tested. Satan loves to use our inability to endure irritations large and small against us.  By the grace of God we will be able to recognize Satan's ploys and call upon God to keep us from the evil that Satan would have us commit.

Please, Father, please teach us forbearance, teach us love, teach us to rely solely upon YOU.  

As Christ Forgave You

FORGIVE!

Col 3:13  Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

Mat 6:12  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Mat 6:14  For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

Mat 6:15  But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

FORGIVE!

Stop holding grudges! It doesn't matter  what has been done to you, and I mean that! I do, I really, really do. No, I haven't been through a lot of awful things others have been through and maybe it is easy for me to say this, I don't know. I have had my share of hard knocks, my share of private agonies that have given me the need to forgive others so I do understand that it isn't always easy to forgive.  I have also been in need of forgiveness, a lot of forgiveness.

Maybe it's because I need to be forgiven so much that I know I have to forgive those who have wronged me.

It's not always the case for people though, is it?  Needing to be forgiven equally to forgiving others. Some people have to forgive horrific things when they've never done anything nearly as horrific as what was done to them.  Some are quite innocent in the grand scheme of things compared to the awfulness they endure.  Yet there is something we do need to remember perhaps, something that puts things into perspective a little tiny bit-

A single sin left unforgiven by our Savior warrants death.  And that single sin warrants death because that unforgiven sin no matter how tiny separates us from our God.  And when we are separated from God we are separated from the very source of life eternal.  If we separate ourselves from the source of eternal life we have no eternal life, we have death.

No sin should be left unforgiven.

If we need to forgive someone for a one time horror, or a slew of horrors, then that is what we need to do because we need every single one of our sins to be forgiven. 

People will say they can never forgive the horrors beyond imagining, and shouldn't have to. They say this without realizing that our forgiving others HELPS US!  It is in a way- self serving to forgive, to truly forgive. 

And when we say we need to forgive someone we must forgive entirely. Forgiving means recognizing the wrong and choosing to NOT let that wrong keep us from loving.  That's what we want from our Savior when He forgive us, isn't it? We want Him to recognize we've sinned and choose to love us even though we have sinned.  We want Him to love us even though we've wronged Him, even though we've chosen to separate ourselves from Him in our sinning.  He is LIFE!

More tomorrow all by the GRACE of our LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!