Having not the Spirit

Mockers in the last time.

Mockers who will walk after their own UNGODLY lusts.

Mockers who separate themselves- sensual- having NOT the Spirit.

Separation from evil is a good thing.  Evil separating itself from God is a bad thing. You cannot have the Spirit if you separate yourself from the Savior.  If you choose to indulge your UNGODLY lusts you are choosing to separate yourself from the Spirit of God.  The Holy Spirit wants to be in us, united with us drawing us ever closer to the Savior, keeping us from evil. 

We are SHOWN right and wrong.

Just as our original parents had to make a choice we TOO face that same choice in many ways.  Do we choose to be united with God or separate ourselves from Him?

Sin separates us from God.

Atonement--     AT ONE MENT - through the forgiveness our Savior died to give us we can be made one with God again, no longer separated from Him.

OUR ungodly lusts WILL separate us from the SPIRIT.

If the Spirit is NOT living in us perhaps we need to examine ourselves. 2Co_13:5 

In examining ourselves we need to comprehend our true selves, not hide behind excuses.  We need to truly recognize any evil ways with us, any cherished evil ways that would separate us from God.

Please, Father, please open our eyes, open our hearts to YOUR truth so we may be kept from evil by YOU. Help us NOT to walk after our own ungodly lusts! Help us NEVER to separate ourselves from YOU. Keep us in the SPIRIT, please, Father. Through the grace, mercy, the love of Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord!

Jud 1:17  But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;

Jud 1:18  How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.

Jud 1:19  These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.

Luk_6:22  Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.

Rom_8:35  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Rom_8:39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2Co_6:17  Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you

Heb_7:26  For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens

1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Jas 3:13  Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.

Jas 3:14  But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.

Jas 3:15  This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

Jas 3:16  For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

Jas 3:17  But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

Jas 3:18  And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. 

It's not human behavior

Murmuring. Complaining. Selfish lust seeking. Boasting. Flattering.  

We shake our heads and say we are not among these and yet…  if you had a recording of your last week and could play it back how many murmurs would you hear slip from your lips? How many complaints (now don't try to justify them, we do that all too much) ?  How many times will you have fulfilled your various lusts (not just sexual lust, but any lust)?

Wiki's definition-'Lust is an emotion or feeling of intense desire in the body. The lust can take any form such as the lust for knowledge, the lust for sex or the lust for power. It can take such mundane forms as the lust for food as distinct from the need for food. Lust is a powerful psychological force producing intense wanting for an object, or circumstance fulfilling the emotion.'

So having read that description and replaying your last seven days of life, how many times did you feeling an intense wanting for something beyond the NORM, so much so that it was something you just had to have, or do? Did you boast at all during the last seven days?  What about flatter someone, especially someone in a position to give you something advantageous- from money to a compliment- it doesn't matter what they could give you. Did you speak any words meant to entice a reciprocal feeling of sorts so that you could be given in kind? Did you fulfil that need you have to appear as a 'good' person and gain the esteem of someone due to your flattery?

Seriously, did any of the above happen at all in the last seven days of your life? What about the last fourteen days? Thirty days?

People will now commence with the explaining that we are only human and as humans we are going to do these things, thereby trying to excuse themselves from any accountability at all for those 'human behaviors'.

We LOVE to excuse our 'human behavior'!

Rather than fall to our knees, literally or figuratively, and seek forgiveness for these 'human behaviors' we excuse them. We even say- "God understands." 

You're right, God does understand, He understands very well. He KNEW we could NEVER rid ourselves of the 'human behavior' we exhibit, but He also knows it's NOT simply 'human behavior'. Seriously, it's NOT.

I know, I know, I just said it was 'human behavior' and it's true that's what we tell ourselves as we are making excuses for it. But what it really is, and please pay close attention because God KNOWS this it what it really is and there is no fooling God.

It is- 'Sinning Human Behavior'.

God did NOT create us with a sinner's human behavior, we received that after our first parents sinned.  Sinning human behavior was allocated to us all and we need to recognize the difference between 'human behavior' and 'sinning human behavior'. 

We would have NO need to excuse our human behavior if that's all it was. But we find the need to make excuses for our sinful human behavior so we can justify it in our minds so we don't have to feel guilty about it because after all we were made this way.

Wrong!

We can't justify it away, we must feel the guilt- the weight of that sinning behavior and we must feel it and recognize it and acknowledge it so we can ask for FORGIVENESS for succumbing to the sinning human behavior.

Please Father in heaven, please keep us from EVIL in all it's many, many forms. Don't let us excuse it away so we don't feel the guilt and don't let us excuse it away as a plan to continue on in the evil. If we are prone to the evil ways stated above, stated in Your word, please keep us from it!  Be our strength where we cannot be, and help us to do all that You enable us to do. Please Father, in the name of Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior! Amen.

Jud 1:14  And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

Jud 1:15  To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Jud 1:16  These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.

Reserved for darkness

The archangel and the devil.

Reality!

This isn't FICTION!

We are so darned warped by our society into believing angels and devils are mere actors played out upon a screen, or brought to life as characters in a book, that we truly don't comprehend their REALITY.

We don't WANT to comprehend the reality.

We want to believe in God and Jesus, but we don't want to believe in the devil, as if our mere believing in him somehow leaves us suspect in the sanity department. Yet it is fine for us to believe in God and Jesus. Very few people are looked at as being crazy because they believe in God and Jesus, yet very few aren't considered at least a little bit nutso for believing in satan.

When we begin to believe in satan as a real active being influencing our lives, others try to explain it away as us making excuses for things that have logical reasoning. People do NOT want to believe they can be used by satan.  Tell someone that satan has used them to create chaos and they'll call you crazy saying it was all them, they made the choices to initiate the chaos, no devil made them do any thing.  Yet isn't it true that the root of all evil is found in satan? Whether it is the willful decision to create chaos, or it happens spontaneously - the chaos has it's roots in satan. There would be no chaos without satan.  Maybe the snare he laid to set a person on the path to creating chaos was laid down and pulled tight years and years ago.  Perhaps the seeds he planted in the heart of the wantonly chaos creating person were laid long ago and are just now sprouting.  We can't know when a person chooses to live under the devil's manipulation.  Often people make the choice just by choosing not to accept Christ as their Savior. They most likely have not and never will take part in any ritual black mass to choose satan as their lord and master.  Satan doesn't need the pomp and circumstance of rituals and outward acknowledgement of him as a person's master. The devil is very content to remain in the darkest of shadows allowing a person to believe that they have never and will never be used by him. It doesn't matter whether or not a person believes in the reality of satan to make him a reality.  Just as people may choose not to believe in God, they may choose not to believe in a real satan, yet BOTH are real, very real.

Jud 1:9  Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

Jud 1:10  But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

Jud 1:11  Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

Jud 1:12  These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Jud 1:13  Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Spots in your feasts of charity.

Feasting with you and feeding themselves without fear.

Clouds without water- carried about by winds.

Trees with withering fruit- twice dead- plucked by the roots.

Raging waves of sea- foaming shame.

Wandering stars - reserved for the blackness of darkness- nothingness.

The truth- everyone will NOT be saved.

Truth- we must examine ourselves lest we be among the unsaved.

2Co_13:5  Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

Lord Father, we don't want to be among those reserved for the permanent darkness! We don't want to be used and manipulated by Satan, we would be YOURS! Please, please save us!

Put in remembrance

Jud 1:5  I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

Jud 1:6  And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Jud 1:7  Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Jud 1:8  Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

We can NEVER believe that God does not punish evil. We are taught all about forgiveness and love, but we can't forget that the forgiveness came with a HUGE price!  That forgiveness wasn't free, that forgiveness was bought with the BLOOD of GOD the Son. To think something so incredibly costly was paid without a reason is ridiculous.  Our Savior had to die to repair the breach made by sin.  Sin SEPARATES us from God.  Every act of sin separates us from God.

God saved the slaves out of Egypt but that did NOT mean they were all His.  Some CHOSE to not believe in God's goodness. Some chose not to believe that this world is temporary to eternity and all it's anguish and heartache, all its insidious pain is momentary to eternity with God.  These people chose not to believe in God even though they were SAVED by Him. Did they live? No.  There is NO life after rejecting God, not for any of us! 

The angels who rejected God are reserved for a final destruction, a final end. THE ANGELS who rejected God have separated themselves from their Creator and there is NO real life separate from God.

Sodom and Gomorrah- cities of sin were completely and utterly destroyed without a trace of life left. Truly an example of the annihilation in store for all those who choose sin and separation from God.

Filthy dreamers defiling flesh, despising dominion, speaking evil of dignitaries ….  All SIN.

SIN separates us from God. We cannot live unrepentant and sinning and expect to be God's.

We cannot embrace sin willfully- excusing it, renaming it, calling it good. Our God is a consuming fire and all sin will be wiped out by that fire.   We cannot afford to ignore this part of God in favor of love because this IS all a part of that LOVE.

Please Father help us to realize the cost for You to reunite with us, to allow us to be YOURS.  The price You paid so we could know love is more than we can fathom.  We need to understand that sin separates us from You and all sin will be done away with.  We need to fully realize Your hatred for sin for the thing that separates us from YOU.

Help us. Save us.

All in YOUR LOVE.

Changing the grace of God

Jud 1:4  For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Read those words one more time-

Certain men-  crept in unawares.   When you creep in unaware it is usually because you're up to no good, especially when the place you are creeping into is above board and reputable and there is NO reason whatsoever to creep about into a place that is so open and inviting.  Creeping into something that is not underhanded means that perhaps you are bringing the underhandedness into the entire situation. To creep in unaware, bringing something in that was never meant to be brought in so you can corrupt the place you've crept into is wrong.  These men creeping in among Christ's followers were expected, because it would seem no good thing can be left to flourish without the weeds trying to rise up and choke them.  Always there seems to be someone or someone(s) who want to take advantage of a situation for their own selfish motives.  It's not uncommon to constantly hear of embezzlements, of cheating, of lying, of subterfuge in order for someone to line their pockets.  The followers of Christ were NOT left free of such people. Right from the start those who would gain wrongfully, selfishly crept in among those whose hearts were burning brightly to follow the Lord's way.  

Men turning the GRACE of OUR GOD into LUSTS, into the indulging of excesses of evil ways.
 

How is this possible? How could someone turn the grace of God into something evil? 

The answer, they do it all the time.  It becomes cheap grace, it becomes an expensive grace, it is called grace but it is anything but grace in reality.   People twist God's grace into something THEY can utilize without giving up any of their most sinful selfish ways.

Truly, this is the denial of the ONLY LORD GOD.

Truly, this is the denial of OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Once more- TWO GODS!

Once again we are face to face with two Gods of our faith. 

The twisting of our faith strips away the two Gods of our faith and merges them into ONE GOD in a way never intended. We were always to know that there were two never to lump them into one in any way other than in their agreeing as one.   When our Savior said- 'I and my Father are one'  John 10:30  Did He mean there was only one of them?  When I say my spouse and I are one- you KNOW right away that we are not literally one, but one in a union, an agreed upon union.  So why do we ever, ever claim to worship only one God, when we clearly worship more than one God?  Why do we destroy the grace of God but introducing our own ideas to replace His?

We deny the truth. We let our sinful lusts- that we know in reality are lusts- rule us, we call them good when they are in fact evil.  We do this very thing that we are told would happen right away among the followers of Christ. 

Please, Lord, please keep us from EVIL.  Evil has infiltrated so much of Your word, Your truth! Keep us from ALL evil, from anything that would keep us from YOU! We would know YOUR TRUTH! We don’t want to follow some false religion filled with false teachers spouting their own truths and not Yours. We want ONLY Your truth and all that means, all that entails.  Give us ALL we need to be YOURS fully, wholly YOURS.

All by YOUR AMAZING GRACE, YOUR LOVE, YOUR MERCY!

YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

AMEN!

Delivered to the saints

Jud 1:1  Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: Jud 1:2  Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. Jud 1:3  Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

To them that are sanctified- to them that are made holy BY GOD the FATHER. To them that are PRESERVED in JESUS CHRIST...and called.

Do you need to be made holy by God the Father?

Do you need to be preserved in Jesus Christ?

Are you called to belong to God the Father, and God the Son?

We want to be made holy and be preserved, called to be God's, don't we? Our Savior came to deliver all who would be delivered. Our Savior came to give light to all who truly desire light. We long for salvation as we should, this should be our hope.

We need mercy, we need peace, we need love.

And we desperately need to EARNESTLY contend for the faith which was ONCE delivered unto the saints.

Did you read that right? We are EXHORTED to EARNESTLY CONTEND.  When you earnestly contend for something tell me what that means.  If you earnestly contend for something aren't you putting forth a lot of effort to gain that something? Anyone who earnestly contends for something isn't just giving it a thought once in awhile. They aren't sitting back and waiting for it to fall into their lap.  When you contend for something you are fighting for that something.  But to earnestly contend means you are fighting hard for something. 

In this case we are to fight hard for the FAITH that was delivered to the saints.

Who delivered the faith to the saints? What saints?  We know our Savior walked the earth with His message of Salvation for three years. Faith was delivered to those who would hear Him, to those who would love Him.

We don't have the Savior walking physically among us we truly need to contend earnestly for the faith. We have to live in Jesus' presence, in His light, in His love and yet all too often we go day after day barely giving our Savior a second thought.

If we are to earnestly contend for the faith, if we are to fight for the faith we need to hold fast to all things Jesus Christ.

More on this tomorrow by the grace of our GOD!

Please Father, please bless so many who are in need of YOU, of Your intervention. The pain and agony of life is all too real, please Father help us all to see that even the worst of pain is temporary to eternity.  It's so hard to see this, to believe this as we suffer, please help us to believe wholly in YOU and YOU as our future, our HOPE, our love our life everlasting. 

In the name of our SAVIOR, Jesus Christ, our LORD.

Amen.

Hundreds of years after they occurred.

21        Messiah would be sent to heal the brokenhearted.

Isa 61:1  The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

Isa 61:2  To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn

Luk 4:18  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

Luk 4:19  To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

22        Messiah would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek.        

Psa 110:4  The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

Heb 5:5  So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee.

Heb 5:6  As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

23        Messiah would be called King.        

Psa 2:6  Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

Zec 9:9  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Mat 27:37  And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Mar 11:7  And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him; and he sat upon him.

Mar 11:8  And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed them in the way.

Mar 11:9  And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord:

Mar 11:10  Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.

Mar 11:11  And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.

24        Messiah would be praised by little children.

Psa 8:2  Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

Mat 21:16  And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?

25        Messiah would be betrayed.        

Psa 41:9  Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.

Joh 13:25  He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it?

Joh 13:26  Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.

*******

Truths.

Prophetic truth.

Jesus could NOT make these things come to pass. Jesus di NOT orchestrate these events. They were predicted, they came to pass as predicted hundreds of years before they occurred.

If I were given a prophecy from long ago I could attempt to make things happen so it could take place, but that's all I could do. I couldn't make people speak certain words. I couldn't make people do things. We can try to make things happen but try as we might when you are given a multitude of prophecies the idea that you could make all of them come to pass is ludicrous. Jesus lived the prophecies they unfolded around Him for all that would see could see, could understand. The blind remain blind and even today the blind are allowed to remain blind. If you don't want truth, you will not be allowed truth. If you desire truth it will be given to you and then you must live with that truth unable to deny it's validity unless you desire to live a life of self-deception- and sadly some do choose just that.

Jesus explained everything to those who would follow Him and revealed the truth of Himself in the prophecies, do WE see the truths? Do we know the truths?

All by HIS amazing, wondrous grace we do see as the Holy Spirit enlightens our understanding.

All in HIS love!

Always.

Amen.