Choose

Rom 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

Only grace saves us. The law cannot save us. The law reveals our inability to save ourselves. All we can do is choose to be saved by another, or not.  That's right, we get to choose. You're NEVER forced to be saved not even close. You won't be cajoled, you won't be coerced, you will not be tricked. You are invited, you are entreated, you are asked, but never in a intrusive forceful way.  You might say that there are PEOPLE who have tried to force you into believing, and I wouldn't dispute with you over that. People will try all sorts of things in all sorts of ways, but other than revealing the truth and letting others decide for themselves Christ does not advocate more. He tells His disciples to go and preach, but to do the following when not wanted--

Luk 9:2  And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.

Luk 9:5  And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.

He did not say stay and try to convince them, and force them to receive you.  More than once Paul in his many, many journeys was run out of town.

Forcing the truth on someone, or TRYING to force the truth on someone is ludicrous.  If you succeed in forcing the truth on someone it would be false in their hearts through your force. The force makes it something against their will.

That's why any religious fanatics or organizations which orders people to believe in their religion is crazy, because they cannot force the heart even if they can force lying words of acceptance to their beliefs. And any religion whose God wants to just hear words and not have heart conviction is a very screwed up religion. No true God would care about lying words of conversion forced from someone. That God would appear to be in it solely for the numbers game and not true, freely given love at all.  Force is an attribute of Satan, not God.

Yes, God is a consuming fire.

Yes, God will judge all.

Yes, God is love and all who are not of God are not love.

Our CREATOR loves us.

Our CREATOR has a right to us and yet He allows us to CHOOSE whether or not we will belong to Him, willingly, lovingly. 

Our CREATOR the giver of our breath of life has the right to that breath, it belongs to Him.

Why would our CREATOR want to allow any of us to live in a world of pain, sorrow, sin, anguish, depravity, selfishness, heartache, and that's what we'd be asking Him to let us do if we choose to NOT be His and still want to live eternally. We'd be asking God to let us live a life of horror, of sin forever and ever and NO Creator, NO LOVING CREATOR would want that for His creatures.  His offering eternal life on the condition that we make the choice to LOVE HIM and OTHERS and HATE SIN (even though our flesh longs for it), is LOVE. We don't have to choose SIN, and DEATH eternal. We make the choice.

Two paths.

Love and Sin.

If we choose the path of sin no matter the reason, we've condemned ourselves to eternal death, to eventual nothingness, to being no more.

We choose.

The law reveals love, but the law doesn't save us, only Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God sacrificed for us, our Creator/Redeemer taking on flesh and suffering, dying in the flesh- He alone has the right to save whom He will.

We choose life or death.

We are all given a choice.

By the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior, may we choose life in HIM, by HIM!

AMEN.

Let nothing keep us from love

"Lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus."-- Heb_12:1-2.

Lay aside EVERY weight. 

Weight weighs us down and in the Spiritual sense the weight that can drag us down spiritually is sin, right?  The sin that EASILY besets us.  We know don't we? We know our sins. We can't pretend they don't exist in our lives. We can't gloss over the sins, and we can't ignore them- they don't go away. Our sins must be confessed. Our sins must be repented of.  Our sins must be laid aside. We must GIVE up our cherished sins. 

The other day we talked about sins being the breaking of God's laws, this is truth.

We sin when we do not love God.

We sin when we do not love others.

We sin when we put self first before God and others.

Whatever keeps us from loving God and loving others makes up the weight that we must lay aside. We have to LAY ASIDE all that would keep us from loving God and others, do we?! 

Whenever we find ourselves thinking unloving thoughts, about to commit unloving acts, we need to seek God and the strength He can provide us through the Holy Spirit. We have to seek forgiveness. We have to choose to lay aside the sins that EASILY beset us. 

And… we must do this as we run this race of life with PATIENCE, looking to JESUS.

We cannot take our eyes off of our SAVIOR, He is our HOPE, truly our ONLY HOPE. 

Please FATHER, please help us to examine our lives constantly as we run this race we are in, and in examining our lives let us comprehend the sins that are weighing us down spiritually threatening to destroy us.  We need to live for our SAVIOR, for the Love that HE HAS for us, for the SACRIFICE He's made for us!  Please teach us to set aside anything that would keep us from following YOUR will!

Please!  Without You we are nothing, nothing.

All in YOUR LOVE!

A conditional clause-

If we can believe.

Isn't that the truth of the matter? Our being able to believe.

It is easier for some people to believe in outright lies than the ultimate of truths.

Mar 9:23  Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

If.

What a word,  'If'.

If-  (Definition)-

'introducing a conditional clause.
synonyms: on (the) condition that, provided (that), providing (that), presuming (that), supposing (that), assuming (that), as long as, given that, in the event that
"if the rain holds out, we can walk"

*******

A conditional clause-

Providing that- you can believe.
Presuming that- you can believe.
Supposing that- you can believe.
Assuming that- you can believe.
As long as- you can believe.
Given that- you can believe.
In the event that- you can believe.

ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.

Now people will be quick to jump on this and say it's crazy and therefore unbelievable but isn't the fact that they do not believe null and void the entire thing? Believing.

What do you LOSE by believing?

People will say they DO believe and then turn around and say they stopped believing when their believing did not give them their desired outcome. They'll say they look at this world and know that believing warrants nothing so they'd just assume not believe.

The problem with all this is that the belief we need to have ultimately is in something that has already occurred and therefore truth, and therefore a fact. Again there are many dissenters to this even though history has proven over and over its truth. Yes, they'll say the opposite, that history has proven that it isn't true. And once more we are left HAVING to have faith.

We have to believe that our Savior died for us to have eternal life- NOT so we have a good life here and now.  Jesus' entire message had it's core centered at ETERNAL LIFE.

If you choose NOT To believe in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, then you choose to believe that this life and all its horrors are all there is. Make the best of what life throws at you and that's is that. If you're lucky you'll be born into a happy, healthy existence, if you're just unlucky from birth you'll be born into poverty, pain, and sickness.  If all it is- is luck, truly there is little point to everything. Knowing that from the best life to the worst life here and now on this earth each person has the hope of eternal life, is a blessing! Yet so many do not want to believe this because Satan has worked hard to blind them.

PLEASE LORD, please Help us ALL believe! Help our UNBELIEF! WE BELIEVE!

In the name of our Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ always and forever and ever… AMEN.

We can sin, therefore a law remains.

Sin.

I’ve heard some people are saying that sin is an illusion, that it doesn’t really exist. They say this because they don’t believe that there are any laws of God.  If they don’t believe in the laws of God then they can’t believe in the transgressing of God’s laws, right? And the Bible tells us that sin is the transgression of God’s moral law.

Does someone who doesn’t believe in God and God’s moral law believe sin exists? Can they believe it exists? If so, what do they base it upon?  Society’s decisions of what is right and wrong? They take their own ideas of right and wrong and form of consensus of what they want to make their laws. And then do they call the breaking of those laws, sin? Generally, yes, but not always. There is a law not to litter, but is it considered a sin to litter? There is a law against not walking at crosswalks, is it a sin not to? There are many various laws concerning traffic, but breaking them, does it mean you’ve sinned?

We do have moral laws, universal moral laws and where did they come from? Why do we have inherent laws?  We were CREATED by the Lawgiver.

Of course, there are those who choose to believe we weren’t created at all, but rather just happened to come to be.  

People can and will dispute everything and pat themselves on their backs while doing so, thinking they are so incredibly superior to the fools who believe in God. My heart breaks for those who choose to NOT believe in God. They’ve been blinded and allowed themselves to remain blind, choosing blindness because to have FAITH means letting go of self sufficiency, of self reliance, of selfishness and some people believe all they have is themselves and no more.

Rom 3:20 ...for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

We who believe in God know that it is His moral law which reveals sin.  We know that Jesus expounded upon the moral law- revealing more of it’s truth to us than we could previously have seen. Jesus took the diamonds in the rough and polished them for us so we could see them more clearly. Jesus took away the need for the ceremonial laws, He is our Sacrifice, our Atonement. But Jesus NEVER took away the moral law, He made it more real. Our capability of sinning has not been taken away therefore a law remains for us to transgress.

Our Savior wants us to sin no more, only by HIS grace is this possible. We must constantly choose to obey God’s laws, constantly and when we break them be it as simple as our not being kind to someone in the smallest way, we MUST ask for forgiveness!  

Please, Father, please forgive us our tresspasses we have so many of them.

Please, Father, please open the eyes of the blind, turn the hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. Please Father…. in the name of Your Only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior!

Amen.

Do good to those who hate us

Them:  We hate you.
Me:  They hate me.

How do we respond to those who hate us? How do we respond emotionally? Isn’t it in our natures to respond in kind? We are hated so we hate or TRY to hate in turn?  We don’t like to be hated, especially if we know there is no Godly reason for us to be hated. Satan can incite hate and uses all the people he can to keep the hatred flowing, especially against those who are God’s. There doesn’t have to be a single good reason, or a single reason of any kind for us to be hated. And even if we are hated for a manufactured reason our instinctive response is to return the hatred, to find a reason to give in kind. To disparage the hating party is what we might be very inclined to do. We want to feel better for being hated somehow. Yet we are told to do no such thing, we are told to LOVE our enemies.

To do good to those who hate us.

Mat 5:44  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you

Love …  we know what it means to love someone. We don’t want them to be harmed right? It scares us when those we love are hurt in any way. If another harms them we want to defend them, if they are hurt accidentally we are hurting along with them wishing their pain would go away. We don’t intentionally want to harm those we love. We might harm those we love due to our own self seeking ways. The saying ‘we hurt the ones we love’ is all too true because Satan LOVES when we hurt those we love. Satan would pervert our love any way he possibly can. We figure if we can hurt those we love in word- emotionally, mentally, spiritually then we aren’t very loving at all and Satan will use that to bring us to despair of our ever loving our enemies let alone our loved ones.  We need to love our enemies even when we can scarcely love our loved ones. Our love has become so warped, so damaged by sin that we have to cling to the promises of our Savior and choose HIM to be our righteousness, choose HIM to be love in us, to let the Holy Spirit love as we cannot love.

Yes, we truly do need to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us, even when...especially when it is the furthest thing on our mind.  We need to act upon what we KNOW, not on how we feel.  We must lean on FAITH, not on tangible things before us. We have to go against the nature of our flesh time and time again to seek God. We have to CHOOSE over and over and over again, never get it in our heads that we chose once and that once is enough.

Please, Father, please help us! Please Father, please give us all we need to be YOURS and do YOUR will, not ours. Let the HOLY SPIRIT live in us, being all things for us that we can never ever be.
Please forgive us, Father, please!  Help us to forgive those who hurt us. Help us! Save us! In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior! Forever and ever, amen!

'For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye?'

Eternal life. Either you believe it exists or you choose to believe it doesn’t exist.  If you choose to believe it doesn’t exist only to find out it does, and you lose eternal life you’ve lost it because you made the choice to lose it.

People might think they deserve eternal life just for being born. Just for existing they may assume it is theirs automatically.  They believe that’s fair after all they didn’t ask to be born. They want to live, to die, and to live again automatically without a thought about anything else.

They want to live after dying but WHERE do they want to live? Some want to live again here on earth in another form, others want to become a spirit entity and just simply roam the earth unseen. There are all sorts of scenarios people love to invent to suit their ideas. A common scenario is the ascent into a place called heaven upon death. Very few actually desire to descend into a place opposite of what they imagine is heaven-  hell.  A favored belief is heaven, the home of the Creator and Redeemer, or for some simply the home of the Creator and His prophets.

If choosing to believe in eternal life you might have, like this lawyer 2000 years ago, ask God’s Son what you could do to inherit eternal life.  Go on, read about it--

Luk 10:25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
Luk 10:26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
Luk 10:27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
Luk 10:28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

What was this man told? That He had to continue to follow the moral law- Loving God with all his heart and soul, all his strength and mind. Not only that, he must love His neighbor as he desired and expected, hoped to be loved.

So tell me, loving God with all we are, where is the down side to this? What does it take away from a person to love God? How could it make a person into a bad person, loving God?  To those who are self-serving having to love any other than themselves would be a hardship. To those who choose to love others as it serves them not necessarily as they should - to their own hardship- loving God is a problem.  God asks us to love Him first and foremost but what does it HURT?  How does it hurt anyone to love God that way? Especially if that GOD whose law it is to be loved first also in that same law wants us to love others more than ourselves as well?  Any God that would ask us to love Him and hate others is not a God I’d follow.  We can HATE sin, but not the sinner, yes? But many want to hate the sinners.  They make it their right to hate others and then they tell others they are hating them because God wants them to do so.

My God, the God I believe in would NEVER want me to hate another. I truly can hate SIN but not the sinner. I must!  I am only forgiven my own sins as I forgive others sins.

The man who asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life listened to Jesus’ answer and wasn’t satisfied. He wanted it clarified. He wanted to justify himself by his own beliefs expecting Jesus to tell him that his neighbor is someone who believes as he does, but Jesus did NOT do this...read on:

Luk 10:29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
Luk 10:30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
Luk 10:31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
Luk 10:32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
Luk 10:33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
Luk 10:34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
Luk 10:35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
Luk 10:36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
Luk 10:37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

The truth, we are NOT to think only those we deem worthy of our help are the ones we love, the ones we help, the ones we have compassion upon. If we are loving those who love us.. well read this:

Luk_6:32  For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

Yet many who believe in God believe they can only truly love those who love God as they do. Yet we are to love all. God is judge, we are not judges.  We can judge right and wrong, but not the eternal life of another. Even if someone blatantly declares they do not believe in eternal life, we cannot judge that they will not have eternal life. We do not know the end from the beginning. Many a staunch atheist (C.S. Lewis for one) has come to the truth during their lifetime and we dare not presume to judge anyone not knowing what tomorrow will bring for them. We can only PRAY that the TRUTH becomes known, the truth and ONLY the truth.

Please, Father we would know Your TRUTH and only YOUR TRUTH!

Help us to love You and to love others as You will.

We would inherit eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, now and forever!

Forgive us, help us, keep us in You!

We love You with our imperfect love, asking You through Your perfect love to be our righteousness now and forever!

Amen.

Choose Love Over Death

1Co 2:9  But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

1Co 2:10  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

1Co 2:11  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

1Co 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

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.

1Co 2:15  But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

1Co 2:16  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

The natural man RECEIVETH NOT the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.

How true in this day and age we live in so many believe all things of God are foolishness. They hold up the religions of false gods and use those as reasons to denounce the TRUE GOD. They call it all fables and lies, tales and silliness all because they cannot discern the truth because they’d rather believe the lies.

The believe that because there are so many spoiled and rotten apples on the tree that all of the tree is corrupt and yet on this tree there is a truly good apple. Unwilling to care about the truth, the truly good, they’d rather just give up on it all.  

There is TRUTH out there, there is a true faith and rather than entrap it in manmade ideas of it all we must individually know this for ourselves.  Step out of any organization you belong to even if you love that organization- especially if you love the organization, and search for yourself the Word of God. Hold to NO MAN’S interpretation but search it for yourselves. Search with the intent to know truth, an honest desire for truth beyond all the wicked lies that have soured the truth for so many.

Our natural selves will NEVER know the things of God, we must comprehend that there is something more in all of us, something that longs for something more than all the senselessness of this life. When we recognize this part of ourselves, this part of the truth, we must pray for comprehension.  God WILL reveal His truth to those who are truly seeking TRUTH. To those who recognize the SPIRIT part of our being. We are more than just animals. We are truly spirit and flesh and we have to realize this if we are to comprehend the spirit part of us is God given so that the Holy Spirit can reveal the truth to us.

Please Father, please open our hearts and minds to the TRUTH found in YOU and YOU alone! If we truly live only for the short life we have here and now we live as pawns beset by many forces that want only pain and heartache for us. We resign ourselves to being used when we can choose to be loved. That love offers us a life BEYOND this life, a life as a true son and daughter of our Creator, our Redeemer. A life not as a pawn at all but a life as we deep down inside LONG for and not for ourselves only, but for ALL who would choose love over death.

Please, Father, please.

Amen.