Grow

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  (2Pe_3:18)

Grow in grace.

Grow in knowledge.

We understand how to grow in knowledge because we are constantly learning throughout our lives. Sure, you might get to a point where you've stopped any real schooling but you keep on learning through daily life experience. That saying- 'You learn something new everyday.' - isn't that far off because though we may not recognize the learning all the time, we are learning new things constantly. If we actively want to grow in knowledge we seek it out. If there is something we want to know we look it up online and gain the knowledge.  We GROW in knowledge.

So how do we grow in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?  We need a source to learn from and that source is the WORD given to us by God- the Holy Bible.  We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We need to pray.  There are active sources for us to use to gain this knowledge.

How do we grow in grace?

Are the two connected? Do we grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord together through His Word? 

Grace is-

2Co_12:9  And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

The grace we grow in- is Christ's grace.

Eph 2:4  But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

Eph 2:5  Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

Eph 2:6  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

Eph 2:7  That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God

Webster's-

'Grace

GRACE, n

2. Appropriately, the free unmerited love and favor of God, the spring and source of all the benefits men receive from him.

And if by grace,then it is no more of works. Rom 11.

3. Favorable influence of God; divine influence or the influence of the spirit, in renewing the heart and restraining from sin.

My grace is sufficient for thee. 2 Cor 12.

4. The application of Christ's righteousness to the sinner.

Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Rom 5.

5. A state of reconciliation to God. Rom 5:2.

6. Virtuous or religious affection or disposition, as a liberal disposition, faith, meekness, humility, patience, &c. proceeding from divine influence.

7. Spiritual instruction, improvement and edification. Eph 4:29.

8. Apostleship, or the qualifications of an apostle. Eph 3:8.

9. Eternal life; final salvation. 1 Pet 1:13.'

Grace. We must learn more of grace because we are told to GROW in grace.

To study grace and to study Christ Jesus our Lord is to grow in knowledge of them and this is essential to us.

The comprehension of what Christ is to us, what His grace is to us is something amazing.  We definitely need to study this so much more so we can truly grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior!

All through HIS love.

Amen.

I need grace

Heb 13:9  Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace

Established with grace.

And by grace we are saved. Eph_2:8 

Jesus- full of grace and truth. Joh_1:14

Justified freely by His grace. Rom_3:24

1Co_3:10  According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

Tit_2:11  For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men

Phm_1:25  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen

Heb_2:9  But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

Grace.

We survive by His grace. We need His grace. We cannot live without His grace.

Please, LORD, please we need Your grace.

More and more my own wickedness is revealed to me and I would despair of ever being Yours except You died for me, to save me because I could not save myself. Please, Father, forgive me, please. I need Your grace, Lord Jesus, I need Your grace.

What work could we do to pay for disobeying God?

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Eph 2:9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Eph 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

NO man can boast they've attain eternal life on their own merit, through their own works. NO man can say they've been good enough to warrant eternal life.  The good works of man- every single one of those good works is not capable of deserving eternal life. The stain of sin which separates us from God is NOT removed by our works. We cannot work off our sins, we cannot pay the debt for them, it's impossible.

What work could we do to pay for disobeying God?

Have you ever done something so awful to someone else that you know there is nothing you can do to ever make up for it? You can ask for forgiveness and you can do everything you can to atone- give them things, never do that thing again, etc, but deep down you know that you can't make up for the hurt you caused, you just can't.  On the other hand, has anyone ever hurt you so deeply you've found it very hard to forgive them? You do forgive them, but the pain of that hurt remains and it's an effort to forgive them because it's a forgiveness that has to be extended over and over, not a one time forgiveness and all it well.  We know the difficulty that is involved in forgiving, and being forgiven.  Without the grace of God it really is impossible for both- being able to forgive and being forgiven by others.

We are God's workmanship, we are created in Christ Jesus, created to good works. 

We are not created to evil.  Our Savior would have us be His fully, wholly, lovingly and in being His live as He lived and lives- Loving others, Loving God the Father.  LOVING outwardly, not inwardly, not selfishly. It is through HIS GRACE we are saved, It is through HIS GRACE we have hope.  By HIS GIFT, HIS SACRIFICE we are HIS as a choice we make to accept Him and all He's done for us. Please, Father, please, we would belong to YOU through the grace of our Savior, our Lord, Jesus Christ, always!

Amen.

Choice not attraction

Love...

is...a...choice.

Love goes far beyond feelings, yet people have made it all about feelings.  We went from learning to choose to love, to finding attraction to someone - love.  When we are attracted to someone for many various reasons we call that love versus being matched to someone and choosing to love them.  People who call attraction love miss the meaning of love because attraction can fade away, sometimes quickly other times slowly.  When we base our love on attraction we run into the dilemma of finding a lot of others attractive because we find the same traits in various people.  If you're prone to finding a blonde person attractive you may see several blonde people attractive to you. If you find blue eyes attractive the same thing and so on.  It's NOT that we can stop from finding various attributes and traits attractive, but we can stop calling that love.  We can choose to recognize that love is something MUCH more than the attractions we feel towards others.

Love is a choice, truly it is. We make the choice believe in God. We make a choice to care for one another. We make a choice to forgive others. We make these choices, so many choices and they are made daily, hourly, minutely and often without our truly paying attention to the majority of them. Our choices can become habits and sometimes the choices we make which are bad ones, become bad habits. 

Some call being in love illogical and something of pure fiction.  And you know what, the thing people call love can be that way, it really can.

Choosing to care for someone, to join your life to theirs and share in their life's journey is love. Choosing to do that for someone you're not attracted to in superficial ways is love as well. That *being* in love aspect does NOT mean you truly love. 

Some people are great at *being* in love, but not great at loving.

God is love. God chose to create us, chose to love us in caring for us in a way far beyond our full comprehension.

The way God cares for us is so much more than the superficial caring we tend to call caring. God's caring goes to the eternal level and if YOU believe in ETERNITY, then you understand the reality of the true depths of God's love.

When we live a single lifetime of say 70 years, that is NOTHING compared to eternity, absolutely a true drop in the largest of oceans.  Yet we tend to measure our life in the here and now and what we can get out of this life whether it be of love or not of love. We stop caring about God and others and turn to caring about ourselves first. We choose to love some but not all, we pick and choose those we are attracted to and give them the thing we call love while shutting out others that we aren't attracted to.

Love is so much more than the twisted warped thing we call love today, so much more.

Gal_5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith

1Jn_4:8  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1Jn_4:10  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

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.

Truth, this is truth.

Please, Father, please teach us to love as You love, live in us through the Spirit enabling us to love.  To know You and be KNOWN by You.

Your Will Be DONE.

In the name of our Savior Jesus Christ our Lord, now and forever!

Amen.

We are to love outside of ourselves- love God, love Others

Eph 5:15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, 

Eph 5:16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 

Eph 5:17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. 

Eph 5:18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; 

Eph 5:19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord

Walk circumspectly.

Definition: cir·cum·spect - thinking carefully about possible risks before doing or saying something

To walk circumspectly means we are living our lives aware of our actions, aware that there are consequences to our actions.  We are to be wise, not fools. A wise person is aware of the eternal view, not the temporal view. While we are not to WORRY about tomorrow, we are to be AWARE.  Worry and aware are two different things. You can know something as a fact without worrying about it. We can know that things look hopeless and choose not to worry about it by comprehending that the worst possible outcome of tomorrow does NOT take from us the promise of eternal life.

To walk circumspectly, wisely, we choose to use our time in such a way that promotes the eternal life to come. We live KNOWING that eternal life is a REALITY for us. We don't live our lives as if here and now is all there is to it and nothing matters but our seeking to get as much pleasure out of this life as possible. We comprehend that the days we live in are evil, THEY ARE.

Satan will stop at NOTHING to promote his agenda, and that agenda includes capturing as many people in his snares as he can and keeping them from eternal life. THIS IS SATAN'S AGENDA! Our days are FILLED with things that are meant to take eternal life from us. You don't get any more evil than preventing someone from attaining eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We need to truly understand what the will of the Lord is- do you know what it is?

Joh_6:40  And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day

1Jn 3:23  And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.

1Jn 3:24  And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.

The will of God - to BELIEVE and out of that belief we obtain the SPIRIT and through the SPIRIT we keep His commandments to love.

We are to be FILLED with the Spirit- not with artificially contrived things that make us feel differently than we do without them, making us feel less pain from the evil around us.  We need to be FILLED with the Spirit. We keep the commandments to LOVE GOD and LOVE OTHERS and this is what we are to be filled with- NOT any commandment that tells us to love ourselves first. I can't find that one anywhere. We are to LOVE outside of ourselves in order to be filled with the Spirit of love.  This is the will of God.

Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs- in our hearts!

This is how we are to live! The inward man inside each and every one of us needs to glorify God in song! It's amazing what music, what singing, what songs can do for us.

Just recently they're proving the power of song with Alzheimer's patients.  Truly there is power in singing, in music, in psalms, in hymns and we don't have to do it publically to reap the benefits, we can do it in our hearts!

The life of a Christ believing person, is the life of one who believes in loving others not self, it is a life of singing inwardly.

Will the Christ believer have a perfect life? NO, a thousand times NO! Will the Christ believer be promised life free from heartache, pain, agony, torture and so on? NO, a thousand times NO! Believing in God and His begotten son Jesus Christ is not a hope to live a good life here on earth now, it's just not. If anything it almost guarantees you are HARDER life now- more pain, more agony, more torture, more heartache because Satan stops at NOTHING to inflict all the pain he can upon Christ believers. Our HOPE is an ETERNAL HOPE, and ETERNAL LOVE.

Please, Father, bless us with Your Son, help us, keep us from evil and increase our faith in the sacrifice made for us.  Help us to love outside of ourselves- selflessly.

Please give us the Spirit, Father. We need the Spirit!

All in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior now and always!

Amen.

Through the veil, through the flesh

Through the veil.

Through the flesh.

We don't ordinarily think of the flesh as a veil do we? Why would we. We envision veils as see thru contraptions pulled over our faces mostly during wedding ceremonies and such. Or perhaps we think of the veils that other faiths and cultures wear to cover their women folk and so on. When we are discussing the Temple Veil we are discussing something definitely not see thru. 

In fact no one was allowed in there other than the High Priest on the Day of Atonement.

Lev 16:2  And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come NOT AT ALL TIMES into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.

Lev 16:12  And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the LORD, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail:

Lev 16:13  And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not

Heb 9:6  Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.

Heb 9:7  But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people

Through the veil.

Through the flesh.

The veil signified separation more than concealment for the sake of hiding something. Everyone knew what lie behind the veil, it wasn't a secret. 

Reread Lev 16:2- Aaron is told not to come at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat which is upon the ark… why? Because he'd DIE if he did. God would appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat, God would appear there within the veil!  Again in Leviticus we read that a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord (((the altar of incense)))) were to be brought into the most holy place so that a cloud of incense would cover the mercy seat- why? So he didn't die!

The veil separated GOD from the people, yet signified His presence among them. He could be there, but not it such a way that there was NOTHING separating Him from the people.

What separated God from His people?

Isa 59:1  Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

Isa 59:2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

SINS separate us from GOD!

You have to remember when Adam and Eve were put out of the Garden of Eden and the presence of God, right? You remember how they hid themselves from Him after they sinned? Sin caused the separation!

The veil in the temple signified that separation, there was a wall put up between man and God, and that wall, that veil became a veil of flesh that made the way to God possible! No longer a separating veil, this veil was the device by which entering into the presence of God was possible!

Heb 10:19  Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,

Heb 10:20  By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh

Jesus is the WAY.  Jesus is the bridge that unites us one side to the other. Jesus is that ladder which does away with the space between us and God.

We have to USE the Veil, we have to get on that Bridge, we have to climb upon the Ladder, we cannot reach God on our OWN it's IMPOSSIBLE!

We must accept the Way offered to us in order to reach God. We must accept the sacrifice our Savior made on our behalf and believe in Him and His ability to save us, to keep us in Him, to bring us to God through HIS righteousness. Please, Lord, please know us! Save us through You! Thank you! All praise, all glory, all honor unto YOU! Always!

Amen!

The Veil

Heb 10:19  Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,

Heb 10:20  By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh

Through the veil.

The veil.

Mat_27:51  And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent

Heb_9:3  And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all

Exo_26:33  And thou shalt hang up the vail under the taches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the vail the ark of the testimony: and the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy.

Exo_30:6  And thou shalt put it before the vail that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee.

Lev_4:17  And the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the LORD, even before the vail.

Lev_16:15  Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat

*******

A veil separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place in the temple upon the earth, a temple built after the pattern shown, the pattern taken from the heavenly temple.

A heavenly temple.

That veil which separated the two compartments, the veil in figure Christ's flesh.  We enter into the Most Holy Place through Christ our Savior and no other way.

Before Christ, entering in through the veil was only done by the High Priest. 

Through the sacrifice of Christ that separation was done away with.

THROUGH CHRIST we lose that separation between us and God.

ONLY through Christ is it possible.

More on this tomorrow by the grace of God!

Through the blood of our Savior Jesus Christ, always!

Amen