We are only sincerely satisfied when we are reunited with our Father God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Mat 4:1  Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

Jesus was LED by the SPIRIT with the purpose of being TEMPTED of the devil.

This is TRUTH!

I know I've talked about it before but it needs talking about again and again. Jesus COULD be tempted! Really and truly TEMPTED. Jesus had the ABILITY to sin, it wasn't stripped from Him.  Too many want to believe that it was impossible for Him to sin, that He had some sort of sin repelling shield around Him, that because He was GOD in FLESH, He was above being able to sin and that's a LIE.

Why would ANYONE waste their time trying to tempt someone who is above succumbing to temptation? Trying to tempt a dead person would be just as profitable as trying to tempt someone above succumbing to sin. 

Jesus HAD to defeat Satan just as if He were one of us or else it would prove nothing. God defeating Satan we'd expect, right? There is no real contest there at all.

We KNOW God can defeat Satan, He created Him. However, He created him as an Angel of Light, and then Satan chose to let sin enter His heart changing him, separating himself from God.  We know if God had wanted to He could have destroyed Satan right then and there when sin began. So, why didn't He? Because God is NOT a God who dictates, He's NOT a puppet master. God created beings with free will. Giving the beings free will is what love is all about, recognizing the power of that love.  God did not destroy Satan instantly because it would prove nothing other than God's ability to destroy those who choose to separate themselves from Him. It wouldn't have proven WHY that separated being is a being without love and destined to a life of pain and heartache.  When Satan chose to separate himself from God there was a result of that separation and to witness that result -all the beings of all the worlds would need time to understand why destroying the being choosing sin was much better than letting sin reign, than letting separation from God in the created beings, exist.

Before  humankind was tempted to join Satan in sin God had a plan for that possibility. He had a great hope that the plan wouldn't be needed but He'd create a new and different being, a being more like Him than the angels, and He gave the new creatures the freedom to choose as well.

On their own the new beings did NOT sin. They didn't. They chose NOT to sin of their own accord. However, when Satan tempted them, when he challenged them, lied to them using his own evil sinning ways to do so, they relented and succumbed to the temptation.

They chose to believe another and in choosing they separated themselves from God by not believing in Him.  They couldn't have believed Him, that He'd told the truth about their choosing to disobey.  God offered them everything except the fruit of one single tree. That tree represented trust and faith in God, their Creator. If they trusted Him and believed Him they wouldn't eat that fruit.

Still God did not wipe these new beings out of existence. Instead of doing that He did what ONLY love could do. He offered a sacrifice of Himself. God with God, one God declared the Father, the other declared the Son.  The Son was decreed to die, willingly die in order to offer salvation to His new beings.  This love wanted to repair the breech, to heal the separation introduced by sin. This love wanted life for His creations, not death, not sin.

God declared the Son divested Himself of His God powers when He took on human flesh. Not only did He NOT put on the flesh of an adult human being, He put on the human flesh of a helpless, dependent infant.  He endured life and all its pains. He teethed as a child, He fell down and scraped His knee as a child. He endured the hardships of the life of one not born into royalty, not born into wealth. He felt hunger pangs, He became thirsty in need of water. He took on human flesh fully and the only power He used as He grew up into adulthood and onwards was the power of His Father.  Yes, He knew His Father in heaven. He knew that He faced the challenge of trusting and believing in the Father's truth. Raised to know the God of the Jewish people, His knowledge took on a special knowing through the choice not to sin, to NOT separate Himself from the Father. Each and every childhood temptation He faced left Him only stronger in His faith, stronger in His relationship with the Father. 

When He was led of the Spirit of God to the wilderness to be tempted by Satan He was strong in His relationship with the Father. You see, when Jesus became a human being just like us, He became a flesh and spirit being.  His spirit was one with God the Father's spirit.  Just because He took on flesh did not mean He was completely spiritless. To be like us in all ways He had to be part spirit, just as we are. There is a part of us that can only be satisfied by reuniting with our God. That part of us millions and millions of people try to satisfy with other things only to be guaranteed to fall short of being truly satisfied.  We are only sincerely satisfied when we are reunited with our Father and our Savior Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. 

More tomorrow by the grace of our LORD and SAVIOR, now and forever….

Amen.

Non-stop spiritual assaults

1Pe 5:5  ...Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

1Pe 5:6  Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

1Pe 5:7  Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

1Pe 5:8  Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

1Pe 5:9  Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

1Pe 5:10  But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

1Pe 5:11  To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

This is TRUTH!

Clothed with humility.

Humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.

IN DUE TIME exalted--   not now!

We are not promised instant peace! People need to STOP expecting a life of ease! We need to stop expecting less hardship, less heartache, less pain in our lives. Yes, it would be nice not to live in hardship, in heartache, or in pain but it's not something we must insist upon having in order to believe in our God.

The innocent will suffer, the helpless will suffer,  and we who have compassion for them will suffer and hate the fact the innocent and helpless are feeling such pain, living in such horrific conditions. 

Satan has created societies which promote our distrust of God. Satan has worked hard to warp the truth of God so many will be deceived.  Truly we must follow after the truth in its fullness through Jesus Christ our LORD. 

We must believe in a God who LOVES fully, wholly, without any selfish thought at all.  God created human beings to live in harmony, as counterparts to Him.  The counterpart would be love as He is love, selfless as He is selfless.  All those who are willing to give up self, a true, true fight, will be God's. The willingness to give up, the willingness to let Christ and His grace save us is what God wills. Satan rebels against this and uses any means possible to keep us from giving our will to God. The selfishness within us is used by Satan at every opportunity. Situation after situation will pop up screaming for us to be selfish, non-stop assaults at our spiritual self will take place and we have to recognize this!

We must RESIST the devil so He will flee from us and resisting means recognizing the devil's assaults upon us.  He disguises them so thoroughly that its next to impossible to distinguish them from what most people will call 'just life', but we KNOW BETTER!  Our eyes are OPEN, we are NOT blind. We see the LIGHT that Christ allows us to see by His grace and mercy.

Please, Father, please, help us be Yours in all ways. Help us resist, help us trust in You, in Your grace which is sufficient for us. All to Your glory! All to Your honor! All to Your love!

In the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord!

Amen!

Submit to God, Resist the Devil

Jas 4:6  But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

Jas 4:7  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Submit ourselves to God.

Resist the devil

God gives us the grace we require as we recognize our need of His grace. The PROUD do NOT recognize their need for the grace of Jesus Christ, their Savior.

It's true.  Pride has stood in the way of many, many things. The belief that on our own we can attain all we want is a very deceptive belief. That we have been taught to be self sufficient is well known, yet the danger of that teaching is leaving out our biggest need in this life, to be entirely submitted to our Savior and His grace. We can live our lives knowing we are dependent upon God for ALL things and most importantly our Salvation, or we can live believing we have to only rely upon ourselves for all things, including saving ourselves.

Too many try to walk the fence on this. They want to believe they must be self-sufficient by not including God in their day to day, mundane life, while still depending on Him for their salvation.  They refuse to truly submit to God. They refuse to resist the devil and his awful influence to promote self-sufficiency, to encourage pride in us. 

The devil will flee from us if we resist him, he doesn't want us to believe that it is possible that he can flee from us.  He knows if we try to get him to flee under our own power he can take advantage of us dig in deeper.  It is only through our submission to God and our resisting of the devil that he will flee from us.  The power to resist comes from God.

If the devil doesn't flee from us we remain under his influence and that influence will do all it can to keep us from full submission to God. Let us HUMBLE ourselves, let us recognize our need to humble ourselves. Admit that we need God to direct our path, our life in all its avenues. 

Please Father, please by YOUR grace help us to humble ourselves, help us to give up all our pride knowing that YOU are our all in all! Help us to resist the devil so he flees from us, we cannot resist him on our own. Bless us Father, bless us in You, and in Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior.

Amen.

God is able

2Co 9:8  And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work

God is able. That doesn't say YOU are able to make all grace abound towards yourself.  GOD IS ABLE.

Now this next part may have some people up in arms about the fact there are starving, destitute Christians who are NOT sufficient in all things so they may abound to every good work.

 That is a lie, even the destitute are sufficient.

But honestly, there are those who will do all in their power to discredit God and God's word. There are those who refuse to comprehend that God's understanding of our needs are different than ours, that we MOSTLY only consider the here and now, rather than the eternal. If a Christian dies of starvation does that mean God didn't supply the grace He needed?  I suppose we can go as far as to say if a Christian dies at all God hasn't supplied the grace that person needed, their life ended in some fashion- heart failure etc. We can truly take things that far if we are so completely void of faith in God that we want to do so.

God's grace is sufficient in all things and it will abound towards us so we may live for Him no matter our situation. 

Christians do die of starvation. Christians are tortured. Christians are subjected to all of our earthly woes.  This does NOT mean God doesn't exist. It does mean the MAGIC GENIE God that some people want God to be doesn't exist. Way too many want that magic genie god, but that is not the God I worship, not at all.

The God I worship comprehends the need for freedom to choose, making us something MORE than slaves to a master, puppets to a puppet master. God never wanted puppets, He wanted counterparts and to be a real counterpart that freedom to choose had to be involved and that freedom made sin possible.  The results of sin became known and our God made a way possible to escape the penalty that sin demanded, that disobedience demanded.  This is the love of our God to forgive when the only other option was complete and utter annihilation of the creatures HE created.

By the grace of God may we abound in HIS GRACE always!

In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

None of us are undamaged

How is our strength perfected? In weakness.

2Co 12:9  And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

2Co 12:10  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Some would quickly argue that you cannot be strong and weak at the same time. They would say it's impossible to use weakness to strengthen us. Yet time and time again it truly is adversities that make us stronger, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.  I'm definitely not saying this is always the case because it isn't. Because it is also true that some times adversities destroy us.  With our Savior and His amazing grace it is possible for our strength to be made perfect in our weak sinful, human state.

Paul states here that he will glory in his infirmities. 

Do we glory in our infirmities? 

We all have infirmities don't we? Not necessarily physical but emotional and mental as well. None of us are undamaged by the world we've grown up into.  We truly need to LEARN to glory in our infirmities because the POWER of Christ rests upon us as we do. It is HIS power because we are TOTALLY relying on HIM and HIS promises that by HIS GRACE we will be saved. We have HOPE beyond our infirmities. Every single infirmity we possess is cause to give glory to God because truly our spiritual strength is made perfect in our weakness. The more we truly believe and comprehend that we are WEAK and HELPLESS to SAVE OURSELVES the more we rely upon the only source of salvation. JESUS CHRIST, OUR LORD, OUR SAVIOR.

Paul said- 'Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then am I strong.'

Infirmities.

Reproaches.

Necessities.

Persecutions.

Distresses.

Who among us hasn't felt these same things?

I will NEVER say that others don't have it a million times worse than I do, I know they do, I'm not delusional. My life has been one of great blessings. My infirmities, my reproaches, my necessities, my persecutions, and my distresses have been miniscule compared to many others.  But I can't in all truthfulness say I haven't had any infirmities, or reproaches, or necessities, or persecutions, or distresses- I have.  Have I taken pleasure in them? No, I really haven't. It's hard to take pleasure in things that make your stomach tie up in painful knots and your mind race wildly as panic sets in. Yet as my life goes on and I, through the grace of my Savior, I learn, I hope and pray that in future infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, and distresses I can take pleasure in them knowing that my weakness only reveals the strength of the grace of my Savior more and more.

People have it wrong when they believe if God really exists and loves them that they wouldn't suffer. They say they don't want to believe in a God who lets them suffer. They want a God that can alleviate their pain, their anguish by ridding their lives of all that causes them that pain and suffering. They want a magic wand waved over them and their loved ones, in fact most go as far as to include the entire world. They want the all the suffering in all the world to be gone- if God exists and they want it done yesterday, in fact they say they there should never have been pain and suffering in the first place. They play God, but at the heart of their belief is the desire for dictatorship, for a puppet master, for someone to arrange things so there is no free choice, no possibility of disobedience, no freedom at all whatsoever because freedom brings with it the risk of disobedience. People don't want to have that freedom to choose, they want it to have been taken from them from the start so no pain exists. 

From our limited experiences with dictatorship, with slavery, most of us have agreed they are not good things. Who would choose to be the slave if given a choice? Don't most choose rather to be the master of the slave? And there we have it, most would rather be the God then have a God. And many would rather create their own sort of God, a God that suits them and allows for their whims, their ways- a false God who is really just their slave, and not a God at all.

The truth is- most would love to call evil good and do, and they wish to call good evil and do. 

Yes, we need to learn to take pleasure in our anguish states, but ONLY through the grace of God, only so that our strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Please, Father, bless us to this end. In the name of our Savior Jesus Christ our Lord, now and forever. Amen.

Strength

Where do we find our strength? In the grace of Christ Jesus our Savior.

2Ti 2:1  Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2Ti 2:2  And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

2Ti 2:3  Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

2Ti 2:4  No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

We are to BE STRONG IN THE GRACE that is in CHRIST JESUS.

Do we require strength to be followers of Christ?  Yes, we do need strength but it's not a strength that we can manufacture. The strength is found in the grace of our Savior. That alone is our strength. IF we try to make ourselves be strong we are going to fail. Just as if we try to save ourselves, we are going to fail. Our HOPE is in Christ, and that has to be all our HOPE, not just a tiny bit. We can't 95% hope in Christ and 5% hope in ourselves, it doesn't work that way. We absolutely cannot save ourselves, so to be strong in our own strength is to take partial credit for our salvation.

When we realize that we are dependent we must cling to our source of total strength and Satan has made it so that to be dependent is something we abhor. Helplessness is something we are to shrink from, not embrace.  We don't fault a baby for it's helplessness, yet we fault an adult who is mentally, physically, and emotionally sound if they claim helplessness.  We've taken this to mean we must be spiritually independent as well, we must grow to adulthood spiritually and not remain helpless children.  But spiritual adulthood is the maturity to recognize just how fully we are helpless to save ourselves, not us becoming independent and capable of saving ourselves, or contributing to our own salvation.

We truly do need the strength of the grace that is found in Christ Jesus.

We need to live in that grace, and KNOW that spiritually we are completely and utterly dependent upon our Savior for the strength that is eternal through His grace!

Where do we find our strength? In the grace of Christ Jesus our Savior.

2Ti 2:1  Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2Ti 2:2  And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

2Ti 2:3  Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

2Ti 2:4  No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

We must endure HARDNESS as a GOOD SOLDIER of JESUS CHRIST.

We must BE soldiers of JESUS CHRIST, not soldiers of worldly lusts, worldly ideas, worldly independence outside of our Savior.  Soldiers FIRST and FOREMOST of Christ.

More tomorrow by the grace of our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

AMEN!

How to live in this world

Give up ungodliness and worldly lusts.

Grace.

Tit 2:11  For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

Tit 2:12  Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

Tit 2:13  Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

Tit 2:14  Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

This is truth. Do you want to know HOW you are to live right now in this world?  We are told-

Deny ungodliness.

Deny worldly lusts.

Live soberly.

Live righteously.

Live godly.

Look for that blessed hope.

Look for the glorious appearing of the GREAT GOD and OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

Our Savior - gave himself for us.  Why? To REDEEM us from ALL INIQUITY, to PURIFY to himself a PECULIAR people- ZEALOUS of good works.

There we are told what to do, how to live, now the question is, do we live this way?

Do you live looking the glorious appearing of the Great God and our Savior Jesus Christ?

Seriously, do you LIVE LOOKING for this?  I'm not talking about living with the belief that Jesus is coming again, in a back of your mind type of way. You know what I'm talking about. We have a lot of things we believe in but they aren't necessarily things we are actively LOOKING for.  When you are looking for something that's an activity. If I'm looking for an upcoming event, I'm thinking about it, I'm not forgetting about it until it's mentioned.  If it's something I'm looking for and then time passes and I forget about it, I'm no longer looking for it but rather I've forgotten about it.  We have to think about this stuff and in this way because this is the way we are told to LIVE.  We should LIVE looking for our Savior to return. In living and looking for our Savior to return we are doing so with THOUGHTS of this event taking place, with the HOPE that this event will take place, it is ON our minds and in our hearts. 

Just last night at Bible Study we were discussing Christ's return in connection with how desperately we all want Him to return and how the wickedness of this world has us constantly praying for our Lord to return soon.  We KNOW there is no worldly cure to the wickedness of this world, it doesn't exist.  Dictatorship does not do away with our societies ills, monarchies do not do away with the horrors that people inflict upon each other, and neither do democracies.   There is NO worldly answer to be found to the question that people are constantly asking- how to fix this wicked world, how to make this world a better place to live in.  We might be able to temporarily fix various bits and pieces, but it seems that often those bits and pieces that get fix end up breaking again.  For every advance there seems to be several steps back.  People are clamoring to find peace in this world, yet peace will ONLY be achieved in the NEW world after our SAVIOR returns and a thousand years in heaven passes.  We truly need to let the wickedness that exists all around us in so many ways, sadly even within ourselves, to have us longing for the cure to it all- the return of our blessed Savior, Jesus Christ our LORD.