Jesus' Joy.

Are you heavy laden?  These days most people are heavy laden, aren't they? We go through life heavy laden with the various burdens placed upon us by our existing in a world ruled by sin. It is a world ruled by sin, make no mistake about it. 

1Jn 5:19  And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. 

2Co 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 

Mat 4:8  Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 

Mat 4:9  And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 

Mat 4:10  Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 

The devil offered to give to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, all the glory of them….  The devil couldn't have made these offers unless they were histo give.  Jesus didn't refute the devil's claim of kingdom ownership of the world, He told Him that He would only worship God. Jesus knew that there was a prince of this world who was evil.

Joh_12:31  Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 

The prince of this world is the devil, he rules this world. Few compared to the many choose to live in this devil ruled world and yet claim only to worship God in all truth. Satan wants every single human being to be one of his subjects. 

The heavy laden feeling we endure starts when we are very young and begin to comprehend life has hardships, life has pain, life has confusion, that life is unfair.  As we grow older the burdens change, that heavy laden weight alters. The weight of our living in this sin drenched world varies for each of us. My burden isn't yours, and likewise, your burden isn't mine.  We are given moments of joy that supersede the pains and those glimpses of joy give us a desire for more joy, less burden. We seek the joy and things that negate that joy which burden us. In TRUTH and I mean this…in TRUTH there is only ONE joy that should outshine all other joys, and that is the joy we find in our heavenly treasure. Our heavenly treasure cannot be stripped from us ever. Not a single thing on earth can take our heavens treasure from us so is there any wonder at all that we need to truly believe in the reality of that heavenly treasure?

Christ is our heavenly treasure. The good news of salvation through Christ is our heavenly treasure. The HOPE of eternal life in Christ, HOPE in the world to come, not this world, is our heavenly treasure. 

Abraham thousands of years ago lived with this hope…  considering himself a pilgrim on this earth. 

Heb 11:13  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 

Dying in faith, we need to live in faith, embracing the promises of God now.

Laying our treasures up in heaven NOW.

Mat 6:20  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 

Mat 6:21  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 

We are heavy laden, but we can find REST in Jesus Christ, making Him a reality in our lives. Our joy NOW needs to be the HOPE of heaven- Jesus Christ, now.  We can lay the world's weight down now as we pick up heaven's hope, heaven's treasure, heaven's joy.

The burdens are going to hit us, day after day. The huge irritations and the very small irritations, the agonies, the pains, the horrors are all a part of the life we live and we must seek Jesus' joy!  We need to ask ourselves when the weight of the world is tearing us down, if we are living for Jesus' joy. When we cry out our pain may we cry out for Jesus' joy. Jesus' joy is FUTURE HOPE, OTHERWORLDLY HOPE. Jesus' joy is KNOWING our joy is in the promises we have yet to see and not lamenting having realized promises now because we know that sin will rule this world until our Savior returns. 

God help us to make Jesus' Joy real in our everyday existence.  All through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Now and forever! May God's will be done!

Mat 11:28  Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 

Mat 11:30  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

Christ's Yoke- Selflessness.

 Mat 11:28  Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 

Mat 11:30  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

Take up Christ's service. Are you in the service of Christ? What does it mean to be in Christ's service? How can all people be in Christ's service? Doesn't it take a special calling? It can't take a special calling unique only to few. Everyone must be able to enlist in the service of Christ. 

To be in the service of Christ is to be selfless. It is only when we get caught up in self that the yoke becomes incredibly heavy, and is no longer the yoke, no longer the service of Christ. We are like quick change artists who in a blink of an eye throw off one yoke of service and put on another. Satan would have us believe that we continue to wear Christ's yoke and that Christ's yoke is too burdensome to bear. Satan doesn't want us to realize that we have fashioned a yoke that pleases him, and not God. Satan wants us to believe we have to take the weight of the world upon us, but we don't. Christ bore that weight to the cross because it was a weight we couldn't and still cannot bear. 

Christ instructs us to take His service, His yoke upon ourselves and in doing so we are LEARNING of Him. He wants us to comprehend His meekness and lowliness in heart.  

His meekness, His lowliness in heart….what do we know of these things?

Not too long ago I read something that explained that meekness isn't shy humbleness it is rather- not seeking self. Christ did not walk around in the shadows hiding Himself. Christ didn't deflect in a demure manner. Christ did not appear cowardly in any way at all. We use the word meek in this manner but it's not the manner associated with Christ's meekness at all. Christ NEVER put Himself first, never. His Father's will was always first on His mind. He lived for the will of the Father because His will was one and the same, He desired the Father's will. Do we?  Do we desire Christ's will over our own? 

Daily we have numerous instances that will cause us to have to choose the will we wish to follow. We have choices- we can choose to follow Satan's will or Christ's. And our will aligns with one or the other at any given moment. Some choices are pointed and we realize right away the path we are on isn't or is, the path of Christ's. Whenever we find ourselves in the middle of a situation where we know we need to choose, let us choose Christ! 

As we wake up daily we need to commit our lives to Him for that entire day.  Then as we go about our day we need to live it with the awareness we are living for Christ, in Christ's selfless service!  It is shocking how often we find ourselves caught up in self-serving. We write it off so often as being justified-- self-justified because life just keeps dishing out one agony after another. We endure mental, emotional and physical pain and cry out it's unfair! We want peace! We want a painless existence! We long for such a life, but we have to comprehend that for now we need to endure the agonies of life as Christ endured them, selflessly. We need to embrace the agonies knowing this world only promises agonies, it is the world to come that promises peace.

More tomorrow by the GRACE of GOD, through the will of our LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST, now and forever!

We Are Weary.

Weariness.  This is something we are all too familiar with, isn't it? Being weary. We are feeling the weight of this world upon us. We live in such a time that the burdens of society are all around us. I can't help but comprehend though, that through most of mankind's existence there has been an element of weariness in one form or another. NEVER since the peace in the Garden of Eden before sin's introduction to mankind has there not been a weariness to living for us in one form or another. Each generation has its share of burdens. Always there have been problems- the need to eke out of life a way to stay alive. So many have such an awful time doing that, finding ways to live. As we struggle through our lives, no matter the circumstance, life gives us a weariness that makes living tiresome in so many ways. 

We see many levels of living conditions, from what we consider extremely luxurious, to the extremely deprived, and all levels in between. Seldom is anyone in any of the groups without weariness. The weariness of a rich man may be much different than the weariness of a poor man, but the weight of existence rests up all of us and it's up to us to take that weariness to our Savior and find His rest.

Spiritual labor, spiritual burdens, Satan will load us down with spiritual weight desiring to crush us completely. He can, and will crush the spirit in us deadening us to the Spirit of God, make no mistake, Satan desires to bring us to the point of despair so that we make the eternally deadly decision to turn from Christ, not towards Him.

Jesus tell us - 

Mat 11:28  Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 

Mat 11:30  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 

Jesus is speaking to ALL of us, because there is not a single person who isn't laboring and heavy laden in this sin sick world. 

We have to go to Him to find the Spiritual rest that will keep us in Him.

More on this tomorrow by the GRACE and WILL of GOD! All through Jesus Christ our LORD and SAVIOR now and FOREVER!

Let Not Sin Reign

(Excerpt)

Articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner  Chapter 6

Instruments of Righteousness Romans 6:12-23

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 

13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 

14 For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 

15 What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. 1

16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. 

19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh; for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. 

20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. 

21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 

22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. 

23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Reign of Sin. In the fifth chapter we learned that the reign of sin is the reign of death, because death comes by sin. But we also learned that the gift of life is offered to all, so that whoever has Christ has life. Instead of death reigning over such, they themselves "shall reign in life by One, Jesus Christ." The exhortation, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body," is therefore equal to an exhortation to abide in Christ, or to keep his life. We gained the life by faith, and so we are to keep it by faith.

Whose Servants Are We? That is very easy to answer. "To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey." If we yield ourselves to sin, then we are the servants of sin, for "whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." John 8:34. But if we yield ourselves to righteousness, then we are the servants of righteousness. "No man can serve two masters." Matthew 6:24. We can not serve both sin and righteousness at the same time. No man can at once be both a sinner2 and a righteous man. Either sin or righteousness must rule.

Instruments. We have in this chapter two terms to describe people, namely, servants and instruments. It takes both to illustrate our relation to sin and righteousness. Sin and righteousness are rulers. We are but instruments in their hands. The kind of work a given instrument will do depends entirely upon the one who uses it.

For instance, here is a good pen; what kind of work will it do? It will do good work if it is in the hands of a skillful penman, but in the hands of a bungler its work will be poor. Or, in the hands of a good man it will write only what is good; but in the hands of a bad man it will exhibit that which is evil. But man is not a mere tool. No, not by any means. There is this difference between men and ordinary instruments: the latter have no choice as to who shall use them, while the former have full choice as to whom they will serve. They must yield themselves, not once only, but all the time. If they yield to sin, they will commit sin. If they yield to God, to be instruments in his hands, they can do nothing else but good so long as they are yielded to him.

A Parallel. In the nineteenth verse we are exhorted to yield ourselves as servants of righteousness just as we have yielded ourselves servants to sin. This being done, we are assured in the following verses that just as surely as the fruit was sin and death when we were yielded to sin, so surely will the fruit be holiness when we yield ourselves servants to righteousness. Yea, even more sure; for "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." 

Righteousness is stronger than sin, even as God is stronger than Satan. God can pluck out of the hands of Satan the soul that cries out for deliverance; but none can pluck God's children out of his hand.

God's Armor, Not Ours.

 We live in a world that tells us we need to focus upon ourselves at any given moment. Do you know why Satan wants us self-obsessed? Because as long as we are caught up in our own feelings, our own ideas, our own thoughts, our own self in any way, then we are not focused on anyone else, including God. Satan sets us up perfectly, make no mistake he takes every single opportunity to arrange for us to be slighted even in the tiniest way. As soon as we feel the inkling of a slight we are shaking off the armor of God and replacing it with armor of our own fashioning trying to protect our own feelings, our so called honor, our perceived dignity, our self-important integrity and God's armor cannot remain upon us if we replace it with our own armor. Why can't God's armor protect us if we are fashioning our own? Because God's armor is SELFLESS, not SELF-FOCUSED.  

The Helmet of Salvation-  Christ's selfless sacrifice.

The Breastplate of Christ's Righteousness- Christ's selflessness as He relied upon the righteousness of the Father.

The Loins Girt in Truth- Christ is truth, selfless truth. Sacrificing truth.

The Feet Shod in the Gospel of Peace - Peace found in the selfless of Christ's sacrifice.

The Shield of Faith- Faith in Christ's selflessness.

The Sword of the Spirit of the Word of God - the Selfless WORD of GOD, the same Word that tells us to sacrifice self for God, for others!

God sacrificed ALL for us, we are called to do no less than sacrifice all for God- by the Spirit of the power of God. We are called to allow God to have His way in us because we KNOW His way is the way of LOVE, pure LOVE unlike anything we can truly comprehend in our sin soaked state of living. 

We need to give up SELF! Self-protection of our feelings, our idea of self-justification, these all need to be given up! Satan will use them to destroy us at every turn eating away at us bit by bit, piece by piece, chipping at our perceived self that we deem more important than so much else.

Vain glory… self-glory- this is something we must not desire! We must not provoke one another in any way, we must not envy one another something we do all too much! God help us, God save us! God keep us from all evil! God keep us from all evil - from every single evil trap Satan lays for us to fall into!

Gal 5:25  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 

Gal 5:26  Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. 

Choosing Christ, Unendingly.

 Gal 5:24  And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 

Gal 5:25  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 

Gal 5:26  Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. 

Crucified the flesh.

Crucified the affections and lusts of the flesh.

Recognizing the flesh and the Spirit is so incredibly important. When we talk of crucifixion we automatically have an image of our Savior nailed to a cross where He suffered and died for us.  The crucifying was His being nailed to a cross.  

The dictionary also gives us this definition-

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

1. (v. t.) To fasten to a cross; to put to death by nailing the hands and feet to a cross or gibbet.

2. (v. t.) To destroy the power or ruling influence of; to subdue completely; to mortify.

3. (v. t.) To vex or torment.

From <https://biblehub.com/topical/c/crucify.htm> 

When we are told that if we are Christ's we have crucified our fleshy affections and lusts, we are destroying the power and influence those things have over our lives, we are subduing them completely.

Fleshy affections.

Fleshy lusts.

These come in so many forms and to all of us in many similar ways and yet many unique ways. My fleshy lusts may not be the same as yours, or they could be the same in one sense but not in another. Intensity and such are all factors but the bottom line- we have these fleshy affections and lusts that need to be subdued completely, they need to be crucified. 

We need to live in the SPIRIT and this is the only way for any sort of crucifixion of our affections and lusts to take place. 

Live in the SPIRIT, walk in the SPIRIT. Some will lay claim to living in the Spirit but their walk is not in the Spirit.  If we truly live in the SPIRIT we must be walking in the SPIRIT. 

The Spirit and the flesh are contrary to one another.  We choose. We must live in our bodies made of flesh with all its frailties and imperfections, but our bodies are receptacles of our minds and spirit. God will give us all we need, the Holy Spirit working in us, Christ in us is our hope, and clinging to these truths is where we find that hope of walking in the Spirit, by the Spirit, through the Spirit. We will not suddenly develop powers that allow us on our own to crucify our fleshy affections and lusts, we develop the truth, the Spirit of truth working and living in us. 

Gal 5:24  And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 

Gal 5:25  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 

Gal 5:26  Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. 

We subdue completely the flesh, surrendering it all to Christ! And as we do this DAILY, we will be confronted with truth that it is a forever choosing, a constant unending choosing over the course of our entire lives. By the grace and mercy of God may we through Him and His power, by the Holy Spirit, all by our Heavenly Father and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, may we be HIS, known by HIM now and forever! His perfection ours, for we have none without Him!

We Are Buried.

 We are--

Crucified with Christ.

Buried with Christ.

Raised with Christ. 

Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 

Rom_6:4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

I still remember my baptism vividly. The day I was buried symbolically with Christ. I can still recall the moment I was fully lowered under the water. I wasn't under the water very long, but I was under completely, fully submerged, all of me, every bit of me was buried. I was crucified with Christ. I was buried with Him by baptism. And when I came up out of that water grave I was raised up from the dead like Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. On that day I followed the commands of my God, of my Savior and through that I obeyed the direction concerning the death, burial and resurrection of my Savior!  

Do I celebrate Easter? No. Not in the traditional sense. I recognize all its pagan origins interspersed with the religious connotations. I do NOT worship any bunnies, eggs, or any of the fertility symbols. I do NOT worship this day delegated to be Easter as a day God commands. This is a day mankind has contrived on many levels. I do believe a lot of people celebrate this day with the intent to hold it up as celebrating Christ's death and resurrection, just as Christmas day is done to celebrate His birth- though there is no Biblical command anywhere for us to do this, not one.  These days are used and abused in many ways, though the hearts of many believe they are following truths, and in ignorance perhaps they are forgiven, but given the opportunity for truth they then are accountable. God help us all.   I gather with my family, I use what I consider to be secular days set aside to do this, but DO NOT and WILL NOT ever claim these days to be Biblically mandated in any way. I will NEVER worship these days, never. I will worship ONLY GOD and only on the day He has commanded and set aside, the day He made holy, the day He sanctified, and that day is the seventh day Sabbath and it is a weekly day of WORSHIP that by HIS grace and will I am able to set aside and worship Him as He desires! 

God forgive me if I'm wrong even in gathering with family on these days, but I hope and pray all my family knows that I worship God and God alone on the Sabbath day, and no other day.  

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(Excerpt E.J. Waggoner - Articles on Romans Chapter 6)

'We are separated from sin, by death with him, in order that we may be joined to life in him. 

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"Buried with Him by Baptism." 

Baptism, therefore, is burial. 

If people were content to follow the plain reading of the Scriptures, there never would be a question concerning "the mode of baptism." No one from reading the Bible could ever get any other idea than that baptism is immersion. "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." Col. 2:12.  Baptism represents the death and resurrection of Christ, and by it we show our acceptance of his sacrifice; and the very act is an actual burial, in order to make the lesson the more impressive.

Why the Change in Baptism? 

How is it that there has been a change from Scripture baptism to sprinkling? The answer is very easy. Baptism is a memorial of the resurrection of Christ. But "the church," by which is meant the bishops who loved the praise of men more than the praise of God and who wished to curry favor with the "better class" of the heathen, adopted the pagan sun festival. And in order to appear to justify themselves in so doing,  they claimed that the rising sun which was worshipped by the heathen was a symbol of the resurrection of "the Sun of Righteousness," namely, Christ, and that by observing Sunday they were celebrating his resurrection.

But they did not need two memorials of the resurrection, and so they dropped the one that the Lord had given.  In order, however, not to appear to throw baptism away, they claimed that the heathen sprinkling with "holy water" which they very naturally adopted with the heathen sun festival, was the baptism enjoined in the Scriptures.

The people trusted in the "fathers" instead of reading the Bible for themselves, and so it was very easy to make them believe that the Bible was obeyed. It is true that there are some who follow the word in regard to immersion,  who also observe Sunday; but the two practices are inconsistent. The word is neglected in one particular  (observing Sunday) in order to provide a memorial for an event which they already celebrate in accordance with the word (baptism). Scriptural baptism is falling into disuse among [many] who observe the first day of the week.  It must be the case that sooner or later they will wholly give up one or the other.

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There is absolutely no Biblical proof whatsoever that the Sabbath day of worship that Christ Himself worshiped on, the seventh day, was changed to the first day of the week, none.  People will cite the resurrection automatically created the change, but Christ did not institute the change anywhere. He did institute an act to commemorate His death and resurrection and that is the Lord's Supper, that is the symbolic breaking of bread representing His body that He gave for us. It is the symbolic drinking of wine that represents the blood He spilled giving His life for us.  Baptism, the submersion of ourselves under the water represents us descending into the dark grave of death, the rising up out of the water represents us rising to new life! These acts were done by Christ Jesus Himself and examples to US.  

Why did mankind insist on adding their own twists on things? Because by and large mankind is ruled by Satan who wants to deceive all those he can into following his lies. He doesn't want mankind studying for themselves the word of God, but rather taking what other men say is truth and believing it. Satan has completed his deception so thoroughly that when Christ returns millions upon millions of people are going to be shocked they are NOT Christ's, that they don't know Him at all and Christ doesn't know them!  Why? Because they cared more for mankind's lies than His truths. The truths that are UNPOPULAR, the truths that are SHUNNED, the truths that make up the very, very NARROW way that few will find!  

Father, God, please…please let me know ONLY Your truth! Please, keep me from the evil of Satan's grand deceptions! Please KNOW me when You return for Your people! Please! PLEASE!  All through Christ Jesus, my Lord and Savior now and forever!