If we love we will strive against sin

Striving against sin.

Heb 12:3  For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
Heb 12:4  Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

We strive against sin.

Why? Because sin separates us from God.

The other day as I was reading this- 

Joh_14:15  If ye love me, keep my commandments.

-something dawned on me. Strangely enough I should have seen it long ago, and I'm sure many people have but it took me awhile to get it.

Jesus is saying, if you love me-then love me.

When we are told to keep Christ's commandments we are told His first and greatest commandment is to love Him.  If we love Him we will love Him and get this… He is love. We love Him with Him, by Him.

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.

If ye love me- love me.

How simple that sounds. 

We tell others we love them all the time,  and we desire love all the time. We love by being loving, right?  Even if sometimes that love means being harsh and chastising we love by being loving.  Loving doesn't simply mean never causing the one you love to feel various emotions - anger, anxious, sad. Not right now at least. We are caused to go through hardships now because we are being refined in a fire, a cleansing, purifying, teaching fire all so we can learn love from love.  And when we love with our infinitely distorted ability to love we are striving against sin that would separate us from Love, from God.

We must strive, very actively strive against sin.

We cannot simply condone sin in us, even if we are easily beset over and over again. We must never condone it! Hate it, hate the sin in our flesh warring against our minds that we would have be in Christ!

Even if we enjoy it, hate that we enjoy it!

I know this is an awful analogy, but you often hear about abusive people putting their partner through abuse and afterwards apologizing profusely, hating that they've abuse them. It happens in a continuous cycle and often escalates, and the abuser often (NOT ALWAYS) but often HATES what they are doing but can't seem to stop.  We sin and we hate it and we can't seem to stop. For all I know Your sin is being abusive to someone and you do truly hate it. We must STRIVE against sinning, actively WORK towards NO LONGER SINNING. We can't accept it in ourselves not ever! We would want anyone who is an abuser to seek counseling to be healed from their abusive tendencies, not simply accept it or ignore they have a problem. If they are striving against abusing they will do ALL they can to stop.  We must do ALL we can to stop sinning when we know we are sinning.  We must STRIVE!

Please LORD, help us to STRIVE against sin!
Help us to resist unto BLOOD.

All by Your amazing grace, Your amazing love that we can scarcely comprehend!

Help us to love You by loving You, keeping Your commandments - all of them a revelation of Your love.

By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, love us, know us.

All glory, honor, and praise unto You our Savior, our King!

We must not grow weary and faint

Heb 12:3  For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Wearied and faint in our minds.

It's with our minds we serve God.

Remember this-- 

Rom_7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 
Rom_7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Law of our minds.
With the mind we serve the law of God.

The mind can grow weary, the mind can faint.

We HAVE to focus on our Savior and all He has ever done and all He will ever do for us to live with Him. If we don't focus on Him, if our lives are not CENTERED on Jesus Christ we will grow weary and faint.

We are warned-

Consider our Savior who went through so much horror, He did it for us!
Consider Him, consider His pain, consider His agony, consider every single horror He had to endure. Contemplate it all, seriously contemplate it. If we do NOT contemplate it deeply, if we do not contemplate it daily then we WILL grow weary and faint in our minds.

Growing weary and fainting means what?

What happens when someone grows weary as they are running a race? They slow down, and the race gets harder. What happens when someone faints as they are running? They stop running that race.

When we slow down, when we faint we  are in danger of LOSING the race!

We dare not slow down, w dare not become wearied, we dare not faint, we can't give up not even under the worst of our life's horrors and we all individually have our own horrors to endure. 

Each and every person who seeks to be Christ's is in danger of growing weary and fainting. Seeking to be Christ's means living for Christ, it means contemplating Christ DAILY. It means looking to the AUTHOR and FINISHER of our FAITH. It means CONSIDERING all Christ endured as sinners abused Him mercilessly.  We have to consider all He did for us, knowing that He suffered as an innocent, so we sinners could live eternally with Him, cleansed by Him, made sin free by Him.

All through HIS LOVE.

We must not grow weary as Satan strives to make us grow weary.

2Th 3:13  But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing.

We cannot grow weary!

1Pe_3:17  For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.

1Pe_4:19  Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

We must not grow weary.
We must not faint.
We MUST consider CHRIST always in all things.

Please Lord, help us to consider You and all You endured for us. Keep us Lord, keep us from growing weary, keep us from fainting, all through YOU and YOUR love.

The joy that was set before Him

Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The JOY that was set before him.

What joy was set before our Savior before He endured the cross?

Mat_13:44  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

For joy the man sells ALL that he has to buy the field full of hidden treasure.

Our Savior gave ALL that He had - to buy for us the kingdom of heaven!

The Joy before our Savior is the kingdom of heaven made possible to us, His creations!

Our Savior could endure the cross, despising the shame all for US to be allowed to be with Him in His kingdom!  There was JOY set before our LORD. Our LORD held fast to that JOY. It was that JOY that made it possible for Him to stay on that cross, to suffer all that immense pain, to allow Himself to be separated from His Father, all for the kingdom of heaven!  The WAY was created for us! This was the JOY of CHRIST our SAVIOR!

He suffered because He knew what He would do would determine whether or not He could save His creations, man made in His image.

Our Savior had a goal, our Savior had a hope, our Savior looked forward to the day all the pain would be past, all the agony would end.

We TOO need to look beyond the agonies of living now, enduring the incredible hardships- mentally, emotionally, and yes, physically.  Our hope has to be in CHRIST who made the WAY to HIM possible!

Luk_6:23  Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

Joh_17:13  And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

Christ's joy is us with Him!

Our joy must be us with Him!

By HIS GRACE!

The Author and Finisher of our Faith

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us 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,
Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith…


Lay aside every weight and the sins that we so easily commit.
And let us run with patience the race of life.

As any runner will tell you if they carry extra weight it's going to make the run all that much harder. Some runners purposely add extra weight to burn calories and add more muscle to their bodies. Other runners are burdened with extra weight by others to slow them down.  Carrying the extra weight of sin does NOT build muscles or help our appearance in any way. Carrying the extra weight of sin burdens us we have to LAY aside EVERY weight. We have to lay aside EVERY sin and then run!

To do this we MUST look to JESUS!

Jesus is the AUTHOR and the FINISHER of our FAITH.

The AUTHOR or our FAITH.

If you're an author you are a creator. An author creates, yes? 

If I'm an author then I've created a story, fiction or non-fiction, if I create that book I've authored it.  Jesus has authored OUR faith!

Jesus has created our faith.

Not only has He begun our faith He will also finish our faith, He IS our faith!

We hope to lay aside the weight of our sins that would keep us from running the race before us with patience, but the only way that is possible is through JESUS.  We must trust this-

Php 1:6  Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ

Satan wants us to get caught up in whether or not we've been able to rid ourselves or all our sins. He'll point out every sin that we haven't been able to lay aside for very long. I say 'for very long' because when we ask our Savior to forgive us and seek to go and sin no more, with a sincere heart within us we are LAYING aside every weight, every sin. We don't pray that prayer and expect to sin the very next moment.  (And if you do, right away pray again, and again, and again!)   As a rule most people after asking for forgiveness and sincerely seeking repentance, not desiring ever again to sin, do not expect to sin in the next moment. We are laying aside the weight. We are asking for the faith NOT to sin and that power of faith can only come from our SAVIOR.

We have to ask always! We can never get to a place where we are not seeking our Savior to save us. 

Please LORD, the Author and the Finisher of our FAITH, please keep us in YOU. Keep us realizing that You and You alone can save us from our sin, the sins that so easily beset us. We choose to give You our lives, please Lord, do with us as You will! Save us from ourselves. Do all for us that we cannot do for ourselves, and help us do for ourselves what You ask us to do.  You are our everything!

Love us LORD, know us, save us, keep us, be the author and the finisher of our faith.

All by YOUR GRACE!

Lay aside every weight...

Lay aside every weight.   Every weight. What weighs you down? What gives you that spiritual heaviness that threatens to crush you with its weight? You know what I'm talking about, I know you do. Something that weighs you down keeps you from being lifted up. What sort of things weigh you down? Maybe it's your thoughts? Maybe it's your cherished sins.  You might feel the heavy weight of conviction given to you by the grace of our Lord, intending that you repent and seek forgiveness for the sins. Laying aside the weight means...

Lay aside every sin.  Every sin.  Laying aside every weight means laying aside every sin. If you're laying things aside, you are letting go of them aren't you? You are getting them away from you. You can't hold onto something you've laid aside, not unless you choose to pick up that something again.  We are to lay aside our sins.  Is it possible?  Only through Jesus Christ! We are wretched men caught up in our flesh nature, minding things of the flesh and as such we have to look outside of ourselves for the victory - from the smallest of victories to the greatest. When we recognize a sin in our lives we have to choose not to cling to it. We have to choose to despise it. We have to choose to seek repentance and forgiveness. We have to choose to be rid of that sin in our lives by not clinging to it, by not encouraging ourselves to hold onto it. We can't tuck away our cherished sins, we have to lay them aside, let go of them. Sins we cherish are the hardest to be rid of. These are sins that we enjoy, sins that give us pleasures, sins that are easier to commit than fight against.

We do that don't we? We commit sin because it's easier than the fight against it. And we are all for indulging ourselves, making our lives easier.  We confuse ourselves by believing God wants us to have an easy life, He expects us to strive for a life of ease, the path of the least resistance to our contentment.  The trouble with that, it isn't want God wants for us at all!  God wants us to love Him, and in loving Him we choose not to sin no matter the cost to our ease, to our comfort, to our life. Because sinning SEPARATES US FROM GOD! God never wants us to be separated from Him.

Sin's evil is its ability to separate us from God!
Sin separates us from LOVE!

More tomorrow by the grace of our LORD JESUS CHRIST!



Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us 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

Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

Jesus walked the earth for forty days after He died and returned to life, and as we discussed yesterday, He spent that time speaking of things pertaining the kingdom of God. This is what His disciples asked Him before He left this earth and went to Heaven as High Priest in the Heavenly Sanctuary.

Act 1:6  When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying,
Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

They wanted to know if the kingdom would be restored to Israel at that time. The kingdom restored on earth to Israel. As if Jesus hadn't said this--

Joh_18:36  Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence

They comprehended that Christ their Savior had died, they knew for a fact He'd died, some if not all of them witnessed His crucifixion. He was declared and proven dead beyond any doubt. Then three days later He returned to life!  So here they are realizing upon His death that Jesus wasn't making this world His kingdom. Now, upon His resurrection they had a renewed hope that NOW was a good time for the kingdom to come. Sure, Jesus' kingdom wasn't this world before His death, but now, maybe now it would be His kingdom. Didn't He teach them to pray... 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done?'  Still they didn't realize that the Savior had brought the kingdom to them, the Savior made it all possible, He was the Key to the kingdom. They clearly wanted and expected that Israel would become a kingdom once more in power over all others, but that wasn't what Jesus taught. Jesus taught loving your enemy not lording yourself over them. Jesus taught setting captives free, not making all others your captives.

The answer Jesus gave to that question- 'wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?'  was this...

Act 1:7  And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

It's not for you to know when.
The Father alone has those answers.

Mar 13:32  But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Mar 13:33  Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.

The disciples had wanted to know the signs of the end of the world and Jesus went to great lengths to reveal many prophecies that had yet to take place. Those prophecies did not come to pass between the time Jesus died and was resurrected three days later, yet the disciples were still asking if it were time for the kingdom to come. They didn't comprehend fully all that Jesus had tried to teach them. They were trying to make sense of everything, putting the pieces together in their minds. They'd lived with the idea that the Messiah would come and usher in a new reign for the kingdom of Israel which was under great oppression.  Then they had to wrap their heads around the truth that the Messiah wasn't there to do that, He wasn't there to bring the kingdom of Israel a new king, a new ruler-ship that would bring down all their oppressors.  He was there to teach them a NEW WAY, a WAY beyond the sacrificial system they'd been given. A WAY that would have them servants not masters. A WAY that would depend fully upon their Savior for salvation and not upon their ability to seek forgiveness through a lamb or any other sin offering that might be made. The Lamb of God, the ultimate Sacrifice was made and it was that Sacrifice all forgiveness depended. This was the WAY to the kingdom, the WAY Jesus taught.

Jesus did not return after three days to bring a new kingdom to Israel on Earth. He brought the WAY to a new kingdom of God in Heaven.

Jesus went on to tell them this--

Act 1:8  But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
Act 1:9  And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

Power.  They would receive power. Power to do what? To witness of JESUS-the KINGDOM to all!

The power the Holy Spirit would give to them would enable them to witness of Jesus Christ Lord and Savior, and HE lived His entire ministry preaching on the kingdom of heaven.

Any mention of Christ is a mention of the kingdom.

Jesus wanted the gospel, the good news of Him, and How He made the kingdom of heaven available to all to be spread over the entire earth, and the Holy Spirit would give power to those chosen to preach this good news.

How wondrous is our Savior, the Savior of the world! The bringer of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Please Lord, we would be YOURS, wholly YOURS.

All by YOUR AMAZING GRACE!

All through LOVE, and YOU ARE LOVE!

Things pertaing to the kingdom of God

Act 1:1  The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
Act 1:2  Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
Act 1:3  To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God

He died.
Jesus died.
His disciples were devastated.  You can imagine it, the awful sadness, the despair.  You try to make sense of it all and then you realize just a few days later- He's no longer dead, He's back from the dead!

How glorious! How amazingly, unbelievably glorious!

He showed himself ALIVE after He died and He did so through many INFALLIBLE PROOFS. He was seen for forty days and during that time He spoke of what?

'THINGS PERTAINING TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD'!

Our Savior returned to life, brought back from eternal death, and He spoke of THING PERTAINING TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD!

The kingdom of God!

We've been studying the Kingdom of God and you know what the truth of it all is…

Whenever we study our Bibles, whenever we study about our Savior Jesus Christ, whenever we seek to learn about God- we are studying the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, we are studying the KINGDOM OF GOD, every single time!

This is the whole message of our Savior! He came to preach the gospel, the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven!

We truly cannot study the Bible without studying about the Kingdom.

Is it any wonder that Jesus returned to life and walked the earth for forty more days and spoke on things pertaining to the kingdom of God?  He could do nothing else. He is the kingdom!

Bless us LORD, bless us with You, bless us with the Kingdom!

Teach us the kingdom!

Let us live in YOUR TRUTH!

Speak of the Kingdom of heaven to us!

Let us live with You in the Kingdom of God!

Please, all by YOUR righteousness, YOUR love, YOUR forgiveness, YOUR mercy, YOUR love, always and forever without end!

Bless us!