Abiding in Christ

Is your Savior outside of you? I mean, is your Savior an integral internal part of you or an external part of you? Where is your Savior?

Physically we know that our Savior took on immortal, incorruptible flesh and went to heaven to sit at the right hand of God, interceding for us, advocating for us. Yet we are told this…

Col_1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory

Christ in you- the hope of glory.

And this--

Joh_14:20  At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

And that leads us back to --

Joh 8:29  And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.

The Father never left Jesus alone.

Jesus told us this--

Joh 15:1  I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

Joh 15:2  Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Joh 15:3  Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Joh 15:4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

Joh 15:5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Joh 15:6  If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

Joh 15:7  If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

We are to ABIDE in Christ.

Christ is the VINE and we are the BRANCHES, no branch can ever survive without a vine.

So how do we abide in Christ?

We are told, 'If you abide in me, and my words abide in you….'

We are told, 'the Father hath not left me alone for I do always those things that please him.'

We are told, 'ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.'

The words spoken to us.

Christ doing that which pleases God.

Do we KNOW the words Christ speaks to us?  Do we really know them?  We need to. We need to know all about the words of our Savior.  WE need the words of Christ to abide in us.  They need to be a part of our lives, right?

The words of Christ, Christ doing that which pleases the Father. These are the things we need to think on, to dwell on. These are the things that should govern our life. Do they?

By the grace and the will of our God, may we have the words of Christ and do the things that please God, as Christ only ever did the things that pleased God.

The Father hath not left me alone

Joh 8:29  And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.

Jesus' words.

God the Father and God the Son agreed upon the plan of salvation. Freely God the declared Son took on His role as Son, equal with the Father, ever with the Father. The Father sent the Son, and the Father never left the son alone, never. The Son through the Holy Spirit miraculously took on the flesh of humans in the womb of Mary, blessed among women to carry the Savior, to carry God the Son inside of her sharing her flesh, her blood, her breath. God the Father remained with that tiny Holy Spirit seed as it joined with the tiny human egg and began to multiple. God the Father was there when Mary birthed the baby God in flesh. God was with His declared, begotten Son throughout His entire childhood and all the way until the end on the cross, when then and only then did the Son die the second death, the death He needed to die in order to save all mankind that would choose His love.

When Jesus told us that 'he that sent me is with me, the Father hath not left me alone' it was the truth, for only the truth could come from His lips.  The Father was always with Him, yet… NO ONE SAW the Father with Him, so how, in what way was the Father always with Him? Spiritually.

Spiritually.

Mat 28:18  And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Mat 28:19  Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Mat 28:20  Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Truth?  Yes.

Jesus with US always- EVEN TO THE END OF THE WORLD.

Spiritually not figuratively. 

God is spirit.

God took on flesh-and became the Son of the Father God.

The Father God remains spirit.

Jesus the God Son, went to Heaven in flesh immortal, flesh changed from corruptible to incorruptible.

The Holy Spirit, is sent to comfort us, to teach us, to intercede for us, to convict us. 

Through the Holy Spirit God the Father and God the Son are with us always, even to the end of the world.

We talk about living in the presence of God. We talk about the pursuit of God and truthfully the presence of God must be realized to be with us always as God the Father was always with God the Son, His words to us. 

Col_1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory

Christ in US is our HOPE of HIS GLORY!

More on this tomorrow by the GRACE and LOVE of our God!

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

AMEN.

Confess

We must recognize our sin, name it for what it is and then seek to repent and be forgiven.  And we must do this daily.  This is our daily Bread- the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ.

Jas_5:16  Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

1Jn_1:9  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Confess our faults.

Pray.

Be healed.

Confess our sins.

We can't hide our sins from God it is impossible. God knows what causes the separation between Him and every single person. Every single person has God's interest. Every single person has a record in heaven.

Rev_20:12  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

There is a book of life and books we are judged out of. Judged according to our works, because our works are the actions we commit.  Judged, and the standard we are judged against is obeying or not obeying. What else is there to be judged against?  Do we LOVE or do we not love- this is the real standard.

If we can't see the Love of God in each moral commandment God gave to man, the four that reveal our love towards Him and the six that reveal our love towards each other, if we can't see that love we are spiritually blind.  If we are spiritually blind we need EYE SALVE so we may see!

Rev 3:17  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

Rev 3:18  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

Blind- we need to buy of Christ Jesus our Savior eyesalve and anoint our eyes with that eyesalve so we can SEE!

Satan will blind us, he loves to blind us, to keep us in the dark concerning the love of God. As long as we do NOT see the love of God in the moral commandments we have no compunction beyond a fear of punishment to keep those commandments. We need the LOVE of God, this is the standard we are judged against.

Do we LOVE God? From that love do we live our lives?

Imagine loving another person and having everyone around fight you to not love them.  This scenario isn't a pleasant one, it's extremely difficult to choose to love one person over all the others in your life.  When we choose to love God we are choosing to enter an active Spiritual war and every spiritual evil will do all they can to keep you from that love of God. Loving God is NOT entering a life strife free. You are calling all the powers of darkness to war with you in a very real way. Loving God is amazing, His love beyond all we can truly imagine. His power is greater than all other power. We have to believe in the love of God fully, wholly, daily, always amidst the awful things big and tiny that the evil realm will throw at us.

We will be judged on the standard of God's loving law. And because HE knew and knows that we can't, based on our flesh nature, do this on our own, our SAVIOR- God in flesh- sacrificed Himself so that we may live. We are never to condone sin, but seek forgiveness constantly for the sins we commit, and our SAVIOR will forgive us and save us.  He can't save us from sins we refuse to confess.  He can't save us if we refuse to acknowledge we've broken the moral law of God and in doing so we have sinned.

When we sin it is known, never hidden, NEVER. 

When the time comes for people to stand before God, they will either be found in the book of life, or the record of their decisions not to choose love over evil- all found in their unconfessed sins- will be revealed to them. They'll know why they aren't in the book of life and there will be no trial, no chance to plead for yourself, the time for all that is during our entire accountable life. Every opportunity presented to choose love will be revealed, not hidden. Not a single person will be able to accuse God of falsifying the truth of their own choice not to serve Him, to not love.

We truly need to confess our sins, to recognize them for what they are, to realize they are reflections of our inability to love. When we confess we need to do so as we seek forgiveness from the only One who can give us that forgiveness, the One who died for us.

Please Savior, please help us to recognize our need to confess all sins to you, not try to cover them up or ignore them. Please.

All through YOUR LOVE! All this through YOUR LOVE!

Now and forever.

Amen!

Depart from Iniquity

2Ti 2:19  Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

The Lord know those who are his.

If we name the name of Christ, we need to DEPART from iniquity.

We simply CANNOT turn a blind eye to sin! We are being taught to do just that, so much so we are now taught that sin is GOOD and GOOD is sin.

Go ahead and dare spout that there are sins such as same sex unions, go ahead and the fallout will be tremendous. Even many, many Christians have embraced this and they've done it because God is love and God would love all regardless of something viewed as being out of a person's ability to alter. Does God love fornicators. Yes. Does God love adulterers? Yes. Does God love thieves? Yes. Does God love murderers? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes. God LOVE all human beings, but was God HATES is sin.  Every sin separates us from God.  God hates every act of fornication, every act of adultery, every act of stealing, every act of murder, every single sin God hates, He cannot condone a single sin, not one! But we have convinced ourselves that God can accept the sin in us. We've done this in order to allow ourselves to keep on cherishing our sins without any belief that there is a consequence to our sins.

Sure we've made laws- we throw people in jail for stealing and murdering because we've decided that those particular sins are still worthy of non-acceptance.  But we've now accepted fornication and adultery as being perfectly acceptable, no punishment needed.  We've NUMBED our spiritual senses, and Satan loves it.

We've agreed it's perfectly fine to covet what others have, no problem there.  We even say it's okay to bear false witness for the right reasons, absolutely nothing wrong with that, right?  We have also done away with any mandatory worshiping of God and all that entails. It is not a sin to not worship God, it's perfectly fine. We have agreed to all this the world over with only pockets of people who truly believe that sin is truly sin and it can never be deemed not sinful.

Many lay claim to loving God and they fully believe they do, but they are NOT loving the God of the Bible, they are NOT loving the God of the Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. They are loving a God of their own devising. Oh, they say it is the same God, but it is not, not really. They've made up their own rules and they attribute them to God, but it's their God, not the One and Only True God. There are a lot of churches and a lot of false gods created to meet the desires of the people to continue to sin and remain unaccountable for those sins. They've made sin good, but God has never made sin good and never will make sin good.

We can be forgiven of our sins, God loves us and will forgive us.

But God will NOT condone sin, He just cannot, it's impossible. 

Sin separates us from God and it always will.

2Ti 2:19  Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

Depart from iniquity, not cherish it, not embrace it, not call it good and acceptable.

We must recognize our sin, name it for what it is and then seek to repent and be forgiven.  And we must do this daily.  This is our daily Bread- the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ.

More on this tomorrow by the grace and mercy of our beloved God, our beloved Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ now and forever!

Amen!

Choosing

Choices.  How much of our life is spent making choices? Would it be safe to say the majority of it?  We make choices constantly. We choose our actions and unless we are physically tied up or mentally incapacitated in some manner- drug induced, or unconscious, we are making choices. If I make a choice to do something- all during the time I am doing that something I have the choice to remain doing it or to stop doing it. There are certain situations you have to see through once you begin them, without any opportunity to get out of them. You make the choice to ride a rollercoaster and you can't decide midway to simply stop, it's out of your control, you have no ability to stop, short of unbuckling your safety restraints and jumping to your death- very counterproductive, unless you are seeking death.  Most things we do we have the choice of doing or not doing them, stopping them or continuing them once we start. Even our employment, we can walk away from any job we have, the consequences must be faced for the choices we make, but they are ours to make. Marriage, people choose to remain or they don't. Parenthood, people choose to raise their kids or they abandon them. As children our choices are more limited by our parents and other adults, and yet many children rebel even then, choosing to do so. From the moment we wake up we begin making choices, even subconsciously, by rote, not every choice demands prior thinking. We *just* do a lot of things, but they are the result of choosing to do them.

We choose to believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, and when we choose this we choose still further what kind of relationship we are going to have stemming from that choice. Some people stop right there, they believe and that's the end for them. Others choose to make it their life's work believing, and still others choose many varying degrees of relationship. We are given instructions by our Savior, many instructions and we can choose to ignore them all or pick and choose the ones we desire to follow, or to follow them all, we choose.

Our choosing only stops when we stop living.

Jesus says-

Joh 14:21  He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Joh 14:22  Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

Joh 14:23  Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Does it get any plainer that this? He that hath my commandments and keeps them- he loves me.

So you say you love Jesus, do you keep His commandments, His words?

If you are not choosing to keep His commandments then you do not love Him, not really, you are just playing at loving Him. You've made a game of loving Him, but your heart is not in it and He knows this. We have a gauge to look at- are we keeping His commandments? If we answer no, then we have to comprehend that we might not really love Him.  If we answer no, but we desire to keep His commandments only to fall short of doing so, then we ARE keeping His commandments spiritually, only our flesh is weak. If we stop striving to overcome the flesh then we are not seeking to keep His commandments. And for those who love to announce we can't strive to do anything… how do they explain this--

Heb 12:4  Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

Luk_13:24  Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

Rom_15:30  Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me

Striving against sin.

Striving to enter in at the strait gate.

Striving together in prayer.

These are all acceptable and encouraged forms of striving.

And if we are striving against sin, then we are striving to keep the commandments because sin is a transgression of those commandments.

Joh 14:21  He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Joh 14:22  Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

Joh 14:23  Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

We have Jesus' commandments and we keep them to the best of our ability through His grace. We love our Savior and in loving our Savior, we are loved by the Father God, we are loved by Jesus, and HE WILL MANIFEST HIMSELF TO US!

How?

If we LOVE JESUS we KEEP His words, we LIVE as He instructs us to live and He's given us A LOT of instruction. We live as He instructs and the FATHER GOD loves us and they BOTH will come to us, living with us! 

This is a spiritual union and it's very REAL.

We must choose with our minds to obey our Savior, our Creator, our Gods. We must choose to keep the sayings of our Savior and this mean studying those sayings, studying all that He has given us to study so we may truly know His will.  We want Jesus to manifest Himself to us, we want Jesus real in our lives and we know this is possible.  Jesus didn't say don't worry about keeping my commandments, I'll still manifest myself to you.  Where do you find those words? I can't find them. Jesus said HE THAT HATH-  we have to have HIS COMMANDMENTS, we have to have his WORDS and not only did he say we that have them, He said AND KEEPETH THEM.  He did not say NOT TO KEEP His commandments, He did not say not to bother with them, not to worry about them, to ignore them, to forget about them. Jesus wants us to have His commandments and then He wants us to KEEP them!  And the ultimate bottom line of all those commandments are to LOVE GOD and to LOVE EACH OTHER, and love is GOD, love is TRULY SELFLESS.  Selfless!  The selfless sacrifice of God the Son - Jesus Christ is our example. No one earned His sacrifice, quite the opposite. And we must treat ALL others - even our worst enemies, or especially our worst enemies- SELFLESSLY- seeking ONLY their good and nothing less than that!

All through the POWER of God!

All by the love and mercy of our Savior Jesus Christ our Lord now and forever! AMEN.

Are we too busy minding earthly things to really know Jesus?

'David's life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder.

Paul confessed  the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after Christ. "That  I may know Him," was the goal of his heart, and to this he sacrificed everything. "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have  suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ."'               The Pursuit of God A.W. Tozer

Php 3:8  Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ

The knowledge-

gnōsis

gno'-sis

From G1097; knowing (the act), that is, (by implication)

The KNOWING of CHRIST JESUS.

Php 3:13  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

Php 3:14  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Php 3:15  Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

Php 3:16  Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.

Php 3:17  Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.

Php 3:18  (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:

Php 3:19  Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

Php 3:20  For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

Php 3:21  Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

OUR CONVERSATION IS IN HEAVEN FROM WHENCE ALSO WE LOOK FOR THE SAVIOR THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!

Our conversation is in heaven!

Act 2:23  Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

Act 2:24  Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

Act 2:25  For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always

David spoke concerning JESUS CHRIST THE MESSIAH.

David foresaw the LORD ALWAYS!

How could David see the LORD always when He was many years in the future?

How could Paul know Jesus so intimately having only seen Him once in a vision?

They knew the LORD, the knowing of the LORD was their life.  In their knowing they were known by the LORD.

Do we LOOK for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ? Do we ACTIVELY - SPIRITUALLY look for the LORD JESUS CHRIST?

Are we too busy minding earthly things to know Jesus? To really know Jesus Christ our Lord, our Savior, this must be the most important task of our life, of our every day. Before we even rise from our beds, immediately upon opening our eyes and as instantly as our cognitive awareness of being awake comes upon us we should, by the grace of God, greet our FATHER GOD, our LORD, our SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. Our minds pointed heavenward, our thoughts acknowledging the very Ones we long to spend eternity with, the very Ones we desire to know as best as humanly possible.  God, holy, holy God, allows us the intimacy of prayer with Him and God the Holy Spirit will intercede for us in our prayers as we comprehend we truly don't know what we ought to pray, only that we must pray.

Rom_8:26  Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

We pray, to communicate with our God, our CREATOR, our REDEEMER. Our Gods are not off limit to us. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are ACCESSIBLE to us without our having to making any special appeasements, no ritual sacrifices other than a contrite spirit and a broken heart. The contrite spirit- knowing the power of any connection with our Gods is through our God's initiative nothing of our own accord, all power comes from our Gods. The broken heart- comprehending that until our Savior God, Jesus Christ returns we will not be fully, wholly reunited to our Gods. Brokenhearted knowing our hearts are only unbroken in Christ Jesus. 

We pray understanding the incomprehensible love given to us is something we can never deserve, the blessings we receive unwarranted. We realize our place, our WONDROUS place in the whole of all things. We are not ashamed to be CREATURES! We do NOT long to be CREATORS! We are creatures dependent upon our Creators.

More on all of this tomorrow by the will, the grace, the mercy, the love of our God, our Savior Jesus Christ!

Now and forever, amen!

Will Satan separate us from the love of Christ?

Rom 8:35  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Who?

Who is the mastermind behind ALL tribulation, ALL distress, ALL persecution? Who is at the heart of ALL that is evil? Seriously, ask yourself who.  If you believe in God, our heavenly Father, and His Only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit- then you know who is behind it all, who is at the heart of it all. And the WHO that is at the heart of all evil loves it when people FORGET his role in all of it. When we forget who is at the heart of every single trouble we have, we forget who is there to help us with every trouble we have.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Will Satan separate us from the love of Christ?

We will face- TRIBULATIONS.

Tribulations- hardship, great difficulty, affliction, distress, trials.

We will face- DISTRESS.

Distress- mental suffering, anxiety, unhappiness, hardship, problems, physical pain, danger.

We will face- PERSECUTIONS.

Persecution- unfair treatment, suffering felt by persecuted people.

We will face all manner of these, under every guise that exists. And the reason we will face all these assault is in fact to SEPARATE us from the love of Christ.

Yes, if we LOVE our God these things can be used for our ultimate good-

Rom_8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

These things WILL happen to us and if we LOVE GOD somehow beyond our ability to comprehend, through faith in our God, they will work for our good.  Satan would have them destroy us, rip apart our relationship with God.

Rom 8:35  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Rom 8:36  As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

WE- Christ followers are counted as SHEEP for the SLAUGHTER.  We are fair game when we are Christ's.  We are penned up sheep, easy to pick off, and Satan is the wolf in the sheep fold ready to do the picking. And if we are KILLED, if we are SLAUGHTERED for Christ as His sheep, then we are conquerors through our Savior! We are MORE than conquerors.

Rom 8:37  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

Rom 8:38  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Rom 8:39  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We NEED to be persuaded as well that DEATH, LIFE, ANGELS, PRINCIPALITIES, POWERS, NOT the PRESENT, NOT the FUTURE, HEIGHT, DEPTH, ANY CREATURE NONE of these things will be able to separate us from the LOVE of God which is in Christ Jesus our LORD!

Do we believe this?! We MUST believe this! We MUST!

Does believing any of this mean that we won't have tribulations, hardships, any and all difficulties life can throw at us- NO, it doesn't mean that at all! We can be among those who face the worst of life's agonies and some may take that to mean God is disappointed in us, that He has forsaken us. We know differently. We know that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God, NOTHING. We must believe, we must believe when we have no outward reason to believe, we must have FAITH, the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things unseen.   And this is why we must LIVE in the PRESENCE of GOD, by his mercy and grace, His love always!

Amen!