Tag: salvation

Trusting That the Lord Will Prepare the Hearts of Those We are Trying to Reach

Matthew 28:19
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

How many did you win? How many did you sell? How much profit did you make? These are the clamorings of men and women who trying to measure their success against their perceived plans.

Sometimes it pours over into the things we do in service to Our Lord. How many attended the 11am service? How much did we collect at the offering? How many responded to the altar call? How many were baptized? Man’s desire to satisfy/gratify his own need is insatiable.

Man’s desire to convert God’s work to his own plan is a common practice. Our Heavenly Father has a different plan. Almighty God does not call us to results. Jesus did not tell His disciples to go out and win souls. He asked them to go out and teach the people about having a relationship with Him.

Jesus did not give His disciples a quota, nor does He give us one. He simply asks that we teach the world around us about the relationship that we have with Him.

Let us go out and develop relationships with others so that they will be interested in knowing our story. Let us be prepared to tell them about Our King and His saving grace. Let us trust in the Lord to inspire our listeners to receive His eternal gift.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we rejoice in knowing that it is Your will that no man shall perish. We thank You for providing the way, the truth and the life that is in Your Son, Jesus. We pray, Father, that You will use us to teach the world about Your wonderful salvation plan. We ask for the grace to set aside our own personal desires and plans so that we may fully submit to the perfect will and plan that You have for our lives. Through the presence and power of Jesus in our lives, may we make disciples of others. We ask all these things in the name of the One who shall have dominion, Jesus Christ.

Bringing the Gospel to All Men is Our Calling

1 Corinthians 9:22
To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.

Paul shared with the Corinthians his passion to carry out the good work of delivering the message of salvation to all men. He emphasized that this required him to be a servant to all men, regardless of their stature or their spiritual state. In doing so, he was also teaching them that carrying the gospel to all men was their calling also.

God calls people to all walks of life to insure that His gospel message is spread to the world. He calls some to full time ministry, but most are not. Most of us are called to traditional occupations and lifestyles where the Lord wants us to let Christ be revealed by the way we live and by the way we treat others.

God wishes for our messages of love, compassion and forgiveness to be the same whether we are in a boardroom or in a maintenance shop, whether we are in a health club or in a hospital, whether we are at a church function or in the visiting room of a prison. He wants our messaging system to be on non-stop.

Let us surrender our lives to Our Savior. Let us allow the gentle urgings of the Holy Spirit to draw spiritual production from us within the structure of our natural lives. Let us strive to have our living testimonies become pathways to salvation for others.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the perfect love, compassion and forgiveness that You pour out onto each of us. We praise the name of Jesus who made it possible for us to become vessels of Your grace. We pray that the Holy Spirit will enlighten us and invigorate us to carry the salvation message with us as we walk through our daily lives. May we bear fruit for Your kingdom wherever our paths on earth lead us. We ask all these things in the name of the Tower of Salvation, Jesus Christ.

Our Reward in Heaven is Determined by Our Relationship with the Son of God

1 Corinthians 6:11
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Once we receive Jesus Christ as Our Savior, we are washed clean of our sins and made acceptable to take our place before the Father in heaven. We receive what we did not earn and certainly do not deserve. It is granted to us through the atoning work of Our Savior. None is the result of our holiness.

Our holiness is the result of us allowing the life of Jesus to be manifested in our flesh. Are we willing to let God do in us all that has been made possible by Our Savior? Or are we resting content in the salvation that we have been granted without pressing into a relationship with the One who gave His life so that our salvation could be assured?

Both our place in heaven and our position in heaven are gifts from God. Our salvation guarantees our place in heaven. The measure that we put into our relationship with Our Savior determines our position in heaven. How can we not strive to develop the most intimate relationship with Our Savior King?

Let us give thanks to Almighty God for the place in heaven that has been set aside for us by the atoning sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. Let us press on beyond our salvation, seeking an intimate relationship with Our Savior through which we will be directed to do the works that we have been prepared to do by the will and plan of Our Creator. Let us rejoice for the rewards that we will receive in heaven as a result of the good works that we have been inspired to carry out by the Holy Spirit.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the eternal resting place that You have prepared for us. We ask that we may receive the grace to fully recognize the perfect gift that we have been given and the unimaginable sacrifice that was required for us to be able to receive it. We pray, Father, that the Holy Spirit will inspire us to choose to accept the fullness that is ours through Your Son, Jesus. We pray that we will never be satisfied with our salvation alone, but that we will seek the highest level of all things that You have set aside for us. We ask all these things in the name of our Most High, Most Holy and Most Righteous Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Righteousness Found Only at the Foot of the Cross

2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

When we hear the word sin, we usually think of a single transgression or specific transgressions which go against God’s law. Sin defined in this manner only captures an aspect of sin. In reality, sin is much more. Sin is a complete, damning condition that separates us from God. It is a chasm that we cannot cross on our own. The chasm was created when Adam and Eve sinned. At the moment of their sin, we inherited a condition that separated us from God for all eternity.

Thankfully, our merciful Father in heaven provided a way for us to bridge the chasm created by sin. He provided His Son to take on the burden of all of our sin. He allowed His Son’s blood to be shed so that we may be cleansed of all of the unrighteousness that separates us from the presence of Almighty God. God made His own Son take on our sin so that we might become saints in heaven.

Jesus was not a sinner. He never sinned, yet He was made sin by the Father. He became a sin offering, a sacrifice for the sins of all men. The supernatural plan for all of this was that we might be made righteous in the eyes of God. Let us praise Our Lord for without Him we cannot surrender enough, we cannot labor enough nor can we suffer enough to secure our places in heaven for all eternity.

Let us be forever mindful that there is not a single thing that we can do on our own to pay off the sin debt that we inherited. Let us run to the foot of the Cross to receive the righteousness that is only available to us through Our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Let us insure that our living testimonies reflect the eternal gift that we have been given at an enormous price to Our Savior.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, our thanks are inadequate to cover the redemptive work that cleanses us of our unrighteousness and allows us to stand in Your Holy Presence. There is no manner of word or worship that we could bring before You that would be sufficient to cover the debt that has been paid for us. We bless the name of Jesus who left His throne in heaven to come to earth to redeem us from the debt we could not pay on our own. We humble ourselves before You, Lord. We kneel at the foot of Your Cross and submit ourselves to a life in Your service here on earth and in heaven. We rejoice in knowing that we will serve You forever. We pray that our lives in Christ here on earth will lead others to the foot of Your Cross to receive their salvation. We ask all these things in the name of the Lord of Our Righteousness, Jesus Christ.

By the Hand of God We are Changed

Galatians 1:1
This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead.

When Paul was writing and speaking to the Galatians, he made it clear that he was on a completely different path in life when He was touched by the hand of God. Paul emphasized that it was God that changed him and not him who changed himself.

Because of our sin nature, we all begin our lives on an ill conceived path covered by darkness. Until Our Heavenly Father opens our eyes, we can not see the way, the truth and the life that is in Jesus Christ. Only when our new path has been made visible to us by the light of the Holy Spirit, can we receive the precious gift of salvation. All who are converted to be new men and women in Christ are called by the grace of God.

Upon accepting our salvation, we begin yet another journey – the journey to become holy. Just as salvation is not a work of our own hand, neither is the working out of our sanctification. The Holy Spirit within us molds our hearts so that we can submit to Jesus as Our Lord, Our Master and Our King. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to guide us to full submission to Our Savior so that God can do the work in us that is pleasing to Him. All the saved in Christ who are working on their sanctification are under the power and grace of the Holy Spirit working in them.

Let us recognize that there is nothing in this world that can bring us to victory over the darkness that the world offers. Let us be certain that we are totally incapable of overcoming the darkness of the world without the light of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let us surrender to the urgings of the the Holy Spirit as He carries out the work of sanctification in our lives. Let us rejoice in knowing that our path to holiness was guaranteed on the Cross.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your loving kindness, Your mercy and Your grace that is experienced by us through the gift of our salvation. We praise You for taking us from the darkness of our lives in the flesh into the light of Your Holy Spirit. We rejoice in being guided into full submission to Our Lord, Our Master and Our King, Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, that You will strengthen us and regenerate us as we strive to overcome the world in order to live our new lives in Christ. We ask all these things in the name of Our Most Gracious Savior, Jesus Christ.

Never Settling for the Lesser Things of This World

Revelation 3:17
For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

In Jesus’ message to the church of Laodicea, He warns of the danger of becoming lukewarm in our relationships with Him and lukewarm in our application of His teachings in our lives. His message is so relevant today as we allow the work of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Word to be largely diminished as we find ourselves trying to fit into the norms of our deviant society.

The teachings of Jesus can seem out of all proportion with our natural way of considering things. In fact, reading His teachings can lead to astonishing discomfort. Without the Holy Spirit’s guidance, it may be challenging for us to rationalize the inerrant teaching in the Word.

The corruption of the world has become so commonplace that it is often overlooked and at times completely approved of as acceptable behavior. The Word of God magnifies the differences between the ways of Our Risen Lord and the ways of the world. When the Holy Spirit leads us to see the power and joy in the lifestyle of Jesus Christ, we begin the process of gaining victory over the wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked men and women we once were.

Let us take hold of the inerrant Word of God. Let us believe in the truths that He has given us. Let us believe in who He says He is. Let us rebuke the lies of the world. Let us live abundant lives in Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for sending Your Son to show us the way, the truth and the life that is available to us through our salvation and the daily working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We pray that You will shine Your light on the world so that all the darkness is exposed for what it is. We ask You to alert us when we are moving toward the darkness and away from Your perfect light. We pray that the Holy Spirit will instruct us and strengthen us as we fully surrender to living in the fullness of Jesus Christ, never settling for the lesser things that the world might offer. May we be set on fire as disciples of Jesus. May we boldly proclaim the truth in Your Holy Word. May we be light to the darkness in the world around us. We ask all these things in the name of the Lord of all the earth, Jesus Christ.

Heirs to the Kingdom of God

Matthew 5:20
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

No man can make himself pure enough to enter heaven by obeying the laws. The Pharisees created laws upon laws that were supposedly put in place to prepare them for their way to heaven. Jesus put to rest the folly in their thinking. Jesus taught that there was no possibility for anyone to enter heaven without accepting Him as Savior.

It is also revealed to us in the Holy Word that no one can stand before the eternal light and consummate holiness of Almighty God with the slightest taint of sin. Thus there is the need for us to accept Our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is He, and He alone, that washes us clean of our sin. It is His shed blood that makes us worthy to stand before the Most Holy, Almighty God of the Universe. It is the Son of God that secures our eternal destination in heaven.

As babes in Christ, we joyfully celebrate our eternal gift as heirs to the kingdom of God. But our joy is quickly challenged when we realize that we must still deal with the sin nature within us. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, we become cognizant of how wretched we are in our carnal nature. We also come to the place we recognize that we are incapable of overcoming our wretchedness on our own. But we must not let this steal our joy. In fact, we should experience an even greater joy as the Holy Spirit teaches us just how essential our decision was to accept Jesus Christ as Our Savior.

Let us not lose our joy as we struggle with our carnal nature. Let us remain in the joy that we experienced as new babes in Christ. Let us rejoice in knowing that we will stand before Almighty God with the assurance in Christ that the Father in heaven will only see our holiness.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for making it possible for us to stand in Your presence one day. We praise You for making The Word flesh so that we could be inheritors of the only bloodline without sin. We rejoice in knowing that one day our holiness will be complete as we shed our earthly bodies and take on the pure, supernatural bodies that You have set aside for us. We pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit guide us and strengthen us as we learn to shed the corruption of our flesh here on earth in preparation for the time that we go to our full glory with You in heaven. We ask all these things in the name of the Son of the Most High God, Jesus Christ.

The Power of the Holy Spirit in Our Lives

1 Corinthians 1:30
God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.

Without Jesus Christ in our lives, we are depraved and corrupt. With the regenerating grace of God through His Son, Jesus, we are benefactors of the redemptive process. We are freed from sin and made pure and holy in the eyes of Almighty God. Through this salvation process, we receive all the fullness of the treasures of heaven so that we are fit for the service to which we have been eternally called.

Are we willing for God to make holiness as real in us as it is in His Son, Jesus? The sanctification process begins at the instant that we humbly receive Jesus Christ as Our Redeemer. The sanctification process flourishes as we deny ourselves and rely entirely on Jesus to release His holiness in our lives. The sanctification process is a continuous journey until the day we stand before the Lord in the fullness of our completed holiness.

Sanctification is impossible in our flesh alone. It is only possible with the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit in full operation in our lives. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we access all the perfection and holiness that is Jesus Christ. As long as we remain surrendered to Our Savior and seek the ongoing work of His Holy Spirit in our lives, we will live a life of holiness on this earth. It will not be uninterrupted holiness like we will experience in our glorified bodies, but it will be steady and it will be pleasing to the One who is calling us to our eternal place of glory.

Let us strive to be holy as Our Savior is holy. Let us learn to rely entirely on the indwelling Holy Spirit as we battle our tormenting flesh and the attacks of the enemy. Let us show the world around us our freedom from sin that they may be drawn to Our Redeemer.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for taking us from the corruption of our old man into a condition of holiness in our new man in Christ. We worship You and bless Your name from the fount of holiness that Our Savior has created within us. We pray that we will receive the grace that we need to remain steadfast on our journey of sanctification. We seek to have our journey become a living testimony to those who you have placed in our lives. We pray for the wisdom and the courage to share our sanctification story with the flock that you have given us. We ask all these things in the name of the Holy One of God, Jesus Christ.

The Struggle of the Old Man vs. the New Man

Hebrews 13:20-21
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Upon receiving Jesus Christ as Our Savior, the Holy Spirit begins to show us what sanctification means. The job of the Holy Spirit is to show us what is pleasing in the sight of Our Savior. As a result of this process, everything that we do that is displeasing to the Lord also comes to light. Thus begins the struggle of the old man versus the new man.

Jesus became man so that He could die for our sins. When He comes to dwell within us, there is no room for the sins of the old man. We must allow our old selves to die as we assume our new life in Christ. The two cannot abide together. To try and hold on to our old lives once Jesus has arrived is to enter into a struggle that is filled with endless pain. The new life of joy is found only in the death of our old lives.

As we work toward a life that is well pleasing in the sight of Jesus, we must recognize that the work of grace is necessary. Without the good work of grace, we are not capable of overcoming the nature of the old man within us. But be certain, the work of grace is not the work of man. It is the work of God alone. It is an internal work done in the heart of men by Him. It is a gradual and progressive work. It will not be perfected until we stand before Him. But indeed, when we stand before Him all the displeasing things in us will be gone forever and all the pleasing things in His sight will shine brightly for all eternity.

Let us begin each day by asking the Lord for fresh grace. Let us ask the Lord to equip us with everything good that we may do His will for our lives. Let us seek the Holy Spirit to guide us and direct us on our paths of sanctification. Let us rejoice in knowing that the victory is ours through Jesus Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us Your Holy Word that defines the things that please you. We praise You for revealing to us all the things in our lives that displease you. We bless the name of Jesus for giving us victory over the sins that try to defeat us. We pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit will strengthen us in our struggles to overcome the torments of our flesh and the attacks of the enemy. May the Holy Spirit enlighten us in the areas that the world tries to redefine as acceptable when You have already defined it as sin. May all that we do be acceptable in Your eyes. May it all be for Your glory. We ask all these things in the name of the Captain of Our Salvation, Jesus Christ.

Claiming Victorious Spirit-filled Lives

Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Every born again believer stands in the same place. We are not what we ought to be, but we are not what we use to be either. This is the awesome convergence of salvation and sanctification. We are at once saved when we accept Jesus Christ as Our Savior. From that moment on, we enter into the process of letting go of who we used to be in order to become who we will be in Christ.

Jesus loves us just as we are, but He loves us so much that He cannot allow us to stay where we are. With His indwelling, we find ourselves in the constant battle of our flesh and our new spirit in Christ. We must let go of everything old – guilt, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, addiction, depression, despair, fear. These are the things of the flesh. These are the things that hinder us in our process of sanctification. These are the things that Jesus Christ freed us from when He died on the Cross.

The progress of sanctification, dying to sin more and more, and living to righteousness more and more, is the work of the renewal of our minds. This work will continue until the day we stand before Almighty God as He sees us in the image of His Son.

Let us discern the will of God in our lives and learn to live the good and acceptable and perfect lifestyles that Jesus Christ won for us on the Cross. Let us renew our minds and free ourselves from the chains of the flesh. Let us claim the victorious spirit-filled lives that Jesus has secured for us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Your Son to die for our sins so that we may be free from the corruption of our flesh. We praise You for giving us the Holy Spirit to help us live as new men in Christ instead of men and women of the world. Help us, Lord, to let go of everything in the old man that is hindering our relationship with You. We pray that You strengthen us so that we may cling to Your grace as we continue in our journey of sanctification. We ask all these things in the name of Our Refiner and Our Purifier, Jesus Christ.