Tag: truth

Childlike Acceptance of the Truth and Authority of Jesus Christ

Matthew 11:25
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

Jesus was well aware that the mindset of the individuals around Him was a critical determinant in their ability and desire to accept His teaching. Jesus knew that many of the people that He was trying to reach set up blockades to learning because they granted authority only to their logic, tradition, culture and emotional feelings. They would not accept the truth and authority of the King of Kings. Thus they closed the door on the truth in His teaching. Ultimately, He closed the door on them.

As parents, teachers or caretakers, we understand the joy and the pleasure of an obedient and respectful child. The obedient child’s constant compliance to our instruction melts our hearts. Their demeanor invites instruction. It is easy and very natural for us to give compliant and respectful children greater responsibility because we are confident that they will handle the responsibility appropriately.

So it is when we become new born babes in our relationship with Jesus Christ. Almighty God rejoices when we are obedient and we demonstrate our faithful compliance to His laws, His commands, His Holy Word and His callings on our lives. When we come to Him humbly and in awe of who He is, He rewards us with more knowledge, more wisdom and more responsibility in His kingdom.

Let us seek to sit at the feet of Our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, with the same eagerness as children sitting around a story teller. Let us be childlike as we delightfully soak in all that we hear. Let us be even more childlike as we learn to accept all the teachings of Jesus Christ in complete faith.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for receiving us as innocent babes in Christ. We bless the name of Jesus who made it possible that we could stand before You in righteousness. We bless the name of the Holy Spirit who inspires us to come to You as expectant as young children who go to their fathers eager to learn about the world and anxious for their dreams to be fulfilled. We pray for the grace to please You in all that we do. We ask that You release to us the knowledge that we do not have and the wisdom we seek. May it all be for Your glory and the gain of Your kingdom. We ask all these things in the name of the Author of Our Faith, Jesus Christ.

It is the Work of the Holy Spirit to Guide Us on the Path of Sanctification

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 expressed to 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.

Jesus is the Essence of Everything Good…He is the Truth

2 Corinthians 11:3
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

The truth leaves no room for tolerance. There is no room for variance. Something is true or it is not.

Satan’s fingerprints are all over the complexity of issues that we deal with daily in this world. His tactics are simple. Satan builds in layers of grey around the truth. His minions, especially the media, work hard to confuse us. They attempt to build layers of grey around good and evil. They try to make us see elements of evil as good and elements of good as evil.

When our focus is on Jesus Christ, our lives become much simpler. He that dwells within us is the essence of everything good and the absence of evil. He is Truth. Living in Truth is very cut and dry. Simplicity in life is found by living in the light of Christ. From this standpoint, we can see, believe in and adhere to the crystal clear choices offered by the teachings of Jesus.

Let us seek the Truth in all matters. Let us avoid being swayed into believing that the truth lies anywhere in the shades of grey that the world offers. Let us seek the Light of the World to reveal any darkness in our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for revealing the way, the truth and the life that is Your Son, Jesus. We praise the name of Jesus for modeling the good and perfect life that we should strive for. We rejoice in knowing that our choices in life are easy when we abide in Our Savior. We pray, Father, that the Holy Spirit will provide the wisdom that we need to discern the proper choices that we need to make in life for ourselves and our families. May we learn to live in the light and shut the door on the darkness that the world offers. We ask all these things in the name of the True Light, Jesus Christ.

The Author, the Preacher and the Subject of the Bible is too Precious Not to Share

Colossians 1:27
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

God has chosen to reveal to us the riches that are available to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. The fullness of all of God’s riches are complete in Jesus. Jesus Christ is the glory of the Gospel. He is the author, the preacher and the subject of the Bible. The glory of His wisdom and power, His truth and faithfulness, His justice and holiness and His love, grace and mercy are forever manifested in the Holy Word.

Yet all of this was a mystery to men for thousands of years. The hope of glory for those living in earlier times was reliant on the offerings of their high priests. How privileged we are as we live in a time when the hope of our glory has been fully disclosed to us. Our hope is in the form of Our Savior who comes and dwells within us. He is our high priest. We need no other.

With His indwelling, we take on the role of priests ourselves. The blessed hope and assurance that is Jesus Christ is too precious not to share.

Let us make it our duty to share the hope that is within us. Let us joyously share that which naturally flows from us without end.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the Blessed Hope and Assurance that is Your Son, Jesus. We praise You for revealing to us the riches that are available through Your Son, our ever present high priest. Help us Lord to faithfully share the hope of glory that is within us. We pray His presence will be manifested in our lives. We ask all these things in the name of Our Glorious Lord, Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Maturation Comes From Surrender to the Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 2:4
And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit.

Why is it that when we pray in public we are so concerned about our eloquence? This pride can limit the power of the Holy Spirit. We can actually block the movement of the Holy Spirit by putting ourselves in the way. In an effort to impress men, we can hinder the movement of God in their lives and our own.

The truth of the matter is that we will never reach our full potential as disciples of Jesus Christ if we concern ourselves with the accolades of others. The only person that we need to concern ourselves with is the person of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.

It is part of our ongoing spiritual maturation to learn to let go of our desires to please man in all that we do. We must learn to let the Holy Spirit help and guide us as we seek to please God first. We must learn to trust that supernatural power can be released through us simply by following the urgings of the Holy Spirit. We must humbly accept that all the good work that comes from what we do is the result of the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. If we surrender to the urgings of the Holy Spirit, we will experience an extraordinary release of power in our lives…well beyond our imagination and certainly well beyond our natural capability.

Let us seek to please Our Savior first and foremost. Let us manifest to the world His power through our submission to Him and our subsequent living testimonies.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for equipping us through the Holy Spirit to please You in all that we do. We pray that the Holy Spirit will show us how to let go of the desire to please men and will enlighten us to put You first in all things. May we see the release of fruit in our lives as we allow the Holy Spirit to inspire us and empower us to do Your good works. We ask all these things in the name of the Strength of Our Lives, Jesus Christ.

The Last Things Jesus Told His Disciples

John 14:31
But I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

This passage represents the culmination of what could be considered the last will and testament of Jesus given to the His disciples before He left them. In the prior verses of John 14, Jesus promised many things to comfort His disciples. He also revealed a number of truths critical to their faith.

He encouraged His disciples as He told them that He was leaving them to prepare a place for them with Him in heaven. He emphasized the He is the way, the truth and life and that the only way that anyone enters into a prepared place in heaven is through Him.

Jesus confirmed the Godhead to the apostles as He commanded them to “believe in Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Later He comforted the disciples when He told them that the Holy Spirit would be sent in His name by the Father to be their Helper in His absence.

Jesus provided the disciples with more encouragement as He told them that they would do greater works than He had done because He was going to the Father to represent them. He emphasized that anyone that believes in Him will also be able to do greater works than He did.

Jesus promised them His peace and commanded them not to be troubled or afraid of the evil that would come against them. He emphasized that the victory was theirs because He has power over the enemy.

Jesus’ final command to them was, “Rise, let us go from here.” This is our command as well.

Let us receive the supernatural power that we are promised through the presence of Our Savior in our lives. Let us live a life without trouble in our hearts because of the promises of Our Redeemer. Let us rise from whatever circumstances that we find ourselves and let us show the world the peace that we have in Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the peace that reigns in our lives. We thank You, Jesus, for the peace that You brought us through Your shed blood. We praise You, Lord, for providing the supernatural power that we need to live our lives without fear of any man or any circumstance. We pray that You will equip us, embolden us and strengthen us so that we may be instruments of Your good work and vessels of Your perfect peace. We ask all these things in the name of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

The Pathway to Hope

Isaiah 35:8
And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.

Each day’s news and headlines confirm that from a spiritual perspective the earth is a den of iniquity, a vast barren desert. It is a rare case indeed when holiness can be found in the news. Looking forward, the content of the news is not likely to improve but to get worse and more hopeless. The social and political systems of mankind are offering nothing that will change things. As time moves forward, the barren desert is converting to a total wasteland through the ongoing deterioration of the morals of mankind.

There is a way of escape, however. There is a pathway that offers hope for anyone and everyone who takes it. The way out of the barren desert is through Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer. He is the way, the truth and the life. Because Jesus took His place on the Cross as part of the Father’s will for His life, we as the redeemed children of God can stand up and find victory in the most difficult of circumstances.

Although our flesh will fight us, by the Word and Spirit of Christ, we that are spiritually blinded by the world can be enlightened. We that are spiritually deaf to the calls of God can be made to hear them readily. We that are struggling in service can be made active and joyfully productive. We that find it difficult to speak of God or to God can have our lips opened to bring forth His praise. We that find it hard to love one another can have our hearts filled with the perfect, loving forgiveness of Our Father in heaven. Most importantly, we that stand alone against the world can find victory in all things of this earth, no matter how trying, if we all stand together in Jesus Christ.

Let us seek the way of holiness that is found in Jesus Christ. Let us learn to live in the light of Christ even though the world around us lives in darkness. Let us become beacons of His light.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing the way, the truth and the life that is in Jesus Christ. We thank You for loving us first, so that we may love You and abide in Your will for our lives. We pray that You enlighten us and strengthen us so that we may see and follow the way that You have set aside for us as individuals and as a worldwide community. May Your grace be upon us so that we may be living founts of Your love and holiness to be shared with the world around us. May the world be changed as we all stand together united with Our Savior. We ask all these things in the name of Our Refuge from the Storm, Jesus Christ.

When Sharing God’s Word, Speak the Truth as It is Written in the Bible

Deuteronomy 4:2
You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.

Throughout the ages, God’s Word has always been challenged to some degree. But in today’s world, God’s Word is being challenged in totality. It was gradual at first, but now God’s detractors are bold and aggressive. Their messages are widespread and unforgiving. If you do not fall in line with the untruths that they sell, you are a bigot and a danger to society.

We are being told over and over again that the world’s values are changing and that we all need to change with it. In other words, God’s Word is not meant to be everlasting. It was only good for a different time and place.

When given the opportunity to share the Good News, we may find ourselves trying to massage the message so that it is more palatable to the listener. How dare we presume that our words are more pleasing to the lost than the Word of God? When we are sharing God’s Word with the others, we should speak the truth as it is written. We are doing the lost a great disservice if we give them anything other than the full truth. Our words are powerless when they are not grounded in the Word of God. Yet when we speak under the authority of the Word of God, our words hold the same truths and promises as the Word of God. Our words offer hope and assurance for those who are in need.

Let us seek a higher level of understanding of what is written in the Bible. Let us apply the teachings of the Holy Scripture to our lives. Let us move in the kingdom authority promised to us in God’s Holy Word.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us Your inerrant Word so that we may have knowledge of who You are, so that we may know how much You love us, so that we may know that You have created us in Your image and so that we may know that You have a perfect plan for our lives here on earth and in Your eternal kingdom. We exalt Your Name for all the promises that You extend to us in Your Holy Word. Lord, we pray that You open our minds to receive the truths in Your Word. We pray that You equip us to share the perfect truth in Your Word with those that You have placed in our lives. We ask all these things in the name of the Word Made Flesh, Jesus Christ.

Nothing Can Disturb Us, Distress Us or Steal Our Peace When We Are One with Christ

Luke 21:19
By your endurance you will gain your lives.

Jesus warned His apostles of the hard times to come. He foretold the trials and persecution that they would suffer after He left. He comforted them with His promise that if they persevered in the ways of God and in the truths that He had given them, they would possess peace and joy in their souls. He also told them that the world would not be able to take away their joy if they lived in the fullness of His presence.

So it is with us. We have our own trials to bear in our lives. The Lord teaches us to let nothing disturb or distress us. He instructs us not to submit to the moodiness that might come upon us due to our circumstances. We must take on the Spirit of the One who dwells within us. We must endure, knowing that we have already been given victory over our circumstances. We must allow Jesus to do His work in us, overcoming the moodiness that our flesh would like to lay on us, so that we can press on and do the work that He calls us to do in the world. May we learn to patiently bear all afflictions on our bodies, bear all attacks and indignities tossed our way by our critics and bear all difficulties dealt to us by the world.

Let us be determined to allow nothing to disturb us, distress us or steal our peace. Let us learn to live joyfully in the presence of Jesus Christ under all circumstances.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for granting us victory through Jesus over everything in the world that tries to take our joy away. We rejoice in knowing that we can have joy even when happiness eludes us. We pray that You will teach us how to seek the strength we need when our mood turns us toward our problems instead of our solution, Your Son, Jesus. May the world see our joy in all circumstances so that they may be drawn to the One who provides it. We ask all these things in the name of Our Stronghold, Jesus Christ.

Becoming Bold Ambassadors of the Infallible Word of God

Acts 24:16
So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.

Paul spoke these words when he was giving an account of himself to his followers. He was under attack from his enemies at the time. He wanted his followers to know that he was under attack because he was leading a life that conflicted with how his attackers wanted to live their lives. Paul may have been the first to warn us about living our lives according to political correctness and not according to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

How many of us take the comfortable silent path of “tolerance” in order to avoid being accused of being a fervent believer and devoted servant of Jesus Christ? Unfortunately, this is exactly where the world wants us. Much of what we see, hear and read that comes from the world is designed to desensitize us to evil and to move us away from the holy life style to which Jesus Christ calls us. When we give in to what the world wants to hear, we give in to Satan. We diminish our testimony that goes out to those who need to hear the truth.

It has become all too common to hear of the slaughter of Christians around the world. In most of these heinous cases, the martyrs are asked to deny Christ. Those who proclaim their loyalty to their Savior are subsequently beheaded or otherwise mercilessly killed. What is remarkable is how many continue to proclaim their faith in the face of the slaughter. Be certain that the faith of the first victim works to strengthen all the way to the last victim. One after another they lift and strengthen each other.

We will be held accountable for our testimony. What we stand for does make a difference.

Let us stand on the infallible Word of Almighty God. Let us strengthen one another through the bold expression of our faith.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing the Holy Spirit to keep us mindful of the truths that You have revealed to us through the life of Your Son, Jesus, and through the writings in Your Holy Word. We pray that You enlighten us so that we may avoid the tricks of the wicked designed to get us to accept the self-serving ways of the flesh. As we live by your Word, Lord, we ask that You strengthen us to stand up to the ridicule and hatred of the world. Teach us, Lord, to rely on the Holy Spirit to help us to become bold ambassadors for Our Savior. May those around us be strengthened by our faith. We ask all these things in the name of the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Christ.