03/03/24 STEPS AND MISSTEPS also REPOST

03/03/24 STEPS AND MISSTEPS also REPOST

Don't take your blessed relationships for granted, even the ones that you expect to be sure in your life. We can always depend on God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), He never changes, nor can He change. He blesses those who faithfully follow Him and He judges those who turn from Him. He is faithful.

Humans are subject to change.
This is good for the sinner who turns to God.
This is good for the believer who is growing in grace and knowledge.
This is bad for the believer who refuses to move forward, the believer who turns back from following God.

Those who are in Christ (presently, continually, obediently) will change from glory to glory, from faith to faith and grace to grace.

Here is a post I made in 2021 concerning STEPS AND MISSTEPS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. I hope it is helpful.
11/05/21 STEPS (and missteps) OF SPIRITUAL LIFE
There is a lot of talk about "Progressive Sanctification," in the Christian life, most of which is erroneous and is an excuse for coming short of God's will and calling.

When God brings a Christian to a point of decision, such as Total Commitment (aka death to the Old Man, Entire Sanctification, the fullness of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit) or God leads (requires) the believer to turn from a specific behavior or God leads a believer into a new direction, but the believer is not willing to obey God, then they use the idea that they are "progressing" in their walk. But it is not progression when we refuse to follow fully, it is sin, which must be faced and we must repent (abandon) all known sin.

Usually, if repentance is quick to follow a sin, then the believer can move forward in the grace of Christ. However, depending on the impact of the sin or depending on the time between the sin and the repentance, the person may lose anything, and everything, up to their own soul. If they do not confess and repent of that sin, they will not be restored and they will lose their soul. 

ENTRANCE
God reveals Himself to us, while we are in the darkness of nature's night (spiritual darkness of the unregenerate).
God calls us to a living and loving relationship with Himself, through Christ's atoning death and resurrection.

OBEDIENCE AND GROWTH (EXPECTED)
As we walk in His light, He gives us more light.
God leads the faithful believer out of temptation.
God convicts the errant believer, even when he is yielding to temptation.
God convicts the backslider after he has disobeyed, and God calls him to repentance.
Sin (deliberate disobedience to the known will of God) separates us from God. It only takes one sin to separate us from God, rather than a habit of sin or a life of sin, or an ongoing practice of sin.
Remember Adam?
How many sins would it take to disqualify a "savior" from being a savior?
James tells us that God has given us His word, so that we might not sin.
God told us through David that God's word that we might not sin against God.
The Bible teaches that when we break one commandment, we break all the commandments.
As soon as we sin against God, even once, we need an advocate and we have an advocate with God, Christ Jesus the righteous.
There is never a reason for sin and backsliding.

REBELLION (UNNECESSARY)
If we are not obedient, we walk in less light and His light in us is diminished.
We fail to walk in light by either stopping in our spiritual journey or turning aside from God's path or going back to sin in open rebellion.

Sometimes our failure to walk with God is negligence and it sometimes seems negligible.
Sometimes our failure to walk with God is obvious but gradual and unalarming (though it should be alarming).
Sometimes our failure to walk with God is a sudden and significant departure from an active and vibrant relationship with God.
In any case, failure to walk in God's light is willful disobedience to the known will of God and there is no excuse for backsliding.

BACKSLIDING (REPENT OR FALL AWAY)
The backslider can and must repent or he will eventually fall away completely (apostatize) and irrevocably. Repentance will restore a broken relationship with God. Failure to repent and be reconciled to God will end a relationship with God.
God gave us His word to save us from sinning, and also, if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus the righteous.
God gives us everything necessary for life and godliness.
He that is born of God does not commit sin.
He that sins is of the devil.
Jesus came to save His people from our sins.

MATURITY HAS TO DO WITH INCREMENTAL GROWTH IN GRACE, PURITY HAS TO DO WITH INSTANTANEOUS DIVINE CLEANSING FROM ALL SIN
God calls us to salvation (justification, sanctification, purity and maturity).
There are instantaneous, crises, Divine works of saving grace, which leads us to growth in grace.
Some realities come by crises transformations, some realities come by growth in grace.

Conversion of a sinner to a saint is a Divine, instantaneous, crisis work of saving grace, which includes justification, regeneration, adoption, sanctification. At the time of our salvation we are forgiven of our sins, delivered from the power of sin over us and transformed into a new creation.

Entire Sanctification of a believer is the Divine, instantaneous, crisis work of grace, which purifies the heart of the believer from all sin (the inner inclination to sin aka the sinful nature, through the Baptism with the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:8-9).

After our conversion (the reception of a new nature), we begin to realize that we still have an old sinful nature that wars against us and our walk with God. Though God enables us to obey Him in our new life (our new walk with Christ), we suffer an inner struggle that often ensnares us in sinful action.

God's plan for us is to be cleansed (not forgiven) of the sinful nature. Remember, as in natural life, there is a difference between birth and cleansing. Cleansing takes place after the baby is born. Likewise, the born again believer has life, but he is in need of a cleansing.

This cleansing comes to the believer when the believer willfully trusts God for complete cleansing and deliverance.

At the time of our Entire Sanctification we are cleansed, delivered from our inherited sinful nature (the Old Man, Carnal Mind, Double Mind).

Along with the instantaneous works of grace there is continuing, advancing steps of growth in grace, walking in the light, going from glory to glory, faith to faith, grace to grace in the healthy Christian life. This is popularly referred to as "progressive sanctification."
The term is unfortunate because it has become an excuse for rebellious people to NOT make full surrender through self sacrifice and self denial, but rather expect total cleansing to just happen through growth.
Some spiritual realities are grown into and some realities are reached by deliberate steps of faith.
It is better to use the phrase, "grow in grace and knowledge," since "progressive" implies slow, incremental change.
Growth in grace is essential, but it must not be confused with the Divine work of purifying the Christian heart.

Growth in grace occurs when we walk in the light of God's word. We need to eat, drink and breath in order to stay alive. This is true for our spiritual self as well as our natural life. The spiritual man needs the life giving properties acquired through reading God's word, praying, meditating, trusting and obeying God. Spiritual food, drink and breath imparts spiritual life, and life results in growth in grace.

God calls us to Himself and He convicts us of our sin over a period of time.

Whoever accepts, receives, yields to the call of God is instantaneously and miraculously transformed from a sinner to a saint, and is changed from darkness to light and becomes a new creation in Christ.

Sanctification (being holy by being set apart from sin and set apart to God) begins immediately by cleansing the Christian from his past sins, cleansing the Christian's conscience, cleansing the Christian's daily behavior.

There is Divine work and there is human submission involved in the experience and life of salvation.

Only God can do the Divine part of salvation (such as call, convict, forgive, sanctify, regenerate) and God will not do the human part of salvation (such as believe, repent, confess, obey), though He enables the convert to do that which God requires of him.

Here is God's intended life cycle of a Christian. 

CONVERSION
(including saving faith, confession, repentance, regeneration, justification, initial sanctification, adoption, obedience). 

GROWTH IN GRACE
(through obedient faith, study, fellowship, walking in truth, following Jesus and Holy Spirit, self denial). 

ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION
(by recognizing the corruption of the heart that remains after conversion, and recognizing the will and ability of God to deliver from that inner corruption, and making complete surrender, total commitment, and asking God to cleanse you from all sin by filling you with the Holy Spirit, which purifies our hearts by faith). 

CONTINUED AND AGGRESSIVE GROWTH IN GRACE
(not only has the good seed been sown in our hearts, the evil root of unbelief has been rooted out, allowing us to grow unhindered by personal and inner conflict).

03/02/24 VIDEO 3/2/18

I hope you enjoy and learn from this video.

 A true witness witnesses to a false witness.

02/29/24 IT'S A FAMILY THING

02/29/24 IT'S A FAMILY THING 

I don't know, but I am guessing that the closest a person comes to knowing (though infinitesimally) the kind of pain our Heavenly Father has concerning rebellious folks, is felt by Christian parents who watch their children walk away from light.

02/29/24 CHOSE WISELY

02/29/24 CHOOSE WISELY

The expectation (desire and hope) of parents, for the sweet baby they hold in their arms, and the precious child they cherish in those early years, will eventually make the heart sick or become a tree of life. This will be the choice of the child.

Proverbs 13:12
12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh (comes to pass), it is a tree of life.

This is especially true for Christian parents.

02/26/24 DON'T BE SURPRISED

02/26/24 DON'T BE SURPRISED

Blasphemy aimed at children. This excerpt is taken from a children's book. It tells children that Jesus had sinned.

However, I constantly hear and read the same lie, that Jesus sinned, taught by people who claim to be Bible believers.

FOR INSTANCE... People say that when Jesus was praying in the garden, prior to His crucifixion, He prayed to escape or avoid the cross. That is not true. Jesus did not pray to escape or avoid the cross. In fact, it appeared that He was about to die in the garden, therefore He prayed not to die in the garden, but to make it to the cross.

The Bible says Jesus was heard and His prayer was answered because of His piety. Since His prayer was answered and since he made it to the cross, then His prayer was not to avoid or escape the cross, but rather that He would not to die in the garden, but actually die on the cross, as His plan and commitment had been throughout eternity and His earthly life.

He did not cower in the garden, He did not seek deliverance from pain, or shame or death of the cross. He pursued the cross in the garden as He had during His three years of ministry; as He had throughout His earthly life; as He had planned for all eternity. Remember, Jesus said that He came for the purpose of dying on the cross. Jesus did not fear the cross, He did not cower in the shadow of the cross, He did not want, or hope for a way to avoid the cross. He was about to die and wanted to make it to the cross, but if the Father willed for Him to die in the garden, He (Jesus), was willing. Nothing in His nature, the history of salvation, the promises of God, or the Divine record indicates that Jesus feared the cross or sought to escape or avoid the cross.

Though no one has ever faced the suffering Jesus faced on the cross, mortal men, saved and unsaved, have willingly embraced untold suffering in order to accomplish much lesser goals. If mortal men have willingly embraced and suffered for their causes, then it is only reasonable that Jesus, God in the flesh, the Lamb of God, Who always intended to die as our sacrifice, knowing He would rise again and knowing He would redeem all those who receive Him as Lord and Savior, would not ask the Father to diver Him from the cross. Such an act of Jesus diminishes Him to less than mortal men who have made the supreme sacrifice for less worthy reasons.

Actually, for Him to seek an escape from the cross would be willful disobedience and a moral failure on His part. To have sought escape from the cross would have been sin, since that is what the Godhead had always decreed and He had always promised to do. His prayer for the Father's will was His willingness to accept physical death in the garden, if it came to that. He would not die in rebellion to the will of the Father, whether on the cross or in the garden.

We are entering into the season of the greatest event that every happened: the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. People refer to this season and event by the pagan name, "Easter," which is also crude, errant and blasphemous. Along with folks using the name of a pagan goddess to designate God's atonement event, we will hear folks talk about Jesus trying to escape or avoid dying on the cross. Jesus fulfilled the promises and the plan of salvation by dying on the cross and being raised from the dead physically.

ALSO... The Bible says, "He who knew no sin became sin for us...."
At least that is the translation we usually read. And with that mistranslation we are also told that Jesus actually became sin; we are told that Jesus, who was the Divine Sacrifice for sin, actually became the sin or took the place of the sinner (a murderer or an adulterer or a pedophile or a Sodomite or whatever kind of sinner you can imagine). It is claimed that Jesus became sin. WRONG.

The "sin sacrifice" does not become sin. The sin sacrifice suffers and dies so that the sinner may live. The sacrifice is the substitute in the fact of death. This is not the same as saying that the sin sacrifice is actually guilty of the sin. In fact, the sin sacrifice must be without sin. This is not the same as saying that the sin sacrifice becomes the sinner. The sacrifice is offered as a propitiation, a satisfaction, an atonement for the sinner. The sacrifice satisfies the requirement, which says that death is the cost for sin. The sacrifice takes away our sin but does not become unholy in the act or process.

Jesus became the "Sin Sacrifice," as the verse should be translated. In fact, the same terminology and usage is translated in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) as "sin sacrifice.". "Sin" and "Sin Sacrifice" should be used according to the context. We should read, "He Who knew no sin, became the sin sacrifice...

To say Jesus became sin is not consistent with the rest of Scripture. Jesus never became sin and He never became a sinner. To say that Jesus became the "sin sacrifice" is not only consistent with other passages, it is the express purpose for the incarnation and the plan of salvation.

Jesus never was sin, either as the Second Person of the eternal Triune Godhead, or as the incarnate Savior Who takes away the sin of the world, Who came into this word as, "God with us" and as, "The Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world," or as the crucified and risen Savior, Who knew no sin.

Some people carry the lie that Jesus became sin or became the sinner to the next level, saying that Jesus' resurrection from the dead was His own new birth. They say Jesus was the first person to be, "born again." There is no end to the errors, which follow the idea that Jesus became sin, or Jesus became a sinner.

My point in the post is that the nature, dignity, fitness, holiness of Jesus Christ is assailed by any view which states or implies that Jesus ever sinned or Jesus was ever a sinner. Jesus came into the world to save sinners, by dying for sinners and rising from the dead. He did not come to become sin.

02/23/24 FAILING TO PLAN...

02/23/24 FAILING TO PLAN...

An adage says, "Failing to plan is planning to fail."

This is true in the whole of life.

It is true in the natural realm and in the spiritual.
It is true in the private realm and in the public.
It is true in the athletic realm and in the academic.
It is true in the business world and in music.

It is true in the world and in the church.

We either plan to succeed or we are planning to fail.

Basically, success is no accident.

Christians need to take this as spiritual counsel. It relates to our walk with God, our service to God, our relationships to God, family, friends, neighbors, strangers, enemies.

We need to know the will of God and then we need to take deliberate steps to fulfill the will of God in our lives.

Just drifting along, with no plan, no set course, is to let the winds of life drive you and sometimes it is an ill wind blowing.

We need to know our destiny, our calling, our purpose.
It takes spiritual insight to know the will of God.
It takes personal discipline to do the will of God.

If you don't know or care where you are going, then any old road or any old guide will get you there.
But if you want your life to count, if you want your life to be spent in productive service to God, then it takes a solid spiritual foundation, intent, focus, commitment, steadfastness, sacrifice, self-denial.

Therefore, set your course and hold steady.

02/23/24 THEY LOVE SIN

02/23/24 THEY LOVE SIN

The reason so many people don't turn from sin is because they love the darkness. It is that simple.
It is not a matter of inability to repent (because God calls us to repentance and whatever God calls us to do, He enables us to do it).
People are separated from God, not because of Divine abandonment, but because of self serving interests.
People are held captive to sin because they do not want to be righteous or live righteously.
God does love all of us, which is why Jesus died for all of us.
God does want to save all sinners.
God is able to save every sinner and He is able to save from the guttermost to the uttermost. 

If you settle for living in your sins, then you are not saved. A person proves his faith and his election by living a life in submission to Jesus Christ as Lord. If He is not Lord of your life, He is not Savior of your soul.

Quit listening to Scripture twisting by those who teach and preach sinning religion.
We will all give account for our own sins and we will all be judged according to our deeds in the flesh.

The only escape from eternal judgment is to believe that Christ died for you and rose again so that you may be forgiven, cleansed, made alive.

Look to Jesus and live.
Don't look to Him in faith and you will die in your sins.